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

Bethlen, István
(1874-1947) Hungarian prime minister 1921-31. After World War I, when Béla Kun headed the communist revolution, Bethlen was a leader of the successful counter-revolution. As prime minister, he settled the...

Bethune, Louise Blanchard
(1856-1913) US architect. The first professional woman architect in America, she designed a variety of buildings - domestic, commercial, and some 18 schools - mostly in the Romanesque Revival style, all in...

Bethune, Norman
(1890-1939) Canadian doctor. In the Spanish Civil War 1936-39 he worked as a surgeon for the Republican forces, and developed new techniques for blood transfusion in the field. He later went to China to help...

Betjeman, John
(1906-1984) English poet and essayist. He was the originator of a peculiarly English light verse, nostalgic, and delighting in Victorian and Edwardian architecture. He also wrote prose works on architecture and...

Betrothed, The
Romantic historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni, published 1825-27 and in its final form 1840-42. Set in Lombardy in 1628-31, during the Spanish administration and a popular insurrection in...

Betterton, Thomas
(c. 1635-1710) English actor. A member of the Duke of York's company after the Restoration, he was greatly admired in many Shakespearean parts, including Hamlet and Othello. ...

Betti, Ugo
(1892-1953) Italian dramatist. Some of his most important plays, such as Frana allo scalo nord/Landslide at the North Station (1936), concern the legal process (Betti was a judge for many years) and focus on...

Betty Boop
Comic-strip character created in the USA 1915 by Grim Natwick for Max Fleischer's `Talkartoons`. Sexy and independent, she has short curly black hair, a minidress, and wide-eyed appeal. Her...

Betty, William Henry West
(1791-1874) English boy actor. He was called the `Young Roscius` after the greatest comic actor of ancient Rome. He was famous, particularly in Shakespearean roles, from the age of 11 to 17. ...

Beuys, Joseph
(1921-1986) German sculptor and performance artist. He was one of the leaders of the European avant-garde during the 1970s and 1980s. An exponent of Arte Povera, he made use of so-called `worthless`,...

Bevan, Aneurin (Nye)
(1897-1960) British Labour politician. Son of a Welsh miner, and himself a miner at 13, he was member of Parliament for Ebbw Vale 1929-60. As minister of health 1945-51, he inaugurated the National Beveridge, Albert J(eremiah)
(1862-1927) US senator and historian. A lawyer by profession, Beveridge served in the US Senate, 1899-1911, where he was one of the original `insurgent` Republicans, supporting anti-trust and...

Beveridge, William Henry
(1879-1963) British economist. A civil servant, he acted as Lloyd George's lieutenant in the social legislation of the Liberal government before World War I. His Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services...

Beverley, John of
(lived 14th century) English Carmelite friar. He was a doctor and professor of divinity at Oxford and wrote Quaestiones in Magistrum Sententiarum and Disputationes Ordinariae. ...

Bevin, Ernest
(1881-1951) British Labour politician. Chief creator of the Transport and General Workers' Union, he was its general secretary 1921-40. He served as minister of labour and national service 1940-45 in...

Bevis of Hampton
Principal character of an English medieval romance. He journeyed to Ermony (Armenia), where he won the affection of the king, Ermyn, and the love of his daughter Josian. The conquest of Brademond of...

Bewes, Rodney
(1938) English actor who co-starred with James Bolam in the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) sitcom The Likely Lads. Other television performances include Dear Mother ... Love Albert (1969-71),...

Bewick, Thomas
(1753-1828) English wood engraver. He excelled in animal subjects, some of his finest works appearing in his illustrated A General History of Quadrupeds (1790) and A History of British Birds (1797-1804). In...

Beyeren, Abraham Hendrickz van
(c. 1620-1675) Dutch still-life painter. He worked in Leiden, Delft, and Amsterdam. His art conveys richness of surface texture, as in his Still Life with Lobster (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). ...

Beyers, Christian Frederick
(1869-1914) South African soldier. He fought on the Boer side in the second South African War (or Boer War) of 1899-1902. Under British rule he was Speaker of the Transvaal House of Assembly in 1906 and in...

Beza, Théodore
(1519-1605) French church reformer. He settled in Geneva, Switzerland, where he worked with the Protestant leader John Calvin and succeeded him as head of the reformed church there in 1564. He wrote in defence...

Bhagavad-G?ta
Religious and philosophical Sanskrit poem, dating from around 300 BC, forming an episode in the sixth book of the Mahabharata, one of the two great Hindu epics. It is the supreme religious work of...

Bhai Mani Singh
(died 1738) Sikh martyr who was killed for refusing to convert to Islam. He was given permission by the Mogul authorities to hold a gathering of Sikhs at the holy city of Amritsar in 1738, in return for a large...

bhajan
In Hinduism, a devotional song or hymn sung by congregations in the temple, usually accompanied by musical instruments. The singing is often a very lively and enthusiastic event. Other songs of...

bhakti
In Hinduism, a tradition of worship that emphasizes devotion to a personal god as the sole necessary means for achieving salvation. It developed in southern India in the 6th-8th centuries and in...

Bhattari, Krishna Prasad
(1925) Nepalese politician, prime minister 1990-91. As an opponent of absolute monarchy, he was in hiding for 12 years until 1990, when, as leader of the centrist Nepali Congress Party, he became prime...

bhikku
Buddhist monk who is totally dependent on alms and the monastic community (Sangha) for support. ...

Bhil
The semi-nomadic people of Dravidian origin, living in northwestern India and numbering about 4 million. They are hunter-gatherers and also practise shifting cultivation. The Bhili language...

Bhindranwale, Sant Jarnail Singh
(1947-1984) Indian Sikh fundamentalist leader who campaigned for the creation of a separate state of Khalistan during the early 1980s, precipitating a bloody Hindu-Sikh conflict in the Punjab. Having taken...

Bhumibol Adulyadej
(1927) King of Thailand from 1946. Born in the USA and educated in Bangkok and Switzerland, he succeeded to the throne on the assassination of his brother. In 1973 he was active, with popular support, in...

Bhutan
Mountainous, landlocked country in the eastern Himalayas (southeast Asia), bounded north and west by Tibet (China) and to the south and east by India. Government Bhutan is a hereditary limited...

Bhutto, Benazir
(1953) Pakistani politician. She was leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) from 1984, a position she held in exile until 1986. Bhutto became prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 until 1990, when the...

Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali
(1928-1979) Pakistani politician, president 1971-73, and prime minister from 1973 until the 1977 military coup led by General Zia ul-Haq. In 1978 Bhutto was sentenced to death for conspiring to murder a...

Biafra, Republic of
African state proclaimed 1967 when fears that Nigerian central government was increasingly in the hands of the rival Hausa tribe led the predominantly Ibo Eastern Region of Nigeria to secede under...

Biak, Battle of
In World War II, hard-fought Allied campaign May-June 1944 to recapture the island, off the north coast of New Guinea, from the Japanese who were using it as an air base. US and Australian...

Bianchi Ferrari, Francesco
(1460-1510) Italian painter of the School of Modena. His style is related to that of Andrea Mantegna. He executed church paintings in Modena, as well as mythical scenes such as his...

Bianco, Margery
US writer; see Margery Williams. ...

Bianconi, Charles (Carlo)
(1786-1875) Irish transport entrepreneur. Born in Lombardy, Italy, he came to Ireland as a travelling salesman specializing in prints and small artworks. On opening a craft shop in Carrick-on-Suir, County...

Bibb, William (Wyatt)
(1781-1820) US representative, senator, and governor. Bibb was a Democratic Party state politician before going to Congress in 1805. He left Congress in 1813 to become a senator but resigned because of public...

Bibbiena, Bernardo Dovizi da
(1470-1520) Italian cardinal. He was entrusted by Pope Julius II with several important commissions. When his patron, Cardinal Giovanni dei Medici, became pope in his turn as Leo X in 1513, he raised Bibbiena...

Bibiena
Family of Italian architects of the 17th and 18th centuries. They were notable designers of theatres and theatrical scenery in Italy, France, Austria, and the small princely court towns of Germany....

Bibiena
Family of Italian architects who designed theatres and theatrical scenery in Italy, France, Austria, and the small princely court towns of Germany. The principal members of the family were Francesco...

Bible
The sacred book of Judaism and Christianity, containing a collection of sacred writings (scriptures). The Old Testament, recognized by both Jews and Christians, is called the Hebrew Bible in...

Bible society
Society founded for the promotion of translation and distribution of the Scriptures. The four largest branches are the British and Foreign Bible Society,...

biblical criticism
Study of the content and origin of the Bible. Lower or textual criticism is directed towards the recovery of the original text;higher or documentary criticism is concerned with questions of...

Bichsel, Peter
(1935) Swiss writer. Excelling at the short story and miniature, he describes states of mind and attitudes with deceptive simplicity, as in Eigentlich möchte Frau Blum den Milchmann kennenlernen/And...

Bickerstaffe, Isaac
(c. 1735-c. 1812) Irish dramatic writer. He produced many popular musical comedies 1760-71, such as Love in a Village (1762), The Maid of the Mill (l765),...

Bidault, Georges Augustin
(1899-1983) French Christian Democrat politician, cofounder of the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP) and prime minister 1946 and 1949-50. A history teacher active in inter-war Catholic movements,...

Biddle, Francis (Beverley)
(1886-1968) US lawyer and attorney general. In 1934 Biddle was the first chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and a strong defender of the Tennessee Valley Authority and other New Deal programs....

Biddle, James
(1783-1848) US naval officer. He joined the navy in 1800 and served in the Tripolitan War and the War of 1812. In 1818 he claimed the Oregon Territory for the USA , and in 1846 he helped to negotiate the first...

Biddle, John
(1616-1662) English preacher, `the father of English Unitarianism`. He was banished to the Scilly Isles 1655-58 for preaching...

Biddle, Nicholas
(1786-1844) US financier and public figure. An expert in international commerce, he was appointed a director of the Bank of the United States by President James Monroe 1819 and became president of the bank...

Biddle, Nicholas
(1750-1778) US naval officer. One of the first five captains commissioned by Congress in 1775, he participated in the capture of New Providence Island, Bahamas and captured several British ships before his...

Bidermann, Jakob
(1578-1639) German Jesuit dramatist. He was the leading exponent of Jesuitendrama (`Jesuit drama`), religious plays based on stories from the Old Testament and lives of the saints. Though predominantly...

Bidwell, Annie
(1839-1918) US social reformer and Christian missionary. With her husband, California pioneer and politician John Bidwell, she worked to convert and educate the local American Indian Meechoopda, and improve...

Bidwell, John
(1819-1900) US pioneer and public official. Bidwell worked at John Sutter's fort and in 1846 was active in the short-lived Bear Flag Republic. He found gold on the Feather River and became California's...

Bielski, Martin
(c. 1495-1575) Polish chronicler and poet. His Kronika Polska was the first book of chronicles written in the Polish language. ...

Bierce, Ambrose Gwinnett
(1842-c. 1914) US author. After service in the American Civil War, he established his reputation as a master of the short story, his themes being war and the supernatural, as in Tales of Soldiers and Civilians...

Bierstadt, Albert
(1830-1902) German-born US landscape painter. His spectacular panoramas of the American wilderness fell out of favour after his death until interest in the Hudson River School was rekindled in the late 20th...

Biffen, (William) John
(1930-2007) British Conservative politician. In 1971 he was elected to Parliament for the Wrekin seat, in Shropshire. Despite being to the left of Margaret Thatcher, he held key positions in government from...

Big Bang
In economics, popular term for the changes instituted in late 1986 to the organization and practices of the City of London as Britain's financial centre, including the liberalization of the London...

Big Ben
Popular name for the bell in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament in London, cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1858, and known as `Big Ben` after Benjamin Hall, First Commissioner...

Big Bertha
Any of four large German howitzer guns that were mounted on railway wagons during World War I. Although the name is commonly applied to many large-calibre German guns it refers only to one, the 42...

Big Foot
(c. 1825-c. 1890) Minneconjou Teton Sioux chief. One of the first Sioux to raise a corn crop on the Cheyenne River, South Dakota, he travelled to Washington, DC, as a tribal delegate and worked to establish schools...

Big Issue, The
British magazine, published weekly, founded in 1991 to give homeless people the chance to earn income as vendors. It also campaigns on behalf of the homeless, but covers a range of social issues....

bigamy
In law, the offence of marrying a person while already lawfully married to another. In some countries marriage to more than one wife or husband is lawful. ...

Biggers, Earl Derr
(1884-1933) US novelist. He created the Chinese investigator Charlie Chan in a series of detective stories, beginning with The House Without a Key (1925). Other titles include The Chinese Parrot (1926), Behind...

Biggin Hill
Airport in the southeast London borough of Bromley. It was the most famous of the Royal Air Force stations in the Battle of Britain in World War II. ...

Biggles
Fictional World War I flying hero created by the English author W E Johns. Biggles was first introduced in short stories published in Popular Flying, a magazine founded by Johns in 1932; the...

Biggs, Ronald
(1929) English criminal, member of the gang responsible for the robbery of the London-Glasgow mail train in the UK on 8 August 1963. He was sentenced to 30 years im ...

Bihari
A northern Indian people, also living in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan, and numbering over 40 million. The Bihari are mainly Muslim. The Bihari language is related to Hindi and has several widely...

Bihzad, Kamal al-Din
(c. 1450-1536) Persian painter of miniatures. Although only a few works are firmly attributed to him, he is widely regarded as the finest painter of the Persian miniature. His work shows a novel subtlety in...

Bijapur
Ancient city in Karnataka, Republic of India. It was founded around 1489 AD by Yusuf Adil Shah (died 1511), the son of Murad II, as the capital of the Muslim kingdom of Biafra. The city and kingdom...

Bikel, Theodore
(1924) Austrian actor and singer. Bikel was cast as the original Georg von Trapp in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music in 1959. He became an American citizen in 1961 and appeared in revivals of...

Bikini Atoll
Atoll in the Marshall Islands, western Pacific, where the USA carried out 23 atomic- and hydrogen-bomb tests (some underwater) from...

bilateralism
In economics, a trade agreement between two countries or groups of countries in which they give each other preferential treatment. Usually the terms agreed result in balanced trade and are favoured...

Bilbo, Theodore Gilmore
(1877-1947) US senator. Bilbo served as the Democratic governor of Mississippi. Popular among the state's poor rural whites, he was a supporter of economic populism and white supremacy. He served in the US...

Bilderdijk, Willem
(1756-1831) Dutch poet, dramatist, and essayist. Skilful at rhetoric, he was, however, unable to control his emotions, so that his writing often shows an absurd blend of Romantic content and...

Bildt, Carl
(1949) Swedish politician, prime minister 1991-94. Leader of the Moderate Party (MS) from 1986, he pledged an end to the `age of collectivism` and in 1991 formed a right-of-centre coalition after...

Bill of Rights
In Britain, an act of Parliament of 1689 that established Parliament as the primary governing body of the country. It made provisions limiting royal prerogative (the right to act independently of...

Bill of Rights
In the USA, the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, incorporated in 1791: 1 guarantees freedom of worship, of speech, of the press, of assembly, and to petition the government; 2 grants the...

billet
In Romanesque architecture, an ornamental moulding formed of short cylindrical blocks, suggesting miniature wooden `billets`, and set in a concave moulding. ...

Billings, Josh
(1818-1885) US humorous writer. His unorthodox spelling and dry humour attracted attention, and he became a regular contributor to New York city papers. His works include Josh Billings, His S ...

Billington-Greig, Teresa
(1877-1964) English suffragette, socialist, and writer. Moving away from the militant branch of the suffragette movement led by Emmeline Pankhurst, she founded the Women's Freedom League in 1907 with Charlotte...

Billion Dollar Congress
The 51st Congress of the USA, which came into power immediately after the passing of the McKinley Tariff Act 1890. It was so called because it appropriated a total amount of about $1 billion during...

Billy Bunter
In Britain, fat, bespectacled schoolboy who featured in stories by Frank Richards, set at Greyfriars School. His adventures, in which he attempts to raise enough money to fund his passion for...

Billy the Kid
(1859-1881) US outlaw. A leader in the 1878 Lincoln County cattle war in New Mexico, he allegedly killed his first victim at age 12 and was reputed to have killed 21 men by age 18. Born in Brooklyn, New York,...

Bilney, Thomas
(c. 1495-1531) English preacher and Protestant martyr. His preaching against the corruptions of popular religion and his attractive personality deeply influenced many of his contemporaries, notably Hugh Latimer,...

bimah
In Judaism, a raised platform in a synagogue from which the Torah scroll is read. ...

bimetallism
Monetary system in which two metals, traditionally gold and silver, both circulate at a ratio fixed by the state, are coined by the mint on equal terms, and are legal tender to any amount. The...

bin Laden, Osama
(1957) Saudi-born, Afghanistan-based, Islamic fundamentalist terrorist leader who has masterminded a number of terrorist attacks directed at US targets since the early 1990s. He promotes jihad (holy...

binary weapon
In chemical warfare, weapon consisting of two substances that in isolation are harmless but when mixed together form a poisonous nerve gas. They are loaded into the delivery system separately and...

Binchy, Maeve
(1940) Irish journalist and author. Born in Dublin and educated at University College, Dublin, the city and its environs often form a backdrop to her work. She has written a number of plays, but is best...

bind over
In law, a UK court order that requires a person to carry out some act, usually by an order given in a magistrates' court. A person may be bound over to appear in court at a particular time if bail...

Binford, Lewis R(oberts)
(1930) US anthropologist and archaeologist A faculty member of the University of New Mexico (1970), Binford pioneered the anthropologically oriented `new archaeology`, using quantifiable data to study...

Binger, Louis Gustav
(1856-1936) French officer and explorer. In 1887 he began a journey from Senegal up to the Niger, and two years later he arrived at Grand Bassam. He described this journey in his work Du Niger au golfe de...

Bingham, George Caleb
(1811-1879) American painter of pioneer life. Taken by his parents to the edge of settlement in Missouri, he drew as a boy, had some training at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and after a period of...

Bingham, Hiram
(1875-1956) US explorer and politician who from 1907 visited Latin America, discovering Machu Picchu, Vitcos, and other Inca settlements in Peru. He later entered politics, becoming a senator. ...

Bingham, Millicent (Todd)
(1880-1968) US geographer and woman of letters. While still a student, Bingham published two works on urban geography, an interest which she maintained until the 1930s. Bingham's mother, Mabel Loomis Todd, had...

Bingham, Thomas
English lawyer, Master of the Rolls from October 1992. A High Court judge from 1980, on the Court of Appeal from 1986; author of the Bingham Report 1992 on the Bank of England's role...