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

Riot Act
In the UK, act of Parliament passed in 1714 to suppress the Jacobite disorders. If three or more persons assembled unlawfully to the disturbance of the public peace, a magistrate could read a...

Rip Van Winkle
Legendary character created by Washington Irving in his 1819 tale of a man who falls into a magical 20-year sleep, and wakes to find he has slumbered through the War of...

Ripley, George
(1802-1880) US transcendentalist, reformer, editor, and literary critic. In his Discourses on the Philosophy of Religion 1836, he espoused a transcendentalist philosophy stressing individual intuition and the...

Ripley, Robert LeRoy
(1893-1949) US cartoonist, creator of the syndicated column `Believe It or Not!`, a highly popular compendium of bizarre facts. Born in Santa Rosa, California, Ripley began cartooning as a teenager and was...

Ripon, Frederick John Robinson
(1782-1859) British politician. A liberal Tory, he held several ministerial posts, including that of chancellor of the Exchequer 1823-27, and was a notably unsuccessful prime minister 1827-28. Created Earl...

Ripon, treaty of
Treaty signed 26 October 1640, ending the second Bishops' War between Charles I and his Scottish subjects. The treaty was a profound humiliation for Charles - the Scots were to retain...

Rippon, Angela
(1944) English broadcaster who in the 1970s became British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television's first female newsreader (1975-81) and is also remembered for her high-kicking dance routine on...

risalah
In Islam, the will of God made known to people through the prophets. ...

risk capital
Finance provided by venture capital companies, individuals, and merchant banks for medium- or long-term business ventures that are not their own and in which there is a...

Risorgimento
19th-century movement for Italian national unity and independence, begun 1815. Leading figures in the movement included Cavour, Mazzini, and Garibaldi. Uprisings 1848-49 failed, but with help...

Ristori, Adelaide
(1822-1906) Italian actor. In Paris from 1855, she proved herself a serious rival in tragic parts to Rachel. She toured Europe and the USA, and in 1882 was seen in London as Lady Macbeth, her greatest part. The...

Ritchie, Albert (Cabell)
(1876-1936) US state governor. As assistant counsel to the Public Service Commission 1910-15 he won utility rate reductions, and was Maryland's attorney general 1915-19. As Democratic governor 1919-34, he...

Ritchie, Anne Isabella, Lady
(1837-1919) English novelist. Her novels include The Village on the Cliff 1867 and Old Kensington 1873. She also published memoirs of writers she had known, including Records of Tennyson, Ruskin and Robert and...

rite
In religion, any specific ritual or action central to acts of worship or to a person's life - such as ...

rite of passage
Ritual that accompanies any of the most significant moments or transitions (birth, puberty, marriage, and so on) in an individual's life. For details of...

rites of passage
In Judaism, the ceremonies that mark a Jew's passage through life, including brit milah (the covenant of male circumcision), naming, bar mitzvah (or bat mitzvah for girls),...

rites of passage
In Sikhism, ceremonies marking important events in a Sikh's life include Nam Karan (naming), Amrit Sanskar (initiation into the Khalsa, the Sikh community), Anand Karaj (wedding), and the rites...

rites of passage
In Islam, the ceremonies commemorating events in a Muslim's life. Birth There is no ceremony to initiate children into Islam, because a person is born into...

rites of passage
In Hinduism, the ceremonies, called samskaras, marking events in a Hindu's life. A Hindu may follow four stages of life, or ashrama: student, householder, hermit, and wandering holy man....

rites of passage
In the Christian religion, rituals that accompany any of the most significant stages in an individual's life. Christian rites of passage include baptism, confirmation, marriage, ordination, and...

rites of passage
Ceremonies marking important events in the life of a Buddhist. Naming A monk visits the home, chants the paritta (29 sutras of Pali scripture), sprinkles water over the baby, and blesses it. Wax...

Ritschl, Albrecht
(1822-1889) German Protestant theologian. He lectured on theology at Bonn (1852-64) and Göttingen (1864-89) universities. His early work showed the influence of the Tübingen school, though he subsequently...

Ritson, Joseph
(1752-1803) English literary antiquary. A student of ancient English poetry, he did much to collect and preserve it. His chief works are A Collection of English Songs 1783, Ancient Songs from Henry III to the...

Rittenhouse, Jessie Bell
(1869-1948) US critic, anthologist, and poet. She published The Younger American Poets 1904, a volume of critical essays. She was a regular reviewer for the New York Times Review of Books 1905-15 and helped...

ritual
In religious devotion or service, the practice of certain set formulas that either mark a particular important event in a person's life - such as birth rituals or death rituals - or form a...

ritual slaughter
Either the killing of animals for religious purposes, such as sacrifice in order to appease a god, or, as in Islam and Judaism, the killing of an animal for food according...

Rivadavia, Bernardino
(1780-1845) Argentine politician, first president of Argentina 1826-27. During his rule he made a number of social reforms including extending the franchise to all males over 20 and encouraging freedom of the...

Rivarol, Antoine de
(1753-1801) French writer and satirist. Among his works are De l'Universalité de la langue française/French as a Universal Language 1784 and Petit Dictionnaire des grands hommes de la Révolution/Small...

River Plate, Battle of the
In World War II, naval battle in the South Atlantic between a British cruiser squadron of three ships and the German `pocket battleship` Admiral ...

Rivera, Chita
(1933) US actor and dancer. Perhaps her best-known role was as Anita in West Side Story in 1957. Already twice nominated for a Tony award, she won the award for the first time for The Rink in 1984 in...

Rivera, Diego
(1886-1957) Mexican painter. He was one of the most important muralists of the 20th century. An exponent of social realism, he received many public commissions for murals depicting the Mexican revolution, his...

Rivera, Fabian Alarcon
(1947) Ecuadorean politician and president 1997-98 of an interim government. Rivera was a member of the centre-left Frente Radical Alfarista (FRA; Radical Alfarista Front), and held many public...

Rivera, José Fructuoso
(c. 1788-1854) Uruguayan general and politician, president 1830-34, 1839-43. Rivera fought under JoséArtigas and submitted to Brazilian occupation before rejoining the revolution in 1825. When he became...

Rivera, Primo de
Spanish politician; see Primo de Rivera. ...

Rivers, Lucius Mendel
(1905-1970) US representative. A lawyer and Democratic state assemblyman in South Carolina 1933-36, he served in Congress 1941-70, chairing the powerful Committee on Armed Services...

Rivers, William Halse Rivers
(1864-1922) English anthropologist and psychologist. His systematic study of kinship relations and his emphasis on Rivette, Jacques
(1928) French film director and critic. An exceptionally intellectual film-maker, his films display a fascination with the arts, especially theatre, exploring its capacity for truth and its ability to...

Rivière, Jacques
(1886-1925) French writer and critic. He wrote for the influential Nouvelle Revue française/New French Review and became its editor 1919. He was preoccupied with spiritual values, and his publications include...

Rivington, James
(1724-1803) English-born American publisher. In 1773 he founded Rivington's New York Gazette. Initially, the Gazette generally sought to present both sides of issues. But in 1775 the plant was destroyed by...

Rivlin, Alice (Mitchell)
(1931) US economist and government official. In 1993 she was appointed deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration. A respected analyst of the US economy, she wrote...

Rivonia trial
Court proceedings begun October 1963 in South Africa against a group of ten people, including Walter Sisulu and Nelson Mandela. They were accused of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the South...

Rizzio, David
(c. 1533-1566) Italian adventurer and musician. He arrived at the court of Mary Queen of Scots in 1561 in the train of the ambassador of the Duke of Savoy. Mary appointed him her French secretary in 1564, and he...

Rizzo, Frank L
(1920-1991) US police official and mayor. He came to political prominence as the self-described `toughest cop in America`, dedicated to stopping the decay of the inner cities. His controversial tactics as...

Rjukan
In World War II, Norwegian electric power station about 160 km/100 mi north of Oslo which produced `heavy water`, at that time a valuable material for conducting experiments in the development...

RN
Abbreviation for Royal Navy; see under navy. ...

RNAS
Abbreviation for Royal Naval Air Service. ...

Roa Bastos, Augusto
(1917-2005) Paraguayan writer. He wrote short stories and novels, mainly about social injustice and violence, using magic realism. Hijo de hombre/Son of Man (1960) deals with Paraguay's history and the Chaco...

Roache, William
(1932) English actor who, in the part of Ken Barlow, was the longest surviving original cast member of the first episode of the Independent Television (ITV) soap opera Coronation Street. Other television...

road
Specially constructed route for wheeled vehicles to travel on. Reinforced tracks became necessary with the invention of wheeled vehicles in about 3000 BC and most ancient civilizations had some form...

Roanoke Island, Battle of
In the American Civil War, Union defeat of Confederate forces on 8 February 1862. Roanoke Island, a Confederate stronghold, commanded the entrance to Albemarle Sound on the coast of North Carolina...

Rob Roy
(1671-1734) Scottish Highland Jacobite outlaw. After losing his estates, he lived by cattle theft and extortion. Captured, he was sentenced to transportation but pardoned in 1727. He is a central character in...

Robards, Jason, Jr
(1922-2000) US stage and film actor. He gained public and critical acclaim as a stage actor in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1956) and Long Day's Journey Into Night (1957), and continued to create a...

Robbe-Grillet, Alain
(1922) French writer. He was the leading theorist of le nouveau roman (`the new novel`), for example his own Les Gommes/The Erasers (1953), La Jalousie/Jealousy (1957), and Dans le...

robbery
In law, a variety of theft: stealing from a person, using force, or the threat of force, to intimidate the victim. The maximum penalty in the UK is life imprisonment. ...

Robbia, della
Italian family of sculptors and architects. They were active in Florence. Luca della Robbia (1400-1482) created a number of major works in Florence, notably the marble cantoria (s ...

Robbins, Harold
(1916-1997) US writer. He produced a series of best sellers, mostly violent and sexually charged adventure novels such as The Carpetbaggers (1961). In later years he lived in Cannes, France. His other novels...

Robbins, Lionel Charles
(1898-1984) English economist who stressed the role of scarcity and constraints in economic decisionmaking. He defined economics as `the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends...

Robens, Alfred
(1910-1999) British Labour politician, trade unionist, and industrialist. A full-time trade-union officer of the Union of Distributive and Allied Workers, he was a member of Parliament 1945-60, serving as...

Robert (I) the Bruce
(1274-1329) King of Scots from 1306, successful guerrilla fighter, and grandson of Robert de Bruce. In 1307 he displayed his tactical skill in the Battle of Loudun Hill against the English under Edward I, and...

Robert (I) the Devil
Duke of Normandy from 1027. Also known as the Magnificent, he was the father of William the Conqueror, and was legendary for his cruelty. He became duke after the death of his brother Richard III,...

Robert (II) Curthose
(c. 1054-1134) Duke of Normandy 1087-1106. He was the son of William the Conqueror, and a noted crusader 1096-1100. When the English throne passed to his younger brother William II in 1087, Robert was unable...

Robert Guiscard
(c. 1015-1085) Norman adventurer and duke of Apulia. Robert, also known as `the Wizard`, carved out a fiefdom centred on Apulia in southern Italy, of which he became duke in 1059. By 1071 he had expelled the...

Robert II
(1316-1390) King of Scotland from 1371. He was the son of Walter (1293-1326), steward of Scotland, and Marjory, daughter of Robert the Bruce. He acted as regent during the exile and captivity of his uncle...

Robert III
(c. 1340-1406) King of Scotland from 1390, son of Robert II. He was unable to control the nobles, and the government fell largely into the hands of his brother, Robert, Duke of Albany (c. 1340-1420). ...

Robert of Brunneborn
Alternative name of English poet Robert Manning. ...

Robert of Gloucester
(lived 1260-1300) English chronicler. He was probably a monk of Gloucester Abbey. He wrote a verse Chronicle of England from the earliest times down to the reign of Henry III. ...

Robert of Ketton
(lived 12th century AD) English scholar from Rutland who is though to have lived around 1140. He organized a group of translators to render the Koran into Latin, the first such undertaking in Christian Europe. Robert of...

Robert of Molesmes, St
(c. 1027-1111) French monastic reformer. He became the superior of a community of hermits which he settled in Molesmes, southeast of Troyes, France. As it prospered, he became dissatisfied with its conduct and...

Robert of Newminster, St
(died 1159) English Cistercian abbot. He became a Benedictine at Whitby, North Yorkshire, but later went to Fountains Abbey where the stricter Cistercian rule was being followed. Newminster Abbey was founded...

Robert, Henry Martyn
(1837-1923) US military engineer who served with the Corps of Engineers, constructing many river and harbour improvements as well as fortifications. His name remains in current usage, however, for other than...

Robert, Hubert
(1733-1808) French painter and garden designer. In both his paintings and his garden designs he made frequent use of Italian motifs. At 21, Robert was taken to Italy by his patron, the future duc de Choiseul....

Robert, Leopold
(1794-1835) Swiss painter. Beginning as an engraver in Paris, he later turned to painting in the neoclassical style. He achieved a European reputation with his idealized depictions of...

Roberti, Ercole d'Antonio de
(1450-1496) Italian painter. He was active in Ferrara, and worked for the Este court. Principal works include a Pietà (Walker Gallery, Liverpool), two scenes from the Passion (Gemäldegalerie Alter Meister,...

Roberts, (Granville) Oral
(1918) US evangelist who established a multimillion dollar evangelical empire and founded Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. He had television and radio programmes and published several books, including...

Roberts, Bartholomew
(c. 1682-1722) British merchant-navy captain who joined his captors when taken by pirates in 1718. He became the most financially successful of all the sea rovers until surprised and killed in battle by the...

Roberts, Charles George Douglas
(1860-1943) Canadian poet, short-story writer, and novelist. He is known as `the father of Canadian literature`. His early Orion, and Other Poems (1880) influentially demonstrated that Canadian poets...

Roberts, John Glover Jr
(1955) Chief justice of the US Supreme Court from 2005. A conservative jurist, he was deputy solicitor general 1989-93 under President George H W Bush and was a judge in the US Court of Appeals for the...

Roberts, Joseph Jenkins
(1809-1876) First president of Liberia. The first African-American governor of Liberia, he went on to become the first president of the new country in 1847, serving six terms in all. His major accomplishments...

Roberts, Kenneth Lewis
(1885-1957) US novelist. He wrote carefully researched novels of early American history, including Rabble in Arms 1933, Northwest Passage 1937, and Lydia Bailey 1946. ...

Roberts, Morley
(1857-1942) English novelist and travel writer. His experiences of working in Australia and travelling widely are reflected in his books, which include Land Travel and Sea-faring 1891, A Tramp's Notebook...

Roberts, Owen J(osephus)
(1875-1955) US Supreme Court justice. He gained prominence when President Calvin Coolidge appointed him to prosecute in the Teapot Dome Scandal...

Roberts, Thomas d'Esterre
(1893-1976) English Roman Catholic prelate. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1909 and was ordained priest in 1925. After serving as rector of St Francis Xavier's College in Liverpool, England (1935-37), he...

Roberts, William
(1895-1980) English painter. One of the leading Vorticists, he developed a style characterized by geometric simplification and a fascination with sharp, angular rhythms (often suggested by popular music). A...

Robertson, Howard Morley
(born 1888) US architect, born at Salt Lake City, USA. He was educated in England and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, and began practice in 1919 with J M Easton. His buildings include the Royal...

Robertson, James
(1742-1814) US frontiersman. The `Father of Tennessee`, he led the first group of settlers to present-day Nashville in 1780. He proved to be an excellent Indian fighter and made peace treaties with the...

Robertson, James Brooks Ayers
(1871-1938) US state governor. As Democratic governor of Oklahoma 1919-23, he built highways and used the National Guard to end a miner's strike. Indicted for bribery, he avoided conviction...

Robertson, Pat (Marion Gordon)
(1930) US Republican politician and religious broadcaster. A born-again evangelical Christian, he founded the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in 1961. He was the host of its daily talk show, The 700...

Robertson, Thomas William
(1829-1871) English dramatist. Initially an actor, he had his first success as a dramatist with David Garrick 1864, which set a new, realistic trend in English drama; later plays included Society...

Robertson, William
(1721-1793) Scottish historian. His reputation was established with his History of Scotland during the Reigns of Queen Mary and of James VI 1759, and he was appointed...

Robertson, William Robert
(1860-1933) British general in World War I, the only man ever to rise from private to field marshal in the British army. Robertson enlisted as a trooper in the cavalry 1877, was commissioned 1888, made KCVO...

Robeson, George Maxwell
(1829-1897) US lawyer and public official. His administration while serving as secretary of the navy 1869-77 was criticized for favouritism. He was a Republican congressman from New Jersey 1879-83. He was...

Robey, George.
(1869-1954) English music-hall comedian. He came to fame in 1891 with his comic interpretation of the song `The Simple Dimple`. He took part in many revues and films and had some success as a serious...

Robin Hood
In English legend, an outlaw and champion of the poor against the rich, said to have lived in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, during the reign of Richard I (1189-99). He feuded with the sheriff...

Robineau, Adelaide Alsop
(1865-1929) US ceramist. In 1903 she began making fine porcelain vases in the art nouveau style, specializing in delicate carved and openwork decoration. At the 1911 Turin exposition,...

Robinson Crusoe
Novel by Daniel Defoe, publis ...

Robinson, (Esmé Stuart) Lennox
(1886-1958) Irish dramatist, editor, and writer. He was manager of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin 1909-14 and 1919-23, after which he also became a director of the theatre. He wrote many plays, the best of them...

Robinson, Charles
(1818-1894) US state governor. Briefly territorial governor, he served as the new state of Kansas's first governor (Republican) 1861-63. Accused of tampering with state bond sales, he fought off impeachment,...

Robinson, Claude (Everett)
(1900-1961) US public opinion analyst. He pioneered scientific public opinion research. After publishing an influential book on the 1928 presidential election in 1932, he developed new scientific sampling...

Robinson, Edward
(1794-1863) US philologist, geographer, and biblical scholar. After touring the Holy Land, he published the first scholarly investigation of the region, Biblical Researches in Palestine 1841, an epoch-making...

Robinson, Edwin Arlington
(1869-1935) US poet. His verse, dealing mainly with psychological themes in a narrative style, is collected in volumes such as The Children of the Night (1897), which established his reputation. He was awarded...