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

October Revolution
Second stage of the Russian Revolution 1917, when, on the night of 24 October (6 November in the Western calendar), the Bolshevik forces under Trotsky, and on orders from Lenin, seized the Winter...

October War
Surprise attack on Israel October 1973 by Egypt and Syria; see Arab-Israeli Wars. ...

Octobrists
Group of Russian liberal constitutional politicians who accepted the reforming October Manifesto instituted by Tsar Nicholas II after the 1905 revolution and rejected more radical reforms. ...

od
Hypothetical luminous radiation emitted from every object, animate or inanimate. The theory was developed by a German industrial chemist, Baron Karl von Reichenbach (1788-1869). Over a number of...

ODA
Abbreviation for Overseas Development Administration. ...

Oddsson, David
(1948) Icelandic politician, prime minister 1991-2004. A member of the right-of-centre Independence Party, he was made vice chair of the party in 1989 and chair in 1991, when he succeeded Thorsteinn...

ode
Lyric poem with complex rules of structure. Odes originated in ancient Greece, where they were chanted to a musical accompaniment. Classical writers of odes include Sappho, Pindar, Horace, and...

Odell, Jonathan
(1737-1818) American colonist loyal to the British crown during the revolution. He wrote satirical verses against those who led the war for independence and in favour of the British cause, such as The American...

Oder-Neisse Line
Border between Poland and East Germany agreed at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 at the end of World War II, and named after the two rivers that formed the frontier. ...

Odets, Clifford
(1906-1963) US playwright. He was associated with the Group Theater and was the most renowned of the social-protest dramatists of the Depression era. His plays include Waiting for Lefty (1935), about a taxi...

Odin
Chief god of Norse mythology, god of war, and the source of wisdom. A sky god, he lived in Asgard at the top of the world-tree Yggdrasil. From the Valkyries, his divine maidens, he received the...

Odinga, (Ajuma) Oginga
(1912-1994) Kenyan politician. He promoted Kenyan independence and Jomo Kenyatta as the nationalist leader. In 1960 he became vice-president of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and was involved in...

Odo of Beauvais, St
(801-880) French Benedictine monk, tutor to the sons of the late Frankish ruler Charles Martel. He was appointed bishop of Beauvais in 861, and his reforms had great influence on the whole church of northern...

Odo of Cluny, St
(c. 879-942) French abbot. In 909 he became a Benedictine at Baume, and in 927 abbot of Cluny. Under his government the monastery began to exert its influence throughout France and in Italy, and greatly enhanced...

Odoacer
(c. 433-493) King of Italy from 476, when he deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman emperor. He was a leader of the barbarian mercenaries employed by Rome. He was overthrown and killed by Theodoric the...

Odoric
(1286-1331) Italian monk. He became a missionary and travelled over the greater part of Asia. An account is contained in his Life and Travels, published after his death. ...

Odoyevsky, Vladimir
(1804-1869) Russian writer whose works include tales of the supernatural, science fiction, satires, children's stories, and music criticism. ...

Odrerir
In Norse mythology, the cauldron containing a magic potion described as the mead of poets. It gave wisdom, knowledge of runes and magic charms, and the gift of making poetry to...

Odría Amoretti, Manuel Apolinário
(1897-1974) Peruvian politician and president 1948-56. He assumed power after a coup but was formally elected in 1950. He assumed dictatorial powers and imposed a repressive regime on the opposition parties....

Odysseus
Chief character of Homer's Odyssey, king of the island of Ithaca (modern Thiaki or Levkas); he is also mentioned in the Iliad as one of the leaders of the Greek forces at the siege of Troy. Odysseus...

Odyssey
Greek epic poem; the product of an oral tradition, it was probably written before 700 BC and is attributed to Homer. It describes the voyage home of Odysseus after the fall of Troy, and the...

Oe, Kenzaburo
(1935) Japanese novelist. Involved in leftist politics in Japan, he has explored the situation of culturally disinherited post-war youth. His works include Kojinteki-na taiken/A Personal Matter (1964),...

OECD
Abbreviation for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. ...

Oedipus
In Greek mythology, king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father, Laius, and married his mother, OEEC
Abbreviation for Organization for European Economic Cooperation. ...

Oehlenschläger, Adam Gottlob
(1779-1850) Danish poet and playwright. His volume of Digte/Poems 1803, containing the symbolic Guldhornene/The Golden Horns, established him as the le ...

Oenslager, Donald (Mitchell)
(1902-1975) US set designer. Along with Jo Mielziner and Robert Edmond Jones, he is credited as one of the creators of a new kind of less realistic, more symbolic theatrical design, although his designs tended...

Oertel, Johannes (Adam Simon)
(1823-1909) Painter. Born in Fürth, Bavaria, Oertel emigrated to Newark, New Jersey in 1848.He worked as an engraver of banknotes (1852-57), became an Episcopalian deacon (1867), and served in many parishes....

Offa
(died c. 796) King of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia (west-central England) 757-97. He conquered Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Surrey; defeated the Welsh and the West Saxons; and established Mercian supremacy...

Offa's Dyke
Defensive earthwork dyke along the English-Welsh border, of which there are remains from the mouth of the River Dee to that of the River Severn. It was built about AD 785 by King Offa of Mercia,...

Offer
Regulatory body in the UK that supervises the privatized electricity companies. It was established under the Competition and Service (Utilities) Act 1992, as a means of controlling the monopolistic...

Offertory
The fourth part of the Roman Catholic Mass Proper, in which the bread and wine are placed on the altar, preceding the Credo and Communion. In musical terms, a psalm in the form of a plainsong was...

Office of Strategic Services
US intelligence organization operating agents and assisting resistance movements in German-occupied Europe during World War II. It was the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. ...

Official Secrets Act
UK act of Parliament 1989, prohibiting the disclosure of confidential material from government sources by employees; it remains an absolute offence for a member or former member of the security and...

Offner, Richard
(1889-1965) Austrian-born art historian. A specialist in Italian Renaissance art, he divided his time between New York, New York, and Florence, Italy, teaching at New York University (1923-60). Offner was...

Offutt Air Force Base
Military installation just outside Bellevue, Nebraska, USA, 13 km/8 mi southeast of Omaha; population (1990) 10,900. After World War II, it became the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command...

Ofgas
Acronym for Office of Gas Security, a regulatory body in the UK that supervises the privatized gas industry. It was established under the Competition and Service (Utilities) Act 1992, as a means of...

Ofili, Chris
(1968) British artist. He is the first painter since 1985, and the first black artist ever, to win the Turner Prize (1998). His work reflects his African heritage and incorporates elements of popular...

Oftel
Acronym for Office of Telecommunications, a regulatory body in the UK that supervises the privatized telephone industry. It w ...

Ofwat
Acronym for Office of Water Services, a regulatory body in the UK that supervises the privatized water companies. It was established under the Competition and Service (Utilities) Act 1992, as a...

Ogaden
Desert region in southeastern Ethiopia, between the Ethiopian Highlands and the border with Somalia. It is a desert plateau, rising to 1,000 m/3,280 ft, inhabited mainly by Somali nomads practising...

Ogata, Korin
(1658-1716) Japanese painter and designer. His style is highly decorative, typically combining brightly coloured, naturalistic and stylized elements against a gold background. Iris Screen from the early 18th...

Ogden, Peter Skeene
(1790-1854) Canadian fur trader and explorer. As chief trader for the Hudson's Bay Company, Ogden led six trapping expeditions between 1824 and 1830 to...

ogee
In architecture, a moulding formed by two curves, the upper concave and the lower convex. As an adjective `ogee` is frequently applied to a type of pointed arch. ...

Ogg, Frederic (Austin)
(1878-1951) US political scientist. A prolific writer, he authored and co-authored many articles and books on world politics; two textbooks, Introduction to...

ogham
Early Celtic alphabet, comprising in its basic form 20 letters made up of straight lines at a right angle or an oblique angle to a base line. It has been found in Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland, and...

Ogier le Danois
Hero of an ancient French epic tradition. He figures in Ariosto'sOrlando furioso and other romantic tales and poems. Explanations for his surname include his Danish origins, or that he took it after...

ogive
In architecture, the French name for a pointed arch. The ribs which in Gothic vaulting cross the vault diagonally are known as `ogive ribs` in France. ...

Oglethorpe, James Edward
(1696-1785) English soldier and colonizer of Georgia, USA. He served in parliament for 32 years and in 1732 obtained a charter for the colony of Georgia, intended as a refuge for...

Ogletree, Charles J, Jr
(1952) US professor and lawyer. A graduate of Stanford (1974) and Harvard Law School (1978), he worked with the District of Columbia Public Defender Service (1978-82; deputy director, 1984-85), then...

Ogoni
An ethnic minority of about 500,000 (1990) occupying an impoverished area of about 350 sq mi in the Niger river delta of Nigeria. The Ogoni speak Khana, Gokama, and Eleme languages that form a...

OGPU
Name 1923-34 of the Soviet secret police, later the KGB. ...

Ohlin, Bertil
(1899-1979) Swedish economist and political leader. He shared the 1977 Nobel Prize for Economics with the English economist James Meade for contributions to the theory of international trade. Ohlin first made a...

Ohlin, Lloyd E
(1918) US criminologist and educator. A sociologist who focused on both adult and juvenile crime, he taught longest at Harvard (1967). He was special assistant to the secretary for juvenile delinquency,...

OHMS
Abbreviation for On Her (His) Majesty's Service. ...

Ohnet, Georges
(1848-1918) French author. Among his novels are Serge Panine 1881, Le Maître de forges 1882, La Grande marnière 1885, Dette de haine 1891, La Femme en gris 1895, and Le Crépuscule 1902. ...

Ohonamochi
In Japanese mythology, god of the earth, son of Susano-Wo. He is sometimes identified with Daikoku, god of wealth. ...

Ohr, George Edgar
(1857-1918) US potter. An eccentric original known as the `mad potter of Biloxi`, he set up his own workshop in 1883 and when it burned in 1894, he replaced it with a landmark pagoda-like structure. Far...

OIC
Abbreviation for Organization of the Islamic Conference, international Muslim solidarity association. ...

oil paint
Painting medium in which ground pigment (colour) is bound with oil, usually linseed. It has the advantage of being slow to dry and therefore reworkable. Oil paint can be applied with a brush or a...

Oireachtas
Name of the legislature or parliament of the Republic of Ireland. It consists of the president of the Republic, a lower house called Dáil Éireann, and a senate called Seanad Éireann. ...

Oisin
Celtic name for the legendary hero Ossian. ...

Ojibwa
Alternative name for the Chippewa American Indian people. ...

Ojukwu, (Chukwuemeka) Odumegwu
(1933) Nigerian politician and soldier. Appointed military governor of the mainly Ibo-speaking Eastern Region of Nigeria following the 1966 coup, he proclaimed the Eastern Region the independent Republic...

Okasura, Kakuzo
(1862-1913) Japanese art theorist and curator. He was a defender of traditional Japanese values against the influx of western ideas. His most influential work was the Book of Tea 1906, which introduced the USA,...

Oklahoma Land Run
Race undertaken by American homesteaders to claim plots of land in the former Indian Territory of Oklahoma, USA, on 22 April 1889. Over 800,000 ha/2 million acres of unassigned land in Oklahoma...

Okri, Ben
(1959) Nigerian novelist, short-story writer, broadcaster, and journalist. He uses magic realism to reflect Nigeria's political turmoil. His novel The Famished Road won the Booker Prize in 1991....

Okubo, Toshimichi
(1831-1878) Japanese samurai leader from Satsuma province in southern Japan, whose opposition to the Tokugawa shogunate made him a leader in the Meiji restoration 1866-88. He served as finance and home...

Okuma, Shigenobu
(1838-1922) Japanese politician and prime minister 1898 and 1914-16. He presided over Japanese pressure for territorial concessions in China, before retiring in 1916. Holding a series of ministerial...

Okuni-Nushi
Alternative form of Ohonamochi, Japanese god. ...

Olaf (I) Tryggvesson
(c. 969-1000) King of Norway from 995. He began the conversion of Norway to Christianity and was killed in a sea battle against the Danes and Swedes. ...

Olaf (II) Haraldsson
(c. 995-1030) King of Norway from 1015. He offended his subjects by his centralizing policy and zeal for Christianity, and was killed in battle by Norwegian rebel chiefs backed by Canute of Denmark. He was...

Olaf V
(1903-1991) King of Norway from 1957, when he succeeded his father, Haakon VII. After the German invasion of Norway 1940 Olav, as crown prince, became a rallying point for his compatriots by holding out against...

Olbrich, Joseph Maria
(1867-1908) Viennese architect. He worked under Otto Wagner and was opposed to the over-ornamentation of art nouveau. His major buildings, however, remain art nouveau in spirit: the Vienna Sezession...

Old Bailey
Popular name for the Central Criminal Court in London, situated in a street of that name in the City of London, off Ludgate Hill. ...

Old Believers
Section of the Russian Orthodox Church that was excommunicated 1667 for refusing to accept the liturgical reforms of the Moscow Patriarch Nikon, particularly the new way of crossing oneself during...

Old Catholic
One of various breakaway groups from Roman Catholicism, including those in the Netherlands (such as the Church of Utrecht, which separated from Rome in 1724 after accusations of Jansenism); and...

Old Contemptibles
Name adopted by British soldiers who survived the retreat from Mons in 1914 and other early battles of World War I. The name came from Kaiser Wilhelm's angry outburst at his forces in Belgium being...

Old English literature
Prose and poetry in the various dialects of Old English written between AD 449 and 1066. Poetry (alliterative, without rhyme) was composed and delivered orally; much has therefore been lost. What...

Old Man of the Sea
In the Arabian Nights, a man who compels strangers to carry him until they drop, encountered by Sinbad the Sailor on his fifth voyage. Sinbad escapes by getting him drunk. In Greek mythology, the...

Old Moore's Almanac
Annual publication in the UK containing prophecies of the events of the following year. It was first published in 1700 under the title Vox Stellarum/Voices of the Stars, by Francis Moore (1657-c....

Old Pretender
Nickname of James Edward Stuart, the son of James II of England. ...

Old Style
Qualification, often abbreviated to `OS`, of dates before the year 1752 in England as quoted in later writings. In that year the calendar in use in England was reformed by the omission of 11...

Old Testament
Christian term for the Hebrew Bible, a collection of Jewish scriptures that form the first part of the Christian Bible. Gathered over many centuries, it contains 39...

old-age pension
Regular payment made by the state or a private institution to persons who have reached a specified age and are eligible for such assistance. As part of German chancellor Bismarck's `state...

Oldcastle, John
(died 1417) English Lollard and rebel. He helped to suppress Owen Glendower's Welsh rising...

Oldcastle, John
Pseudonym of English writer Wilfred Meynell. ...

Oldenbarneveldt, Johan van
(1547-1619) Dutch politician, a leading figure in the Netherlands' struggle for independence from Spain. He helped William the Silent negotiate the Union of Utrecht in 1579. As leader of the Republican party he...

Oldenburg, Claes Thure
(1929) Swedish-born US pop artist. He organized happenings and made assemblages, but is best known for `soft sculptures`: gigantic replicas of everyday objects and foods, made of stuffed canvas or...

Older, Fremont
(1856-1935) US journalist. As managing editor of the San Francisco Bulletin (1895-1918), he waged a crusade against political bosses and the Southern Pacific Railway; he later edited the San Francisco Call....

Oldfather, William Abbott
(1880-1945) Classicist. His work was strongly influenced by the classicists at the University of Munich, where he took his PhD (1908). He founded and expanded the classics library at the University of Illinois,...

Oldfield, Anne (Nance)
(1683-1730) English actor. Recognized as one of the most brilliant actors of her day, she created a number of leading roles, including Jane Shore in the play of the same name by Nicholas Rowe in 1714, but...

Oldfield, William Allan
(1874-1928) US representative. A Spanish-American War veteran and lawyer (1900-09), in congress (Democrat, Arkansas; 1909-28), he chaired the Committee on Patents and became minority whip. Oldfield was...

Olds, Leland
(1890-1960) US economist and public official. He was an industrial editor for the Federated Press news service (1922-29). As head of the New York State Power Authority (1931-39) and the Federal Power...

Olga, St
(c. 890-c. 969) Wife of Igor, the Scandinavian prince of Kiev. Her baptism around 955 was a decisive step in the Christianization of Russia. ...

Olier, Jean-Jacques
(1608-1657) French cleric. He founded the seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris and a congregation of priests named after it. ...

oligarchy
Rule of the few, in their own interests. It was first identified as a form of government by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. In modern times there have been a number of oligarchies, sometimes posing...

oligopoly
In economics, a situation in which a few companies control the major part of a particular market. For example, in the UK the two largest soap-powder companies, Procter & Gamble and Unilever,...

Oliphant, Laurence
(1829-1888) English travel writer and mystic. His many books include Journey to Khatmandu (1852), Minnesota and the Far West (1855), Patriots and Filibusters (1860), and the witty and ironic picture of...

Oliphant, Margaret
(1828-1897) Scottish writer. The author of 98 novels, 25 nonfictional works, 50 short stories, and 300 articles, she was one of the first women writers to live entirely by writing, which she did while bringing...