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

Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin
(1804-1869) French critic and historian. A champion of Romanticism, he wrote widely on French literature and culture; his articles appearing in the Revue des deux mondes/Review of the Two Worlds from 1831 as...

Sainte-Chapelle
Chapel in Paris, France, in a courtyard of the Palais de Justice. It was built by Louis IX in 1243-48 to house relics from the Holy Land, and is actually two chapels, one above the other. It was...

Saints, Battle of the
During the American Revolution,...

Saintsbury, George Edward Bateman
(1845-1933) English critic and literary historian. He wrote on the history of French and English literature, on the novelists Walter Scott and William Thackeray, and histories of criticism, the English novel,...

Saionji, Kinmochi
(1849-1940) Japanese prince and politician, prime minister 1906-08 and 1911-12. He was one of the group of elder statesmen known as Genro. By surviving all the other Genro, Saionji exerted considerable...

Saipan
Island of the Marianas group about 1,900 km/1,200 mi north of New Guinea. It was occupied by the Japanese in World War II and when US troops recaptured it June 1944, several hundred Japanese...

Saivism
In Hinduism, worship of the god Shiva. It is an important part of...

Sakai
Member of an indigenous people of Sumatra and the central forest region of the Malay Peninsula. Mainly hunters and gatherers, they also practise a rudimentary form of agriculture. Their average...

Saki
(1870-1916) Burmese-born British writer. He produced ingeniously witty and bizarre short stories, often with surprise endings. He also wrote two novels, The Unbearable Bassington (1912) and...

Saklatvala, Shapurji
(1874-1936) Indian lawyer and Communist politician, who represented Battersea North as a Labour member of Parliament 1922-23 and as a Communist 1924-29. He was associated with the Indian Trades Union...

Saks, Gene
(1921) US stage and television actor and director. He is best known as a director of comedies, including Nobody Loves an Albatross (1963), Mame (1966), and the Tony Award-winning Biloxi Blues (1984). ...

Sakti
The female principle in Hinduism. ...

Sakuntala
Romantic drama by the Indian writer Kalidasa, performed c. 400. King Dushyanta falls in love with, but later fails to acknowledge, Sakuntala, the adopted daughter of the hermit Kanva. Dushyanta's...

Sakyamuni
The historical Buddha, called Shaka in Japan (because Gautama was of the Sakya clan). ...

Sala, George Augustus Henry
(1828-1895) British journalist. He was a contributor to Household Words and the Illustrated London News. He joined the staff of the Daily Telegraph in 1857, representing the paper in the USA during the Civil...

Salacrou, Armand
(1899-1989) French dramatist. His plays cover a wide range of theme and tone, though a preoccupation with fatalism recurs in many, such as L'Inconnue d'Arras/The Unknown Woman from Arras 1935, Dieu le savait...

Saladin
(c. 1138-1193) Kurdish conqueror of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin believed in jihad (holy war) - the Muslim equivalent of the crusades. He conquered Syria 1174-87, and recovered Jerusalem from the...

Saladino, John F
(1939) US interior decorator. Saladino started his private practice in 1972. His design is noted for sensitive use of colours, styles, and textures. ...

Salamanca, Battle of
During the Peninsular War, victory 22 July 1812 of the British led by the Duke of Wellington over the French under Marshal Auguste Marmont. The battle took place to the south of Salamanca, 170...

Salamaua
Seaport on the north coast of New Guinea; a major Japanese supply base during World War II. ...

Salamis
Ancient city on the east coast of Cyprus, the capital under the early Ptolemies until its harbour silted up about 200 BC, when it was succeeded by Paphos in the southwest. ...

Salamis, Battle of
In the Persian Wars, sea battle fought in the Strait of Salamis west of Athens, Greece, in 480 BC between the Greeks and the invading Persians. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Greeks...

Salan, Raoul Albi Louis
(1899-1984) French general. As commander-in-chief of France's forces in Algeria 1956-58 he was instrumental in securing Charles de Gaulle's return to government in the crisis of 1958. However, after the...

Salandra, Antonio
(1853-1931) Italian politician and prime minister, March 1914- June 1916. After Giovanni Giolitti's resignation in March 1914, he became prime minister; rejecting the former's policy of neutrality, he began...

salat
The prayers that are the second of the Five Pillars of Islam, said five times a day. The first prayer is said before dawn and the last after dusk. Times for prayer are signalled by a muezzin...

Salat al-Jum'ah
Congregational prayers observed by Muslims at noon every Friday at the mosque. Men are obliged to attend, but women can worship at home if they prefer, especially if they are looking after children....

Salazar, António de Oliveira
(1889-1970) Portuguese prime minister 1932-68 who exercised a virtual dictatorship. During World War II he maintained Portuguese neutrality but fought long colonial wars in Africa (Angola and Mozambique) that...

Sale, Robert Henry
(1782-1845) British soldier. Heentered the army in 1795. In India, he took part in the storming of Seringapatam in 1799, and of Travancore in 1809. In the Burmese War (1824-25) he distinguished himself at...

Saleh, Ali Abdullah
(1942) Yemeni politician and soldier, president from 1990. He became president of North Yemen on the assassination of its president (allegedly by South Yemen extremists) in 1978, and was re-elected to...

Salem witch trials
Series of trials that took place near Salem, part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1692, in which more than 150 men and women were accused and 19 found guilty of practising witchcraft, then a...

sales revenue
Monies received from the sale of products. Sales revenue is equal to the number sold multiplied by the average price received. For example, if a company sold 1 million units at 1 each, total sales...

Salic law
Law adopted in the Middle Ages by several European royal houses, excluding women from succession to the throne. The name derives mistakenly from the Salian or northern division of the Franks, who...

Salii
In ancient Rome, a priesthood connected with the worship of Mars and Quirinus (Romulus). During the festivals of Mars, in March and October, the Salii went in procession and...

Salim, Salim Ahmed
(1942) Tanzanian diplomat and secretary general of the Organization of African Unity (OAU; later African Union) from 1989. His administration took a tough line on countries that have not paid their...

Salinas de Gortari, Carlos
(1948) Mexican politician, president 1988-94, a member of the dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). During his presidency he promoted economic reform, including privatization, and signed a...

Salinger, J(erome) D(avid)
(1919) US writer. He wrote the classic novel of mid-20th-century adolescence The Catcher in the Rye (1951). He developed his lyrical Zen themes in Franny and Zooey (1961), Raise High the Roof Beam,...

Salisbury, Harrison E(vans)
(1908-1993) US journalist. Moscow correspondent for the New York Times 1949-54, he won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting 1955 for his series Russia Reviewed about...

Salisbury, Thomas de Montacute
(1388-1428) English noble. He served with Henry V in France in 1415 during the Hundred Years' War, and took part in the siege of Harfleur and the Battle of Agincourt that year. He was twice ambassador to...

Salisbury, William Longsword
(c. 1175-1226) English noble, illegitimate son of Henry II. King John made him warden of the Cinque Ports and Welsh Marches. He was privy councillor on the king's side 1208-11 and witnessed the charter...

Salish
Member of an American Indian people who live in Montana, Idaho, Washington, and British Columbia, Canada. They speak a Salishan language and form two cultural groupings: the Interior Salish...

Salishan
Major American Indian language family of the northwest USA (Washington, Montana, and Idaho) and British Columbia, Canada. Branches include Bella Coola; the Central Salish languages, many of which...

Salk, Jonas Edward
(1914-1995) US physician and microbiologist. In 1954 he developed the original vaccine that led to virtual eradication of paralytic polio in industrialized countries. He was director of the Salk Institute for...

Salle, David
(1952) US artist. Salle's large multimedia paintings, characterized by startling juxtapositions, drew mixed critical reception from the start. He became something of an celebrity during the 1980s. ...

Sallinen, Tyko Konstantin
(1879-1955) Finnish expressionist painter. Inspired by fauvism on visits to France 1909 and 1914, he created visionary works relating partly to his childhood experiences of religion. He also painted Finnish...

Sallust, Gaius Sallustius Crispus
(86-c. 34 BC) Roman historian. He served under Julius Caesar in Gaul (France) and during the civil war, but retired from public life after a scandal involving his governorship of Africa. He wrote histories of the...

salmo
Italian word for a psalm. ...

Salmon, André
(1881-1969) French poet, novelist, and art critic. He was one of the leading exponents of cubism in French literature. His volumes of poetry include Les Féeries 1907, Prikas 1919 (inspired by the Russian...

Salmon, Robert
(c.1775-c.1843) British-born painter. Salmon emigrated to the USA in the 1820s. He painted marine scenes and landscapes, faithfully recording the details of the era, as seen in Boston Harbor from Constitution...

Salmond, John Maitland
(1881-1968) British air marshal in World War I. After service in the South African War 1901-02, he learned to fly at his own expense and joined the Royal Flying Corps 1912 as an instructor. In 1918 he...

Salome
(lived 1st century AD) In the New Testament, granddaughter of the king of Judea, Herod the Great. Rewarded for her skill in dancing, she requested the head of John the Baptist from her stepfather Herod Antipas. ...

Salomon, Haym
(c. 1740-1785) Polish-born American financier. A supporter of American independence, he supplied provisions to the Continental troops during the American Revolution 1861-65. Accused of being a spy by the...

salon
Meeting place provided by a wealthy host or hostess for writers, artists, and musicians. The term was first used in 17th-century Paris to describe...

Salon des Refusés
Special art exhibition in Paris 1863 ordered by Napoleon III in response to protests at the rejection of Edouard Manet and others from the official Salon that year. Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe was...

Salonika, expedition to
In World War I, joint Anglo-French expedition to help Greece against Bulgaria October 1915, which remained in the area, reinforced by Serbs, until the end of the war. In September 1915, fearful of...

Salote Tupou III, Mafili'o Pilolevu
(1900-1965) Queen of Tonga 1918-65. Her prosperous reign saw the reunion, for which she was mainly responsible, of the Tongan Free Church majority with the Wesleyan Church in 1924. There were also significant...

SALT
Abbreviation for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, a series of US-Soviet negotiations 1969-79. ...

Salt Lake City
Capital of Utah, seat of Salt Lake County, on the River Jordan, 605 km/378 mi northwest of Denver, Colorado; population (2000 est) 181,700. It is the commercial centre and world capital of the...

Salt March
Demonstration 11 March-4 May 1930 during the period of Indian nationalist agitation against British rule, forming part of Mahatma Gandhi's campaign of civil disobedience. On 11 March 1930 G ...

Salt, Barbara
(1904-1975) English diplomat. She joined the Foreign Office as a first secretary to the United Nations, became counsellor in 1955, and was appointed ambassador to Israel in 1962. Unable to take up the post...

Saltonstall, Dudley
(1738-1796) US naval officer. He commanded the USS Alfred during the 1776 capture of New Providence. He was dismissed from the navy after the failure of the Penobscott Bay operation under his command. ...

Saltonstall, Leverett
(1892-1979) US governor and senator. Salstonstall was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1939. He became a senator in 1945, and was Republican whip 1949-57. He also served as chairman of...

Saltram
House owned by the National Trust in Devon, England, 5 km/3 mi east of Plymouth. Classical facades were added to the original Tudor house around 1750, and Robert Adam designed the saloon and...

Salus
In Roman mythology, the goddess of safety. She came to represent prosperity in general, and in the 3rd century BC was identified with the Greek goddess Hygieia. ...

Salutati, Coluccio
(1331-1406) Italian writer and humanist. He became Florentine chancellor 1375 and had considerable influence on the development of humanism in Italy through his belief in the value of literary eloquence in...

salvage
Saving or rescue, either as a whole or in part, of any property threatened with destruction, especially at sea. The term is used more specifically for compensation payable to those who, by voluntary...

Salvarsan
First specific antibacterial agent, discovered by German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich in 1909. Because of its destructive effect on Spirochaeta pallida, it was used in the treatment of syphilis...

salvation
Being saved. In Christianity, individuals are thought of as being saved from eternal punishment through Jesus's death on the cross, although this may be understood in different ways. In Buddhism,...

Salvation Army
Christian evangelical, social-service, and social-reform organization, originating in 1865 in London with the work of William Booth. Originally called the Christian Revival Association, it was...

Salviati, Francesco
(1510-1563) Italian painter. He painted religious and classical subjects in fresco (including the Story of Psyche in the Palazzo Grimani, Venice), as well as portraits. A fine example of his portraiture is...

samadhi
In Hinduism and Buddhism, a total absorption in meditation. For Buddhists it is one of the three main components (with prajña, wisdom, and shila, ethical living) in the Buddhist path to nirvana....

Samain, Albert
(1858-1900) French poet. He published a collected edition of his verse under the title Au Jardin de l'infante 1893 (enlarged 1914), followed by Aux Flancs du vase 1898. He also wrote a poetic drama, Polythème,...

Samaria
Region of ancient Israel. The town of Samaria (now Sebastiyeh) on the west bank of the River Jordan was the capital of Israel in the 10th-8th centuries BC. It was renamed Sebarte in the 1st...

Samaritan
Members or descendants of the colonists forced to settle in Samaria (now northern Israel) by the Assyrians after their occupation of the ancient kingdom...

Samaritan Pentateuch
Revised version of the first five books of the Bible in use among the Samaritans. It is written in the Samaritan alphabet, a descendant of early Hebrew writing. The codex of the Samaritan...

samatha
In Buddhism, any form of meditation designed to still...

Sambre, Battle of the
In World War I, the final part of the British advance across Flanders November 1918 along the line of the River Sambre, which rises in the French département of the Aisne, flows northeast, and...

Sambucus, Johannes
(1531-1584) Hungarian historian and classical scholar. He lived for some time in the Netherlands, where he became friends with Christopher Plantin, who published his popular Emblemata 1564. In the same year, he...

samizdat
In the USSR and eastern Europe before the 1989 uprisings, written material circulated underground to evade state censorship; for example, reviews of Solzhenitzyn's banned novel August 1914 (1972). ...

Samkhya
Hindu philosophy of discrimination between matter and spirit taught in the Upanishads. One of the six orthodox doctrines of Hindu philosophy, Samkhya describes the universe as two forms, prakriti...

Sammicheli, Michele
(1484-1559) Italian architect, born at Verona. In 1500 he went to Rome to study. In 1530 he began strengthening the fortifications of Verona, designing the Porta Nuova (1533-40), and the Porta Palio (1557)....

Samnite
Member of ancient warlike tribes inhabiting the mountainous centre of southern Italy. They formed a league and were involved in a series of three wars (343-341 BC, 316-304 BC, and 298-290 BC)...

Samoa
Country in the southwest Pacific Ocean, in Polynesia, northeast of Fiji Islands. Government Samoa is an independent state within the Commonwealth. The 1960 constitution, which went into effect in...

Samosata
Ancient city in southeast Turkey, situated on the right bank of a major crossing-point on the Euphrates, 64 km/40 mi northwest of Urfa. It was formerly a strategic frontier post and caravan...

Samoset
(c. 1590-c. 1653) Pemaquid diplomat born on Monhegan Island in present-day Maine. He had learned some English from British fishermen who had worked off the coast of Maine, and it was said that he greeted the...

Samoyed
Member of a group of peoples of northern Siberia living on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. They are seminomadic reindeer herders in the north, sedentary fishers in the south. Their language belongs...

Sampaio, Jorge
(1940) Portuguese lawyer and politician, president 1996-2006. A former leader and lifetime member of the Socialist Party (PS), he was mayor of Lisbon before defeating the opposing presidential candidate,...

sampler
Embroidered panel, originally one on which various types of stitches or motifs had been worked to serve as models or samples. Since the 16th century the term has been used to mean a panel worked in...

Sampson, Deborah
(1760-1827) US Revolutionary soldier and lecturer. Sampson enlisted in the American Revolution by disguising herself as a man and adopting the name Robert Shurtleff. She concealed her identity while...

Sampson, William
(1764-1836) Irish-born lawyer and patriot. Admitted to the Irish bar, he was exiled for treason, eventually travelling to New York in 1806. An eloquent advocate of personal rights, he championed the movement...

Sampson, William Thomas
(1840-1902) US naval officer. Sampson was superintendent of the US Naval Academy, 1886-89, and chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, 1893-97. He commanded the North Atlantic squadron which blockaded Santiago and...

samsara
In Hinduism and Buddhism, the cycle of repeated birth and death in the material world, which is held to be a place of suffering. The goal of yoga is release from samsara. ...

samskaras
In Hindu tradition, the sacraments that mark the passage of life, each marked by a ceremony. Samskaras are mainly observed by high-caste Hindus. The numbers celebrated vary, and may be marked in...

Samson
(lived 11th century BC) In the Old Testament, a hero of Israel. He was renowned for exploits of strength against the Philistines, which ended when his lover Delilah had his hair, the source of his strength, cut off, as...

Samson, St
(c. 490-c. 565) Welsh missionary. He was a disciple of St Illtyd, and later monk and abbot of the monastery on Caldey Island. After a visit to Ireland he lived in Cornwall, being consecrated bishop. About 525 he...

Samsonov, Aleksandr Vassilievich
(1859-1914) Russian general. He joined the cavalry 1875, served in the Russo-Turkish war, became a general 1902 and commanded a Siberian Cossack brigade in the Russo-Japanese war 1905. In 1914 he was given...

Samuel
(lived 11th century BC) In the Old Testament, the last of the judges who ruled the ancient Hebrews before their adoption of a monarchy, and the first of the prophets; the two books bearing his name cover the story of...

Samuel, Herbert Louis
(1870-1963) British Liberal politician and administrator. He was leader of the Liberal Party 1931-35, held several ministerial offices, and served as high commissioner of Palestine 1920-25. Ministerial...

Samuelson, Paul Anthony
(1915) US economist. His major works include Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947) and Economics (1948). In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics for contributions to...

samurai
Japanese term for the warrior class which became the ruling military elite for almost 700 years. A samurai was an armed retainer of a daimyo (large l ...

San
(Formerly Bushman) a small group of hunter-gatherer peoples living in and around the Kalahari Desert. Their language belongs to the Khoisan family. ...