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

Smersh
The main administration of counterintelligence in the USSR, established 1942; a subsection of the KGB. ...

Smet, Gustave de
(1877-1943) Belgian expressionist painter. He lived in the Netherlands during World War I, when he seems to have made some contact with German expressionist art. He worked in Belgium at Laethem St-Martin with...

Smibert, John
(1688-1751) Scottish-born American painter who emigrated to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1729, with Bishop Berkeley. There he painted his most famous work, Dean Berkeley and His Entourage (1729). In 1730 he...

Smigly-Rydz, Edward
(1886-1941) Polish soldier and politician. He fought with Józef Pilsudski on the Austrian side in World War I. In 1919 he was Pilsudski's coadjutor in setting up...

Smiles, Samuel
(1812-1904) Scottish writer. He was the author of the popular Victorian didactic work Self Help 1859. Here, as in Character 1871, Thrift 1875, and Duty 1880, he energetically advocated self-improvement,...

Smiley, Jane
(1949) US novelist and short-story writer. Her novel A Thousand Acres, a retelling of the King Lear story based on an Iowa farm, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1992. Her other books include Barn...

Smith-Dorrien, Horace Lockwood
(1858-1930) British general; potentially one of Britain's best generals of World War I, he was denied the opportunity to realize this potential by petty spite. KCB 1907. He was sent to France to take command of...

Smith, Adam
(1723-1790) Scottish economist. Until comparatively recently, Adam Smith was known only as the author of a single book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), published in the...

Smith, Al(fred Emanuel)
(1873-1944) US political leader who served four terms as governor of New York. The first Roman Catholic to receive a presidential nomination, he unsuccessfully fought for the 1924 presidency as a Democrat, on a...

Smith, Alexander
(1830-1867) Scottish poet and essayist. His collection of A Life Drama and Other Poems 1853 included `A Life Drama` 1852. In prose he wrote Dreamthorp 1863 (essays), A Summer in Skye 1865, his most...

Smith, Andrew David
(1951) British Labour politician, secretary of state for work and pensions 2002-04. He became MP for Oxford East in 1987. Between 1997 and 1999, as minister for employment, he was in charge of one of the...

Smith, Arnold Cantwell
(1915-1994) Canadian diplomat. He was ambassador to the United Arab Republic 1958-61 and to the USSR 1961-63. From 1965 to 1975 he was secretary general of the newly formed Commonwealth Secretariat. Smith...

Smith, Arthur James Marshall
(1902-1980) Canadian poet, critic, and anthologist. His verse appears in The Classic Shade: Selected Poems 1978, and as a critic and anthologist he brought many Canadian poets to an international audience. His...

Smith, Bruce
(1892-1955) US police consultant and criminologist. He created a uniform international system for reporting crime statistics publishing the first Uniform Crime Reports in 1930. He was noted during the 1950s for...

Smith, Christopher Robert (Chris)
(1951) British Labour politician, secretary of state for culture, media, and the arts 1997-2001. He entered the House of Commons in 1983, representing Islington South and Finsbury. He was shadow Treasury...

Smith, Cloethiel Woodard
(1910-1993) US architect. Trained in both architecture and city planning, she founded a Washington, DC firm bearing her name in 1963, specializing in urban planning and renewal and new town residential...

Smith, Dodie
(1896-1990) English playwright, novelist, and theatre producer. Her first play, Autumn Crocus (1930), was an instant success. Other plays include Dear Octopus (1938), Letter from Paris (adapted from The...

Smith, Donald Alexander
(1820-1914) Scottish-born Canadian politician. He was a member of Parliament for Selkirk in the Dominion House of Commons 1871-72, 1874, and 1878, and for Montréal West 1877-96. He was instrumental in...

Smith, Edmund Kirby
(1824-1893) US soldier. Resigning from the US Army in 1861 after 16 years service, he joined the Confederate army. He led the advance into Kentucky in 1862 and fought at the battle of Perryville; he was then...

Smith, Eli
(1801-1857) US missionary and translator. He was ordained as a Congregational minister in 1826 and went to Malta to work for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He travelled extensively in...

Smith, Elias
(1769-1846) US Protestant clergyman and author. In 1808 he established the Herald of Gospel Liberty, the first religious weekly in the USA He sold the paper in 1818, rejected Calvinist doctrine, and became a...

Smith, Ellison DuRant
(1866-1944) US Democrat senator. He devoted his long political career to fighting high tariffs and Northern business/financial interests. He served in the US Senate for South Carolina 1904-44, and after...

Smith, George Adam
(1856-1942) Indian-born Scottish biblical scholar and minister. He became professor of Old Testament languages, literature, and theology at the United Free Church College in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1892. He was...

Smith, George Murray
(1824-1901) British publisher. In 1838 he joined the firm of Smith Elder, of which his father was part-founder, and in 1845 became head of the publishing department. Energetic, bold, and astute, he soon...

Smith, Gerrit
(1797-1874) US philanthropist and reformer. He was active nationally as a leader of the antislavery Liberty Party 1824-74, was vice-president of the American Peace Society (1830s), and from 1835 on was a...

Smith, Grafton Elliot
(1871-1937) Australian-born anatomist and anthropologist who combined his interests in human anatomy and anthropology in order to conduct research into the mummification of the ancient Egyptians. Smith was...

Smith, Harold Dewey
(1898-1947) US public administrator. A specialist in fiscal management, he was powerful director of President Franklin D Roosevelt's Bureau of the Budget 1939-45; he reviewed all federal spending and...

Smith, Harry George Wakelyn
(1787-1860) British general. He served in the Peninsular War (1808-14) and later fought in South Africa and India. He was governor of Cape Colony 1847-52. The towns of Ladysmith and Harrismith, South...

Smith, Hedrick
(1933) US journalist and Slavic specialist. He was a staff reporter for the New York Times 1962-68, part of the Pulitzer prize-winning team that produced the Pentagon Papers series; he also won a...

Smith, Herbert
(1862-1938) English miners' leader. He became president of the Yorkshire Miners' Association in 1906 and was president of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain 1922-29. During the mining strike of 1926, he...

Smith, Holland M(cTyeire)
(1882-1967) US Marine officer. His ruthless drive and personality earned him the nickname of `Howlin' Mad`. During World War II, he led the Fifth Amphibious Corps in the bloody Pacific campaigns of the...

Smith, Horatio (or Horace)
(1779-1849) English novelist and parodist. In 1812 he and his elder brother James Smith jointly produced Rejected Addresses: or, the New Theatrum Poetarum, a series...

Smith, Howard (Worth)
(1883-1876) US Democratic representative. He represented Virginia in Congress 1931-67, chairing the Committee on Rules, whose members blocked progressive legislation. He...

Smith, Iain Crichton
(1928-1998) Scottish writer. Writing in English and Gaelic, he described human loneliness in a dehumanized world and the tensions between the religious traditions of the Highlands and modern freedom. His poetry...

Smith, Jacqui
(1962) British Labour politician, home secretary from 2007. A member of Parliament for Redditch from 1997, she was parliamentary secretary to the Treasury and government chief whip in the Cabinet from...

Smith, James
(1775-1839) English parodist, who worked in collaboration with his brother Horatio Smith. ...

Smith, James McCune
(1813-1865) US doctor. He devoted his life to the welfare of black Americans and to insisting on their moral and physical equality with whites. A prolific writer, he opposed the American Colonization Society's...

Smith, Jedediah Strong
(1798-1831) US fur trader, mountain man, and explorer. He was the first American to enter and exit California by the eastern route (over uncharted deserts), and the first to open up a coastal trade route...

Smith, John
(1938-1994) British Labour politician, party leader 1992-94, born on the Scottish island of Islay. He was trade and industry secretary 1978-79 and from 1979 held various shadow cabinet posts, culminating in...

Smith, John
(1580-1631) English colonist. After an adventurous early life he took part in the colonization of Virginia, acting as president of the North American colony 1608-09. He explored New England in 1614, which he...

Smith, Logan Pearsall
(1865-1946) US critic and essayist. He published collections of thoughts and comments such as Trivia 1918, More Trivia 1921, and All Trivia 1933. He also wrote on and edited the works of John Donne, John...

Smith, Merriam
(1913-1970) US journalist. As White House correspondent for United Press International from 1941 until his death, he covered six presidents and wrote several books about the presidency, beginning with Thank...

Smith, Oliver (Lemuel)
(1918-1994) US set designer. his designs span all aspects of performance - drama, opera, ballet and film. He began his Broadway career in 1942 with Rosalinda. Thereafter he designed for Brigadoon (1947), My...

Smith, Pauline (Janet)
(1882-1959) South African writer. Her novel The Beadle (1926) is considered a classic of South African literature, and like many of her short stories, focuses on the lives of rural Afrikaners. She was...

Smith, Reginald Heber
(1889-1966) US lawyer. He was widely acclaimed for initiating the modern American system of legal aid for those who cannot afford lawyers. He wrote Justice and the Poor (1919) and Survey of...

Smith, Richard
(1931) English abstract artist. His use of advertising imagery in the 1960s linked him briefy to pop art. He spent long periods in the USA, turning to abstract work and developing the use of shaped...

Smith, Robert
(1757-1842) US secretary of the navy and secretary of state. He served as Thomas Jefferson's secretary of the navy 1801-09. He maintained a blockading squadron against the Barbary pirates with very limited...

Smith, Rodney
(1860-1947) English evangelist. At the age of 17 he met General William Booth at a Salvation Army meeting in Whitechapel Road in London, England, and became one of the leading evangelists of modern times. He...

Smith, Samuel Francis
(1808-1895) US clergyman and poet. He wrote `My Country, 'tis of Thee` 1831, which, with the title `America`, was adopted as a national hymn of the USA in 1832. The tune is that of the British `God...

Smith, Seba
(1792-1868) US journalist and writer. While in Portland, Maine, he began the publication of political and satirical commentaries in the form of letters from `Major Downing` 1830-33, published as The Life...

Smith, Sophia
(1796-1870) US philanthropist. The last surviving member of her family and heir to its fortune, she finally decided to leave her money to establish a new college for women - rejecting earlier proposals that...

Smith, Stevie (Florence Margaret)
(1902-1971) English poet and novelist. She made her debut with Novel on Yellow Paper (1936). She wrote nine volumes of eccentrically direct verse illustrated with her equally eccentric line drawings, including...

Smith, Sydney
(1771-1845) English writer. He was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review 1802, and contributed to it for 25 years. A popular and witty preacher, he became a canon of St Paul's Cathedral 1831. Smith was...

Smith, Thomas
(born fl. 1650) American painter. He is identified tentatively as Captain (or Major) Thomas Smith who arrived in Boston from Bermuda in 1650. An attributed painting is Self-Portrait (c. 1690), showing a navy...

Smith, Tony
(1912-1980) US sculptor, painter, and architect. He was an apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright 1938-39, and a practicing architect in New York City 1940-60. He painted and worked on architectural commissions,...

Smith, Vernon L
(1927) US economist who was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences (with US psychologist Daniel Kahneman) for introducing laboratory experiments into economic research. Smith set the standards...

Smith, W(illiam) Eugene
(1918-1978) US photojournalist. A photographer with Life 1939-41 and war correspondent 1942-54, his photo essays focused on life in small villages from midwives in rural America to Dr. Albert Schweitzer in...

Smith, Walter Bedell
(1895-1961) US soldier and diplomat. From 1942 to 1945 he was Eisenhower's chief of staff, in which position he helped plan and carry out the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Normandy. President Truman...

Smith, William (Loughton)
(1758-1812) US representative and ambassador. He became a Federal congressman for South Carolina 1787-97, speculating in government scrip and supporting the federal bank. He was...

Smithies, Arthur
(1907-1981) Australian- born economist. His principal field of expertise was macroeconomics and the US budgetary process. He taught at the University of Michigan 1934-43, served on the US Bureau of the...

Smithson
English architects, teachers, and theorists. They are known for their development in the 1950s and 1960s of the style known as Brutalism, for example, Hunstanton School, Norfolk, England...

Smithson, Robert
(1938-1973) US sculptor and experimental artist. He is celebrated for his huge outdoor earthworkSpiral Jetty (1970) - a spiralling stone causeway that extended into Great Salt Lake, Utah, but of which only...

Smithsonian Institution
Academic organization in Washington, DC, USA, founded in 1846 with money left by British chemist and mineralogist James Smithson. The Smithsonian Institution, `an establishment for the increase...

smoke shell
In World War I, artillery projectile carrying a charge of some chemical capable of producing smoke so as to form a smoke screen. Such shells almost invariably used white phosphorus since this...

Smollett, Tobias George
(1721-1771) Scottish novelist. He wrote the picaresque novels Roderick Random (1748), Peregrine Pickle (1751), Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753), Sir Launcelot Greaves (1760-62), and Humphrey Clinker (1771). His...

Smoot, Reed (Owen)
(1862-1941) US Republican senator. A prominent Mormon business and religious leader, he was elected to the US senate for Utah 1903-33. He became an influential figure in the Senate, advocating protectionist...

smriti
Hindu scriptures regarded as `those that can be remembered`. Smriti are only memories of what God has said, not direct transmissions. They are not believed to be as accurate as sruti, which are...

smuggling
Illegal import or export of prohibited goods or the evasion of customs duties on dutiable goods. Smuggling has a long tradition in most border and coastal regions; goods smuggled commonly include...

Smuts, Jan Christian
(1870-1950) South African politician and soldier; prime minister 1919-24 and 1939-48. He supported the Allies in both world wars and was a member of the British imperial war cabinet 1917-18. During the...

Smyrna
Ancient city near the modern Turkish port of Izmir. The earliest remains date from the 3rd millennium BC, and excavations have revealed that by the 8th century BC the city had a circuit of defensive...

Smyth, Herbert Weir
(1857-1938) US classicist. He spent most of his teaching career (1901-25) at Harvard. His many publications include The Ionic Dialect (1894);Greek Grammar (1920);Aeschylean Tragedy (1924); and the Loeb...

Smythson, Robert
(c. 1535-1614) English architect. He built Elizabethan country houses, including Longleat (1568-75), Wollaton Hall (1580-88), and Hardwick Hall (1590-97). Their castlelike silhouettes, symmetry, and large...

Snegur, Mircea
(1940) Moldovan politician, chair of the Party of Resurrection, president of Moldova 1990-96 and leader of the opposition from 1996. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)...

Snell, Bertrand Hollis
(1870-1958) US Democrat representative. In the US House of Representatives for New York 1915-39, he chaired the House Rules Committee in the 1920s, often frustrating...

Snell, Hannah
(1723-1792) British female soldier. In 1745 she enlisted in the army, but later deserted and joined the marines as James Gray. She served in the East Indies, and was wounded at Pondicherry, India, but her...

Snellmann, Johan Vilhelm
(1806-1881) Swedish-born Finnish politician, philosopher, and writer. He was an ardent supporter of Finnish nationalism. He fought for the recognition of Finnish as a national language, and used his...

Snicket, Lemony
Pen-name of US author Daniel Handler. ...

sniper
Soldier specially trained in accurate long-range shooting, scouting, and reconnaissance. The sniper's function is to kill individual `high-value` targets such as officers and specialists, to...

Snorri Sturluson
(1179-1241) Icelandic author. He wrote the Old Norse poems called Eddas and the Heimskringla, a saga chronicle of Norwegian kings until 1177. ...

Snow White
Traditional European fairy tale. Snow White is a beautiful princess persecuted by her jealous stepmother. Taking refuge in a remote cottage inhabited by seven dwarfs, she is tricked by the disguised...

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)
(1905-1980) English novelist and physicist. He held government scientific posts in World War II and from 1964-66. His sequence of novels Strangers and Brothers (1940-70) portrayed English life from 1920...

Snow, Edgar (Parks)
(1905-1972) US journalist and author. A lifelong specialist on Chinese affairs, he first went to China as a reporter 1928-40. In his mid-1930s reports, he presented the communist revolutionaries as a...

Snow, John
(1813-1858) British anaesthetist and epidemiologist. He was the first specialist anaesthetist; before the introduction of chloroform he administered ether 152 times, but from 1847-58 he administered...

Snow, John William
(1939) US public servant, secretary of the Treasury from 2003. Before that, for 14 years he was chair and chief executive officer of CSX Corporation, the country's largest railroad company. He replaced...

Snow, Jon
(1947) English journalist. He became lead presenter of the UK's Channel 4 news on ITN in 1989. He is known as a hard-hitting reporter, and notable stories include coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall,...

Snowden, Frank Martin, Jr
(1911) US classicist. Educated at Harvard (BA 1932; MA 1933; PhD 1944) he taught at Howard University 1942-90 and was one of the first black American classicists. His publications include Blacks in...

Snowden, Philip
(1864-1937) British right-wing Labour politician, chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 and 1929-31. He was MP for Blackburn 1906-31 and entered the coalition National Government in 1931 as Lord Privy Seal,...

Snowshill Manor
Tudor Cotswold manor house in Gloucestershire, England, 10 km/6 mi southeast of Evesham. The house has an early 18th-century facade, but is primarily of interest because it belonged to Charles...

Snyder, Gary Sherman
(1930) US poet. He was a key figure in the poetry renaissance in San Francisco during the 1950s. He combined an early interest in ecological issues with studies of Japanese, Chinese, and American Indian...

Snyders, Frans
(1579-1657) Flemish painter. His subjects were hunting scenes, battles, and still lifes. Based in Antwerp, he was a pupil of Brueghel the Younger and later assisted Rubens. ...

Soames, (Arthur) Christopher (John)
(1920-1987) British Conservative politician. He held ministerial posts 1958-64, was vice-president of the European Commission 1973-77 and governor of (Southern) Rhodesia during its transition to...

Soane, John
(1753-1837) English architect. His refined neoclassical designs anticipated contemporary taste. Soane was a master of the established conventions of classical architecture, he also developed a highly individual...

Soares, Mario Alberto Nobre Lopes
(1924) Portuguese socialist politician, president 1986-96. Exiled in 1970, he returned to Portugal in 1974, and, as leader of the Portuguese Socialist Party, was prime minister 1976-78. He resigned as...

Sobchak, Anatoly
(1937-2000) Russian centrist politician, mayor of St Petersburg 1990-96, cofounder of the Democratic Reform Movement (with former foreign minister Shevardnadze), and member of the Soviet parliament 1989-91....

Sobek
In Egyptian mythology, a crocodile god worshipped throughout Egypt but especially in El Faiyûm, and with Horus at Kom Ombo. ...

Sobhuza I
(1889-1982) Swazi king and the world's longest serving monarch at the time of his death. He was one of the few traditional rulers to have retained political power in post-colonial Africa. His main...

Sobibor
German extermination camp northwest of Lublin, established March 1942. An estimated 250,000 Jews were sent there and murdered before the camp was closed 1943. Its closure was unique since it was...

Sobieski, John
Alternative name for John III, king of Poland. ...

Sobukwe, Robert
(1924-1977) South African nationalist leader. Originally a member of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League, he was dismissed from his teaching post in 1952 because of his participation in the...

socage
Anglo-Saxon term for the free tenure of land by the peasantry. Sokemen, holders of land by this tenure, formed the upper stratum of peasant society at the time of the Domesday Book. ...