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The History Channel - Encyclopedia Category: History and Culture > History Date & country: 02/12/2007, UK Words: 25833

Mardonius
Persian general who in 492 BC took command of Ionia in western Asia Minor, following the Ionian Revolt. He eased local unrest by replacing tyrants with democracy. The nephew and son-in-law of...

Marduk
In Assyrio-Babylonian mythology, the two-headed sun god, creator of Earth and humans, and their intermediary with his father Ea, god of water and wisdom. He was the father of Nabu (biblical...

Marées, Hans von
(1837-1887) German painter who worked in Rome after 1865. He introduced a new simplicity and force of expression into figure painting, as in The Oarsmen 1873 (Berlin), though his w ...

Marengo, Battle of
During the Napoleonic Wars, defeat of the Austrians on 14 June 1800 by the French army under Napoleon Bonaparte, as part of his Italian campaign, near the village of Marengo in Piedmont, Italy. It...

Mareth Line
In World War II, German defensive line in North Africa running from the sea close to Mareth to the Matmata Hills, about 50 km/30 mi away; it followed the Wadi Zigzau, a dried river bed which made an...

Margai, Milton A(ugustus) S(triery)
(1895-1964) Sierra Leone nationalist leader and politician, prime minister 1959-64. Appointed a member of the protectorate assembly in 1940, he helped found the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) in 1951, and...

Margaret
(1930-2002) Princess of the UK, younger daughter of George VI and sister of Elizabeth II. In 1960 she married Anthony Armstrong-Jones, later created Lord Snowdon, but they were divorced in 1978. Their...

Margaret
(1283-1290) Queen of Scotland from 1285, the daughter of Eric II, King of Norway, and Princess Margaret of Scotland. When only two years old she became queen of Scotland on the death of her grandfather,...

Margaret Duchess of Burgundy
(1446-1503) Englishwoman. She was the sister of Edward IV of England. In 1468 she married Charles of Burgundy and was influential in obtaining financial help from her husband for Edward in 1470. After Henry...

Margaret of Anjou
(1430-1482) Queen of England from 1445, wife of Henry VI...

Margaret of Austria
(1480-1530) Regent and governor of the Netherlands for Charles V from 1507-15...

Margaret of Carinthia
(1318-1369) Austrian ruler. She was the elder daughter of Henry, Count of Tirol. She was forced by Louis IV to marry his son Louis in 1342, by which he gained her possessions. After their son Me ...

Margaret of Denmark
(1353-1412) Danish ruler, and Queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. She became Queen of Norway in 1380, Queen of Denmark in 1387 and soon afterwards Queen of Sweden. This union of the three kingdoms was...

Margaret of Parma
(1522-1586) Duchess of Parma (1547-86). She was appointed regent of the Netherlands in 1559 by her half-brother Philip II of Spain. Though widely seen as a capable and intelligent ruler, she could do...

Margaret of Valois
(1553-1615) French Queen. She was married in 1572 to Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV of France). After the St Bartholemew's Day Massacre Henry fled from Paris and was not rejoined by his wife until 1578....

Margaret, St
(c. 1045-1093) Queen of Scotland, the granddaughter of King Edmund Ironside of England. She went to Scotland after the Norman Conquest, and soon after married Malcolm III. The marriage of her daughter Matilda to...

Margarito
(lived late 13th century) Italian painter, sculptor, and architect, active from 1262. He worked in the very formal Byzantine style, an example being the altarpiece Virgin and Child Enthroned about 1265 (National Gallery,...

margin
In finance, the difference between cost and selling price; also cash or collateral on deposit with a broker or lender to meet legal requirements against loss, as when stocks and other securities...

marginal analysis
A major theoretical building block of neoclassical economics, marginal analysis suggests that economic decisions are made at...

marginal cost
Or contribution cost for a business, the cost of producing an extra unit of output. For example, if a bakery increased its production from 10,000 loaves a day to 11,000 loaves a day, and its costs...

marginal cost pricing
In economics, the setting of a price based on the additional cost to a firm of producing one more unit of output (the marginal cost), rather than the actual average cost per unit (total production...

marginal efficiency of capital
In economics, effectively the rate of return on investment in a given business project compared with the rate of return if the capital were invested at prevailing interest rates. ...

marginal theory
In economics, the study of the effect of increasing a factor by one more unit (known as the marginal unit). For example, if a firm's production is increased by one unit, its costs will increase...

marginal utility
In economics, the measure of additional satisfaction (utility) gained by a consumer who receives one additional unit of a product or service. The concept is used to expl ...

Margolyes, Miriam
(1941) English character actor, who has brought to life a string of comic and eccentric characters on film and British television. Her roles include that of the Spanish Infanta in the first series of the...

margrave
German title (equivalent of marquess) for the `counts of the march`, who guarded the frontier regions of the Holy Roman Empire from Charlemagne's time. Later the title was used by other...

Margrethe II
(1940) Queen of Denmark from 1972, when she succeeded her father Frederick IX. In 1967, she married the French diplomat Count Henri de Laborde de Monpezat, who took the title Prince Hendrik. Her heir is...

Marguerite of Navarre
(1492-1549) Queen of Navarre from 1527, French poet, and author of the `Heptaméron` (1558), a collection of stories in imitation of Boccaccio's `Decameron`. The sister of Francis I of France, she was...

Mari
Ancient city situated on the right bank of the Euphrates, about 25 km/16 mi north of the border with Iraq in modern Syria. The site was continuously settled from the early 3rd millennium onwards,...

Mari
Member of a people who live in the Mari Republic and adjacent areas of central Russia. Their language, also called Mari, belongs to the Finno-Ugric family. They are mostly peasants, and have been...

Maria Christina
(1806-1878) Spanish ruler of Italian origin. She was the fourth wife of Ferdinand VII of Spain. On his death she became regent for their daughter, Isabella II. In 1840 she was forced to abdicate,...

Maria Duce
Conservative Catholic movement founded in 1942 by Father Denis Fahey (1883-1954) to popularize Catholic social teaching. In practice, it tended towards fundamentalism, which caused it to lose...

Maria Theresa
(1717-1780) Empress of Austria from 1740, when she succeeded her father, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI; her claim to the throne was challenged and she became embroiled, first in the War of the Mariana, Juan de
(c. 1535-1624) Spanish historian. A Jesuit priest, he taught in Rome, Sicily, Paris, Flanders, and Spain, his most important work being his Historiae de rebus Hispaniae/History of Spain (1592). This drew together...

Marianne
Symbolic figure of the French republic, dating from the Revolution. Statues of her adorn public buildings in France. Her name combines those of the Virgin Mary and St Anne. ...

Marianus Scotus
(1028-1082) Irish chronicler. In 1058 he became a Benedictine at the abbey of St Martin, Cologne, passing his later life at the abbeys of Fulda and Mainz. He wrote the Chronicon Universale, first printed at...

Mariátegui, Jose Carle
(1895-1930) Peruvian politician and writer. He was the first Peruvian intellectual to apply Marxist principles to Peruvian problems and founded the Socialist party in 1928. In 1923, Mariátegui embarked on a...

Marie
(1875-1938) Queen of Romania. She was the daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria of England, and married Prince Ferdinand of Romania in 1893 (he was king 1922-27). She wrote a number...

Marie Alexandra Victoria
(1875-1938) Romanian ruler of English origin. She married Ferdinand von Hohenzollern, king of Romania 1914-27, in 1893. Between the death of her husband and the return of her son Carol II, she (with the three...

Marie Antoinette
(1755-1793) Queen of France from 1774. She was the fourth daughter of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, and married Louis XVI of France in 1770. Her devotion to the...

Marie de France
(c. 1150-1215) French poet. She is thought to have been the half-sister of Henry II of England, and abbess of Shaftesbury 1181-1215. Her surviving works, all in octosyllabic verse, are 12 Lais written before...

Marie de' Medici
(1573-1642) Queen of France, wife of Henry IV from 1600, and regent (after his murder) for their son Louis XIII. She left the government to her favourites, the Concinis, until Louis XIII seized power and...

Marie Louise
(1791-1847) Queen consort of Napoleon I from 1810 (after his divorce from Josephine), mother of Napoleon II. She was the daughter of Francis I of Austria (see Emperor Francis II) and on Napoleon's fall returned...

Marignano, Battle of
During the Italian Wars, French victory over the Swiss on 13-14 September 1515 at Marignano, a village close to the Swiss-Italian border. The French lost about 6,000 troops but gained the Duchy...

marine painting
Paintings of the sea, coastline, or ships. Depictions of the sea go back at least as far as the ancient Greeks, who had close commercial and mythological links with the sea. As a specific genre,...

marines
Fighting force that operates both on land and at sea. The US Marine Corps (1775) is constituted as an arm of the US Navy. It is made up of infantry and air support units trained and equipped for...

Marinetti, (Emilio) Filippo Tommaso
(1876-1944) Italian author. In 1909 he published Manifesto del Futurismo, the first manifesto of Futurism, exhorting the youth of Italy to break with tradition in art, poetry, and the novel and face the...

Marini (or Marino), Giambattista
(1569-1625) Italian poet. He aimed to surprise by the use of startling metaphors, hyperboles, antitheses, and other literary devices. His ornate and self-conscious style, termed `Marinism`, influenced...

Marini, Marino
(1901-1980) Italian sculptor and graphic artist. Much of his work is an exploration of the horse-and-rider theme, the forms being gradually reduced to an elemental simplicity. There are examples of his...

Marion, Francis
(c. 1732-1795) American military leader. He waged a successful guerrilla war against the British after the fall of Charleston 1780 during the American Revolution. Establishing his field headquarters in...

marionette
Type of puppet, a jointed figure controlled from above by wires or strings. Intricately crafted marionettes were used in Burma (now Myanmar) and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and later at the courts of...

Maritain, Jacques
(1882-1973) French philosopher. Originally a disciple of Henri Bergson, he later became the best-known of the neo-Thomists, applying the methods of Thomas Aquinas to contemporary problems. Maritain...

maritime law
That part of the law dealing with the sea: in particular, fishing areas, ships, and navigation. Seas are divided into internal waters governed by a state's internal laws...

Marius, Gaius
(c. 157-86 BC) Roman general and politician. He was elected consul seven times, the first time in 107 BC. He defeated the Cimbri and the Teutons (Germanic tribes attacking Gaul and Italy) 102-101 BC. Marius...

Mark
In Celtic legend, king of Cornwall, uncle of Tristan, and suitor and husband of Isolde. ...

Mark Antony
(c. 83-30 BC) Roman politician and soldier who was the last serious rival to Octavian's (later Augustus) domination of the Roman world. He served under Julius Caesar in Gaul and during the civil war when he...

mark-up ratio
The ratio of profit to sales value or turnover: profit÷sales For example, if a company made 1 million profit on 10 million sales, the mark-up ratio would be 10%. It is a measure of the...

Mark, St
(lived 1st century AD) In the New Testament, Christian apostle and evangelist whose name is given to the second Gospel. It was probably written AD 65-70, and used by the authors of the first and third Gospels. He is the...

market capitalization
Market value of a company, based on the market price of all its issued securities - a price that would be unlikely to apply, however, if a bid were actually made for control of them. ...

market economy
Economy in which most resources are allocated through markets rather than through state planning. See free enterprise. ...

market forces
In economics, the forces of demand (a want backed by the ability to pay) and supply (the willingness and ability to supply). Some economists argue that resources are allocated most efficiently when...

Market Garden, Operation
In World War II, unsuccessful operation by British and US forces to cross the Meuse, Waal, and Neder-Rijn rivers in Holland in September 1944. British airborne forces were to capture vital bridges...

market maker
In the UK, a stockbroker entitled to deal directly on the stock exchange. The role was created in October 1986, when the jobber (intermediary) disappeared from the stock exchange. Market makers...

market mechanism
Way in which the forces of demand and supply allocate resources through a system of markets. Customers send signals to producers through their spending. Producers who fail to supply goods which...

market segment
Portion of a market characterized by such similarity of customers, their requirements and/or buying behaviour that those who sell the products or services bought by these customers can aim their...

market share
The proportion of a market taken by one producer. Market share can be measured in terms of volume of sales, for example company X sold 40% of the cars sold last month in the UK market. Or it can be...

market testing
Process by which the private sector is invited to bid to provide a public service so as to `test` the market and provide a `benchmark` against which the cost-effectiveness of the public...

marketing
Promoting goods and services to consumers. In the modern business world, marketing plays an increasingly larger role in determining company policy, influencing product development, pricing, methods...

Markham, Clements Robert
(1830-1916) British traveller and geographer. He took part in H T Austin's Arctic expedition of 1850-51. On his retirement from the civil service in 1877, he devoted himself to the study of exploration. He...

Markham, Edwin
(1852-1940) US poet and editor. He became well-known when he published the social protest poem `The Man with the Hoe` (1899), inspired by Jean-Francois Millet's painting. Another famous poem followed in...

Markham, Gervase (or Jervis)
(1568-1637) English poet, translator, and writer. Among his works are a continuation of Philip Sidney'sArcadia, a poem on the death in a naval battle of Richard Granville, The Discourse of Horsemanshippe...

Markham, Mrs
(1780-1837) English writer. She was noted as a writer of historical and other books for children. The best known are Mrs Markham's History of England 1823 and Mrs Markham's History of France 1828. Other works...

Markov, Georgi
(1929-1978) Bulgarian playwright and novelist who fled to the UK 1971; he was assassinated by being jabbed with a poisoned umbrella. ...

Markowitz, Harry Max
(1927) US economist. He shared the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1990 with US economists Merton Miller and William
Marks, Simon
(1888-1964) English chain-store magnate. His father, Russian immigrant Michael Marks, had started a number of `penny bazaars` with Yorkshireman Tom Spencer in 1887. Simon Marks entered the business in...

Marlborough House
Mansion in Pall Mall, London, opposite St James's Palace. It was designed by Christopher Wren for the 1st Duke of Marlborough in 1709-10 as his London home. The house became crown property in 1817...

Marlowe, Christopher
(1564-1593) English poet and dramatist. His work includes the blank-verse (written in unrhymed verse) plays Tamburlaine the Great in two parts (1587-88), The Jew of Malta (c. 1591), Edward II (c. 1592) and...

Marlowe, Julia
(1866-1950) English-born US actor. She made her stage debut in 1879 at the age of 12 under the name of Fanny Brough. As an adult she won acclaim for her 1887 performance as Parthenia in Ingomar, before...

Marmion, Simon
(c. 1422-1489) French painter and miniaturist of the Franco-Flemish School. Active in Amiens, Valenciennes, and Tournai, he illuminated manuscripts for Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. He painted panels...

Marmontel, Jean François
(1723-1799) French novelist and dramatist. He wrote tragedies and libretti, and contributed articles on literature to the Encyclopédie, which were later republished as Eléments de littérature/Elements of...

Marne, Battles of the
In World War I, two unsuccessful German offensives in northern France. In the First Battle 6-9 September 1914, German advance was halted by French and British troops under...

Maronite
Member of a Christian sect deriving from refugee Monothelites (Christian heretics) of the 7th century. They were subsequently united with the Roman Catholic Church and number about 400,000 in...

maroon
In the West Indies and Suriname, a freed or escaped African slave. Maroons were organized and armed by the Spanish in Jamaica in the late 17th century and early 18th century. They harried the...

Marple, Miss
Fictional amateur detective (a prim and gentle spinster). She appears in 13 of Agatha Christie's novels, beginning with The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) and ending with Sleeping Murder (1976). In...

Marprelate controversy
Pamphleteering attack on the clergy of the Church of England in 1588 and 1589 made by a Puritan writer or writers, who took the pseudonym of Martin Marprelate. The pamphlets attacked the Anglican...

Marquand, J(ohn) P(hillips)
(1893-1960) US writer. Author of a series of stories featuring the Japanese detective Mr Moto, he later made his reputation with gently satirical novels of Boston society, including The Late George Apley (1937;...

marquess
Title and rank of a nobleman who in the British peerage ranks below a duke and above an earl. The wife of a marquess is a marchioness. The first English marquess was created in 1385, but the lords...

Marquet, Pierre Albert
(1875-1947) French painter. One of the leading figures of fauvism, he painted landscapes and Parisian scenes, chiefly the River Seine and its bridges. He later developed a...

marquetry
Inlaying of various woods, bone, or ivory, usually on furniture, to create ornate patterns and pictures. Parquetry is the term used for geometrical inlaid patterns. The method is thought to have...

Marquette, Jacques
(1637-1675) French Jesuit missionary and explorer. He went to Canada 1666, explored the upper lakes of the St Lawrence River, and in 1673 with Louis Jolliet (1645-1700), set out on a voyage down the...

Márquez, Gabriel García
Colombian novelist; see Gabriel García Márquez. ...

marrano
Spanish or Portuguese Jew who, during the 14th and 15th centuries, converted to Christianity but continued to adhere secretly to Judaism and carry out Jewish rites. During the Spanish Inquisition...

Marriage at Cana
Painting by the Venetian artist Veronese, 1652-53 (Louvre, Paris). It depicts the first miracle of Jesus, when he turned water into wine at a marriage feast at Cana in Galilee. This is one of the...

Married Women's Property Acts
Two acts passed in Britain, in 1870 and 1882, granting women basic rights in the division of property between husband and wife. Until 1870 common law decreed that a wife's property, including money...

Marriott, John Arthur Ransome
(1859-1945) English historian. He was Conservative MP for Oxford City 1917-22, and for York 1923-28. He wrote on constitutional and imperial subjects, modern diplomacy in relation to the `Eastern...

Marryat, Frederick (Captain)
(1792-1848) English naval officer and writer. He was the originator of the British sea story. His adventure stories, taken from personal experience, are full of life, humour, and stirring narrative; they...

Mars
In Roman mythology, the god of war (Mars Gradivus), depicted as a fearless warrior. The month of March is named after him. He was identified with the Greek Ares,...

Marseillaise, La
French national anthem; the words and music were composed in 1792 as a revolutionary song by the army officer Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760-1836). ...

Marsh, (Edith) Ngaio
(1899-1982) New Zealand detective fiction writer. Her first detective novel A Man Lay Dead (1934) introduced her protagonist Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn. She was made DBE in 1966. Originally an actor, and...

Marsh, George Perkins
(1801-1882) US politician, diplomat, and conservationist. With a prosperous legal practice in Burlington, Vermont, he entered politics, eventually serving the state of Vermont as a Whig in the US House of...