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

Olitsky, Jules
(1922) Russian-born painter. A colour-field painter using staining techniques and spray paint, he taught at C W Post College, New York (1956-63), and at...

Olivares, Count-Duke of
(1587-1645) Spanish prime minister 1621-43. He overstretched Spain in foreign affairs and unsuccessfully attempted domestic reform. He committed Spain to recapturing the Netherlands and to involvement in the...

olive branch
Ancient symbol of peace; in the Bible (Genesis 9), an olive branch is brought back by the dove to Noah to show that the flood has abated. ...

Olive Branch Petition
In the American Revolution 1776, the final effort by the colonists to conciliate the British government, after the outbreak of hostilities. The petition was not allowed to be presented, and the only...

Olives, Mount of
Range of hills east of Jerusalem, associated with the Christian religion: a former chapel (now a mosque) marks the traditional site of Jesus' ascension to heaven, with the Garden of Gethsemane at...

Olivetan, Pierre Robert
(c 1506-1538) French Protestant reformer. A cousin of John Calvin, whose religious development he directly influenced, he was a scholar of Greek and Hebrew. On his conversion to Protestantism he abandoned his...

Olivier, Laurence (Kerr)
(1907-1989) English actor and director. For many years associated with the Old Vic Theatre, he was director of the National Theatre company 1962-73 (see National Theatre, Royal). His stage roles include Henry...

Ollenhauer, Erich
(1901-1963) German politician, chair of the Social Democrats (SDP) from 1952. He succeeded Kurt Schumacher as SDP chair and guided the party towards a more moderate and popular stance in the country. Ollenhauer...

Olmec
First civilization of Mesoamerica and thought to be the mother culture of the Mayans. It developed in the coastal zone south of Vera Cruz and in adjacent Tabasco 1200-400 BC. The Olmecs built a...

Olmstead v. US
US Supreme Court decision of 1928 dealing with the legality of telephone wiretapping in criminal investigations. The petitioner, a man convicted of selling alcohol illegally, appealed...

Olmsted, Frederick Law
(1822-1903) US landscape designer. Appointed superintendent of New York's Central Park 1857, Olmsted and his partner Calvert Vaux directed its design and construction. After the American Civil War 1861-65, he...

Olmsted, John Charles
(1852-1920) Swiss-born landscape architect. Born in Geneva, he was adopted by his uncle, the landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, when he was seven. He worked on survey expeditions in Nevada before...

Olney, Richard
(1835-1917) US Democratic politician. In 1895 he became secretary of state in Grover Cleveland's cabinet. That year he drafted a message insisting that the UK must submit to arbitration over the long-standing...

Olorun
Supreme god of the Yoruba people in Nigeria, who supervised the creation of human beings and gave them life. ...

Olson, Charles John
(1910-1970) US poet and theoretician. He was a leader of the Black Mountain school of experimental poets...

Olson, Floyd (Bjerstjerne)
(1891-1936) US governor. Born in the slums of Minneapolis, Olson became a trial lawyer in 1914, serving as county attorney in the 1920s. As Farmer-Labor Party governor (Minnesota; 1931-36), he secured money...

Olter, Bailey
(1932) Micronesian politician, president 1991-97. In 1979 Olter became vice president of the senate in the first congress of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and in May 1991, standing as a...

Olympia
Painting by the French artist Edouard Manet 1865 (Musé d'Orsay, Paris). As in Déjeuner sur l'herbe, Manet took his theme from an old master - in this case a Venus by Titian (Uffizi, Florence)....

Olympia
Ancient sanctuary in the western Peloponnese, Greece, with a temple of Zeus, stadium (for foot races, boxing, and wrestling) and hippodrome (for chariot and horse races), where the original Olympic...

olympiad
In ancient Greece, the period of four years between each celebration of the Olympic Games. The method of dating by olympiads was used only for literary and historic purposes and was never adopted in...

Olympias
(c. 375-316 BC) Macedonian queen. The daughter of the king of Epirus, she married Philip II of Macedon 357 BC, and was the mother of Alexander the Great. When Philip left her for Cleopatra, niece of Attalus, she is...

Olynthus
Ancient city in Chalcidice, the three-pronged peninsula of Macedonia. It was first inhabited by a Thracian tribe and was later subject to Persia about 512-479 BC. It was then occupied by Greeks...

Om
Sacred word in Hinduism, used to begin prayers and placed at the beginning and end of books. It is composed of three syllables, symbolic of the Hindu Trimurti, or trinity of gods. ...

OM
Abbreviation for Order of Merit. ...

Omaha
Member of an American Indian people, originally from the mid-Atlantic coast, who were pushed from Missouri to Nebraska by the Sioux in the late 17th century. They speak a Siouan language, and were...

Omaha Beach
Beach used in the D-Day landings by the US V Corps 6 June 1944. In the area of Vierville, it was strongly defended and the landing craft and swimming tanks were launched too far out at sea in...

Oman
Country at the southeastern end of the Arabian peninsula, bounded west by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, southeast by the Arabian Sea, and nor ...

Oman, Charles William Chadwick
(1860-1946) English historian. He was professor of modern history at Oxford University 1905-46, specializing in military history. His works include A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages (1898), A...

Omar
Alternative spelling of Umar, 2nd caliph of Islam. ...

Omar Khayyám
(c. 1050-c. 1123) Persian astronomer, mathematician, and poet. In the West, he is chiefly known as a poet through Edward Fitzgerald's version of `The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám` (1859). Khayyám was born in...

Omar, Sheikh Abdel-Rahman
(1938) Egyptian cleric who campaigns for the establishment of a theocratic Muslim state. He is associated with the Gama'a Islamic group. He actively supported the Mujahedin in the Afghan War. During the...

Omayyad dynasty
Alternative spelling of Umayyad dynasty. ...

ombudsman
Official who acts on behalf of the private citizen in investigating complaints against the government. The post is of Scandinavian origin; it was introduced in Sweden in 1809, Denmark in 1954, and...

Omdurman, Battle of
Victory 2 September 1898 of British and Egyptian troops under General Horatio Kitchener over Sudanese tribesmen (Dervishes) led by the Khalifa Abdullah el Taashi. The Khalifa escaped, to be pursued...

Omega Workshops
Group of early 20th-century English artists (1913-20), led by Roger Fry, who brought...

omen
In ancient Greek and Roman religions, signs supposed to indicate good or bad fortune, for example the appearance of snakes or the flight of birds. Omens were interpreted by priests and priestesses. ...

Omer, St
(c. 595-c. 670) French bishop of Thérouanne from 637. His see included the present-day Pas-de-Calais and Flanders, in Belgic Gaul. He was the cofounder of Sithin Abbey, around which grew the town now known...

Ommanney, Erasmus
(1814-1904) English admiral. He took part in the Battle of Navarino in 1827 and discovered the first traces of the fate of the naval explorer John Franklin in 1850. For his scientific researches he received the...

omphalos
In classical antiquity, a conical navel-stone, thought to mark the centre of the world, notably that in the temple of Apollo at Delphi in Greece. ...

On the Road
Novel 1957 by US writer Jack Kerouac. A lyrical, freewheeling, picaresque account of his real-life adventures with Neal Cassady (1920-1968); written with the jazz rhythms of `spontaneous bop...

Onamuchi
Alternative form of Ohonamochi, Japanese god. ...

Onassis, Jacqueline (Jackie Lee)
(1929-1994) French-born socialite, US first lady 1961-63. She was the wife of President John F Kennedy. She married the shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis in 1968. After his death 1975, she worked as an...

Onatas of Aegina
Greek sculptor. He is known to have made a statue of Demeter - called the Black Demeter- for a sacred cave on Mount Elaios, near Phigaleia. ...

Ondaatje, (Philip) Michael
(1943) Ceylon-born Canadian writer. He won the 1992 Booker Prize for his novel The English Patient (filmed 1996) about four people in a villa in Italy at the end of World War II. In 2000 he published...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Novel 1962 by US writer Ken Kesey. Set in a mental asylum ruled by the sadistic Big Nurse, the story describes the attempted overthrow of her regime by McMurphy, a rebellious new patient. The...

one-party state
State in which one political party dominates, constitutionally or unofficially, to the point where there is no effective opposition. There may be no legal alternative parties, as, for example, in...

Oneida
Member of an American Indian people who lived in central New York State and belonged to the Iroquois confederacy. They speak an Iroquoian language. Traditionally the Oneida were maize-farmers and...

Onetti, Juan Carlos
(1909-1994) Uruguyan novelist whose bleak, realist work features protagonists at odds with their shabby, urban surroundings. His novels include El pozo/The Pit 1939 and La vida breve/A Brief Life 1950. He was...

Ongania, Juan Carlos
(1914-1995) Argentine military leader and president 1966-70. He became president following the establishment of the military junta that ousted President Illia in 1966. His authoritarian administration, marked...

Onions, George Oliver
(1873-1961) English novelist. He achieved success with the trilogy In Accordance with the Evidence 1912, The Debit Account 1913, and The Story of Louie 1913. Among his other novels are The Open Secret 1930,...

ontological argument
One of four traditional lines of reasoning to support the existence of God. Crudely, the argument is that God has all perfections; existence is a perfection, so God exists necessarily. The argument...

ontology
Branch of philosophy concerned with the study of being. In the 20th century, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger distinguished between an `ontological` enquiry (an enquiry into `Being`)...

op art
Type of abstract art, mainly painting, in which patterns are used to create the impression that the image is flickering or vibrating. Often pictures are a mass of lines, small shapes, or vivid,...

opaque
In art, paint that is not transparent. Opaque paint, such as gouache, oil, and acrylic is rich and thick in quality, and effectively covers the ground (painting surface), allowing easy overpainting...

OPEC
Acronym for Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries. ...

open shop
Factory or other business employing men and women not belonging to trade unions, as opposed to the closed shop, which employs trade unionists only. ...

open-door policy
Economic philosophy of equal access by all nations to another nation's markets. The term was proposed by US Secretary of State John Hay in September 1899 to allow all nations free access to trade...

open-field system
System of agriculture in lowland areas of England during the Middle Ages. A medieval village would normally have three large fields throughout which each farmer's land was distributed in scattered...

Opequon Creek, Battle of
During the American Civil War, comprehensive Union victory over Confederate forces on 19 September 1864 in the vicinity of Winchester, Virginia. This battle conclusively removed the Shenandoah...

Opie
Husband-and-wife team of folklorists who specialized in the myths and literature of childhood. Their books include the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951) and The Lore and Language of...

Opie, John
(1761-1807) English artist. He was a fashionable portrait painter in London from 1780, his subjects including Dr Johnson and Mary Wollstonecraft, and the political figures Edmund Burke and Charles Fox. He later...

opinion poll
Attempt to measure public opinion by taking a survey of the views of a representative sample of the electorate; the science of opinion sampling is called psephology. Most standard polls take random...

Opitz, Martin
(1597-1639) German poet. His poems (Teutsche Poemata, Weltliche Poemata, Geistliche Poemata) tend to be didactic, cold, and formal. In his Buch von der deutschen Poeterey 1624 he stresses the importance of...

Opium Wars
Two wars, the First Opium War (1839-42) and the Second Opium War (1856-60), waged by Britain against China to enforce the opening of Chinese ports to trade in opium. Opium from British India...

Oppenheim, Edward Phillips
(1866-1946) English novelist. He was a prolific author and a pioneer of the `thriller` genre. Among his books are Mysterious Mr Sabin 1898, Mr Grex of Monte Carlo 1915, The Kingdom of the Blind 1917, The...

Oppenheim, James
(1882-1932) US poet and writer. He wrote sentimental stories and novels to support his family before becoming a poet, as seen in Songs for the New Age (1914). He was also the editor of a literary magazine, The...

Oppenheim, Meret
(1913-1985) German-Swiss painter and designer. She was renowned as the creator of the celebrated surrealist-Dada object Breakfast in Fur 1936 (Museum of Modern Art, New York): a teacup, saucer, and spoon...

opportunity cost
In economics, that which has been forgone in order to achieve an objective. A family may choose to buy a new television set and forgo their annual holiday; the holiday...

Ops
In Roman mythology, the goddess of fertility and plenty, wife of Saturn. ...

optical emission spectrometry
Another term for emission spectroscopy. ...

option
In business, a contract giving the owner the right (as opposed to the obligation, as with futures contracts; see futures trading) to buy or sell a specific quantity of a particular commodity or...

opus anglicanum
Ecclesiastical embroidery made in England about 900-1500. It typically depicts birds and animals on highly coloured silks, using gold thread. It was popular throughout medieval Europe, be ...

Opus Dei
Roman Catholic institution advocating holiness in everyday life. Founded in Madrid in 1928, and still powerful in Spain, it has (1993) more than 1,000 priests and 75,000 lay members of both sexes in...

oracle
Sacred site where a deity gives answers or oracles, through the mouth of its priest, to a supplicant's questions about personal affairs or state policy. These were often ambivalent. There were more...

Orage, Alfred Richard
(1873-1934) English journalist. With the literary historian and critic Holbrook Jackson (1874-1948) he took over the editorship of the New Age, which became a forum for the views of the best-known...

oral literature
Stories that are or have been transmitted in spoken form, such as public recitation, rather than through writing or printing. Most pre-literate societies have had a tradition of oral literature,...

Orange Order
In Northern Ireland, solely Protestant organization founded in County Armagh in 1795 in opposition to the Defenders, a Catholic secret society. It was a revival of the Orange Institution founded in...

Orange, House of
Royal family of the Netherlands. The title is derived from the small principality of Orange in southern France, held by the family from the 8th century to 1713. They held considerable possessions in...

Orangeman
In Northern Ireland, a member of one of the Ulster Protestant Orange Societies established within the Orange Order (founded 1795). ...

Oratorian
Member of the Roman Catholic order of secular priests, called in full Congregation of the Oratory of St Philip Neri, formally constituted by Philip Neri in 1575 in Rome, and characterized by the...

Orcagna, Andrea
(1308-1368) Florentine painter, sculptor, and architect. He was to some extent a follower of Giotto, though his style marks a rejection of Giotto's monumental simplicity and a return to the rich and decorative...

Orchardson, William Quiller
(1835-1910) Scottish painter. He became popular with his scenes of upper-class life, for example Marriage of Convenance 1883 (Glasgow City Art Gallery), and anecdotal history scenes, such as Napoleon on Board...

Orchomenus
Ancient city in Boeotia, central Greece. At one time it was the capital of a powerful prehistoric mainland and maritime kingdom but was later overshadowed by Thebes. Excavations have revealed...

Orchomenus
Ancient city in Arcadia, southern Greece. ...

ordeal, trial by
In tribal societies and in Europe in medieval times, a method of testing the guilt of an accused person based on the belief in heaven's protection of the innocent. Examples of such ordeals include...

order
In classical architecture, the column (including capital, shaft, and base) and the entablature, considered as an architectural whole. The five orders are Doric, Ionic,...

order
Pattern of behaviour by the members of a society that is conducive to stability and coexistence. Normally associated with some system of rules, as implied by the phrase `law and order`. Like...

order in council
In the UK, an order issued by the sovereign with the advice of the Privy Council;...

Order of Merit
British order of chivalry founded in 1902 by Edward VII and limited in number to 24 at any one time within the British Isles, plus additional honorary OMs for overseas peoples. It ranks below a...

Order of the Golden Dawn
Group of theosophists in Britain who were interested in the magic and ritual of the Kabbalah. The organization existed from the end of the 19th century to 1939. Among its members were the Irish poet...

Ordericus Vitalis
(1075-c. 1142) Anglo-Norman monk and historian. His Historia Ecclesiastica (1123-41), dealing mostly with England and Normandy, is an important source for the political and ecclesiastical history of his time. ...

Ordinances, the
In England, demands made by the baronial opponents of Edward II 1311. The 41 demands were designed to weaken the powers of the monarchy and strengthen the role of the barons in government. They...

ordinary share
Type of share in a company. Ordinary shareholders receive a variable rate of dividend. When company profits are high, the dividends will be high also. If the company is doing badly, it may well...

ordination
Religious ceremony by which a person is accepted into the priesthood or monastic life in various religions. Within the Christian church, ordination authorizes a person...

Ordovices
Celtic tribe in central and northwest Wales which resisted Roman occupation AD 43-78. They supported Caractacus. Their frequent revolts eventually subsided AD 78, but they remained under a form of...

oread
In Greek mythology, a nymph of hills and rocks. ...

Orellana, Francisco de
(c. 1500-c. 1549) Spanish explorer who travelled with Francesco Pizarro from Guayaquil, on...

Oresme, Nicole (or Nicolas)
(c. 1320-1382) French medieval philosopher and prelate of Normandy. He became grand master of the college of Navarre in 1355, dean of Rouen in 1364, and finally bishop of Lisieux in 1377, after having been tu ...

Oresteia
Trilogy of tragic Greek plays by Aeschylus- ...

Orestes
In Greek mythology, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who killed his mother on the instructions of Apollo because she and her lover Aegisthus had murdered his father. He was subsequently...