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

Reagan, Nancy
(1923) US first lady. Fiercely protective of her husband, President Ronald Reagan, she was criticized by some for her interference in White House decision-making, but others argued that she provided a...

Reagan, Ronald Wilson
(1911-2004) 40th president of the USA 1981-89, a Republican. He was governor of California 1966-74, and a former Hollywood actor. Reagan was a hawkish and popular president. He adopted an aggressive foreign...

Reaganomics
A free enterprise approach to economic policy followed by US president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. It involved cuts in income tax rates, spending on social programmes, and deregulation of domestic...

Real IRA
An extremist Irish republican terrorist group which split away from the IRA in 1997. Based in the republican stronghold of Dundalk, County Louth, close to the border with Northern Ireland, its...

real presence
In Christianity, the doctrine that Jesus is really present in the consecrated Eucharist. The nature of...

real value
Or constant value value of goods and services adjusted for inflation. ...

realism
In philosophy, the theory that universals (properties such as `redness`) have an existence independent of the human mind. Realists hold that the essence of things is objectively given in nature,...

reality television
Genre of television programme popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s that gave a `fly-on-the-wall` view of ordinary people in manufactured but unscripted situations. The first major hit...

realpolitik
Belief that the pragmatic pursuit of self-interest and power, backed up by force when convenient, is the only realistic option for a great state. The term was coined in 1859 to describe the German...

Reaney, James
(1926) Canadian poet and playwright. His deceptively simple poetry and experimental plays draw upon the child's world of metaphor. Works of poetry include The Red Heart (1949), A Suit of Nettles (1958),...

rearmament
Re-equipping a country with new weapons and other military hardware. The Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler concentrated on rearmament in Germany after he achieved power in 1934. During the late 1930s...

Reasoner, Harry
(1923-1991) US radio and television correspondent. A founding coeditor of 60 Minutes in 1968, he was anchor for ABC evening news 1970-78, and again at 60 M ...

Rebay, Hilla
(1890-1967) French-born US painter and curator. An abstract painter, she was instrumental in establishing (in 1939) and directing (to 1951) the Guggenheim Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which became the...

Rebecca Riots
Disturbances in southwest Wales 1842-44. They were primarily a protest against toll charges on public roads, but were also a symptom of general unrest following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834,...

Rebellion of 1798
In Irish history, unsuccessful nationalist rising of the Society of United Irishmen against government forces May-September 1798. The society's main aims were parliamentary reform and escape from...

rebirth
In religion, the state of being spiritually born again. The concept is evident within the major world religions, either encompassing ideas of returning to earth in a different form,
Rebreanu, Liviu
(1885-1944) Romanian novelist. His works include Ion 1920 and P&acaron;durea spînzuraÅ£ilor/Forest of the Hanged 1922, based on the fate of the author's brother, who was executed in 1917 for attempted...

recall
Process by which voters can demand the removal from office of elected officials, as in some states of the USA. ...

receiver
In law, a person appointed by a court to collect and manage the assets of an individual, company, or partnership in serious financial difficulties. In the case of bankruptcy, the assets may be sold...

reception theory
Literary analysis that concentrates on the way a work is received by its contemporary readership and throughout its ensuing history. Its leading exponent, Hans Robert Jauss, argues that the meaning...

recession
In economics, a fall in business activity lasting more than a few months, causing stagnation in a country's output. A serious recession is called a slump. ...

Rechy, John (Francisco)
(1934) US writer whose novels primarily dealt with the search for love and identity by homosexual and bisexual characters, as in City of Night 1963 and Bodies and Souls 1983....

recoilless gun
Rifle which directs some of the explosion of the propellant cartridge backwards, balancing the recoil due to the ejection of the projectile forwards. When correctly designed the result is a gun...

reconnaissance survey
A variety of techniques for the location of archaeological sites and their preliminary analysis, through the recording of surface artifacts and features. Because of time and money constraints, many...

Reconquista
Christian defeat of the Moors 9th-15th centuries, and their expulsion from Spain. Spain was conquered by the Muslims between 711 and 728, and its reconquest began with Galicia, Leon, and Castile....

Reconstruction
In US history, the period 1865-77 after the Civil War dur ...

Record Office, Public
Government office containing the English and Welsh national records since the Norman Conquest, brought together from courts of law and government departments, including the Domesday Book, the...

recorder
In the English legal system, a part-time judge who usually sits in the crown courts in less serious cases but may also sit in the county courts or the High Court. Recorders are chosen from...

Recruit scandal
In Japanese politics, the revelation in 1988 that a number of politicians and business leaders had profited from insider trading. It led to the resignation of several cabinet ministers, including...

rector
Anglican priest, formerly entitled to the whole of the tithes levied in the parish, as opposed to a vicar (Latin `deputy`) who was only entitled to part. In the Episcopal Church, the rector is a...

recusant
In England, those who refused to attend Anglican church services, especially applied to Catholics. The Acts of Uniformity of 1552 and 1559 imposed fines on those who refused to attend, and it was...

red
Informal term for a leftist, revolutionary, or communist, which originated in the 19th century in the form `red republican`, meaning a republican who favoured a social as well as a political...

Red and the Black, The
Novel by Stendhal, published 1830. Julien Sorel, a carpenter's son, pursues social advancement by dishonourable means. Marriage to a marquis' daughter, a title, and an army commission are within his...

Red Army
The army of the USSR until 1946; it later became known as the Soviet Army. Founded by the revolutionary Leon Trotsky, it developed from the Red Guards, volunteers who were in the vanguard of the...

Red Army Faction
Left-wing guerrilla group, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. ...

Red Badge of Courage, The
Novel 1895 by US writer Stephen Crane. It tells the story of the youth Henry Fleming in the American Civil War, his cowardice, courage, and final sense of personal victory. ...

Red Brigades
Extreme left-wing guerrilla groups active in Italy during the 1970s and early 1980s. They were implicated in many kidnappings and killings, some later attributed to right-wing agents...

Red Cloud
(1822-1909) American Indian leader of the Sioux tribe. Paramount chief of the Oglala Sioux from 1860, he led the armed resistance to the advance of white settlers along the Bozeman Trail. He signed the Fort...

Red Cross
International relief agency founded by the Geneva Convention in 1863, having been proposed by the Swiss doctor Henri Dunant, to assist the wounded and prisoners in war. Its symbol is a symmetrical...

Red Duster
Colloquial name for the Red Ensign, flag of the British merchant navy. First used in 1674, it was shared with the Royal Navy until 1864, when it became the exclusive symbol of merchant ships. ...

red flag
International symbol of socialism. In France it was used as a revolutionary emblem from 1792 onwards, and was adopted officially as its flag by the Paris Commune of 1871. Following the revolution of...

Red Guard
One of the militant school and college students, wearing red armbands, who were the shock-troops of the Cultural Revolution in China from 1966 to 1969. After killing many party officials and...

Red Riding Hood
European folk tale about a little girl who takes cakes to her sick grandmother's remote cottage. A wolf eats the grandmother and impersonates her, intending to eat Red Riding Hood as well. In...

Red Scare
Campaign against communists (called `reds`) in the USA during the 20th century, and associated atmosphere of suspicion and fear. The first major Red Scare took place in the aftermath of World...

red tape
Derogatory term for bureaucratic methods, derived from the fastening for departmental bundles of documents in Britain. ...

Red Terror
Term used by opponents to describe the Bolshevik seizure and retention of power in Russia after October 1917. ...

Redding, J(ay) Saunders
(1906-1977) US educator, literary critic, and author. In various critical works, he set forth his views, often at odds with both the white and black establishments. He wrote over one thousand reviews of books...

redeemable preference share
In finance, a share in a company that the company has a right to buy back at a specific price. ...

Redfield, Robert
(1897-1958) US cultural anthropologist. His field research in Mexico and Central America made him a leading authority on peasant societies. His major works include The Primitive World and Its Transformation...

Redgrave, Michael (Scudamore)
(1908-1985) English actor. His stage roles included Hamlet and Lear (Shakespeare), Uncle Vanya (Chekhov), and the schoolmaster in Terence Rattigan's The Browning Version (filmed 1951). On screen he appeared in...

Redgrave, Vanessa
(1937) English actor. She has played Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra on the stage, Ellida in Ibsen's Lady From the Sea (1976 and 1979), and Olga in Chekhov's Three Sisters (1990). She won an...

Redhead, Brian
(1929-1994) English journalist and broadcaster, best known as co-host of Radio 4's Today programme 1975-94, where he won over listeners with his jaunty, confident manner and often idiosyncratic interviewing...

Redmond, John Edward
(1856-1918) Irish nationalist politician, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) 1900-18. He rallied his party after Charles Stewart Parnell's imprisonment in 1881, and came close to achieving home...

Redol, Antonio Alves
(1911-1983) Portuguese novelist. Writing in a social realist style, he portrays the struggle of peasants for land, together with the rise and decay of the port-wine business and its effect on the poor. One of...

Redon, Odilon
(1840-1916) French painter and graphic artist. One of the major figures of Symbolism, he is famous for his fantastic and dreamlike images. From 1890 onwards he produced oil paintings and pastels, brilliant in...

redoubt
In trench warfare, small enclosed trench work employed in conjunction with a system of infantry trenches. It can form a strong point of resistance even after the rest of the trenches have been...

Redouté, Pierre Joseph
(1759-1840) French flower painter. He was patronized by Empress Josephine and the Bourbon court. He taught botanical drawing at the Museum of Natural History in Paris and produced volumes of sumptuous, highly...

Redpath, James
(1833-1891) Scottish-born US reformer and journalist. He was vehemently abolitionist, and wrote for the New York Tribune. He reported on the war in the South, and became superintendent of schools in...

reducciones
Mission villages in Spanish Latin American colonies which were used to concentrate the indigenous Indian populations and convert them to Christianity. Similar villages in Portuguese colonies were...

reductio ad absurdum
Method of proof in which it is initially assumed that the proposition which it is desired to prove is not true. If it can then be shown that this assumption leads logically to a contradiction or...

redundancy
Loss of a person's job because the job no longer exists. This may occur because the business is shrinking in size or going bankrupt, for example, owing to a recession in the economy. The firm may...

Redwald
(died c. 627) King of the East Angles. He is chiefly remembered for having defeated and slain Ethelfrid, king of Northumbria, in 616, at a battle on the Idle River, and thereby restored to his throne Edwin...

Redwood, John
(1951) British Conservative politician. He was Welsh Secretary 1993-95, when he resigned to contest the Conservative leadership following John Major's decision to challenge his critics within the party...

Reece, Brazilla Carroll
(1889-1961) US representative. He served several terms in Congress (Republican, New York) 1921-31, 1933-47, and 1951-61, joining in the 1950s crackdown on communists. He...

Reed, David Aiken
(1880-1953) US senator who served (Republican, Pennsylvania) from 1922 to 1935. He wrote the national origins clause in the Reed-Johnson Immigration Act (1924). A conservative, he opposed the New Deal yet...

Reed, Edward Tennyson
(1860-1933) English artist and caricaturist. After travelling widely in China, India, and Japan, he joined the staff of Punch 1899, in which his series `Pre-historic Peeps` began. He became the magazine's...

Reed, Ishmael (Scott)
(1938) US novelist. His novels parody and satirize notions of historical fact, exploiting traditions taken from jazz and voodoo. They include The Free-Lance Pallbearers (1967), Mumbo Jumbo (1972),...

Reed, John
(1887-1920) US journalist and author. As a supporter of the Bolsheviks, Reed published his account of the Russian Revolution in Ten Days that Shook the World 1919. Later indicted in the USA for sedition, Reed...

Reed, Joseph
(1741-1785) American state governor. By 1775 he came to believe that American independence was worth a revolution. Washington's military secretary (1775), and later the adjutant general, he helped guide the...

Reed, Luman
(1787-1836) US business executive and art patron. He subsidized and encouraged such artists as Asher Brown Durand, Thomas Cole and William Sidney Mount. On his death his collection was donated to the New York...

Reed, Stanley Forman
(1884-1980) US Supreme Court justice. He served on the Kentucky legislature 1912-16, and as general counsel to the Federal Farm Board 1929-32 and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation 1932-35. He was US...

Reed, Thomas (Brackett)
(1839-1902) US politician who served in the House of Representatives 1876-99. A fierce debater, he used his prosecutorial skills to uncover Democratic fraud in...

Rees
Alternative name for a member of the the American Indian Arikara people. ...

Rees-Mogg, Lord William
(1928) British journalist, editor of The Times 1967-81, chair of the Arts Council 1982-89, and from 1988 chair of the Broadcasting Standards Council. In 1993 he challenged the government over its...

Rees, Merlyn
(1920-2006) British Labour politician. From 1972 to 1974 he was Opposition spokesperson on Northern Ireland affairs and in March 1974 became secretary of state for Northern Ireland, a post he retained until he...

reeve
In Anglo-Saxon England, an official charged with the administration of a shire or burgh, fulfilling functions similar to those of the later sheriff. After the Norman Conquest, the term tended to...

Reeve, Clara
(1729-1807) English novelist. She translated the English satirist John Barclay's Argenis (1772) from its Latin original, and wrote The Champion of Virtue, a Gothic Story (1777, renamed The Old English Baron in...

Reeve, Henry
(1813-1895) English writer and editor. He was on the staff of The Times 1840-55, where he had considerable influence on the newspaper's attitudes towards foreign affairs, and edited the Edinburgh Review...

Reeve, Tapping
(1744-1823) US law professor, jurist, and author. He was a judge of the Connecticut Superior Court 1798-1814. He was a staunch Federalist who was once indicted (1801) for hav ...

Reeves, James
(1909-1978) English poet. His work has been linked with his friend Robert Graves, but he was more influenced by T S Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the Imagists. His verse reveals deeply felt emotions - guilt, anger,...

Reeves, William Pember
(1857-1932) New Zealand politician and writer. He was New Zealand minister of education 1891-96, and director of the London School of Economics 1908-19. He wrote poetry and the classic history of New...

referee
In law, a member of the court of referees appointed by the House of Commons to give judgement on petitions against private bills; also one of the three officials to whom cases before the high court...

referendum
Procedure whereby a decision on proposed legislation is referred to the electorate for settlement by direct vote of all the people. It is most frequently employed in Switzerland, the first country...

Referendum Party
Single-issue political party formed by the billionaire, Anglo-French financier, James Goldsmith, whose aim was to force the government into holding a plebiscite on the issue of whether Britain...

Reform Acts
In the UK, acts of Parliament in 1832, 1867, and 1884 that extended voting rights and redistributed parliamentary seats; also known as Representation of the People Acts. The 1832 act abolished the...

Reform Judaism
Liberal Jewish movement. Reform communities vary, but tend to question the authority of the Talmud (Jewish laws). Reform Jews deny that the Jews are a chosen people, and some reject belief in the...

Reformation
Religious and political movement in 16th-century Europe to reform the Roman Catholic Church, which led to the establishment of the Protestant churches. Anticipated by medieval movements such as...

Reformation Parliament
English parliament of November 1529-April 1536 which passed Thomas Cromwell's antipapal legislation. It acknowledged the sovereign as head of the Church in place of the pope, and empowered Henry...

reformism
Improvement of the political and social order by gradual change and reform rather than by sudden revolutionary transformation. ...

refugee
According to international law, a person fleeing from oppressive or dangerous conditions (such as political, religious, or military persecution) and seeking refuge in a foreign country. In 1995...

regalia
Alternative name for crown jewels. ...

Regan, Donald Thomas
(1918-2003) US Republican political adviser to Ronald Reagan. He was secretary of the Treasury 1981-85, and chief of White House staff 1985-87, when he was forced to resign because of widespread belief in...

Regency
In Britain, the years 1811-20 during which George IV (then Prince of Wales) acted as regent for his father George III, who was finally declared insane and unfit to govern in December 1810. The...

Regency style
Style of architecture and interior furnishings popular in England during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is characterized by restrained simplicity and the imitation of ancient classical...

regent
Person who carries out the duties of a sovereign during the sovereign's minority, incapacity, or lengthy absence from the country. In England since the time of Henry VIII, Parliament has always...

regicide
Person who kills a monarch. In British history, there were the forty-nine signatories on the instrument of execution for Charles I of England in 1649, together with the two executioners (who were...

regicides
The 49 signatories on the instrument of execution for Charles I of England in 1649, together with the 2 executioners (who were anonymous). After the Restoration in 1660, twentynine of these men were...

regiment
Military formation equivalent to a battalion in parts of the British army, and to a brigade in the armies of many other countries. In the British infantry, a regiment may include more than one...

Reginald's Tower
Circular tower in the county town of Waterford, Republic of Ireland. Traditionally built in 1003, it is named after the Viking chief Ragnvald. It seems unlikely that the tower was constructed at...

Regio, José
(1901-1969) Portuguese writer. His themes are the meaning of existence, human interpretation of God's designs, and lost childhood. Among his works are the volumes of poetry Poemas de Deus e do Diabo 1925, As...