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

new economic history
See cliometrics. ...

New Economic Policy
Economic policy of the USSR 1921-29 devised by the Soviet leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Rather than requisitioning all agricultural produce above a stated subsistence allowance, the state...

New English Art Club
British society founded in 1886 to secure better representation for younger painters than was available through the Royal Academy. Its members, most of whom were influenced by Impressionism,...

New France
The French colonies and possessions in North America, especially those in eastern Canada c. 1600-1763. ...

New Frontier
In US history, the social reform programme proposed by John F Kennedy 1961-63. The phrase was coined in Kennedy's speech accepting the Democratic party's nomination 1960. A vigorous yet pragmatic...

New Granada
Viceroyalty, or province, of Spain's empire in the New World from 1717. It took up the northwestern region of South America, and was created to defend Cartagena and the Pacific coast. The capital...

New Harmony
Town in southwestern Indiana, midwestern USA, on the Wabash River, 35 km/22 mi northwest of Evansville; population (1990) 846. It was settled in 1815 by the German Harmonist George Rapp and his...

New Ireland Forum
Meeting between politicians of the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland in May 1983. It offered three potential solutions to the Northern Irish problem, but all were rejected by the...

New Left
Wide range of radical political theories and movements that emerged in the late 1950s, largely in reaction to the perceived failures of traditional left-wing organizations. Inspired by the US...

New Market, Battle of
During the American Civil War, Union defeat by the Confederates 15 May 1864 at the village of New Market, Virginia. The Union commander General Franz Sigel was replaced after this defeat and played...

New Model Army
Army created in 1645 by Oliver Cromwell to support the cause of Parliament during the English Civil War. It was characterized by organization and discipline. Thomas Fairfax was its first commander. ...

New Orleans, Battle of
In the Anglo-American War of 1812, battle between British and American forces December 1814-January 1815, at New Orleans; the war was already over by the time the battle was fought - peace had...

New Realism
US art movement of the 1930s and 1940s, involving a small group of independent realist painters who stood apart from abstract art and contemporary European influences, and believed in the importance...

New Right
Resurgence of conservative and anti-socialist thought in the UK, the USA, and other advanced industrial democracies that began in the mid-1970s. The term refers to a range of conservative and...

New River
Artificial waterway constructed 1613 to bring water from Chadwell Springs in Hertfordshire to Islington, London, a distance of 61 km/38 mi. It was built by Hugh Myddleton; under his scheme, private...

New Socialist Destour Party
Former name (1988-89) of the Tunisian political party, Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD). ...

New Spain
Viceroyalty, or province, of Spain's empire in the New World established 1536. It comprised present-day Mexico, Central America, the southern half of the USA, the Antilles, and the Philippine...

New Statesman
British weekly periodical, founded in 1913 by Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw. In 1931 it absorbed The Nation and Athenaeum, and in 1934 the Weekend Review. Today the New Statesman is an...

New Style
The Western or Gregorian calendar introduced in 1582 and now used throughout most of the world. ...

New Testament
The second part of the Bible, recognized by the Christian church from the 4th century as sacred doctrine. Biblical scholars have credited the individual sections to various authors, whose main aim...

new town
In the UK, centrally planned urban area. New towns such as Milton Keynes and Stevenage were built after World War II to accommodate the overspill from cities and large towns, notably London, at a...

New World
The Americas, so called by the first Europeans who reached them. The term also describes animals and plants of the Western hemisphere. ...

New York Five
Group of five US architects, Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Richard Meier, Charles Gwathmey (1938), and John Hedjuk (1929), who worked together from 1969, reviving many of the design...

New York Times, The
US newspaper, established as a penny paper in 1851 and aimed at an educated, cultured readership. It began as a paper for New York but has grown into a world-respected daily newspaper, distributed...

New Zealand
Country in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southeast of Australia, comprising two main islands, North Island and South Island, and other small islands. Government New Zealand is a constitutional...

New Zealand literature
Prose and poetry of New Zealand. The short stories of Katherine Mansfield in the early 20th century became internationally known, and in 1985 Keri Hulme won the UK-based Booker Prize for her novel...

Newbery Medal
Annual award for an outstanding US book for children, given by the American Library Association since 1922. The award is named after John Newbery (1713-1767), an English printer who published many...

Newbolt, Henry John
(1862-1938) English poet and naval historian. The rousing poem `Drake's Drum` was published 1896, and was later set to music by the Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford. Admirals All 1897, The Island...

Newbury, Battles of
Two battles of the Civil War in Britain: 20 September 1643 victory of the Earl of Essex with the London militia over royalist forces. The royalists retreated to Oxford and Essex succeeded in...

Newcastle Propositions
In English history, humiliating demands presented by the Scots and Independents to Charles I 14 July 1646. They included demands that Charles abolish bishops, sacrifice his supporters, and allow...

Newcastle, William Cavendish
(1592-1676) English soldier, a Royalist. During the Civil War he won Yorkshire for the Royalists by the victory of Adwalton Moor in 1643. In the same year he captured Hull, but in 1644, after the rout of...

Newcomen, Thomas
(1663-1729) English inventor of an early steam engine. His `fire engine` of 1712 was used for pumping water from mines until James Watt invented one with a separate condenser. Newcomen was born in...

Newdigate, Roger
(1719-1806) English collector of antiquaries, vases, and books. He is now principally remembered as the founder (1805) of the Newdigate prize for English verse at Oxford University. Among the winners of the...

Newell, Robert Henry
(1836-1901) US humorist. He wrote The Orpheus C Kerr Papers (a pun on `office seeker`) 1862-71, satirizing humbug and pretentiousness, and The Cloven Foot 1870, one of many attempts to complete Charles...

Newgrange
Outstanding Neolithic passage-grave and the world's oldest known astronomical observatory; one of four great Neolithic burial mounds in the Boyne Valley necropolis, 3 km/5 mi east of Slane, County...

Newhall, Beaumont
(1908-1993) US photohistorian. A Harvard-trained art historian, Newhall was librarian at the Museum of Modern Art (1935-42) where he wrote the catalogue for the exhibition, Photography 1893-1937, before...

Newhall, Nancy
(1908-1974) US writer and photographer. She was curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art (1942-45), and wrote books with Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. She...

Newhouse, S(amuel) I(rving)
(1895-1979) US publisher. Starting as an aide to a New Jersey judge, he became manager of the judge's local paper, acquired control of his own newspaper, the Staten Island Advance, and built a large chain of...

newly industrialized country
Country formerly classified as less developed, but which is becoming rapidly industrialized. The first wave of countries to be identified as newly industrializing included Hong Kong, South Korea,...

Newman, Barnett
(1905-1970) US painter, sculptor, and theorist. His paintings are solid-coloured canvases with a few sparse vertical stripes. They represent a mystical pursuit of simple or elemental art. His sculptures, such...

Newman, John Henry
(1801-1890) English Roman Catholic theologian. While still an Anglican, he wrote a series of Tracts for the Times, which gave their name to the Tractarian Movement (subsequently called...

Newnes, George
(1851-1910) English magazine and newspaper publisher. He founded Tit-Bits (1881), the Strand Magazine (1891), Country Life (1897), the Wide World Magazine (1898), and others. Newnes was Liberal member of...

Newport Riots
Violent demonstrations by the Chartists in 1839 in Newport, Wales, in support of the Peoples' Charter. They were suppressed with the loss of 20 lives. ...

Newport, Christopher
(c. 1565-1617) English-born seaman and colonist. In 1606 he was given charge of the Virginia Company's expedition to the USA. He made a total of five voyages to Jamestown (1607-11) and served as the...

news agency
Business handling news stories and photographs that are then sold to newspapers and magazines. International agencies include the Associated Press (AP, 1848), Agence France-Presse (AFP, 1944),...

newspaper
Daily or weekly publication in the form of folded sheets containing news and comment. News-sheets became commercial undertakings after the invention of printing and were introduced in 1609 in...

Newton, Huey P
(1942-1989) US civil-rights activist who co-founded the Black Panther Party. In 1967, Newton was accused of killing an Oakland police officer. His trial attracted crowds of demonstrators chanting Panther...

Newton, John
(1725-1807) English clergyman and hymn-writer. In 1764 he was offered the curacy of Olney in Buckinghamshire and took orders. There he became a friend of the poet William Cowper and the two men worked...

Next Steps agency
In the UK, Executive Agency allocated responsibility for work previously done by a government department, such as...

Ney, Michel
(1769-1815) Marshal of France under ...

Nez Percé
Member of an American Indian people who inhabited the plateau between the Rocky Mountain and Coastal ranges (Idaho, Washington, and Oregon) until...

Nezval, Vitězslav
(1900-1958) Czech poet, novelist, and dramatist. His writings display a consciously childish perception of the world, and contain elements of surrealism, Symbolism, and Dada. He wrote The Remarkable Magician...

Ngai
Supreme god of the Masai in eastern Africa, associated with rain and lightning, and with the human spirit in life and death. ...

Ngo Dinh Diem
(1901-1963) Vietnamese politician, president of South Vietnam 1955-63. He depended largely on US aid, but was able to suppress internal opposition until 1960-61, when the Communist-led National Liberation...

Ngouabi, Marien
(1938-1977) Congolese army officer and president of the Republic of the Congo 1970-77. He overthrew President Alphonse Massamba-Débat in 1968 and became head of state, taking the title of president in...

Ngugi wa Thiong'o
(1938) Kenyan writer. His work includes essays, plays, short stories, and novels. Imprisoned after the performance of the play Ngaahika Ndeenda/I Will Marry When I Want (1977), he lived in exile from 1982....

Nguni
Member of any of several Bantu-speaking peoples living in southern Africa. The main Nguni peoples are the Zulu, Swazi, Pondo, Xhosa, and Matabele. The Nguni once lived in what is now the South...

Nguyen Thi Binh
(1927) Vietnamese patriot and politician. In 1979 she was appointed minister of education in the United Government and she was vice president of Vietnam from 1992. When the provisional government was...

Nguyen Van Linh
(1914-1998) Vietnamese communist politician, member of the Politburo 1976-81 and 1985-98; leader of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) 1986-91. He began economic liberalization and troop withdrawal from...

Nguyen Van Thieu
(1923-2001) Vietnamese soldier and political leader. In 1963, as chief of staff of the armed forces of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), he was a leader in the coup against Ngo Dinh Diem. He became...

Niantic
Member of an American Indian people who inhabited the northeast Great Lakes region of Connecticut and other parts of New England in the 1600s. Their language comes from the Algonquian family. Known...

Nibelung
In Scandinavian and Germanic mythology, one of a race of dwarves whose hoard of gold is obtained by Sigurd (German Siegfried); in the Nibelungenlied, a member of the line of Burgundian rulers...

Nibelungenlied
Anonymous 12th-century German epic poem, derived from older sources. The composer Richard Wagner made use of the legends in his Ring cycle. Siegfried, possessor of the Nibelung treasure, marries...

Nicaea
Ruined city (modern Iznik) in Turkey, capital of the ancient kingdom of Bithynia. It was the site of the Council of Nicaea in 325 and of another ecumenical council in 787. Between 1205 and 1261 it...

Nicaea, Council of
Christian church council held in Nicaea (now Iznik, Turkey) in 325, called by the Roman emperor Constantine. It condemned Arianism as heretical and upheld the doctr ...

Nicaragua
Country in Central America, between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, bounded north by Honduras and south by Costa Rica. Government Nicaragua is a multiparty democracy with a presidential...

Nicaraguan Revolution
The revolt 1978-79 in Nicaragua, led by the socialist Sandinistas against the US-supported right-wing dictatorship established by Anastasio...

Niccolini, Giovanni Battista
(1782-1861) Italian poet and dramatist. His first poem was La Pietà 1804, influenced by Vincenzo Monti. His first dramatic work was the tragedy Polissena 1810, followed by Ino e Temisto, Edipo, and Medea. The...

Nice, Treaty of
Treaty on changes to the institutional machinery of the European Union (EU) to pave the way for enlargement. It was agreed at the European Council meeting in Nice, France, in December 2000 and...

Nicene Creed
One of the fundamental creeds of Christianity, drawn up by the Council of Nicaea, a meeting of bishops in AD 325. The Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical (worldwide) council. The church...

Nicephorus, St
(c. 758-829) Patriarch of Constantinople from 806. He defended the use and veneration of images against the iconoclasts, and was banished to a monastery in Asia in 816. As well as his writings on the image...

Nicholas I
(1796-1855) Tsar of Russia from 1825. His Balkan ambitions led to war with Turkey 1827-29 and the Crimean War 1853-56. ...

Nicholas I of Montenegro
(1841-1921) King of Montenegro 1910-1918. He was proclaimed prince after the assassination of his uncle, Prince Danilo I, in 1860. Montenegrin independence was recognized in 1878, and in 1900 Nicholas took...

Nicholas II
(1868-1918) Tsar of Russia 1894-1917. He was dominated by his wife, Tsarina Alexandra, who was under the influence of the religious charlatan Rasputin. His mismanagement of the Russo-Japanese War and of...

Nicholas III
(c. 1216-1280) Pope 1277-80. He strengthened papal power in Italy, made a new constitution for Rome, and made the Vatican the official residence. ...

Nicholas IV
(1227-1292) Pope 1288-92. His main object was the recovery of the Holy Land by crusades. The college of cardinals acquired independence by his financial reforms. ...

Nicholas of Cusa
(1401-1464) German philosopher, involved in the transition from scholasticism to the philosophy of modern times. He argued that knowledge is learned ignorance (docta ignorantia) since God, the ultimate object...

Nicholas of Hereford
(lived 1390) English Lollard preacher and writer. A close friend and supporter of the religious reformer John Wycliffe, he was excommunicated...

Nicholas, John
(c. 1757-1819) US representative. A graduate of William and Mary and a lawyer, he served in Congress (Republican, Virginia; 1793-1801), leaving to pursue farming and preside as common pleas judge (1806-19) in...

Nicholas, St
(lived 4th century) In the Christian church, patron saint of Russia, children, merchants, sailors, and pawnbrokers; bishop of Myra (now in Turkey). His legendary gifts of dowries to poor girls led to the custom of...

Nicholas, Wilson Cary
(1761-1820) US representative, senator, and governor. Born in Williamsburg, Virginia, the son of Robert Carter Nicholas, a prominent Virginian official, he served with George Washington's personal guard unit in...

Nichols, Grace
(1950) Guyanese poet. She won acclaim for her first collection I is a long memoried woman (1983), which was awarded the Commonwealth Poetry Prize; it was followed by The Fat Black Woman's Poems (1984). Her...

Nichols, Mike
(1931) German-born stage/film director, writer, and comedian. Nichols first moved to national attention with An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May (1960), with its wry spoofs of everyday and...

Nichols, Peter Richard
(1927) English dramatist. His plays often incorporate music and comedy, though his themes are serious. His first stage play, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1967), explored the life of a couple with a...

Nicholson, (Rose) Winifred
(1893-1981) English painter. Initially employing a figurative style, she began to experiment with abstraction after 1931. She worked in Paris, Lugano, India, and Scottish Hebrides, before moving to Cumbria, and...

Nicholson, Ben(jamin Lauder)
(1894-1982) English abstract artist. After early experiments influenced by cubism and the Dutch De Stijl group, Nicholson developed an elegant style of geometrical reliefs, notably a series of white reliefs...

Nicholson, Francis
(1655-1728) English-born colonial governor. He had a broad, far-ranging career, as governor or lieutenant-governor of five colonial areas (New York, Virginia, Maryland, Nova Scotia, South Carolina) during...

Nicholson, William Newzam Prior
(1872-1949) English artist. He painted landscapes, portraits, and still lifes. Under the name `The Beggarstaff Brothers`, he also developed the art of poster design in partnership with his...

Nicias
(lived 4th century BC) Greek painter, active in Athens. According to the Roman writer Pliny, he was employed by the sculptor Praxiteles to paint marble statues - a common practice in ancient Greek art. ...

Nicias
(c. 470-413 BC) Athenian politician and general. During the Peloponnesian War he negotiated the short-lived Peace of Nicias between Sparta and Athens 421 BC. He was placed in command of the Sicilian expedition...

Nicodemus
(lived 1st century AD) In the New Testament, a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin (supreme court in Jerusalem), a `man of authority among the Jews`. Jesus won his secret allegiance and described new birth in the...

Nicolai, Christoph Friedrich
(1733-1811) German author and bookseller. With his friend Gotthold Lessing he established the journal Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend 1759-65. His works include Beschreibung einer Reise durch...

Nicole, Pierre
(1625-1695) French Jansenist theologian and philosopher. His works include Moral Essays and Theological Instructions (1671-78) and Treatise on Human Faith and the Perpetuity of Faith in the Catholic Church...

Nicoll, John Ramsay Allardyce
(1894-1976) English literary historian. A leading authority on the development of drama, he wrote various histories revised as A History of English Drama 1660-1900 1952-59, as well as The Development of the...

Nicolson, Adela Florence
Real name of English poet Laurence Hope. ...

Nicolson, Harold George
(1886-1968) English author and diplomat. His works include biographies -Lord Carnock (1930), Curzon: The Last Phase (1934), and King George V (1952) - and studies such as Monarchy (1962), as well as the...

Nicolson, Marjorie Hope
(1894-1981) US literary critic. She revealed the effect of philosophy and scientific discoveries on 17th-century poetry in such scholarly works as Newton Demands the Muse (1947). She taught at Smith College...

Nicomachus of Thebes
(lived c. 400 BC) Greek painter. Although none of his works survive, his reputation in antiquity was very high, his paintings being praised by the Roman writers Cicero and Pliny. Works attributed to him include...

Nicomedes I
(lived 3rd century BC) King of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, about 279-255 BC. He was the eldest son and successor of Zippoetes. He founded the city of Nicomedia. ...

Nicomedes II
(lived 2nd century BC) King of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, from 149 to about 127 BC. He killed his father, King Prusias II, and seized the throne. ...