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

Mellifont, conspiracy of
In Irish history, the 13th-century revolt by members of the Irish Cistercian community against the mother house in Cîteaux, France, led by the abbot and community of the monastery at Mellifont,...

Mellitus, St
(died 624) Roman Benedictine abbot. He was sent by Gregory (I) the Great to England in 601 at the head of a group of missionary monks to carry on the work of St Augustine. He was the first...

Mellon, Andrew William
(1855-1937) US financier who donated his art collection to found the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, in 1937. He was secretary of the Treasury 1921-32, pursuing tax-cutting policies. His son Paul...

Mellon, Paul
(1907-1999) US art collector and philanthropist. He presided over his father's Washington art collection (1937-39) and served in the cavalry during World War II. As chairman of two foundations, set up to...

Melnikov, Konstantine Stepanovich
(1890-1974) Russian architect. One of the leading members of the Russian avant-garde during the 1920s and 1930s, he was the first Soviet architect to gain an international reputation. Style In his total...

melodrama
Play or film with romantic and sensational plot elements, often concerned with crime, vice, or catastrophe. Originally a melodrama was a play with an accompaniment of music contributing to the...

Melpomene
In Greek mythology, the Muse of tragic drama or tragedy. Her symbols were a tragic mask, staff of Heracles, or sword. ...

Melusina
In French folklore, a water fairy, half-woman and half-fish. She married Raymond, Count of Lusignan, on the condition that he would never look for her on Saturdays, when she became a serpent...

Melville, George Wallace
(1841-1912) US naval officer and Arctic explorer. As chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering (1887-1903), he supervised the design of the machinery of 120 naval ships...

Melville, Herman
(1819-1891) US writer. His novel Moby-Dick (1851) was inspired by his whaling experiences in the South Seas and is considered to be one of the masterpieces of American literature. Billy Budd, Sailor,...

Melville, James
(c. 1535-1617) Scottish historical writer and diplomat. He was a member of the household of Mary Queen of Scots and accomplished various missions for her. His Memoirs throw much light on...

Melville, James
(1556-1614) Scottish reformer. He took an active part in church controversy from 1586, and was moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland in 1589. He was a...

Melzi, Francesco de'
(c. 1491-1568) Italian painter. He was a friend and pupil of Leonardo da Vinci and is responsible for the preservation of Leonardo's writings, which, with other belongings, were bequeathed to him. The Vertumnus...

member of Parliament
Representative of a section of the UK population who attends the British parliament. An MP is elected to represent...

Memling (or Memlinc), Hans
(c. 1430-1494) Flemish painter. He was probably a pupil of van der Weyden, but his style is calmer and softer. He painted religious subjects and also portraits, including Tommaso Portinari and His Wife (about...

Memmi, Lippo
(died 1356) Italian painter. He was active in Siena and Avignon, and often worked with Martini Simone. The fresco over the door of the convent of the Servites in Siena is one of his principal works. He was the...

Memnon
In Greek mythology, a king of Ethiopia. He fought for his uncle, Priam of Troy, against the Greeks, but was killed by Achilles. Memnon has been identified with the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III ...

memorandum of association
Document that defines the purpose of a company and the amount and different classes of share capital. In the UK, the memorandum is drawn up on formation of the company, toge ...

Memorial Day
In the USA, a day of remembrance (formerly Decoration Day) instituted in 1868 for those killed in the US Civil War. Since World War I it has been observed as a national holiday on the last Monday in...

Memphis
Ruined city beside the Nile, 19 km/12 mi southwest of Cairo, Egypt. Once the centre of the worship of Ptah, it was the earliest capital of a united Egypt under King Menes in about 3050 BC, and acted...

Men-shen
In Chinese folk mythology, two (or three) gods who protect doors and gates and prevent harmful spirits passing through them. ...

Mena, Juan de
(c. 1411-1456) Spanish poet. A follower of the Italianate school of Iñigo López de Santillana, Dante's influence is also evident in the ideas, though not in the form, of his poems. Mena's chief work, El...

Ménage, Gilles
(1613-1692) French scholar and writer. He founded a salon known as the `Mercuriales`, which gained him a European reputation but also made him many enemies, including the writers Nicolas Boileau and...

Menander
(c. 342-291 BC) Greek comic dramatist. Previously only known by reputation and some short fragments, Menander's comedy Bad-Tempered Man (316 BC), was discovered in 1957 on Egyptian papyrus. Substantial parts of...

Menard, Louis Nicolas
(1822-1901) French poet. He was a member of Les Parnassiens. His works include the epic poem Promethée délivré 1844, Prologue d'une révolution 1849 (based on his experiences in the 1848 revolution), Poèmes...

Menard, Pierre
(1766-1844) Canadian fur trader and public official. With Andrew Henry, he led the first organized group of trappers to the Three Forks of the Missouri River in 1810. He was the first lieutenant-governor of...

Menchú Túm, Rigoberta
(1959) Guatemalan campaigner for the rights of indigenous peoples. She was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1992 for her efforts to promote intercultural peace and she returned from exile to live and...

Mencius
(c. 372-c. 289 BC) Chinese philosopher and moralist in the tradition of orthodox Confucianism. He considered human nature innately good, although this goodness required cultivation, and based his conception of...

Mencken, H(enry) L(ouis)
(1880-1956) US essayist and critic. He was known as `the sage of Baltimore`. His unconventionally phrased, satiric contributions to the periodicals The Smart Set and American Mercury (both of which he...

Mende
A West African people living in the rainforests of central east Sierra Leone and western Liberia. They number approximately 1 million. The Mende are farmers as well as hunter-gatherers, and each...

Mendelsohn, Erich
(1887-1953) German-American expressionist architect. He caused a sensation with his sculptural curved design for the Einstein Tower, Potsdam, 1919-20. His later work fused modernist and expressionist...

Mendelssohn, Moses
(1729-1786) German philosopher and scholar, the grandfather of the composer Felix Mendelssohn. He promoted Jewish emancipation and is recognized as an important Jewish and rationalist thinker. He was a close...

Menderes, Adnan
(1899-1961) Turkish politician. In 1945 he became one of the leaders of the new Democratic Party and was made prime minister when it came to power in 1950. Re-elected in 1954...

Mendès, Catulle
(1841-1909) French poet, novelist, playwright, and librettist. He was one of Les Parnassiens, and founded La Revue fantaisiste 1861. His poems include Philoméla 1864, Poésies 1876, 1885, and 1892, Hesperus...

Mendes, Chico (Filho Francisco)
(1944-1988) Brazilian environmentalist and labour leader. Opposed to the destruction of Brazil's rainforests, he organized itinerant rubber tappers into the Workers' Party (PT) and was assassinated by Darci...

Mendes, Henry Pereira
(1852-1937) English-born US rabbi. He was involved in local and national politics, arguing for more liberal immigration laws and for less sectarian schools. He was instrumental in organizing many...

Méndez Montenegro, Julio César
(1915-1996) Guatemalan politician, president 1966-70, member of the leftist Revolutionary Party. He launched a five-year plan of social and economic reform and offered the...

mendicant order
Religious order dependent on alms. In the Roman Catholic Church there are four orders of mendicant friars: Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinians. Buddhism has similar orders. ...

Mendoza, Antonio de
(c. 1490-1552) First Spanish viceroy of New Spain (Mexico) (1535-51). He attempted to develop agriculture and mining and supported the church in its attempts to convert the Indians. The system he established...

Mendoza, Pedro Gonzalez de
(1428-1495) Spanish cardinal and statesman. He rose to great power under Henry IV of Castile, by whose influence he was made a cardinal, and subsequently exercised equal influence over Henry's sister Isabella...

Menelaus
In Greek mythology, a king of Sparta; son of Atreus; brother of Agamemnon; husband of Helen, and father of Hermione. With his brother he ousted Thyestes from the throne of Mycenae and was joint...

Menelik II
(1844-1913) Negus (emperor) of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) from 1889. He defeated the Italians in 1896 at Aduwa and thereby retained the independence of his country. ...

Menem (Akil), Carlos (Saul)
(1930) Argentine politician, president 1989-99; leader of the populist Perónist Partido Justicialista (PJ; Justicialist Party). Although gaining electoral support from the poor, he introduced sweeping...

Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro
(1519-1574) Spanish colonial administrator in America. Philip II of Spain granted him the right to establish a colony in Florida to counter French presence there. In 1565 he founded St Augustine and destroyed...

Menéndez y Pelayo, Marcelino
(1856-1912) Spanish writer and critic. His extreme Catholic orthodoxy is revealed in his popular essays and in his Historia de los heterodoxos españoles/History of Spanish Heterodoxies 1880-86. Calderón y...

Menes
(lived c. 3050 BC) Traditionally, the first king (pharaoh) of the first dynasty of ancient Egypt. He is said to have founded Memphis and organized worship of the gods. ...

Menger, Karl
(1840-1921) Austrian economist. He rejected the historical method in economics and is remembered as a cofounder of the school of marginal utility. He was professor at the University of Vienna 1873-1903. ...

Mengistu, Haile Mariam
(1937) Ethiopian soldier and socialist politician, head of state 1977-91 (president 1987-91). He seized power in a coup, and instituted a regime of terror to stamp out any effective opposition....

Mengs, Anton Raffael
(1728-1779) German painter, who worked in Germany, Spain and Italy. A friend of the art historian Winckelmann, he was a leading figure in neoclassicism, painting both portraits and frescoes on mythological...

menhir
Prehistoric tall, upright stone monument or megalith. Menhirs may be found singly as monoliths or in groups. They have a wide geographical distribution in the Americas (mainly as monoliths), and in...

Meninsky, Bernard
(1891-1950) Ukrainian-born English painter, illustrator, and theatrical designer. He painted portraits, figures, and landscapes. His style, which combined romantic feeling and classical form, drew on a wide...

Menken, Adah Isaacs
(1835-1868) US actor and poet. She was very successful in Mazeppa in London, England, in 1864. Among her literary friends were Charles Dickens, to whom she dedicated her Infelicia (1868), and Algernon...

Mennonite
Member of a Protestant Christian sect, originating as part of the Anabaptist movement in Zürich, Switzerland in 1523. Members refuse to hold civil office or do military service, and reject infant...

Menocal, Mario García
(1866-1941) Cuban Conservative Party politician and revolutionary, president 1913-21. His reformist `businessman government` was seen as corrupt, and his re-election in 1916, amid charges of electoral...

Menominee
Member of an American Indian people who lived along the Menominee River between Wisconsin and Michigan. Their language belongs to the Algonquian family. They were primarily hunter-gatherers, using...

menorah
Seven-branched candlestick symbolizing Judaism and the state of Israel. The lowest candle, the shummash or `servant`, is used to light the others. A nine-branched version, the hanukkiah, is...

Menshevik
Member of the minority of the Russian Social Democratic Party, who split from the Bolsheviks in 1903. The Mensheviks believed in a large, loosely organized party and that, before socialist...

Menshikov, Aleksander Danilovich
(1663-1729) Russian field marshal and statesman. He distinguished himself during Russia's war with Sweden 1702-13, notably at Poltava in 1709. As a civil administrator he successfully executed Peter (I) the...

Menshikov, Aleksander Sergeevich
(1787-1869) Russian general and admiral. During the Crimean War 1853-56 he unsuccessfully commanded the Russian forces at Alma, Inkerman, and around Sevastopol. He was the great-grandson of Alexsander...

Menthu
Alternative spelling of Montu, ancient Egyptian god. ...

Mentor
In Homer's Odyssey, an old man, adviser to Telemachus in the absence of his father Odysseus. His form is often taken by the goddess Athena. ...

Mentschikoff, Soia
(1915-1984) Russian-born US law educator. A member of various legal commissions and organizations, she was president of the Association of American Law Schools (from 1974). She published articles in legal...

Menzel, Adolf Friedrich Erdmann von
(1815-1905) German painter and graphic artist. He specialized in portrayal of the life and age of Frederick the Great. He first worked as a lithographer and illustrator, and illustrated works by Johann Wolfgang...

Menzies, Robert Gordon
(1894-1978) Australian conservative politician, leader of the United Australia (now Liberal) Party and prime minister 1939-41 and 1949-66. A Melbourne lawyer, he entered politics in 1928 as a Nationalist in...

Meo
Another name (sometimes considered derogatory) for the Hmong, a Southeast Asian people. ...

MEP
Abbreviation for member of the European Parliament. ...

Mephistopheles
Another name for the devil, or an agent of the devil, associated with the Faust legend. ...

Merat, Albert
(1840-1909) French poet. He was one of Les Parnassiens. His volumes of poetry include Les Chimères 1866, Les Villes de marbre 1874, Au fil de l'eau 1877, Poèmes de Paris 1880, and Vers le soir 1900. ...

mercantilism
Economic theory, held in the 16th-18th centuries, that a nation's wealth (in the form of bullion or treasure) was the key to its prosperity. To this end, foreign trade should be regulated to...

Mercedes-Benz
German car-manufacturing company created by a merger of the Daimler and Benz factories in 1926. The first cars to carry the Mercedes name were those built by Gottlieb Daimler in 1901. In the...

mercenary
Soldier hired by the army of another country or by a private army. Mercenary military service originated in the 14th century, when cash payment on a regular basis was the only means of guaranteeing...

Mercer, Henry Chapman
(1856-1930) US archaeologist, antiquarian, and tile maker. After training as a lawyer, he shifted his interest to the archaeology of the earliest American Indian remains in the eastern USA, especially in the...

Mercer, Johnny
(1909-1976) US lyricist and composer. He collaborated with the great songwriters of his day on such popular hits as `That Old Black Magic` (1942), `Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive` (1944), `Come...

merchant bank
Financial institution that specializes in corporate finance and financial and advisory services for business. Originally developed in the UK in the 19th century, merchant banks now offer many of the...

merchant navy
The passenger and cargo ships of a country. Most are owned by private companies. To avoid strict regulations on safety, union rules on crew wages, and so on, many ships are today registered under...

Merchant of Venice, The
Comedy by William Shakespeare, first performed 1596-97. Antonio, a rich merchant, borrows money from...

merchantable quality
In consumer law, goods must be of merchantable quality to be sold. This means that they must conform to a minimum standard. For example, meat must not be rotten and a new car must be roadworthy. ...

Merchants Adventurers
English trading company founded in 1407, which controlled the export of cloth to continental Europe. It comprised guilds and traders in many northern European ports. In direct opposition to the...

merchet
In medieval England, payment made by a villein to his lord as compensation if his daughter married outside the manor, if his son was educated, or if he sold some of his livestock. Payment of merchet...

Mercia
Anglo-Saxon kingdom that emerged in the 6th century. By the late 8th century it dominated all England south of the Humber, but from about 825 came under the power of Mercier, Désire Joseph
(1851-1926) Belgian cardinal. He became archbishop of Malines and primate of Belgium in1906 and cardinal in 1907. He was a leader of the modern revival of Thomism (the philosophical...

Mercier, Louis Sébastien
(1740-1814) French writer. He wrote dramas, including Le Déserteur 1770, La Brouette du vinaigrier 1775, Le Campagnard 1779, and Le Vieillard et ses trois filles 1792; critical works, including Du théâtre,...

Merciless Parliament
In England, parliament summoned by the Lords Appellant in 1388; it was called `merciless` after it imposed the death penalty for treason on five supporters of Richard II. Three escaped abroad,...

Mercosur
Free-trade organization, founded in March 1991 on signature of the Asunción Treaty by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and formally inaugurated on 1 January 1995. With a GNP of $800,000...

Mercouri, Melina
(1925-1994) Greek actor and politician. As minister of culture 1981-89 and 1993-94, she was a tireless campaigner for the arts both at home and within the European Community, and campaigned in particular...

Mercury
In Roman mythology, a god of commerce and gain, and messenger of the gods. He was identified with the Greek Hermes, and similarly represented with winged sandals and a winged...

Meredith, George
(1828-1909) English novelist and poet. His realistic psychological novel The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) engendered both scandal and critical praise. His best-known novel, The Egoist (1879), is superbly...

Meredith, James (Howard)
(1933) US civil-rights activist and business executive. After serving in the US Air Force, in 1962 he became the first African-American to enrol in the University of Mississippi, but only after he had...

Meredith, Scott
(1923-1993) US literary agent. He tried his hand at writing short stories before founding the Scott Meredith Literary Agency with his brother in 1946. P G Wodehouse was his first prominent client; he later...

Meres, Francis
(1565-1647) English clergyman and critic. In 1598 he published Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury, a review of English writers from Chaucer to his own day, containing valuable references...

Merezhkovski, Dmitri Sergeevich
(1865-1941) Russian writer and religious philosopher. His chief influence was as a popularizer of French Symbolism in the 1890s, promoter of a `new...

merger
The linking of two or more companies, either by creating a new organization by consolidating the original companies or by absorption by one company of the others. Unlike a takeover, which is not...

Meri, Lennart
(1929-2006) Estonian politician, president 1992-2001. He was active in the independence movement in the 1980s and became the founder and director of the Estonian Institute in 1989. He served as minister for...

Mérimée, Prosper
(1803-1870) French author. Among his works are the short novels Mateo Falcone (1829), Colomba (1841), Carmen (1846) (the basis for Bizet's opera), and the Lettres à une inconnue/Letters to an Unknown Girl...

Merit, Order of
British order (see knighthood, order of), instituted in 1902 and limited in number to 24 men and women of eminence. It confers no precedence or knighthood. The ribbon is blue and red. There are both...

Meritt, Benjamin Dean
(1899-1989) US epigrapher and ancient historian. With Albert Einstein, he was one of the original members of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, where he was professor of Greek epigraphy, the study of...

Merkel, Angela Dorothea
(1954) German right-of-centre politician, chancellor from 2005. Raised in communist East Germany, she was a scientist before moving into politics after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. She held...

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice
(1908-1961) French philosopher, one of the most significant contributors to phenomenology after Edmund Husserl. He attempted to move beyond the notion of a pure experiencing consciousness, arguing in The...

Merlin
Legendary magician and seer to King Arthur. Welsh bardic literature has a cycle of poems attributed to him, and he may have been a real person. His legend is related in Vita Merlini by the...

mermaid
Mythical sea creature (the male is a merman), having a human head and torso, often of great beauty, and a fish's tail. Suggested animals behind the myth include the dugong...