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The History Channel - Encyclopedia
Category: History and Culture > History
Date & country: 02/12/2007, UK
Words: 25833
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Dartmouth College CaseUS Supreme Court case (officially Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward) of 1819 dealing with the protection of private corporations from state intervention under contract law. After some...
Darwinism, socialIn US history, an influential but contentious social theory, based on the work of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, which claimed to offer a scientific justification for late 19th-century...
DaryalPass and gorge in the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia, cut by the Terek River, and known in ancient times as the `gateway to the Caucasus`. The Georgian Military Road, which runs from Vladikavkaz...
Das, Chitta Ranjan(1870-1925) Bengali patriot and politician. He participated in the campaign against the partition of Bengal, chaired the Bengal Provincial Congress in 1917 and the Indian National Congress in 1918. He joined...
Dasam GranthCollection of the writings of the tenth Sikh guru (teacher), Gobind Singh, and of poems by a number of other writers. It is written in a script called Gurmukhi, the written form of Punjabi...
Daschle, Tom(1947) US Democrat politician, Senate majority leader 2001-03. He became senator for South Dakota in 1987 and was previously in the House of Representatives 1979-87. In 1988, the then Senate Democrat...
Dasent, George Webbe(1817-1896) British scholar of Scandinavian literature and folklore. His publications include translations of Scandinavian tales and old Icelandic sagas, including The Prose or Younger Edda (1842) and Popular...
Dashwood, Edmée Elizabeth MonicaReal name of English writer E M
Delafield. ...
Data Protection Act 1984UK act of Parliament designed to protect individuals who have information about them held on computer. The act obliged organizations holding personal data to register with the Data Protection...
Datini, Francesco di Marco(c. 1335-1410) Italian merchant. From his home town of Prato, near Florence, he built up a trading empire in northern Italy, Avignon, Aragon, and Majorca. After 1378 he settled in Florence, joined the silk guild...
Daubigny, Charles-François(1817-1878) French landscape painter. He painted in the style of the
Barbizon School, his views of quiet stretches of riverside becoming very popular. Bords de l'Oise (Musée et Galerie des Beaux-Arts,...
Daucher, Hans(c. 1485-1538) German sculptor. Active in Augsburg, Hans was the son of the sculptor Adolf Daucher (c. 1460/65-1523/24) and executed a number of works for Emperor
Charles V and the dukes of Württemberg. Noted...
Daud Khan, Sardar Muhammad(1909-1978) Afghan prime minister 1953-63 and president 1973-78. He was a cousin of King Muhammad Zahir Shah (ruled 1933-73). Opposition to his authoritarian rule forced his resignation from the...
Daudet, (Alphonse Marie) Léon(1867-1942) French writer and journalist. He founded the militant right-wing royalist periodical Action Française (1899) after the Dreyfus case. During World War II he...
Daudet, Alphonse(1840-1897) French novelist. He wrote about his native Provence in Lettres de mon moulin/Letters from My Mill (1866), and created the character Tartarin, a hero epitomizing southern temperament, in Tartarin de...
Daugherty, Harry Micajah(1860-1941) US lawyer and politician. He was campaign manager and attorney general for President Harding, and, although he figured in several scandals, including the Teapot Dome, he managed...
Daumier, Honoré Victorin(1808-1879) French artist. His sharply dramatic and satirical cartoons dissected Parisian society. He produced over 4,000 lithographs and, mainly after 1860, powerful, sardonic oil paintings that were little...
dauphinTitle of the eldest son of the kings of France, derived from the personal name of a count, whose lands, known as the Dauphiné, traditionally passed...
DauphinéAncient province of France, comprising the modern départements of Isère, Drôme, and Hautes-Alpes. After the collapse of the Roman Empire it belonged to Burgundy, then was under Frankish...
Daurat, Jean.Alternative spelling of French poet and scholar Jean
Dorat. ...
Davanzati, ChiaroItalian lyrical poet. He began writing lyrics in the style of the Provençal troubadours and Sicilians, but later he became a follower of
Guittone d'Arezzo. To this period probably belong his...
Davenant (or D'Avenant), Charles(1656-1714) English writer on political economy. As an economist he at first showed some free-trade tendencies, but later adopted the orthodox mercantile theory. He was the eldest son of...
Davenant, William(1606-1668) English poet and dramatist. His Siege of Rhodes (1656) is sometimes considered the first English opera. His plays include The Wits (1633) and Love and Honour (1634). He was...
Davenport, John(1597-1670) English-born American clergyman and colonist. He founded the New Haven Colony in 1638 and became its church pastor. However, theological differences forced him to leave for Boston in 1667 and he...
DavidStatue in marble by
Michelangelo (1501-04; Accademia, Florence). The subject of David, biblical boy hero who killed the giant Goliath, was a popular symbol of the small republic of Florence; that...
DavidKing of the Hebrews 1004-965 BC. He became king of Judah on the death of King Saul at Mount Gilboa in 1004 BC, then king of Israel in 997 BC. He united the tribes against the Philistines,...
David CopperfieldNovel by Charles
Dickens, published 1849-50. The story follows the orphan David Copperfield from his school days and early poverty to eventual fame as an author. Among the characters he encounters...
David I(1084-1153) King of Scotland from 1124. The youngest son of Malcolm III Canmore and St
Margaret, he was brought up in the English court of
Henry I, and in 1113 married
Matilda, widow of the...
David II(1324-1371) King of Scotland from 1329, son of
Robert (I) the Bruce. David was married at the age...
David, Gerard(c. 1450-c. 1523) Netherlandish painter. He was active chiefly in Bruges from about 1484. His style follows that of Rogier van der
Weyden, but he was also influenced by the taste in Antwerp for Italianate ornament....
David, Jacques-Louis(1748-1825) French painter. One of the greatest of the neoclassicists, he sought to give his art a direct political significance. He was an active supporter of the republic during the French Revolution, and was...
David, St (or St Dewi)(lived 5th-6th century) Patron saint of Wales, Christian abbot and bishop. According to legend he was the son of a prince of Dyfed and uncle of King Arthur. He was responsible for the adoption of the leek as the national...
Davidson, Donald(1917) US philosopher. After gaining a Harvard PhD, he taught at various universities, before joining the University of California at Berkeley in 1981. In his influential publications he analysed the...
Davidson, Jim(1953) English comedian and entertainer who hosts the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) game shows Big Break and Jim Davidson's Generation Game. In 1997 he received...
Davidson, John(1857-1909) Scottish poet and dramatist. His first success came with Fleet Street Eclogues (1893, 1896) followed by Ballads and Songs (1894). His modern, realistic idiom, as in `Thirty Bob a Week`,...
Davidson, Randall Thomas(1848-1930) Scottish Anglican cleric, archbishop of Canterbury 1903-28. His firm diplomacy steered the Anglican communion through a bitter conflict between the Low Church and Anglo-Catholic extremists,...
Davie, Donald Alfred(1922-1995) English poet and literary critic. His verse has a highly wrought style and grace, wedded to interests in history and politics, as exemplified in The Forests of Lithuania (1959). His later work is as...
Davies (or Davis), John(1569-1626) English poet and lawyer. In his Orchestra (1596), the world is exhibited as a dance;Hymns to Astraea (1599) consists of 26 acrostic poems addressed to Queen Elizabeth; and Nosce Teipsum (1599) is a...
Davies, (William) Robertson(1913-1995) Canadian novelist. He published the first novel of his Deptford trilogy Fifth Business (1970), a panoramic work blending philosophy, humour, the occult, and ordinary life. Other works include A...
Davies, Arthur Bowen(1862-1928) US painter. Absorbing many influences, that of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes in particular, he painted fantastic landscape idylls. Unicorns 1906 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) is typical. He was...
Davies, Christian(1667-1739) Irish woman who won fame by spending some years in military service, masquerading as a man. Born in Dublin, Davies went to Flanders in search of her husband, Richard Welsh, who had been conscripted...
Davies, Samuel(1723-1761) American Protestant clergyman and educator. He defended the freedom of religious sects from the authority of the established church. In 1759, he succeeded Jonathan
Edwards as president of the...
Davies, Sarah Emily(1830-1921) English feminist and educational reformer. A vigorous advocate of higher education for women, she founded a small college for women students at Hitchin in 1869, which was transferred to Cambridge as...
Davies, William Henry(1871-1940) Welsh poet. He produced 20 books of verse, first becoming known for The Autobiography of a Super-tramp (1908). The contrast between his life as a tramp and pedlar and his work is striking, and his...
Davin, Dan(iel Marcus)(1913-1990) New Zealand novelist and short-story writer. He was based in Oxford after 1945. His Irish Catholic upbringing and his wartime experience with the New Zealand Division provided the background for...
Daviot, GordonPseudonym of Scottish novelist and dramatist Elizabeth
Mackintosh. ...
Davis, Alexander Jackson(1803-1892) US architect. He favoured neoclassical styles and his multi-storey windows for public buildings became his signature. In the 1830s, he designed a number of state capitols. His publications and...
Davis, Angela Yvonne(1944) US left-wing activist for African-American rights, prominent in the student movement of the 1960s. In 1970 she went into hiding after being accused of supplying guns used in the murder of a...
Davis, Benjamin Oliver, Jr(1912-2002) US aviator. He was the first black graduate of West Point 1936, and entered the US air force, completing flight training 1942. He became the first black general in the US air force 1954. During...
Davis, Benjamin Oliver, Sr(1887-1970) US soldier. He served as a lieutenant in the Spanish-American army, and enlisted in the regular army 1899. Commissioned in 1901, he became the first black US...
Davis, Charles Henry(1807-1877) US naval officer and scientist. He surveyed the waters around Nantucket and contributed to the establishment of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac (1849). He commanded the Upper Mississippi...
Davis, David(1815-1886) US Supreme Court justice. He served as a circuit court judge in Illinois (1848-62), until Abraham Lincoln made him the US Supreme Court justice (1862-77). A presidential hopeful in 1872, he...
Davis, David Michael(1948) British Conservative politician, shadow home secretary from 2003. He became MP for Haltemprice and Howden, near Hull, in 1997, and was MP for Boothferry 1987-97. Between 1997 and 2001, as a...
Davis, Dwight Filley(1879-1945) US public official and sportsman. The US national tennis doubles champion (1899-1901), he donated the Davis Cup. After military service in World War I, he held important political posts and, as...
Davis, Elmer Holmes(1890-1956) US journalist, broadcaster, and author. He was a prominent radio news commentator (1939-42, 1945-53) and headed the War Information Office during World War II (1942-45). His publications...
Davis, Garrett(1801-1872) US representative and senator. He served Kentucky at local government level before being elected to the US House of Representatives by a Whig majority (1839-47). He served in the US Senate from...
Davis, Hallie FlanaganUS theatre organizer, teacher, and playwright; see Hallie
Flanagan. ...
Davis, Henry Winter(1817-1865) US politician. Elected to Congress, he served in the House of Representatives as a
Know Nothing 1855-60; after Abraham
Lincoln's election he became a Republican. He opposed Lincoln's plan for the...
Davis, Jefferson(1808-1889) US politician, president of the short-lived Confederate States of America 1861-65. He was a leader of the Southern Democrats in the US Senate from 1857, and a defender of `humane` slavery;...
Davis, Jefferson Columbus(1828-1879) Union soldier. Although he shot and killed his commanding officer after an argument in 1862, he used his political influence and he went unpunished. He returned to duty and led a corps in General...
Davis, John(c. 1550-1605) English navigator and explorer. He sailed in search of the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic to the Pacific Ocean in 1585, and in 1587 sailed to Baffin Bay through the straits named...
Davis, John William(1873-1955) US lawyer and public official. He was a practising lawyer before his election to the US House of Representatives as a Democrat for West Virginia (1911-13). He became solicitor general in the...
Davis, Rebecca Harding(1831-1910) US writer, a pioneer of American naturalism. She came to prominence with her short story `Life in the Iron-Mills` (1861; a daringly frank depiction of the harsh conditions endured by factory...
Davis, Richard Harding(1864-1916) US novelist and journalist. He was a war correspondent during the Spanish-American War and the Boer War in South Africa, and wrote several books about these campaigns, as well as a large number of...
Davis, Stuart(1894-1964) US abstract painter. Much of his work shows the influence of both jazz tempos and cubism in its use of hard-edged geometric shapes in primary colours and
collage. In the 1920s he produced...
Davis, Thomas Osborne(1814-1845) Irish poet and journalist. Brought up in Mallow, Cork, Davis was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and called to the bar in 1838. Regarded as the national poet in the 19th century, Davis was a...
Davison, William(c. 1541-1608) Scottish secretary to Queen Elizabeth I. He brought the warrant for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth for her signature and was afterwards used as a scapegoat to carry...
Davitt, Michael(1846-1906) Irish nationalist. He joined the Fenians (forerunners of the Irish Republican Army) in 1865, and was imprisoned for treason 1870-77. After his release, he and the politician Charles Parnell...
Davy JonesPersonification of a malevolent spirit of the sea. The phrase `gone to Davy Jones's locker` is used by sailors referring to those drowned at sea. ...
Davy, Humphry(1778-1829) English chemist. He discovered, by electrolysis, the metallic elements sodium and potassium in 1807, and calcium, boron, magnesium, strontium, and barium in 1808. In addition, he established that...
Dawe, (Donald) Bruce(1930) Australian poet. His most successful poems are distinguished by wittily inventive deployment of everyday language and imagery, addressing serious subjects with unsentimental yet gentle dignity....
Dawes General Allotment ActUS federal act passed 8 February 1887 providing 65 hectares of allotment land to American Indian families living on reservations, and extending the protection of US laws to them. The aim of the act...
Dawes, Charles Gates(1865-1951) US Republican politician. In 1923 the Allied Reparations Commission appointed him president of the committee that produced the Dawes Plan, a loan of $200 million that enabled Germany to pay enormous...
Dawes, Henry Laurens(1816-1903) US representative and senator. A lawyer, he was elected to the US House of Representatives as a Republican for Massachusetts (1857-75) and then to the Senate (1875-93), chairing both the...
Dawkins, Henry(lived 18th century) English-born American engraver. He worked as an engraver in both New York City and Philadelphia. He works include Pennsylvania Hospital (1761) and The Paxton Expedition (1764). ...
dawn raidIn business, sudden and unexpected buying of a significant proportion of a company's shares, usually as a prelude to a takeover bid. The aim is to prevent the target company from having time to...
Dawson, William Levi(1886-1970) US representative. A lawyer, he became a Democrat, and served in Congress (1943-70). He opposed the poll tax and worked for fair employment practices. He was influential in delivering Chicago's...
Day-Lewis, C(ecil)(1904-1972) Irish poet. With W H Auden and Stephen Spender, he was one of the influential left-wing poets of the 1930s. His later poetry moved from political concerns to a more traditional personal lyricism....
Day, Clarence Shepard, Jr(1874-1935) US cartoonist and author. His autobiographical memoir Life with Father 1935 became a national best-seller, a long-running Broadway play from 1939, and a popular feature film 1947. Day's sequels...
Day, John(c. 1574-1640) English dramatist. He wrote an allegorical play, The Parliament of Bees, which probably appeared in 1607 and in which all the characters are bees. He collaborated successfully with Thomas Dekker and...
Day, Robin(1923-2000) English broadcasting journalist. Trained as a barrister, he pioneered the probing but polite political interview, and his character became associated with the title of his memoirs Grand Inquisitor,...
Day, Thomas(1748-1789) English writer. His celebrated The History of Sandford and Merton (1783-89) is a typical example of the moral story for children, juxtaposing the wealthy and hard-hearted Tommy Merton and the...
Day, William Rufus(1849-1923) US diplomat and Supreme Court justice. As secretary of state under McKinley, he helped to negotiate peace in the Spanish-American War (1898). President Theodore Roosevelt called him to the US...
Dayan, Moshe(1915-1981) Israeli general and politician. As minister of defence 1967 and 1969-74, he was largely responsible for the victory over neighbouring Arab states in the 1967 Six-Day War, but he was criticized...
Dayton, Jonathan(1760-1824) US representative and senator. Four times a congressman for New Jersey (1791-99) and a one-term senator (1799-1805), his federal career ended when he was indicted for treason. Never...
Dazai, Osamu(1909-1948) Japanese novelist. The title of his novel The Setting Sun (1947) became identified in Japan with the dead of World War II. ...
DBEAbbreviation for Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. ...
DDAbbreviation for Doctor of Divinity. ...
DD tankBritish multi-purpose tank of World War II able to travel on land using tracks and in water using a screw propeller. Developed by a British engineer, Nicholas Straussler, in the 1930s the tank...
De Amicis, Edmondo(1846-1908) Italian novelist, essayist, and travel writer. He was a follower of Alessandro
Manzoni, although failing to share the same powerful creative imagination; his style is versatile and his descriptions...
de bene esse(Latin `of well-being`) in law, doing what is the best possible in the circumstances; the term usually relates to evidence. ...
de Blois, Natalie(1921) US architect. She exerted a major but anonymous influence on many famous office developments, including the Connecticut General Life Insurance Building in Bloomfield, Connecticut (1957), and the...
De Bono, Emilio(1866-1944) Italian general and Fascist politician. He took part in Mussolini's
March on Rome in 1922 and was later governor of Tripolitania 1925-28. As colonial minister 1929-35, he spent much of his time...
de Burgos, Julia(1914-1953) Puerto Rican-born poet and teacher. One of Puerto Rico's leading 20th-century poets, influenced by Pablo
Neruda, she was a prominent member of the literary Vanguard movement in San Juan in the...
De Carava, Roy(1919) US artist and photographer. In 1952, he was the first black American to be awarded a Guggenheim. A successful freelance photographer working for advertising agencies and magazines, he organized...
De Carlo, Giancarlo(1919-2005) Italian architect. His series of buildings in the Renaissance hill town of Urbino (begun 1952) are notable in their sensitivity towards context and urban continuity. The Faculty of Education, Urbino...
de Dominis, Marc Antonio(1566-1624) Dalmatian churchman. A brilliant student and teacher and member of the Jesuits, de Dominis left the order in 1596 and six years later became archbishop of Spalato. Deeply critical of the papacy, he...
De Facto ActIn Britain, statute of 1495 protecting the property rights of those who served any current or `de facto` monarch. The measure reassured both former Yorkist supporters of Richard III that they...
de Filippo, Eduardo(1900-1984) Italian actor and dramatist. He founded his own company in Naples 1932, which was strongly influenced by the
commedia dell'arte, and for which he wrote many plays. These include his finest comedies,...
De Forest, John William(1826-1906) US novelist. He wrote Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty (1867), a realistic novel of the American Civil War, in which De Forest served under Philip Sheridan, and other novels with...
