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

Rossiter, Clinton (Lawrence)
(1917-1970) US political scientist who wrote on subjects including colonial America, crisis management, and presidential power. Based on a series of his lectures, The American Presidency 1956 sold over a...

Rossiter, Leonard
(1926-1984) English actor who enjoyed great success in the 1970s in the title role of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) comedy The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, and as...

Rossler, Rudolf
(1897-1958) German who spied for the Allies in World War II. An ex-soldier, he had many friends in high places who were as opposed to the Nazi party as he was, and he received...

Rosso, Giovanni Battista di Jacopo
(1494-1540) Florentine painter. He was active in Florence, Rome, Venice and, from 1530, France, where he was in charge of the decoration of Fontainebleau palace. A nomadic lifestyle was not unusual for an...

Rosso, Medardo
(1858-1928) Italian sculptor. Inspired by the Impressionists, and often taking his subjects from modern life, he aimed to reproduce effects of movement and light in his work. His works include Impression of an...

Rossoni, Edmondo
(1884-1965) Italian trade unionist and Fascist politician. As head of the Fascist trade unions from 1922, he was the leading advocate of Fascist syndicalism, which aimed to establish worker participation in...

Rostand, Edmond
(1868-1918) French poetic dramatist. He wrote Cyrano de Bergerac (1898) and L'Aiglon (1900) (based on the life of Napoleon III), in which Sarah Bernhardt played the leading role. ...

Rostov, Battle of
In World War II, German defeat November 1941 by Soviet forces in fighting for Rostov, a city on the River Don in the southern USSR close to the Sea of Azov; the first military setback in the German...

Rostovtzeff, Michael (Ivanovitch)
(1870-1952) Russian-born US historian. One of the first historians to use archaeological evidence, he was director of the Yale excavation at Dura-Europus on the Euphrates 1928-38. He concentrated on...

rostra
In ancient Rome, a platform from which public speakers used to address the people. It stood between the forum and comitium (the main place of political assembly), and was so called because it was...

Rotberg, Eugene Harvey
(1930) US investment banker and lawyer. After serving as a Security and Exchange Commission lawyer 1963-66, he was vice-president and treasurer of the World Bank in Washington, DC 1969-87. He was...

Roth, Henry
(1906-1995) US novelist. His first novel, Call It Sleep (1934), was rediscovered in the 1960s, when it was hailed as a classic of US literature. In the late 1970s he began work on a novel sequence under the...

Roth, Joseph
(1894-1939) Austrian novelist and critic. He depicted the decay of the Austrian Empire before 1914 in such novels as Savoy Hotel 1924, Radetsky Marsch/The Radetsky March 1932, and (after he moved to Paris 1933)...

Roth, Philip Milton
(1933) US novelist. His witty, sharply satirical, and increasingly fantastic novels depict the moral and sexual anxieties of 20th-century Jewish-American life, most notably in Goodbye Columbus (1959)...

Rothe House
Country house in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny, Republic of Ireland. One of the earliest surviving country houses in Ireland, it was built in 1594 in the then walled town, for John Rothe. The...

Rothenstein, William
(1872-1945) English painter and writer on art. His best-known painting is A Doll's House (1899; Tate Gallery, London). Other work includes decorations for St Stephen's Hall, Westminster, London, and portrait...

Rothko, Mark
(1903-1970) Russian-born US painter. He was a leading exponent of abstract expressionism and a pioneer, towards the end of his life, of colour-field painting. Typically, his works are canvases covered in...

Rothschild
European family active in the financial world for two centuries. Mayer Amschel (1744-1812) set up as a moneylender in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, and business houses were established...

Rotrou, Jean de
(1609-1650) French dramatist. He borrowed from Spanish plays, and showed a strong bias towards romanticism. His finest works are the tragedies Saint-Genest 1646, Venceslas 1647, and Cosroès 1649. ...

rotten borough
English parliamentary constituency, before the Great Reform Act of 1832, that returned members to Parliament in spite of having small numbers of electors. Such a borough could easily be manipulated...

Rottenhammer, Johann
(1564-1623) German painter. He travelled to Venice in 1589 and spent many years there and in Rome. He painted small pictures on copper of mythological scenes in an Italianate style. Settling in Augsburg in...

Rottingdean
Coastal village near Brighton, East Sussex, England; population (2001) 12,500. Rudyard Kipling, the writer, lived here for a time, as did the painter Edward Burne-Jones. Rottingdean has a museum...

Rouen, Siege of
Siege of Rouen, the capital of Normandy, France, by Henry V of England from 30 July 1418 to 19 January 1419. There were no assaults, but the slow strangulation of blockade; Henry received the city's...

Rough Riders
First US volunteer cavalry brigade. Two days after Congress passed the Volunteer Army Act in April 1898, Spain declared war on the USA. Several hundred men, mainly cowboys, joined the force, which...

rough wooing
English invasions of Scotland 1543-1549 in a vain attempt to enforce the Treaty of Greenwich 1543. Henry VIII sent Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, to harry...

Rouher, Eugène
(1814-1884) French statesman. He was one of Napoleon III's most important ministers, and was a specialist in financial and economic matters. He was minister of state from 1863-69, and afterwards president of...

Roumanille, Joseph
(1818-1891) Provençal writer. His poems first appeared in Li Margarideto/The Easter Daisies 1847 and were later collected in Les oubreto 1860. In 1854, with his pupil Frédéric Mistral, he founded the society...

Round Table
In British legend, the table of the knights of King Arthur's court. According to tradition, they quarrelled for precedence and a round table was designed so that all could sit equally. The Round...

Round Table conferences
Discussions on the future of India held in London 1930-32 between representatives of British India, the Princely States, and the British government. The...

round towers
Free-standing towers built in association with Irish monastic sites from about AD 900 until possibly 1300, representing some of the earliest stone structures to survive in Ireland. Most are gently...

Roundhead
Member of the Parliamentary party during the English Civil War 1640-60, opposing the Royalist Cavaliers. The term referred to the short hair then worn only by men of the lower classes. Men at the...

Roundsman system
Method of poor relief in England in the late 18th and early 19th century, whereby unemployed labourers were given a ticket by the poor law guardians of the parish, and then went round the parish...

Roundway Down, Battle of
Battle 13 July 1643 at Roundway Down, 3 km/2 mi north of Devizes, Wiltshire, England, between Royalist troops under Lord Wilmot and Parliamentarians under Sir William Waller. The Parliamentarians...

Rourke, Constance (Mayfield)
(1885-1941) US historian and folklorist. She published pioneering cultural studies on the relationship between American folk traditions and art, which, while flawed, are regarded as still insightful,...

Rous, Francis
(1579-1659) English clergyman. His most notable work was his version of The Psalms of David in English Metre 1643, which was adopted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1650, and is still for...

Rouse, James W
(1914-1906) US real estate developer and urban planner. In 1958 he made his name with the first completely enclosed shopping mall. In the 1960s he gained a wider reputation by building Columbia, Maryland, a...

Rousseau, Henri Julien Félix
(1844-1910) French painter. A self-taught naive artist, he painted scenes of the Parisian suburbs, portraits, and exotic scenes with painstaking detail, as in Tropical Storm with a Tiger (1891; National...

Rousseau, Jean Baptiste
(1671-1741) French poet. He gained a reputation early on for his lyric poetry and satiric epigrams; the latter caused him to be banished from France and he spent the last 30 years of his life in exile. ...

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
(1712-1778) French social philosopher and writer. His book Du Contrat social/Social Contract (1762), emphasizing the rights of the people over those of the government, was a significant influence on the French...

Roussel, Ker Xavier
(1867-1944) French painter, decorator, and pastellist. Associated with les Nabis, he painted mythological subjects, usually sunny landscapes peopled with nymphs and fauns. He worked closely with Edouard...

Rout of San Romano, The
Series of three paintings executed in the 1450s by the Italian artist Paolo Uccello (Uffizi, Florence; Louvre, Paris; and the National Gallery, London). They depict a battle or skirmish fought...

Routledge, Patricia
(1929) English actor. She plays mainly comedy roles, including that of Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances (from 1990) on television. Other television roles include Alan Bennett's Talking Heads...

Rowallane House
19th-century house at Saintfield, County Down, Northern Ireland. It was built in 1861 by J R Moore and is now owned by the National Trust. The property is f ...

Rowan, Carl (Thomas)
(1925) US journalist. He was a prize-winning reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune 1950-61 and later (from 1965) became a nationally syndicated columnist, as well as a radio commentator and panellist on...

Rowan, John
(1773-1843) US representative and senator. He represented Kentucky in Congress (Republican) 1807-09, serving in the state legislature 1813-24, and the Senate 1825-39 where he...

Rowe, Nicholas
(1674-1718) English dramatist and poet. His dramas include The Fair Penitent (1703) and The Tragedy of Jane Shore (1714), in which English actor Mrs Siddons played. He edited Shakespeare and was poet laureate...

Rowland, Benjamin, Jr
(1904-1972) US art historian and artist. Rowland taught art history at Harvard for more than 40 years. An authority on the art of ancient India, medieval Italy, and modern America, his books include Art and...

Rowland, Tiny
(1917-1998) British entrepreneur, financier, and newspaper proprietor. Rowland emigrated to Southern Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe), in 1947. He was co-chief executive and managing director of Lonrho (originally...

Rowlands, John
See Henry Morton Stanley. ...

Rowlandson, Mary
(c. 1636-1711) English-born American colonist. She wrote A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson 1682, a graphic account of her 11 weeks as a captive of the Wampanoag tribe of...

Rowlandson, Thomas
(1757-1827) English painter and illustrator. One of the greatest caricaturists of 18th-century England, his fame rests on his humorous, often bawdy, depictions of the vanities and vices of Georgian social...

Rowlatt Bills
In India 1919, peacetime extensions of restrictions introduced during World War I to counter the perceived threat of revolution. The planned legislation would inhibit individual rights and allow the...

Rowley, Samuel
(died c. 1624) English dramatist. He was associated with the theatre manager Philip Henslowe, probably as a reviser of other people's plays. He himself wrote several plays on biblical subjects, but his only...

Rowley, William
(c. 1585-c. 1642) English actor and dramatist. He collaborated with Thomas Middleton on The Changeling (1622) and with Thomas Dekker and John Ford on The Witch of Edmonton (1621). ...

Rowling, J(oanne) K(athleen)
(1965) English children's novelist. Her series of novels about Harry Potter, a schoolboy wizard, achieved great critical and commercial success and were made into successful films. Rowling made publishing...

Rowntree, B(enjamin) Seebohm
(1871-1954) English entrepreneur and philanthropist. He used much of the money he acquired as chair (1925-41) of the family firm of confectioners, H I Rowntree, to fund investigations into social conditions....

Rowohlt, Ernst
(1887-1960) German publisher. He worked as a compositor in Leipzig and published his first book in 1908, soon becoming the publisher of the young expressionist authors Max Brod, Franz Kafka, Arnold Zweig, and...

Rowse, A(lfred) L(eslie)
(1903-1997) English historian. He published a biography of Shakespeare in 1963, and in Shakespeare's Sonnets: The Problems Solved (1973) controversially identified the `Dark Lady` of Shakespeare's sonnets...

Rowson, Susanna
(c. 1762-1824) English-born writer, actor, and educator. Rowson spent her life moving between England and the USA. Her novel Charlotte, A Tale of Truth was published in the USA as Charlotte Temple in 1794, and...

Roxas (y Acuña), Manuel
(1892-1948) Filipino politician, president 1946-48. He served as finance secretary under Manuel Quezon 1938-41. He was captured by the Japanese invasion forces in 1942. He then served in the Japanese puppet...

Roy, Rajah Ram Rohan
Bengali religious and social reformer known as Ram Mohun Roy. ...

Royal Academy of Arts
British society founded by George III in London in 1768 to encourage painting, sculpture, and architecture; its first president was Joshua Reynolds. It is now housed in Old Burlington House,...

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
British college founded by Herbert Beerbohm Tree in 1904 to train young actors. Since 1905 its headquarters have been in Gower Street, London. A royal charter was granted in 1920. ...

Royal Air Force
The air force of Britain. The RAF was formed 1918 by the merger of the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps. ...

Royal Albert Hall, the
Large oval hall situated south of Kensington Gardens, London, opposite the Albert Memorial. It was built 1867-71 from the surplus of funds collected for the Albert Memorial. The architect was...

Royal Armoured Corps
British regiment formed 1939, when it consisted of 18 cavalry regiments and all the units of the Royal Tank Corps (later renamed the Royal Tank Regiment). Most of these cavalry regiments had already...

royal assent
In the UK, formal consent given by a British sovereign to the passage of a bill through Parliament, after which it becomes an act of Parliament. The last instance of a royal refusal was the...

Royal British Legion
Full name of the British Legion, a nonpolitical body promoting the welfare of war veterans and their dependants. ...

Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Canadian national police force, known for their uniform of red jacket and broad-brimmed hat. Founded as the North West Mounted Police in 1873, it was renamed in 1920 with the extension of its...

royal commission
In the UK and Canada, a group of people appointed by the government (nominally by the sovereign) to investigate a matter of public concern and make recommendations on any actions to be taken in...

Royal Court Theatre
Theatre in Sloane Square, London. It was originally built in 1888, designed by Walter Emden (1847-1913). As the home of the English Stage Company from 1956, it is associated with productions of...

Royal Doulton
British pottery firm. See Henry Doulton. ...

Royal Flying Corps
Forerunner of the Royal Air Force, created in 1912 from the Air Battalion, Royal Engineers, as the air arm of the British army. The RFC was organized in squadrons, each of three flights of four...

royal household
Personal staff of a sovereign. In Britain the chief officers are the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, and the Master of the Horse. The other principal members of the royal family also maintain...

Royal Marines
British military force trained for amphibious warfare. See marines. ...

Royal Military Academy
British officer training college popularly known as Sandhurst. ...

Royal Naval Air Service
Air arm of the British Royal Navy during World War I, formed in July 1914 from naval officers and elements of the ...

Royal Navy
The navy of Britain. Alfred the Great established a navy in the 9th century, and by the 13th century there was already an official styled `keeper of...

Royal Pavilion
Palace in Brighton, England, built in 1784 and bought in the early 19th century for the Prince Regent (the future George IV) who had it extensively rebuilt in a mix of classical and Indian styles....

royal prerogative
Powers, immunities, and privileges recognized in common law as belonging to the crown. Most prerogative acts in the UK are now performed by the government on behalf of the crown. The royal...

Royal Worcester Porcelain Factory
See Worcester Porcelain Factory. ...

Royalist
Term often used to describe monarchist factions. In England, it is used especially for those who supported Charles I during the English Civil War. They are also known as `Cavaliers`, and their...

Royall, Anne
(1769-1854) US author and journalist. In the 1820s Royall set about travelling to every corner of the USA. This resulted in ten volumes of revealing travel books. She later settled in Washington DC and...

royalty
Status of a person of royal rank, such as a king, queen, reigning prince, or grand duke, or any of their family. The possession of such status in no way decides either the actual or legal political...

royalty
In law, payment to the owner for rights to use or exploit literary or artistic copyrights and patent rights in new inventions of all kinds. The record industry stimulated international cooperation,...

Royce, Josiah
(1855-1916) US idealist philosopher who in The Conception of God 1895 and The Conception of Immortality 1900 interpreted Christianity in philosophical terms. ...

Royce, Ralph
(1890-1965) US aviator. In 1916 Royce flew in the first US military air operations. He held a series of operational commands in the 1920s and 1930s and in 1944 he commanded US tactical air forces in Europe....

Royden, Agnes Maude
(1876-1956) English preacher and social worker. She did social work in Liverpool and elsewhere and worked for the women's suffrage movement. Though an Anglican, she was assistant minister of the City Temple...

Royer-Collard, Pierre Paul
(1763-1845) French philosopher and statesman. He was a member of the municipal council of Paris at the beginning of the French Revolution. He fled from Paris during the Reign of Terror, and served on the...

Royko, Mike
(1932) US journalist. A reporter and columnist associated with various Chicago papers since 1956, Royko has won many awards for coverage of Chicago life, including a 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. ...

Royo Sánchez, Arístides
(1940) Panamanian politician, president 1978-82. He presided over a deteriorating economy, which forced the imposition of unpopular austerity measures. This, along with increasing opposition from within...

Royster, Vermont Connecticut
(1914-1996) US journalist. Royster joined the Wall Street Journal in 1936 as an editorial writer, becoming the paper's editor, 1958-71. He went on to become a regular columnist, and his commentary won...

Rozanov, Vasilii Vasil'evich
(1856-1919) Russian philosopher and publicist. He wrote many brilliant and often paradoxical essays criticizing contemporary theories of knowledge, morals, educ ...

Rozwi empire
Highly advanced empire in southeastern Africa, located south of the Zambezi River and centred on the stone city of Great Zimbabwe. It replaced the gold-trading empire of Mwene Mutapa from the 15th...

RPI
Abbreviation for retail price index. ...

RPV
Abbreviation for remotely piloted vehicle, a flying TV camera for military use. ...

RSPCA
Abbreviation for Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. ...

RSV
Abbreviation for Revised Standard Version of the Bible. ...

rubáiyát
Verse form consisting of four half-lines complete in themselves, with the rhyme scheme aaba. This form has traditionally been used by Persian, Arabic, and Turkish poets. Edward Fitzgerald's...

Rubens, Peter Paul
(1577-1640) Flemish painter. He was one of the greatest figures of the baroque period. Bringing the exuberance of Italian baroque to northern Europe, he created innumerable religious and allegorical paintings...