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

Eleusinia
In ancient Greece, games celebrated at Eleusis, near Athens. They were held in honour of the corn goddess Demeter in the second year of each olympiad (period between the Olympic Games). ...

Eleusinian Mysteries
Ceremonies in honour of the Greek deities Demeter, goddess of corn, and her daughter Persephone, queen of the underworld, celebrated in the precincts of the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, in the...

Eleusis
Town in Greece, on the Saronic Gulf, 22 km/14 mi northwest of Athens. Industries include shipbuilding and the production of iron, steel, and petrochemicals. Ancient Eleusis was the site of the...

Eleutheropolis
Roman name for Beit Guvrin, a village in Israel, west of Hebron. ...

Eleven Years' Tyranny
Pejorative contemporary term for the eleven years 1629-40 in which King Charles I ruled England without calling a parliament; now more usually termed the `personal rule` to avoid the...

Eleventh Amendment
See Amendment, Eleventh. ...

elf
In early Germanic folklore, a dwarfish supernatural being. Elves were believed to be mischievous characters who often interfered in human affairs. They stole young children,...

Elgin marbles
Collection of ancient Greek sculptures, including the famous frieze and other sculptures from the Parthenon at Athens, assembled by the 7th Earl of Elgin. Sent to England 1803-1812, and bought for...

Eli
In the Old Testament, a priest and childhood teacher of the first prophet, Samuel. ...

Eliade, Mircea
(1907-1986) Romanian philosopher and anthropologist of religion. He was a leading figure in the phenomenology of religion, bringing anthropological insights and data to bear on the phenomena of religion. His...

Eliécer Gaitán, Jorge
(1902-1948) Colombian politician who was a charismatic and populist liberal leader. He was assassinated in an urban riot in Bogotá. Eliécer Gaitán held several influential political positions. In 1936, he...

Elijah
(lived c. mid-9th century BC) In the Old Testament, a Hebrew prophet during the reigns of the Israelite kings Ahab and Ahaziah. He came from Gilead. He defeated the prophets of Baal, and was said to have been carried up to...

Eliot, Charles
(1859-1897) US landscape architect. He opened his own Boston firm, creating parks for small New England and Midwestern cities. Joining the Olmsted brothers, he formulated a forestry plan to include existing...

Eliot, George
(1819-1880) English novelist. Her works include the pastoral Adam Bede (1859);The Mill on the Floss (1860), with its autobiographical elements;Silas Marner (1861), containing elements of the folk tale; and...

Eliot, John
(1604-1690) English-born American missionary. He became deeply interested in the American Indians of Massachusetts and learned their language in order to preach to them. He saw the fourteen villages he...

Eliot, T(homas) S(tearns)
(1888-1965) US-born poet, playwright, and critic, who lived in England from 1915. His first volume of poetry, Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), introduced new verse forms and rhythms; subsequent major...

Elis
Department of Greece and ancient country of the Peloponnese region; bounded on the north by Achaea, on the east by Arcadia, on the south by Messenia, and on the west by the Ionian Sea; area 2,618 sq...

Elisha
(lived mid-9th century BC) In the Old Testament, a Hebrew prophet, successor to Elijah. ...

Elizabeth
(1709-1762) Empress of Russia from 1741, daughter of Peter the Great. She carried through a palace revolution and supplanted her cousin, the infant Ivan VI (1730-1764), on the throne. She continued the policy...

Elizabeth
In the New Testament, mother of John the Baptist. She was a cousin of Jesus' mother Mary, who came to see her shortly after the Annunciation; on this visit (called the Visitation), Mary sang the...

Elizabeth I
(1533-1603) Queen of England from 1558; the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Through her Religious Settlement of 1559 she enforced the Protestant religion by law. She had Mary Queen of Scots executed in...

Elizabeth II
(1926) Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1952, the elder daughter of George VI. She married her third cousin, Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in 1947. They have four children: Charles, Anne,...

Elizabeth of Hungary, St
(1207-1231) Hungarian princess and saint. She married at a very early age Louis IV, Landgrave of Thuringia, and was responsible for his conversion to Christianity; in a celebrated miracle, when Louis demanded...

Elizabethan architecture
See English architecture. ...

Elizabethan literature
Literature produced during the reign of Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603). This period saw a remarkable growth of the arts in England, and the literature of the time is characterized by a new...

Elizabethan playhouse
Open-air theatre in use in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The first playhouse was the Theatre, Shoreditch, London (1576); the Globe Theatre (built in 1599 by the company to...

Elizabethan religious settlement
Re-establishment of the Protestant church in England by Queen Elizabeth I during the Reformation. Papal authority was renounced in the Act of Supremacy (1559), and the Prayer Book of 1552,...

Ella
(died 588) First king of Deira (559-88) in modern-day Yorkshire, England. ...

Ellery, William
(1727-1820) American Revolutionary statesman. He was admitted to the bar in 1770 and served Rhode Island as a delegate to the Continental Congress. He signed the Declaration of Independence and was collector of...

Ellil
Alternative spelling of Enlil, Mesopotamian god. ...

Elliot, Jane (or Jean)
(1727-1805) Scottish poet. She was the author of the most popular version of the beautiful `Flowers of the Forest`, a poetic lament for the Scottish defeat at...

Elliot, Walter Hackett Robert
(1842-1928) US Catholic priest and writer. A lawyer and Civil War veteran, he was inspired by a sermon of Father Isaac Hecker to become a Paulist priest. His books included an 1891 biography of Hecker. He was...

Elliott, Denholm (Mitchell)
(1922-1992) English film, stage, and television actor. In his early career he often played stiff-upper-lip Englishmen, and later portrayed somewhat degenerate upper-class characters. In his first film for...

Elliott, Ebenezer
(1781-1849) English poet. His Corn-Law Rhymes (1831) are vigorous, simple, and full of vivid description; inspired by a fierce hatred of injustice, and by...

Elliott, Gertrude
(1874-1950) US actor. She made her first stage appearance in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1894, and made her New York City debut later the same year. She was first seen on the London stage at the Duke of...

Elliott, Jesse Duncan
(1782-1845) US naval officer. He commanded the USS Niagara during the battle of Lake Erie and was accused of failing to aid Commodore Oliver Perry's flagship promptly enough, but this did not prevent him from...

Ellis Island
Island in New York harbour, USA, 1.5 km/1 mi from Manhattan Island; area 0.1 sq km/0.04 sq mi. A former reception centre for immigrants during the immigration waves between 1892 and 1943 (12 million...

Ellis, (Henry) Havelock
(1859-1939) English psychologist and writer of many works on the psychology of sex. His major work, Studies in the Psychology of Sex (seven volumes, 1898-1928), was for many years published only in the USA...

Ellis, Albert
(1913-2007) US psychologist and author. He practised clinical psychology and published many books on psychology and sexual behaviour. He developed Rational-Emotive Psychotherapy, which rejects Freudian...

Ellis, George
(1753-1815) British writer. He attained notoriety 1778 with the publication of Poetical Tales, by Sir Gregory Gander. He was one of the contributors to the Criticism on the Rolliad, a collection of Whig...

Ellis, Harvey
(1852-1904) US furniture designer. Originally an architect, he began to design furniture for Gustav Stickley's United Crafts shop in Syracuse, New York. In The Craftsman, he published brilliant designs for...

Ellison, Ralph Waldo
(1914-1994) US novelist. His Invisible Man (1952) portrays with humour and energy the plight of a black man whom post-war US society cannot acknowledge. It is regarded as one of the most impressive novels...

Ellora
Archaeological site in Maharashtra state, India, with 35 sculpted and decorated temple caves -Buddhist, Hindu, and Jainist- dating from the late 6th century to the 10th century. They include...

Ellroy, James
(1948) US novelist. His novels document the development of post-war Los Angeles and explore the sordid side of US society. In his later works Ellroy has played with the formal structure of the novel,...

Ellsworth, Oliver
(1745-1807) US jurist and chief justice of the US Supreme Court 1796-1800. As a Connecticut delegate to the Constitutional Convention 1777, he was instrumental in effecting the `Connecticut Compromise,`...

Ellwood, Thomas
(1639-1713) English author and Quaker teacher. Ellwood's works include Forgery no Christianity (1674), Sacred History of the Old and New Testaments (1705-9), the poem Davideis (1712), and an autobiography,...

Elmes, Harvey Lonsdale
(1813-1847) English architect, born at Chichester; trained by his father James Elmes (1782-1862), an architect and writer on architecture. In 1836 he won the public competition for St George's Hall,...

Eloi, St (or St Eligius)
(c. 590-660) French saint and metalworker, who became master of the mint in Paris and adviser to the Frankish monarchs Clotaire II and Dagobert I. In 640 he became bishop of Noyon, and he is famous as the...

Elphinstone, Mountstuart
(1779-1859) British historian and statesman. He entered the civil service of the East India Company in 1796 and became one of the founders of Britain's Indian empire. Elphinstone was aide-de-camp to...

Elsheimer, Adam
(1578-1610) German painter and etcher. He was active in Rome from 1600. His small paintings, nearly all on copper, depict landscapes darkened by storm or night, with figures picked out by beams of light, as in...

Elton, Geoffrey Rudolph
(1921-1994) Czechoslovakian-born British historian. During World War II he worked in intelligence before teaching at Cambridge University from 1949 and becoming Regius Professor of History in 1983. His...

Eluard, Paul
(1895-1952) French poet. He expressed the suffering of poverty in his verse, and was a leader of the surrealists (see surrealism). He fought in World War I, which inspired his Poèmes pour la paix/Poems for...

Ely Cathedral
Cathedral in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England. Its long nave, high west tower, adjoining transept tower, octagon, and Lady Chapel, make it a completely original composition that stands out from the flat...

Ely, Richard Theodore
(1854-1943) US economist and an early advocate of government economic intervention, central planning, and the organization of the labour force. He was appointed professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins...

Elymais
Term erroneously applied to ancient areas around Susa by the ancient authors Strabo, Pliny the Elder, and others. They also applied the term `Susiana` to the same are ...

Elysée Palace
Building in Paris erected in 1718 for Louis d'Auvergne, Count of Evreux. It was later the home of Mme de Pompadour, Napoleon I, and Napoleon III, and became the...

Elysium
In Greek mythology, an afterworld or paradise, originally identified with the Islands of the Blessed, for those who found favour with the gods. Later poets depicted Elysium as a region in Hades, the...

Elytis, Odysseus
(1911-1996) Greek poet. His verse celebrates the importance of the people's attempts to shape an individual existence in freedom. His major work To Axion Esti/Worthy It Is (1959) is a lyric cycle, parts of...

Elzevir Press
Dutch publishing house founded in Leiden in 1593 by the printer and bookseller Louis Elzevir (1546-1617). Establishing a high reputation for classic texts that were both well edited and...

Emain Macha
Irish name for the prehistoric earthwork of Navan Fort in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, 4 km/2.5 mi west of Armagh. ...

Eman, `Henny` (Jan Hendrik Albert)
(1948) Aruban centre-right politician, prime minister 1986-89 and from 1994. In 1978 he succeeded his father as leader of the centre-right Aruban People's Party (AVP) and in the following year he was...

emancipation
Being liberated, being set free from servitude or subjection of any kind. The changing role of women in social, economic, and particularly in political terms, in the 19th and 20th centuries is...

emancipation of women
In Britain, the changing social, economic, and political role of women in the 19th and 20th centuries. The inequalities of Britain's traditionally male-dominated society were first voiced by the...

Emancipation Proclamation
Official order made by US president Abraham Lincoln on 22 September 1862, during the American Civil War, that freed slaves in Confederate (southern) states. The order stated that from 1 January 1863...

embargo
The legal prohibition by a government of trade with another country, forbidding foreign ships to leave or enter its ports. Trade embargoes, as economic sanctions, may...

embezzlement
In law, theft by an employee of property entrusted to him or her by an employer. In British law it is no longer a distinct offence from theft. ...

emblem
Any visible symbol; a moral maxim expressed pictorially with an explanatory epigram. Books of emblems were popular in Renaissance Europe. The first emblem book was by Andrea Alciato (1492-1550) of...

embossing
Relief decoration on metals, which can be cast, chased, or repoussé, and executed by hand or machine. In the 16th century the term was also used...

embroidery
Art of decorating fabric with a needle and thread. It includes broderie anglaise, gros point, and petit point, all of which have been used for the decoration of costumes, gloves, book covers,...

Emden
German light cruiser of World War I. It was mainly used as a `commerce raider` in the Indian and Pacific oceans, and sank several merchant ships. Its captain, von Müller, became renowned for...

Emecheta, (Florence Onye) Buchi
(1944) Nigerian-born British novelist. She emigrated to Britain in 1962, and has achieved critical acclaim for her works championing the rights of women. Her novels include In the Ditch (1972),...

emergence
A philosophical theory of the early 20th century postulating that life `emerges` or `grows naturally` out of matter, mind emerges out of life, and God emerges from mind. It was propounded by...

Emerson, Ralph Waldo
(1803-1882) US philosopher, essayist, and poet. He settled in Concord, Massachusetts, which he made a centre of transcendentalism, and wrote Nature (1836), which states the movement's main principles...

Emerson, William Ralph
(1833-1918) US architect. An inventor of the Shingle style, he became influential through numerous 1870s and 1880s designs for New England houses, incorporating Queen Anne and Colonial Revival details. He was...

Emery, (Walter) Bryan
(1903-1971) English archaeologist, who in 1929-34 in Nubia, North Africa, excavated the barrows at Ballana and Qustol, rich royal tombs of the mysterious X-group people (3rd to 6th centuries AD). He also...

Emery, Dick
(1917-1983) English comic actor whose Dick Emery Show was a mainstay of comedy output by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the 1960s and 1970s, making him allegedly television's highest paid star of...

Emin Pasha, Mehmed
(1840-1892) German explorer, physician, and linguist. Appointed by British general Charles Gordon as chief medical officer and then governor of the Equatorial province of southern Sudan, he carried out...

Emin, Tracey
(1963) British artist. Her provocative works, in a variety of media, focus predominantly on a disturbing sexual history and tend toward exhibitionism. As the `bad girl of British art` she gained...

eminent domain
In the USA, the right of federal and state government and other authorized bodies to compulsorily purchase land that is needed for public purposes. The owner is entitled to receive a fair price for...

Eminent Persons Group
Group of seven Commonwealth nations' politicians deputed by Commonwealth leaders in December 1985 to visit South Africa to report on the political situation there. It was chaired jointly by Malcolm...

Eminescu, Mihail
(1850-1889) Romanian poet. His work gave a new richness to the Romanian language, as in the lyrical ballad `Luce&acaron;farul/Evening Star` 1883, and he is considered the country's greatest poet. His...

Emma-O
In Japanese Buddhism, god and judge of the dead, the equivalent of the Hindu Yama. ...

Emo Court
Country house at Emo, County Laois, Republic of Ireland, with a dome and portico designed by James Gandon for the 1st Earl of Portarlington about 1790. The house was not finished when the Earl was...

Emory, William Hemsley
(1811-1887) US army officer and explorer. With the Topographical Engineers, he helped survey the boundaries between the USA and Canada and the USA and Mexico. He commanded the Indian Territory, held western...

emotion
In philosophy, a mental state of feeling, rather than thinking or knowing. In Western culture, Romanticism has encouraged the view that reason and emotion are engaged in a perpetual battle, whereas...

emotivism
A philosophical position in the theory of ethics. Emotivists deny that moral judgements can be true or false, maintaining that they merely express an attitude or an emotional response. The concept...

Empedocles
(c. 493-433 BC) Greek philosopher and scientist who proposed that the universe is composed of four elements - fire, air, earth, and water - which through the action of love and discord are eternally...

emperor
English form of imperator, the title given during the Roman Republic to victorious generals and later the official title of the Roman emperors. ...

empire
Collective name for a group of countries under the control of a single country or dynasty. Major empires in Europe have included the Empire Day
Former name (to 1958) of Commonwealth Day. ...

Empire Marketing Board
Organization formed 1926 to encourage self-sufficiency within the British Empire. Its mandate was to promote the sale of Empire foodstuffs which, in turn, would benefit British exports of...

Empire Settlement Act
British act of Parliament 1922 which provided for the first large-scale state-assisted migration programme undertaken by the British government. Over 400,000 people received state subsidies...

Empire State Building
Landmark building in New York, USA. It is 443 m/1,454 ft high with 102 floors, and was the highest building in the world until 1972, when it was superseded by the World Trade Center, New York (which...

empiricism
In philosophy, the belief that all knowledge is ultimately derived from sense experience. It is suspicious of metaphysical schemes based on a priori propositions, which are claimed to be true...

employee share ownership
Ownership of shares in a company by workers who are employed in the company. Shares may be bought by workers through a regular saving scheme or they may be issued as a form of bonus. Sometimes...

Employer's Liability Act
UK act of Parliament 1880, which obtained for workers or for their families a right to compensation from employers whose negligence resulted in industrial injury or death at work. ...

Employers and Workmen Act
UK act of Parliament 1875 which limited to civil damages the penalty for a breach of contract of employment by a worker. Previously, employees who broke their contracts faced penalties imposed under...

employment law
Law covering the rights and duties of employers and employees. During the 20th century, statute law rather than common law has increasingly been used to give new rights to employees. Industrial...

Employment, Department of
Former UK government department which merged in 1995 with the Department for Education to form the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), later the Department for...

Empress of Heaven
Figure of Chinese legend; see T'ien Hou. ...