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

Swing, Raymond (Edwards) Gram
(1887-1968) US journalist. A correspondent in Berlin during World War I, he later became widely known as a radio commentator for the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Mutual Broadcasting System. Swing...

Swinton, Ernest Dunlop
(1868-1951) British soldier and historian. He served in South Africa and in World War I, and was the inventor of the tank in 1916. KBE 1923. Returning to London on leave Christmas 1914 he was pondering the...

Swiss art
The painting and sculpture of Switzerland from the 15th century. It is related by various threads to French, German, and Italian art. Among its outstanding artists are Konrad Witz, Nicolaus Manuel...

Swiss Cottage
Self-consciously rustic thatched cottage (cottage ornée) near Cahir, County Tipperary, Republic of Ireland. It was built in 1810 for Richard Butler, 12th Lord Cahir, probably by the English...

Swiss Family Robinson, The
Children's adventure story by Swiss author Johann Wyss, first published in German 1812-13 and expanded by subsequent editors and translators. Modelled on Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, it tells of a...

Swithun, St (or St Swithin)
(c. 800-c. 862) English priest, chancellor of King Ethelwolf and bishop of Winchester from 852. According to legend, the weather on his feast day (15 July) determines the weather for the next 40 days. ...

Switzerland
Landlocked country in Western Europe, bounded north by Germany, east by Austria and Liechtenstein, south by Italy, and west by France. Government Switzerland is a federation of 20 cantons and six...

Swope, Gerard
(1872-1957) US engineer, businessman, and public official. As president of General Electric in 1922, with Owen D Young chairing the board, he recognized a corporation's responsibility to its employees,...

Swope, Herbert Bayard
(1882-1958) US journalist. A World War I correspondent for the New York World, he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1917 for his dispatches. As executive editor of the New York World in the 1920s, he promoted numerous...

SWOT analysis
Breakdown of an organization into its strengths and weaknesses (the internal analysis), with an assessment of the opportunities open to it and the threats confronting it. Strengths and weaknesses...

Sybel, Heinrich von
(1817-1895) Prussian historian. He worked as a professor at Bonn, Marburg, and Munich universities. He founded the Historische Zeitschrift, soon the most important of German historical journals, and later was...

Sydenham, Thomas
(1624-1689) English physician, the first person to describe measles and to recommend the use of quinine for relieving symptoms of malaria. His original reputation as the `English Hippocrates` rested upon...

Sydney Opera House
Opera house designed by Danish architect J&osla;rn Utzon, located on Bennelong Point, Sydney Harbour, built 1957-73, and opened on 20 October 1973. It is known for the billowing, white,...

Sydney, HMAS
In World War I, light cruiser of the Australian Navy; the first Australian warship to see action. The Sydney caught the German cruiser Emden at Cocos Island 11 November 1914, opened fire, and drove...

Syers, Madge
(1882-1917) English ice-skater. A pioneer in her sport, she shocked the establishment by entering the world championships in 1902, coming second. Women were afterwards barred from that event, but Syers went...

Sykes, Percy Molesworth
(1867-1945) English explorer, soldier, and administrator who surveyed much of the territory in Southwest Asia between Baghdad, the Caspian Sea, and the Hindu Kush during World War I. He was knighted in 1915. In...

syllogism
Set of philosophical statements devised by Aristotle in his work on logic. It establishes the conditions under which a valid conclusion follows or does not follow by deduction from given premises....

sylph
A spirit of the air, one of the elemental spirits. ...

Sylva, Carmen
(1843-1916) German-born author and queen of Romania 1881-1914. She published several volumes of romances and poetry, some of which have been translated into English, for example A Royal Story Book, 1911,...

Sylvester I, St
(died 335) Pope 314-35. It was during his pontificate that Constantine the Great legalized the Christian religion and terminated the age of persecution. Sylvester founded the Roman basilicas of St John...

Sylvester II
(died 1003) Pope, 999-1003. He was a Benedictine monk and scholar who succeeded Gregory V. He obtained letters from the Holy Roman Emperor recognizing the temporal authority of the Holy See. ...

Sylvis, William H
(1828-1869) US labour leader. In 1860 he helped organize the Iron Molder's International Union (IMIU), and served as its president (1863-69). In 1866 he founded the National Labor Union, and served as its...

Symbolism
Late 19th-century movement in French poetry, which inspired a similar trend in French painting. The Symbolist poets used words for their symbolic rather than concrete meaning. Leading exponents...

Symbolism
In the arts, the use of symbols to concentrate or intensify meaning, making the work more subjective than objective. In the visual arts, symbols have been used in works throughout the ages to...

Syme, James
(1799-1870) British surgeon. He became a fellow of the College of Surgeons in 1823. He soon gained a great reputation as a surgeon; many of his operations have become classics of surgery. He was a bold,...

Symington, Stuart
(1901-1988) US senator. He ran for the Senate from Missouri in 1952 and was re-elected three times. He was assistant secretary of war for air and then the first secretary of the air force during the first...

Symonds, John Addington
(1840-1893) British critic who spent much of his life in Italy and Switzerland, and campaigned for homosexual rights. He wrote The Renaissance in Italy 1875-86. His frank memoirs were finally published 1984. ...

Symons, Arthur William
(1865-1945) Welsh critic. He was a follower of Walter Pater, and friend of the artists Toulouse-Lautrec and Aubrey Beardsley, the poets Stéphane Mallarmé and W B Yeats, and the novelist Joseph Conrad. He...

Symons, Julian (Gustave)
(1912-1994) English novelist, poet, and critic. In 1937 he founded, and edited until 1939, the magazine Twentieth Century Verse. Confusions about X (1939) was his own first book of poetry, of which over the...

symposium
Conference or general discussion, or a published collection of opinions on a given subject by various contributors. The title was used in ancient Greece by both Plato and Xenophon for books...

synagogue
In Judaism, a place of worship, study, and gathering; in the USA a synagogue is also called a temple by the non-Orthodox. As an institution it dates from the destruction of the Temple...

syndicalism
Political movement in 19th-century Europe that rejected parliamentary activity in favour of direct action, culminating in a revolutionary general strike to secure worker ownership and control of...

synergy
In architecture, the augmented strength of systems, where the strength of a wall is greater than the added total of its individual units. Examples are the stone walls of early South American...

Synoptic Gospels
In the New Testament, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, so called because they give roughly the same `synopsis` of Jesus' life. ...

Syntax, Dr
Fictional cleric invented by English writer William Combe (1741-1823), who appeared in a series of verse satires, with drawings by Thomas Rowlandson. The first was Dr Syntax in Search of the...

synthesis
In literary plots, the resolving and satisfying of an often complicated pattern of characters and relationships. Synthesis often involves a balancing of the plot, where characters come together and...

synthetic
In philosophy, a term employed by Kant to describe a judgement in which the predicate is...

synthetism
Approach to painting that integrates and simplifies a remembered visual impression in order to reproduce it. Synthetism was an approach to painting favoured by Paul Gauguin and his associates in the...

syphilis
Sexually transmitted disease caused by the spiral-shaped bacterium (spirochete) Treponema pallidum. Untreated, it runs its course in three stages over many years, often starting with a painless...

Syria
Country in western Asia, on the Mediterranean Sea, bounded to the north by Turkey, east by Iraq, south by Jordan, and southwest by Israel and Lebanon. Government The 1973 constitution provides for a...

Süss, Hans (von Kulmbach)
(1480-1522) German painter. Combining German and Italian styles, he acquired a Venetian richness of colour and pursued Albrecht Dürer's linear style with effect in portraits. A good example of his work is...

Széchenyi, István
(1791-1860) The father of the Hungarian national movement. He was a wealthy landowner and aristocrat, whose advocacy of national and social reform had great impact on his country. An opponent of the more...

Szold, Benjamin
(1829-1902) US rabbi of Hungarian origin. He edited a popular revised prayer book in 1863. A notable scholar, he was also an early Zionist and was devoted to public causes,...

Szold, Henrietta
(1860-1945) US educator, reformer, and Zionist leader. She was editor of the Jewish Publication Society (1893-1916) and the most active editor of the American Jewish Year Book (1904-08). She became the...

Szymborska, Wislawa
(1923) Polish poet, awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. Her work is particularly noted for its careful choice of words and universal themes, unusual in a Polish poet living through such...

Taaffe, Eduard
(1833-1895) Austrian politician. Descended from an Irish family settled in Austria since the 17th century, he was a close friend of Emperor Francis Joseph and held various governmental posts. From 1879 he was...

Tabah
Small area of disputed territory, 1 km/0.6 mi long, situated on the Red Sea between Elat (Israel) to the east and the Sinai Desert (Egypt) to the west. Under an Anglo-Egyptian-Turkish agreement...

Tabai, Ieremia T
(1950) Kiribati politician, chief minister 1978-79 and president 1979-91. He was leader of the opposition until February 1978, when he became chief minister, and on independence, in July 1979, he...

Taber, John
(1880-1965) US Republican representative. A graduate of Yale University, he practised law and served as a judge in Cayuga, New York, before going to the US House of Representatives (1923-63) where he chaired...

Tabern, Donalee L
(1900-1974) US chemist and inventor. His researches led to the development of many sleep-producing drugs, including Nembutal and, in cooperation with Ernest Volwiler, Pentothal. He later headed Abbott...

Tabley, Baron de
English writer, see De Tabley. ...

Tabligh
Missionary movement in Islam, which developed after 1945 to take Muslim revival and reform to the ill educated. It is active in Asia, Africa, North America, and northern Europe, and feeds the...

Tabor, Horace (Austin Warner)
(1830-1899) US prospector and merchant. He went to Colorado in 1878 and made a fortune from a silver mine, building a hotel and two opera houses in that city. He lost his fortune and...

Tachisme
French style of abstract painting current in the 1940s and 1950s, the European equivalent to abstract expressionism. Breaking free from the restraints of cubism, the Tachistes adopted a novel,...

Tacitus, Marcus Claudius
(died 276) Roman Emperor, 25 September AD 275-March 276. He succeeded Aurelian, much against his will, at the age of 70. His short reign was notable for improvements at home and victories abroad. He died at...

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius
(AD 55-c. 120) Roman historian. A public orator in Rome, he was consul under Nerva 97-98 and proconsul of Asia 112-113. He wrote histories of the Roman empire, Annales...

Tadmur
Arabic name for Palmyra, a town in Syria. ...

Tafawa Balewa, Alhaji Abubakar
(1912-1966) Nigerian politician, prime minister 1957-66. In September 1957 he was appointed prime minister, a post he retained at Nigerian independence three years later. In 1962 he declared a state of...

Taff Vale case
Decision in 1901 by the British Law lords that trade unions were liable for their members' actions, and could hence be sued for damages in the event of a strike, picketing, or boycotting an...

taffeta
Light, plain-weave fabric with a high lustre, originally silk but today also manufactured from artificial fibres. ...

Taft, Helen
(1861-1943) US first lady. She married William Howard Taft in 1886. A vigorous supporter of her husband, she pushed him to seek the presidency in 1908. In 1909 she suffered a stroke that impaired her speech and...

Taft, Lorado (Zadoc)
(1860-1936) US sculptor and educator. In the 1910s he began sculpting a series of monumental fountains such as Columbus Fountain (1912) in Washington, DC. An advocate for art education, he lectured high school...

Taft, Robert Alphonso
(1889-1953) US right-wing Republican senator from 1939, and a candidate for the presidential nomination 1940, 1944, 1948, and 1952. He sponsored the Taft-Hartley Labor Act of 1947, restricting union power....

Taft, William Howard
(1857-1930) 27th president of the USA 1909-13, a Republican. He was secretary of war 1904-08 in Theodore Roosevelt's administration, but as president his conservatism provoked Roosevelt to stand aga ...

Tagalog
The majority ethnic group living around Manila on the island of Luzon, in the Philippines, who number about 10 million (1988). The Tagalog live by fishing and trading. In its standardized form,...

tagging, electronic
Long-distance monitoring of the movements of people charged with or convicted of a crime, thus enabling them to be detained in their homes rather than in prison. In the UK, legislation passed 1991...

Tagore, Rabindranath
(1861-1941) Bengali Indian writer. He translated into English his own verse Gitanjali/Song Offerings (1912) and his verse play Chitra (1896). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Born in...

Tai
Member of any of the groups of Southeast Asian peoples who speak Tai languages, all of which belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family. There are over 60 million speakers, the majority of whom...

Tailhade, Laurent
(1854-1919) French writer. His work includes the poems `Le Jardin des rêves/The Garden of Dreams` 1880, `Vitraux/Stained-Glass Windows` 1892, and the collections Poèmes élégiaques/Elegiac Poems...

taille
In pre-revolutionary France, either of two forms of taxation. The personal taille, levied from the 15th century, was assessed by tax collectors on the individual's personal wealth. Nobles,...

Taillefer
(died 1066) Norman jongleur (wandering minstrel). He was killed fighting for William the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings. Robert Wace, in the Roman de Rou (1160-62), claims that he led the Norman troops,...

Tailteann Games
Early 20th-century revival of an ancient festival held at Teltown, County Meath, Republic of Ireland. Originally presided over by the Uí Néill kings of Tara, the festival observed the advent of...

Taine, Hippolyte Adolphe
(1828-1893) French critic and historian. He analysed literary works as products of period and environment, as in Histoire de la litérature anglaise/History of English Literature 1863 and Philosophie de...

Taiping Rebellion
Popular revolt 1851-64 that undermined China's Qing dynasty (see Manchu). By 1853 the rebels had secured control over much of the central and lower Chang Jiang valley region, instituting radical,...

Taira
In Japanese history, a military clan prominent in the 10th to 12th centuries and dominant at court 1159-85. Their destruction by their rivals, the Minamoto,in 1185 is the subject of the...

Tait, Archibald Campbell
(1811-1882) Archbishop of Canterbury. As archbishop he had to deal with the increasingly bitter conflicts between Ritualists and Low Churchmen. He was largely responsible for the Public Worship Regulation Act...

Taiwan
Country in east Asia, officially the Republic of China, occupying the island of Taiwan between the East China Sea and the South China Sea, separated from the coast of China...

Taizé
Ecumenical Christian community based in the village of that name in southeastern France. Founded in 1940 by Swiss theologian Roger Schutz, it has been a communal centre for young Christians since...

Taj Mahal
White marble mausoleum built 1632-48 on the River Yamuna near Agra, India. Erected by Shah Jahan to the memory of his favourite wife, it is a celebrated example of Indo-Islamic architecture, the...

Tajik
Member of the majority ethnic group in Tajikistan. Tajiks also live in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan and western China. The Tajiki language belongs to the West Iranian sub-branch of the...

Tajikistan
Country in central Asia, bounded north by Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, east by China, and south by Afghanistan and Pakistan. Government Under its 1999 constitution, Tajikistan has a directly elected...

Takaezu, Toshiko
(1922) US ceramist. With her biomorphic forms of the 1950s, her explorations of sound by enclosing clay pebbles in pots, and the more recent closed cracked vessels, she drew on Zen ideas and abstract...

Takamine, Jokichi
(1854-1922) US chemist and industrialist of Japanese origin. He is best known for developing the enzyme known as takadiastase and for being the first to isolate a pure hormone, adrenaline (epinephrine), from...

takeover
In business, the acquisition by one company of a sufficient number of shares in another company to have effective control of that company - usually 51%, although a controlling stake may be as...

Takeshita, Noboru
(1924-2000) Japanese conservative politician. Elected to parliament as a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) deputy in 1958, he became president of the LDP and prime minister in 1987. He and members of his...

Talabani, Jalal
(1933) Iraqi Kurdish politician, president of Iraq from 2005. Founder and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish groups that dominate Iraq's nort ...

talaq
In Islam, divorce performed by the husband. Talaq takes the form of three repudiations of the wife, preferably separated by a period of reflection. After three statements of divorce the couple...

Talavera, Battle of
During the Peninsular War, British and Spanish victory over the French 27-28 July 1809 near Talavera de la Reina, a Spanish town 110 km/70 mi southwest of Madrid. Although the Duke of Wellington...

Talbot, Mary Anne
(1778-1808) English soldier. She served as a drummer boy in Flanders 1792-93 and as a cabin boy in the navy 1793-96, before becoming a maidservant in London. Her story was published in The Life and...

Talgai skull
Cranium of a pre-adult male, dating from 10,000-20,000 years ago, found at Talgai station, southern Queensland, Australia. It was one of the earliest human archaeological finds in Australia,...

Taliban
Afghan political and religious military force that seized control of southern and central Afghanistan, including the country's capital, Kabul, in September 1996. An Islamic regime was imposed, and...

Taliesin
(lived c. 550) Legendary Welsh poet, a bard at the court of the king of Rheged in Scotland. Taliesin allegedly died at Taliesin (named after him) in Dyfed, Wales. ...

talisman
Object intended to protect the wearer from harm magically. Usually it is an amulet inscribed with letters or symbols believed to have occult power, or signs of certain stars. In many cultures,...

tallage
English tax paid by cities, boroughs, and royal demesnes, first levied under Henry II as a replacement for danegeld. It was abolished 1340 after it had been superseded by grants of...

Tallemant des Réaux, Gédéon
(1619-1692) French writer. His chief work, Historiettes, completed about 1659, comprises a number of short biographies of contemporary literary figures. It remained unpublished until 1834-35, and is now a...

Tallensi
Member of a people living in northern Ghana. The Tallensi have a strong and elaborate clan system; government is in the hands of chiefs and Earth priests, who are ritually independent and represent...

Tallien, Jean Lambert
(1767-1820) French revolutionary. In 1791 he became famous as the author of the Jacobin sheet, L'Ami des Citoyens, journal fraternel, placarded twice weekly on the walls of Paris. He proved himself a fanatical...

tallit
Rectangular prayer shawl worn during worship by Orthodox Jewish men and Reform Jews of both sexes. It is white with black or blue stripes, and has 613 tzitzit (fringes) as a reminder of the 613...

tallith
Four-cornered, fringed shawl worn by Jewish men during morning prayers. ...

Talma, François Joseph
(1763-1826) French actor who was favoured by Napolean Bonaparte; he became head of the Théâtre de la République in Paris. Born in Paris, educated in London, he made his debut at the Comédie Française,...