Copy of `The History Channel - Encyclopedia`

The wordlist doesn't exist anymore, or, the website doesn't exist anymore. On this page you can find a copy of the original information. The information may have been taken offline because it is outdated.

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

Brother Antonius
US poet; see William Everson. ...

Brother Jonathan
Personification of the USA, corresponding to the English John Bull. The phrase has now been superseded by Uncle Sam. The name is believed to have come from Jonathan Trumbull, governor of Connecticut...

Brothers Karamazov, The
Novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, published 1879-80. It describes the reactions and emotions of four brothers after their father is murdered. One of them is falsely convicted of the crime, although his...

Brough
English theatrical family, descended from Barnabas Brough (died 1854), who became a playwright in later life. His sons William Brough (1826-1870) and Robert Barnabas Brough (1828-1860) were also...

Brougham, Henry Peter
(1778-1868) British Whig politician and lawyer. From 1811 he was chief adviser to the Princess of Wales (afterwards Queen Caroline), and in 1820 he defeated the attempt of George IV to divorce her. He was Lord...

Brougham, John
(1810-1880) Irish-born US actor, playwright, and manager who moved to the USA in 1842. A popular comedian, specializing in the stock character of the `stage Irishman`, he went on to write over 100 plays,...

Broun, Heywood (Campbell)
(1888-1939) US journalist. He was cofounder and first president of the American Newspaper Guild, and a fiery, fearless columnist with concern for social issues, especially for the Telegram 1928-39. He was...

Brouwer, Adriaen
(1605-1638) Flemish painter. He worked both in Flanders and Holland, and Flemish and Dutch styles are combined in his work, which consists mainly of very lively (and often humorous) genre scenes of drinkers or...

Browder, Earl Russell
(1871-1973) US politician. Born in Wichita, Kansas, Browder was a member of the US Communist Party from 1921, becoming its secretary general from 1936. He was also a nominee for US president in 1940, advocating...

Brown v. Board of Education
Landmark US Supreme Court decision of 1954 which ruled that racially segregated educational facilities were intrinsically unequal and therefore in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. This ruling...

Brown, (James) Gordon
(1951) British Labour politician, prime minister and leader of the Labour Party from 2007. He was chancellor of the Exchequer 1997-2007. As chancellor he ceded to the Bank of England full control of...

Brown, Alice
(1857-1948) US writer. She takes New England life as her theme. Her collections of short stories include Meadow Grass (1895), Tiverton Tales (1899), and Homespun and Gold (1920), and her novels The Day of His...

Brown, Capability (Lancelot)
(1716-1783) English landscape gardener and architect. He acquired his nickname because of his continual enthusiasm for the `capabilities` of natural landscapes. He worked on or improved the gardens of many...

Brown, Charles Brockden
(1771-1810) US novelist and magazine editor. He introduced the American Indian into fiction and is called the `father of the American novel`. Inspired by the writings of William Godwin and Mrs Radcliffe,...

Brown, Edmund G(erald)
(1905-1996) US Democratic governor of California. During his term of office 1959-67, he expanded the state university system and initiated a major water project. He is also remembered for his decision in 1960...

Brown, Ford Madox
(1821-1893) English painter, associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood through his pupil Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His pictures, which include The Last of England (1855; City Art Gallery, Birmingham) and...

Brown, George
(1818-1880) Scottish-born Canadian journalist and politician. He went to New York 1939, and to Toronto 1843, where he founded the Toronto Globe 1844. In 1852 he entered the Canadian parliament and assumed...

Brown, George (Scratchley)
(1918-1978) US pilot who flew heavy bombers during World War II. As commander of the 7th Air Force in Saigon 1968-70, he was accused of falsifying reports about air strikes in Cambodia 1969-70. President...

Brown, George Alfred
(1914-1985) British Labour politician. He entered Parliament in 1945, was briefly minister of works in 1951, and contested the leadership of the party on the death of Hugh Gaitskell, but was...

Brown, George Douglas
(1869-1902) Scottish novelist. House with the Green Shutters (1901), written under the pseudonym George Douglas, represents some of the harder aspects of Scottish life; its harsh realism and tragic quality are...

Brown, George Mackay
(1921-1996) Scottish writer. He published volumes of poetry and short stories collected in A Calendar of Love (1967) and A Time to Keep (1969). He also wrote historical essays in An Orkney Tapestry (1969); a...

Brown, H Rap
US political activist and author; see Jamil Abdullah al-Amin. ...

Brown, Ivor John Carnegie
(1891-1974) British journalist and writer. Among his works are The Meaning of Democracy (1920), Masques and Phases (1927), and Brown Studies (1930). From 1942 to 1948 he edited the Observer. Brown was born in...

Brown, Jacob (Jennings)
(1775-1828) US soldier who commanded US forces on the New York frontier in the War of 1812, defeating the British at Ogdensburg, Sackett's Harbor, Fort Erie, Chippewa, and Lundy's Lane. He was also a...

Brown, Jerry
(1938) US Democratic governor and candidate for presidential nomination in 1976 and 1992. He served as secretary of state 1970-74 and governor of California 1975-83. He campaigned as a political...

Brown, John
(1826-1883) Scottish servant and confidant of Queen Victoria from 1858. ...

Brown, John
(1810-1882) Scottish essayist. His essays are simple and unaffected; they include `Rab and his Friends` (1859; about a dog) and `Marjorie Fleming` (1863), and were collected in Horae Subsecivae...

Brown, John
(1800-1859) US slavery abolitionist. With 18 men, on the night of 16 October 1859, he seized the government arsenal at Harpers Ferry in West Virginia, apparently intending to distribute weapons to runaway...

Brown, John
(1715-1766) English poet and dramatist. He defended utilitarianism as a philosophy in his `Essay on the Characteristics of Shaftesbury` (1751). His Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times...

Brown, John Carter
(1934) US museum director whose speciality was 17th-century Dutch art. As the director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1969-92, he presided over a period of great expansion in the...

Brown, Lee P (Patrick)
(1937) US police officer and government official. An advocate of foot patrols and community policing, he was Atlanta's public safety commissioner from 1978-82, police chief of Houston 1982-90, and New...

Brown, Margaret Wise
(1910-1952) US author. She was a gifted writer of many innovative books of verse and stories for children, notably Goodnight Moon (1947). She died suddenly in France after an operation for appendicitis. Born in...

Brown, Rita Mae
(1944) US writer. Involved in feminist and radical lesbian activism in the 1970s, she later withdrew to concentrate on writing. Her zesty, best-selling first novel, Ru ...

Brown, Ron(ald Harmon)
(1941) US lawyer, secretary of commerce 1993-96. For several years he made his name as a corporate lobbyist. In 1988 he served as a strategist to Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign, and also...

Brown, Thomas
(1663-1704) English satirical writer. He is said to have escaped expulsion from Christ Church College, Oxford, by spontaneously adapting Martial's epigram `Non amo te, Sabidi` as `I do not love thee,...

Brown, Thomas Edward
(1830-1897) Manx poet. He published a number of poems, the chief of which were in Manx dialect, including Fo'c'sle Yarns (1881), The Doctor and other Poems (1887), The Manx Witch (1889),...

Brown, Walter Folger
(1869-1961) US lawyer, Republican politician, and postmaster general. He campaigned for Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, and served in the administration of Warren G Harding. As postmaster general...

Brown, William Adams
(1865-1943) US clergyman and theologian who became involved in social causes and the ecumenical movement. He helped found the American Theological Society. He published 15 books, including...

Brown, William Henry
(lived 1820s) West Indian-born US theatre producer and playwright. In 1821 he established the African Theatre to allow all-black casts to perform mainly plays from the white repertoire, including condensed...

Browne, Charles Farrar (born Brown)
(1834-1867) US writer and humorist. He created the blustery character Artemus Ward, through whom he satirized contemporary society in the Cleveland Plain Dealer letters 1857-59. This series of letters,...

Browne, Des
(1952) UK Labour Party politician, defence secretary from 2006, Scottish secretary from 2007. He rose swiftly through Labour's ranks after becoming a member of Parliament in 1997. After the 2001 general...

Browne, George, Count de Browne
(1698-1792) Irish soldier. He entered the service of the Elector Palatine in Germany in 1725 owing to his exclusion, as a Catholic, from appointments in his own country. He subsequently served with the Russian...

Browne, Hablot Knight
Real name of English illustrator Phiz. ...

Browne, Thomas
(1605-1682) English writer and physician. His works display a richness of style and an enquiring mind. They include Religio medici/The Religion of a Doctor (1643), a justification of his profession;`Vulgar...

Browne, William
(c. 1590-c. 1645) English poet. His chief works were Britannia's Pastorals (1613-16), The Shepheard's Pipe (1614; with three friends), and The Inner Temple Masque (1615; printed 1772). He was the author of an...

Brownell, William Crary
(1851-1928) US critic. His works include French Art (1892) and studies of Victorian and American `prose masters` (1901, 1909). Other works are Criticism (1914), Standards (1917), and The...

brownie
In Scottish folklore, a shaggy, naked or raggedly dressed goblin who attaches himself to a farmhouse in the country and performs useful chores in the night, such as cleaning the dairy utensils. His...

Browning automatic rifle
US light machine gun used for infantry support, adopted by the US Army 1917 and standard issue until the early 1950s. It used a 20-shot magazine and fired at 500 rounds per minute. It was...

Browning machine gun
US medium machine gun. A water-cooled, tripod-mounted, belt-fed gun of 30-in calibre, it was adopted by the US Army 1917 and is still in use in most countries. Resembling the Vickers and...

Browning, John Moses
(1855-1926) US gunsmith and inventor. His breech-loading single-shot rifle was patented in 1879 and bought by the Winchester Repeating Company. His next patented designs were those for his repeat ...

Browning, Robert
(1812-1889) English poet. His work is characterized by the accomplished use of dramatic monologue (in which a single imaginary speaker reveals his or her character, thoughts, and situation) and an interest in...

Brownshirts
The SA (Sturmabteilung) or Storm Troops, the private army of the German Nazi party, who derived their name from the colour of their uniform. ...

Brownson, Orestes Augustus
(1803-1876) US writer, religious thinker, and a keen social and religious reformer. In turn a Presbyterian, a Universalist minister, and a Unitarian pastor, he founded his own sect in 1836. In 1844, he became a...

Bruce
One of the chief Scottish noble houses. Robert (I) the Bruce and his son, David II, were both kings of Scotland descended from Robert de Bruis (died 1094), a Norman knight who arrived in England...

Bruce, David K E (Kirkpatrick Este)
(1898-1977) US statesman and diplomat. Between 1948 and 1949 he administered the Marshall Plan in France. He was ambassador to France 1949-52, to West Germany 1957-59,...

Bruce, James
(1730-1794) Scottish explorer who, in 1770, was the first European to reach the source of the Blue Nile and, in 1773, to follow the river downstream to Cairo. ...

Bruce, Lenny
(1925-1966) US comedian, whose rapid-fire delivery, scatological language, and fearless tackling of taboo subjects, such as race relations and liberal hypocrisy, religion, and sexuality, were...

Bruce, Michael
(1746-1767) Scottish poet. His longest poem, Lochleven, shows the influence of James Thomson. His finest poem is the Elegy Written in Spring. The authorship of the `Ode to the Cuckoo`, beginning `Hail,...

Bruce, Robert
King of Scotland; see Robert (I) the Bruce. ...

Bruce, Robert de
(c. 1210-1295) Scottish noble, one of the unsuccessful claimants to the Scottish throne after the death of Alexander III in 1286. He lost out to John de Baliol in 1292, in a power struggle arbitrated by King...

Bruce, Stanley Melbourne
(1883-1967) Australian National Party politician, prime minister 1923-29. He introduced a number of social welfare measures and sought closer economic ties with the UK, campaigning for `Imperial...

Bruce, William Spiers
(1867-1921) Scottish explorer and geographer. In 1892-93 he took part in a Dundee whaling expedition to the Antarctic, during which he obtained a valuable set of meteorological observations, and in 1896-97...

Brueghel (or Bruegel)
Family of Flemish painters. Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525-1569) was one of the greatest artists of his time. His pictures of peasant life helped to establish genre painting, and he also...

Brueys, David Augustin de
(1640-1723) French theologian and dramatist. His chief aim in his writing was to convert Protestants to Catholicism. Generally, his plays were written in collaboration with Jean Palaprat (1650-1721), such Le...

Brugsch, Karl Heinrich
(1827-1894) German Egyptologist. On visiting Egypt 1853 as consul for the Prussian government, he joined the French archaeologist August Mariette in his excavations at Memphis. His works include Geschichte...

Brulé, Étienne
(c. 1592-1632) French adventurer and explorer. He travelled with Champlain to the New World in 1608 and settled in Québec, where he lived with the Algonquin Indians. He explored the Great Lakes and travelled as...

Brumidi, Constantino
(1805-1880) Italian-born US painter who emigrated from Rome to New York in 1852. Said to be the first painter of frescoes in America, he decorated many government buildings in Washington, DC. His works...

Brummell, Beau (George Bryan)
(1778-1840) English dandy and leader of fashion. He introduced long trousers as conventional day and evening wear for men. A friend of the Prince of Wales, the future George IV, he later quarrelled with him....

Brundtland, Gro Harlem
(1939) Norwegian Labour politician, prime minister 1981, 1986-89 and 1990-96 and director-general (head) of the World Health Organization (WHO) 1998-2003. She entered politics in 1974, when invited...

Brunei
Country comprising two enclaves on the northwest coast of the island of Borneo, bounded to the landward side by Sarawak and to the northwest by the South China Sea. Government Brunei has an absolute...

Brunelleschi, Filippo
(1377-1446) Italian Renaissance architect. The first and one of the greatest of the Renaissance architects, he pioneered the scientific use of perspective. He was responsible for the construction of the dome of...

Brunhild
Wife of King Gunther in the Nibelungenlied, German epic poem. She corresponds to Brynhild in the Norse legend of the Nibelungs. ...

Bruni, Leonardo
(c. 1370-1444) Italian humanist scholar and historian. Chancellor of Florence 1427-44, he was one of the leading scholars of his day, translating Bruno, Giordano
(1548-1600) Italian philosopher. He entered the Dominican order of monks in 1563, but his sceptical attitude to Catholic doctrines forced him to flee Italy in 1577. He was arrested by the Inquisition in 1593 in...

Brunvand, Jan Harold
(1933) US folklorist. His early publications included work on Indiana, Utah, and Alberta folklore. In the 1980s he published several collections of American urban legends, including...

Brusilov Offensive
In World War I, major Russian assault led by General Alexei Brusilov against the southern sector of the Eastern Front June 1916 in order to relieve pressure on the Western and Italian Fronts by...

Brusilov, Aleksei Alekseevich
(1853-1926) Russian general, military leader in World War I who achieved major successes against the Austro-Hungarian forces in 1916. Later he was commander of the Red Army 1920, which drove the Poles to...

Brustein, Robert (Sanford)
(1927) US critic and theatre director. He founded the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1966. At Harvard he founded a resident professional training company, known as the American Repertory Theatre, supervising...

brutalism
Architectural style of the 1950s and 1960s that evolved from the work of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. It is uncompromising in its approach, believing that practicality and user-friendliness...

Brute, Simon William Gabriel
(1779-1839) French-born US prelate. He was the first Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese of Vincennes, Indiana. He held an unrivalled place in the US Church from 1818-34, being constantly consulted by the...

Bruton, John Gerard
(1947) Irish politician, leader of the centrist Fine Gael (United Ireland Party) 1990-2001 and prime minister 1994-97. The collapse of Albert Reynolds's Fianna Fáil-Labour government in November...

Bruttii
A people who inhabited the `toe` of Italy (modern Calabria). Their territory, to which the name Italia was first applied, was known as ager Bruttius or simply Bruttium. Although they had many...

Brutus, Lucius Junius
(lived 6th century BC) One of the first two elected Roman consuls 509 BC. He took a leading part in the expulsion of the last Roman king, Tarquinius Superbus, and the establishment of the Roman Republic. He executed his...

Brutus, Marcus Junius
(c. 85 BC-42 BC) Roman senator and general who conspired with Cassius to assassinate Julius Caesar in order to restore the purity of the Republic. He and Cassius were defeated by the united forces of Mark Antony and...

Bryan, William Jennings
(1860-1925) US politician who campaigned unsuccessfully for the presidency three times: as the Populist and Democratic nominee in 1896, as an anti-imperialist Democrat in 1900, and as a Democratic tariff...

Bryant, Arthur Wynne Morgan
(1899-1985) British historian who produced studies of Restoration figures such as Pepys and Charles II, and a series covering the Napoleonic Wars including The Age of Elegance 1950. Knighted 1954. ...

Bryant, Gridley J F (James Fox)
(1816-1899) US architect. His Boston practice prefigured the large architectural firm and designed primarily commercial and public buildings; he rebuilt 110 of his 152 buildings destroyed in...

Bryant, William Cullen
(1794-1878) US poet and literary figure. His most famous poem, `Thanatopsis`, was published 1817. He was co-owner and co-editor of the New York Evening Post 1829-78 and was involved in Democratic...

Bryce, James
(1838-1922) British Liberal politician, professor of civil law at Oxford University 1870-93. He entered Parliament 1880, holding office under Gladstone and Rosebery. He was author of The American Commonwealth...

Brücke, die
Group of German expressionist artists active from 1905 to 1913, originally in Dresden, and later in Berlin. The members chose the name because they wanted to create a bridge to a new, creative...

Brüderhof
Christian Protestant sect with beliefs similar to the Mennonites. They live in groups of families (single persons are assigned to a family), marry only within the sect (divorce is not allowed), and...

Brygos
(lived early 5th century) Greek vase painter in the Red Figure style. He had an exceptionally vigorous and decorative line, a fine example being a cup in the Louvre, Paris, showing Helen's arrival at Troy. ...

Brüning, Heinrich
(1885-1970) German politician. Elected to the Reichstag (parliament) in 1924, he led the Catholic Centre Party from 1929 and was federal chancellor 1930-32 when political and economic...

Bryson, Bill
(1951) US writer. He is popular in both the USA and UK for his perceptive, insightful, and comical writing. His works include several travel books, for example The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town...

Bryusov, Valery Yakovlevich
(1873-1924) Russian Symbolist poet, novelist, and critic. He wrote The Fiery Angel (1908). ...

BT tanks
Soviet medium tanks developed in the 1930s. They were employed successfully in the Spanish Civil War and in the occupations of Finland and Poland during World War II, but were outmatched by German...

Buatta, Mario
(1935) US interior decorator. Known as the `Prince of Chintz`, he was sought after for his interpretation of the English country house style. In the 1980s he began to design textiles and furniture. He...

Bubastis
Cult centre, in the Nile delta, of the Egyptian cat-headed goddess Bastet; also the name used by the Greeks for the goddess. ...

Buber, Martin
(1878-1965) Austrian-born Israeli philosopher, a Zionist and advocate of the reappraisal of ancient Jewish thought in contemporary terms. His book I and Thou (1923) posited a direct dialogue between the...

Bubiyan
Uninhabited island off Kuwait, occupied by Iraq in 1990; area about 1,000 sq km/380 sq mi. On 28 February 1991, following Allied success in the Gulf War, Iraqi troops were withdrawn. ...