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

McWilliam, F(rederick) E(dward)
(1909-1992) Northern Irish sculptor. A highly individual artist, several of his largely abstract bronze castings and woodcarvings show the influence of Indian sculpture. He taught for over 20 years (1947-68)...

Mead, Margaret
(1901-1978) US anthropologist who popularized cultural relativity and challenged the conventions of Western society with Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) and subsequent works. Her fieldwork was later criticized....

Meade, George Gordon
(1815-1872) US military leader. During the American Civil War, he commanded the Pennsylvania volunteers at the Peninsular Campaign, Bull Run, and Antietam 1862. He led the Army of the Potomac, and the Union...

Meade, James Edward
(1907-1995) English Keynesian economist who shared the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1977 with Swedish economist Bertil Ohlin for his work on international trade. However, his early studies of national income...

Meal Tub Plot
In England, nonexistent conspiracy to prevent the accession of the Duke of York, the future James II, invented by Thomas Dangerfield in 1679 during the attempts to pass the Exclusion Bills....

meaning
What is meant by words or things. In the philosophy of language, there are various theories about the meaning of words and sentences; for example, that a meaningful proposition must be possible to...

means test
Method of assessing the amount to be paid in social security benefits (for example, the income support and housing benefits), which takes into account all sources of personal or family income. In...

Means, Gaston Bullock
(1879-1938) US criminal and spy. He sold data on Allied shipping to the German embassy in 1914 and swindled wealthy people. He was convicted of grand larceny after a ransom money swindle in the Charles...

Means, Russell
(1939) US Oglala Sioux activist. In 1970 he founded the second chapter of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Cleveland, Ohio. His flair for guerrilla theatre, including the seizure of the Mayflower II...

Meany, George
(1894-1980) US labour leader. Active first in the plumber's union, then in the New York state federation of labour, he was elected secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1939 and its...

Meason, Isaac
(1742-1818) US ironmaster. He arrived in western Pennsylvania c. 1771 and had established Union Furnace by 1791. Here and at other locations, he manufactured the kitchenware and tools needed by the thousands of...

Mecca
City in Saudi Arabia and, as birthplace of Muhammad, the holiest city of the Islamic world and a place of annual pilgrimage (the hajj); population (1992 est) 965,700. Non-Muslims have been...

Mecca Declaration
Pledge by Islamic powers in 1981 to undertake a jihad against Israel. ...

Meccano
Toy metal construction sets launched in 1901 by the British inventor Frank Hornby (1863-1936) (also the creator of Hornby train sets and Dinky toys), which cont ...

Mecham, Evan
(1924) US businessman and politician. A World War II army veteran, he made millions as president of Mecham Pontiac in Glendale, Arizona (1950-88). After serving in the state senate as a Republican...

mechanism
In philosophy, a system of adapted parts working together, as in a machine. Mechanists hold that all natural phenomena admit of mechanical explanation, and that no reference to teleology (purpose or...

mechanized infantry combat vehicle
Tracked military vehicle designed to fight as part of an armoured battle group; that is, with tanks. It is armed with a quick-firing cannon and one or more machine guns. MICVs have replaced...

Mechem, Edwin Leard
(1912-2002) US politician and lawyer. A lawyer in Las Cruces, New Mexico (1939-50), he also worked as an FBI agent (1942-45) and served on the State Police Commission. The first Republican governor in...

Meciar, Vladimír
(1942) Slovak politician, prime minister of the Slovak Republic 1993-1998 (with a break March-October 1994). A former Communist Party dissident, he joined the Public Against Violence (PAV) movement in...

Medal of Honor
In the USA, the highest award for valour. It was established by Congress, originally for the navy (1861) and army (1862). Of differing design, both are bronze stars with the goddess Minerva...

medals and decorations
Coinlike metal pieces, struck or cast to commemorate historic events; to mark distinguished service, whether civil or military (in the latter case in connection with a particular battle, or for...

Mede
Member of a people of northwestern Iran who in the 9th century BC were tributaries to Assyria, with their capital at Ecbatana (now Hamadán), in the ancient southwestern Asian country of Media....

Medea
Greek tragedy by Euripides, produced 431 BC. It deals with the later part of the legend of Medea: her murder of Jason's bride and of her own children, after desertion by Jason. ...

Medea
In Greek mythology, the sorceress daughter of the king of Colchis. When Jason reached Colchis, she fell in love with him, helped him acquire the Golden Fleece, and they fled together. When Jason...

Medhba
In Irish mythology, a warrior queen of the hero-tales. She symbolized the kingship of Tara, which was ritually portrayed as an otherworld woman serving that drink. In the Ulster cycle, she is the...

media
Means of communication; the mass media comprise the broadcast media of radio and television, and the print media of newspapers and magazines. The study of means of communication is...

media studies
Study of means of communication. Since its inclusion in the National Curriculum in the UK, it has formed an expanding area of the British curriculum. Media studies forms a critical awareness of...

mediation
Technical term in G W F Hegel's philosophy, and in Marxist philosophy influenced by Hegel, describing the way in which an entity is defined through its relations to other entities. ...

Medicaid
US health-care programme for the poor and unemployed under the age of 65, administered by the state and jointly funded by the states and federal governments. Introduced in 1965 by President Lyndon...

medical technology, 20th century
Medicine of the 20th century saw an acceleration of knowledge and techniques, and an improvement in public health, although new challenges emerged. Technical developments offered new ways of viewing...

Medicare
US health-care insurance programme, administered and financed by the federal government, providing medical benefits to citizens aged 65 or over. Originally proposed by President John F Kennedy as...

Medici family
Noble family that ruled the Italian city-state of Florence from the 15th to the 18th centuries. The Medici arrived in Florence in the 13th century and made their fortune in banking. The first...

Medici, Cosimo de'
(1519-1574) Italian politician, ruler of Florence; duke of Florence from 1537 and 1st grand duke of Tuscany from 1569. ...

Medici, Cosimo de'
(1389-1464) Italian politician and banker. Regarded as the model for Machiavelli's The Prince, he dominated the government of Florence from 1434 and was a patron of the arts. He was succeeded by his inept son...

Médici, Emilio Garrastazú
(1905-1986) Brazilian dictator-president 1969-74. He was elected to presidental office by a military junta in 1969, succeeding president Artur da Costa e Silva. His reign was marked by strong oppression and...

Medici, Ferdinand de'
(1549-1609) Italian politician, grand duke of Tuscany from 1587. ...

Medici, Giovanni de'
(1360-1429) Italian entrepreneur and banker, with political influence in Florence as a supporter of the popular party. He was the father of Cosimo de' Medici. ...

medicine, 19th-century
The 19th century was a period of enormous medical change and progress. Many diseases that had been fatal in 1800 were either treatable by 1900, or a cure would be found very early in the 20th...

medicine, alternative
Forms of medical treatment that do not use synthetic drugs or surgery in response to the symptoms of a disease, but aim to treat the patient as a whole (see holism). The emphasis is on maintaining...

medicine, factors of development
The causes of change and continuity in medicine are key to the understanding of the history of medicine. Factors to be taken into consideration include government, religion, war, science and...

medicine, history
Medical science has developed by gradual steps from very early times. There is evidence of trepanning (cutting holes in the skull to relieve pressure) being practised in the prehistoric medicine of...

medieval art
Painting and sculpture of the Middle Ages in Europe and parts of the Middle East, dating roughly from the 3rd century to the emergence of the Renaissance in Italy in the 1400s. This includes early...

medieval medicine
In European history, medicine of the Middle Ages (5th-15th centuries); the period c. 500-c. 1000 is also known as the Dark Ages. The rate of medical progress was far slower than it had been in...

medieval medicine, English
In the Middle Ages (11th-16th centuries), medicine was notoriously unsuccessful and the practice of ...

Medill, Joseph
(1823-1899) Canadian publisher and editor. In 1855 acquired part interest in the Chicago Tribune, with which he was associated as owner and editor for most of his later years. He built it into a highly...

Medina
Saudi Arabian city, about 355 km/220 mi north of Mecca; population (1992 est) 608,300. It is the second holiest city in the Islamic world after Mecca, and contains the tomb of Muhammad, a focus for...

meditation
Act of spiritual contemplation, practised by members of many religions or as a secular exercise. It is a central practice in Buddhism and Hinduisum (the Sanskrit term is samadhi) and the movement...

medium
In spiritualism, a person with the alleged ability to contact spirits of the dead. ...

Medjugorje
Village in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the Virgin Mary is alleged to have appeared to six schoolchildren in 1981. The apparition was supposedly...

Medusa
In Greek mythology, a mortal woman who was transformed into a snake-haired Gorgon by Athena for defiling the goddess's temple with the god Poseidon. She was slain by the...

Medvedev, Vadim Andreyevich
(1925) Soviet communist politician. He was deputy chief of propaganda 1970-78, was in charge of party relations with communist countries 1986-88, and in 1988 was appointed by the Soviet leader...

Mee, Arthur
(1875-1943) English editor and author. In 1906 he produced the Harmsworth Self-Educator, and various other works followed, notably The Children's Encyclopedia, which he edited 1908-33, and The Harmsworth...

Meegeren, Hans, or Henricus, van
(1889-1947) Dutch art forger, mainly of Vermeer's paintings. His `Vermeer`Christ at Emmaus was bought for Rotterdam's Boymans Museum 1937. He was discovered when a `Vermeer` sold to the Nazi leader...

Meek, Joseph L
(1810-1875) US trapper and pioneer. He trapped throughout the Great West (1829-40) and settled in Oregon in 1840. He served as a US marshal and then turned to farm ...

Meeker, Nathan Cook
(1817-1879) US journalist and Indian agent. He became the agricultural editor of the New York Tribune in 1865 and founded Union Colony at Greeley, Colorado, in 1869. He w ...

Meese, Edwin, III
(1931) US attorney general 1985-88 who was among President Ronald Reagan's most important advisors. As chair of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Drug Policy Board, and as a member of the...

megalith
Prehistoric stone monument of the late Neolithic (New Stone Age) or early Bronze Age. Most common in Europe, megaliths include single large uprights or menhirs (for example, the Five Kings,...

megalithic religions
The beliefs of the cultures that raised the megalithic monuments such as Stonehenge, the stone circles found across Ireland and Scotland, and the great sacred sites such as Avebury in England....

Megalopolis
Ancient city in Arcadia. Megalopolis was founded on the advice of the Theban general Epaminondas after his heavy defeat of the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra 371 BC. The inhabitants of 38...

Megara
Ancient Greek city-state between Attica and Corinth. Bounded on the north by the Corinthian Gulf and on the south by the Saronic Gulf, Megara had two good harbours, attained commercial prosperity,...

Megasthenes
(c. 350-290 BC) Greek historian and geographer. As ambassador of Seleucus I, King of Syria, to the Indian king Sandrocottus, he wrote Indica, of which large fragments survive. It provided a valuable source of...

Meggers, Betty J(ane)
(1921) US anthropologist. She did extensive fieldwork in South America, focusing particularly on prehistoric lowlands cultures, cultural ecology, and trans-Pacific contracts, and she published widely....

Megiddo
Site of a fortress town in northern Israel, where Thutmose III defeated the Canaanites; the Old Testament figure Josiah was killed in battle in about 609 BC; and in World War I the British field...

Mehta, Pherozeshah Merwanji
(1845-1915) Indian politician. He was the leader of the moderate Congress Party in western India and one of the founders of the Indian National Congress (now the Congress Party), becoming...

Mehta, Ved Parkash
(1934) Indian journalist. He was educated at blind schools in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, and the USA, and later at Oxford and Harvard. A staff writer for the New Yorker 1961-94 (he took US citizenship...

Meier, Richard Alan
(1934) US architect. His white designs spring from the poetic modernism of the Le Corbusier villas of the 1920s. Originally one of the New York Five, a group of young architects known for their Modernist...

Meighen, Arthur
(1874-1960) Canadian Conservative politician. He was prime minister 1920-21 and 1926-27. Between 1913 and 1920 he successively held the posts of solicitor general, secretary of state, and...

Meigs, Josiah
(1757-1822) US lawyer, educator, and public official. Admitted to the bar in 1783, he practised law in Bermuda for several years before becoming professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Yale...

Meigs, Montgomery Cunningham
(1816-1892) US soldier. An 1836 West Point graduate, as a member of the Engineering Corps he worked on federal projects including the Capitol's dome and wings. He became quartermaster general of Union forces in...

Meiji era
In Japanese history, the reign of Emperor Meiji, 1867-1912. The restoration of imperial rule followed the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Meiji era saw the rise of Japan as a modern...

Meiji, Mutsuhito
(1852-1912) Emperor of Japan from 1867, under the regnal era name Meiji (`enlightened`). During his reign Japan became a world industrial and naval power. His ministers abolished the feudal system and...

Meiklejohn, Alexander
(1872-1964) English-born US educator and philosopher. He greatly improved the academic quality of Amherst College during his turbulent presidency (1912-23). He then directed a short-lived experimental...

Mein Kampf
Book dictated by the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to his deputy Rudolf Hess 1923-24, during their imprisonment in the Bavarian fortress of Landsberg for attempting the 1923 Munich beer-hall putsch....

Meinecke, Friedrich
(1862-1954) German historian who endeavoured to combine intellectual and political history and produce a synthesis of cultural and political values. His book Cosmopolitanism and the National State 1908 is an...

Meinhof, Ulrike Marie
(1934-1976) West German urban guerrilla, member of the Baader-Meinhof gang in the 1970s. A left-wing journalist, Meinhof was converted to the use of violence to achieve political change by the imprisoned...

Meiningen Theatre
German court theatre of the late 19th century whose innovations in staging, scene design, lighting, and period research had an influence on directors such as André Antoine and Stanislavsky. The...

Meinong, Alexius
(1853-1920) Austrian philosopher who held that nonexistents - like the golden mountain, the round square, or dragons - have classifiable natures. He also distinguished many different types of existence,...

Meir, Golda
(1898-1978) Israeli Labour politician; foreign minister 1956-66 and prime minister 1969-74. Criticism of the Israelis' lack of preparation for the 1973 Arab-Israeli War led to election losses for Labour...

Meissonier, (Jean Louis) Ernest
(1815-1891) French painter. Basing his style and subject matter on Dutch and Flemish genre painting, he became famous for his small but highly detailed depictions of everyday life in the 17th and 18th...

Meistersinger
One of a group of German lyric poets, singers, and musicians of the 14th-16th centuries, who formed guilds for the revival of minstrelsy. Hans Sachs was a...

Meit, Konrad
(c. 1480-1551) German sculptor. Working mainly in boxwood, alabaster, and metal, he made many small portrait busts and statuettes in a classical style, fusing together Italian and northern elements, in works like...

mela
Sikh fair or festival. In the 16th century, at a time when many Sikhs still followed Hindu traditions, Guru Amar Das decided to put a Sikh emphasis on traditional Hindu festivals, and encouraged...

melachot
In Judaism, the 39 types of work forbidden on the Sabbath as listed in the Mishnah, part of the law of the Talmud. They embrace activities such as growing and preparing food, making clothes,...

melancholia
Depressive disposition attributed to the influence of one of the humours in pre-scientific thought; melancholia was thought to be particularly characteristic of writers and thinkers. The...

Melanchthon, Philip
(1497-1560) German theologian who helped Martin Luther prepare a German translation of the New Testament. In 1521 he issued the first systematic formulation of Protestant theology, reiterated in the Confession...

Melanesian
The indigenous inhabitants of Melanesia; any of the Pacific peoples of Melanesia. The Melanesian languages belong to the Austronesian family. The most important language is Fjian (200,000 speakers),...

Melbourne, (Henry) William Lamb
(1779-1848) British Whig politician. Home secretary 1830-34, he was briefly prime minister in 1834 and again in 1835-41. Accused in 1836 of seducing Caroline Norton, he lost the favour of William IV....

Melcher, Frederic Gershom
(1879-1963) US editor and publisher. A contagiously enthusiastic book lover, he won prominence as manager of an Indiana bookstore (1913-18) that became a mecca for writers and artists. He was longtime...

Melchers, (Julius) Gari
(1860-1932) US painter. He spent much of his life in Europe, studying in Dusseldorf, Germany (1877-80), and he subsequently established studios in Paris, France, and in Holland in 1884. He returned and...

Melchert, James
(1930) US ceramist. A leader in developing ceramics as a sculptural art medium, he taught at San Francisco Art Institute in California and is known for pieces combining incongruous elements. Melchert was...

Melchett, Alfred Moritz Mond
(1868-1930) British industrialist and member of Parliament. He entered the firm of Brunner Mond and Co., and in 1926 helped merge this and other similar chemical companies into the mammoth Imperial Chemical...

Meleager
(lived 1st century BC) Greek philosopher and epigrammatist. Born at Gadara in the Decapolis, he was educated at Tyre, but spent the remainder of his life on the island of Kos. He compiled an
Meleager
In Greek mythology, one of the Argonauts. He organized a hunt to kill the huge boar that ravaged his father's kingdom of Calydon. A quarrel arose over distribution of the spoils, and Meleager killed...

Meléndez Valdés, Juan
(1754-1817) Spanish poet. He was a pastoral and lyric poet, and was influenced by the ideas of the French philosophical school. He fought for Napoleon in the Peninsular War and was exiled from Spain 1813. His...

Melford Hall
House in Suffolk, England, 5 km/3 mi north of Sudbury. It was built in the second half of the 16th century, and incorporates the remains of the manor house of the abbots of St Edmunds. It was given...

Melgarejo, Mariano
(c. 1820-1871) Bolivian dictator and most notorious of the c ...

Meli, Giovanni
(1740-1815) Italian poet. His canzonettas, odes, and epigrams are mostly in the Sicilian dialect; his pastorals are exquisite specimens of their kind. His Favuli murali resemble the fables of La Fontaine. He...

Melita
Ancient name for Palermo, capital of Sicily. ...

Melitene
Ancient and medieval name for the Turkish city of Malatya. ...

Mellette, Arthur Calvin
(1842-1896) US politician. A Republican lawyer, he ran the Muncie Times and served in the Indiana legislature (1872-73). Moving to the Dakota Territory, he served on the constitutional convention (1883),...