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

Cole, Thomas
(1801-1848) US painter. He was a founder and leading member of the Hudson River School of landscape artists. Apart from panoramic views such as his magnificent The Oxbow (1836; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New...

Coleman, David
(1926) English sports commentator and broadcaster. He joined the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1959 and built up a reputation for high-quality coverage of sporting events. A presenter at...

Coleman, William
(1766-1829) US journalist. In 1801 he cofounded the New York Evening Post, which he edited under the supervision of Alexander Hamilton; its vituperative pro-Federalist editorials attracted many lawsuits, none...

Coleman, William T(haddeus), Jr
(1920) US lawyer and cabinet officer. Specialized in corporate, transportation, and civil-rights law, he was involved in important cases in the areas of school segregation and interracial marriage. He...

Colenso, Battle of
In the South African War, British defeat by Boer forces 15 December 1899 on the Tugela River about 32 km/20 mi south of Ladysmith. A British force under General Sir Redvers Buller attempting to...

Colenso, John William
(1814-1883) British cleric, Anglican bishop of Natal, South Africa, from 1853. He was the first to write down the Zulu language. He championed the Zulu way of life (including polygamy) in relation to...

Coleridge, (David) Hartley
(1796-1849) English poet, eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His verse lacks power but is expressive and fine in places. He wrote biographies of and edited the works of the Jacobean dramatists Philip...

Coleridge, John Duke
(1821-1894) English jurist. His chief forensic triumph was in the Tichborne case, in which the impostor Arthur Orton made a false claim against the Tichborne family; his speech for the defendant lasted 23 days....

Coleridge, Mary Elizabeth
(1861-1907) English writer. Her historical romance The King with Two Faces (1897) about Gustavus III of Sweden made her name. Her first novel was the fantasy The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (1893), and her first...

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
(1772-1834) English poet, critic, and philosopher. A friend of the poets Robert Southey and William Wordsworth, he collaborated with the latter on the highly influential collection Lyrical Ballads (1798), which...

Coleridge, Sara
(1802-1852) English scholar and editor. She edited the work of her father Samuel Taylor Coleridge. She was also a writer and translator. Her Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children appeared in 1834 and...

Colet, John
(c. 1467-1519) English humanist, influenced by the Italian reformer Savonarola and the Dutch scholar Erasmus. He reacted against the scholastic tradition in his interpretation of the Bible, and founded modern...

Colette, Sidonie-Gabrielle
(1873-1954) French writer. Her best novels reveal an exquisite sensitivity, largely centred on the joys and sorrows of love, and include Chéri (1920), La Fin de Chéri/The End of Chéri...

Colfax, Schuyler
(1823-1885) US political leader. He was elected to the US House of Representatives 1854 and served as Speaker of the House 1863-69. A radical Republican, Colfax was elected vice-president for President...

Colgan, John
(1592-c. 1657) Irish writer, born near Carndonagh, County Donegal, Colgan travelled to Spain and joined a Franciscan order in 1618. He is remembered for two works that chronicle the lives of saints:Acta Sanctorum...

Coligny, Gaspard de
(1519-1572) French admiral and soldier, and prominent Huguenot. About 1557 he joined the Protestant party, helping to lead the Huguenot forces during the Wars of Religion. After the Treaty of St Germain of...

Coligny, Odet de
(c. 1517-1571) French Protestant leader. He was diplomatic envoy for the Huguenots during the civil war of 1567-68 between Huguenots and Catholics, and went to England to try to obtain English help for the...

collage
In art, the use of various materials, such as pieces of newspaper, fabric, and wallpaper, to create a picture or design by sticking them on canvas or another suitable surface, often in combination...

Collamer, Jacob
(1792-1865) US representative and senator. He served Vermont in the US House of Representatives as a Whig 1843-49, and was US postmaster general 1849-50. As a US Republican senator from Vermont 1855-65,...

collateral
Security available in return for a loan. Usually stocks, shares, property, or life insurance policies will be accepted as collateral. ...

Collatinus, Lucius Tarquinius
Roman governor of Collatia in Latium. In Roman legend, the rape of his wife, Lucretia, by Sextus led to her suicide, the ending of the monarchy, and the founding of the Roman Republic. ...

collective farm
Farm in which a group of farmers pool their land, domestic animals, and agricultural implements, retaining as private property enough only for the members' own requirements. The profits of the farm...

collective responsibility
Doctrine found in governments modelled on the British system of cabinet government. It is based on convention, or usage, rather than law, and requires that once a decision has been taken by the...

collective security
System for achieving international stability by an agreement among all states to unite against any aggressor. Such a commitment was embodied in the post-World War I ...

collectivism
In politics, a position in which the collective (such as the state) has priority over its individual members. It is the opposite of...

collectivization
Policy pursued by the Soviet leader Josef Stalin in the USSR after 1929 to reorganize agriculture by taking land into state ownership or creating ...

College of Arms
English heraldic body formed in 1484. There are three kings-of-arms, six heralds, and four pursuivants, who specialize in genealogical and heraldic work. The college establishes the right to a...

Colleoni, Bartolommeo
(1400-1475) Italian mercenary soldier. He fought for both sides in the wars between the Milanese and Venetians 1423-54, and was imprisoned as a spy by Filippo Visconti, Duke of Milan, in 1446. In 1451 he...

Colletta, Pietro
(1775-1831) Italian statesman and historian. He was a minister of war in the short-lived constitutional government of 1820. His historical work Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1734 s ...

Collier, Constance
(1878-1955) English actor. She worked with the theatre manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree 1901-08. Later she divided her time between England and the USA, playing Gertrude to John Barrymore's Hamlet in 1925, and...

Collier, Jeremy
(1650-1726) British Anglican cleric, a Nonjuror, who was outlawed 1696 for granting absolution on the scaffold to two men who had tried to assassinate William III. His Short View of the Immorality and...

Collier, John
(1884-1968) US social reformer and government official. Founder and head of the American Indian Defense Association (1923-33), he was an outspoken proponent of American Indians' rights. President Franklin...

Collier, John Payne
(1789-1883) English Shakespearean critic. He fraudulently claimed that his amendments to Shakespeare's work in the margins of a copy of the 1632 folio (the `Perkins folio`) were genuine; they were later...

Collin d'Harleville, Jean-François
(1755-1806) French dramatist. He wrote a number of verse comedies including L'Inconstant 1786 and M de Crac dans son petit castel 1791. ...

Collingwood, Cuthbert
(1750-1810) British admiral who served with Horatio Nelson in the West Indies against France and blockaded French ports between 1803 and 1805; after Nelson's death he took command at the Battle of Trafalgar. He...

Collingwood, Robin George
(1889-1943) English philosopher who believed that any philosophical theory or position could be properly understood only within its own historical context and not from the point of view of the present. His...

Collins, (Lewis) John
(1905-1982) English Christian social reformer, peace campaigner, and cleric. He joined the Labour Party in 1938 and formed Christian Action in 1946. Following his appo ...

Collins, (William) Wilkie
(1824-1889) English author of mystery and suspense novels. He wrote The Woman in White (1860), often called the first English detective fiction novel, and The Moonstone (1868) (with Sergeant Cuff, one of the...

Collins, J(ames) Lawton
(1882-1963) US general. He first came to prominence on Guadalcanal 1942 leading the US 25th Infantry Division, which relieved the US Marines and completed the capture of the island. He then went to Europe and...

Collins, Michael
(1964) Irish-born US writer whose novel The Keepers of Truth (2000) was shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize. A novelist and short-story writer, Collins has published six books and had his works...

Collins, Michael
(1890-1922) Irish nationalist. He was a Sinn Fein leader, a founder and director of intelligence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1919, a minister in the provisional government of the Irish Free State in...

Collins, Pauline
(1940) English stage and screen actor. She rose to international attention in 1988 as the middle-aged heroine on the road to self-discovery in the comedy Shirley Valentine, a role she...

Collins, Tom
Pseudonym of Joseph Furphy, Australian novelist. ...

Collins, William
(1721-1759) English poet. His Persian Eclogues four short effusions in heroic couplets published anonymously in 1742, were followed in 1746 by his Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegorical Subjects, 12 lyric...

Collodi, Carlo
(1826-1890) Italian journalist and writer. In 1881-83 he wrote Le avventure di Pinocchio/The Adventures of Pinocchio, a children's story of a wooden puppet that became a human boy. ...

Collor de Mello, Fernando Affonso
(1949) Brazilian politician, president 1990-92. He founded the right-wing Partido de Reconstrução Nacional (PRN; National Reconstruction Party) in 1989. As its candidate, he won the first...

Collot d'Herbois, Jean Marie
(1750-1796) French revolutionary. He became a Jacobin, a member of the National Convention, and a member of the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution. His cruelty in crushing the Girondist...

Colman, Benjamin
(1673-1747) American clergyman. He was pastor of the Brattle Street Church, Boston, which had been organized on more liberal principles than those of the city's three established churches. A Protest ...

Colman, George
(1732-1794) English dramatist and theatre manager. He wrote a great number of plays, including The Jealous Wife (1761) and (in collaboration with David ...

Colman, St
(c.605-676) Irish monk. He was a monk on the island of Iona and became Bishop of Lindisfarne in 661, succeeding St Finan. However, in 664 he returned to Iona after the Celtic party he led was defeated at the...

Colocci, Angelo
(1474-1547) Italian cleric, poet, and humanist. One of the leading figures in the development of humanism in Rome, he combined an interest in Greek and Roman literature with a lively involvement in vernacular...

Colombe, Michel
(c. 1430-c. 1515) French sculptor. He is remembered chiefly for two major sculptures, both showing a blend of Gothic and Italian Renaissance styles. The first is the tomb of Francis II of Brittany and Marguerite de...

Colombia
Country in South America, bounded north by the Caribbean Sea, west by the Pacific Ocean, northwestern corner by Panama, east and northeast by Venezuela, southeast by Brazil,...

Colombo Plan
Plan for cooperative economic and social development in Asia and the Pacific, established 1950. The 26 member countries are Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Canada, Fiji...

Colombo, Matteo Realdo
(c. 1516-1559)...

colonia
Roman term for a settlement of Roman citizens. It consisted of a city and its dependent territory and often grew up around a legionary fortress, where retired soldiers might be granted plots of land...

colonial preference
Programme of tariff reform within the British Empire, also known as imperial preference. ...

colonial trusteeship
Idea that colonies were held by the colonial power in trust for the indigenous population. This became an important and widely accepted principle of colonial policy in Britain in the 19th century....

colonialism
Another name for imperialism. ...

colonies, Greek
Overseas territories of the ancient Greek city-states. Greek colonization was mostly concerned with land, not trade. Greek cities on the west coast of modern Turkey may have been founded...

colonies, Roman
Territories of the Roman empire. The earliest Roman citizen settlements guarded the local coast (Ostia) from the 4th century BC. In contrast, Latin colonies were independent and helped to secure...

Colonna
Old and illustrious Italian family that produced popes, cardinals, princes, and generals, and belonged to the Ghibelline party (see ...

Colonna, Francesco
(c. 1433-c. 1527) Italian writer. He wrote a mysterious allegorical romance, Hypernotomachia Poliphili, which would probably have been forgotten but for the sumptuous illustrated edition published in...

Colonna, Pompeo
(c. 1479-1532) Italian cardinal, member of the illustrious Colonna family. As bishop of Rieti, he incited the people to revolt against Pope Julius II and was removed from office, but he was pardoned by Pope Leo X...

Colonna, Prospero
(1452-1523) Italian condottiere and member of the famous Colonna family. He offered to help Charles VIII of France when he invaded Italy 1494-95 and later entered the service of the pope. Among his many...

Colonna, Vittoria
(c. 1492-1547) Italian noblewoman and poetess. Many of her Petrarchan sonnets idealize her husband, the marquis of Pescara, who was killed at the Battle of Pavia in 1525. She was a friend of the artist...

colonnade
Row of columns supporting arches or an entablature. ...

Colonus
Ancient village of Attica, Greece, now an area in central Athens. The ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles (5th century BC) was born here, and immortalized the village in his play Oedipus at...

colony
Country under the control of immigrants who remain subject to the jurisdiction of the parent state. Historically, the acquisition of colonies occurred for a variety of reasons. In general, rivalry...

colophon
Decorative device on the title page or spine of a book, the trademark or logo of the individual publisher. Originally a colophon was an inscription on the last page of a book giving the writer or...

Colosseum
Amphitheatre in ancient Rome, begun by the emperor Vespasian to replace the one destroyed by fire during the reign of Nero, and completed by his son Titus in AD 80. It was 187 m/615 ft long and 49...

Colossians
Epistle in the New Testament addressed to the church at Colossae; it is attributed to St Paul. ...

Colossus of Rhodes
Bronze statue of Apollo erected at the entrance to the harbour at Rhodes between 292 BC and 280 BC. Said to have been about 30 m/100 ft high, it was counted as one of the Seven Wonders of the World,...

colour
In art, one of the most powerful of the visual or formal art elements, and a property of light. Specifically, colour is the quality or wavelength of light emitted or reflected from an object....

colour symbolism
In the iconography of many faiths, the significance of certain colours which are used to represent certain deities, passions, or ideas. In Taoism, white symbolizes death, while in most Christian...

colour wash
In painting, a thin, translucent layer of colour, usually in watercolour or India ink. The technique of colour washing is often used to provide a background to a picture, and is applied quickly...

colour-field painting
Movement in 20th-century US art, and a major current of abstract expressionism. Colour-field painters, such as Mark colours, military
Flags or standards carried by military regiments, so called because of the various combinations of colours employed to distinguish one country or one regiment from another. In the UK each battalion...

Colquhoun, Ithell
(1906-1988) English artist and poet. Associated with the English surrealists, her work dealt with mythological and biblical subjects prior to 1930, but she turned to...

Colum Cille, St
See St Columba. ...

Colum, Padraic
(1881-1972) Irish poet and dramatist. Born in Longford, he was educated at University College, Dublin, and in 1914 emigrated to the USA, where he lived in Connecticut for most of his life. Colum was associated...

columbarium
In medieval churches, the baldachin (canopy over an altar) beneath which was suspended the hanging pyx (container for sacramental wafers). The latter was frequently in the form of a dove. ...

columbarium
Roman sepulchral chamber. Columbaria were so called because they resembled large dovecotes. They were usually rectangular structures built around open courtyards and lined with niches in which urns...

Columbine
Character in the harlequinade, the lover of Harlequin. ...

Columbus, Christopher
(1451-1506) Italian navigator and explorer who made four voyages to the New World: in 1492 to San Salvador Island, Cuba, and Haiti; from 1493 to 1496 to Guadaloupe, Montserrat, Antigua, Puerto Rico, and...

column
In architecture, a structure, round or polygonal in plan, erected vertically as a support for some part of a building. Cretan paintings reveal the existence of wooden columns...

Columna Rostrata
Triumphal pillar in the forum in Rome which commemorated the victory of the Roman general Gaius Duilius over the Carthaginian fleet off Mylae 260 BC. The name originated in the fact that the column...

Colville
Member of a confederation of 12 American Indian peoples who settled on the Colville Indian Reservation in north-central Washington from 1872. They include descendants of the Colville, Methow,...

Colville, Alex
(1920) Canadian painter. A prominent realist artist, his style has affinities with that of Andrew Wyeth. His somewhat melancholic paintings depict smooth, broad-bodied nudes and figures of working men as...

Comanche
Member of a nomadic American Indian people who roamed parts of Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Mexico from the 1700s. They are an offshoot of the Shoshone, with whom they share ...

Combe, William
(1741-1823) English poet. He contributed doggerel verses to accompany a series of Thomas Rowlandson's illustrations in...

Combination Acts
Laws passed in Britain in 1799 and 1800 making trade unionism illegal. They were introduced after the French Revolution for fear that the trade unions would become centres of political agitation....

combined operations
In World War II, operations in which all three services - army, navy, and air forces - were involved, notably amphibious landings. The first Chief of Combined Operations was Admiral Sir Roger...

Combs, Bert(ram) Thomas
(1911-1991) US Democratic governor. A lawyer, he served on General MacArthur's staff 1942-46, prosecuting Japanese war criminals. As governor of Kentucky 1959-63, he instituted a merit system for state...

Comecon
Economic organization from 1949 to 1991, linking the USSR with Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, East Germany (1950-90), Mongolia (from 1962), Cuba (from 1972), and Vietnam (from...

comedia
Spanish name for a play, either tragedy or comedy, in the 17th century (the golden age of Spanish theatre). Contemporary writers divided comedias into two main types. Comedias de ruido ( ...

Comédie Française
French national theatre (for both comedy and tragedy) in Paris, founded in 1680 by Louis XIV. Its base is the Salle Richelieu on the right bank of the River Seine, and...

comedy
Literary genre that aims to make its audience laugh. Drama, verse, and prose can all have a comic aim. Stereotypically, comedy has a happy or amusing ending, as opposed to tragedy, but it can also...

comedy of humours
Dramatic genre inspired by the theory of humours. Each character is the embodiment of a `humour` and what it represents, such as melancholy or anger. The most famous example of a comedy of...

comedy of ideas
Dramatic genre that combines comedy with political, philosophical, and controversial attitudes. The aim is to make an impact upon the audience's social conscience as well as upon their emotions. The...