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

Serjeant at Arms
Officer appointed to the House of Commons by the sovereign to attend on the Speaker while Parliament is sitting. The Serjeant at Arms precedes the Speaker with the mace on the Speaker's entering or...

Serlio, Sebastiano
(1475-1554) Bolognese architect and painter. He was the author of Regale generali di architettura/General Rules of Architecture (published in six parts 1537-51, with a posthumous seventh part in 1575), which...

sermon
In Christianity and Buddhism, spoken or written discourse on a religious subject. The Sermon on the Mount is the summary of Jesus' teachings recorded in Matthew 5:7; this formed the core of...

Sermon on the Mount
In the New Testament, the summary of Jesus' teachings recorded in Matthew 5-7. It forms the basis of Christian teaching on discipleship, and includes the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-11), that lay...

Serov, Valentin Alexandrovich
(1865-1911) Russian artist. He was considered the best portrait painter of his day in Russia, though he also painted landscapes and genre scenes and produced designs for the theatre, lithographs, and...

Serpent Mound
Earthwork built by Hopewell Indians in the 2nd-1st centuries BC in Ohio, USA. It is 405 m/1,330 ft long, 1.3 m/4 ft high, and about 6 m/19 ft across and may have been constructed in the shape of a...

Serpico, Frank
(1936) US police detective 1959-71. He is famous for exposing widespread corruption within the New York police department during the late 1960s. He was the subject of Serpico (1973), a best-selling...

SERPS
Acronym for State Earnings-Related Pension Schemes, the UK state pension scheme. Pension schemes operated by private companies may now be run in conjunction with SERPS; if they are `contracted...

Serra, Junipero Blessed
(1713-1784) Spanish missionary and explorer in America. A Franciscan friar, he pursued a missionary career and served in Querétaro 1750-58. He was transferred to Baja California with the expulsion of the...

Serra, Richard
(1939) US sculptor. A leading exponent of minimalism, he is noted for abstract works in metal, in particular huge curving steel plates set up out of doors, as in Sight-Point...

Serrano Elias, Jorge
(1945) Guatemalan politician, member of the Solidarity Action Movement (MAS), president 1991-93. He restored diplomatic relations with Belize, whose territory had formerly been claimed by Guatemala, and...

Sert, José Maria
(1876-1945) Spanish decorative painter. He executed grandiose murals both in Europe and the USA, examples being his work in Geneva, Switzerland, for the Palace of the League of Nations and in New York at the...

Sertorius, Quintus
(c. 121-72 BC) Roman soldier. A supporter of Marius and ...

Servan-Schreiber, Jean Jacques
(1924-2006) French publisher and radical politician. In 1953 he founded the magazine L'Express, which supported and popularized Pierre Mendès-France's modernizing republicanism in the mid-1950s. He was the...

Servetus, Michael
(1511-1553) Spanish Anabaptist theologian and physician. He was a pioneer in the study of the circulation of the blood and found that it circulates to the lungs from the right chamber of the heart. He was,...

service industry
Sector of the economy that supplies services such as retailing, banking, and education. ...

service law
Specialized code of the criminal law that regulates the conduct of members of the armed forces. It consists of naval law, military law, and air-force law. Offences include desertion, malingering,...

Service, John Stewart
(1909-1999) US foreign service officer. Service was raised by his missionary parents in China, where he worked for the US foreign service, 1933-45. He was dismissed for passing documents to the leftist...

Service, Robert William
(1874-1958) Canadian author. He wrote ballads of the Yukon in the days of the Gold Rush, for example The Shooting of Dan McGrew 1907. ...

services, armed
Air, sea, and land forces of a country; its army, navy, and air force; also called the armed forces. History, UK The army and navy can be traced back to the locally raised forces that prevented King...

Sessh?, Toyo
(1420-1506) Japanese painter. Influenced by several Chinese landscape painters, he established a tradition of realism in landscape painting that was maintained by succeeding generations of Japanese painters. A...

Session, Court of
One of the civil courts in Scotland; see Court of Session. ...

set
In drama, the scenery and props (properties, the movable objects used by the actors or decorating the set). ...

Set
In Egyptian mythology, the god of night, the desert, and of all evils. Portrayed as a grotesque animal with long ears and a tail, Set was the murderer of his brother Osiris, later...

Seth, Vikram
(1952) Indian poet and novelist. He is most famous for his novel A Suitable Boy, published in 1993, an epic tale set during Indian independence. His novel An Equal Music was published in 1999. ...

Seton, St Elizabeth Ann
(1774-1821) US religious leader and social benefactor. A convert to Roman Catholicism, she founded schools for the poor. Known as `Mother Seton,` she was proclaimed the first American saint 1975. Born in...

Settle, Elkanah
(1648-1724) English poet and dramatist. The success of his play The Empress of Morocco 1673 annoyed the poet laureate John Dryden, who satirized Settle as `Doeg` in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel...

settlement
Collection of dwellings forming a community. There are many different types of settlement and most owe their origin to historical and geographical factors. The growth and development of a settlement...

settlement out of court
Compromise reached between the parties to a legal dispute. Most civil legal actions are settled out of court, reducing legal costs and avoiding the uncertainty of the outcome of a trial. ...

Settlement, Act of
In Britain following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, a law passed in 1701 during the reign of King William III, designed to ensure a Protestant succession to the throne by excluding the Roman...

Seurat, Georges Pierre
(1859-1891) French artist. One of the major post-Impressionists, he originated, with Paul Signac, the technique of pointillism (painting with small dabs rather than long brushstrokes). One of his best-known...

Seuss, Dr
(1904-1991) US author. He wrote children's books including And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937) and the classic Horton Hatches the Egg (1940). After w ...

seva
Sikh concept of service for others with no thought of recognition or reward. To truly be seva, a person must do the service selflessly, with no ego, and with no hope for a particular outcome. Any...

Sevareid, (Arnold) Eric
(1912-1992) US broadcast journalist. Sevareid worked at the Minneapolis Journal and was city editor for the Paris Herald Tribune before joining CBS Radio in 1939. He served as national correspondent and...

Sevastopol, Siege of
During the Crimean War, successful British and French siege October 1854-September 1855 of Sevastopol, a fortified Russian town on the Black Sea. The Russian fleet was based in Sevastopol harbour,...

Seven against Thebes
In Greek mythology, the attack of seven captains led by Adrastus, king of Argos, on the seven gates of ancient Thebes, prompted by the rivalry between the two sons of Oedipus, Polynices and...

seven bishops, trial of
In Britain, trial 1688 of William Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, and six other bishops on charges of seditious libel after they objected to James II's order that the Declaraton of Indulgence...

Seven Days' Battle
During the American Civil War, successful Confederate campaign June-July 1862 to drive back Union forces threatening Richmond, Virginia. The success of the campaign was largely due to the tactical...

seven deadly sins
In Christian theology, anger, avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, pride, and sloth (or dejection). These vices are considered fundamental to all other sins. Evagrius Ponticus (ADc. 346-399), a deacon...

Seven Sages of Greece
Group of prominent Greeks, including Thales of Miletus, Solon of Athens, Bias of Priene, Chilon of Sparta (who brought back the bones of Orestes), Cleobulus of Rhodes, Periander of Corinth, and...

Seven Sleepers of Ephesus
Seven Christians from Ephesus who took refuge from the persecution of the emperor Decius in a cave in 250 AD. They were walled in, fell asleep, and awoke nearly 200 years later, in the reign of...

Seven Weeks' War
War 1866 between Austria and Prussia, engineered by the German chancellor Bismarck. It was nominally over the possession of Schleswig-Holstein, but it was actually to confirm Prussia's superseding...

Seven Wise Masters, The
Series of stories, said to be of Eastern origin. A Roman prince remains silent by decree of the stars when every day for a week his stepmother tells...

Seven Wonders of the World
In antiquity, the pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Greek sculptor Phidias' chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at...

Seven Years' War
War in North America 1756-63 arising from the conflict between Austria and Prussia, and between France and Britain over colonial supremacy. Britain and Prussia defeated France, Austria, Spain, and...

Seventeenth Amendment
See Amendment, Seventeenth. ...

Seventh Amendment
See Amendment, Seventh. ...

Seventh-Day Adventist
Member of the Protestant religious sect of the same name. It originated in the USA in the fervent expectation of Christ's Second Coming, or advent, that swept across New York State following William...

Severin, Tim
(1940) English writer, historian, and traveller who has re-enacted several `classic` voyages, starting in 1961 when he led a motorcycle team along the Marco Polo route in Asia. His Brendan Voyage in...

Severini, Gino
(1883-1966) Italian painter. One of the leading Futurists, he developed a semi-abstract style to express movement and dynamism, as in Suburban Train Arriving in Paris 1915 (Tate Gallery, London). He later...

Severus of Antioch
(c. 467-538) Christian bishop, one of the originators of the Monophysite heresy. As patriarch of Antioch from 512, Severus was the leader of opposition to the doctrine agreed at the Council of...

Severus, Lucius Septimius
(AD 146-211) Roman emperor 193-211. After holding various commands under the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, Severus was appointed commander-in-chief of the army on the Danube, in the Roman...

Sevier, John
(1745-1815) US soldier and public official. Sevier led militia forces during the American Revolution and was governor of the short-lived state of Franklin, 1785-88. He also served as governor of Tennessee ,...

Sèvres
Fine porcelain produced at a factory in Sèvres, France (now a Paris suburb), since the early 18th century. It is characterized by the use of intensely coloured backgrounds (such as pink and royal...

Sèvres, Treaty of
The last of the treaties that ended World War I. Negotiated between the Allied powers and the Ottoman Empire, it was finalized August 1920 but never ratified by the Turkish government. The treaty...

Sewall, Samuel
(1652-1730) English-born judge and merchant. Sewall emigrated to the USA as a child. He was a superior court justice before becoming chief justice in 1718. He was the author of one of the first antislavery...

Seward, Anna
(1747-1809) English writer. She wrote romantic poems, including an `Elegy on Captain Cook` (1780); they were bequeathed to the novelist Walter Scott, who edited them in Poetical Works (1810). Among her...

Seward, William Henry
(1801-1872) US public official. A leader of the Republican party, he was appointed secretary of state by President Lincoln 1860. Although seriously wounded in the 1865 assassination of Lincoln, Seward continued...

sewing
Process of joining two or more pieces of fabric together with a needle and thread. There are many different sewing techniques, namely different stitches such as running stitch or blanket stitch....

sewing machine
Apparatus for the mechanical sewing of cloth, leather, and other materials by a needle, powered by hand, treadle, or electric motor. The lockstitch machine, in common use, which uses a double...

Sexton, Thomas
(1848-1932) Irish nationalist politician and journalist. A fervent supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell's home rule campaign, he represented various constituencies in Parliament between 1880 and 1896, gaining a...

Sextus Empiricus
(c. 160-c. 210 AD) Greek physician and philosopher. He was an exponent of scepticism of an agnostic, not a dogmatic, kind - that is, he rejected the view that knowledge was dem ...

Sextus Pompeius
(c. 67-35 BC) Roman soldier. He was the younger son of the military leader Pompey and his third wife, Mucia. Following Julius Caesar's murder 44 BC, he occupied Sicily and opposed Octavian (Augustus), Seychelles
Country in the Indian Ocean, off east Africa, north of Madagascar. Government Seychelles is a republic within the Commonwealth. The 1993 constitution provides for a president, who is directly...

Seymour
Family names of the dukes of Somerset (seated at Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire, England), and marquesses of Hertford (seated at Ragley Hall, Warwickshire, England);...

Seymour, Horatio
(1810-1886) US governor. Seymour served in the New York Assembly in the 1840s and gained a reputation for compromise and moderation. As New York governor, 1853-55, he improved the prison system and opposed...

Seymour, Jane
(c. 1509-1537) English noble, third wife of Henry VIII, whom she married 1536. She died soon after the birth of her son Edward VI. Daughter of John Seymour and sister of Edward, Duke of Somerset, she was a...

Seymour, John
(c. 1738-1818) English-born furniture maker. Seymour emigrated to the USA in 1785. Together with his son Thomas he became the leading cabinet maker in the federal style. ...

Seyss-Inquart, Arthur
(1892-1946) Austrian lawyer and politician. He joined the Nazi party in 1928. He was minister of the interior and security in the Schuschnigg Cabinet from February to March 1938. Seyss-Inquart became governor...

Sezession
Name given to various groups of German and Austrian artists in the 1890s who `seceded` from official academic art institutions in order to found new schools of pa ...

Sforza family
Italian family that ruled the duchy of Milan 1450-99, 1512-15, 1521-24, and 1529-35. Its court was a centre of Renaissance culture and its rulers prominent patrons of the arts. The family...

Sforza, Carlo
(1873-1952) Italian diplomat and statesman. In 1919 he became under-secretary of state, and in 1920 foreign minister under Giovanni Giolitti. He was ambassador to France in 1922. After Mussolini's March on...

sfumato
In art, having delicate gradations of shadow rather than firm outlines. Sfumato was used to subtle effect by Leonardo da Vinci, for example. ...

sgraffito
In art, a linear method of decoration in which a surface is scratched through to reveal a different colour or texture underneath. There are prehistoric examples of its graphic use in Pyrenean caves....

Shabbi, Abu'l-Qasim al-
(1909-1934) Tunisian poet. He gained a reputation as one of the finest Arabic poets of his time as a contributor to Apollo magazine (see Apollo poets). His verse was collected as Songs of Life 1955. Shabbi has...

shabti
In ancient Egypt, a small statue placed in the tomb of a dead person. First appearing during the Eleventh Dynasty (around 2035 BC), its purpose was to carry out any manual labour required for the...

Shackleton, Ernest Henry
(1874-1922) Irish Antarctic explorer. In 1908-09, he commanded the British Antarctic expedition that reached 88° 23′ S latitude, located the magnetic South Pole, and climbed Mount Erebus. He...

shadow cabinet
The chief members of the British parliamentary opposition, each of whom is responsible for commenting on the policies and performance of a government ministry. ...

Shadwell, Thomas
(c. 1642-1692) English dramatist and poet. His plays include Epsom-Wells (1672) and Bury-Fair (1689). He was involved in a violent feud with the poet Dryden, whom he attacked in The Medal of John Bayes (1682)...

SHAEF
Abbreviation for Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, World War II military centre established 15 February 1944 in London, where final plans were made for the Allied invasion of Europe...

Shaffer, Peter Levin
(1926) English dramatist. His psychological dramas include Five Finger Exercise (1958), the historical epic The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964), the controversial Equus (1973), Amadeus (1979), about the envy...

shah
(More formally, shahanshah`king of kings`) traditional title of ancient Persian rulers, and also of those of the recent Pahlavi dynasty in Iran. ...

Shah Jahan
(1592-1666) Mogul emperor of India from 1628, under whom the dynasty reached its zenith. Succeeding his father Jahangir, he extended Mogul authority into the Deccan plateau (eastern India), subjugating...

Shah, Eddy (Selim Jehane)
(1944) English newspaper magnate and novelist. In 1983 he grabbed national attention by defeating a protracted strike by the printing unions over the use of non-union workers in his Messenger group of...

shahadah
The first duty of the Five Pillars of Islam. It is a statement of faith -`I bear witness that...

Shahn, Ben(jamin)
(1898-1969) Lithuanian-born US painter. The most distinguished of the US Social Realists, his art drew attention to social...

Shaivism
In Hinduism, worship of the god Shiva. It is an important part of the Hindu tradition, particularly in southern India. Shaivite ascetics often smear their bodies with ashes, keep their hair uncut,...

Shaka (or Chaka)
(c. 1787-1828) Zulu chief who formed a Zulu empire in southeastern Africa. He seized power from his half-brother 1816 and then embarked on a bloody military campaign to unite the Zulu clans. He was assassinated...

Shaker
Member of the Christian sect of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, called Shakers because of their ecstatic trembling and shaking during worship. The movement was founded...

Shakespeare, William
(1564-1616) English dramatist and poet. He is considered the greatest English dramatist. His plays, written in blank verse with some prose, can be broadly divided into comedies, including A shakti
In Hinduism, the female attribute of purusha (the Cosmic Self), as light and heat are the shakti of the Sun. Those who worship the goddess Durga or Parvati, consort of Shiva, are called Shaktas. The...

Shalmaneser III
King of Assyria 859-824 BC who pursued an aggressive policy and brought Babylon and Israel under the domination of Assyria. ...

shaman
Ritual leader who acts as intermediary between society and the supernatural world in many indigenous cultures of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Also known as a medicine man, seer, or sorcerer, the...

shamanism
Possibly the oldest world religion, originating among the Tungus peoples of Siberia over 8,000 years ago and spreading into China and Southeast Asia and across into Russia and into North and Central...

Shamash
In Babylonian and Assyrian mythology, the sun god, son of Sin and brother of Ishtar. A life-giving and healing god, hostile to darkness and wickedness, he was the great judge of the universe. His...

Shamil, Imam
(c. 1798-1871) Caucasian warlord from the Lezgi people who led resistance to the Russian encroachment; he was also a Muslim religious leader. He united the people of the northern Caucasus against the Russians and...

Shamir, Yitzhak Yernitsky
(1915) Polish-born Israeli right-wing politician; prime minister 1983-84 and 1986-92; leader of the Likud (Consolidation Party) until 1993. He was foreign minister under Menachem Begin 1980-83,...

Shan
Member of a people of the mountainous borderlands separating Thailand, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and China. They are related to the Shang dynasty
China's first fully authenticated dynasty, c. 1500-c. 1066 BC, which saw the start of the Bronze Age. Shang rulers dominated the Huang He (Yellow River) plain of northern China, developing a...

Shango
Thunder god and fourth king of the Yoruba people of Nigeria, whose symbols are an axe and a ram. ...