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

Chesterton, G(ilbert) K(eith)
(1874-1936) English novelist, essayist, and poet. He wrote numerous short stories featuring a Catholic priest, Father Brown, who solves crimes by drawing on his knowledge of human nature. O ...

Chetnik
Member of a Serbian nationalist group that operated underground during the German occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II. Led by Col Draza Mihailovic, the Chetniks initially received aid from the...

Chettle, Henry
(c. 1560-c. 1607) English dramatist and pamphleteer. In 1595 he published the romance story Piers Plainnes Seaven Yeres Prentisship, and between then and 1603 he wrote or collaborated on over 40...

chevalier
In medieval Western Europe, a horseman, or a knight; also an honorary title used by the younger sons of a French noble family. The name is still in use in some foreign orders of merit, such as...

Chevalier, Albert
(1861-1923) English music-hall artist. He introduced his costermonger comedian sketches and songs at the London Pavilion in 1891. He wrote many plays, sketches, and monologues. ...

Chevalier, Tracy
(1962) US writer. Her novel Girl with a Pearl Earring (1999; filmed 2003), a fictionalized account of the subject of a well-known painting by the 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, became an...

Chevening
Residence near Sevenoaks, Kent, bequeathed to the nation by the 7th Earl of Stanhope for royal or ministerial use. Prince Charles lived there 1974-80. ...

Cheves, Langdon
(1776-1857) US representative. He was the South Carolina attorney general 1808-10, before being appointed to the US House of Representatives 1810-15; he succeeded Henry Clay as Republican Speaker of the...

chevet
In architecture, the apsidal east end of a large French church, having an aisle or ambulatory round the apse, sometimes surrounded by a ring of chapels. Westminster Abbey provides...

chevron
In architecture, a decoration introduced into England in the 11th century consisting of a moulding with a zigzag outline, examples of which are to be found in C ...

Cheyenne
Member of an American Indian who migrated west from Minnesota to the Great Plains of North and South Dakota from about 1700, later occupying parts of Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas. Their...

Cheyne, William Watson
(1852-1932) Australian-born British surgeon. He was assistant surgeon and later surgeon to King's College Hospital (1880-1917), before becoming a professor of surgery there (1891-1917). Cheyne was a...

Chiabrera, Gabriello
(1552-1638) Italian poet. He wrote many odes, lyrics, and canzonettas (songs), taking the Greeks, especially Pindar, as models. He was particularly interested in metrical experiments and the relation between...

Chiang Ching
Alternative transliteration of Jiang Qing, Chinese communist politician and actor, third wife of Mao Zedong. ...

Chiang Kai-shek
Wade-Giles transliteration of Jiang Jie Shi. ...

Chiari, Pietro
(1711-1785) Italian dramatist. He wrote about 60 plays, full of absurd intrigues and plots, collections of which were published as Commedie in versi 1759-62 and Nuova raccolta 1762. He also wrote operatic...

Chiari, Roberto Francisco
(1905-1981) Panamanian politician, member of the National Liberal Party, president 1960-64. Faced with the country in recession, he introduced tax reforms and borrowed from the international community to...

Chiarini, Giuseppe
(1833-1908) Italian poet and critic. A distinguished scholar, he contributed greatly towards a broadening of contemporary Italian culture, particularly through his editorship of several literary magazines. His...

chiaroscuro
In painting and graphic art, the use of strong contrasts of light and shade for dramatic impact. This is made particularly effective where contrasting materials are represented, for example,...

Chibcha
Member of an American Indian people of Colombia, whose high chiefdom was conquered by the Spanish in 1538. Their practice of covering their chief with gold dust, during rituals, fostered the legend...

Chicago School
In economics, an approach that advocates strict control of the money supply to control inflation. Milton Friedman, who advocated this approach, following the principles...

Chicago School
In architecture, 19th-century North American movement, centred in Chicago, which heralded the arrival of the skyscraper with its emphasis on verticality. The practice of Daniel H Burnham...

Chicago, Judy
(born 1939) US multimedia artist. A leading figure in the development of feminist art, she came to prominence in 1974 with The Dinner Party, a multimedia work consisting of a large triangular table with 39...

Chicano
Citizens or residents of the USA who are of Mexican descent. The term was originally used for those who became US citizens after the ...

Chicano theatre
Mexican-American community theatre movement, notably the Teatro Campesino founded 1965 in California by Luis Valdez (1940), which was responsible for the first festival of Chicano theatre...

Chichén Itzá
Toltec city situated among the Maya city-states of the Yucatán peninsula, Mexico. Built on the site of an earlier Maya settlement, the city was at its height from around AD 980 to 1220 (the...

Chicherin, Georgi Vasilievich
(1872-1936) Russian diplomat. After graduating from St Petersburg University he worked in the archives department of the Russian Foreign Office. In 1904 he emigrated to Berlin, Germany, and there joined the...

Chichester
City and market town and administrative headquarters of West Sussex, southern England, 111 km/69 mi southwest of London; population (2001) 27,500. It lies in an agricultural area, and has a harbour....

Chick, Harriette
(1875-1977) English nutritionist. While investigating nutritional disorders in Vienna after World War I she helped to establish that sunlight and dietary cod-liver oil, rich in vitamin D, could eliminate...

Chickamauga, Battle of
In the American Civil War, Confederate victory over Union forces under General William Rosecrans 19-20 September 1863 at Chickamauga Creek, north Georgia. Rosecrans had driven the Confederates...

Chickasaw
Member of an American Indian people who moved from northern Mississippi and Alabama to the floodplains of Mississippi and parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas by the 16th century. They were...

Chieftains, the
Irish folk group. Long regarded as leading exponents of Irish traditional music, the Chieftains were formed in the early 1960s. Over the years, they have worked with a wide variety of musicians from...

chiffon
Lightweight plain-weave fabric, typically of silk or a synthetic filament with slightly crinkled texture. It is used for women's scarves, blouses, and dresses. ...

Chifley, Ben (Joseph Benedict)
(1885-1951) Australian Labor prime minister 1945-49. He united the party in fulfilling a welfare and nationalization programme 1945-49 (although he failed in an attempt to nationalize the banks in 1947) and...

Chigi
Italian family, originally from Siena, that included Agostino Chigi (1465-1520), a Roman banker and patron of the arts who built the Villa Farnesina in Rome (1508-11);Fabio Chigi (1599-1667),...

Chigi, Agostino
(1465-1520) Italian banker and patron of the arts. He founded his bank in Rome in 1485 and soon played a leading role in the finances of the Roman Catholic Church. His Villa Farnesina near Rome was built by the...

Chihuly, Dale
(1941) US glass maker. He has become internationally recognized as an innovative creator of colourful blown-glass abstract sculptures and architectural installations. He founded the Pilchuck Glass School...

Chikamatsu, Monzaemon
(1653-1725) Japanese dramatist. He wrote over 150 plays for the puppet and kabuki theatres in Osaka. His plays for puppets were usually either domestic tragedies such as The Love Suicides at Sonezaki (1703), or...

Chikatilo, Andrei Romanovich
(1936-1994) Ukrainian murderer who confessed to killing 53 adults and children over a 12-year period. He was sentenced to death in 1992, having appeared at his trial in a metal cage. Chikatilo, a former...

child abuse
The deliberate injury of a child. Child abuse can take several forms: neglect (including failure to provide adequate shelter, food, or medical treatment), physical abuse (including beating and...

Child, Francis James
(1825-1896) US scholar. He gathered together the largest surviving collection of ancient English and Scottish ballads in English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-98), which...

Child, Lydia Maria Francis
(1802-1880) US writer, social critic, and feminist, author of the popular women's guides The Frugal Housewife 1829 and The Mother's Book 1831. With her husband, David Child, she worked for the abolition of...

Childe, V(ere) Gordon
(1892-1957) Australian archaeologist. He was an authority on early European and Middle Eastern societies, and pioneered current methods of analytical archaeology. Following his travels in central and eastern...

Childebert I
(c. 498-558) King of the Franks 511-58. Son of Clovis, he inherited the kingdom of Paris. He defeated Amalaric II, King of the Visigoths, at Narbonne 531, and Sigismund, King of Burgundy, 532. ...

Childebert III
(c. 683-711) Nominal king of the Franks 694-711. He succeeded his father, Clovis III, but had no real power, the kingdom being in the hands of Pepin le Gros, Mayor of the Palace. ...

Childeric I
(c. 437-481) King of the Salian (western) Franks from about 457 until his death. He ruled an area between the rivers Meuse and Somme, and had his capital at Tournai. He aided the Romans against the Visigoths and...

Childeric II
(c. 649-675) Merovingian king of Austrasia (the eastern Frankish kingdom) from 662 and from 673 ruler of the western Frankish kingdom of Neustria and Burgundy after the death of his brother, Clotaire III. He...

Childers, (Robert) Erskine
(1870-1922) English civil servant and writer, Irish republican, author of the spy novel The Riddle of the Sands (1903). A Londoner by birth and educated at Haileybury and Cambridge, Childers served as Clerk of...

Childers, Erskine H(amilton)
(1905-1974) Irish Fianna Fáil politician, president 1973-74. He sought the reunification of Ireland, but condemned the campaign of violence by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to achieve that end. He was a...

Childers, Hugh Culling Eardley
(1827-1896) English Liberal politician. As secretary for war 1880-82 he was responsible for the military operations in the first South African War in 1881 and the Egyptian expedition to subdue a nationalist...

Children's Crusade
Crusade by some 10,000 children from France, the Low Countries, and Germany, in 1212, to recapture Jerusalem for Christianity. Motivated by religious piety, many of them were sold into slavery or...

Chile
South American country, bounded north by Peru and Bolivia, east by Argentina, and south and west by the Pacific Ocean. Government Chile is a presidential democratic republic. Under its 1981...

Chilean Revolution
In Chile, the presidency of Salvador Allende 1970-73, the Western hemisphere's first democratically elected Marxist-oriented president of an independent state. ...

Chilianwala, Battle of
Battle between British and Sikh forces during the Second Sikh War 13 January 1849. Although the British eventually recovered the situation and were not actually defeated, their organization was...

chiliasm
Another word for millenarianism; see millennium. ...

Chillingworth
(1602-1644) English cleric. He became a convert to Roman Catholicism and went to the Jesuit College at Douai. William Laud, the archbishop of Canterbury and his godfather, persuaded him to leave the Roman...

Chillon
Fortress on an island rock at the eastern end of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, dating from the 8th century. The 16th-century Genovese republican and patriot François Bonward (Bonnivard) (1496-c....

Chilon of Sparta
(lived 6th century BC) Spartan ephor (one of five annually elected magistrates) 556 BC and later known as one of the Seven Sages of Greece. He was reputed to have `bridled` the power of the Spartan kings, and is the...

Chilperic I
(c. 539-584) Merovingian Frankish king of Neustria 561-84. He was one of the four sons of Clotaire I, and tried to gain possession of the whole Frankish kingdom on his father's death. ...

Chilperic II
(c. 675-c. 720) Son of Childeric II and ruler of the western Frankish kingdom of Neustria 715-20 and the eastern Frankish kingdom of Austrasia 719-20. ...

Chiltern Hundreds, stewardship of
In the UK, a nominal office of profit under the crown. British members of Parliament may not resign; therefore, if they wish to leave office during a Parliament, they may apply for this office, a...

Chiluba, Frederick Jacob Titus
(1943) Zambian politician and trade unionist, president 1991-2002. In 1993 he was forced to declare a state of emergency, following the discovery of documents suggesting an impending coup. He later...

chimera
In Greek mythology, a fire-breathing animal with a lion's head and foreparts, a goat's middle, a dragon's rear, and a tail in the form of a snake; hence any apparent hybrid of two or more...

Chimney Sweepers Act
Law passed 1875 in Benjamin Disraeli's second ministry forbidding the use of children to sweep chimneys, partly in response to public outcry at the practice. Earlier attempts by Lord Shaftesbury (in...

Chimú
South American civilization that flourished on the coast of Peru from about 1250 to about 1470, when it was conquered by the Incas. The Chimú people produced fine work in gold, realistic portrait...

Chin
Member of a people of Mongol origin who speak a Tibeto-Burman language occupying western Myanmar and the Irrawaddy Valley. The Chin practice shifting cultivation, growing rice, maize,...

Chin dynasty
Hereditary rulers of northern China 1122-1234; see Jin dynasty. ...

China
The largest country in East Asia, bounded to the north by Mongolia; to the northwest by Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Afghanistan; to the...

Chindit
Member of an Indian division of the British army in World War II that carried out guerrilla operations against the Japanese in Burma (now Myanmar) under the command of Brigadier General Orde Wingate...

Chinese
The native groups or inhabitants of China and Taiwan, and those people of Chinese descent. The Chinese comprise more than 25% of the world's population, and the Chinese language (Mandarin) is the...

Chinese architecture
Style of building in China. Traditionally of timber construction, few existing buildings predate the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), but records such as the Ying Tsao Fa Shih/Method of Architecture...

Chinese art
The painting and sculpture of China. From the Bronze Age to the Cultural Revolution, Chinese art shows a stylistic unity unparalleled in any other culture. From about the 1st century AD Buddhism...

Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
Legislation prohibiting the entry of Chinese labourers into the USA. The initial act, passed in 1882 for a period of ten years, was renewed in 1892 and then made permanent in 1902. US immigration...

Chinese literature
The earliest written records in Chinese date from about 1500 BC; the earliest extant literary works date from about 800 BC. Poetry Chinese poems, often only four lines long, and written in the...

Chinese Revolution
Series of great political upheavals in China between 1911 and 1949 which eventually led to Communist Party rule and the establishment of the People's Republic of China. In 1912 a nationalist revolt...

Chinook
Member of a group of American Indian people who inhabited the Pacific northwest coast and Columbia River regions of Oregon and Washington. Their language belonged to the Penutian family. The Chinook...

chintz
Printed fabric, usually glazed, popular for furnishings. In England in the late 16th and 17th centuries the term was used for Indian painted and printed cotton fabrics (calicos) and later for...

Chipman, Nathaniel
(1752-1843) US jurist. He negotiated the admittance of Vermont to the Union and sat on Vermont's Supreme Court intermittently between 1787-1816. During those years he also served in Vermont's legislature, as...

Chippendale, Thomas
(1718-1779) English furniture designer. He set up his workshop in St Martin's Lane, London, in 1753. His trade catalogue The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director (1754), was a significant contribution to...

Chippewa
Member of an American Indian people who had settled around lakes Superior and Huron (now Québec, Ontario, Michigan, and Minnesota) by the 16th century. They share Algonquian linguistic origins with...

Chirac, Jacques René
(1932) French right-of-centre Gaullist politician and head of state, president from 1995 and prime minister 1974-76 and 1986-88, `co-habiting` on the second occasion with the socialist...

Chirico, Giorgio de
(1888-1978) Greek-born Italian painter. He founded the school of metaphysical painting, which in its enigmatic imagery and haunted, dreamlike settings presaged surrealism, as in Nostalgia of the Infinite...

Chiron
In Greek mythology, a wise centaur (half man, half horse), son of the Titan Kronos by the sea nymph Philyra. He was the tutor of the heroes Jason and Achilles, and the...

Chisholm v. Georgia
Landmark case of 1793 in which the US Supreme Court ruled that states are not immune from suits brought by citizens of other states. Alexander Chisholm, a South Carolinian, sued Georgia for payment...

Chisholm, Hugh
(1866-1924) English editor. In 1900 he was appointed joint editor of the supplementary volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, constituting the 10th edition. In 1903 he became editor in chief of the 11th...

Chisholm, Jesse
(c. 1806-c. 1868) US pioneer who gained a reputation as a resourceful guide, trader, and military scout during the early 19th century. He established one of the main paths of the yearly Texas cattle drive, known...

Chisholm, Roderick (Milton)
(1916) US philosopher. he taught philosophy at Brown University (from 1946), specializing in theory of knowledge and philosophy of science; his works include Perceiving: A Philosophical Study (1957). He...

Chisholm, Shirley
(1924-2005) US Democrat representative and social activist. The first black American woman elected to Congress, in 1969, she served until 1983. In 1982 she ran for the Democratic nomination for president. She...

Chissano, Joaquim Alberto
(1939) Mozambique nationalist politician, president 1986-2004; foreign minister 1975-86. In October 1992 he signed a peace accord with the leader of the rebel Mozambique National Resistance (MNR)...

Chittenden, Thomas
(1730-1797) US governor. Chittenden served as the first governor of the state of Vermont 1791-97, after it was accepted as the 14th US state. He had previously been governor when it had been an independent...

chivalry
Code of gallantry and honour that medieval knights were pledged to observe. Its principal virtues were piety, honour, valour, courtesy, chastity, and loyalty. The word originally meant the knightly...

Chivington, John
(1821-1894) US soldier and Methodist minister. He was regarded as a hero during the American Civil War (1861-65) for defending Colorado against the Confederates...

Chizerot
Member of a race of people in France said to be of Goth or Saracen blood, although they may have originated as a leper colony. They are found in several...

chloropicrin
Chemical weapon used during World War I. It is a lethal compound which attacks the lungs and acts as a lachrymator (tear gas). It was first employed by Russia against the Germans August 1916 and...

Chmielnic'ki, Bogdan
(1593-1657) Ukrainian hetman (Cossack leader). Wronged by a Polish gentleman, he failed to obtain justice from the Polish senate and king and in 1648 aroused the Ukrainian Cossacks against Polish rule, winning,...

Choate, Joseph H (Hodges)
(1832-1917) US lawyer and diplomat. He argued landmark antitrust, libel, admiralty, and income tax cases over a 55-year legal career. He achieved major success...

Choctaw
Member of an American Indian people who inhabited the Mississippi region, possibly as descendants of the prehistoric Moundbuilders. They are closely related to the Chickasaw and the Creek. Their...

Chodkiewicz, Jan Karol
(1560-1621) Polish soldier. He served under the Spanish general Ferdinand Alva in the Low Countries and later in the Turko-Moldavian campaign, where he obtained high command. Chodkiewicz played a prominent...

Choibalsan
(died 1952) Mongolian revolutionary leader. In 1921 he helped to establish the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, and when in that year Soviet Red Army units entered Urga, the capital of Outer Mongolia,...

choice
In economics, decision about how resources are allocated. Each choice involves an opportunity cost. ...