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

Borghese Palace
Italian palace. One of the most magnificent buildings in Rome, in the Piazzo Borghese, the town residence of the Borghese family. It was built between 1590 and 1607 by Martino Lunghi and Flaminio...

Borgia, Cesare
(c. 1475-1507) Italian general, illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI. Made a cardinal at 17 by his father, he resigned to become captain-general of the papacy, campaigning successfully against the city...

Borgia, Francesco, St
(1510-1572) Third general of the Jesuits (Society of Jesus). He was beatified by Pope Urban VIII and canonized by Clement X in 1671. His feast day is 10 October. ...

Borgia, Lucrezia
(1480-1519) Duchess of Ferrara from 1501. She was the illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI and sister of Cesare Borgia. She was married at 12 and again at 13 to further her father's ambitions, both...

Borgogne (or Bergognone), Ambrogio
(died 1523) Italian painter. He was active from 1481 and depicted religious subjects. He spent a number of years working on altarpieces and frescoes for the Certosa, the convent of the Carthusians in Pavia,...

Boris Godunov
Tsar of Russia from 1598; see Boris Godunov. ...

Boris III
(1894-1943) Tsar of Bulgaria from 1918, when he succeeded his father, Ferdinand I. From 1934 he was a virtual dictator until his sudden and mysterious death following a visit to Hitler. His son Simeon II was...

Borja Cevallos, Rodrigo
(1937) Ecuadorean politician and president 1988-92. He was a social democrat, and his election as president marked a major change in governmental control to the left. Borja Cevallos's administration...

Bork, Robert H(eron)
(1927) US legal scholar and judge. Bork was US solicitor general, 1971-77, and acting attorney general, 1973-74. He was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan, but his...

Borlase, William
(1695-1772) English antiquary. In his Philosophical Transactions he published an essay on Cornish diamonds, and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1750. Subsequently he produced several works, including...

Bormann, Martin
(1900-1945) German Nazi leader. He took part in the abortive Munich beer-hall putsch (uprising) in 1923 and rose to high positions in the Nazi Party, becoming deputy party leader in May 1941 following the...

Bornó, (Joseph) Louis
(1865-1942) Haitian politician, president 1922-30. Elected prime minister during the US occupation of Haiti, Bornó replaced the National Assembly with a docile legislative Council of State, which...

Bornu
Kingdom of the 9th-19th centuries to the west and south of Lake Chad, western central Africa. Converted to Islam in the 11th century, Bornu reached its greatest strength in the 15th-18th...

Borodino, Battle of
French victory over Russian forces under Kutusov on 7 September 1812 near the village of Borodino, 110km/70 mi northwest of Moscow, during Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Russia. This was one of...

Boron, Robert de
Burgundian poet. He wrote in about 1200 a romance of the Holy Grail:Joseph d'Arimathie, in 3,514 octosyllabic lines, describing the recovery of the legendary receptacle in which Christ's blood was...

Boross, Peter
(1928) Hungarian politician, prime minister 1993-94. Brought into Joszef Antall's government as a nonpolitical technocrat, he became deputy chair of the ruling Hungarian Democratic Forum in 1991 and...

borough
Urban-based unit of local government in the UK and USA. It existed in the UK from the 8th century until 1974, when it continued as an honorary status granted by royal charter to a district...

Borough (or Burrowe), Stephen
(1525-1584) English navigator, brother of William Borough. In 1553 he went on the expedition under Hugh Willoughby (died 1554) from the River Thames to find a Northeast Passage to Cathay (China) and India; this...

Borough (or Burrowe), William
(1536-1599) English navigator and author, brother of Stephen Borough. He accompanied Drake in the Cadiz expedition of 1587 as commander of the Lion but quarrelled with Drake when he questioned the wisdom of the...

Borrassá, Luís
Spanish painter, active 1396-1424. He was important in the development of the early Catalan School. He worked for Juan I of Aragón and painted elaborate altarpieces in the International Gothic...

Borromeo, St Carlo
(1538-1584) Italian cardinal. He was instrumental in bringing the Council of Trent (1562-63) to a successful conclusion, and in drawing up the catechism that contained its findings....

Borrow, George (Henry)
(1803-1881) English writer and traveller. He travelled on foot through Europe and the East. His books, incorporating his knowledge of languages and Romany lore,...

Borrowers, The
Story for children by the British writer Mary Norton (1903), published in 1952. It describes a family of tiny people who live secretly under the floor in a large country house and subsist by...

borrowing
In finance, receiving money on loan. Companies borrow money in a variety of ways, including loans and overdrafts from banks and other lending institutions, bills of exchange, debentures, and trade...

borstal
In the UK, formerly a place of detention for offenders aged 15-21, first introduced in 1908. From 1983 borstal institutions were officially known as youth custody centres, and have been replaced...

Bos, Cornelis
(c. 1506-1556) Netherlands engraver. Born in 's-Hertogenbosch, he may have trained in Rome; he certainly produced engravings based on works by Marcantonio Raimondi. On his return to the Netherlands he became...

Bosanquet, Bernard
(1848-1923) English philosopher of the British idealist or neo-Hegelian tradition. In his chief metaphysical work, The Principle of Individuality (1912), he stressed the concrete nature of logical thought, in...

Boscán Almogaver, Juan
(c. 1495-1542) Spanish poet. His works were published posthumously in 1543 in three books, the first containing traditional Castilian metres, the second and third innovatory imitations of Italian poetry,...

Boscawen, Edward
(1711-1761) English admiral who served against the French in the mid-18th-century wars, including the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War. He led expeditions to the East Indies 1748-50 and...

Bosch, (Gavino) Juan Domingo
(1909-2001) Dominican Republic writer and socialist politician, president in 1963. His left-wing Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD; Dominican Revolutionary Party) won a landslide victory in the 1962...

Bosch, Hieronymus
(c. 1460-1516) Early Dutch painter. His fantastic visions, often filled with bizarre and cruel images, depict a sinful world in which people are tormented by demons and weird creatures, as in Hell, a panel from...

Bosco, Henri
(1888-1976) French novelist. His novels, which often depict life in the Provençal countryside, include Le Sanglier/The Wild Boar (1932), Hyacinthe (1940), Le Mas Théotime/Farm in Provence (1944), Le Jardin...

Boscoreale paintings
Roman mural paintings of the 1st century BC discovered 1900 in an excavated villa at Boscoreale near Pompeii, Italy (now in Naples Museum and the Metropolitan Museum, New York). The walls were...

Bose, Subhas Chandra
(1897-1945) Indian nationalist politician, president of the Indian Congress Party 1938-39. During World War II, he recruited Indian prisoners of war to fight the British in his Indian National Army (INA). He...

bosing
In archaeology, locating buried pits or ditches by striking the surface of the ground with a heavy wooden mallet; a duller sound is produced over any disturbance. ...

Bosnia-Herzegovina
Country in central Europe, bounded north and west by Croatia, and east by Serbia and Montenegro. Government Under the December 1995 Dayton Agreement, which ended a three-year civil war,...

Bosnian Crisis
Period of international tension in 1908 when Austria attempted to capitalize on Turkish weakness after the Young Turk revolt by annexing the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Austria obtained...

Bosporan Kingdom
Ancient state on the northern Black Sea coast, formed by a number of Greek colonies about 480 BC. It was under a Roman protectorate after the defeat Mithridates VI, King of Pontus, 63 BC, and it was...

boss
In architecture, either a carved stone keystone of approximately hemispherical form at the intersection of ribs in a Gothic vault, or a similar carved ornament...

Bostius, Arnoldus
(1446-1499) Flemish Carmelite monk and scholar, born and based in Ghent. He wrote theological and historical works, and was a frequent letter writer. His correspondents included several Italian and Low...

Boston Massacre
Clash between British soldiers and American workers, 5 March 1770, in Boston, Massachusetts, that left five Americans dead. Widely publicized and propagandized by Americans such as lawyer John...

Boston Tea Party
Protest in 1773 by colonists in Massachusetts, USA, against the tea tax imposed on them by the British government before the American Revolution. When a valuable consignment of tea (belonging to the...

Boswell, James
(1740-1795) Scottish biographer and diarist. He was a member of Samuel Johnson's Literary Club and the two men travelled to Scotland together in 1773, as recorded in Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides...

Bosworth, Battle of
Battle fought on 22 August 1485, during the English Wars of the Roses (see Roses, Wars of the). Richard III, the Yorkist king, was defeated and killed by Henry Tudor, who became Henry VII. The...

Botanic Gardens, Belfast
Gardens dating from 1829 in Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. They are noted for a splendid and almost unique Palm House designed by Charles Lanyon...

Botero, Giovanni
(1544-1617) Italian political theorist. He was briefly secretary to cardinal (later saint) Charles Borromeo and later in the service of the dukes of Savoy. He came to prominence with his treatise Della ragion...

Botev, Khristo
(1848-1876) Bulgarian poet and leader of the national liberation movement. At the outbreak of the 1876 uprising against the Ottoman Empire, he led an expedition against the army of occupation, but was killed....

Both
Dutch painter brothers. They were born in Utrecht, the sons of a glass painter, and became pupils of Abraham Bloemaert. They worked together in Rome and Venice. Whereas Andries was interested in...

Botha, Louis
(1862-1919) South African soldier and politician. He was a commander in the Second South African War (Boer War). In 1907 he became premier of the Transvaal and in 1910 of the first Union South African...

Botha, P(ieter) W(illem)
(1916-2006) South African politician, prime minister 1978-84 and the first executive state president 1984-89. He was a staunch supporter of apartheid and made use of force both inside and outside South...

Botkin, B(enjamin) A(lbert)
(1901-1975) US folklorist. Botkin was folklore editor of the Federal Writers' Project from 1938 to 1939 and head of the Library of Congress folk song archive in the 1940s. He turned to writing subsequently,...

Botolph, St
(died c. 680) English missionary. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he founded an abbey at Icanhoe which may be the Iken in Suffolk or Boston in Lincolnshire. He was a popular saint in the Middle Ages and...

Botswana
Landlocked country in central southern Africa, bounded south and southeast by South Africa, west and north by Namibia, and northeast by Zimbabwe. Government Botsw ...

Botta, Anne Charlotte
(1815-1891) US writer and salon hostess. A writing teacher in the 1840s, Botta established a New York City salon in her home where writers, including Edgar Allan Poe, editors, actors, politicians, and other...

Botta, Carlo Giuseppe Guglielmo
(1766-1837) Italian historian. In contrast with his life, his historical works are surprisingly reactionary. They include Storia dell'indipendenza degli Stati Uniti d'America and Storia d'Italia in...

Botta, Mario
(1943) Swiss architect. Working mostly in Switzerland, and mainly on small-scale projects, he has acquired an international reputation for highly original designs that skilfully combine modernism and...

Botta, Paul Emile
(c. 1802-1870) French archaeologist and diplomat. He was the first archaeologist to excavate in Mesopotamia, now part of modern Iraq. While consul in Mosul 1842, he explored the mound of Kuyunjik, site of the...

Bottai, Giuseppe
(1895-1959) Italian politician. One of the founders of the Fascist Party, Bottai took an active part in the March on Rome in October 1922. He was among the Fascist Grand Council members who demanded Mussolini's...

Botticelli, Sandro
(1445-1510) Florentine painter. He depicted religious and mythological subjects. He was patronized by the ruling Medici family and was deeply influenced by their neo-Platonic circle. It was for the Medicis...

Botticini, Francesco
(1446-1497) Italian painter and artisan. A number of works imitating Florentine contemporaries, including Sandro Botticelli, have been attributed to him. His best-known work is the Assumption...

Bottineau, Pierre
(c. 1817-c. 1895) US scout. Of part Chippewa descent, Bottineau guided many expeditions during 1850-70, including a Pacific Railroad expedition and a campaign against the Sioux. ...

Bottome, Phyllis
(1884-1963) English novelist. Her first novel, Raw Material, was accepted when she was 17, and later she was successful also as a short-story writer. Her books include The Dark Tower (1909), Windlestraws...

Bottomley, Gordon
(1874-1948) English poet and dramatist. His most successful verse drama, King Lear's Wife (1915), is a prelude to Shakespeare's play, and his finest lyrical verse is collected in Poems...

Boucetta, M'Hamed
(1925) Moroccan nationalist and politician. He was minister of foreign affairs 1977-84 and of cooperation 1977-81. He joined the Parti de l'Istiqlal (PI) when it was formed in 1944 and became its...

Boucher, François
(1703-1770) French rococo painter. He was court painter to Louis XV from 1765, and was popular for his light-hearted, decorative scenes which often convey a playful eroticism, as in Diana Bathing (1742;...

Boucicault, Nina
(1867-1950) English actor. She is chiefly remembered as the actor who first played Peter Pan in the London premiere of J M ...

bouclé
Textured fancy yarn with a loop pile, used for knitting and weaving clothing. ...

Boucot, Arthur James
(1924) US palaeontologist. Professor of geology (1969) and zoology (1979) at Oregon State University, his research focused on Silurian and Devonian stratigraphy (the study of stratified rocks), and...

Boudiaf, Mohamed
(1919-1992) Algerian nationalist leader and politician. He was one of the nine leaders who created the Comité Révolutionnaire d'Unité et d'Action (CRUA) in 1954 as a prelude to the armed struggle. Arrested...

Boudicca
(died AD 61) Queen of the Iceni (native Britons), often referred to by the Latin form of her name, Boadicea. Her husband, King Prasutagus, had been a tributary of the Romans, but on his death in AD 60 the...

Boudin, Leonard B(oudinov)
(1912-1989) US lawyer and civil-rights activist. In 1952 Boudin founded and became general counsel for the National Emergency Civil Liberties Commission. He argued more civil-liberties cases before the US...

Bougainville, Battle of
In World War II, Allied campaign November 1943-April 1944 to recover the most northerly of the Solomon Islands from the Japanese. Bougainville was taken by the Japanese March 1942 and became an...

Bougainville, Louis Antoine de
(1729-1811) French navigator. After service with the French in Canada during the Seven Years' War, he made the first French circumnavigation of the world in 1766-69 and the first...

Bouguereau, Adolphe William
(1825-1905) French academic painter. His subjects were historical and mythological. He was highly respected in his day, though not by the Impressionists, for whom he was the embodiment...

Bouhours, Dominique
(1628-1702) French Jesuit and critic. A grammarian and literary critic, he also wrote religious works and letters against Jansenism. His linguistic views were first expressed in the Entretiens d'artiste et...

boulangist
Supporter of General George Boulanger (1837-1891) who led the revanchist (`revenge`) movement in France in the late 1880s. It focused on res ...

Boulding, Kenneth (Ewart)
(1910-1993) English economist. Boulding emigrated to the USA in 1937 and taught at several colleges there. A prolific writer, his major contributions include promoting a social science approach to economics,...

boule
Ancient Athenian council. Solon, the Athenian legislator, is said to have instituted a `Council of 400` early in the 6th century, but some scholars doubt this. After...

boulle
Type of marquetry in brass and tortoiseshell. Originally Italian, it has acquired the name of its most skilful exponent, the French artisan André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732). ...

Boullée, Etienne-Louis
(1728-1799) French neoclassical architect. Although he built very little, he was a major influence on the architecture of his day, and his austere, visionary works have influenced late 20th-century architects...

Boumaza, Bachir
(1927) Algerian nationalist and politician. After his early involvement in the party of Messali Hadj, he joined the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) and was instrumental in setting up its federation in...

Boumédienne, Houari
(1925-1978) Algerian politician who brought the nationalist leader Mohammed Ben Bella to power by a revolt in 1962 and superseded him as president in 1965 by a further coup. During his 13 years in office, he...

bouncing bomb
Rotating bomb used by the British in World War II to attack the Ruhr dams. Designed by Dr Barnes Wallis, the bomb derived its name from the way it `bounced` along the surface of the water in...

Bounty, Mutiny on the
Naval mutiny in the Pacific in 1789 against British captain William Bligh. ...

Bourassa, Henri
(1868-1952) Canadian politician and journalist. Elected in 1896 to the Dominion House of Commons as a Liberal, he resigned in 1899 as a protest against Canadian participation in the Boer War and was...

Bourbon dynasty
French royal house (succeeding that of Valois), beginning with Henry IV and ending with Louis XVI, with a brief revival under Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis Philippe. The Bourbons also ruled...

Bourbon, duchy of
Originally a seigneury (feudal domain) created in the 10th century in the county of Bourges, central France, held by the Bourbon family. It became a duchy in 1327. The lands passed to the Capetian...

Bourbon, Nicholas
(1503-1550) French humanist poet and Evangelical. He was imprisoned in Paris for his criticism of the church in Nugae/Trifles (1533); after his release he crossed to England in 1534, where he received the...

Bourchier, Arthur
(1863-1927) English actor and theatre manager. He made his professional debut in 1889 as Jaques in Shakespeare's As You Like It, on tour with Lillie Langtry. He was manager of the Garrick Theatre in London...

Bourchier, Thomas
(c. 1410-1486) English archbishop of Canterbury 1454-86. He was previously bishop of Worcester in 1434 and bishop of Ely in 1443, and was Lord Chancellor 1455-56. Bourchier supported the Lancastrians at the...

Bourdaloue, Louis
(1632-1704) French Jesuit and preacher. His sermons, distinguished for their convincing argument and clarity of exposition, made an appeal to the reason rather than to the emotions, and are concerned with...

Bourdelle, Emile Antoine
(1861-1929) French sculptor and designer. His style, drawing strongly on the works of Auguste Rodin and then on Greek art, had a profound influence on French monumental sculpture. Among his monuments are The...

Bourdichon, Jean
(lived late 15th-early 16th century) French painter and miniaturist. He was a follower of Jean Fouquet in style and worked - as Fouquet did - for Louis XI, being appointed in 1481. He was also court painter to Charles VIII, Louis...

Bourdon, Sébastien
(1616-1671) French history and landscape painter. He painted both scenes of popular life and decorative composition derived from Nicolas Poussin. In Rome 1634-37 he was employed in painting pastiches after...

Bourgeois, Léon Victor Auguste
(1851-1925) French politician. Entering politics as a Radical, he was prime minister in 1895, and later served in many cabinets. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1920 for his pioneering advocacy of...

Bourges, Pragmatic Sanction of
Decree issued by Charles VII of France in 1438 in an attempt to weaken papal influence over the French (Gallican) church. The Sanction gave the monarchy power to nominate bishoprics and other...

Bourget, Paul
(1852-1935) French poet, novelist, and critic. His early work was deeply influenced by the determinist philosophy of Hippolyte Taine, but the novel Le Disciple/The Disciple (1889) marks a reaction against...

Bourguiba, Habib ben Ali
(1903-2000) Tunisian politician, first president of Tunisia 1957-87. He became prime minister in 1956 and president (for life from 1975) and prime minister of the Tunisian republic...

Bourignon, Antoinette
(1616-1680) French mystic. Ardent for reform and the original purity of the Gospel, she won numerous disciples and also many enemies. She was banished from her country, and travelled in Belgium, the...

Bourke-White, Margaret
(1906-1971) US photographer. As an editor of Fortune magazine 1929-33, she travelled extensively in the USSR, publishing several collections of photographs. Later, with husband Erskine Caldwell, she also...