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

Braithwaite, Lilian
(1873-1948) English actor. She had a long career on the London stage and was outstanding in modern comedy. Among her parts were Margaret Fairfield in Clemence Dane's Bill of Divorcement (1921), Florence...

Braithwaite, Nicholas
(1929) Grenadian centrist politician, prime minister 1991-95. Following the US-led invasion of Grenada, which ousted the left-wing military government of General Hudson Austin, Braithwaite served as...

Braithwaite, Richard Bevan
(1900-1990) British philosopher, physicist, and mathematician. Although mainly a philosopher of science, he also tried to give an empiricist account of religious belief as a belief in morally uplifting stories...

Bramah, Ernest
(1868-1942) English short-story writer. He created the characters of Kai Lung, a Chinese philosopher who appears in The Wallet of Kai Lung (1900), Kai Lung Unrolls his Mat (1928), and other works; and Max...

Bramante
(1444-1514) Italian High Renaissance architect and artist. Inspired by classical designs and by the work of Leonardo da Vinci, he was employed by Pope Julius II...

Bramantino
(1450-1536) Italian painter and architect. His religious paintings include the Holy Family and Crucifixion (both Brera, Milan) and the Pietà (Church of San Sepolcro). He was a pupil of Vincenzo Foppa and a...

Brambell, Wilfrid
(1912-1985) Irish-born actor famous for his role as the coarse, manipulative father Albert Steptoe in the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) sitcom Steptoe and Son (1962, 1972, and 1973). ...

Bran
Welsh mythological figure, one of the family of Llyr in the Mabinogion and elsewhere. His head, severed from his body after death, did not decay. It was buried in London, with the eyes looking...

Brancovan, Constantin
(1654-1714) Romanian noble, of Serbian origin, who became Prince of Wallachia in 1688 after assisting Turkey in the Austrian war of 1690. He remained neutral and maintained his own position by skilful diplomacy...

Brancusi, Constantin
(1876-1957) Romanian sculptor. One of the main figures of 20th-century art, he revolutionized modern sculpture. Active in Paris from 1904, he was a pioneer of abstract sculpture, reducing a few basic themes...

Brand, Max
US novelist and poet. See Faust, Frederick. ...

Brandeis, Louis Dembitz
(1856-1941) US jurist. As a crusader for progressive causes, he helped draft social-welfare and labour legislation. In 1916, with his appointment to the US Supreme Court by President Woodrow Wilson, he became...

Brandenburgers
German special forces and commando-style units in World War II. They were rarely used for their intended purpose and eventually became an ordinary mechanized infantry regiment. Originally known as...

Brandes, Georg (Morris Cohen)
(1842-1927) Danish writer and literary critic. His studies of European literature were translated into English as Main Currents in Nineteenth-century Literature (six volumes) 1901-05. He produced...

Brandt Commission
International committee (1977-83) set up to study global development issues. It produced two reports, stressing the interdependence of the countries of the wealthy, industrialized North and the...

Brandywine, Battle of
British victory over General George Washington during the American Revolution 11 September 1777 at the Brandywine River, Pennsylvania. Washington attempted to intercept General William Howe as he...

Brankovic, George
(c. 1367-1456) Prince of Serbia from 1427, when he succeeded his uncle, Stephen Lazarevic. He was driven into Hungary by Sultan Murad II in 1437. After a period of exile, he organized an expedition against the...

Brannan, Charles F(ranklin)
(1903-1992) US lawyer and cabinet member. A Denver lawyer and cattle rancher, Brannan became regional director of the Farm Security Administration in 1941. In 1948 he became President Truman's secretary of...

Brannan, Samuel
(1819-1889) US pioneer. A journeyman printer, Brannan became a Mormon in 1842 and led a Mormon group to California by sea in 1846. He published San Francisco's first newspaper,...

Branner, Hans Christian
(1903-1966) Danish novelist and dramatist. Much of his writing is connected with World War II; it includes the two long stories Angst (1944) and Bjergene/The Mountains (1953) and the novels Rytteren/The Riding...

Brant, Joseph
(1742-1807) Mohawk chief, Anglican missionary, and British military officer during the American Revolution. Brant, who was awarded a captain's commission in 1775, led four of the six nations of the Iroquois...

Branting, Karl H(jalmar)
(1860-1925) Swedish astronomer, editor, political activist, and prime minister. Branting shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1921 with Norwegian pacifist and historian Christian Louis Lange for his lifelong...

Brasidas
(c. 472-422 BC) Spartan general during the first decade of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). In 428 BC he led a force of freed helots (Spartan serfs) and mercenaries into Thessaly and won over several Athenian...

Bratby, John
(1928-1992) English painter. He was one of the leading exponents of the `kitchen sink` school of the 1950s whose work concentrated on working-class domestic life. He also wrote and illustrated his own...

Brathwaite, Edward Kamau
(1930) West Indian historian and poet. Using calypso and work songs as well as more literary verse forms, he has explored the ways in which the West Indian legacy of slavery has been transcended by the...

Braudel, (Paul Achille) Fernand
(1902-1985) French historian. While in a German prisoner-of-war camp during World War II he wrote La Mediterranée et le monde mediterranéen à l'époque de Philippe II/The...

Braun AEG
German company, manufacturer of sound equipment and domestic appliances, founded 1921 by Max Braun and based in Frankfurt. The factory was rebuilt 1945 and in 1951 when Max Braun died his son Artur...

Braun, Eva
(1912-1945) German mistress of Adolf Hitler. Secretary to Hitler's photographer and personal friend, Heinrich Hoffmann, she became Hitler's mistress in the 1930s and married him in the air-raid shelter of the...

Brautigan, Richard Gary
(1935-1984) US novelist. He lived in San Francisco, the setting for many of his playfully inventive and humorous short fictions, often written as deadpan parodies. He became a cult figure in the late 1960s with...

Brave New World
Novel by Aldous Huxley published in 1932. It is set in the future when Humanity is totally controlled on scientific principles by eugenics and drugs. A Savage from outside the boundaries is brought...

Bray, Thomas
(1656-1730) English cleric and philanthropist. He worked for the institution of public libraries in England and America; 80 were constructed in England and 36 in America before his death. The Society for...

Bray, Vicar of
(lived 16th century) English vicar of Bray. He is variously described as Simon Aleyn, Simon Dillin, or Simon Allen, and was appointed vicar during the reign of Henry VIII. He maintained his position during the reigns of...

Brazil
Largest country in South America (almost half the continent), bounded southwest by Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia; west by Peru and Colombia; north by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and...

Brazil, Angela
(1868-1947) English writer. She founded the genre of girls' school stories, writing over 50; among them are A Pair of Schoolgirls (1912), Captain Peggie (1924), and The New School at Scarsdale (1940). ...

Brazilian architecture
The first substantial buildings in Brazil were Christian churches built by the Jesuits: the church of S Bento in Rio de Janeiro (1652) is in early baroque style. The second half of the 18th century...

breakeven
In finance, the level of output where costs equal revenue and no profit or loss is made. ...

Breakspear, Nicholas
Original name of Adrian IV, the only English pope. ...

Breasted, James Henry
(1865-1935) US Orientalist. Well known as the author of textbooks and popular works on the history of the ancient Near East, Breasted founded the University of Chicago Oriental Institute, funded by John D...

Breathalyzer
Trademark for an instrument for on-the-spot checking by police of the amount of alcohol consumed by a suspect driver. The driver breathes into a plastic bag connected to a tube containing a...

Breckinridge, John Cabell
(1821-1875) US politician and soldier. In 1849 he became a Democratic member of the Kentucky legislature, and sat in Congress 1851-55. In 1856 he was elected vice-president under James Buchanan. He...

Breda, Compromise of
Petition by Dutch noblemen and burghers presented to the Habsburg regent, Margaret of Parma, in 1566. A complaint against the attempts of Philip II of Spain to force Catholicism on the Netherlands,...

Breda, Treaty of
1667 treaty that ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1664-67). By the terms of the treaty, England gained New Amsterdam, which was renamed New York. ...

Bredero, Gerbrand Adriaanszoon
(1585-1618) Dutch poet and dramatist. His devotional and love poetry often achieves a mastery of formal control over deep and turbulent feelings, and his farces (Klucht van de koe 1612 and Klucht van de...

Bregno, Andrea
(1421-1506) Italian sculptor. Active in Rome from 1465 and later in Siena, he produced monumental decorative sculptures, tombs, and altars in marble, one of his best-known works being the Piccolomini altar in...

Breguet
French two-seat biplane used in World War I as a day bomber. It first flew November 1916, and before the war ended it saw service with 71 French squadrons on...

Breidfjord, Sigurdur
(1798-1846) Icelandic poet, the finest of the rimur. His Numa rimur, composed in Greenland 1831-34 is one of the masterpieces of Iceland's 19th-century literature. ...

Breitenfeld, Battle of
In the Thirty Years' War, victory of a joint Swedish-Saxon force under King Gustavus Adolphus over Imperial forces under Count Tilly 17 September 1631 at Breitenfeld, about 10 km/6 mi from...

Breitinger, Johann Jakob
(1701-1776) Swiss scholar and writer. His critical works had a great reforming influence on German literature and in this he was associated with Johann Bodmer. His writings include Kritische Dichtkunst (1740),...

Breitkopf, Bernhardt Christoph
(1695-1777) German printer and publisher. In 1710 he founded the music publishing business of Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig, which became famous for its editions of the classics. The company also encouraged...

Breitmann, Hans
US writer; see Charles Godfrey Leland. ...

Brekelenkam, Quirin
(1620-1658) Dutch painter. He produced scenes of everyday life, such as Old Woman by the Fire (Prado, Madrid) and Confidential Talk (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). He was probably a pupil of Gerard Dou. ...

Breker, Arno
(1900-1991) German neoclassical sculptor who created several pieces on commission for the Nazi regime. After World War II much of his work was destroyed. ...

Bremer, (Lewis) Paul
(1941) US diplomat and counterterrorism official, director of post-war reconstruction and humanitarian assistance in Iraq 2003-04. He replaced Lt-Gen Jay Garner as the top civilian administrator of...

Bremer, Fredrika
(1810-1865) Swedish novelist. She introduced the realistic family novel, gaining international recognition with Familjen H/The H Family (1831). She made studies of family life in both Europe and the USA, and...

Bremner, Rory
(1961) Scottish-born television impressionist who specializes in topical and political satire. ...

Bremond, Henri
(1865-1933) French critic. His main work is the 11-volume Histoire littéraire du sentiment religieux en France/A Literary History of Religious Thought in France (1916-32). Other works include L'Inquiétude...

Bren gun
Standard light machine gun of British and Commonwealth armies during World War II. Probably the best light machine gun used by any army during the war, it was simple,...

Brennan, Christopher John
(1870-1932) Australian Symbolist poet. He was influenced by Baudelaire and Mallarmé. Although one of Australia's greatest poets, he is virtually unknown outside his native country. His complex, idiosyncratic...

Brennan, William J(oseph), Jr
(1906-1997) US judge and associate justice of the US Supreme Court 1956-90. A liberal, he wrote many important Supreme Court majority decisions that assured the freedoms set forth in the First Amendment and...

Brennus
(lived 4th century BC) Chieftain of the Celts of Gaul. According to the Roman historian Livy, in 390 BC Brennus led the Gallic tribes into Italy and, having practically annihilated a large Roman army, marched on Rome and...

Brennus
(lived 3rd century BC) Chieftain of the Celts of Galatia in Asia Minor. He led the Gauls on two expeditions into Macedonia and Thrace. During the second 279 BC the Gauls advanced on Delphi, but were beaten back by the...

Brent-Dyer, (Gladys) Elinor M(ay)
(1894-1969) English children's writer. Author of 98 schoolgirl novels, her fourth book, The School at the Chalet (1925), established her popular `Chalet School` series, which were set...

Brent, Margaret
(1600-1671) English-born American colonial landowner who came to Maryland in 1638. She was Maryland's first female landowner. Sometimes cited today as a pioneering protofeminist lawyer, she seems to have...

Brentano, Franz
(1838-1916) German-Austrian philosopher and psychologist. In Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint 1874 he developed the theory that mental phenomena can be identified as those that have...

Brentano, Klemens
(1778-1842) German Romantic writer. He published a seminal collection of folk tales and songs with Ludwig von Arnim (Des Knaben Wunderhorn/The Boy's Magic Horn) (1805-08), and popularized the legend of the...

Breshkovsky, Catherine
(1844-1934) Russian revolutionary of aristocratic Polish origin, nicknamed `the Grandmother of the Russian Revolution`. She belonged to the party of Socialist Revolutionaries and spent many years in prison,...

Breslin, (James) Jimmy
(1930) US journalist who began as a sportswriter for the New York Herald Tribune. He wrote for a sequence of New York papers. Also a novelist, he won...

Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of
Bilateral treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Russia and Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies. Under its terms, Russia agreed to recognize...

Brétigny, Treaty of
Treaty made between Edward III of England and John II of France in 1360 at the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War, under which Edward received Aquitaine and its dependencies in...

Bretón de los Herreros, Manuel
(1796-1873) Spanish dramatist. He wrote about 160 original plays and produced many translations. He portrayed middle-class customs in a witty, satirical style, as in Muérete y verás/Die and...

Breton, Nicholas
(c. 1545-c. 1626) English poet and satirist. A very versatile writer, he produced many works of poetry, including The Passionate Shepherd (1604). His prose works include Wit's Trenchmour (1597) (about angling) and...

Brett, John
(1831-1902) English landscape and marine painter. His early, minutely detailed pictures were inspired by Pre-Raphaelite principles. An example is The Stonebreaker (1857-58; Walker Gallery, Liverpool), which...

Bretton Woods
Township in New Hampshire, USA, where the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference was held in 1944 to discuss post-war international payments problems. The agreements reached on financial...

Bretton Woods Reform Organization
Pressure group on international economics, formed 1991 to campaign for International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank accountability to its clients, and to devise and implement...

Bretwalda
9th-century Anglo-Saxon title for a powerful king who exercised authority over England south of the Humber. The term was initially used in Bede's list of hegemonic rulers, but also extended to...

Breuer, Lee
(1937) US director, producer, and playwright who was connected with avant-garde theatre. Born in Philadelphia, he was cofounder of the Mabou Mines...

breviary
In the Roman Catholic Church, the book of instructions for reciting the daily services. It is usually in four volumes, one for each season. ...

Brewer, David J (Josiah)
(1837-1910) US Supreme Court justice. President Benjamin Harrison nominated him to the US Supreme Court 1890-1910, where he strictly adhered to the limits of federal power as outl ...

Breyer, Stephen G(erald)
(1938) US Supreme Court associate justice. He served on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. He contributed to the deregulation of the airlines in the 1970s. Able to grasp and clearly explain...

Breytenbach, Breyten
(1939) South African writer. In 1975 he was sentenced to seven years in prison for his involvement with the anti-apartheid movement. His prison autobiography, The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist...

Brezhnev Doctrine
Soviet doctrine of 1968 designed to justify the invasion of Czechoslovakia. It laid down for the USSR as a duty the direct maintenance of `correct` socialism in countries within the Soviet...

Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich
(1906-1982) Soviet leader. A protégé of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev, he came to power (after he and Aleksei Kosygin forced Khrushchev to resign) as general secretary of the Communist Party of the...

Brialmont, Henry Alexis
(1821-1903) Belgian general, the leading fortifications engineer of his day. As director of fortifications in the Antwerp district, he was responsible from 1884 for the forts at Namur and Liège (which were...

Brian Bóruma (or Brian Boru)
(c. 941-1014) King of Munster from 976 and high king of Ireland from 999. His campaigns represent the rise of Munster as a power in Ireland, symbolized by his victory over Leinster and the Dublin Norse at Glen...

Briand, Aristide
(1862-1932) French republican politician, 11 times prime minister 1909-29. A skilful parliamentary tactician and orator, he was seldom out of ministerial office between 1906 and 1932. As foreign minister...

bribery
Corruptly receiving or agreeing to receive, giving or promising to give, any gift, loan, fee, reward, or advantage as an inducement or reward to persons in certain pos ...

Brice, Fanny (born Fannie Borach)
(1891-1951) US comedian with an act based on parody, dialect, and physical humour. She attained international stardom in the 1921 Ziegfeld Follies with her signature torch-song parody, `My Man`. She...

Brickhill, Paul Chester Jerome
(1916-1991) Australian writer. His book The Great Escape (1951) was based on his own experience as a prisoner of war during World War II. It was filmed in 1963. He also wrote The Dambusters (1951) and Reach for...

brickwork
Method of construction using bricks made of fired clay or sun-dried earth (see adobe). In wall building, bricks are either laid out as stretchers (long side...

Bridel, Philippe Sirice
(1757-1845) Swiss writer. His Poésies helvétiennes/Swiss Poems, with their picturesque settings and allusions to the nation's past, helped give Swiss literature written in French a...

Brideshead Revisited
Novel (1945) by Evelyn Waugh. The plot revolves around the deep fascination Charles Ryder feels for the Roman Catholic Flyte family who own the great house, Brideshead. The conclusion contains a...

bridewealth
Goods or property presented by a man's family to his prospective wife's family as part of the marriage agreement. It is common practice among many societies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, and...

bridge
Structure that provides a continuous path or road over water, valleys, ravines, or above other roads. The basic designs and combinations of these are based on the way they bear the weight of the...

Bridge of Sighs
Covered bridge in Venice connecting the Doge's Palace with the State prison. The name refers to the fact that it was by way of this bridge that offenders under sentence of death were conducted to...

Bridger, James
(1804-1881) US fur trader and scout. He was the first white man to see the Great Salt Lake in 1824. He established Fort Bridger in Wyoming in 1843 and discovered Bridger's Pass in 1849. Between 1859 and 1866 he...

Bridges, (Henry) Styles
(1898-1961) US Republican governor, senator, magazine editor, and investment broker. Although conservative governor of New Hampshire 1935-37, he appointed the first woman state judge. In the US Senate...

Bridges, Harry (Alfred Renton)
(1901-1990) Australian-born US labour leader. In 1931 he formed a trade union of clockworkers and in 1934, after police opened fire on a picket line and killed two...

Bridges, Robert Seymour
(1844-1930) English poet and critic. He was poet laureate from 1913 to 1930. His topographical poems and lyrics, which he began to publish in 1873, demonstrate a great command of rhythm and melody. He wrote The...

Bridget, St
(or St Brigit or St Bride) (453-523) A patron saint of Ireland. She founded a church and monastery at Kildare, and is said to have been the daughter of a prince of Ulster. Her feast day is 1 February. ...

Bridgewater, Francis Henry Egerton
(1756-1828) English bishop. He was the son of John Egerton, bishop of Durham, and succeeded his brother as earl in 1823. He remained unmarried and at his death the title became extinct. He bequeathed the...