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

choir
In architecture, the area of a church which is specially reserved and furnished for choristers. This is usually, but not always, in the east part of the church, occupying the west half of the...

choir
Group of singers with several performers or voices to a part. A mixed voice choir contains parts for both women and men; a male voice choir is usually men only, but may be boys and men; a double...

Choiseul, Etienne François
(1719-1785) French politician. Originally a protégé of Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV, he became minister for foreign affairs in 1758, and held this and o ...

Chola dynasty
Southern Indian family of rulers that flourished in the 9th-13th centuries. Based on the banks of the Cauvery River, the Cholas overthrew their Pallava and Pandya neighbours and established...

cholera
Disease caused by infection with various strains of the bacillus Vibrio cholerae, transmitted in contaminated water and characterized by violent diarrhoea and vomiting. It is prevalent in many...

Cholmondeley, Mary
(1859-1925) English novelist. Her Red Pottage (1899) won considerable success. Other novels include The Danvers Jewels (1887), Sir Charles Danvers (1889), Diana Tempest (1893), Moth and Rust (1902), and The...

Cholula
Town in Puebla state, Mexico, 20 km/12 mi west of the town of Puebla. Situated at an altitude of 2,118 m/6,949 ft on the eastern slope of the volcano Popocatepétl, Cholula is a small but important...

Choonhavan, Chatichai
(1922-1998) Thai conservative politician, prime minister 1988-91. He promoted a peace settlement in neighbouring Cambodia as part of a vision of transforming Indochina into a thriving open-trade zone....

Chopi
Member of a Bantu people of Mozambique. They provide much of the labour for the gold mines of South Africa. Their traditional music is played by large orchestras of marimbas. ...

Chopin, Kate
(1851-1904) US novelist and short-story writer. Her novel The Awakening (1899), the story of a married New Orleans woman's awakening to her sexuality, caused a sensation of hostile criticism, which...

choregus
In ancient Athens, a citizen who bore the expense of the chorus at dramatic festivals, or the musician who directed the chorus. The most successful choregus in Athenian competitions was rewarded...

chorus
In classical Greek drama, the group of actors who jointly comment on the main action or advise the main characters. The action in Greek plays took place offstage; the chorus provided a link in the...

Chosin Reservoir, Battle of
During the Korean War, joint North Korean-Chinese attack on United Nations forces November-December 1951, in northwest Korea about 80 km/50 mi north of...

Chou En-lai
Alternative transliteration of Zhou Enlai. ...

Chouans
Name given to a band of smugglers who rebelled during the French Revolution and joined the Royalists in the Wars of the Vendée. Led by Jean Cottereau (1757-1794), they grew into an army known as...

Chrétien de Troyes
(died c. 1183) French poet. His epics, which introduced the concept of the Holy Grail, include Lancelot, ou le chevalier de la charrette (c. 1178), written for Marie, Countess of Champagne;Perceval, ou le conte du...

Chrétien, (Joseph Jacques) Jean
(1934) French-Canadian politician, prime minister of Canada 1993-2003. He won the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1990 and defeated Kim Campbell of the governing Progressive ConservativeParty by a...

Christ
The Messiah as prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. ...

christening
Christian ceremony of baptism of infants, including giving a name. ...

Christian
Follower of Christianity, the religion derived from the teachings of Jesus. In the New Testament (Acts 11:26) it is stated that the first to be called Christians were the disciples in Antioch (now...

Christian Coalition
US right-wing political pressure group founded in 1989 by the television evangelist Pat Robertson. The Christian Coalition aims to `stop the moral decay of government` and to promote the...

Christian Democracy
Ideology of a number of parties active in Western Europe since World War II, especially in Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany, and France, and (since 1989) in central and Eastern Europe....

Christian ethics
Questions of right and wrong considered within a Christian context. In Christianity, the Bible, the church, and prayer influence Christians when making decisions concerned with right and wrong....

Christian faith in action
The application of the principles of Christianity to the everyday lives of the followers of that religion. Christians...

Christian II
(1481-1559) King of Denmark and Norway 1513-23, and Sweden 1520-23. He was hated by the nobility in Denmark and Norway for his system of taxation. Jutland (Denmark) revolted and gave the Danish crown to...

Christian III
(1503-1559) King of Denmark and Norway from 1534. During his reign the Reformation was introduced. ...

Christian IV
(1577-1648) King of Denmark and Norway from 1588. He sided with the Protestants in the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), and founded Christiania (now Oslo, capital of Norway). He was succeeded by...

Christian IX
(1818-1906) King of Denmark from 1863. His daughter Alexandra married Edward VII of the UK and another, Dagmar, married Tsar Alexander III of Russia; his second son, George, became king of Greece. In 1864 he...

Christian love
Core value of the Christian faith. Agape (`selfless love`) is the most spiritual of the four aspects of love recognized by the Greeks. Christians also include charity, tolerance, and respect...

Christian minister
In certain Christian denominations, a religious leader. In episcopacies, churches governed by bishops such as the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, there are...

Christian Socialism
19th-century movement stressing the social principles of the Bible and opposed to the untrammelled workings of laissez-faire capitalism. Its founders, all members of the Church of England, were...

Christian V
(1646-1699) King of Denmark and Norway from 1670. Denmark was greatly weakened during his reign by the war with Sweden 1675-79, but it acquired the islands of St Thomas and St John in the West Indies. He is...

Christian VI
(1699-1746) King of Denmark and Norway from 1730. He reformed the Danish militia, but followed a peaceful foreign policy. He was deeply religious and a conscientious monarch, but was dominated by his wife,...

Christian VII
(1749-1808) King of Denmark 1766-84. Mentally unstable, he was dominated by his ministers Johann Bernstorff and Johann Struensee. After 1784 his son Frederick, later Frederick VI, ruled as regent. Christian...

Christian VIII
(1786-1848) King of Denmark 1839-48. He was unpopular because of his opposition to reform. His attempt to encourage the Danish language and culture in Schleswig and Holstein led to an insurrection there...

Christian X
(1870-1947) King of Denmark and Iceland from 1912, when he succeeded his father Frederick VIII. He married Alexandrine, Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and was popular for his democratic attitude. During...

Christian, Fletcher
(c. 1764-c. 1794) English seaman who led the mutiny on HMS Bounty in 1789. ...

Christianity
World religion derived from the teaching of Jesus, as found in the New Testament, during the first third of the 1st century. It has a present-day membership of about a billion, and is divided into...

Christianity, early history
The activities of the disciples and first followers of Jesus and his teachings. Jesus was Jewish, as were his disciples and his first followers, and both Jesus and his disciples occasionally used...

Christianization of Ireland
Later tradition ascribes the Christianization of all Ireland to St Patrick, but historical evidence suggests that Patrick led a British church mission to Ulster and Connaught, while the Gaulish...

Christie's
English fine-art saleroom, the oldest in the world, founded in 1766 by Australian-born auctioneer James Christie. The sales of paintings that the firm held during the 18th and 19th centuries...

Christina
(1626-1689) Queen of Sweden (1632-54). Succeeding her father Gustavus Adolphus at the age of six, she assumed power in 1644, but disagreed with the former regent Oxenstjerna. Refusing to marry, she eventually...

Christine de Pisan
(1364-c. 1430) French poet and historian. Her works include love lyrics, philosophical poems, a poem in praise of Joan of Arc, a history of Charles V of France, and various defences of women, including La Cité...

Christmas
Christian religious holiday, the second most important Christian festival after Easter. Observed throughout the Western world on 25 December, it is traditionally marked by feasting and...

Christmas truce
In World War I, unofficial cessation of hostilities between British and German troops in the front lines on Christmas Day 1914. Soldiers of both sides emerged from their trenches and fraternized in...

Christo
(1935) Bulgarian-born US sculptor. Considered a leading figure in Land art, he uses the natural and built environment as his canvas, and strives to find the relationship between nature and art. He is...

Christophe, Henri
(1767-1820) West Indian slave, one of the leaders of the revolt against the French in 1791, who was proclaimed king of Haiti in 1811. His government distributed plantations to military leaders. He shot himself...

Christopher I
(c. 1219-1259) King of Denmark from 1252. He was forced to make over the rich duchy of Schleswig to his nephew, Waldemar, which began a series of quarrels over the crown lands. He was excommunicated by the pope...

Christopher II
(1276-1332) King of Denmark from 1319. He made repeated and eventually successful attempts to secure the duchy of South Jutland (Schleswig), which had fallen to a lesser noble. During his reign the royal...

Christopher III
(1418-1448) King of Denmark 1439-48), Norway 1442-48, and Sweden 1441-48. Royal power declined during his reign because of the commercial domination of the Hanseatic League and the increasing political...

Christopher, St
Patron saint of travellers. His feast day, 25 July, was dropped from the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar in 1969. Traditionally he was a martyr in Syria in the 3rd century, and legend describes...

Christopher, Warren
(1925) US Democrat politician, secretary of state 1993-96. Trained as a lawyer, he was deputy attorney general under President Jimmy Carter 1977-81 and led negotiations for the release of US hostages...

Christus, Petrus
(c. 1410-1472/73) Flemish painter. He was a citizen of Bruges from 1444 and follower of Jan van Eyck (some of whose paintings he may have completed after the master's death). His Madonna with Two Saints (1457;...

chronicle
Record of events in order of time, without any interpretation. In the development of literary genres, it predates true history, which involves the analysis of facts and how they relate to one...

Chronicles
Two books of the Old Testament containing genealogy and history. ...

chronicles, medieval
Books modelled on the Old Testament Books of Chronicles. Until the later Middle Ages, they were usually written in Latin by clerics, who borrowed extensively from one another. Two early examples...

chronology
In archaeology, the sequencing of events or objects on a time scale. In dealing with recorded history, it is related to established calendars, but the dating of prehistory is more complicated, being...

Chrysler, Walter Percy
(1875-1940) US industrialist. After World War I, he became president of the independent Maxwell Motor Company and went on to found the Chrysler Corporation in 1925. By 1928 he had acquired Dodge and Plymouth,...

Chrysoloras, Manuel
(1350-1415) Byzantine diplomat and scholar. In 1393 he visited Italy to seek aid against the Ottoman Empire and later played a role in preparing for the Council of Constance. Moving to Florence in 1395, he...

Chu Teh
Chinese Red Army leader; see Zhu De. ...

Chuan Leekpai
(1938) Thai politician, prime minister 1992-95 and 1997-2001. Representing the centre-left Democrat Party (DP), he served in a succession of ministerial positions 1975-91 before becoming prime...

Chuang
The largest minority group in China, numbering about 15 million. They live in southern China, where they cultivate rice fields. Their religion includes elements of ancestor worship. The Chuang...

Chuang Tzu
(c. 370-300 BC) Chinese philosopher, the second most important writer in the Taoist tradition, following Lao Zi. He was renowned for his wit, storytelling, and discourses on the inadequacy of words to describe...

Chubais, Anatoly Borisovich
(1955) Russian politician and economist. The most politically agile and longest-lasting of the group of young economists who came into Boris Yeltsin's first government in 1991, Chubais was the architect...

Chubb, Charles
(1773-1845) British locksmith. He had an ironmonger's and ship's outfitter's shop in Portsmouth, England. After the invention of the Chubb lock he opened a lock factory in Wolverhampton. He then moved to...

Chuikov, Vasily Ivanovich
(1900-1982) Soviet general. He joined the Red Army 1918, fighting against the Poles and in the Civil War. He then served as an adviser to Chinese nationalist leader Jiang Jie Shi (Chiang Kai-shek ) 1926-37....

Chukchi
Member of a people of northeastern Siberia, Russia, numbering approximately 14,000. Although primarily reindeer herders, individual Chukchi stalk seals, and larger groups...

Chukovsky, Kornei Ivanovich
(1882-1969) Russian critic and poet. The leading authority on the 19th-century Russian poet Nekrasov, he was also an expert on the Russian language, as in, for example, Alive...

Chun Doo-hwan
(1931) South Korean military ruler who seized power in 1979, and was president 1981-88 as head of the newly formed Democratic Justice Party. Chun, trained in Korea and the USA, served as an army...

church
The whole body of the general Christian community, or a subdivision or denomination of it. The church as a community of believers represents the body of Jesus. It includes both those who are alive...

church
In architecture, a building designed as a place of worship for the Christian church community. Churches were first built in the 3rd century, when persecution of Christians ceased under the Roman...

Church Army
Religious organization within the Church of England founded in 1882 by Wilson Carlile (1847-1942), an industrialist converted after the failure of his textile firm, who became a cleric in 1880....

Church in Wales
The Welsh Anglican church; see Wales, Church in. ...

Church of England
Established form of Christianity in England, a member of the Anglican communion. It was dissociated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 under Henry VIII; the British monarch is still the supreme...

Church of Scotland
Established form of Christianity in Scotland, first recognized by the state in 1560. It is based on the Protestant doctrines of the reformer Calvin and governed on Presbyterian lines. The church...

Church, Benjamin
(1639-1718) American soldier and Indian fighter. In 1676 he led the fight at Mount Hope, Rhode Island, that resulted in the death of King Philip. Later he led five different raids aga ...

Church, Frederick Edwin
(1826-1900) US painter. He was a student of Thomas Cole and follower of the Hudson River School's tradition of grand landscape. During the 1850s he visited South America and the Arctic and became known for his...

church, medieval
In the Middle Ages (5th-15th centuries) the concept of `Christendom` was the only unifying force of a Europe split into thousands of tiny kingdoms and duchies. The Roman Catholic Church was...

Church, Richard
(1893-1972) English poet and novelist. His Collected Poems appeared in 1948. His best-known novel, The Porch (1938), forms a sequence with The Stronghold (1939) and The Room Within (1940). Later novels...

Church, Richard
(1784-1873) Irish soldier. He was general of land forces in the Greek War of Independence 1827-29 and forced the garrisons of Missolonghi and Lepanto to surrender. He took part in the revolution of 1843,...

Church, Richard William
(1815-1890) English cleric. He was a friend of the Roman Catholic theologian John Newman and allied to the Tractarian party. In 1844, as junior proctor, he vetoed a proposal to censure publicly Tract 90 of...

Churchill tank
British heavy tank of World War II. As well as proving to be an effective battle tank, it was also the perfect basis for conversions into specialist vehicles such as...

Churchill, Caryl
(1938) English dramatist. Her themes explore history, the female spirit, and the effects upon the individual of living in a capitalist and sexist society. Her plays include the innovative and feminist...

Churchill, Charles
(1731-1764) English satirical poet. He wrote coarse personal satires, mainly dealing with political issues. They include The Rosciad (1761), a satire on the London stage;The Prophecy...

Churchill, John
(1801-1875) British medical publisher. In 1825 he founded Churchill publishers. ...

churinga
In Australian Aboriginal culture, a sacred stone or wooden board, from 7 cm/2 in to 4 m/12 ft long, usually incised or painted with totemic designs. They were made by men...

Churrigueresque
Style of late-baroque architecture characterized by lavish sculptural decoration, originating in Spain in the late 17th century. The term is also used to describe other forms of Spanish...

Chuvash
Member of the majority ethnic group inhabiting the autonomous republic of Chuvash, Russia. The Chuvash have lived in the middle Volga region since the 8th century and are probably descended from the...

Chwast, Seymour
(1931) US graphic designer. He was a cofounder (with Milton Glaser) of Push Pin Studios, New York, in 1954, and was publisher and editor of Push Pin Graphic magazine 1974-81, and Push Pin Press from...

CIA
Abbreviation for the US Central Intelligence Agency. ...

CIAM
Loose association of architects founded in 1928, largely responsible for the formulation and dissemination of a Modernist orthodoxy (see Modern Movement). CIAM's predominantly functionalist ethic,...

Ciampi, Carlo Azeglio
(1920) Italian economist and president 1999-2006. A former prime minister, finance minister and central banker, Ciampi was elected Italy's head of state in 1999. Ciampi, who received a two-thirds...

Ciano, Galeazzo, Count
(1903-1944) Italian fascist politician. Son-in-law of the dictator Mussolini, he was foreign minister and member of the Fascist Supreme Council 1936-43. He voted against Mussolini at the meeting of the...

Ciardi, John (Anthony)
(1916-1986) US poet, writer, and teacher. and was poetry editor of the Saturday Review 1956-72. Based in Metuchen, New Jersey, in his later years, he was known as a lecturer and etymologist as well as for his...

Cibber, Colley
(1671-1757) English actor, dramatist, and poet. He wrote numerous plays, such as Love's Last Shift, or The Fool in Fashion (1696) and The Careless Husband (1705), and acted in many parts. In 1709 he became a...

Cicero, Marcus Tullius
(born 65 BC) Roman politician and colonial administrator. He was a consul in 30 BC, and later governed Syria and became proconsul of Asia. He was the only son of Marcus Tullius Cicero, the orator, and his wife...

Cicero, Marcus Tullius
(106-43 BC) Roman orator, writer, and politician. His speeches and philosophical and rhetorical works are models of Latin prose, and his letters provide a picture of contemporary Roman life. As consul in 63 BC...

Cicero, Quintus Tullius
(c. 102-43 BC) Roman administrator and soldier, younger brother of the orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. Cicero held the office of praetor 62 BC, and was then governor in Asia for three years. He later served very...

CID
Abbreviation for the UK Criminal Investigation Department. ...

Cid, El, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar
(c. 1040-1099) Spanish soldier, nicknamed El Cid (`the lord`) by the Moors. Born in Castile of a noble family, he fought against the king of Navarre and won his nickname el Campeador (`the Champion`) by...