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

Maufe, Edward Brantwood
(1883-1974) English architect. His principal buildings include Kelling Hall, Norfolk; St Saviour's Church, Acton; Guildford Cathedral (won in competition, 1936); the Playhouse, Oxford; and the Runnymede...

Maugham, (William) Somerset
(1874-1965) English writer. His work includes the novels Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), and Cakes and Ale (1930); the short-story collections Ashenden (1928) and Rain and Other Stories...

Maugham, Robin Cecil Romer
(1916-1981) English writer. His successful novels included The Servant (1948; later filmed and dramatized), November Reef (1962), The Green Shade (1966), The Second Window (1968), and The Link (1969). Among his...

Maui
Early Polynesian and Maori hero, who steals fire from the Sun for human beings. ...

Maumbury Rings
Prehistoric circular earthwork, just south of Dorchester, Dorset, England. Excavations 1908-13 revealed that the original structure was an earthen circle containing an interior ditch cut by shafts...

Maumee
Alternative name for a member of the American Indian Miami people. ...

Maundy Thursday
In the Christian church, the Thursday of Holy Week, leading up to Easter. The ceremony of washing the...

Maupin, Armistead
(1944) US novelist and dramatist. His first six novels, from Tales of the City (1978) to Sure of You (1990), were revisions of a daily fiction serial in two newspapers in San Francisco,...

Maurer, Alfred (Henry)
(1868-1932) US painter. He is considered one of the first modernists to work in the USA. Influenced by the work of Henri Matisse, whose work he had seen when in Paris, France, in 1897, he employed an...

Mauriac, François
(1885-1970) French novelist. His novels are studies, from a Roman Catholic standpoint, of the psychological and moral problems of the Catholic and provincial middle class, usually set in his native city of...

Maurice
(c. 539-602) Byzantine Emperor from 582. His reign was marked by a series of wars, against the Persians (ended in 591), in Spain, and in the Balkans (from 582). The expense of this continual warfare, combined...

Maurice of Nassau
(1567-1625) Prince of Orange (1618-25) and Count of Nassau (1584-1625). He was the son of William (I) the Silent and Anne of Saxony. On his father's assassination in 1584 he became commander-in-chief of...

Maurice of Saxony
(1521-1553) German ruler. He was duke (1541) and elector (1547) of Saxony. He had become a Lutheran in 1539 but allied himself with Charles V to gain the electoral title. He then sided with the Emperor's...

Maurice, (John) Frederick Denison
(1805-1872) Anglican cleric from 1834, cofounder with Charles Kingsley of the Christian Socialist movement. He was deprived of his professorships in English history, literature, and divinity at King's College,...

Maurice, Frederick Barton
(1871-1951) British soldier. He entered the army in 1892. In May 1918 he publicly denied the accuracy of certain statements on army matters made by the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, and was retired for breach...

Maurin, (Aristide) Peter
(1877-1949) French-born US Catholic social activist. After a decade as a Christian Brother (1893-1903), he became an itinerant worker, emigrating to Canada and then the USA in 1911. In 1932 he met the...

Maurist
Congregation of French Benedictine Catholic monks, established 1621 at the monastery of St Maur-sur-Loire. Subsequently its chief house was in Paris, and there the Maurist fathers carried on...

Mauritania
Country in northwest Africa, bounded northeast by Algeria, east and south by Mali, southwest by Senegal, west by the Atlantic Ocean, and northwest by Western Sahara. Government The 1991 constitution...

Mauritius
Island country in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. Government The 1968 constitution, amended in 1969 and 1991, provides for a parliamentary form of government with a single-chamber...

Maurois, André
(1885-1967) French writer and biographer. During World War I he was attached to the British Army as a liaison officer, and the essays in Les Silences du Colonel Bramble (1918) and Les Discours du Docteur...

Mauroy, Pierre
(1928) French socialist politician, prime minister 1981-84. He oversaw the introduction of a radical reflationary programme. He was first secretary (leader) of the Socialist Party 1988-1992. Mauroy...

Maurras, Charles Marie Photius
(1868-1952) French writer. The leading spirit of the extreme nationalist movement Action Française, he was imprisoned 1945-52 as a collaborator during the German occupation of France. His works include...

Maury, Jean Siffrein
(1746-1817) French cardinal and orator. After defending the Church and ancien regime in the National Assembly 1789-92, he left for Rome. He became a Cardinal in 1794. He was later disgraced and imprisoned...

Mauryan dynasty
Indian dynasty c. 321-c. 185 BC, founded by Chandragupta Maurya (321-c. 297 BC). Under Emperor Asoka most of India was united for the first time, but after his death in 232 the empire was riven...

mausoleum
Large, free-standing, sumptuous tomb. The term derives from the magnificent sepulchral monument built for King Mausolus of Caria (died 353 BC) by his wife Artemisia at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor...

Mausolus
Ruler of Caria under Persian influence from 377-353 BC. He expanded his rule on the mainland of Asia Minor and in the islands at the expense of Athens,...

mauvaise foi
See bad faith. ...

Mauve, Anton
(1838-1888) Dutch landscape painter. He painted grey, rainy country scenes with subdued harmonies of tone. He worked in The Hague, where Vincent van Gogh, his nephew, was briefly his pupil. Mauve was born in...

Mavor, O H
Real name of the Scottish dramatist James Bridie. ...

Mavrokordatos
Greek family, many of whose members held high office in the administration of the Ottoman Empire. Alexander Mavrokordatos (1791-1865) was one of the founders of the modern Greek state. Alexander...

Mawhinney, Brian Stanley
(1940) British Conservative politician. As MP for Peterborough from 1979, his government posts included under-secretary of state for Northern Ireland 1986-90, minister of state in the Northern Ireland...

Mawlid an-Nabi
In Islam, the commemoration of the birth of the prophet Muhammad, who was born on 12 Rabiulawal. The annual event takes place on the 12th day of the third month in the Muslim calendar. Many Muslims,...

Mawson, Douglas
(1882-1958) Australian explorer who reached the magnetic South Pole on Shackleton's expedition of 1907-09. Knighted 1914. Mawson led...

Maxentius, Marcus Aurelius Valerius
Roman emperor AD 306-312, son of the emperor Maximian. When his father and Diocletian abdicated 305, he was passed over in the division of the empire. But Maxentius seized Rome and was proclaimed...

Maximian
(died AD 310) Roman emperor 286-305. Diocletian made Maximian, a Pannonian soldier, joint emperor and gave him the western provinces to rule. He was compelled to retire when Diocletian abdicated voluntarily in...

Maximilian
(1832-1867) Emperor of Mexico 1864-67. He accepted that title when the French emperor Napoleon III's troops occupied the country, but encountered resistance from the deposed president Benito Juárez. In 1866,...

Maximilian I
(1573-1651) German ruler. He was Duke of Bavaria from 1597. He became the leading Catholic ruler in Germany after 1600. In 1620 his troops under Tilly were instrumental in defeating the Bohemian revolt....

Maximilian I
(1459-1519) German king from 1486, Holy Roman Emperor from 1493. He was the son of the emperor Frederick III (1415-93). Through a combination of dynastic marriages and diplomacy backed up by military threats,...

Maximilian II
(1527-1576) Holy Roman Emperor 1564-76. Maximilian was the eldest son of Emperor Ferdinand I and Anna of Hungary. He married his cousin Maria, daughter of Charles V, in 1548. Like his father he was mainly...

Maximinus of Treves
(died c. 349) French leader of the early Christian Church. He became bishop of Treves (Trier) in 332, and was a defender of the exiled St Athanasius. At the Councils of Milan, Sardica and Cologne he was an...

Maximinus Thrax, Gaius Julius Verus
(AD 173-238) Roman emperor from 235. Maximinus was a Thracian shepherd who, owing to his enormous physical strength, gained command of a legion which he led in...

Maximus, Petronius Anicius
(died AD 455) Roman emperor AD 455. In 420 he held the office of city prefect, becoming consul 433 and 443. After the murder of the emperor Valentinian III 455, Maximus was chosen to succeed him, and married the...

Maxton, James
(1885-1946) Scottish politician, chair of the Independent Labour Party 1926-40, and member of Parliament for Bridgeton, Glasgow, from 1922 until his death. One of the most turbulent `Red Clydesiders`, he...

Maxwell, (Ian) Robert
(1923-1991) Czech-born British publishing and newspaper proprietor. He owned several UK national newspapers, including the Daily Mirror and People, as well as the Macmillan Publishing Company and the New York...

Maxwell, Robert, Lord
(c. 1493-1546) Scottish statesman. He was a member of the royal council under James V, a warden of the western marches, and a lord provost of Edinburgh. He was taken prisoner by the English at the battle of Solway...

May 4th Movement
Chinese student-led nationalist movement ignited by demonstrations in Beijing in 1919. It demanded that China's unpopular warlord government reject the decision by the Versailles peace conference...

May Day
First day of May. In many countries it is a national holiday in honour of labour; see also Labour Day. Traditionally the first day of summer, in parts of England it is still celebrated as a...

May, Theresa
(1956) British Conservative politician, shadow leader of the House of Commons from 2005. After becoming MP for Maidenhead in 1997, she rose swiftly to join the shadow cabinet (for education and employment)...

May, Thomas
(1595-1650) English writer. He wrote comedies and translated Lucan'sPharsalia 1627, which gained him the favour of Charles I, Virgil'sGeorgics 1628, and Martial'sEpigrams 1629. His reputation as a prose writer...

Maya
Member of a prehistoric American Indian civilization originating in the Yucatán Peninsula in Central America about 2600 BC, with later sites in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Their language...

maya
In Hindu philosophy, mainly in the Vedanta, the cosmos that Isvara, the personal expression of Brahman, or the atman, has called into being. This is real, yet also an illusion, since its reality is...

Mayakovsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich
(1893-1930) Russian Futurist poet. He combined revolutionary propaganda with efforts to revolutionize poetic technique in his poems 150,000,000 (1920) and V I Lenin (1924). His satiric play The Bedbug (1928)...

Mayall, Rik
(1958) English comic actor and writer. He rose to fame in the early 1980s in a string of cult television programmes, including Kevin Turvey Investigates (1981), in which he gave a series of monologues as a...

Mayan art
See pre-Columbian art. ...

Mayan religion
Religion of the Maya people of Central America. The religion of pre-conquest Central America has survived almost unchanged in some rural areas, whereas in other areas there are heavy influences...

Mayapán
Ancient Mayan city 55 km/35 mi southeast of Mérida, in modern Mexico. Mayapán was the dominant religious and political centre of the Yucatán region from 1200 to 1450. Ruled by the despotic Cocon,...

Maybank, Burnett Rhett
(1899-1954) US politician. A Democrat, he was elected governor of South Carolina (1939-41) and a US Senator (1941-54). As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he was interested in public housing...

Maybeck, Bernard (Ralph)
(1862-1957) US architect. His uniquely inventive designs drew on various traditions and showed unusual diversity of form, scale, and materials. He designed mostly Bay Area suburban houses and community...

Maybury-Lewis, David (Henry Peter)
(1929) Pakistan-born cultural anthropologist. In 1972, with Harvard University colleagues, he founded Cultural Survival, Inc, a private organization that aims to protect historical and cultural sites...

Mayerling
Site near Vienna of the hunting lodge of Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, where he and his mistress were found shot dead in 1889. ...

Mayflower
Ship in which the Pilgrims sailed in 1620 from Plymouth, England, to found Plymouth plantation and Plymouth colony in present-day Massachusetts. The Mayflower was one of two ships scheduled for...

Mayhew, Henry
(1812-1887) English journalist, author, and documentary writer. He was founder and co-editor of Punch. His principal book was the pioneering study London Labour and the London Poor (1851-62) - a...

Mayhew, Jonathan
(1720-1766) US Protestant clergyman. He was a theological liberal opposed to Calvinist notions of predestination, and is acknowledged as a forerunner of Unitarianism. A political liberal, too, he delivered a...

Mayhew, Patrick (Barnabas Burke)
(1929) British Conservative politician and lawyer, Northern Ireland secretary 1992-97. He was appointed solicitor general in 1983 and four years later attorney general, becoming the government's chief...

Mayhew, Thomas
(1593-1682) English-born American Protestant missionary and colonist. He settled in Medford, Massachusetts, c. 1632 and purchased Martha's Vineyard in 1641, establishing his son as head of a colony there, and...

Maynard, François
(1582-1646) French poet. A favourite disciple of Malherbe, he was secretary to Marguerite de Valois and then magistrate in Aurillac. He was an original member of the French Academy. He generally sacrificed...

Maynard, Robert C(lyve)
(1937-1993) US journalist and publisher. In 1972 he was named an associate editor of the Washington Post and his stature was such that he was one of three journalists invited to question President Gerald Ford...

Mayne Reid, Thomas
Real name of Mayne Reid, Northern Irish writer. ...

Maynooth College
See St Patrick's College, Maynooth. ...

Maynooth Grant
English parliamentary subsidy of 1795 to finance a Catholic seminary in Maynooth, County Kildare, some 12 miles from Dublin. The grant was introduced by Pitt the younger both to mollify Catholics...

Mayo, Henry Thomas
(1856-1937) US naval officer. He was the central American figure in the Tampico Incident of 1914 that led to the US naval capture of Veracruz, Mexico. He was commander of the Atlantic Fleet (1916-19), in...

Mayo, Katherine
(1868-1940) US journalist and writer. Her books include Justice to All 1917, a critical study of the American police system;That Damn Y 1921, about the YMCA;Isles of Fear 1925, a criticism of US rule in the...

Mayo, William Worrall
(1819-1911) English-born US physician and politician. As a prominent physician and surgeon based in Rochester, Minnesota, he helped build St Mary's Hospital t ...

mayor
Title of the head of urban (city or town) administration. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the mayor is the principal officer of a district council that has been given district-borough...

Mayor of the Palace
Administrator of the royal court of the Merovingian dynasty from 439 to 751. After the death of Dagobert I (605-639) and the subsequent decline of the Merovingian kings, holders of this office...

maypole
Tall pole with long ribbon streamers attached to the top. It is used for traditional May Day dances to celebrate...

Mazarin, Jules
(1602-1661) French politician who succeeded Richelieu as chief minister of France in 1642. His attack on the power of the nobility led to the Fronde and his temporary exile, but his diplomacy achieved a...

Mazepa, Ivan Stepanovich
(1645-1709) Ukrainian soldier and warlord. He was hetman (Cossack leader) of the Ukraine from 1687. He tried, with Polish and, later, Swedish help to gain independence from Russia but was defeated, with Charles...

Mazo, Juan Bautista del
(1612-1667) Spanish painter. He was a pupil of Diego Velázquez and may have collaborated with him in some works. He made copies and adaptations of his paintings and succeeded him as court painter 1661. He...

Mazowiecki, Tadeusz
(1927) Polish politician, adviser to the Solidarity trade-union movement and Poland's first post-war non-communist prime minister 1989-90. In the presidential elections of November 1990 he lost to...

Mazumdar, Charu
(1915-1972) Indian Communist revolutionary, leader of the Naxalbari movement. In 1965, in opposition to the leadership of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), Mazumdar began advocating a revolutionary...

Mazzini, Giuseppe
(1805-1872) Italian nationalist. He was a member of the revolutionary society, the Carbonari, and founded in exile the nationalist movement Giovane Italia (Young Italy) in 1831. Returning to Italy on the...

Mazzoni, Guido
(c. 1450-1518) Italian sculptor. Born at Modena, Mazzoni worked there and at Ferrara, Venice, Naples, and France, specializing in dramatic and realistic Nativity and Lamentation scenes. In 1495 he travelled with...

Mazzuchelli, Samuel (Charles)
(1806-1864) Italian-born US Catholic missionary priest. He was a Dominican seminarian and was ordained in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1830. After missionary work among the American Indian peoples of the the Mackinac...

MBE
Abbreviation for Member (of the Order) of the British Empire, an honour first awarded in 1917. ...

Mboya, Tom (Thomas Joseph)
(1930-1969) Kenyan politician and trade unionist. He helped found the Kenya African National Union (KANU) in 1960, becoming its secretary general. A prominent pan-Africanist, he was elected chair of the...

McAdam, John Loudon
(1756-1836) Scottish engineer, inventor of the macadam road surface. It originally consisted of broken granite bound together with slag or gravel, raised for drainage. Today, it is bound...

McAdoo, William Gibbs
(1863-1941) US Democratic politician. As secretary to the Treasury 1913-19, he was responsible for far-reaching financial reforms, such as the Federal Reserve Banking Act and the introduction of the McAleese, Mary Patricia
(1951) Irish lawyer and academic, president from 1997. When President Mary Robinson announced her resignation, McAleese was nominated by the ruling Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats as their candidate...

McAliskey, Bernadette Josephine
(1947) Northern Irish political activist, prominent in the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s. In 1969, at the age of 21, she was elected a member of...

McAnally, Ray(mond)
(1926-1989) Irish stage and screen actor. McAnally first appeared on stage aged 16, and joined the company at Dublin's prestigious Abbey Theatre in 1947, where he often returned to direct and teach later in his...

McAuley, Catherine Elizabeth
(1787-1841) Irish educator and social reformer. In 1831, she founded the `Sisters of Mercy`, which grew into one of the largest orders of nuns in Ireland, and was dedicated to educating...

McAuley, James Phillip
(1917-1976) Australian poet and critic. He published two volumes of verse, Under Aldebaran 1946 and A Vision of Ceremony 1956, the latter influenced by his conversion to Catholicism four years previously....

McAuliffe, Anthony
(1898-1975) US brigadier general. He organized a stubborn defence of Bastogne 18-26 December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge, before his unit, the 101st US Airborne Division, was relieved by the US 3rd...

McBain, Ed
US writer; see Evan Hunter. ...

McCabe, Patrick
(1955) Irish writer. His best-selling novel Butcher Boy (1992) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, won the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Award for Literature (Fiction), and was made into a successful film by...

McCain, John Sidney III
(1936) US Republican politician, senator for Arizona since 1987. A former navy pilot, McCain was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his bravery during the Vietnam War, when he was shot down and...

McCall, Samuel Walker
(1851-1923) US politician. He was an attorney in Boston, Massachusetts (1875-92). He served that state as a Republican in the US House of Representatives (1893-1913). Politically independent, he opposed the...

McCall, Tom
(1913-1983) US journalist and politician. After serving in World War II as a US Navy correspondent, he became a television journalist in Portland, Oregon, and produced Pollution in Paradise. A Republican, he...

McCarran, Patrick
(1876-1954) US Democrat politician. He became senator for Nevada in 1932, and as an isolationist strongly opposed lend-lease during World War II. He sponsored the McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality...