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

Timakata, Fred
(1936) Vanuatuan centre-left politician, president 1989-94. He served as deputy prime minister and home affairs minister under Walter ...

time and motion study
Process of analysis applied to a job or number of jobs to check the efficiency of the work method, equipment used, and the worker. Its findings are used to improve performance. Time and motion...

Times, The
The UK's oldest surviving daily national newspaper, founded in 1785. Along with The Sunday Times, it was bought in 1981 by News International from Lord Thomson, and by 1998 its circulation had grown...

Timken, Henry
(1831-1909) US inventor of German origin. Most of his patents were for carriage improvements, including the `Timken spring` that made his fortune. He also invented and gave his name to a tapered roller...

Timms, Stephen
(1955) British Labour politician, member of Parliament for Newham North East 1994-97 and for East Ham from 1997, and chief secretary to the Treasury with cabinet rank from May 2006. He has a particular...

Timoleon
Greek politician and general of Corinth. Having overthrown the tyranny of his brother Timophanes in Corinth, he retired from public life. He was prevailed upon to return in order to defend the Greek...

Timon
Athenian of the age of Pericles notorious for his misanthropy, which was reported and elaborated by classical authors, and became the subject of the play by Shakespeare. ...

Timoshenko, Semyon Konstantinovich
(1895-1970) Soviet general in World War II; he was an old companion of Stalin and one of the few people he was prepared to trust. After commanding a sector in the Winter War against Finland 1939-40 he became...

Timoshenko, Step(h)an Prokofyevich
(1878-1972) US civil engineer and educator of Russian origin. He taught structural engineering at Stanford University (1936-54) and contributed to theoretical and applied mechanics. Born in St Petersburg,...

Timotheus of Miletus
(446 BC-357 BC) Greek lyric poet. By adding an 11th string to the lyre (or cithara), he incurred the displeasure of Athens and Sparta. Euripides wrote a prologue to his lyric poem the Persea, of which fragments...

Timothy
(died ADc. 97) In the New Testament, companion to St Paul, both on his missionary journeys and in prison. Two of Paul's epistles are addressed to him. ...

Timur i Leng
Alternative spelling of Tamerlane, Mongol ruler. ...

Tinbergen, Jan
(1903-1994) Dutch economist. Tinbergen's work was focused on econometrics (the mathematical-statistical expression of economic theory), with studies of the US and British economies appearing in Statistical...

Tinchbrai, Battle of
During the Norman War, victory of King Henry I over the French 28 September 1106, near Tinchbrai (now Tinchbray) about 50 km/30 mi southwest of Caen. As a result of his victory Henry annexed...

Tindal, Matthew
(c.1656-1733) English religious thinker, a leading figure in the movement known as deism, which proposed a `religion of nature` in place of traditional Christian beliefs. He was the author of Christianity as...

Tindemans, Leo
(1922) Belgian politician. A regular holder of cabinet posts from 1968, he led the government from 1974 to 1978, and was appointed chair of the Christian People's Party (CVP) in 1979. A prominent...

Tinian
Limestone island in the Northern Mariana Islands in the west Pacific Ocean, 5 km/3 mi southwest of Saipan; area 102 sq km/39 sq mi; population (1990) 2,110. It was the site of the US airbase North...

Tinian, Battle of
In World War II, successful US Marines operation in July 1944 to capture a Japanese-held island in the Marianas group. ...

Tintern Abbey
Ruined abbey in Monmouthshire, Wales, beautifully situated on the Wye River, 7 km/4 mi north of Chepstow. The ruins date from 1131, when Walter de Clare founded a Cistercian house which became one...

Tintoretto
(1518-1594) Venetian painter who produced portraits and religious works of great intensity. Outstanding among his many works is a series of religious works in the Scuola di S Rocco in Venice (1564-88), the...

Tipu Sultan
(c. 1750-1799) Sultan of Mysore (now Karnataka) in southwestern India from the death of his father, Hyder Ali in 1782. He died of wounds when his capital, Seringapatam, was captured by the British. His rocket...

Tiresias
In Greek mythology, a man of Thebes blinded by the gods and given the ability to predict the future. According to the Roman poet Ovid, Tiresias saw two snakes mating, struck at them, and was changed...

Tirpitz
German battleship in World War II, launched 1939 as a sister ship to the Bismarck. It sailed to Norway January 1942 and remained there, a permanent threat to Allied convoys bound for the USSR until...

Tirpitz, Alfred Friedrich von
(1849-1930) German admiral. As secretary for the navy 1897-1916, he created the German navy and planned the World War I U-boat campaign. ...

Tirso de Molina
(c. 1571-1648) Spanish dramatist and monk. He claimed to have written more than 300 plays, of which 80 are extant, including comedies, historical and biblical dramas, and a series based on the legend of Don Juan. ...

Tiryns
Ancient Greek city in the Peloponnese on the plain of Argos, with remains of the Mycenaean civilization. ...

Tischbein, Wilhelm
(1751-1829) German painter. He painted historical subjects, portraits, and still life. He lived in Italy 1779-89 and made a portrait of the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe among classical ruins in the Roman...

Tischendorf, Konstantin von
(1815-1874) German biblical scholar, professor of theology at the University of Leipzig from 1845, and a specialist in New Testament criticism. He travelled widely in the Middle East in pursuit of...

Tishler, Max
(1906-1989) US chemist and inventor. In the late 1930s he developed a synthesis of riboflavin that made the large-scale production of vitamin B2 economical. The practical synthesis of other vitamins resulted...

Tissot, James (Joseph Jacques)
(1836-1902) French painter. He is best known for detailed depictions of Victorian high society during a ten-year stay in England, as in Ball on Shipboard (1874; Tate Gallery, London). Initially he was...

Tisza, Istvan
(1861-1918) Hungarian politician, prime minister of Hungary 1903-05 and 1913-17. The son of Kalman Tisza, Liberal prime minister (and virtual dictator) of Hungary 1875-90, he was a loyal supporter of the...

Titan
In Greek mythology, any of the giant children of Uranus, the primeval sky god, and Gaia, goddess of the Earth, whose six sons and six daughters included Kronos,...

Titanic
British passenger liner, supposedly unsinkable, that struck an iceberg and sank off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland on its first voyage on 14-15 April 1912; estimates of the number of lives lost,...

Titchener, Edward Bradford
(1867-1927) English-born US psychologist, a world authority in the field of experimental psychology, and a supporter of the theories of Wilhelm Wundt. He taught at Cornell University 1892-1927 and founded...

Titcomb, Timothy
US writer and editor; see Josiah Gilbert Holland. ...

tithe
Formerly, payment exacted from the inhabitants of a parish for the maintenance of the church and its incumbent; some religious groups continue the practice by giving 10% of...

Tithonus
In Greek mythology, a son of Laomedon, King of Troy. He was loved by the goddess Eos who won for him, from Zeus, the gift of immortality. He grew hideously old and she turned...

Titian
(c. 1487-1576) Italian painter. He was one of the greatest artists of the High Renaissance. During his long career he was court painter to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and to his son, Philip II of Spain. He...

Tito
(1892-1980) Yugoslav communist politician, in effective control of Yugoslavia from 1943. In World War II he organized the National Liberation Army to carry on guerrilla warfare against the German invasion in...

Tito, Teburoro
(1953) Kiribati politician, president 1994-2003. He was first elected to the Kiribati parliament in 1987 and led a Christian Democratic faction of the Maneaban te Mauri (MTM) party opposition to the...

Titus
(AD 39-81) Roman emperor from AD 79. Eldest son of Vespasian, he captured Jerusalem in 70 to end the Jewish revolt in Roman Palestine. He completed the Colosseum, and helped to mitigate the suffering from the...

Tiv
Member of a people living in Benue State of central Nigeria. Originally they were subsistence farmers growing yams and millet; today they produce cash crops of soybeans. Formerly there was no...

Tlaloc
In Aztec religion, god of the mountains and of rain water, to whom sacrifices of children and babies were made. ...

Tlatelolco, Treaty of
International agreement signed in 1967 in Tlatelolco, Mexico, prohibiting nuclear weapons in Latin America. ...

Tlingit
Member of an American Indian people living on the coasts of southwest Alaska and northern British Columbia for thousands of years. Their language belongs to the Na-Dene family, but is rarely...

TM
Abbreviation for transcendental meditation. ...

Tobin, James
(1918-2002) US economist. Tobin was the USA's most distinguished Keynesian economist, meaning not only that he refused to embrace monetarism, but also that he consistently held the view that the original...

Tobruk, Battles of
Series of engagements in World War II between British and Axis forces in the struggle for control over the Libyan port of Tobruk. Occupied by Italy 1911, Tobruk was taken by Britain in Operation...

Toby Jug
Mug or jug shaped like an old man wearing a tri-cornered hat. Originally made in Staffordshire, England, it is reputedly named after Toby Philpot, a character in an 18th-century ballad. ...

Toc H
Interdenominational organization for Christian fellowship, founded 1915 in Belgium as a welfare society with a Christian basis for troops in World War I by Neville...

Todd, (Reginald Stephen) Garfield
(1908-1992) New Zealand-born Rhodesian politician, prime minister of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) 1953-58. He founded and led the United Rhodesia Party, but was removed as its leader by opponents of his...

Todd, Mike
(1900-1958) US showman. The son of a rabbi, he specialized in producing spectaculars, developing three-dimensional film for his Academy Award-winning Around the World in Eighty Days (1956). Todd was born in...

Todd, Ron(ald)
(1927-2005) English trade-union leader. He rose from shop steward to general secretary of Britain's largest trade union, the Transport and General Workers' Union, a post he held 1985-92. Although a Labour...

Todd, Thomas
(1765-1826) US Supreme Court justice. He advocated for Kentucky's statehood and served its court system as a clerk (1792-1801), a judge (1801-06), and as chief justice (1806-07). President Jefferson named...

Tofilau, Eti Alesana
(1924) Samoan politician, prime minister 1982-85 and from 1988. He entered the Fono (parliament) in 1957 and was a member of the 1960 constitutional convention that paved the way for independence from...

Togare
(1900-1988) Austrian wild-animal tamer and circus performer. Togare invented the character of the exotic and fearless Oriental lion tamer after watching Douglas Fairbanks in the 1924 film...

Togliatti, Palmiro
(1893-1964) Italian politician who was a founding member of the Italian Communist Party in 1921 and effectively its leader for almost 40 years from 1926 until his death. In exile 1926-44, he returned after...

Togo
Country in West Africa, on the Atlantic Ocean, bounded north by Burkina Faso, east by Benin, and west by Ghana. Government The 1992 constitution provides for a president, elected by universal...

Togo, Heihachiro
(c. 1846-1934) Japanese admiral who commanded the fleet at the battle of Tsushima 1905, when Japan defeated the Russians and effectively ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. ...

Tohono O'odham
Member of an American Indian people living in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. They share Uto-Aztecan language origins, a language family of Central...

Toíbín, Colm
(1955) Irish writer. Toíbín uses a delicate minimalist style to tell stories of troubled, modern characters struggling to find love and a sense of belonging. The Heather Blazing (1993) is set in Ireland,...

Tojo, Hideki
(1884-1948) Japanese general and premier 1941-44 during World War II. Promoted to chief of staff of Japan's Guangdong army in Manchuria in 1937, he served as minister for war 1940-41 where he was...

Tokuda, Kyuichi
(1894-1953) Japanese political communist activist. He became leader of the Communist Party in 1945 and was elected to the Diet (Japanese parliament) in 1946. Forced to go underground by the US-directed `Red...

Tokugawa
Military family which controlled Japan as shoguns from 1603 to 1868. Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) was the Japanese general and politician who established the Tokugawa...

Tokyo trials
War-crimes trials 1946-48 of Japan's wartime leaders, held during the Allied occupation after World War II. Former prime minister Tojo was among the seven sentenced to death by an...

Tolbert, William Richard
(1913-1980) Liberian politician and 19th president of Liberia, 1971-80. He succeeded the long-standing president William V S Tubman, and was the last president to come from the American-African elite that...

toleration
Freedom of religion, in countries where there is a state religion. Toleration became practically universal during the 19th century; but the rise of fascism and communism tended to restrict it in...

Toleration Act
British legislation 1689 granting nonconformists rights of citizenship and a degree of religious freedom. They were allowed to have their own teachers, places of worship, and preachers, although...

Toleration, Act of
UK act of Parliament passed 1689 during the reign of King William III. It granted religious freedom to all dissenters from the established church except Catholics and Unitarians. ...

Tolkien, J(ohn) R(onald) R(euel)
(1892-1973) English writer and scholar. To express his theological and philosophical beliefs, and as a vehicle for his linguistic scholarship, he created a complete mythological world of `Middle Earth`, on...

Toller, Ernst
(1893-1939) German dramatist and poet. His expressionist drama has communist and pacifist overtones. In his play Masse-Mensch/Mass and Man 1921, a messianic central figure urges humanity to renew itself...

Tolley, Howard Ross
(1889-1958) US agricultural economist. At the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (1933-35) he developed a conservation-oriented plan. In 1944 he administered...

Tolman, Edward Chace
(1886-1959) US psychologist. In his first book, Purposive Behaviour in Animals and Men (1932), he broke with the rigid stimulus-response behaviourism of John B Watson to postulate such variables as goals,...

Tolpuddle Martyrs
Six farm labourers of Tolpuddle, a village in Dorset, England, who were transported to Australia in 1834. The labourers had formed a union on the advice of the Tolstoy, Alexei Nikolaievich
(1882-1945) Russian novelist and dramatist, a soldier of the counter-revolutionary White Army who later came under the patronage of Stalin. His works include the trilogy of novels The Road to Calvary...

Tolstoy, Leo Nikolaievich
(1828-1910) Russian novelist. He wrote War and Peace (1863-69) and Anna Karenina (1873-77). He was offended by the materialism of Western Europe and in the 1860s and 1870s he became a pioneer of `free...

Toltec
Member of an ancient American Indian people who ruled much of Mexico and Central America in the 10th-12th centuries, with their capital and religious centre at Tula or Tollán, northeast of Mexico...

Tolton, Augustine
(1854-1897) US Catholic priest. The first Catholic priest whose parents were both African-Americans, he escaped from slavery with family members at the age of seven. He overcame poverty and frequent...

Tom and Jerry
Cartoon-film characters created 1939 by US animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The typically violent scenarios show Jerry the mouse getting the better of Tom the cat. They appeared in a...

Tom Brown's Schooldays
Novel by Thomas Hughes, published in 1857. Through the experiences of Tom Brown and his friends East and Arthur, and the school bully Flashman, Hughes recalls his time at Rugby School under Thomas...

Tom Jones
Novel (1749) by Henry Fielding. The story tells of a foundling, Tom Jones, led astray by the impetuousness of his own nature. He has many adventures, which take him through scenes of uproarious...

Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of
Novel (1876) by US author Mark Twain. It describes the childhood escapades of Tom Sawyer and his friends Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper in a small Mississippi community before the Civil War. It and...

Tom Thumb
Tiny hero of English folk tale. His name has often been given to those of small stature, including Charles Sherwood Stratton (1838-1883), nicknamed General Tom Thumb by the circus...

Tomasi, Giuseppe
Italian writer; see Lampedusa. ...

Tombstone
Former silver-mining town in the desert of southeastern Arizona, USA. The gunfight at the OK Corral, with deputy marshal Wyatt Earp, his brothers, and `Doc` Holliday against the Clanton gang,...

Tomlin, Bradley (Walker)
(1899-1953) US painter. He became a commercial artist, and taught at Sarah Lawrence College (1932-41). By 1937 he was working in a cubist manner and, later, used a calligraphic style, as in Number 20 (1949)....

Tomlin, Lily
(1939) US comedian. Performing in cabarets while doing temporary work, she became successful on television's Laugh-In (1969-73) with her repertoire of off-beat characters. She also appeared in movies...

Tomlinson, H(enry) M(ajor)
(1873-1958) English travel writer and novelist. His travel books include The Sea and the Jungle (1912), about a voyage up the Amazon, Turn of the Tide (1945), and Malay Waters (1950). His novels, which he...

Tommy Atkins
Popular name for the British soldier. The earliest known use of the name is in an official handbook circulated at the end of the Napoleonic War. A story that Tommy Atkins was a British soldier...

Tommy gun
Popular name for Thompson sub-machine-gun; see machine gun. ...

Tompkins, Daniel D
(1774-1825) US vice-president and governor. He was governor of New York (1807-17). During his vice-presidency under James Monroe (1817-25), he was plagued by charges that he had mishandled New York...

tone
In art, the quality and depth of a colour, particularly the gradations from light to dark. A colour may be `toned down` to make it less vivid, or `toned up` to make it more solid or...

Tone, (Theobald) Wolfe
(1763-1798) Irish nationalist, prominent in the revolutionary society of the United Irishmen. In 1798 he accompanied the French invasion of Ireland and was captured and condemned to death, but slit his own...

Tonga
Country in the southwest Pacific Ocean, in Polynesia. Government Tonga is an independent hereditary monarchy within the tongues
The gift of speaking in tongues; see glossolalia. ...

Tonkin Gulf Incident
Clash that triggered US entry into the Vietnam War in August 1964. Two US destroyers (USS C Turner Joy and USS Maddox) reported that they were fired on by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. It is...

tonnage and poundage
Excise duties granted in England 1371-1787 by Parliament to the crown on imports and exports of wine and other goods. They were imposed on every ton of imported wine and every pound of imported or...

Tonson, Jacob
(c.1656-1736) English publisher who became associated with the principal literary figures of his day, including Dryden, Milton, Steele, Pope, Addison, Congreve, and Wycherley. He was also secretary and general...

tonsure
The full or partial shaving of the head as a symbol of entering clerical or monastic orders. Until 1973 in the Roman Catholic Church, the crown was shaved (leaving a surrounding fringe to resemble...

Tonton Macoute
Member of a private army of death squads on Haiti. The Tontons Macoutes were initially organized by François Previous

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