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

Pont-Aven School
Group of painters, led by Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard (1868-1941), who worked in...

Pontan, Jirí
(c. 1550-1614) Hungarian writer and Jesuit priest. He combined the religious fervour of his order with a cosmopolitan intellectual outlook, which was characteristic of the court circle of Rudolph II, of which he...

Pontano, Giovanni
(1429-1503) Italian humanist and poet. His Latin poetry includes Amorum libri duo and De amore coniugali. He also wrote De Bello Napoletano describing his master Alfonso V's fight to secure...

Ponte dei Sospiri
Italian name of the Bridge of Sighs, Venice. ...

Ponti, Gio(vanni)
(1891-1979) Italian designer and architect. He was a pioneer of the Modern Movement in Italy. His masterpiece is the Pirelli skyscraper in Milan, designed with Pier Luigi Nervi (1957-60), which is 126 m/415...

Pontiac
(c. 1720-1769) American Indian, chief of the Ottawa from 1755. Allied with the French forces during the French and Indian War (the North American branch of the Seven Years' War), Pontiac was hunted by the British...

pontifex
In ancient Rome, a member of the college of pontifices, headed by the pontifex maximus (chief pontiff). The pontifices were not `ordained priests`, but they supervised the state religion and...

Pontoppidan, Henrik
(1857-1943) Danish novelist. In his first great novel cycle, Det forjaettede land/The Promised Land (1891-95), the partly autobiographical life story of a minister who marries a peasant woman, he draws an...

Pontormo, Jacopo da
(1494-1557) Italian painter. One of the leading Mannerists, he developed a highly original style, his figures slender and agitated, his colours lurid. One of his best-known works is his The Deposition about...

Pontus
Kingdom of northeastern Asia Minor on the Black Sea from about 300-65 BC when its greatest ruler, Mithridates VI Eupator, was defeated by the Roman general Pompey. ...

Pony Express
In the USA, a system of mail-carrying by relays of horse riders that operated in the years 1860-61 between St Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, a distance of...

Poole, William Frederick
(1821-1894) US librarian and historian. As a student at Yale, where he graduated in 1849, he maintained and expanded a project indexing useful materials in books...

poor law
English system for relief for the poor, established by the Poor Relief Act of 1601. Each parish was responsible for its own poor, paid for by a parish tax. The care of...

Poor, Henry Varnum
(1821-1905) US economist. He collaborated on and authored several important compilations of railroad statistics and histories culminating in the so-called `Poor's Manual`, Manual of Railroads in the...

pop art
Movement in modern art that took its imagery from the glossy world of advertising and from popular culture such as comic strips, films, and television; it developed in...

Pop design
British and Italian design movement of the 1960s which was characterized by its use of bright colours, expressive forms, synthetic materials, and throwaway objects. In Britain the movement centred...

Popa, Vasko
(1922-1991) Serbian modernist poet. He was one of the first writers to challenge the literary establishment in the early 1950s in the controversy between modernists and realists. His works include Kora/Crust...

pope
The bishop of Rome, head of the Roman Catholic Church, which claims that he is the spiritual descendant of St Peter. Elected by the Sacred College of Cardinals, a pope dates his pontificate from his...

Popé
(died 1690) Tewa Pueblo medicine man and leader of native resistance to Spanish political control and missionary activity in the New Mexico-Arizona area. In 1680 he masterminded and led a successful Indian...

Pope, Alexander
(1688-1744) English poet and satirist. He established his poetic reputation with the precocious Pastorals (1709) and An Essay on Criticism (1711), which were followed by a parody of the heroic epic form, The...

Pope, John
(1822-1892) US soldier. A West Point graduate (1842) and Mexican War veteran, he did valuable survey work with the Army topographical engineers in the Southwest and West. Staying with the Union, he led the Army...

Pope, John Russell
(1874-1937) US architect. A prolific New York architect, he revived Gothic, Georgian, and classical styles. Among his neoclassical designs are the National Archives (1933-35) and the Jefferson Memorial...

Poperinghe
Belgian town in the province of West Flanders, 9.5 km/6 mi west of Ypres; the principal centre of the British forces on the Flanders front in World War I. The town was surrounded with camps,...

Popeye
Cartoon character created in 1929 by US cartoonist Elzie Crisler Segar. Popeye made his first appearance in a newspaper strip as a feisty, pipe-smoking, spinach-eating sailor, whose motto was...

Popham, George
(died 1608) English-born colonist. As a sea captain, he and Ferdinando Gorges proposed the idea of a Northern Virginia colony. Popham commanded one of the two ships that landed off the coast of Maine in 1607....

Popish Plot
Supposed plot to murder Charles II; see under Titus Oates. ...

Poplarism
Attempt in 1921 by the London borough of Poplar to force the richer boroughs to assist with poor relief in the East End. George Lansbury, later leader of the Labour Party, was imprisoned for...

poplin
Strong fabric, originally with a warp of silk and a weft of worsted, but now usually made from cotton, in a plain weave with a finely ribbed surface. ...

Poppaea, Sabina
(died AD 65) Roman noble, mistress of the emperor Nero. She was married first to Rufus Crispinus and then to Marcus Salvius Otho. Nero fell in love with her, and sent Otho to govern Lusitania AD 58. Poppaea,...

popular front
Political alliance of liberals, socialists, communists, and other centre and left-wing parties. This policy was propounded by the Communist International in 1935 against fascism and was adopted in...

population
The number of people living in a specific area or region, such as a town or country, at any one time. The study of populations, their distribution and structure, resources, and patterns of...

porcelain
Translucent ceramic material with a shining finish, see pottery and porcelain. ...

Pordenone, Giovanni Antonio Sacchi
(1483-1539) Painter from Friuli, Italy. He painted religious frescoes and altarpieces in various cities of northern Italy. Pordenone is associated with the Venetian School and his work shows the fashionable...

Porgy and Bess
Classic US folk opera written in 1935 by George and Ira Gershwin, based on the novel Porgy (1925) by DuBose Heyward, a story of the black residents of Catfish Row in Charleston,...

pornography
Obscene literature, pictures, photos, or films considered to be of no artistic merit and intended only to arouse sexual desire. Standards of what is obscene and whether a particular work has...

Porsena, Lars
In Roman legend, the king of Clusium in Etruria. In the 6th century BC he marched with an army against Rome to restore Tarquinius Superbus to the throne. He laid siege to the city, but accepted a...

Porson, Richard
(1759-1808) English classical scholar. He was professor of Greek at Cambridge from 1792. He edited four plays of the Greek dramatist Euripides (Hecuba, Orestes, Phoenissae, and Medea), but his most widely read...

Port Arthur, Battle of
During the Russo-Japanese War, Japanese victory over the Russians after besieging the city of Port Arthur in Manchuria (now Lüshun, China) May 1904-January 1905. The Russian occupation of Port...

Port Hudson
Confederate stronghold in the American Civil War, on the left bank of the Mississippi River in East Baton Rouge County, Louisiana. General Gardner, commanding the garrison, succeeded in holding out...

Port Royal
Former Cistercian convent, southwest of Paris, founded in 1204. In 1626 its inmates were moved to Paris, and the buildings were taken over by a male community which became a centre of Jansenist...

Port Sunlight
Housing estate built as a model village in 1888 by W H Lever (1851-1925) for workers at the Lever Brothers (now Unilever) Sunlight Soap factory on the Wirral Peninsula at Birkenhead, near...

Porta, Carlo
(1775-1821) Italian poet. He wrote in the Milanese dialect and through this medium effectively expressed ordinary people's attitude to life. His poems include I disgrazzi di Giovannin Bongee/The Misadventures...

Porta, Giambattista della
(c. 1541-1615) Italian physicist. He helped found the Accademia dei Oziosi and the Academia Secretorum Naturae, where groups of students could discuss scientific ideas. He wrote Magia Naturalis/Natural Magic...

Portadown Bridge massacre
During the Great Rebellion in Ireland (1641-49), killing of Protestant planters (settlers) by Irish rebels at Portadown Bridge, County Armagh, in November 1641. The rebels attacked a group of...

Porteous riots
Riots in Edinburgh, Scotland on 14 April 1736, after Lieutenant John Porteous, captain of the Edinburgh militia, ordered his men to open fire on a crowd rioting in protest at the execution of...

Porter, A(rthur) Kingsley
(1883-1933) US architectural historian. His survey, Medieval Architecture: Its Origins and Development (1909), the first scholarly history of its subject by an American, freshly illuminated Lombard Romanesque...

Porter, David Dixon
(1813-1891) US naval officer. He helped to plan a naval offensive against New Orleans and received the surrender of the Confederate forts there (1862). In command of the Mississippi Squadron (1862-64), he...

Porter, Eleanor
(1868-1920) US novelist. She wrote Pollyanna 1913, the story of a girl who plays the `glad game` of finding something to be glad about whatever happens. The sequel, Pollyanna Grows Up, appeared in 1915. Her...

Porter, Endymion
(1587-1649) English courtier, Royalist, and patron of the arts and literature. He was a devoted follower of both Charles I and the duke of Buckingham. In 1623 he accompanied them on their clandestine visit to...

Porter, Fitz-John
(1822-1901) US soldier. A West Point graduate (1845), he fought in the Mexican War and served on the frontier. Appointed brigadier general after the Civil War began, he fought in numerous battles in northern...

Porter, Gene Stratton
(1863-1924) US writer. She wrote nature articles and the novels Freckles 1904 and A Girl of the Limberlost 1909. Other works include The Harvester 1911, based on her father, and Laddie 1913, an idealized...

Porter, Jane
(1776-1850) English novelist. Born in Durham, she was taken to Edinburgh as a child, where she was regaled with old-world tales by Walter Scott, who was a frequent visitor at her home. After moving to London...

Porter, John Luke
(1813-1893) US naval architect. He reconditioned the hull of and constructed an armoured deck shield for the CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimac) (1861-62). As a Confederate naval constructor (1862-65),...

Porter, Noah
(1811-1892) US clergyman and college president. Among his many philosophical works, The Human Intellect (1868) enjoyed the widest success; in American Colleges and the American Public (1871) and elsewhere he...

Porter, Peter
(1929) Australian poet, in England from 1951. His early works satirize fashionable London in the 1960s; later, his poetry became more contemplative. His collections include Once Bitten, Twice Bitten...

Porter, Rufus
(1792-1884) US inventor and editor. He invented (but did not patent) numerous devices. In New York, New York, he was editor of the American Mechanic (the first scientific newspaper in the USA) and he began the...

Porter, Russell Williams
(1871-1949) US explorer, astronomer, and telescope maker. He participated in ten Arctic voyages (1894-1904) and was once marooned in the Arctic for nearly two years. Inspired by his celestial observations, he...

Porter, Shirley
(1930) British Conservative politician. She was leader of Westminster City Council in 1983, and lord mayor 1991-92. Her policies were controversial and included the rehousing of poor people outside...

Porter, Sylvia (Field)
(1913-1991) US journalist. Gaining know-how by working at an investment house, she launched her popular financial column in the New York Post in 1935, at first using initials to conceal her gender. She...

Porter, William Sydney
Real name of the US author O Henry. ...

portico
In architecture, a porch with a pediment and columns. ...

porticus
In architecture, a small porch built on both north and south sides of some English pre-Conquest churches, and thus forming rudimentary transepts. ...

Portillo, Michael (Denzil Xavier)
(1953) British Conservative politician, employment secretary 1994-95, and defence secretary 1995-97. Representative of the right wing of the party in John Major's government, his progress up the...

Portinari, Cândido
(1903-1962) Brazilian painter. He travelled extensively in Europe and was one of the first to introduce modern ideas of painting to South America. He was noted for portraits and murals, often sympathetic...

Portland Vase
Glass vessel of around 25 BC, a fine example of Roman glass-blowing. Made of cobalt-blue glass decorated with figures in relief in white opaque glass, the vase imitates the appearance and...

Porto-Riche, Georges de
(1849-1930) French dramatist. His psychological dramas of love include Amoureuse/The Loving Woman 1891, Le Passé 1897, and Le Vieil Homme 1911. Early works include a romantic historical drama, Un Drame sous...

Porton Down
Site of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment (until 1991 Chemical Defence Establishment) in Wiltshire, southwestern England. Its prime role is to conduct research into means of...

portraiture
In the visual arts, a work of art about a person. Often portraits are intended to create a likeness of someone; others, such as some portraits by Picasso, may not look like the model, but are the...

Portugal
Country in southwestern Europe, on the Atlantic Ocean, bounded north and east by Spain. Government The 1976 constitution, revised in 1982, provides for...

Portuguese
Inhabitants of Portugal. The Portuguese have a mixed cultural heritage that can be traced back to the Lusitanian Celts who were defeated by the Romans in about 140 BC. In the 5th century AD the...

Portuguese literature
Under Provençal influence, medieval Portuguese literature produced popular ballads and troubadour songs. The Renaissance provided a stimulus for the outst ...

Portumna Castle
Large, semi-fortified Jacobean mansion at Portumna, County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It was built in the early 1600s for Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde, who lived in England and died in...

Portunus
In Roman mythology, the god of gates and doors (Latin portae). He was gradually transformed into a protector of harbours (Latin portus). ...

Posada, José Guadalupe
(1852-1913) Mexican graphic artist. He produced thousands of lithographs, engravings, and woodcuts for books and periodicals. His works satirized Mexican society, particularly the dictatorship of Porfiry Díaz,...

Poseidon
In Greek mythology, the chief god of the sea, brother of Zeus and Pluto. The brothers dethroned their father, Kronos, and divided his realm, Poseidon taking the sea. Husband of Amphitrite, his sons...

positivism
Theory that confines genuine knowledge within the bounds of science and observation. The theory is associated with the French philosopher Auguste Comte and empiricism. Logical positivism developed...

possible world
In philosophy, a consistent set of propositions describing a logically, if not physically, possible state of affairs. The term was invented by German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who argued that...

Post Office
Government department or authority with responsibility for postal services. Many post offices also offer other services, including financial services, passport and...

post-Impressionism
Broad term covering various developments in French painting that developed out of...

Post, George B(rowne)
(1837-1913) US architect. In New York he designed residences, pioneering skyscrapers (including the city's first `elevator building`), and classical revival commercial buildings. He received the American...

Postan, Eileen Edna Le Poer
(1889-1940) English expert on British women's historical studies. Professor of economic history at the London School of Economics (LSE), she was fascinated by women's role in economic history, and produced an...

Postan, Michael M
(born 1899) Moldovan-born British economic historian. Postan's main interest was English economic history and his influence as a teacher and author between 1930 and 1970 was such as to make his views on the...

postcard
Card with space for a written message that can be sent through the mail without an envelope. The postcard's inventor was Emmanual Hermann, of Vienna, who in 1869 proposed a `postal telegram`,...

poster
Public notice used for advertising or propaganda, often illustrated. Ancestors of the modern poster were handbills with woodcut illustrations, which were posted up in public places. The French...

poststructuralism
Movement in 20th-century philosophy, cultural theory, and literary criticism that debates and contests the theoretical assumptions of structuralism, rejecting the conclusion that there are...

Pot, Hendrik Gerritsz.
(1585-1657) Dutch painter. He worked in Haarlem and Amsterdam, visiting London 1632, when he painted a portrait of Charles I. He was the master of the still-life painter Willem Kalf. He was a pupil of Karel...

Potanin, Vladimir Olegovich
(1961) Russian financier; deputy prime minister in 1996. Educated in the elite Moscow State Institute for International relations, Potanin left...

potassium-argon dating
Isotopic dating method based on the radioactive decay of potassium-40 (40K) to the stable isotope argon-40 (40Ar). Ages are based on the known half-life of 40K, and the ratio of 40K to 40Ar....

potato famine
Famine in Ireland, historically dated 1845-49, although now believed to have lingered until 1852, caused by the failure of the potato crop, the staple of the Irish diet, over four consecutive...

Potawatomi
Member of an American Indian people who originated in the Michigan region, but had migrated to Wisconsin by 1670, moving south into Illinois and Indiana in...

Potemkin, Grigory Aleksandrovich
(1739-1791) Russian politician. He entered the army and attracted the notice of Catherine II, whose friendship he kept throughout his life. He was an active administrator who reformed the army, built the Black...

Potiguara
A group of American Indians living in northwestern Brazil. Their language belongs to the Tupi-Guarani family. Their religion is centred around a shaman, who mediates between the people and the...

potlatch
Ceremony of West Coast American Indian peoples in which the host gave away property in order to raise the prestige and social rank of the clan. Potlatches were practised among the Tlingit, Chilkat,...

Potok, Chaim
(1929-2002) US rabbi and writer. He wrote about the clash between religious and secular life and was credited with introducing US readers to Orthodox Jewish culture. His first and best-known novel was The...

potpourri
Mixture of dried flowers and leaves - for example, rose petals, lavender, and verbena - and spices, used to scent the air. ...

Potresov, Aleksander Nikolaevich
(1869-1934) Russian Social Democrat. He cooperated with Lenin in the Iskra organization, but soon found Lenin's opportunism and lack of moral scruples intolerable. After the revolution of 1905-07, he became...

Potsdam Conference
Conference held in Potsdam, Germany, 17 July-2 August 1945, between representatives of the USA, the UK, and the USSR. They established the political and economic principles governing the treatment...

Potter, (Helen) Beatrix
(1866-1943) English writer and illustrator of children's books. Her first book was The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1900), followed by The Tailor of Gloucester (1902), based on her observation of family pets and...

Potter, David M(orris)
(1910-1971) US historian. A revered mentor and one of the preeminent historians of his generation, he is known primarily for his books, articles, and lectures on...

Potter, Dennis Christopher George
(1935-1994) English dramatist and journalist. His most important works were television plays, extending the boundaries of the art form. Plays include Pennies from Heaven (1978; feature film 1981), Brimstone and...