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

canticle
In the Roman Catholic or Anglican liturgies, a hymn or song of praise based on scripture and similar to a psalm, but whose text does not originate in...

canton
In France, an administrative district, a subdivision of the arrondissement; in Switzerland, one of the 23 subdivisions forming the Confederation. ...

cantor
In Judaism and Roman Catholicism, the prayer leader and choirmaster, responsible for singing solo parts of the chant. The position can be held by any lay person. In Protestant churches, the music...

cantoris
In church architecture, the north side of a choir on which the cantor or precentor sits facing the dean. The opposite side is called `decani`. ...

Cantos, The
Series of 117 poems written 1925-69 by US poet Ezra Pound. An epic work, its complex collage structure contains a vast body of information drawn from diverse cultures using several languages. It...

Cantwell, Robert (Emmett)
(1908-1978) US editor and writer. His long career in magazine publishing included editorships at New Outlook, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated (1956-73). He is best known for such proletarian novels of the...

Canute (or Cnut or Knut)
(c. 995-1035) King of England from 1016, Denmark from 1018, and Norway from 1028. Having invaded England in 1013 with his father, Sweyn, king of Denmark, he was acclaimed king on Sweyn's death in 1014 by his...

Canute VI (or Cnut VI or Knut VI)
(1163-1202) King of Denmark from 1182, son and successor of Waldemar Knudsson. With his brother and successor, Waldemar II, he resisted Frederick I's northward expansion, and established Denmark as the dominant...

canvassing
Soliciting for a candidate, political party, trade, or business. In Britain some local constituency parties conduct periodic canvasses between elections, as well as during election campaigns, in...

Cao Cao (or Ts'ao Ts'ao)
(155-220) Chinese general who reunified and pacified northern China after the collapse of the Han dynasty. Cao's exploits are recorded in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, China's oldest extant novel, and in...

Cao Chan (or Ts'ao Chan)
(1719-1763) Chinese novelist. His tragicomic love story Hung Lou Meng/The Dream of the Red Chamber, published in 1792, involves the downfall of a Manchu family and is semi-autobiographical. ...

Cao, Diogo
Portuguese navigator, see Cam, Diogo. ...

capacity
In economics, the maximum amount that can be produced when all the resources in an economy, industry, or firm are employed as fully as possible. Capacity constraints can be caused by lack of...

Capaha
Alternative name for a member of the American Indian Quapaw people. ...

Cape Esperance, Battle of
In World War II, US naval victory over Japanese forces off the Solomon Islands October 11-12, 1942. A Japanese cruiser squadron covering the landing of reinforcements on Guadalcanal clashed with a...

Cape Matapan, Battle of
In World War II, British naval victory 28 March 1941 over an Italian force sent to disrupt Allied shipping in the Mediterranean. The Italians were intercepted just south of Crete by a British fleet...

Cape Spartivento, Battle of
In World War II, inconclusive naval engagement in the Mediterranean between an Italian fleet and a British convoy 27 November 1940. The Italians attempted to intercept the convoy, but after a brief...

Cape St George, Battle of
In World War II, naval action between five Japanese and five US destroyers on November 25, 1943, off the island of New Ireland. The US force was led by Capt Arleigh Burke who went straight into...

Cape St Vincent
Cape of the Algarve region, southwest Portugal. It is the extreme southwesterly point of continental Europe. England defeated the French and Spanish fleets off the cape in 1797, during the...

Cape St Vincent, Battle of
During the French Revolutionary Wars, British defeat of a Spanish fleet 14 February 1797 off Cape St Vincent on the Portuguese coast; the British victory wrecked French plans to invade England. The...

Cape Verde
Country formed by a group of islands in the Atlantic, west of Senegal (West Africa). Government The 1992 constitution provides for a multiparty political system - although religious and...

Capet, Hugh
(938-996) King of France from 987, when he claimed the throne on the death of Louis V. He founded the Capetian dynasty, of which various branches continued to reign until the French Revolution, for example,...

capital
In economics, the stock of goods used in the production of other goods. Classical economics regards capital as a factor of production, distinguishing between financial capital and physical capital....

capital
In a country, the city where the government headquarters are. The capital is usually the most important and largest city in a country; for example, London. This is not the case in the USA and...

capital
In architecture, a stone placed on the top of a column, pier, or pilaster, and usually wider on the upper surface than the diameter of the supporting shaft. It comes directly below the entablature...

capital account
The part of the balance of payments account that records flows of money in and out of the country for investment, saving, and borrowing. ...

capital bond
In economics, an investment bond that is purchased by a single payment, set up for a fixed period, and offered for sale by a life insurance company. The emphasis is on capital growth of the lump sum...

capital expenditure
Spending on fixed assets such as plant and equipment, trade investments, or the purchase of other businesses. ...

capital flight
Transfer of funds from a particular national economy or out of a particular currency in anticipation of less attractive investment conditions. Capital flight from Russia 1991-92...

capital gain
Increase in the value of capital, such as houses or stocks and shares, between purchase and sale. The capital gain is nominally the sale price less the purchase price. For an individual, indexation...

capital punishment
Punishment by death. Capital punishment is retained in 87 countries and territories (2001), including the USA (38 states), China, and Islamic countries. Methods of execution include electrocution,...

capital stock
The total amount of capital in a business organization or economy. ...

capitalism
Economic system in which the principal means of production, distribution, and exchange are in private (individual or corporate) hands and competitively operated for profit. A mixed economy combines...

Capitoline Hill
The most important of the seven hills on which ancient Rome was built. It formed the citadel, or stronghold, and on it stood temples to both Jupiter Supreme and Concord. The Capitoline Temple was...

Caplan, Arthur L
(1950) US philosopher and biomedical ethicist. His primary areas of research interest were in the use of new technologies in health care, transplantation, genetics, human...

Capone, Al(phonse)
(1899-1947) US gangster. During the Prohibition period, he built a formidable criminal organization in Chicago. He was brutal in his pursuit of dominance, killing seven members of a rival gang in the St...

Caporetto, Battle of
In World War I, joint German-Austrian victory over the Italian Army October 1917. The battle took place at Caporetto, a village on the River Isonzo in northwest Slovenia. The German commander,...

Capote, Truman
(1924-1984) US novelist, journalist, and playwright. After achieving early success as a writer of sparkling prose in the stories of Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) and the novel Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958),...

Cappadocia
Ancient region of Asia Minor, in eastern central Turkey. It was conquered by the Persians in 584 BC but in the 3rd century BC became an independent kingdom. The region was annexed as a province of...

Cappelle, Jan van de
(1626-1679) Dutch marine painter and etcher. His paintings of ships are especially notable for their skies. He also produced some winter landscapes and etchings in the manner of Aert van de Neer. Cappelle was...

Capper, Arthur
(1865-1951) US publisher and senator. A newspaper and magazine publisher, he was elected Republican governor of Kansas 1915-19, and US senator 1919-49. He was a New Deal supporter in domestic politics...

capriccio
In art, usually a free or fantastic combination of architectural objects, real or imaginary, in a painted view. Giovanni Panini, Giambattista Piranesi, Francesco Guardi, and Hubert Robert provide...

Caprivi, (Georg) Leo, Graf von
(1831-1899) German soldier and politician. While chief of the admiralty (1883-88) he reorganized the German navy. He became imperial chancellor 1890-94 succeeding Bismarck and renewed the Triple Alliance...

Captain Marvel
US comic-book character created 1940 by C(larence) C(harles) Beale (1910-1989). Captain Marvel is a 15-year-old schoolboy, Billy Batson, who tr ...

Capuana, Luigi
(1839-1915) Italian writer. He was at his best as a storyteller and novelist, particularly when dealing with the world of his infancy and youth. Among these works are Giacinta (1879), Il marchese di...

Capuchin
Member of the Franciscan order of monks in the Roman Catholic Church, instituted by the Italian monk Matteo di Bassi (died 1552), who wished to return to the literal observance of the rule of St...

Caracalla
(ADc. 186-217) Roman emperor from 211, son and successor of Septimius Severus. He accompanied his father to Britain (208-211) and when Severus died in 211 Caracalla became joint emperor with his younger brother...

Caractacus
(died c. 54) British chieftain who headed resistance to the Romans in southeast England from AD 43 to AD 51, but was defeated on the Welsh border. Shown in Claudius's triumphal procession, he was released in...

Caradon, Baron
Title of Hugh Foot, British Labour politician. ...

Caragiale, Ion Luca
(1852-1912) Romanian dramatist and short-story writer. His collections of sketches, together with his stage comedies O noapte furtunoasa/A Stormy Night (1880), O scrisoare pierdut&acaron;/A Lost Letter...

Caran d'Ache
(1858-1909) French illustrator. Largely self-taught, he made his name with humorous drawings for satirical periodicals such as Vie parisienne and La Caricature. He was one of the early exponents of the...

Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da
(1573-1610) Italian early baroque painter. He was active in Rome between 1592 and 1606, then in Naples, and finally in Malta. He created a forceful style, using contrasts of light and shade, dramatic...

Caravaggio, Polidoro Caldara da
(c. 1495-1543) Italian painter. An assistant to Raphael, he became famous for his monochrome fresco decoration of Roman history subjects on palace facades. Of these, only his work at the Palazzo Ricci, dating from...

caravan
Vehicle fitted to provide living accommodation. Originally intended as permanent homes, caravans are widely used for holiday purposes. Horse-drawn caravans were...

carbon dating
Alternative name for radiocarbon dating. ...

Carbonari
Secret revolutionary society in southern Italy in the first half of the 19th century that advocated constitutional government. The movement spread to northern Italy but support dwindled after the...

carbuncle
In gemology, a red precious stone, especially a garnet, cut with a smooth, rounded surface. ...

Carcano, Giulio
(1812-1884) Italian poet and novelist. His novels and collections of short stories, often dealing with domestic life, include Racconti semplici (1843), Damiano (1850), Dodici novelle (1853), and Gabrio e...

Carchemish
Historical centre of the Hittite New Empire (c. 1400-1200 BC) on the River Euphrates, 80 km/50 mi northeast of Aleppo, and taken by Sargon II of Assyria in 717 BC. Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon...

Cardarelli, Vincenzo (or Nazareno)
(1887-1959) Italian writer. He collaborated in founding the review La voce and later ran the magazine La ronda 1919-23. His most important volume of poetry is Prologhi/Prologues (1916). ...

Cardenal, Pierre (or Peire)
(c. 1180-c. 1278) Provençal poet. Some 70 of his poems remain, the great majority of them being sirventes in which he eloquently and tellingly satirizes the vices of the nobility and clergy. He was an ardent...

Cárdenas, Lázaro
(1895-1970) Mexican centre-left politician and general, president 1934-40. A civil servant in early life, Cárdenas took part in the revolutionary campaigns 1913-28 that followed the fall of President...

cardinal
In the Roman Catholic Church, the highest rank next to the pope. Cardinals act as an advisory body to the pope and elect him. Their red hat is the badge of office. The number of cardinals has...

Cardoso, Fernando Henrique
(1931) Brazilian politician and academic, leader of the moderate centre-left Social Democratic Party (PSDB), and president from 1995 to 2003. As finance minister 1993-94 in the government of Itamar...

Cardozo, Benjamin Nathan
(1870-1938) US jurist and Supreme Court justice. He was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Herbert Hoover in 1932. During the F D Roosevelt administration, he upheld the constitutionality of New...

Carducci, Giosuè
(1835-1907) Italian poet and critic. His revolutionary Inno a Satana/Hymn to Satan (1865) was followed by several other volumes of verse, in which his nationalist sympathies are apparent. He was awarded the...

care order
In Britain, a court order that places a child in the care of a local authority. Surveys show that 75% of those who have been in care leave school with no qualifications. They are less likely to find...

Carew, Thomas
(c. 1595-c. 1640) English poet. Often associated with the `Cavalier poets`, he was a courtier and gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles I, for whom he wrote the spectacular masque Coelum Britannicum (1634)....

Carey, George Leonard
(1935) 103rd archbishop of Canterbury 1991-2002. A product of a liberal evangelical background, he was appointed bishop of Bath and Wells in 1987. His support of the ordination of women priests brought...

Carey, Henry
(1687-1743) English poet and musician. He wrote the song `Sally in Our Alley`. `God Save the King` (both words and music) has also been attributed to him. Carey was a pupil of Thomas Roseingrave and...

Carey, Henry (Charles)
(1793-1879) US economist and publisher. He wrote about economics, publishing his Essay on the Rate of Wages (1935). He espoused laissez-faire economics in the 3-volume Principles of Political Economy (1837,...

Carey, James
(1845-1883) Irish Fenian activist, infamous as the informer who betrayed the Phoenix Park murderers. In 1882, a secret society of republican extremists known as the `Invincibles` stabbed to death the new...

Carey, James (Barron)
(1911-1973) US labour leader. He helped organize and was first president of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) 1935-41. At odds with the UE's communist leaders, he was elected...

Carey, Joseph Maull
(1845-1924) US senator. A Republican, he was elected territorial representative to Congress for Wyoming, 1885-90. Having introduced the bill for admitting Wyoming as a state, he then became its first US...

Carey, Mathew
(1760-1839) Irish-born American publisher and bookseller who settled in the USA in 1784. He became an important publisher and wrote widely on economics and other subjects. In 1785 he founded the Pennsylvania...

Carey, Peter Philip
(1943) Australian novelist. Noted for his imaginative use of magic realism, he won the Booker Prize for his novels Oscar and Lucinda (1988, filmed 1997) and True History of the Kelly Gang (2001). His other...

Carey, Ronald
(1936) US labour leader. He was elected president of a local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in 1968. A longtime dissident within a union beset by charges of corruption, he was...

Carey, William
(1761-1834) English orientalist and missionary. He was one of the founders of the Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel amongst the Heathen in 1792. In 1793 he went as a missionary to Bengal. He...

Cargill, Donald
(1619-1681) Scottish Covenanter. He was made minister of Glasgow in 1655, but deprived of his living for opposing the Restoration in 1660. He fought at Bothwell Bridge in 1679, became a field preacher, and took...

cargo cult
One of a number of religious movements, chiefly in Melanesia, that first appeared in the late 19th century but were particularly prevalent during and after World War II with the apparently...

Caria
Ancient maritime province of southwestern Asia Minor (now part of Turkey). A mountainous region, it was bounded by Ionia and Lydia on the north, the Aegean Sea on the south, and...

Carías Andino, Tiburcio
(1876-1969) Honduran right-wing National Party politician, dictator-president 1933-49. During his presidency press and labour union freedoms were curtailed and his term was twice extended by the congress....

Carib
Member of a group of American Indian people of the north coast of South America and the islands of the southern West Indies in the Caribbean. Those who moved north to take the islands from the...

caricature
In the arts or literature, an exaggerated portrayal of an individual or type, aiming to ridicule or otherwise expose the subject; in art, features are often made comical or grotesque. Classical and...

CARICOM
Acronym for Caribbean Community and Common Market. ...

Carinus, Marcus Aurelius
(c.AD 249-285) Roman emperor from 283 AD. He was given command of the western provinces of the empire by his father, the emperor Marcus Aurelius Carus. Having won some successes against German tribes, he handed...

Carl XVI Gustavus
(1946) King of Sweden from 1973. He succeeded his grandfather Gustavus VI, his father having been killed in an air crash in 1947. Under the new Swedish constitution, which became effective on his...

Carleton, Will
(1845-1912) US poet. He published Farm Ballads (1873), containing the poem `Over the Hill to the Poorhouse`, and City Ballads (1885), among other collections. ...

Carleton, William
(1794-1869) Irish novelist. Born into a Gaelic-speaking family in Prillisk, County Tyrone, he was educated in hedge-schools (informal and clandestine Catholic schools held out of doors in good weather). The...

Carlisle, John Griffin
(1835-1910) US Democratic representative, senator, and cabinet officer. He was elected to the US House of Representatives for Kentucky 1877-90. He served as Speaker of the House 1883-90 before being...

Carlist
Supporter of the claims of the Spanish pretender Don Carlos de Bourbon (1788-1855), and his descendants, to the Spanish crown. The Carlist revolt continued, primarily in the Basque provinces,...

Carlo Emanuele I
(1562-1630) Duke of Savoy 1580-1630, the son of Emanuel Philibert (duke 1553-80). Carlo Emanuele pursued his father's ambitions to make Savoy a major Italian power and involved the duchy in frequent wars....

Carlos I
(1863-1908) King of Portugal, of the Braganza-Coburg line, from 1889 until he was assassinated in Lisbon with his elder son Luis. He was succeeded by his younger son Manuel. ...

Carlos, Don
(1545-1568) Spanish prince. Son of Philip II, he was recognized as heir to the thrones of Castile and Aragón but became mentally unstable and had to be placed under restraint following a plot to assassinate...

Carlot Korman, Maxime
Vanuatuan politician, prime minister 1991-95 and in 1996. In December 1998 Carlot supported President Ati George Sokomanu's ousting of the prime minister, Father Walter Lini. These actions were...

Carlson, Evans
US Marine colonel. After service in World War I, Carlson served in China as an observer with the Chinese Nationalist Army where he made a particular study of guerrilla operations. In World War II,...

Carlson, Evans F (Fordyce)
(1896-1947) US marine officer. Service in China in the 1930s left him with a great admiration for the communists there; he modelled his Carlson's Raiders, a famous World War II marines unit, on...

Carlsson, Ingvar Gösta
(1934) Swedish socialist politician. Leader of the Social Democratic Labour Party (SDAP) 1986-96, he was deputy prime minister 1982-86 and prime minister 1986-91 and 1994-96. After studying in...

Carlucci, Frank Charles
(1930) US politician. A former diplomat and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he was national security adviser 1986-87 and defence secretary 1987-89 under President Ronald...

Carlyle, Alexander
(1722-1805) Scottish minister. In 1748 he became minister of Inveresk, Scotland, a position which he held for the rest of his life. He favoured the moderate party in the Church. He acted as moderator of the...