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

Marsh, Richard William
(1928) English Labour politician. He became MP for Greenwich in 1959. He was Minister of Power (1966-68) and Minister of Transport (1968-69). He resigned as an MP in 1971 on his appointment as chairman...

marshal
Highest military rank in the British Royal Air Force. In the French army the highest officers bear the designation of maréchal de France/marshal of France. It corresponds to admiral of...

marshal
Title given in some countries to a high officer of state. Originally it meant one who tends horses, in particular one who shoes them. The Earl Marshal in England organizes state ceremonies; the...

Marshall Islands
Country in the west Pacific Ocean, part of Micronesia, occupying 31 atolls (the Ratak and Ralik chains). Government The 1979 constitution provides for a parliamentary form of government, with a...

Marshall Plan
Programme of US economic aid to Europe, set up at the end of World War II, totalling $13.3 billion throughout the life of the programme from 1948 to 1952 (equivalent to more than $88 billion late...

Marshall rebellion
Rebellion against Henry III 1233-34 led by Richard Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, in alliance with some of the marcher lords and the Welsh kingdom of Gwynedd. The rebellion was sparked by the king's...

Marshall, Alfred
(1842-1924) English economist and pioneer of neo-classical economics. He was the dominant figure in British economics from the 1890s right up to the 1930s, and his Principles of Economics (1890) still has the...

Marshall, Benjamin
(1767-1835) English painter of animals and sporting subjects. He was a follower of George Stubbs, and painted a number of racehorses and their owners. His portrait of Emilius, winner of the 1823...

Marshall, David Saul
(1908-1995) Singapore politician. As leader of the Labour front, he campaigned for radical constitutional reform in Singapore. In 1955 Marshall became chief minister, and visited London regarding proposed...

Marshall, George Catlett
(1880-1959) US general and diplomat. He was army chief of staff in World War II, secretary of state 1947-49, and secretary of defence September 1950-September 1951. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace...

Marshall, James (Wilson)
(1810-1885) US gold prospector. After some 14 years in Indiana, Illinois, and the Kansas Territory, he arrived at Sutter's Fort (present day Sacramento, California) in 1845. After losing his land and livestock,...

Marshall, John
(1755-1835) US politician and jurist. He held office in the US House of Representatives 1799-1800 and was secretary of state 1800-01. As chief justice of the US Supreme Court 1801-35, he established the...

Marshall, John Hubert
(1876-1958) English archaeologist. As director general of archaeology in India 1902-31, he was responsible for extensive surveys and excavations, including those at Mohenjo Daro and Harappa in northwestern...

Marshall, John Ross
(1912-1988) New Zealand National Party politician, prime minister in 1972. He was deputy to Keith Holyoake as prime minister and succeeded him February-November 1972. He was notable for his negotiations of a...

Marshall, Louis
(1856-1929) US lawyer and civic leader. Educated in public schools and at Columbia Law School (1877), he practised in Syracuse, New York, and, from 1894, in New York City, where he became notable for his...

Marshall, Thomas R(iley)
(1854-1925) US vice-president and state governor. He served as Woodrow Wilson's vice-president (1913-21), and was the first vice-president to serve for two full terms in nearly one hundred years. During...

Marshall, Thurgood
(1908-1993) US jurist and civil-rights leader. As a prominent civil-rights lawyer, he frequently presided over landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Marshall was named director of the...

Marshall, William Raine
(1865-1939) British general. He served in India 1897-98, and in the South African war 1899-1902 where he was wounded. In 1915 he was given command of the 87th Brigade which he led at Gallipoli. He later...

Marshalsea
In England, court presided over by the marshall and steward of the royal household to deal with offences committed within the bounds of the royal court, wherever it might be. It was renamed the...

Marston Moor, Battle of
Battle fought in the English Civil War on 2 July 1644 on Marston Moor, 11 km/7 mi west of York. The Royalists were conclusively defeated by the Parliamentarians and Scots. The Royalist forces were...

Marston, John
(1576-1634) English satirist and dramatist. His early plays, the revenge tragedies Antonio and Mellida and Antonio's Revenge (1599), were followed by a number of satirical comedies including What You Will...

Marsyas
In Greek mythology, a Phrygian satyr who found the flute discarded by the goddess Athena and challenged Apollo to a musical contest judged by the Muses. On losing, he was flayed alive, his blood...

Martel, Yann
(1963) Canadian writer. He won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 2002 for his novel Life of Pi. His other books include the short story collection The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios (1993) and the...

Martello tower
Circular tower for coastal defence. Formerly much used in Europe, many were built along the English coast, especially in Sussex and Kent, in 1804, as a defence against the threatened French...

Martello, Pier Jacopo
(1665-1727) Italian dramatist. He wrote several tragedies, comedies, and farces. In most of his tragedies he employed the French alexandrine, which was called `Martellian verse` after him. ...

Martens, Wilfried
(1936) Belgian politician; prime minister 1979-92. He was president of the Dutch-speaking Social Christian Party (CVP) 1972-79 and, as prime minister, headed several coalition governments in the...

Martensen, Hans Larsen
(1808-1884) Danish theologian. He became professor of theology at Copenhagen and court preacher. Among his works which often diverged from strict Lutheran orthodoxy and inclined to mysticism were treatises on...

Martha, St
According to the Bible (Luke 10:38, John 11:2), Martha was the sister of Mary of Bethany and Lazarus. She is the patron saint of good housewives, often represented...

Martí, José Julian
(1853-1895) Cuban revolutionary. Active in the Cuban independence movement from boyhood, he was deported to Spain in 1871, returning in 1878. Exiled again for continued opposition, he fled to the USA in 1880,...

martial law
Replacement of civilian by military authorities in the maintenance of order. In Britain, the legal position of martial law is ill-defined but, in effect, when war or rebellion is in progress in an...

Martin
(1579-1639) Peruvian social reformer. He became a Dominican in 1603. His powers of healing, his saintly personal life, and his work among the poor and outcast established him as a pioneer social worker. He was...

Martin du Gard, Roger
(1881-1958) French novelist. He realistically recorded the way of life of the bourgeoisie in the eight-volume Les Thibault/The World of the Thibaults (1922-40), which follows the story of two families, one...

Martín Fierro
Influential Argentine epic poem written 1872-79 by José Hernández (1834-1886). Romantic and occasionally satirical, it describes the life of the gaucho or nomadic cattleman on the pamp ...

Martin IV
French cleric. He was pope 1281-85. He supported Charles of Sicily against Peter of Aragon, and excommunicated Martin Palaeologus, Emperor of the East, thus weakening the union of the Eastern and...

Martin V
(1368-1431) Pope from 1417. A member of the Roman family of Colonna, he was elected during the Council of Constance, and ended the Great Schism between the rival popes of Rome and Avignon. ...

Martin-Harvey, John
(1863-1944) English actor. He appeared with Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum in London 1882-96, and established his position as a leading actor and manager with The Only Way in 1899, adapted from Charles...

Martin, (Basil) Kingsley
(1897-1969) English journalist who edited the New Statesman magazine 1931-60 and made it the voice of controversy on the left. He worked for the Manchester Guardian newspaper 1927-30 and founded the...

Martin, (John) Leslie
(1908-2000) English architect. He was co-editor (with Naum Gabo and Ben Nicholson) of the review Circle, which helped to introduce the Modern Movement to England. With Peter Moro (1911-98) and Robert...

Martin, Allie Beth Dent
(1914-1976) US librarian. She became director of the Tulsa City-County Library in 1963 after campaigning vigorously for improved library services. The Tulsa library was transformed into a model system and...

Martin, Francois-Xavier
(1762-1846) French-born US jurist and author. With the creation of the state of Louisiana, he became the state's attorney general (1813-15) and then a judge on the state supreme court (1815-46), and chief...

Martin, Gregory
(died 1582) English biblical translator. He organized the English College at Rome (1577), and then moved with the Douai College to Reims, where he remained for the rest of his life. He translated the Bible into...

Martin, Homer (Dodge)
(1836-1897) US landscape painter. He worked in France for some years and was influenced by the Barbizon School as well as by James Whistler. He is one of those who mark the decline of the Hudson River School...

Martin, John
(1893-1985) US dance critic and author. Appointed as the first dance critic for the New York Times in 1927, Martin championed nontraditional dance in his reviews and essays until his retirement in 1962. He...

Martin, John
(1789-1854) English Romantic painter. He painted grandiose landscapes and ambitious religious subjects which - characterized by massive perspectives, gigantic crags, and towering battlements - have a...

Martin, Joseph (William), Jr
(1884-1968) US politician and journalist. A Republican, he served in the Massachusetts legislature (1911-17) before going to the US House of Representatives (1925-67), where he was Speaker (1947-49). He...

Martin, Kenneth
(1905-1984) English painter and sculptor. Strongly influenced by constructivism, he turned to geometric abstraction in the late 1940s. From 1951 he began making mobiles, initially under the influence of...

Martin, Kingsley
(1897-1969) English journalist. He succeeded Clifford Sharp as editor of the weekly New Statesman in 1931, and held the post until 1967. Under his control, the magazine's circulation rose from 15,000 in 1931 to...

Martin, Lowell Arthur
(c. 1912) US librarian. After several years as an academic librarian, he became an executive at Grolier, Inc, in 1959, where he supervised the publication of a number of new encyclopedias and reference works....

Martin, Luther
(c. 1748-1826) US lawyer. He served as attorney general of Maryland (1778-1805 and 1818-22) and as a delegate from Maryland to the Continental Congress (from 1785). He went to the Constitutional Convention in...

Martin, Mary
(1907-1969) English painter and sculptor. From rug design and abstract painting, she turned to construction in 1951. In 1969 she created the Wall Construction for Stirling University and won first prize (with...

Martin, Michael John
(1945) British Labour politician, who became speaker of the House of Commons in October 2000, replacing Betty Boothroyd. Martin was a trade union official and a Glasgow councillor 1973-75, before being...

Martin, Paul
(1903-1992) Canadian politician. He was minister of health and welfare 1946-57, and secretary of state for external affairs 1963-68, when he became a senator. Having been a Canadian representative to the...

Martin, Paul
(1864-1942) English photo-journalist and engraver. A pioneer in the field, during the 1890s he took candid photographs of scenes in London streets and at the seaside using concealed cameras. His autobiography...

Martin, Paul Edgar Philippe, Jr
(1938) Canadian Liberal Party politician, prime minister from 2003. He was finance minister 1993-2002 in the government of Jean Chrétien. Popular within the...

Martin, Richard
(1754-1834) Irish landowner and lawyer known as `Humanity Dick`. He founded the British Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1824. ...

Martin, Thomas Staples
(1847-1919) US politician. Leader of the Democrat party in Virginia, he served in the US Senate (1895-1919), where he became chairman of the Committee on Appropriations during World War I. He was renowned for...

Martin, Violet Florence
(1862-1915) Irish novelist. Born in County Galway, Martin collaborated with her cousin Edith Somerville in the writing partnership Somerville and Ross, on tales of Anglo-Irish provincial life, such as The...

Martin, William McChesney, Jr
(1906-1998) US stockbroker and government official. He worked in a St Louis brokerage and , in 1931, took a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1938 he became the exchange's first salaried president. He...

Martineau, Harriet
(1802-1876) English journalist, economist, and novelist. She wrote popular works on economics; several novels, including Deerbrook (1839); children's stories,...

Martineau, James
(1805-1900) English Unitarian minister and philosopher. A great orator, he anticipated Anglican modernists in his theology. ...

Martineau, Robert Braithwaite
(1826-1869) English painter. In his The Last Day in the Old Home 1862 (Tate Gallery, London), a theme like that of a Victorian novel is elaborated with Pre-Raphaelite detail. He was a pupil of Holman Hunt. ...

Martinet, Jean
French inspector-general of infantry under Louis XIV whose constant drilling brought the army to a high degree of efficiency - hence the use of his name to mean a strict disciplinarian. ...

Martínez Ruiz, José
Real name of Azorín, Spanish author. ...

Martínez Sierra, Gregorio
Spanish dramatist; see Sierra, Gregorio Martínez. ...

Martinez, Maria Montoya
(1884-1980) US potter. Together with husband, Julian Martinez, she rediscovered the technique of ancient Pueublo Indian pottery, producing the burnished silvery black-on-black ware, made without the wheel,...

Martinez, Mel(quíades)
(1946) US Republican politician, secretary of housing and urban development 2001-03 and US senator for Florida from 2005. As housing secretary, he sought to stimulate affordable housing production and...

Martini, Simone
Sienese painter; see Simone Martini. ...

Martinmas
In the Christian calendar, the feast of St Martin, 11 November. On this day fairs were traditionally held, at which farmworkers...

Martinson, Harry Edmund
(1904-1978) Swedish poet and writer. He wrote vivid poetry including Nomad (1931), and prose sketches, Kap Farvall/Cape Farewell (1933). Vägen till Klockrike/The Road to Klockrike (1948) is a novel about a...

Martinsyde
British aircraft manufacturer during World War I. Martinsyde began making monoplanes 1908 and after the outbreak of World War I produced several extremely good biplane scout-fighter aircraft for...

Martov, Yuly Osipovich
(1873-1923) Russian revolutionary. He was a member of the Social Democratic Party from 1892 and leader of the Mensheviks. He cooperated with Lenin at first, but broke with him in 1903. After the October...

Marty, Martin (Emil)
(1928) US Protestant church historian. Ordained in the Lutheran Church in 1952, he held pastorates in Illinois. In 1963 he became professor of the history of modern Christianity at Chicago. He was one of...

martyr
One who voluntarily suffers death for refusing to renounce a religious faith. The first recorded Christian martyr was St Stephen, who was killed in Jerusalem shortly after the...

Marvell, Andrew
(1621-1678) English metaphysical poet and satirist. In `To His Coy Mistress` (1650-52) and `An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland` (1650) he produced, respectively, the most searching...

Marwitz, Georg von der
German general. He became a general of cavalry in 1908 and by 1912 was a divisional commander. In World War I he was active on the Eastern Front, first in the Carpathians and later led the attack on...

Marx, Karl Heinrich
(1818-1883) German philosopher, economist, and social theorist whose account of class change through conflict, `the materialist conception of history` is known as historical, or dialectical, materialism...

Marxism
Philosophical system, developed by the 19th-century German social theorists Marx and Engels, also known as dialectical materialism, under which matter gives rise to mind (materialism) and all is...

Marxism-Leninism
Term used by the Soviet dictator Stalin and his supporters to define their own views as the orthodox position of Marxism as a means of refuting criticism. It has subsequently been employed by other...

Mary
In the New Testament, the mother of Jesus through divine intervention (see Annunciation and Virgin Birth), wife of Joseph. The Roman Catholic Church maintains belief in her Immaculate Conception...

Mary Celeste
US ship that was found adrift in the Atlantic, abandoned but intact, on 5 December 1872. It had sailed from New York on 7 November, bound for Genoa, Italy. The deserted vessel was discovered about...

Mary I
(1516-1558) Queen of England from 1553. She was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragón. When Edward VI died, Mary secured the crown without difficulty in spite of the conspiracy to...

Mary II
(1662-1694) Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1688. She was the Protestant elder daughter of the Catholic James II, and in 1677 was married to her cousin William of Orange. After the Mary Magdalene, St
(lived 1st century AD) In the New Testament, a woman whom Jesus cured of possession by evil spirits. She was present at the Crucifixion and burial, and was the first to meet...

Mary of Guise
(1515-1560) French-born second wife of James V of Scotland from 1538, and 1554-59 regent of Scotland for her daughter Mary of Hungary
(1505-1558) Queen Consort of Hungary (1522-26). The younger sister of Emperor Charles V, she was known as Mary of Austria before her marriage to King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia in 1522. She was appointed...

Mary of Modena
(1658-1718) Queen consort of England and Scotland. She was the daughter of the Duke of Modena, Italy, and second wife of James, Duke of York, later James II, whom she married in 1673. The birth of their son...

Mary Poppins
Collection of children's stories by P(amela) L(yndon) Travers (1899-1996), published in the UK in 1934. They feature the eccentric Mary Poppins who looks after the children of the Banks family and...

Mary Queen of Scots
(1542-1587) Queen of Scotland (1542-67). Also known as Mary Stuart, she was the daughter of James V. Mary's connection with the English royal line from Henry VII made her a threat to Elizabeth I's hold on the...

Mary, Duchess of Burgundy
(1457-1482) Daughter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. She married Maximilian of Austria in 1477, thus bringing the Low Countries into the possession of the Habsburgs and, ultimately, of Spain. ...

Mary, Queen
(1867-1953) Consort of George V of Great Britain and Ireland. She was the only daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Teck, the latter a grand-daughter of George III. In 1891 she was engaged to marry Prince...

Masada
Rock fortress 396 m/1,300 ft above the western shore of the Dead Sea, Israel. Site of the Hebrews' final stand in their revolt against the Romans (AD 66-73). After withstanding a year-long...

Masai
Member of an East African people whose territory is divided between Tanzania and Kenya. They number about 250,000, and speak a Nilotic language belonging to the Nilo-Saharan family. Traditionally...

Masaniello
(c. 1623-1647) Italian rebel leader. He led a revolt in 1647 against taxes on fruit and vegetables introduced in Naples, which led to the defeat of government forces. For a short time he was master of the city,...

Masaryk, Jan Garrigue
(1886-1948) Czechoslovak politician, son of TomášM ...

Masaryk, Tomáš Garrigue
(1850-1937) Czechoslovak nationalist politician. He directed the revolutionary movement against the Austrian Empire, founding with Edvard Beneš and Milan Stefanik the Czechoslovak National Council. In 1918 he...

Masefield, John
(1878-1967) English poet and novelist. His early years in the merchant navy inspired Salt Water Ballads (1902) and two further volumes of poetry, and several adventure novels; he also wrote children's books,...

Masham, Abigail
(died 1734) English courtier. Her first cousin Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, procured her the position of `woman of the bedchamber` to Princess Anne. She retained her situation after...

Masinissa (or Massinissa)
(c. 238-148 BC) King of the Massyli, the easternmost tribe of ancient Numidia, North Africa. On the outbreak of the second Punic War 218 BC, he supported Carthage, but later transferred his allegiance to Rome. He...

Masip, Juan Vicente de
(1475-1550) Spanish painter. His religious paintings show the influence of Raphael Sanzio, though they are individual in colour and detail. His Martyrdom of St Agnes and The Visitation (both...

Masire, Quett Ketumile Joni
(1925) Botswanan politician; president 1980-98. In 1962, with Seretse Khama, he founded the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) and in 1965 was made deputy prime minister. After independence in 1966, he...