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

Shankara
(c. 700-c. 750) Hindu philosopher who wrote commentaries on some of the major Hindu scriptures, as well as hymns and essays on religious ideas. Shankara was responsible for the final form of the Advaita Vedanta...

Shaoshan
The birthplace in the Chinese province of Hunan of the communist leader Mao Zedong. ...

Shapcott, Jo
(1953) English poet. She is the first person to have won the National Poetry Competition twice (1990 and 1991). Her first collection of verse, Electroplating the Baby (1988) won the Commonwealth Prize....

shape
In art, a two-dimensional area defined by a clear border or outline; it is one of the formal art elements. Shapes have only height and width, and can be set off by the other formal art elements....

SHAPE
Acronym for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, situated near Mons, Belgium, and the headquarters of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). ...

shaped charge munitions
Cylindrical charge of explosive which has one end hollowed out into a cone or hemisphere and lined with metal or glass. When the explosive is detonated from the other end, the advancing detonation...

Shapiro, Harry L(ionel)
(1902-1990) US physical anthropologist. Shapiro was both curator and chairman of the American Museum of Natural History, 1926-70). In 1936 he performed extensive research on the Pitcairn Islanders, and in...

Shapiro, Karl (Jay)
(1913-2000) US poet, writer, and critic. He is noted for the sparkling wit of his poetry and for his criticism of Ezra Pound and T S Eliot. His conception of the Jew as a prototype of the modern human informed...

share
In finance, that part of the capital of a company held by a member (shareholder). Shares may be numbered and are issued as units of definite face value; shareholders are not always called on to pay...

share option
In finance, see option. ...

shareholder
Owner of part of the share capital of a company. Shareholders have certain rights including the right to attend the annual general meeting (AGM), vote in a vote of no-confidence, vote for...

Sharett, Moshe
(1894-1965) Israeli Labour politician, prime minister 1954-55. He was responsible for the volunteering of Palestinian Jews into the British army during World War II, and following the establishment of the...

Shari'a
The law of Islam believed by Muslims to be based on divine revelation. It consists of the Koran (or Quran or Qur'an), with the Sunna, the Hadith, and the Sirah as written secondary...

Shariadmatari, Muhammad Kazem
(1899-1986) Iranian religious leader, head of the Shiite community in Iran 1970-79. He advocated the creation of a modern and democratic Islamic state, which was tolerant of its minorities, at ease with new...

Sharif, (Muhammad) Nawaz
(1949) Pakistani politician, prime minister 1990-93 and 1997-99. Formerly an industrialist, he became Pakistan's first prime minister not be drawn from the country's landholding elite. Leader of the...

Sharon, Ariel
(1928) Israeli right-wing Likud politician, prime minister from 2001. Initially a soldier, he left the army in 1973 to help found the Likud party with Menachem Begin. He was elected to the Knesset...

Sharp, Granville
(1735-1813) English philanthropist. He was prominent in the anti-slavery movement and in 1772 secured a legal decision `that as soon as any slave sets foot on English territory he becomes free`. ...

Sharp, William
(1855-1905) Scottish novelist. His romantic tales published under the pseudonym Fiona Macleod were reminiscent of ...

Sharpe, Tom
(1928) English satirical novelist. Sharpe uses satire and farcical plots to explore the eccentricities and social manners of the English middle classes, in works such as Porterhouse Blue (1973), Blott on...

Sharpe, William Forsyth
(1934) US economist. Sharpe shared the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1990 with US economists Harry Markowitz and Merton Miller for extending Markowitz's earlier normative work on optimal financial...

Sharpeville
Black township in South Africa, 65 km/40 mi south of Johannesburg and north of Vereeniging; 69 people were killed here when police fired on a crowd of anti-apartheid...

Sharpton, Al(fred Charles), Jr
(1954) US African-American Pentecostal minister and political and civil-rights activist. A campaigner against injustice, racism, and inequality, he has followed in the footsteps of Martin Luther King,...

Sharswood, George
(1810-1883) US judge. Sharswood became Pennsylvania district judge in 1845, becoming a member of the state supreme court in 1868. Considered a great judge, he became dean of the University of Pennsylvania law...

Shastri, Lal Bahadur
(1904-1966) Indian politician, prime minister 1964-66. He campaigned for national integration, and secured a declaration of peace with Pakistan at the Tashkent peace conference in 1966. Before independence,...

Shavuot
In Judaism, a festival celebrated on the 50th day after Pesach (Passover) in commemoration of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, and the end of the grain harvest. In the...

Shaw, Anna Howard
(1847-1919) English-born reformer, minister, and .physician. Emigrating to the USA as a child, Shaw developed an early interest in the church and, in spite of much difficulty, became a Methodist minister in...

Shaw, George Bernard
(1856-1950) Irish dramatist, critic, and novelist, and an early member of the socialist Fabian Society, although he resigned in 1911. His plays combine comedy with political, philosophical, and controversial...

Shaw, Henry Wheeler
US writer. See Billings, Josh. ...

Shaw, Lemuel
(1781-1861) US judge. Shaw became chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1830. His rulings on railroad, utility, and other commercial cases had a major impact on the development of the USA's...

Shaw, Robert Gould
(1837-1863) US soldier. Shaw enlisted in the Union army early in the Civil War. In April 1863 he assumed command of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, the first northern black regiment to see combat. He was...

Shawn, William
(1907-1992) US journalist, editor 1952-87 of the New Yorker cultural magazine, where he nurtured many outstanding writers. As managing editor 1939-52, responsible for...

Shawnee
Member of an American Indian people who inhabited the central Ohio River Valley until dispersed by Iroquois aggression and white settlement from the 17th century, migrating extensively through most...

Shawnee Prophet
Shawnee resistance leader; see Tenskwatawa. ...

Shays, Daniel
(c. 1747-1825) American political agitator. In 1786 he led Shays Rebellion, an armed uprising of impoverished farmers, against the refusal of the state government to offer economic relief. The riot was suppressed...

Shchedrin, N
(1826-1889) Russian writer. His works include Fables 1884-85, in which he depicts misplaced `good intentions`, and the novel The Golovlevs 1880. He was a satirist of pessimistic outlook. He was exiled for...

Shea, John (Dawson) Gilmary
(1824-1892) US historian. Shea became a Jesuit in 1848, leaving the order in 1852 to study Catholic history.Shea's works include a pioneering four-volume history of the church (1886-92). He was the first...

Shechem
Ancient town in Palestine, capital of Samaria. In the Old Testament, it is the traditional burial place of Joseph; nearby is Jacob's well. Shechem was destroyed about AD 67 by the Roman emperor...

Sheed, Frank
(1897-1981) Australian Catholic religious publisher and writer. As a religious lecturer living in England, Sheed married Maisie Ward, founding the Sheed & Ward religious publishing house in 1926. In 1940 the...

Sheehy-Skeffington, Hannah
(1877-1946) Irish patriot and feminist. One of the first women in Ireland to study at, and teach in, a university, she was a founder-member of the Irish Women Graduates' Association (1901) and campaigned...

Sheehy, Gail
(1937) US journalist and writer on popular psychology. Sheehy worked as an editor on New York magazine (1966-77). She wrote a number of best-selling books, including Passages: Predictable Crises of...

Sheehy, Nicholas
(c. 1728-1766) Irish Catholic priest. As parish priest of Clogheen, County Tipperary, he was hated by landlords because of his sympathies with the poor. Agrarian unrest by the Whiteboys (a secret agrarian protest...

sheela-na-gig
Primitive Irish carving of a naked female displaying exaggerated genitalia. Mainly found outside medieval churches and buildings, the figures have been variously interpreted as pagan fertility...

Sheeler, Charles
(1883-1965) US painter. He was noted for views of American industrial works, machinery, and architecture in a highly finished, precise manner influenced by photography. A well-known example is Upper Deck 1929...

Sheffield Outrages
In British history, sensational reports in the national press 1866 exemplifying summary justice exercised by trade unions to secure subscriptions and obtain compliance with rules by threats, removal...

sheikh
Leader or chief of an Arab family or village; also Muslim title meaning `religious scholar`. ...

Sheil, Richard Lalor
(1791-1851) Irish politician and dramatist. Born in Drumdowney, Kilkenny, he wrote a series of plays, and helped Daniel O'Connell and the Catholic Association campaign for emancipation. He entered parliament in...

Sheils, George
(c. 1881-1949) Irish playwright whose realistic dramas often satirize the role of greed and financial despair in political and familial decisions. Born in Ballymoney, County Antrim, Sheils emigrated to Canada but...

Shekhinah
In Judaism, the presence of God among people. Jews believe that the permanent, all-pervading, joyful majesty of God is present where people gather for worship, study the Torah, or do good deeds. ...

Shelby, Isaac
(1750-1826) US soldier and public official. Shelby followed the moving frontier, relocating to Virginia in 1773 and to Kentucky in 1783. He became the first governor...

Sheldon, Charles Monroe
(1857-1946) US clergyman and writer. His religious novel In His Steps 1896 was a best-seller. He was editor of the Christian Herald 1920-25. Sheldon's other books include His Brother's Keeper 1895 and The...

Sheldon, Edward (Brewster)
(1886-1946) US playwright. Sheldon's work addresses a range of issues, ranging from social realism in The Nigger (1909), to love in Romance (1913). ...

Sheldon, Gilbert
(1598-1677) English prelate. He was warden of All Souls College, Oxford University, for some years, and became chancellor of the university in 1667. He held various preferments in the Church and became...

Sheldon, Sidney
(1917-2007) US producer and writer. Sheldon became a noted film and television producer in the 1960s, and his shows included I Dream of Jeannie 1965-70 and Hart to Hart 1979-84. From 1970 onwards, he also...

shell scandal
Furore in the British press 1915 over supplies of ammunition to artillery units in the field. Sir John French, British commander at Neuve Chapelle, cited lack of ammunition as the reason for his...

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
(1797-1851) English writer. She is best known as the author of the gothic novelFrankenstein (1818), which is considered to be the origin of modern science fiction, and her other novels include The Last Man...

Shelley, Percy Bysshe
(1792-1822) English lyric poet and critic. He was a commanding figure of the artistic movement of Romanticism. His skill in poetic form and metre and his intellectual capacity and searching mind were clouded by...

Shema
In Judaism, prayer from the Torah that affirms Jewish belief in the one God, and the special relationship of the Jews with God. It plays an important part in most services and worship, and is...

Shen Chou
(1427-1509) Chinese painter. He depicted sensitive landscapes. His style drew on the work of the old masters of Chinese painting and, possibly, also on that of Japanese artist Sessh?. ...

Shen Nung
Chinese legendary ruler and god of medicine and agriculture. The immediate predecessor of the mythical Yellow Emperor, Shen Nung is known as the Agricultural Emperor for his invention of the cart...

Shenshin
Adopted name of the Russian poet Afanasi Fet. ...

Shenstone, William
(1714-1763) English poet and essayist. His works include Poems upon Various Occasions 1737, The Judgement of Horatio 1741, the Spenserian The Schoolmistress 1742, elegies, odes, songs, and ballads. Shenstone...

Sheol
In the Hebrew Bible, the place of the dead. The word also suggests the grave, the underworld, and the state of death. Yahweh...

Shepard, Anna Osler
(1903-1973) US ceramist. A self-taught expert on prehistoric ceramics, Shepherd performed rigorous scientific analyses of pottery from the American Southwest and Mesoamerica, often with controversial results....

Shepard, E(rnest) H(oward)
(1879-1976) English illustrator and cartoonist. He worked for Punch, but is best remembered for his illustrations for children's classics, including A A Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and Kenneth Grahame's...

Shepard, Thomas
(1605-1649) English Protestant clergyman. Shepherd was ordained in 1627 but was silenced for nonconformity. He emigrated to the USA in 1635 where he espoused a stern Calvinist doctrine. A promoter of education,...

Shephard, Gillian Patricia
(1940) British Conservative politician, education and employment secretary 1995-97. She became education secretary in 1994 at a time when relations between government and teaching profession were...

Shepherd Tony
Pseudonym of English writer Anthony Munday, attached to some of his lyrics published in England's Helicon (1600). ...

Sheppard, David Stuart
(1929-2005) English cricketer and cleric. He first achieved prominence as an outstanding cricketer, winning a blue at Cambridge University and playing for England while still an undergraduate...

Sheppard, Eugenia
(died 1984) US newspaper columnist, Sheppard revolutionized fashion reporting with her reports in New York City's Herald Tribune (1940-56). Her syndicated column, Inside Fashion, made her the most influential...

Sheppard, Jack (John)
(1702-1724) English criminal. Born in Stepney, East London, he was an apprentice carpenter, but turned to theft and became a popular hero by escaping four times from prison. He was finally caught and hanged. ...

Shepstone, Theophilus
(1817-1893) English-born South African statesman. He was African interpreter at Cape Town, South Africa, in 1835, and British resident among the Pondo and Fingo tribes in 1839. Having held the position of...

Sheraton, Thomas
(1751-1806) English designer of elegant inlaid neoclassical furniture. He was influenced by his predecessors Hepplewhite and Chippendale. He published the Cabinet-maker's and Upholsterer's...

Sheridan, Philip Henry
(1831-1888) Union general in the American Civil War. Recognizing Sheridan's aggressive spirit, General Ulysses S Grant gave him command of his cavalry 1864, and soon after of the Army of the Shenandoah Valley,...

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley
(1751-1816) Irish dramatist and politician. His social comedies include The Rivals (1775), celebrated for the character of Mrs Malaprop, whose unintentional misuse of words gave the English language the word...

sheriff
In England and Wales, the crown's chief executive officer in a county for ceremonial purposes; in Scotland, the equivalent of the English county-court judge, but also dealing with criminal cases;...

Sheriffmuir, Battle of
During the Jacobite rebellion of the Fifteen, inconclusive engagement 13 November 1715 between the Earl of Mar's 10,000-strong Jacobite army and 3,300 royalist troops under the Duke of Argyll....

Sherman
US Medium Tank M4. It was used by all Allied armies in World War II, and although no match for the German Tiger or Panther until given a heavier gun, it proved reliable, easy to operate and...

Sherman Anti-Trust Act
In US history, an act of Congress 1890, named after senator John Sherman (1823-1900) of Ohio, designed to prevent powerful corporations from monopolizing industries and restraining trade for their...

Sherman, James S(choolcraft)
(1855-1912) US vice-president and representative. He was known as an amicable congressman, serving 1887-91 and 1893-1904. Both parties praised his handling of the Senate while he was vice-president...

Sherman, John
(1823-1900) US Republican politician. Under Rutherford Hayes he was secretary of the Treasury 1877-81, and under William McKinley secretary of state 1897-98. He was responsible for the Sherman, Roger
(1721-1793) American public official. He was one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the Articles of Confederation in 1781, and the US Constitution in 1788. A supporter of American...

Sherman, Thomas West
(1813-1879) US soldier. Sherman fought in Florida, the Mexican War, and on the frontier. A stern disciplinarian, he commanded the Port Royal, South Carolina, expedition in 8161 and afterward fought in...

Sherman, William Tecumseh
(1820-1891) Union general in the American Civil War. In 1864 he captured and burned Atlanta; continued his march eastward, to the sea, laying Georgia waste; and then drove the Confederates northward. He was US...

Sherpa
Member of a Mongolian people who originally migrated from Tibet and now live in northeastern Nepal. They are related to the Tibetans. Skilled mountaineers, they frequently work as support staff and...

Sherriff, R(obert) C(edric)
(1896-1975) English dramatist. He is remembered for the antiheroic war play Journey's End (1928). Later plays include Badger's Green (1930) and Home at Seven (1950). His film scripts include The Invisible Man...

Sherwood Forest
Hilly stretch of parkland in west Nottinghamshire, central England; area about 520 sq km/200 sq mi. Formerly an ancient royal forest extending from Nottingham to Worksop, it is associated with the...

Sherwood, Mary Martha
(1775-1851) English writer. She wrote The History of the Fairchild Family: or, The Child's Manual 1818, which became a children's classic. Other works include Susan Gray 1802...

Sherwood, Robert Emmet
(1896-1955) US dramatist. His plays include The Petrified Forest 1935, the melodrama Idiot's Delight 1936, Abe Lincoln in Illinois 1938,...

Shevardnadze, Edvard Amvrosievich
(1928) Georgian politician, president 1992-2003. He was Soviet foreign minister 1985-91. A supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, he was first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party from 1972 and an...

Shevchenko, Taras Hryhorovych
(1814-1861) Ukrainian national poet. Born a serf, he was freed (for 2,500 roubles) in St Petersburg, where he then studied art. His sensationally successful first collection Kobzar/Folk Minstrel 1840...

Shi Huangdi (or Shih Huang Ti)
(c. 259-c. 210 BC) Emperor of China. He succeeded to the throne of the state of Qin 246 BC and had reunited China as an empire by 228 BC. He burned almost all existing books in 213 to destroy ties with the past;...

Shidehara, Kijuro
(1872-1951) Japanese politician and diplomat, prime minister 1945-46. As foreign minister 1924-27 and 1929-31, he promoted conciliation with China, and economic rather than military expansion. After a...

Shields, Carol
(1935-2003) US-born Canadian writer. Her book The Stone Diaries (1993) was short-listed for the Booker Prize and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. Her novel Larry's Party (1997) won the Orange Prize. Her...

Shields, James
(1806-1879) Irish-born judge, soldier, and US senator. After serving on the Illinois Supreme Court, 1843-46, Shields was briefly the commissioner of the US General Land Office, but resigned to serve in the...

shift in demand or supply curve
In economics, a shift in the demand or supply curve to the left or right on a price-quantity diagram. A shift in the ...

Shiite
Member of a sect of Islam that believes that Ali, a cousin of the prophet Muhammad, was his first true successor. The Shiites are doctrinally opposed to the Sunni Muslims. They developed their own...

shilling
English coin worth 12 pennies (there were 20 shillings to one pound), first minted under Henry VII. Although the denomination of a shilling was abolished with...

Shilluk
Member of a Nilotic people living in the flat grassland on both sides of the River Nile in Sudan. Cattle are their wealth and, although much millet is grown, not enough is harvested to meet the...

Shiloh, Battle of
During the American Civil War, Confederate defeat by Union forces under General Ulysses S Grant 6-7 April 1862 near Shiloh Church, about 150 km/95 mi east of Memphis, Tennessee. The Confederate...

Shilts, Randy Martin
(1951-1994) US journalist and writer. As a reporter on the San Francisco Chronicle from 1981, he pioneered awareness of the AIDS epidemic in the USA. The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey...