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

charnel house
In architecture, a place for the storage of bones thrown up in digging. It is sometimes a separate building, but often a part of the crypt of a church. ...

Charon
In Greek mythology, the boatman who ferried the dead (shades) over the rivers Acheron and Styx to Hades, the underworld. An obolus (coin) placed on the tongue of the dead...

Charonton (or Quarton), Enguerrand
(lived mid-15th century) French painter of the School of Avignon. An outstanding early master, he created the altarpiece The Coronation of the Virgin (1453, Hospice of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon). The contract for this...

Charrington, Frederick Nicholas
(1850-1936) English social reformer. He renounced succession to a fortune of over £1 million in order to devote his time to temperance work. He founded the Tower Hamlets Mission in 1885 and made the Great...

charter
Open letter recording that a grant of land or privileges had been made on a specific date, as in the Magna Carta. Witnesses either signed, made their mark, or affixed their seal. Based on the Roman...

Charter 77
Czechoslovak human rights movement founded 1977 to lobby for Czech conformity to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. It is named after the 1977 human-rights manifesto signed by over 700...

Charter 88
British political campaign begun in 1988, calling for a written constitution to prevent what it termed the development of `an elective dictatorship`, and for freedom of information and reform of...

Charteris, Leslie
(1907-1993) Singapore-born US novelist. His varied career in many exotic occupations gave authentic background to some 40 novels about the Saint, a gentleman adventurer on the wrong side of the law. The...

charters, town
Royal grants of certain privileges, rights, or immunities made to towns from early times. History William I, seeing the importance of the towns, included most of them in the royal demesne, and the...

Chartism
Radical British democratic movement, mainly of the working classes, which flourished around 1838 to 1848. It derived its name from the People's Charter, a six-point programme comprising universal...

Chartres Cathedral
Cathedral in Chartres, France. Founded in the 11th century by Bishop Fulbert, it is regarded by many as the most perfect of the Gothic cathedrals of France. The cathedral represents work done in two...

Chartreuse, La Grande
The original home of the Carthusian order of Roman Catholic monks, established by St Bruno around 1084, in a valley near Grenoble, France. The present buildings date from the 17th century. ...

Chartwell
House near Westerham, Kent, England, bought by Winston Churchill in 1922, and where he lived, with...

Charybdis
In Greek mythology, a monster and the whirlpool it forms, on the Sicilian side of the northern end of the narrow Straits of Messina, opposite the sea monster Scylla. Charybdis lived under a huge fig...

Chase, James Hadley
(1906-1985) English author. He wrote the hard-boiled thriller No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939) and other popular novels. ...

Chase, Salmon P(ortland)
(1808-1873) US public official and chief justice of the USA. He held a US Senate seat 1849-55 and 1860; helped found the Republican Party 1854-56; was elected governor of Ohio 1855; became Abraham Lincoln's...

Chase, Samuel
(1741-1811) US judge. A member of the Continental Congress, he was sent with Benjamin Franklin in an attempt to win over Canada to the colonial cause. He signed the Declaration of Independence and helped to...

Chase, William C
(1895-1986) US general. He served with the US cavalry in World War I. In World War II, he served mainly in the Far East and September 1945 led the 1st Cavalry Division, the first US military force to enter...

Chase, William Merritt
(1849-1916) US painter. He painted figures, landscape, still lifes, and many portraits, including those of the painters James Whistler and Frank Duveneck. In technical brilliance he bore some resemblance to...

Chasidism
Alternative term for the Orthodox Jewish Hasidic sect. ...

chasing
Indentation of a design on metal by small chisels and hammers. This method of decoration was familiar in ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Greece; it is used today on fine silverware. ...

Chasse, David Hendrik, Baron
(1765-1849) Dutch general. He served with the French Revolutionary army after 1793 and under Napoleon I during the Peninsular War; and in 1815 with the Dutch at the Battle...

Chassériau, Théodore
(1819-1856) French painter. He was a pupil of Jean Ingres, whose influence is apparent in his finest work in portraiture, The Two Sisters 1843 (Louvre, Paris). A visit to Algeria caused him to turn to Romantic...

chasseur
In 18th-century France, a soldier who belonged to a light company of skirmishers attached to a regiment; in the modern French army, a member of a class of light regiments...

Chastelard, Pierre de Boscosel de
(1540-1563) French poet. In 1561 he went to Scotland in the suite of Mary Queen of Scots, with whom he fell violently in love. Having twice been found hiding in her room, he was hanged. He is the subject of...

Chastellain, Georges
(c. 1404-1475) French poet and chronicler. Employed by both Philip the Good and Charles the Bold, he wrote Chronique des ducs de Bourgogne/Chronicle of the Dukes of Burgundy and other similar chronicles, and a...

chasuble
The outer garment worn by the priest in the celebration of the Christian Mass. The colour of the chasuble depends on which feast is being celebrated. ...

château
Country house or important residence in France. The term originally applied to a French medieval castle. The château was first used as a domestic building in the late 15th century. By the reign of...

Château de Steen
Painting by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens 1636 (National Gallery, London). It shows his country house near Malines and the surrounding landscape in autumn, a companion picture to his Rainbow...

Château-Thierry, Battle of
In World War I, US victory over German troops May-June 1918 in northern France during the German offensive on the Marne. ...

Chatsworth
House and seat of the dukes of Devonshire, 7 km/4 mi west of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England. It was commenced by William Cavendish (1505-57) and completed by his widow, Bess of Hardwick...

Chattanooga, Battle of
In the American Civil War, battle for control of Chattanooga on the Tennessee River between 64,000 Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg and 56,000 Union troops under General Ulysses S...

Chatterji, Bankim Chandra
(1838-1894) Indian novelist. Born in Bengal, where he established his reputation with his first book, Durges-Nandini (1864), he became a favourite of the nationalists. His book Ananda Math (1882) contains the...

Chatterton, Thomas
(1752-1770) English poet. His medieval-style poems and brief life were to inspire English Romanticism. Having studied ancient documents, he composed poems he ascribed to a 15th-century monk, `Thomas...

Chatwin, (Charles) Bruce
(1940-1989) English writer. His works include The Songlines (1987), written after living with Australian Aborigines; the novel Utz (1988), about a manic porcelain collector in Prague; and travel pieces and...

Chaucer, Geoffrey
(c. 1340-1400) English poet. The Canterbury Tales, a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, reveals his knowledge of human nature and his stylistic variety, from the...

Chaucer, Thomas
(c. 1367-1434) English statesman, possibly the son of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. He represented his Oxfordshire estates in numerous parliaments and was Speaker of the House of Commons in 1407, 1410, 1411, and...

Chaudhuri, Nirad Chandra
(1897-1999) Indian writer and broadcaster. He attracted attention with his Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1950) which illuminates the clash of British and Indian civilizations. A first visit to England,...

Chauncey, Isaac
(1772-1840) US naval officer. He commanded the naval forces on Lakes Ontario and Erie during the War of 1812 against Britain. He commanded the Mediterranean squadron (1816-18) and later held important...

Chauncy, Charles
(1705-1787) American religious leader. A leader of theological liberalism in New England, he was in constant conflict with his Calvinist contemporary, Jonathan Edwards. A political liberal, too, he was an...

chauri
In Sikhism, a ceremonial fan made of animal hair. During Sikh worship, it is held over the Guru Granth Sahib (holy book) by the granthi (reader) as a sign of respect. ...

Chávez Frías, Hugo
(1954) Venezuelan military officer, elected president in 1998, and inaugurated in February 1999. He was elected with 56% of the vote and it was expected that the new regime would usher in a radical...

Chavez, Cesar Estrada
(1927-1993) US labour organizer who in 1962 founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), now known as the United Farm Workers (UFW), and, with the support of the AFL-CIO (Federation of North American...

Chavez, Dennis
(1888-1962) US Democrat representative and senator. He served in the US House of Representatives for New Mexico 1931-35, and in the US Senate 1935-62. An advocate of integrating minorities, he opposed...

Chavín de Huantar
Archaeological site in the Peruvian Andes, 3,135 m/10,000 ft above sea level, thought to be `the womb of Andean civilization`. Its influence peaked between 1000 and 300 BC. The site gave its...

Chavis, Benjamin Franklin
(1948) US civil-rights campaigner. As executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1993, he succeeded in putting the NAACP more in touch with the...

Chayefsky, Paddy (Sidney)
(1923-1981) US screenwriter and dramatist. A writer of great passion and insight, he established his reputation with naturalistic television plays, three of which -Marty (1953), Bachelor Party (1954), and The...

Chayes, Abram (Joseph)
(1922) US legal scholar. He taught at Harvard Law School and served as a State Department advisor 1961-64. He is considered an authority on international law and served as chairman of the International...

Cheapside
Street running from St Paul's Cathedral to Poultry, in the City of London, England. Now a business district, it was the scene of the 13th-century `Cheap`, a permanent fair and chief general...

Chechen
The largest indigenous group of people in the northern Caucasus, numbering 957,000 (1989). Most (715,000) live in Chechnya and the remainder in other areas of the former USSR. Archaeological...

Chechnya
Breakaway part of the former Russian autonomous republic of Checheno-Ingush, on the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains; official name Noxcijn Republika Ickeriy from 1994; area 17,300 sq...

check-off
In industrial relations, the procedure whereby an employer, on behalf of a trade union, deducts union subscription at source from its employees' wages. ...

Checkpoint Charlie
Western-controlled crossing point for non-Germans between West Berlin and East Berlin, opened in 1961 as the only crossing point between the Allied and Soviet sectors. Its dismantling in June...

cheesecloth
Fine muslin or cotton fabric of very loose weave, originally used to press curds during the cheesemaking process. It was popular for clothing in the 1970s. ...

Cheever, John
(1912-1982) US writer. His stories and novels focus on the ironies of upper-middle-class life in suburban America. His short stories were frequently published in the New Yorker magazine. His first novel was...

Chehab, Fuad
(1901-1973) Lebanese soldier and president. He was educated at the French military academies of Damascus and St Cyr. He served in the army under the French mandate, becoming commander-in-chief on...

Cheka
Secret police operating in the USSR between 1917 and 1923. It originated from the tsarist Okhrana (the security police under the tsar from 1881 to 1917), and became successively the OGPU (GPU)...

Cheke, John
(1514-1557) English classical scholar. The first regius professor of Greek at Cambridge 1540-51, he encouraged the spread of classical humanism and was largely responsible for introducing the Erasmian...

Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich
(1860-1904) Russian dramatist and writer of short stories. His plays concentrate on the creation of atmosphere and delineation of internal development, rather than external action. His first play, Ivanov...

chela
In Hinduism, a follower or pupil of a guru (teacher). ...

Chelmno
In World War II, site of the first German extermination camp, about 50 km/31 mi northeast of Bydgoszcz in western Poland. A total of about 350,000 Jews and gypsies were killed at the camp before it...

Chelsea porcelain factory
Porcelain factory thought to be the first in England. Based in southwest London, it dated from the 1740s, when it was known as the Chelsea Porcelain Works. It produced softpaste porcelain in...

chemical warfare
Use in war of gaseous, liquid, or solid substances intended to have a toxic effect on humans, animals, or plants. Toge ...

chemin des dames
Road in the département of Aisne, France, from Craonne to Malmaison across the crest of the Craonne plateau. Its possession was fiercely contested throughout World War I. After their defeat on the...

Chemnitz, Bogislaw Philipp von
(1605-1678) German historical writer. He became historiographer to Queen Christina of Sweden in 1644 and councillor in 1675. His Dissertatio de ratione status in imperio nostro Romano-Germanico, a fierce...

Chen Boda (or Ch'en Po-ta)
(1905-1989) Chinese political propagandist. He became chief editor of the party organ, Hongqi (Red Flag), in 1958, and during the Cultural Revolution 1966-69 he became associated with the radicals and was...

Chen Duxiu
(1879-1942) Chinese communist politician, party leader 1921-27. A founder member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leader from July 1921, Chen followed conventional Leninist thinking and sought to...

Chen Shui-bian
(1951) Taiwanese president from May 2000. A member of the Min-chu Chin-pu Tang (MCT; in English the Democratic Progressive Party or DPP), he broke the 51-year-hold on power...

Chen Yi (or Ch'en I)
(1901-1972) Chinese communist military and political leader, foreign minister 1958-69. A member of the Chinese Communist Party from 1923, he emerged as a supporter of Mao Zedong in the struggle with the...

Chen Yun
(1905-1995) Chinese communist politician and economic planner. An economics expert, he was the second-ranking `party elder` at the time of his death. A veteran of the Long March of 1934-35, he was a...

Chenchu
An aboriginal Telegu-speaking people living in southern Hyderabad in India. Traditionally semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers, they now work as forest w ...

Cheney, Dick
(1941) US Republican politician, vice-president from 2001. He was the youngest-ever chief of staff 1975-77 under President Gerald Ford, a member of Congress 1979-89, and defense secretary 1989-93...

Cheney, Frances Neel
(1906-1996) US reference librarian. A professor and administrator in the library division of the George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, Tennessee, she compiled annotated bibliographies of American...

Cheng-Ho
Chinese admiral and emperor; see Zheng He. ...

Chénier, André Marie de
(1762-1794) French poet. His lyrical poetry was later to inspire the Romantic movement, but he was known in his own time for his uncompromising support of the constitutional royalists after the Revolution. In...

Chénier, Marie Joseph Blaise de
(1764-1811) French dramatist and poet, the younger brother of André de Chénier. His tragedies include Charles IX (1790), Henry VIII (1791), Jean Calas (1791), and Timoléon (1794). He wrote the words of the...

chenille
Fancy special-effect yarn of soft, hairy texture. In the past it was made from silk, but is now usually made from cotton. ...

Chennault, Claire Lee
(1890-1958) US pilot. He became famous during World War II as the leader of the `Flying Tigers`, a volunteer force of 200 US pilots and engineers fighting alongside Chinese Nationalist forces. ...

Chenonceau, Château de
A château in central France, 28 km/17 mi southwest of Paris, bridging the River Cher. It was begun in 1513 by Thomas Bohier, the financial minister of Normandy, but was subsequently confiscated by...

Chepman, Walter
(c. 1473-1538) Scottish printer and merchant. He was introduced to the court of James IV, and was trained as a clerk and writer. Chepman was granted the sole patent to print books in Scotland in 1507, and set up a...

cheque
Written order to pay money; a commonly used means of transferring money through the banking system. Chequebooks are issued by banks and building societies typically to holders of current accounts....

cheque guarantee card
Card issued from 1968 by savings and clearings banks in Europe which guarantees payment by the issuing bank when it is presented with a cheque for payment of goods or service. It bears the...

Chequers
Country home of the prime minister of the UK. It is an Elizabethan mansion in the Chiltern hills near Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, and was given to...

Chéret, Jules
(1836-1932) French lithographer and poster artist. His early posters, such as those in the 1860s for the Circus Rancy, pioneered the medium. Later works show...

Chernenko, Konstantin Ustinovich
(1911-1985) Soviet politician, leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and president 1984-85. He was a protégé of Leonid Brezhnev and from 1978 a member of the Politburo. Chernenko, born in...

Chernomyrdin, Viktor Stepanovich
(1938) Russian politician, prime minister 1992-98. A former manager in the state gas industry and communist party apparatchik, he became prime minister in December 1992 after Russia's...

Chernov, Viktor Mikhailovich
(1873-1952) Russian politician. He was leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries, occupying a central position in the party. In 1917 he was minister of agriculture in Aleksandr Kerensky's provisional government....

Chernyshevski, Nikolai Gavrilovich
(1828-1889) Russian publicist and literary critic. He was the leader of the radical intelligentsia in the 1850s and 1860s. His novel Chto delat'?/What Is to Be Done? (1864) was an inspiration to the Russian...

Cherokee
Member of an American Indian people who moved from the Great Lakes region to the southern Appalachian Mountains (Virginia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and possibly...

cherub
Type of angel in Christian belief, usually depicted as a young child with wings. Cherubim form the second order of angels. ...

Cheruel, Pierre Adolphe
(1809-1891) French historian. His main works are his Dictionnaire historique des institutions, moeurs, et coutumes de la France 1849 and Histoire de France pendant la minorité de Louis XIV 1879-80. He held...

Cherusci
A German people who occupied the Weser river basin, north of the Harz Forest. In AD 9 Arminius, a chief of the Cherusci, revolted and destroyed a Roman army commanded by Quintilius Varus. Their...

Chesapeake, Battle of
During the American Revolution, French naval victory over the British off Chesapeake Bay on 5 September 1781. The defeat isolated the British land force under Lord Cornwallis and he was forced to...

Cheshire, (Geoffrey) Leonard
(1917-1992) English pilot and philanthropist. Commissioned into the Royal Air Force on the outbreak of World War II, he was decorated several times. A devout Roman Catholic, he founded the first Cheshire...

Chesney, Francis Rawdon
(1789-1872) Irish explorer and general. It was his report on the isthmus of Suez, drawn up in 1829, that made de Lesseps project his canal scheme (see Suez Canal). His life's ambition was to devise an overland...

Chesnut, Mary Boykin
(1823-1886) US diarist. A staunch supporter of the Confederacy, she is remembered for the diary she kept during the American Civil War. The most extensive diary of the Civil War, it provides a frank, detailed,...

Chesnutt, Charles Waddell
(1858-1932) US novelist. One of the earliest black novelists, he published a number of works that confronted the racial issue directly, including The House Behind the Cedars (1900), The Colonel's Dream (1905),...

Chessman, Caryl (Whittier)
(1922-1960) US convict and author. Convicted of kidnapping, robbery, and rape, he was sentenced to death in 1948. He managed to delay his execution for 12 years and wrote books against capital punishment,...

Chesterfield
Title formerly borne by the English family of Stanhope, later Scudamore-Stanhope, created in 1628. In 1883 the direct line failed, and Henry Scudamore-Stanhope became the 9th earl. The title...

Chesterton, Cecil Edward
(1879-1918) English writer and journalist, the brother of G K Chesterton. He wrote antiliberal books, collaborated with the humorist Hilaire Belloc on The Party System (1911), and edited the antibureaucratic...