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

Gaultier, Bon.
(1816-1909) Scottish writer and translator. He used the pen-name as a contributor to Fraser's Magazine and Tait's Magazine and, together with W E Aytoun, for A Book of Ballads 1845, a collection of verse...

Gautama
Family name of the historical Buddha, Siddartha Gautama. ...

Gautier, Théophile
(1811-1872) French Romantic poet. His later works emphasized the perfection of form and the polished beauty of language and imagery, for example Emaux et camées/Enamels and Cameos (1852). He was also a...

gauze
Diaphanous woven fabric of silk, cotton, fine worsted yarn, or other fibre. Paired warp threads are twisted between each insert of weft, to achieve an open structure. ...

gavelkind
In Britain, system of land tenure found only in Kent. The tenant paid rent to the lord instead of carrying out services for him, as elsewhere. It came into force in Anglo-Saxon times and was only...

Gaveston, Piers
(died 1312) Gascon noble and favourite of Edward II in England. Gaveston was made earl of Cornwall 1307 and when Edward went to France 1308, he left Gaveston as Keeper of the Realm. He aroused much jealousy...

Gavin, James (Maurice)
(1907-1990) US soldier. Known as `Jumping Jim` Gavin, in August 1944 he became commander of the 82nd Airborne Division - the youngest division commander of World War II. During the 1950s he developed a...

Gaviria (Trujillo), César
(1947) Colombian Liberal Party politician, president 1990-94. He was finance minister 1986-87 and minister of government 1987-89. He supported a constitutional amendment that prohibited the...

Gawain
In Arthurian legend, one of the knights of the Round Table who participated in the quest for the Holy Grail. He is the hero of the 14th-century epic poem Sir Gawayne and the Greene Knight. Gawain...

gay rights movement
Political activity by homosexuals in pursuit of equal rights and an end to discrimination. Strongly active since the 1960s, the gay rights movement also seeks to educate the public about gay issues,...

Gay, Ebenezer
(1696-1787) US Protestant clergyman. Named pastor of the First Parish Church, Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1718, he remained there for 69 years and became one of the most influential New England clergymen. A...

Gay, John
(1685-1732) English poet and dramatist. He wrote Trivia (1716), a verse picture of 18th-century London. His The Beggar's Opera (1728), a `Newgate pastoral` using traditional songs and telling...

Gayatri mantra
In Hindu worship, one of the most popular prayers, or mantras. A mantra is a short phrase repeated by the worshipper to still their mind and help them to focus on God. ...

Gaynor, William (Jay)
(1849-1913) US mayor and jurist. In 1909 he retired from the New York Supreme Court to run for mayor of New York City, a post he held until his death in 1913. Backed at first by Tammany Hall, he soon lost their...

Gaza Strip
Strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea, 10 km/6 mi wide and 40 km/25 mi long, extending northeast from the Egyptian border; area 363 sq km/140 sq mi; population (2001 est) 1,022,200, mainly...

Gaza, Battle of
In World War I, series of unsuccessful British attacks on Turkish-held town of Gaza March-April 1917 during the Allied invasion of Palestine. General Charles Dobell w ...

Gazala, Battle of
German victory over British forces in North Africa May-June 1942; the most severe defeat inflicted on the British during the entire desert campaign of World War II. Gazala is a coastal town in...

Gazes (or Gaza), Theodore
(c. 1400-1475) Greek scholar and teacher. A leading figure in the development of Renaissance Greek studies, he wrote a Greek grammar, printed in Venice in 1495, that long remained a standard textbook. He also...

GCC
Abbreviation for Gulf Cooperation Council. ...

GCI
In World War II, abbreviation for ground controlled interception. ...

GDP
Abbreviation for gross domestic product. ...

Ge
In Greek mythology, an alternative name for Gaia, goddess of the Earth. ...

Gear, John Henry
(1825-1900) US politician. A home-schooled, self-made groceryman, he became a leading Republican in Iowa, serving as governor (1877-79), congressman (1887-95), and senator (1895-1900). An advocate of...

gearing
Relationship between company funding that bears a fixed interest charge, such as debentures, and preference shares to its equity or ordinary share capital. When the proportion of long-term fixed...

gearing ratio
Ratio of a company's permanent loan capital (preference shares and long-term loans) to its equity (ordinary shares plus reserves). If the gearing ratio is above 100%, then the company is...

Geary, John White
(1819-1873) US soldier and politician. A Mexican War veteran, he was the first mayor of San Francisco (1850) and he pacified `Bloody Kansas` as territorial governor there in 1856-57. He commanded a Union...

Geddes, Jenny
(lived 17th century AD) Scottish vegetable seller who, on 23 July 1637, reputedly threw her stool at the head of Archbishop William Laud's dean in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, as he was going to read the collect for the...

Geddes, Patrick
(1854-1932) Scottish town planner. He established the importance of surveys, research work, and properly planned `diagnoses before treatment`. His major work is City Development (1904). His protégé was...

Geertgen, tot Sint Jans
(c. 1460-c. 1490) Dutch painter. His name means `Little Gerard of (the Order of) St John`, but little is known about him. Of the few works firmly attributed to him, two best exhibit his...

Geertz, Clifford James
(1926-2006) US cultural anthropologist. He consistently argued for a more open and interdisciplinary approach to his subject. He viewed the structures of society less...

Gehenna
Another name for hell; in the Old Testament, a valley south of Jerusalem where children were sacrificed to the Phoenician god Moloch and fires burned constantly. ...

Gehlen, Reinhard
(1902-1979) German World War II general and intelligence specialist. He became responsible for all intelligence relating to the Eastern Front 1942 and at the end of the war secured all the archives and files of...

Gehry, Frank O(wen)
(1929) Canadian architect. His work approaches abstract art in its use of collage and montage techniques and is associated with the movements of deconstructionism and postmodernism. Based in Los Angeles,...

Geijer, Erik Gustaf
(1783-1847) Swedish historian and poet. His History of the Swedish People (1832-36) is now considered more important than his poetical works. He was one of the founders of the Gothic Society in 1811 and was...

Geingob, Hage Gottfried
(1941) Namibian politician, the first prime minister of an independent Namibia 1990-2002. He spent the period from 1963 outside Namibia, in Botswana and the USA, as a representative of the South West...

Geisel, Theodor Seuss
US author, best known by his pseudonym Dr Seuss. ...

geisha
Female entertainer (music, singing, dancing, and conversation) in Japanese teahouses and at private parties. Geishas survive mainly as a tourist attraction. They are apprenticed from childhood and...

Gela
Ancient Greek city on the south coast of Sicily, founded by colonists from Rhodes and Crete 690 BC. It rapidly grew in importance, and in 582 founded Acragas (Agrigentum). Gela's most flourishing...

Gelasius II
(born c. 1058) Pope 1118-19, successor to Pascal II. Driven from Rome by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, who created an antipope (Gregory VIII), Gelasius took refuge in France, where he inaugurated a policy of...

Gelber, Jack
(1932-2003) US playwright and novelist. His first play, The Connection (1959), marked the revival of off-Broadway as the source of originality in US theatre. His first novel, On Ice, appeared in 1964. Gelber...

Geldzahler, Henry
(1935-1994) Belgian-born US museum curator. From 1960 he was on the staff of New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art and became somewhat controversial for his acquisitions of contemporary American art. He...

Gelert (or Gellert)
Dog owned by Llewelyn I, Prince of Wales. Legend has it that the dog was left in charge of the Prince's baby son and killed a wolf who came to attack him. When Llewelyn returned he imagined that...

Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott
(1715-1769) German poet. His works, mainly educational in aim, broke away from the formalities of earlier writers and prepared the way for Goethe and Schiller. His moralistic novel Das Leben der schwedischen...

Gellhorn, Martha Ellis
(1908-1998) US journalist and writer. She reported on wars in Java (1946), Vietnam (1966), the Middle East (1967), and Central America (1983-85). Her novels include A Stricken Field (1940), Liano (1948), and...

Gelon
(c. 540-478 BC) Tyrant of Syracuse. Gelon took power in Gela, then capital of Sicily, in 491, and then transferred the capital to Syracuse. He refused to help the mainland Greeks against Xerxes in 480 BC, but later...

Gelsted, Otto
(1888-1969) Danish poet. He was a rationalist, and in his verse nature stands for the purity and clarity he was seeking. His later poems demonstrate a political awareness and a desire for human fellowship...

Gelugpa
Tibetan Buddhist tradition founded by Tsongkhapa Lozang Dragpa (1357-1419). The Dalai Lama is always a member of this tradition, though...

Gemara
In Judaism, part of the Talmud, a compilation of ancient Jewish law. It comprises legal discussions on the Mishnah (earlier rabbinical commentary on the law) which were made in the schools of...

Gemayel, Amin
(1942) Lebanese politician, a Maronite Christian; president 1982-88. He succeeded his brother, president-elect Bechir Gemayel (1947-1982), on his assassination on 14 September 1982. The Lebanese...

Gemayel, Bechir
(1947-1982) Lebanese Maronite Christian soldier and politician, assassinated in 1982 while president elect. By the systematic elimination of rival Maronite Christian militia, by 1980 he had uncontested control...

Gems, (Iris) Pam(ela)
(1925) English dramatist. She frequently portrays women as victims in worlds ruled by men. Her best-known plays include Dusa, Stas, Fish and Vi (1975), the feminist drama which first...

genealogy
The study and tracing of family histories. In the UK, the Society of Genealogists in London (established 1911) with its library containing thousands...

general
Senior military rank, the ascending grades being major general, lieutenant general, and general. The US rank of general of the army is equivalent to the British field marshal. ...

General Assembly
Highest governing body of the Presbyterian Church and the supreme court of the Church of Scotland. In the General Assemblies of the established Church of Scotland sit representatives from each...

General Belgrano
Argentine battle cruiser torpedoed and sunk on 2 May 1982 by the British nuclear-powered submarine Conqueror during the Falklands War. At the time of the attack it was sailing...

General Council of the Church
In Catholic Western Europe, an ecumenical council called by the pope for the purpose of debating and deciding major issues of doctrine, resolving major problems and conflicts, and eliminating...

General Medical Council
Statutory UK body set up under the Medical Act of 1858 to maintain a register of qualified medical practitioners in the UK and to supervise and regulate the standards of medical education and...

general strike
Refusal to work by employees in several key industries, with the intention of paralysing the economic life of a country. In British history, the General Strike was a nationwide strike called by the...

general union
Union that recruits workers from a number of different industries and occupations. General unions tend to represent semiskilled and unskilled workers. The largest general union in the UK is the...

general warrants
In England, open writs for the arrest of unspecified persons suspected of committing a named offence. The warrants were issued by the Star Chamber and were mainly used under Charles II. They were...

Genesis
First book of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, which includes the stories of the creation of the world, Adam...

Genet, Jean
(1910-1986) French dramatist, novelist, and poet. His turbulent life and early years spent in prison are reflected in his drama, characterized by ritual, role-play, and illusion, in which his characters come...

genetic engineering
All-inclusive term that describes the deliberate manipulation of genetic material by biochemical techniques. It is often achieved by the introduction of new DNA, usually by means of a virus or...

Geneva Convention
International agreement of 1864 regulating the treatment of those wounded in war, and later extended to cover the types of weapons allowed, the treatment of prisoners and the sick, and the...

Geneva Protocol
International agreement of 1925 designed to prohibit the use of poisonous gases, chemical weapons, and bacteriological methods of warfare. It came into force in 1928 but was not ratified by the USA...

Genevan Academy
College in Geneva, Switzerland, founded by the religious reformer Calvin in 1559 (opened in 1564). It was of great importance in the spread of Calvinism. Calvin's main intention was that his academy...

Genevieve of Brabant
In medieval legend, the wife of the palatine Siegfried. She was falsely accused of adultery and condemned to death, but her life was spared and she wandered in the forest for some years until she...

Geneviève, St (or St Genovefa)
(c. 422-c. 500) Patron saint of Paris famous for her charity and for her predictions of the future. Feast day 3 January. Geneviève encouraged the citizens of Paris to defend their city against the Franks and the...

Genghis Khan (or Chingiz Khan)
(c. 1155-1227) Mongol conqueror, ruler of all Mongol peoples from 1206. He conquered the empires of northern China 1211-15 and Khwarazm 1219-21, and invaded northern India in 1221, while his lieutenants...

genie
Alternative form of jinni, Muslim spirit. ...

genius
In Roman mythology, the spirit personifying the male capacity of a family (gens) to reproduce itself, residing exclusively in the male head of the family. The corresponding female...

Genji
Alternative name for Minamoto, an ancient Japanese clan. Prince Genji, `the shining prince`, is the hero of one of Japan's best-known literary works, Genji Monogatari/The Tale of Genji, whose...

Gennadius
(c. 1400-c. 1468) Greek scholar and theologian. He attended the Council of Florence as a representative of the Eastern Church and at first supported the reconciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches, but later...

genocide
Deliberate and systematic destruction of a national, racial, religious, or ethnic group defined by the exterminators as undesirable. The term is commonly applied to the policies of the Nazis during...

gens
In ancient Rome, a gens was a clan or house that included a number of families with the same name descending from a common ancestor. The families also shared certain legal privileges and...

Genscher, Hans-Dietrich
(1927) German politician, chair of the West German Free Democratic Party (FDP) 1974-85, and foreign minister 1974-92. A skilled and pragmatic tactician, Genscher became the reunified Germany's most...

Gentile
Any person who is not Jewish (the term `non-Jew` is usually preferred now). In the Hebrew Bible the Gentiles are included in the future promised for Israel, which is seen as leading all...

Gentile da Fabriano
(c. 1370-c. 1427) Italian painter of frescoes and altarpieces who worked in a Gothic style uninfluenced by the fashions of contemporary Florence. Gentile was active in Venice, Florence, Siena, Orvieto, and Rome and...

Gentile, Giovanni
(1875-1944) Italian philosopher and politician, whose writings formed the basis of the Italian Fascist state under Mussolini. As minister of education from 1924, he reformed both the school and university...

Gentileschi, Artemisia
(c. 1593-c. 1652) Italian painter. She trained under Agostino Tassi (c. 1580-1644) and her father Orazio Gentileschi, though her work is more melodramatic than his. Active in England 1638-39, Florence, and Rome,...

Gentileschi, Orazio
(c. 1563-c. 1639) Italian painter. He was a follower and friend of Caravaggio, whose influence can be seen in the dramatic treatment of light and shade in his most noted picture, The Annunciation (1623). From 1626 he...

Gentili, Alberico
(1552-1608) Italian jurist. He practised law in Italy but having adopted Protestantism was compelled to flee to England, where he lectured on Roman law in Oxford. His publications, such as De Jure Belli/On the...

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Witty 1925 novel by US writer Anita Loos that tells the story of the classic female gold-digger Lorelei Lee, filmed in 1953 with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. The novel's 1927 sequel was called...

Gentlemen's Agreement
US-Japanese understanding negotiated by US president Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, by which Japan agreed to forbid the emigration of its labourers to the USA and Roosevelt promised to end...

gentry
The lesser nobility, particularly in England and Wales, not entitled to sit in the House of Lords. By the later Middle Ages, it included knights, esquires, and gentlemen, and after...

Gentz, Friedrich von
(1764-1832) German publicist and statesman who was secretary to the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) (see Vienna, Congress of) and chief adviser to Prince von Metternich. In 1804 Gentz went to Vienna and entered...

geochemical analysis
Archaeological technique that involves taking soil samples at regular intervals from the surface of a site and its surroundings to identify, through phosphorus concentrations in the soil, human...

geodesic dome
Hemispherical dome, a type of space-frame, whose surface is formed out of short rods arranged in triangles. The rods lie on geodesics (the shortest lines joining two points on a curved surface)....

Geoffrey of Monmouth
(c. 1100-1154) Welsh writer and chronicler. While a canon at Oxford, he wrote Historia Regum Britanniae/History of the Kings of Britain (c. 1139), which included accounts of the semi-legendary kings Lear,...

Geoffrin, Marie Thérèse
(1699-1777) French scholar. She was the leader of a literary salon in Paris, visited by Montesquieu, Voltaire, David Hume, Horace Walpole, and Stanislas Poniatowski (later king of Poland). She associated with...

geomagnetic reversal
Another term for polar reversal. ...

geomancy
See feng shui. ...

geopolitics
Study of the relationship between geographical factors and the political aspects of states. The significance of geopolitics was recognized by ancient and modern historians such as Herodotus,...

George Cross-Medal
UK awards to civilians for acts of courage. The George Cross is the highest civilian award in Britain for acts of courage in circumstances of extreme danger. It was instituted 1940. It consists of a...

George I
(1845-1913) King of Greece 1863-1913. The son of Christian IX of Denmark, he was nominated to the Greek throne and, in spite of early unpopularity, became a highly successful constitutional monarch. He was...

George I
(1660-1727) King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1714. He was the son of the first elector of Hannover, Ernest Augustus (1629-1698), and his wife ...

George II
(1890-1947) King of Greece 1922-23 and 1935-47. He became king on the expulsion of his father Constantine I in 1922 but was himself overthrown in 1923. Restored by the military in 1935, he set up a...

George II
(1683-1760) King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1727, when he succeeded his father, George I. He was accused, with his minister John Carteret, of favouring Hannover at...

George III
(1738-1820) King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1760, when he succeeded his grandfather George II. His rule was marked by intransigence resulting in the loss of the American colonies, for which he shared the...

George IV
(1762-1830) King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1820, when he succeeded his father George III, for whom he had been regent during the king's period of insanity 1811-20. In 1785 he secretly married a...