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

Binney, Horace
(1780-1875) US lawyer. Binney's two great cases were Lyle v. Richards on property, and Vidal v. Philadelphia on the Girard trust. He later wrote legal and historical works. ...

Binns, Charles Fergus
(1857-1934) English-born ceramist. After founding a ceramics laboratory at the Royal Worcester porcelain works, Binns emigrated to Trenton, New Jersey to head a technical school. In 1900 he became first...

Binyon, (Robert) Laurence
(1869-1943) English poet. His ode `For the Fallen` (1914) is frequently quoted in war memorial services and was set to music by English composer Edward Elgar. Binyon's verse volumes include London Visions...

bioeconomics
Theory put forward in 1979 by Chicago economist Gary Becker that the concepts of sociobiology apply also in economics. The competitiveness and self-interest built into human genes are said to make...

biological warfare
The use of living organisms, or of infectious material derived from them, to bring about death or disease in humans, animals, or plants. At least ten countries have this capability. Advances in...

Bion
(lived c. 100 BC) Greek bucolic (pastoral) poet, born near Smyrna, who lived mostly in Sicily. The best of his few surviving poems is `Lament for Adonis`. ...

Biondi, Gian Francesco
(1572-1644) Italian writer. Introduced to the court of James I in England, he won the king's confidence and later a title. He wrote a Storia delle guerre civili fra le case di York et di Lancastro/History of...

Biondo, Flavio
(1392-1463) Italian historian and archaeologist. One of the first historians to study physical remains as well as documents, he wrote four major works that provided a detailed and imaginative interpretation of...

bioterrorism
Use of biological weapons in terrorism. Diseases that could be employed as weapons include anthrax, plague, and botulism. The first use of biological weapons against civilians by a non-military...

Birch, James Frederick Noel
(1865-1939) British general. Commissioned into the Royal Artillery 1885, he served in Ashanti and South Africa. During World War I he acted as artillery adviser to the commander-in-chief in France and was...

Birch, John M
(1918-1945) US Baptist missionary, who worked in China during World War II supplying information to the US armed forces. At the end of the war he was killed by Chinese communists; the US extreme right-wing...

Birch, William Russell
(1775-1834) English-born engraver. Birch emigrated to Philadelphia in 1794. He painted miniatures, and became famous for his line engravings. In 1808 he created etchings for the county seats of the USA. ...

Birchall, Frederick Thomas
(1868-1955) English-born journalist. Birchall became acting managing- editor of the New York Times in 1926. He later became director of the paper, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1934 for his perceptive...

Bird, Isabella Lucy
(1831-1904) British traveller and writer who wrote extensively of her journeys in the USA, Persia, Tibet, Kurdistan, China, Japan, and Korea. A fearless horsewoman, she generally travelled alone and in later...

Bird, Junius (Bouton)
(1907-1982) US archaeologist. Bird became the assistant to the curator of South American archaeology at the American Museum of Natural History in 1931, becoming an authority on early cultures of the Western....

Bird, Lester B
(1938) Antiguan politician, prime minister 1994-2004. He succeeded his father Vere Bird as prime minister and leader of the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) when the latter retired from politics in 1993, and...

Bird, Robert Montgomery
(1804-1854) US playwright and novelist. His most successful dramatic work was the tragedy The Gladiator (1831), about Spartacus. As a novelist, he published Calavar (1834) and its sequel The Infidel (1835),...

Bird, Vere Cornwall
(1910-1999) Antiguan politician, chief minister 1960-67, and prime minister 1967-71 and 1976-94. He formed the centre-left Antigua Labour Party (ALP) in 1968, but lost power to George ...

Birdsell, J(oseph) B(enjamin)
(1908-1994) US physical anthropologist. A professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, 1947-75, his long-term research in Australia led to his theory that Australian aborigines are trihybrid...

Birendra, Bir Bikram Shah Dev
(1945-2001) King of Nepal from 1972, when he succeeded his father Mahendra; he was formally crowned in 1975. King Birendra oversaw Nepal's return to multiparty politics and introduced a new constitution in...

Birinus, St
(died c. 650) English saint and first bishop of Dorchester, Oxon, who in 635 converted and baptized the Saxon king Cynegils. ...

Birkett, (William) Norman
(1883-1962) English lawyer and politician. He was a Liberal member of Parliament 1923-24 and 1929-31. He was a judge of the King's Bench Division 1941-50, and in 1945 was appointed a deputy member of the...

Birmingham, George A
Pseudonym of Irish novelist James Hannay. ...

Birmingham, HMS
British light cruiser of the `Chatham` class. On 9 August 1915 the Birmingham sank U 15, the first German submarine sunk during World War I. The Birmingham later took part in the battles of...

Birney, (Alfred) Earle
(1904-1995) Canadian poet. His work bridges the gaps between traditional and experimental writing, and his handling of everyday language has been widely influential. Collections include Selected Poems (1966),...

Birr Castle
Seat of the Parsons family, the Earls of Rosse, since 1620, at Birr, County Offaly, Republic of Ireland. The present Birr Castle is the work of several periods - it was burnt in 1643, besieged in...

birth rate
The number of live births per 1,000 of the population over a period of time, usually a year (sometimes it is also expressed as a percentage). For example, a birth rate of 20/1,000 (or 2%) would mean...

Bischoff, Elmer
(1916-1991) US painter and teacher. Bischoff taught painting at the San Francisco Art and at the University of California at Berkeley His work includes Woman With Dark Blue Sky (1959). ...

Bisharin
Hamitic and Muslim group of the Beja people, living in the Sudan between the Blue Nile and the Ethiopian Highlands. ...

bishop
Priest next in rank to an archbishop in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican churches. A bishop has charge of a district called a diocese. Originally, bishops were chosen by the...

Bishop, Isabella
Married name of the travel writer Isabella Bird. ...

Bishop, John Peale
(1892-1944) US poet and writer. Bishop published his first book of poetry, Green Fruit in 1917. He went on to become editor of Vanity Fair, but later wrote novels, short stories, and literary criticism. ...

Bishop, William (Howard)
(1885-1952) US religious leader. Ordained in the Baltimore archdiocese in 1915, Bishop founded the first Catholic diocesan Rural Life Conference in 1925, headed the national Rural Life Conference, 1928-33,...

Bishop, William Avery
(1894-1956) Canadian aviator. He fought on the Western Front in World War I 1914-18 as a highly successful fighter pilot, shooting down 72 enemy aircraft. He was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1917. In 1938 he...

Bishops' Wars
Struggles between King Charles I of England and Scottish Protestants 1638-40 over Charles' attempt to re-impose royal authority over the church in Scotland. The name derives from the Arminian...

Biskupin
Prehistoric timber fort dating from the 6th-5th centuries BC, near Znin, central Poland. Wooden features have been preserved by its waterlogged lakeside setting. The fort had a timber rampart, and...

Bismarck
German battleship of World War II. Launched in February 1939, it was a constant threat to Allied convoys in the Atlantic until sunk by the British in May 1941. The Bismarck displaced 50,900 tons at...

Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold von
(1815-1898) German politician, prime minister of Prussia 1862-90 and chancellor of the German Empire 1871-90. He pursued an aggressively expansionist policy, waging wars against Denmark (1863-64), Austria...

Bismillah
Muslim ceremony to mark the beginning of a child's learning about Islam. It takes place at the age of four to five, the same age at which the angel Jibra'il (Gabriel) visited Muhammad. The child is...

bisque ware
In ceramics, clay or earthenware pottery that has been fired once but not glazed. Unglazed, it maintains its dark red or tan colour. ...

Bissell, George Edwin
(1839-1920) US sculptor. Among his works are a national monument in Waterbury, Connecticut, and a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Edinburgh. ...

Bissolo, Francesco
(1492-1554) Italian painter. Active in Venice, he was a follower of Giovanni Bellini. He made frequent use of Bellini's later religious compositions in versions of the Madonna and Child. ...

Bisticci, Vespasiano da
(1421-1498) Florentine bookseller, scholar, and biographer. Responding to the huge demand for books in the 15th century, he became the largest employer of copyists in Europe, and the agent for the three...

Bitar, Salah Eddin
(1912-1980) Syrian politician, prime minister several times between 1963 and 1964 and in 1966. He was, with Michel Aflaq, a cofounder of the pan-Arab socialist doctrine of Ba'athism, which was particularly...

Bitat, Rabah
(1926) Algerian nationalist and politician. A founding member of the Comité Révolutionnaire d'Unité et d'Action (CRUA) and the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), he was arrested in 1955 by the...

Bithynia
District of northwestern Asia that became a Roman province 74 BC, and was from 64 BC administered with part of Pontus. One of its most famous governors was Pliny the Younger in the reign of the...

Biton and Cleobis
In Greek mythology, sons of Cydippe, a priestess of Hera at Argos. They drew her chariot to the temple of Hera, where their mother, in return for their love, prayed to Hera to grant them the best...

Bitter, Karl (Theodore Francis)
(1867-1915) Austrian-born sculptor. Bitter emigrated to New York City in 1889. He worked with the architect, Richard Morris, and became famous for his bronze doors of Trinity Church, New York City. He...

bivalence
In logic, a principle or law that can be formulated as `every proposition is either true or false`. If the principle of bivalence is true, then two-valued logic, in which true and false are in...

Biya, Paul
(1933) Cameroonian politician, prime minister 1975-82 and president from 1982. He entered politics under the aegis of President Ahmadou Ahidjo, becoming prime minister in 1975. When Ahidjo retired...

Bizonia
Name given to the unified US and British occupied zones of Germany after l January 1947. This unification was brought about largely by increasing East-West tensions and the need for integrated...

Black and Tans
Nickname of a special auxiliary force of the Royal Irish Constabulary formed from British ex-soldiers on 2 January 1920 and in action in Ireland March 1920-December 1921. They were employed by...

Black Beauty
Novel by Anna Sewell, published in 1877. It describes the experiences of the horse, Black Beauty, under many different owners, and revived the genre of `animal autobiography` popular in the late...

Black Boy
Autobiography of the US left-wing writer Richard Wright, published 1945, which gives a vivid and harrowing account of a black boy's experience of growing up in the USA. ...

Black Death
Great epidemic of plague, mainly the bubonic variant, that ravaged Europe in the mid-14th century. Contemporary estimates that it killed between one-third and half of the population (about 75...

black economy
Hidden economy of a country, which includes undeclared earnings from a second job (`moonlighting`), benefitting from undervalued goods and services (such as company `perks`) designed for tax...

Black Elk
(1863-1950) American Indian religious leader, born into the Oglala Lakota people. He tried to find ways of reconciling indigenous traditions with Christianity and the new reality of white dominance. Although he...

Black Friday
24 September 1869, a day on which Jay Gould (1836-1892) and James Fisk (1834-1872), stock manipulators, attempted to corner the gold market by trying to prevent the government from selling gold....

Black Hawk (or Black Sparrow Hawk)
(1767-1838) American Indian leader of the Sac people. A principal opponent of the cession of lands to the US government, he sided with the British during the War of 1812 and joined his people in their removal...

Black Hole of Calcutta
Incident in Anglo-Indian history: according to tradition, the nawab (ruler) of Bengal confined 146 British prisoners on the night of 20 June 1756 in one small room, of whom only 23 allegedly...

Black Kettle
(c. 1803-c. 1868) Southern Cheyenne peace chief. Despite his attempts at accommodation, his band was massacred at Sand Creek, Colorado, in 1864. Black Kettle continued to seek peace but was killed with his tribe in...

black market
Illegal trade in rationed or otherwise scarce goods; for example, food, petrol, and clothing in affected countries during World War II and after. ...

Black Minqua
Subgroup of the American Indian Erie people. ...

Black Monday
Worldwide stockmarket crash that began 19 October 1987, prompted by the announcement of worse-than-expected US trade figures and the response by US Secretary of the Treasury, James Baker, who...

Black Mountain poets
Group of experimental US poets of the 1950s who were linked with Black Mountain College, a liberal arts college in North Carolina. They rejected the constraints of rhyme and metre and the...

Black Muslims
Religious group founded in 1930 in the USA. Members adhere to Muslim values and believe in economic independence for black Americans. Under the leadership of Louis Farrakhan and the group's original...

Black National State
Area in the Republic of South Africa set aside from 1971 to 1994 for development towards self-government by black Africans, in accordance with apartheid. Before 1980 these areas were known as...

black nationalism
Movement towards black separatism in the USA during the 1960s; see Black Power. ...

Black Power
Movement towards black separatism in the USA during the 1960s, embodied in the Black Panther Party founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Its declared aim was the creation of a separate...

Black Prince
Nickname of Edward, Prince of Wales, eldest son of Edward III of England. ...

Black Rod
Official of the House of Lords whose duties include maintaining order and who has the power to arrest a peer for breach of privilege of the House or other offences noticed by the House. Black Rod is...

Black September
Guerrilla splinter group of the Palestine Liberation Organization formed 1970. Operating from bases in Syria and Lebanon, it was responsible for the kidnappings at the Munich Olympics 1972 that led...

Black Stone
In Islam, the sacred stone built into the east corner of the Kaaba which is a focal point of the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca. ...

black stump
In Australia, an imaginary boundary between civilization and the outback, as in the phrase `this side of the black stump`. ...

Black Thursday
Day of the Wall Street stock market crash on 24 October 1929, which precipitated the depression in the USA and throughout the world. ...

Black, Adam
(1784-1874) Scottish publisher. In 1807 he established the still flourishing publishing house of A and C Black (later being joined by his nephew Charles Black). The company publishes Who's Who, which has...

Black, Clementina Maria
(1853-1922) English suffragist, trade unionist, and novelist. After serving as secretary of the Women's Provident and Protective League, she set up the more militant Women's Trade Union Association (1889). This...

Black, Conrad Moffat
(1944) Canadian newspaper publisher. He bought the Sherbrooke Record in 1969 and, as chair of Hollinger Inc. 1985-2004, built up a newspaper empire by purchasing international titles such as the UK Daily...

Black, Fischer
(1938-1995) US economist who was the first to conceive of the pricing of options as an application of general equilibrium theory. For this reason the Black-Merton-Scholes formula (with Robert C Merton and...

Black, Hugo LaFayette
(1886-1971) US jurist. He was elected to the US Senate 1926 and, despite his earlier association with the Ku Klux Klan, distinguished himself as a progressive populist. He was appointed to the US Supreme Court...

Black, Jeremiah Sullivan
(1810-1883) US politician. In 1857 he was Attorney General in James Buchanan's cabinet. He successfully contested the validity of the Californian land claims, and opposed the Congressional plan for...

Blackadder, Elizabeth
(1931) Scottish painter. Inspired by Japanese styles, her paintings are mostly landscapes, for example Fifeshire Farm (1960, Tate Britain), and still lifes, although she has also done some commissioned...

blackbirding
Formerly, the kidnapping of South Pacific islanders (kanakas) to provide virtual slave labour in Australia, Fiji Islands, and Samoa. From 1847 to 1904 this practice was carried on extensively to...

Blackburn, Helen
(1842-1903) Irish social reformer and campaigner for women's suffrage. She was Secretary of the National Society for Women's Suffrage 1874-95 and editor of The Englishwoman's Review 1881-90. In 1899 she and...

Blackburn, Joseph
(c. 1700-after 1765) US painter. It is believed that Blackburn lived in Boston and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. During that time he painted portraits, such as the documented canvas, Mrs. Nathaniel Barrell (1762). ...

Blackburn, Joseph (Clay Styles)
(1838-1918) US representative and senator. A Confederate war veteran, Blackburn served in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate as a Democrat. He also served as governor of the...

Blackfeet
Plural form for the Blackfoot American Indian. ...

Blackfeet Indian Reservation
Reservation in northwestern Montana, adjacent to Glacier National Park, along the Alberta border; area 6,142 sq km/2,371 sq mi; population (1990) 8,500 (82% American Indian)....

Blackfoot
Member of an American Indian people who migrated from the Great Lakes north and west into the Saskatchewan River valley, Canada, and Montana, in the early 1700s. Their name derives from their black...

Blacking, John Anthony Randoll
(1928-1990) British anthropologist and ethnomusicologist who researched the relationship between music and body movement, and the patterns of social and musical organization. His most widely read book is How...

blackmail
Criminal offence of extorting money with menaces or threats of detrimental action, such as exposure of some misconduct on the part of the victim. ...

Blackmore, R(ichard) D(oddridge)
(1825-1900) English novelist. His romance Lorna Doone (1869), set on Exmoor, southwest England, in the late 17th century, won him lasting popularity. He published 13 other novels, including Cradock Nowell...

Blackmore, Richard
(1654-1729) English writer and physician to William III and Queen Anne. He wrote dull and turgid epics, ridiculed by the satirical poet Alexander Pope in his Dunciad, though they were praised by the essayist...

Blackmun, Harry A(ndrew)
(1908-1999) US Supreme Court associate justice 1970-94. He was appointed to the US Court of Appeals by President Dwight D Eisenhower in 1959. President Richard Nixon appointed him to the US Supreme Court in...

Blackmur, R(ichard) P(almer)
(1904-1965) US literary critic and poet. Self-educated, he became a prominent critic of modern literature in the 1920s and 1930s, later writing critical theory. He also published three volumes of poems. His...

Blackshirts
Term widely used to describe fascist paramilitary organizations. Originating with Mussolini's fascist Squadristi in the 1920s, it was also applied to the Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel) and to the followers...

blacksmith
Artisan who works with iron by forging and welding. Until cars and tractors replaced horses and carts, the blacksmith was a vital member of the rur ...

Blackstone, Harry
(1885-1965) US magician. Blackstone's career began in vaudeville in 1904, progressing to a full evening magic show until the 1960s when he begun to perform on television. His act featured both elaborate effects...

Blackstone, Tessa Ann Vosper Evans
(1942) British Labour politician and sociologist. She was appointed minister of state in charge of further and higher education after the Labour election victory of 1997. Awarded a life peerage in 1987,...

Blackstone, William
(1723-1780) English jurist who wrote to defend the common law of England as a natural and coherent system, and published his Commentaries on the Laws of England 1765-70. A barrister from 1746, he became the...