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

Duce
Title bestowed on the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini by his followers and later adopted as his official title. ...

Duchamp-Villon, Raymond
(1876-1916) French sculptor, the brother of Marcel Duchamp. One of the first sculptors to be influenced by cubism,...

Duchamp, Marcel
(1887-1968) French-born US artist. He achieved notoriety with his Nude Descending a Staircase No 2 (1912; Philadelphia Museum of Art), influenced by cubism and Futurism. An active exponent of Dada, he...

Duchesne, Rose Philippine
(1769-1862) French-born Catholic religious founder and saint. A member of the Order of the Sacred Heart, she was sent to Missouri, where she founded Catholic orphanages and schools. She spent a year among the...

duckboard
Platform of wooden slats built over muddy ground to form a dry path. During World War I, army engineers used duckboards to line the bottom of trenches on the Western Front, as these were regularly...

Duckworth, Ruth
(1919) German-born US ceramist. She went to the University of Chicago in 1964 to teach ceramics. Her work ranges from delicate porcelain forms, to large roughly textured pots,...

Duclos, Jacques
(1896-1975) French communist politician. He was a senator in the Fifth Republic and an unsuccessful candidate in the presidential elections in 1969. He was a pastry cook until he became a communist deputy in...

Ducommun, Elie
(1833-1906) Swiss teacher, journalist, writer, and politician. Ducommun was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1902 with Swiss lawyer and statesman Charles-Albert Gobat for his dedicated work as head of the...

Dudintsev, Vladimir Dmitriyevich
(1918-1998) Soviet novelist. He wrote the remarkably frank Not by Bread Alone (1956), a depiction of Soviet bureaucracy and inefficiency. The authorities' campaign against the book forced the author into...

Dudley, Joseph
(1647-1720) American governor of colonial Massachusetts 1702-15. Sent to London as a Massachusetts agent to prevent the revocation of the Charter of Massachusetts by Charles II, he secretly used his influence...

Dudley, Lord Guildford
(died 1554) English nobleman, fourth son of the Duke of Northumberland. He was married by his father to Lady Jane Grey in 1553, against her wishes, in an attempt to prevent the succession of Mary I to the...

Dudley, Thomas
(1576-1653) English-born governor of colonial Massachusetts. In 1630 he sailed to America with governor John due process of law
Legal principle, dating from the Magna Carta, the charter of rights granted by King John of England in 1215, and now enshrined in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution, that no...

duel
Fight between two people armed with weapons. A duel is usually fought according to pre-arranged rules with the aim of settling a private quarrel. In medieval Europe duels were a legal method of...

Duerk, Bertha (Alene)
(1920) US naval officer. She served as a naval nurse during World War II and the Korean War. She became a captain in 1967, the director of the Navy Nurse Corps in 1970, and, in 1972,...

Dufaure, Jules Armand Stanislas
(1798-1881) French statesman, prime minister 1876-77, and 1877-79. His policy ran counter to that of the Senate and the president and he resigned in 1876, but returned to power nine months later. He became...

Duffy, Ben
(1902-1972) US advertising executive. A media specialist, he spent his 43-year advertising career at the advertising agency, BBDO, New York City. As president, he led the firm through a period of major...

Duffy, Carol Ann
(1955) Scottish poet. Her poems deal passionately with loss, betrayal, and love, and she brings to life domestic scenes from childhood and adolescence. She has won several awards, including first prize in...

Duffy, Charles Gavan
(1816-1903) Irish journalist, writer, and politician. Born in County Monaghan, and educated in both Catholic and Presbyterian schools, Duffy became active in 19th-century Irish nationalist movements, and...

Duffy, Francis Patrick
(1871-1932) Canadian-born US Catholic chaplain. A theology professor at a seminary in Yonkers, New York, and long-time New York City pastor, he served as a World War I chaplain in France to the 69th...

Dufour, Guillaume Henri
(1787-1875) Swiss general and cartographer. In 1864 he presided over the international conference that framed the Geneva Convention. In 1833 the Diet (legislative assembly) commissioned him to supervise a...

Dufy, Raoul
(1877-1953) French painter and designer. Inspired by fauvism he developed a fluent, brightly coloured style in watercolour and oils, painting scenes of gaiety and leisure, such as horse racing, yachting, and...

dug-out
In World War I, term for any underground shelter for troops. Dug-outs were generally excavated close to the trench line to provide places for troops to rest, sleep, or eat in some degree of safety...

Dugdale, William
(1605-1686) English antiquary. His works include the Monasticon Anglicanum 1655-73, a history of English religious foundations;The Antiquiries of Warwickshire 1656;Origines Juridiciales 1666, a history of the...

Duguit, Léon
(1859-1928) French jurist. He attacked abstract notions of sovereignty and the state, believing that the law exists to promote social solidarity; that is, the interaction and interdependence of groups of...

Duhamel, Georges
(1884-1966) French writer. Civilisation (1918), drawing on his experience as a surgeon in World War I, was awarded the Prix Goncourt, but it was for his later novels that he won most recognition. His...

Duhem, Pierre
(1861-1916) French physicist and philosopher of science. His most important works are La Theorie physique: son objet, sa structure, 1906 (English translation The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, 1954), Les...

Duiker, Johannes
(1890-1935) Dutch architect of the 1920s and 1930s avant-garde period. A member of the De Stijl group, his works demonstrate great structural vigour. They include the Zonnestraal Sanatorium, Hilversum...

Duilius, Gaius
(lived 3rd century BC) Roman general. He defeated a Carthaginian fleet off Mylae, on the northeast coast of Sicily, 260 BC, the first naval victory gained by the Romans. The victory was commemorated by a triumphal column...

Dujardin, Karel
(1622-1678) Dutch painter and etcher. He painted landscape, portrait, and genre scenes. He was the pupil of Nicolaes Berchem, whom he resembles in Italianate landscape. His baroque style can be seen in...

Dukakis, Michael Stanley
(1933) US Democrat politician, governor of Massachusetts 1974-78 and 1982-90, presiding over a high-tech economic boom, the `Massachusetts miracle`. He was a...

duke
Highest title in the English peerage. It originated in England in 1337, when Edward III created his son Edward, Duke of Cornwall. The premier Scottish duke is the Duke of...

Duke of York's Monument, the
Monument erected in 1831-34 by public subscription in memory of Frederick Augustus, Duke of York (1763-1827), the second son of George III, who was for many years commander-in-chief of the...

Duke, David
(1950) US Republican politician. A fierce campaigner for white rights, Duke founded NAAWP (National Association for the Advancement of White People) and has been linked to far-right, white supremacy...

Dukes, Ashley
(1885-1959) English dramatist and theatre manager. Among his plays are The Man with a Load of Mischief (1924), a Regency conversation piece, and two adaptations from German, Such Men are Dangerous (1928), from...

dukka
In Buddhism, a term for all suffering, evil, and disease. It is used to describe that which arises from the desire to hold onto pleasant experiences, feelings of comfort, or people we like, all of...

dukkha
Buddhist concept of the suffering that arises from a person's clinging desire (Pali tanha, Sanskrit samudaya or trishna) to that which is inevitably impermanent, changing, and perishable. It...

DUKW
US amphibious truck of World War II; basically the standard 6 x 6 GMC 2.5 ton cargo truck fitted with buoyancy tanks and with screw propulsion when in the water. Principally used to ferry supplies...

Dulac, Edmund
(1882-1953) French illustrator who worked in England. He is noted for his finely detailed and richly coloured book illustrations influenced by Persian art, as in his editions of the Arabian Nights 1907 and the...

Dulany, Daniel
(1722-1797) US lawyer and public official. He established a thriving law practice in Maryland and served several terms in the Maryland assembly. He published a tract opposing the Stamp Act (1765), but remained...

Dull Knife
(c. 1810-c. 1883) Northern Cheyenne war chief. At first friendly to the whites, he turned to war following a massacre. His people were forced onto the Indian Territory and he led a dwindling group on an epic and...

Dulles, Allen Welsh
(1893-1969) US lawyer, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 1953-61. He helped found the CIA in 1950. He was embroiled in the Bay of Pigs, Cuba, controversial invasion attempt, among others,...

Dulles, John Foster
(1888-1959) US lawyer and politician. Senior US adviser at the founding of the United Nations, he was largely responsible for drafting the Japanese peace treaty of 1951. As secretary of state 1952-59, he was...

Dullin, Charles
(1885-1949) French actor, manager, and director. In 1919 he started his own company, which earned a high reputation for its productions of both modern and classic plays staged in an austere but poetic style. He...

Duma
In Russia, before 1917, an elected assembly that met four times following the short-lived 1905 revolution. With progressive demands the government could not accept, the Duma was largely powerless....

Dumas, Alexandre
(1824-1895) French author, known as Dumas fils (the son of Dumas père). He is remembered for the play La Dame aux camélias/The Lady of the Camellias (1852), based on his own novel, and the source of Verdi's...

Dumas, Alexandre
(1802-1870) French writer, known as Dumas père (the father). His popular historical romances were the reworked output of a `fiction-factory` of collaborators. They include Les Trois Mousquetaires/The...

Dumbarton Oaks
18th-century mansion in Washington, DC, USA, used for conferences and seminars. It was the scene of a conference held in 1944 that led to the foundation of the United Nations. ...

Dumitriu, Petru
(1924) Romanian novelist. A leading exponent of socialist realism in the 1950s, he won state prizes for his books. His novels include the family chronicle Boierii/Family Jewels (1956-57). After...

Dummer, Jeremiah
(1645-1718) US silversmith, engraver, and painter. Known as the first American-born silversmith, he completed a Boston apprenticeship with John Hull and went on to make some of the finest silver...

Dumnonii
British tribe inhabiting a territory in modern Cornwall and part of Devon, with a capital at Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter). They were overrun in the early years of the Roman invasion of AD 43 and were...

dumping
In international trade, the selling of goods by one country to another at below marginal cost or at a price below that in its own country. Countries dump in order to get rid of surplus produce or to...

dun
In archaeology, a small fortified enclosure. These circular defences have walls up to 5 m/16 ft thick and easily protected doorways. Like Scottish brochs (stone towers), they may incorporate...

Dún Aengus
Ancient stone fort on a cliff edge on Inishmore, one of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, Republic of Ireland. It is semicircular in plan but is thought to have been circular before part of it fell...

Dunajetz, Battles of
In World War I, ongoing series of battles between Austro-German and Russian forces April-May 1915. Although the Austro-Germans made some gains at the expense of the Russians and captured...

Dunbar
Scene of Oliver Cromwell's defeat of the Scots in 1650, now a port and resort in Lothian, Scotland. Torness nuclear power station is nearby. ...

Dunbar, Battles of
Two English victories over the Scots at Dunbar, now a port and resort in Lothian. 27 April 1296 defeat by John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, of...

Dunbar, Earl of
Scottish title dating from the 11th century. The 12th Earl was deprived of his title and estates by James I of Scotland in 1434, but the title was revived in 1605 in favour of George, third son of...

Dunbar, Paul Laurence
(1872-1906) US poet and novelist. The son of former slaves, he established his reputation with dialect poetry which was collected in Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896). His Collected Poems were published in 1993. He...

Dunbar, William
(c. 1460-c. 1520) Scottish poet at the court of James IV. His poems include a political allegory, The Thrissil and the Rois, written in 1503, celebrating James IV's marriage with Margaret Tudor, and...

Duncan de Cerisantis, Mark
(died 1648) Swedish writer of Latin verse. His `Carmen Gratulatorium` is a poem on the marriage of Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria 1625. He was Swedish ambassador to France 1645, but renounced this...

Duncan I
King of Scotland. He succeeded his grandfather, Malcolm II, as king in 1034, but was defeated and killed by Macbeth. He is the Duncan in Shakespeare's play Macbeth (1605). ...

Duncan II
King of Scotland, son of Malcolm III and grandson of Duncan I. He gained English and Norman help to drive out his uncle...

Duncan Smith, Iain
(1954) British Conservative politician, party leader 2001-03. The candidate of the party's Eurosceptic and socially conservative right wing, he was selected in September 2001 by the party's members to...

Duncan-Sandys, Duncan (Edwin)
British politician; see Sandys, Duncan Edwin. ...

Duncan, Robert (Edward)
(1919-1988) US poet. A key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance of the 1950s (other poets include Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982), Gary Snyder, and Philip Lamantia (1927), he was also, after meeting the...

Duncanson, Robert Scott
(c. 1817-c. 1872) US painter. He was based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is considered the first internationally acclaimed black American artist. Blue Hole, Flood Waters, Little Miami River (1851) is a luminous landscape...

Dundas, David
(1735-1820) Scottish general and writer on military tactics. His Rules and Regulations for the Formation, Field Exercises and Movements of His Majesty's Forces 1792 were published as the official...

Dundas, Henry
(1742-1811) Scottish Conservative politician. In 1791 he became home secretary and, with revolution raging in France, carried through the prosecution of the English and Scottish radicals. After holding other...

Dundes, Alan
(1934-2005) US anthropologist and folklorist. After gaining his PhD, he went into academia. He did important work on the history and, mostly psychoanalytic, interpretation of folklore as diverse as Cinderella,...

dungeon
Principal tower or keep of a Norman castle. The modern use of the word `dungeon` for a prison is derived from the position of the Norman prison in the ground storey of the `donjon`. ...

Dunkeld, House of
Royal house of the kingdom of Scotland 1030-1290. Despite its origins in the struggle between Duncan I and his cousin Macbeth and almost constant pressure from Anglo-Norman and Plantagenet...

Dunlap, William
(1766-1839) US painter, playwright, and theatre manager. After beginning as a painter and a writer of Gothic romances, he moved into the theatre, writing and adapting plays. He also owned and managed the John...

Dunmore, Helen
(1952) English novelist, children's writer, short-story writer, and poet. Her novel A Spell of Winter won the inaugural Orange Prize in 1996. Her other novels include Zennor in the Darkness (1994),...

Dunmore, John Murray, Earl of
(1732-1809) Scottish-born royal governor. As governor of Virginia (1771-76), he offended patriot sympathies by twice dissolving the House of Burgesses. He led a campaign against the Shawnees and he tried...

Dunn, Douglas (Eaglesham)
(1942) Scottish poet and short-story writer. His first book of verse, Terry Street (1969), mainly reflected working-class life. Elegies (1985), recalling his wife's death from cancer in 1981, won the...

Dunne, Finley Peter
(1867-1936) US humorist and social critic. His fictional character `Mr Dooley`, the Irish saloonkeeper and sage, gained a national readership. Written in dialect, Mr Dooley's humorous yet pointed...

Dunnite
US high explosive named after Major Dunn, its developer; also called `Explosive D`. Made of ammonium picrate powder, it was relatively insensitive, and so was widely used in armour-piercing...

Dunois, Jean, Count de
(c. 1403-1468) French soldier. Commonly known as the `Bastard of Orléans`, he was the natural son of Louis, Duke of Orléans (brother of Charles VI). He held Orléans till the arrival of Joan of Arc in 1429,...

Duns Scotus, John
(c. 1265-c. 1308) Scottish monk, a leading figure in the theological and philosophical system of medieval scholasticism, which attempted to show that Christian doctrine was compatible with the ideas of the Greek...

Dunstan, St
(924-988) English priest and politician, archbishop of Canterbury from 960. He was abbot of Glastonbury from 945, and made it a centre of learning. He became bishop of Worcester in 957 and of London in 959....

Dunstanburgh Castle
Ruined castle on the Northumberland coast, England, 11 km/7 mi northeast of Alnwick. It is the largest castle in Northumbria, and served as an outpost of the Lancastrian side during the...

Dunsterforce
Name given to a British military force led by General Dunsterville in the expedition to Baku 1918. ...

Dunsterville, Lionel Charles
(1865-1946) British general. He joined the infantry 1884 then transferred to the Indian Army with whom he served on the Northwest Frontier, in Waziristan, and in China. After various posts in India, he went to...

Dunton, John
(1650-1733) English bookseller and political pamphleteer. His publications supported the Whig Party. Dunton was born at Graffham, West Sussex, and opened a bookshop at the `Sign of the Raven`, near the...

duoviri
In the Roman Republic, a magistracy of two men. The duoviri sacrorum were the two men to whom was entrusted the charge of the Sibylline books (Sibyl); they were...

Dupanloup, Felix Antoine Philbert
(1802-1878) French cleric and writer. Dupanloup was the Bishop of Orléans from 1849 until his death, and wrote many influential works on religious education. Although Dupanloup staunchly defended the temporal...

Dupin, André Marie Jean Jacques
(1783-1865) French statesman and jurist. He was public prosecutor after the revolution of 1830 and president of the Chamber of Deputies eight times 1832-48, resigning when he failed to secure...

Dupleix, Joseph-François
(1697-1763) Governor general of the ...

Duppel, Battle of
In the Prusso-Danish War, successful German assault March 1868 on a fortified position in Schleswig-Holstein, then occupied by the Danes, which opened the way for the invasion of Denmark. A...

Dupré, Jules
(1811-1889) French painter. He became one of the leading spirits of the Barbizon School, inspired by John Constable (Dupré visited England) and the Dutch 17th-century landscape painters. His Crossing the...

Duquesne, Abraham, Marquis Duquesne
(1610-1688) French admiral. He defeated the combined fleets of Spain and Holland off the Italian island of Stromboli in 1676, during the Second War of Louis XIV, for which Louis made him a marquis. He also...

Durán Bellén, Sixto
(1922) Ecuadorean politician and president 1992-96. He took office during a deepening national economic crisis and was successful in reducing the inflation rate of 50% in the early 1990s to less than 10%...

Durand, Asher Brown
(1796-1886) US painter and engraver. His paintings express communion with nature, as in Kindred Spirits 1849, a tribute to Thomas Cole, William Cullen Bryant, and the Catskill Mountains. The founding of the...

Durani
The ruling dynasty of Afghanistan in the 18th and 19th centuries. Their descendants live today on the northern slopes of the Safed Koh. ...

Duranty, Edmond
(1833-1880) French novelist. His best-known novel is Le Malheur d'Henriette Gérard (1860). Among others are La Cause du beau Guillaume (1862), La Canne de Madame Descrieux (1862), Les Combats de Françoise...

Duranty, Walter
(1884-1957) English-born US journalist. Joining the New York Times in 1913, he became its Moscow correspondent and won a 1932 Pulitzer Prize for reporting. Regarded by some as an expert, he has been...

Duras, Marguerite
(1914-1996) French writer, dramatist, and film-maker. Her work includes short stories (`Des Journées entières dans les arbres` 1954, stage adaptation Days in the Trees 1965), plays (La Musica/The Music...

Durban riots
Inter-racial conflict between Zulus and Indians in Durban, South Africa in January 1949. The riots, in which 142 people were killed and 1,087 injured, began when a black youth was killed by an...

Durga
Hindu warrior and mother goddess; one of the many names for the `great goddess`Mahadev?. Durga was formed from the fire of the breath of the Trimurti (Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma) to destroy the...