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

Orford, 1st Earl of
Title of the British politician Robert Walpole. ...

Organ, (Harold) Bryan
(1935) English portraitist. He works in a solidly traditional style although his portraits often have a modern air in their informality of pose. His subjects have included Harold Macmillan, Michael...

organdie
Fabric of fine cotton muslin. Organza is a similar fabric, made of silk. They are used for children's party dresses of the kind designed by Jeanne Lanvin. ...

organicism
In political philosophy, a theory about the nature of the state, describing and explaining the state in terms of a living organism. The theory owes much to the ancient Greek political philosophers,...

Organization de l'Armée Secrète
Guerrilla organization formed in 1961 by French settlers devoted to perpetuating their own rule in Algeria (Algérie Française). It collapsed on the imprisonment 1962-68 of its leader, General...

Organization of American States
Association founded in 1948 at Bogotá, Colombia by a charter signed by representatives of North, Central, and South American states. It aims to maintain peace...

organized crime
See crime, organized. ...

Oriani, Alfredo
(1852-1909) Italian novelist and essayist. A precursor of the fascists, he preached that Italy needed real unity and that there was too much regionalism, ideas which were set forth in La lotta politica in...

origami
The art of folding paper into forms such as dolls and birds, originating in Japan in the 10th century. ...

original sin
Christian doctrine that the Fall of Man rendered humanity predisposed to sin and unable to achieve salvation except through divine grace and the redemptive power of Jesus. ...

Orion
In Greek mythology, a giant of Boeotia, famed as a hunter. He is the subject of the earliest known star-myth; his transformation after death into the constellation Orion...

Orisha Nla
First of the lesser gods (Orisha) of the Yoruba people of Nigeria, and subject to Olorun, on whose orders he undertook the tasks of the creation of Earth and living things. ...

Oriya
The majority ethnic group living in the Indian state of Orissa. Oriya is Orissa's official language; it belongs to the Eastern group of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. ...

Orizonte
(1662-c. 1740) Flemish painter active in Italy. He was a follower of Poussin and particularly noted for his sensitive landscape paintings. Two of his brothers were painters:Pieter van Bloemen, called...

Orkney Causeway
Construction in northern Scotland, put up in World War II, completed in 1943, joining four of the Orkney Islands. It was built to protect the British fleet from intrusion through the eastern...

Orlando Furioso
Poem written in 1516 by Ludovico Ariosto, first published in 1516 (revised 1522, 1532) as a sequel to Matteo Maria Boiardo's ...

Orlando, Vittorio Emanuele
(1860-1952) Italian politician, prime minister 1917-19. He attended the Paris peace conference after World War I, but dissatisfaction with his handling of the Adriatic settlement led to his resignation. ...

Orleanists
French monarchist group that supported the Orléans branch of the royal family in opposition to the Bourbon Legitimists. Both groups were united 1883 when the Bourbon line died out. ...

Orléans, Battle of
During the Hundred Years' War, English defeat by the French October 1428-May 1429. The English were rapidly conquering France at this stage of the war until this victory turned the tide of French...

Orlèans, Siege of
Siege by English forces during the Hundred Years' War of the well-fortified and strategically important city of Orlèans, in central France, from 12 October 1428 until 8 May 1429, when Joan of Arc...

Orley, Bernard van
(1490-1541) Flemish painter and tapestry designer. Although he probably never visited Italy, Orley, like his rival Jan Gossaert, helped to introduce High Renaissance motifs and styles to Flemish art. His...

ormolu
Alloy of copper, zinc, and sometimes tin, used for furniture decoration. ...

Ormond
See Butlers of Ormond. ...

Ormond, James Butler
(1665-1745) Irish nobleman and military commander, grandson of James Butler, 12th earl and 1st Duke of Ormond. He led William III's Life Guards at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and under Queen Anne was twice...

Ormuzd
Another name for Ahura Mazda, the good god of Zoroastrianism. ...

Oromo
A group of East African peoples, especially of southern Ethiopia, who speak a Hamito-Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) language. ...

Orozco, José Clemente
(1883-1949) Mexican muralist painter. His work was inspired by the Mexican revolution of 1910, such as the series in the Palace of Government, Guadalajara, 1949. Mankind's Struggle 1930 (New School for Social...

Orpen, William Newenham Montague
(1878-1931) Irish painter. He is noted for his many portraits, his genre scenes, and his interiors with figures, such as Hommage à Manet 1907 (Manchester City Art Gallery), all his works showing great...

Orpheus
Mythical Greek poet and musician of Thrace; the son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope. Orpheus ventured into Hades, the underworld, to bring back his wife Eurydice, who had died from a snakebite. His...

Orphism
Type of abstract or semi-abstract painting practised by a group of artists in Paris between 1911 and 1914. Orphism owed much to the fragmented forms of cubism (indeed it is sometimes called Orphic...

Orphism
Ancient Greek mystery religion of which the Orphic hymns, poems attributed to the legendary poet Orpheus, formed a part. The cult...

Orsini, Felice
(1819-1858) Italian political activist, a member of the Carbonari secret revolutionary group, who attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate Napoleon III in Paris January 1858. He was subsequently executed, but...

Ortega Saavedra, Daniel
(1945) Nicaraguan guerrilla leader and socialist politician, head of state 1979-90. He headed a moderate faction of the Marxist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which in 1989 overthrew the...

Ortega y Gasset, José
(1883-1955) Spanish philosopher and critic. He considered communism and fascism the cause of the downfall of Western civilization. His Toward a Philosophy of History (1941) contains philosophical reflections on...

Ortelius (or Oertel), Abraham
(1527-1598) Dutch mapmaker and printer. He published what has been called the first modern atlas, his Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570). It consisted of engravings by various cartographers, including Georg...

Orthodox Church
Federation of national and regional self-governing Christian churches, mainly found in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. The final schism between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church...

Orthodox Judaism
Branch of Judaism that asserts the supreme authority of the Torah and the Talmud, including the Halachah (oral legal tradition). Orthodox Jews form the majority in Judaism. Ultra-Orthodox sects...

Orti Oricellari
An informal academy of Italian writers, artists and scholars who met in Florence in the early years of the 16th century. The group was a continuation of the Florentine Academy, and met in the Orti...

Ortiz, Alfonso Alex
(1939) Educator and cultural anthropologist. The author of studies of Pueblo Indian societies, including The Tewa World (1969), he also compiled and edited an anthology of American Indian poetry. Ortiz was...

Ortiz, Simon (Joseph)
(1941) Poet and writer. An Acoma Pueblo Indian, he was educated through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, attended Fort Lewis College (1961-62), the University...

Orton, James
(1830-1877) US zoologist and explorer. He made three expeditions to South America (1867, 1883, 1876) and described the geology and physical geography of the areas he saw in The Andes and...

Orton, Joe (John Kingsley)
(1933-1967) English dramatist. In his black comedies, surreal and violent action takes place in genteel and unlikely settings. Plays include Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964), Loot (1966), and What the Butler Saw...

Orunmila
Benevolent god of divination of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. The name means `Heaven knows Salvation.` ...

Orwell, George
(1903-1950) English writer. His books include the satirical fable Animal Farm (1945), an attack on the Soviet Union and its leader, Stalin, which includes such slogans as `All animals are equal, but some are...

Osage
Member of an American Indian people who originally inhabited the Ohio River Valley, but had migrated to western Missouri by the 17th century. Their language, almost extinct, belongs to the Siouan...

Osawatomie
Town in Miami County, eastern-central Kansas, on the Marais des Cygnes River, 75 km/47 mi southwest of Kansas City; population (1990) 4,600. It is a rail distribution point for grain and fruit....

Osborne House
House on the Isle of Wight, England, 1.6 km/1 mi southeast of Cowes. It was the preferred residence of Queen Victoria, for whom it was built in 1845. The house was designed by Prince Albert and...

Osborne Judgement
UK legal ruling of 1909 that prevented trade unions from using membership subscriptions to finance the Labour Party. In 1913 the judgement was negated by the Trade Union Act, which permitted them to...

Osborne, Dorothy, Lady Temple
(1627-1695) English letter-writer. In 1655 she married the diplomat and essayist Sir William Temple (1628-99). Her letters to him during the separation before their marriage 1652-54...

Osborne, George
(1971) UK Conservative Party politician, shadow chancellor of the exchequer from 2005. He holds traditional conservative and Eurosceptic views but recognizes the need for the Conservative Party, after...

Osborne, John James
(1929-1994) English dramatist. He became one of the first Angry Young Men (anti-establishment writers of the 1950s) of British theatre with his debut play, Look Back in Anger (1956). Other plays include The...

Osborne, Thomas Mott
(1859-1926) US manufacturer and prison reformer. After selling his family's agricultural machinery firm to International Harvester (1903), and founding the Auburn Citizen (1905), a local newspaper, he devoted...

Osborne, Walter
(1859-1903) Irish painter, a leading artist of the later 19th century. Though a successful portraitist, Osborne's first love was landscape where he depicted the scenes from everyday rural and urban life for...

Osbourne, Lloyd
(1868-1947) US novelist. He was the stepson of the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, with whom he collaborated in writing The Wrong Box 1889, The Wrecker 1892, and The Ebb-tide 1894. He published An...

Oscar I
(1799-1859) King of Sweden and Norway from 1844, when he succeeded his father, Charles XIV. He established freedom of the press, and supported Denmark against Germany in 1848. ...

Oscar II
(1829-1907) King of Sweden and Norway 1872-1905, king of Sweden until 1907. He was the younger son of Oscar I, and succeeded his brother Charles XV. He tried hard to prevent the separation of his two kingdoms...

Osceola
(c. 1800-1838) Leader of the Seminole American Indians. Although not a chief, he organized resistance against US efforts to remove the Seminole from their Florida homeland. His warriors' killing of a US agent in...

Osgood, James Ripley
(1836-1892) US publisher. In 1871 he cofounded James R Osgood & Company, an outgrowth of Ticknor & Fields. While retaining many fine authors, it failed financially, and with Osgood's departure (1880), was...

Osh
City and capital of Osh duban (oblast), southwestern Kyrgyzstan, at the eastern end of the Fergana Valley, 50 km/31 mi southeast of Andijon in Uzbekistan; population (1995) 250,000. Osh is...

Osiander, Andreas
(1498-1552) German Protestant cleric. While pastor in Nürnberg he published his Harmony of the Gospels (1537). In 1548 he was appointed lecturer at the new university of Königsberg where he wrote De...

Osiris
Ancient Egyptian god, the embodiment of goodness, who ruled the underworld after being killed by Set. The pharaohs were believed to be his incarnation. The sister-wife of Osiris was Isis or...

Osmeña, Sergio
(1878-1961) Filipino independence leader and politician, president of the Philippines government in exile 1944-46. In 1942, when the Philippines was occupied by Japan, he fled with President Manuel Quezon and...

Osorio, Oscar
(1910-1969) El Salvadorean soldier and politician, member of the Revolutionary Party of Democratic Unification (PRUD), president 1950-56. He introduced centre-left reforms, including the legalization of...

OSS
Abbreviation for Office of Strategic Services. ...

Ossete
Member of a people who speak the Iranian language Ossetic, living in the Caucasus Mountains in Alania and South Ossetia. Most are Orthodox Christians, although some are Sunni Muslims. Ossetes are...

Ossetia
Region in the Caucasus, on the border between Russia and Georgia, comprising the autonomous republic of Alania, formerly North Ossetia, and South Ossetia, an autonomous region of Georgia. It is...

Ossian
Legendary Gaelic hero and bard, claimed by both Ireland and Scotland. He is sometimes represented as the son of ...

Ossietzky, Carl von
(1888-1938) German civil servant, journalist, newspaper editor, and pacifist. Ossietzky was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1935 for his devotion to the cause of pacifism and his dogged determination in...

Ossory
Ancient kingdom, lasting until 1110, in Leinster, Ireland; the name is preserved in some Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic bishoprics. ...

Ostade, Adriaen van
(1610-1685) Dutch painter and etcher. A pupil of Frans Hals, he specialized in peasant, village, and alehouse scenes. His Boors Making Merry (Dulwich Gallery, London) is a good example. He made etchings and...

Ostade, Isaack van
(1621-1649) Dutch painter. His subjects were mainly drawn from peasant life: games on ice, village scenes. His landscapes generally have a greater delicacy than those of his brother and...

Ostend, Battle of
In World War I, two British attempts to block the entrance of the Ostend harbour 1918 to deny the Germans use of the harbour and bottle up their vessels. Ostend, a Belgian town in the province of...

Osterley Park
House and 16-ha/40-acre estate in western Greater London, England, 5 km/3 mi northwest of Richmond; one of the last great houses with its estate intact in the London area. The house is...

Ostia
Ancient Roman town near the mouth of the Tiber. Founded about 330 BC, it was the port of Rome and had become a major commercial centre by the 2nd century AD. It was abandoned in the 9th century. The...

Ostpolitik
German foreign policy introduced by Willy Brandt in 1971, which sought reconciliation with Eastern Europe as a means of improving contacts between East and West Germany. ...

ostracism
Deliberate exclusion of an individual or group from society. It was an ancient Athenian political device to preserve public order. Votes on pieces of broken pot (Greek ostrakon) were used to exile...

ostracon
In ancient Egypt, a piece of limestone or pottery used as a cheap alternative to papyrus. It was also used for voting tablets in Athens. ...

Ostrogoth
Member of a branch of the eastern Germanic people, the Goths. ...

Osugi, Sakae
(1885-1923) Japanese anarchist political activist. Despite several spells of imprisonment, Osugi remained faithful to anarchism during the years of repression (known as the `winter period`) following the...

Oswald, Lee Harvey
(1939-1963) US assassin. He shot and killed US president John F Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, in 1963. Two days later he himself was shot by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner, while in police custody. Oswald was...

Oswald, St
(died 992) English archbishop of York from 972. He was associated with St Dunstan and St Ethelwold in the revival of ecclesiastical discipline and monastic life in Engl ...

Oswald, St
(c. 605-642) King of Northumbria from 634, after killing the Welsh king Cadwallon. He became a Christian convert during exile on the Scottish island of Iona. With the help of St Aidan he furthered the spread of...

Oswell, William Cotton
(1818-1893) British explorer. He hunted extensively in India and South Africa, and was one of the earliest big game hunters to visit the interior plains of Africa. In 1849 Oswell, David Livingstone, and Mungo...

Oswy
(612-670) King of Northumbria. He succeeded to the kingdom of Bernicia on the death of his brother, St Oswald, in 642. His early attempts to reunite the kingdom of Deira, by this time virtually a Mercian...

Oswy
Anglo-Saxon king. He became king of Bernicia (one of the two divisions of Northumbria) on the death of his brother Oswald 641 and defeated and killed King Penda of Mercia 655. As King of...

OT
Abbreviation for Old Testament. ...

Othello
Tragedy by William Shakespeare, first performed in 1604-05. Othello, a Moorish commander in the Venetian army, is persuaded by Iago that his wife Desdemona is having an affair with his friend...

other, the
In philosophy, a term often used when discussing the relationship between the subject (the knower) and the object (the known) or in analysing the nature of knowledge, of morality, or of being or...

Othere
(lived 9th century) Norse navigator and explorer of the 9th century. He made two voyages between 880 and 900, on one of which he is said to have sailed round the North Cape (the most northerly point of Europe) into the...

Othman
Alternative spelling of Uthman, third caliph of Islam. ...

Othman I
Another name for the Turkish sultan Osman I. ...

Otho I
(1815-1867) King of Greece 1832-62. As the 17-year-old son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, he was selected by the European powers as the first king of independent Greece. He was overthrown...

Otho, Marcus Salvius
(AD 32-69) Roman emperor for a few months in AD 69. In 58 the emperor Nero sent him to govern Lusitania (Portugal) so that he would be separated from his wife Poppaea Sabina, whom Nero afterwards married. In...

Otis, Bass
(1784-1861) US painter and lithographer. Considered the first American lithographer, he published a portrait of Reverend Abner Kneeland in a volume of lectures (1818). He also painted portraits of Thomas...

Otis, Charles R(ollin)
(1835-1927) and Norton P(rentiss) (1840-1905) US manufacturers and representatives. Working with his father, the inventor Elisha Otis, Charles persuaded him to open his own elevator factory to capitalize on...

Otis, Harrison Gray
(1765-1848) US representative and senator. He served in the US House of Representatives (Fed., Massachusetts; 1797-1801) and then in the US Senate (Federalist, later Whig; 1817-22). During the furore caused...

Otis, James
(1725-1783) American politician. He made an effective speech 1761 in support of the liberty of the colonies with regard to taxation. He was one of the organizers of delegates to the...

Ottaviani, Alfredo
(born 1890) Italian cardinal. As pro-secretary 1953-59 and secretary from 1959 of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, also holding several other high ecclesiastic appointments, Ottaviani was for...

Ottawa
Member of an American Indian people of the Great Lakes region, who originated from Manitoulin Island, Lake Huron, and expanded around Georgian Bay, Canada in the 1630s. Formerly part of the...

Ottawa agreements
Trade agreements concluded at the Imperial Economic Conference, held in Ottawa, Canada 1932, between Britain and its dependent territories, lowering tariffs on British manufactured goods and...