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A C Gibbs was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Oregon from 1862 until 1866.
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Andrew G Curtin was an American politician. He was born in 1815 at Pennsylvania and died in 1894. He was a Presidential elector in 1848, and Republican Governor of Pennsylvania from 1861 to 1865. He was one of the 'war governors' who supported the National Government, and furnished 25,000 men known as the 'Pennsylvania Reserve'. He was appointed Minister to Russia in 1869 and was elected to Congress by the Democratic party, serving from 1881 to 1887.
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A G Sorlie was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of North Dakota from 1925 until 1928.
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A H L Fizeau was a French physicist. He was born in 1819 at Paris and died in 1896. In 1847, working with Jean Foucault, he showed that infrared radiation has the same properties as visible light, that is it is reflected, refracted and is capable of forming interference patterns. Then in 1849 he measured the speed of light using a toothed wheel to interrupt the light.
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A H Roberts was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Tennessee from 1919 until 1921.
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A Harry Moore was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of New Jersey from 1926 until 1929.
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A Linwood Holton Jr was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Virginia from 1970 until 1974.
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A M Scales was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of North Carolina from 1885 until 1889.
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A Victor Donahey was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Ohio from 1923 until 1929.
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A W Hockenhull was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Mexico from 1933 until 1935.
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A W Norblad was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Oregon from 1929 until 1931.
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Aaron was a Jewish patriarch and the brother and assistant of Moses. Together with Moses he led the Israelites out of Egypt, and became the first Jewish high priest. Aaron was of the tribe of Levi. At Sinai, when the people became impatient at the long-continued absence of Moses, he complied with their request in making a golden calf, and thus became involved with them in the guilt of gross idolatry. The office of high-priest, which he first filled, was made hereditary in his family. He died at Mount Hor, allegedly at the age of 123, and was succeeded by his son Eleazar.
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Aaron Arrowsmith was an English geographer and map maker. He was born in 1750 and died in 1823. He published major world maps in 1790 and 1794; maps of North America in 1796, the Pacific Ocean in 1798 and published an Atlas of South India in 1822.
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Aaron Burr was an American lawyer and politician. He was born in 1756 at Newark, New Jersey and died in 1836. After graduating from Princeton in 1772 he joined the army at the outbreak of the revolution and served in Arnold's expedition through Maine to Canada, afterwards rising to the rank of colonel. He was a Republican Senator for New York from 1791 until 1797 and later a member of the New York Assembly. He was Vice-President to Thomas Jefferson from 1801 to 1805, having achieved the same number of votes for President as Thomas Jefferson, but having not been chosen for President by the House of Representatives which preferred Thomas Jefferson. In 1804 he fought a duel with Hamilton which resulted in Hamilton being mortally wounded. After retiring from the position of Vice-President he allegedly plotted the formation of an independent state in the Southwest, and was arrested and charged with treason, but was acquitted and subsequently left the USA for Europe, returning some years later to obscurity and poverty.
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Aaron Copland was an American composer. He was born in 1900 and died in 1990. He composed Appalachian Spring, Fanfare for the Common Man, Lincoln Portrait.
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Aaron Ogden was an American politician. He was a Federalist governor of New Jersey from 1812 until 1813.
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Aaron A Sargent was an American politician. He was born in 1827 and died in 1887. He represented California in the US Congress as a Republican from 1861 to 1863, and from 1869 to 1873, and was a US Senator from 1873 to 1879. He was Minister to Germany from 1883 to 1884.
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Aaron T Bliss was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Michigan from 1901 until 1904.
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Aaron V Brown was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Tennessee from 1845 until 1847.
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The Abada (Ababdeh) are a nomadic African tribe of Hamitic origin. They extend from the Nile at Assuan to the Red Sea, and reach northward to the Kena-Kosseir road, thus occupying the southern border of Egypt east of the Nile. They call themselves 'sons of the Jinns'. With some of the clans of the Bisharin and possibly the Hadendoa they represent the Blemmyes of classic geographers, and their location today is almost identical with that assigned them in Roman times. They were constantly at war with the Romans, who at last subdued them. In the middle ages they were known as the Beja, and conveyed pilgrims from the Nile valley to Aidhab, the port of embarkation for Jedda. From time immemorial they have acted as guides to caravans through the Nubian desert and up the Nile valley as far as Sennar.
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An abandonee is an underwriter to whom the salvage of a wreck is abandoned.
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Abbas was the Uncle of Mohammed. He was born in 566 and died in 652.
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Abbas I (Abbas The Great) was a Shah of Persia. He was born in 1557 and died in 1629. In 1597 he crushed the Uzbek rebels, advanced into Afghanistan and in 1605 defeated the Turks. Under his rule, which lasted from 1587 to 1629, Persian territory was extended from the Tigris to the Indus.
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Abbas II (Hilmi Pasha) was khedive of Egypt. He was born in 1874 and died in 1944. He became in 1892 and held the position until he was deposed by the British in 1914 under suspicion of plotting with Turkey against British rule in Egypt.
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Abbas Himi Pasha was the last Khedive of Egypt. He was born in 1874 at Alexandria and died in 1944. He attempted to rule Egypt independently of British influence and in 1914 with the outbreak of war sided with Turkey, being deposed and exiled later that year when Britain made Egypt a protectorate.
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An Abbasid was a member of a dynasty of caliphs who ruled in Baghdad from 750 until 1258. They claimed to be descended from Abbas.
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The Abbassides were an Arabian dynasty, descendents of Mahomet's uncle, Abbas-Ben-Abdul-Motalleb. Thirty-seven Abbasside caliphs reigned from 750 to 1258. They settled at Baghdad.
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An Abbess is the female superior of a community of nuns in certain religious orders. An abbess has administrative jurisdiction equivalent to that of the abbot of a monastery but does not exercise the rights and duties of the priesthood. The title dates from the 6th century. Most of the original secular privileges of the position, such as membership in the king's council and rank of nobility equivalent to that of temporal peers, were abolished in the 16th century, at the time of the Reformation.
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An abbot is the superior of a community of monks. The word abbot ultimately derives from the Syriac abba, meaning father. The lady of similar rank to an abbot being called abbess. An abbess, however, was not, like the abbot, allowed to exercise the spiritual functions of the priesthood, such as preaching, confessing, etc; nor did abbesses ever succeed in freeing themselves from the control of their diocesan bishop.
In the early age of monastic institutions between about 300 and 600 the monks were not priests, but simply laymen who retired from the world to live in common, and the abbot was also a layman. In the course of time the abbots were usually ordained, and when an abbey was directly attached to a cathedral the bishop was also abbot.
At first the abbeys were more remarkable for their numbers than for their magnitude, but latterly many of them were large and richly endowed, and the heads of such establishments became personages of no small influence and power, more especially after the abbots succeeded - by the eleventh century - in freeing themselves from the jurisdiction of the bishop of their diocese. Hence families of the highest rank might be seen eagerly striving to obtain the titles of abbot and abbess for their members. The great object was to obtain control over the revenues of the abbeys, and for this purpose recourse was had to the device of holding them under a kind of trust, or, as it was called, in commendam.
According to the original idea the abbot in commendam, or 'commendator,' was merely a temporary trustee, who drew the whole or part of the revenues during a vacancy, and was bound to apply them to specific purposes; but ultimately the commendator or lay abbot in many instances held the appointment for life, and was allowed to apply the whole or a large portion of the revenues to his own private use. Many of the abbots latterly vied with the bishops and nobility in rank and dignity, wearing a mitre and keeping up a great style. In England twenty-seven abbots long sat in the House of Lords. The Reformation introduced vast changes, not only in Protestant countries, where abbeys and all other monastic establishments were generally suppressed, but even in countries which still continued Roman Catholic; many sovereigns, whilst displaying their zeal for the Roman Catholic Church by persecuting its opponents, not scrupling to imitate them in the confiscation of church property.
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Abbott Lawrence was an American politician. He was born in 1792 and died in 1855. He represented Massachusetts in the US Congress as a Whig from 1835 to 1837. He was Minister to Great Britain from 1847 to 1852. He founded the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard College.
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The ABC Club was a name adopted by certain republican enthusiasts in Paris, professing to relieve the depressed. Their insurrection on the 5th of June 1832 was suppressed with bloodshed the next day. The events of the insurrection are described by Victor Hugo in 'Les Miserables'.
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Abd-el-Krim ('The Wolf Of The Rif Mountains') was a Moroccan Berber chief, revolutionary and founder of the North African Liberation Committee. He was born in 1880 at Adjir and died in 1963. Leading unsuccessful revolts against the Spanish and French occupiers of Morocco during the early 1920's he formed the Republic of the Rif and served as its President from 1921 to 1926 before being defeated by a Franco-Spanish army and exiled on the island of Reunion. He was granted amnesty in 1947 and went to Egypt where he formed the North African Liberation Committee.
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Abd-ul-Aziz was a Sultan of Turkey. He was born in 1830 at Constantinople (now Istanbul) and died in 1876. In 1861 he succeeded his brother as Sultan, and continued his brother's liberal and westernising reforms which resulted in the first Ottoman civil code. In 1871 he visited western Europe, afterwards becoming somewhat of a dictator and after revolts in Bosnia, Herzegovina and in Bulgaria he was deposed in May, 1876, and committed suicide, or was more probably was assassinated, in June, the same year. He was succeeded by his son Murad V.
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Abd-ul-Hamid II also known as Abdul Hamid II ('The Great Assassin') was the last Sultan of Turkey. He was born in 1842 at Constantinople (now Istanbul) and died in 1918. He succeeded his brother Murad V, who was deposed on proof of his insanity in 1876, as Sultan.
Abd-ul-Hamid passed the first Ottoman constitution in 1876. At that time Turkey, which was at war with Serbia, was compelled to agree to an armistice at the demand of Russia. The persecution and oppression of the Christian population of Bulgaria had roused remonstrances from other European countries, and a congress met at Constantinople (Istanbul) to consider a constitution which the Porte had proclaimed. The conference was a failure, and in April, 1877, war was declared by Russia. During the sanguinary struggle which ensued the Turks fought with great bravery, but they had ultimately to sue for peace. A treaty was signed at San Stefano in February 1878, but its provisions were modified by a congress of the great powers which met at Berlin. Turkey was compelled to part with some of its choicest provinces, while the sultan also ceded the island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by Britain, which in turn agreed to guarantee his Asiatic dominions to the sultan.
Abd-ul-Hamid suspended the Ottoman constitution in 1878 and thereafter ruling as absolute monarch. Abd-ul-Hamid's reign was further disturbed in 1885 by a revolution in Eastern Rumelia, and was stained by the massacre of many thousands of Armenians.
Revolution in Turkey forced him to restore the constitution in 1908 and summon a parliament, in 1909 he attempted a counter-revolution and was deposed and exiled.
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Abd-ul-Medjid was a Sultan of Turkey. He was born in 1823 and died in 1861. Under his rule Turkey continued to liberalise, and he reorganised the courts and education and granted citizen rights. In 1854 he secured an alliance with Great Britain and France resisting Russian demands which subsequently precipitated the Crimean War.
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Abd-ur-Rahman was an Ameer of Afghanistan. He was born in 1830 and died in 1901. Driven out of Afghanistan when he claimed the succession, in 1880 at the end of the second Afghan War he was the candidate acknowledged by the British.
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The Abdals were Persian religious fanatics who considered it meritorious to kill anyone of a different religion, and if to die in the attempt to become a martyr them self. In the late 20th century the same principle of the Abdals became prominent among many Muslims, later known as Islamists in an attempt to prevent offence to those of the Muslim faith, with suicide terrorist attacks being carried out against civilian targets in Britain and Europe.
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Abdul Azziz Ibn Saud was King of Saudi Arabia. He was born in 1880 in Central Arabia and died in 1953.
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Abdul Rahman was the first Prime Minister of the Federation of Malaya. He was born in 1903 in Alor Setar and died in 1990. He was the son of the sultan of Kedah, and was educated in Malaya, Thailand, and England. As head of the United Malay National Organization, he became chief minister of Malaya after an election victory in 1955, and when Malaya attained sovereignty in 1957, he became its Prime Minister. He was the principal architect of the alliance of Malaya with Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah, which in 1963 resulted in the creation of Malaysia.
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Abdullah ibn Hussein was the first king of Jordan. He was born in 1882 at Mecca and died in 1951. After taking a prominent part in the Arab revolt against Turkey from 1916 to 1918, he was appointed emir of the British mandated territory of Transjordan in 1921, and in 1946 with the end of the mandate became king, in 1948 being also proclaimed king of Palestine though with the formation of the state of Israel he lost sovereignty of Palestine. He was assassinated by Arab nationalists in 1951.
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Abdullhak Hamid Tarhan was a Turkish playwright. He was born in 1852 at Bebek and died in 1937.
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Abe Atell was an American boxer. He was born in 1884 and died in 1970. He was world featherweight champion from 1905 to 1912, first winning the title when he was seventeen.
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Abe Kobo was a Japanese writer. He was born in 1924 at Tokyo and died in 1993. A trained doctor, he turned to literature winning the Akutagawa prize in 1951 for 'The Wall'.
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Abebe Bikila was an Ethiopian athlete. He was born in 1932 and died in 1973. He won the marathon in the 1960 Rome Olympics, running barefoot, and again at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, becoming the first athlete to win the Olympic marathon twice. He was partially paralysed in a motoring accident in 1969 and subsequently competed as an archer in the paraplegic games at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, England.
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The Abecedarian were the followers of Nicholas Storck, a 16th century German Anabaptist. They were so called because they rejected all worldly knowledge including learning the alphabet.
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In the bible, Abel was the second son of Adam. He was killed by his brother Cain.
Abel was king of Denmark in 1250. He was killed in an expedition against the Frisons.
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Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch explorer. He was born in 1602 near Groningen and died in 1659. He became a sailor while still a child and made several voyages in eastern waters before being given command of his own expedition in 1642. Circumnavigating Australia he discovered the land he named Van Diemen's Land in 1642, which was later renamed Tasmania in 1853. He also discovered New Zealand, the Friendly Islands and the Fiji islands. In 1644 he made another voyage and discovered the Gulf of Carpentaria. After other expeditions in 1647 and 1648 he retired and settled in Batavia.
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Abel Pupshur was an American jurist and politician. He was born in 1790 and died in 1844 in the Princeton accident. He was a member of the Virginia Legislature from 1834 to 1826, a Judge of the General Court of Virginia from 1826 to 1841, and a member of the State Constitutional Convention in 1829. He was Secretary of the Navy in Tyler's Cabinet from 1841 to 1843, and Secretary of State from 1843 to 1844, when he was killed on board the Princeton. He wrote an important exposition of the Staterights theory of the American Constitution.
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The Abelites were a Christian sect of the 4th century chiefly found in Hippo in North Africa. They married, but remained celibate affirming this was what Abel, in Christian mythology, had done. The sect maintained itself by adopting children from outside.
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The Abenaki are an Algonquin tribe originally of North American Indians of central Maine, they were almost wiped out in occasional wars with the New Englanders in 1702, 1722 and 1724 and were afterwards moved to French Canada later in the 18th century.
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The Abencerrages were a Moorish tribe of Granada opposed to the Zegris. From 1480 to 1492 they constantly fought. They were exterminated by Boabdil.
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In English history the Abhorrers was a name given to the court party in 1679-1680, who, on petitions being presented to Charles II praying him to summon parliament, signed counter-petitions expressing abhorrence for those who were thus attempting to encroach on the royal prerogative.
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Abigail Adams (born Abigail Smith) was the wife of John Adams, the second president of the USA. She was born in 1744 and died in 1818. She strongly influenced her husband during his political career, proposing to her husband that the government guarantee women's rights. Letters written by Abigail Adams to her husband were published in 1848 and provide an important insight into America of that time.
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The Abkasians are a race of Russian people originally found in the western and southern area of the Caucasus Mountains. At one time they were Christians, but around 1900 adopted Islam and many of them have migrated into Turkish territory.
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Abner Coburn was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Maine from 1863 until 1864.
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Abner Doubleday was an American soldier. He was born in 1819 at New York and died in 1893. He was a general in the American army and aimed the first gun in the defence of Fort Sumter, and also served with distinction at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. He retired from the army in 1873.
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Abner Nash was an American politician. He was a governor of North Carolina from 1780 until 1781.
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An aborigine is a member of an indigenous people or the earliest known inhabitants of a country. The term was first applied to the earliest inhabitants of Italy. In 1838 the Aborigines Protection Society was established in Britain.
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Abraham, originally Abram, was the greatest of the Hebrew patriarchs. He was born in 2153 BC at Ur in Chaldea according to Hales, in 1996 BC according to Ussher, while Bunsen says he lived 2850 BC. He migrated, accompanied by his wife Sarah and his nephew Lot, to Canaan, where he led a nomadic life, which according to myth extended over 175 years. His two sons Isaac and Ishmael were, according to myth, the progenitors of the Jews and Arabs respectively.
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Abraham a Santa Clara (real name Uleich Megeele) was a German pulpit orator. He was born in 1642 and died in 1709. As a preacher he acquired so great a reputation that in 1669 he was appointed court-preacher in Vienna, where he died in 1709. His sermons are full of homely, grotesque humour, often of coarse wit, and impartial severity towards all classes of society.
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Abraham Anquetil-Duperron was a French orientalist. He was born in 1731 and died in 1805. He studied theology for some time, but soon devoted himself to the study of Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian. His zeal for the Oriental languages induced him to set out for India, where he prevailed on some of the Parsee priests to instruct him in the Zend and Pehlevi and to give him some of the Zoroastrian books. In 1762 he returned to France with a valuable collection of manuscripts. In 1771 he published his Zend-Avesta, a translation of the Yendidad, and other sacred books, which excited great sensation. Among his other works are L'lnde en Rapport avec l'Europe published in 1790, and a selection from the Vedas. His knowledge of the Oriental languages was by no means exact.
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Abraham Bloemaart was a Dutch painter. He was born in 1565 and died in 1657. He was the son of an architect and sculptor, who sent him to Paris, where he studied for three years, subsequently returning to Amsterdam and Utrecht, where he settled and painted all sorts of subjects, his landscapes being the most esteemed.
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Abraham Clark was an American statesman. He was born in 1726 at New Jersey and died in 1794. He was a signer of the American Declaration of Independence. At the beginning of the American Revolution he was an active member of the New Jersey Committee of Safety. Later he was a member of the Continental Congress from June, 1776, until 1783, except in 1779, and also in 1787 and 1788; he was a member of the New Jersey Legislature from 1782 until 1787 and of the US Congress from 1791 until his death. He was chosen to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, but did not attend.
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Abraham Cooper was an English painter. He was born in 1787 at London and died in 1868. He became famous for his battle paintings, including his Battle of Waterloo and Gebhard Blucher at the Battle of Ligny.
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Abraham Cowley was an English poet. He was born in 1618 at London and died in 1667. He was one of the metaphysical school of poets who followed John Donne in his use of far-fetched conceits. He published his first volume, Poetic Blossoms, at the age of fifteen. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1636, but was ejected as a royalist in 1643, and removed to St John's College, Oxford. He engaged actively in the royal cause, and when the queen was obliged to quit England, Abraham Cowley accompanied her. He was absent from his native country nearly ten years, and it was principally through him that the correspondence was maintained between the king and queen. On the Restoration he returned with the other royalists, and obtained the lease of a farm at Chertsey, held under the queen, by which his income was about 300 pounds sterling per annum. Abraham Cowley's poems have failed to maintain their ancient popularity, but he still holds a high position as a prose writer and as an essayist. He took a considerable interest in science, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. His chief works are: Love's Riddle, a pastoral comedy; Davideis, a scriptural epic; Naufragium Joculare; The Mistress, a collection of love verses; Pindarique Odes; Liber Plantarum; etc.
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Abraham Demoivre was a French mathematician. He was born in 1667 and died in 1754. He settled in London after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and gained a livelihood by becoming a teacher of mathematics. His chief works are: Miscellanea Analytica; The Doctrine of Chances, or a Method of Calculating the Probabilities of Events at Play; and a work on Annuities; besides Papers in the Transactions of the Royal Society, of which he was a fellow.
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Abraham Duquesne (Marquis Duquesne) was a French admiral. He was born in 1610 at Dieppe and died in 1688. He took part in the defeat of the Spanish at Lerins Island in 1637 and again before Tarragona in 1641. In 1647 he commanded the expedition against Naples. In the Sicilian war he thrice defeated the combined fleets of Holland and Spain, under the renowned De Ruyter. After he had reduced Algiers and Genoa Louis XIV conferred upon him the fine estate of Bouchet, and made it a marquisate, with the title of Duquesne. He was a Protestant and the only person exempted from the banishment of his sect, occasioned by the repeal of the edict of Nantes.
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Abraham Hayward was an English essayist. He was born in 1801 and died in 1884. He wrote 'The Art of Dining' in 1852, 'Juridical Tracts' in 1856, 'Biographical and Critical Essays' in 1858, and 'Sketches of Eminent Statesmen and Writers' in 1880.
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Abraham J Williams was an American politician. He was a Democratic-Republican governor of Missouri from 1825 until 1826.
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Abraham K Allison was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Florida during 1865.
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Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the USA. He was born in 1809 at Hardin County, Kentucky and died in 1865 when he was assassinated at a theatre by John Wilkes Booth. Both in Kentucky and in Indiana, to which in 1816 the family removed, as well as in Illinois, whither they went in 1830, Abraham Lincoln had the privations and also the training of a backwoodsman's life.
In his youth he earned money to educate himself by splitting rails for a neighbour, and so earned the nickname 'rail-splitter'. About this time he also made a flat-boat voyage to New Orleans.
In the Black Hawk War of 1832 he served as captain and private. He tried keeping store and failed, studied law, was postmaster of New Salem in Illinois, and deputy surveyor of the county. As a politician he had better success, and after one defeat served in the Legislature from 1834 to 1842. Meanwhile he removed to Springfield and built up a law practice. From 1847 to 1849 he was a Whig Congressman, but was not notably prominent.
His importance dates from the Kansas-Nebraska controversy. In its progress he became the Republican State leader, and in 1858 he took part with Stephen A Douglas in a series of joint debates in canvassing for the US Senatorship. Abraham Lincoln was defeated, but the discussion had aroused great interest, and his utterances, e.g.: 'a house divided against itself cannot stand', brought him into national prominence. In February, 1860, he delivered a remarkable political speech at the Cooper Institute, New York.
He was pressed for the Presidency by many Western Republicans in the Chicago Convention in May, though Seward was in the lead at the outset. Amid great excitement Abraham Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot, and elected, by 180 electoral votes, over Douglas, Breckenridge and Bell. This first victory of the Republicans decided the Secessionists, and when the new President delivered his conciliatory inaugural address the country was drifting toward civil war.
In the Cabinet Seward had the Department of State, Chase the Treasury, Cameron, and soon afterward Stanton, War, Welles the Navy, Caleb B. Smith the Interior, Edward Bates was Attorney-General, and Montgomery Blair Postmaster-General. Immediately on the fall of Port Sumter the President, on April the 15th, 1861, called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Rebellion. He soon issued a call for additional troops, instituted a blockade, and summoned Congress to meet in extra session on July the 4th.
As the 'War President' Abraham Lincoln is identified with a great part of the history of the struggle. Foreign complications, military and naval movements, domestic politics, as well as routine administrative duties, all claimed his attention; to the people and the armies he was endeared as 'Father Abraham' innumerable anecdotes are related bearing on his humour, strong common sense and sympathy.
On September the 22nd, 1862, profiting by the partial success of Antietam, he issued a preliminary proclamation fixing the coming January the 1st as the date for freeing slaves in insurgent States. The Emancipation Proclamation to that effect accordingly appeared at the opening of 1863. On the nineteenth of November 1863, he pronounced on the battlefield of Gettysburg his short but famous eulogy.
He was renominated by the Republicans on June the 8th, 1864, and elected over McClellan, receiving 212 electoral votes. 'Malice toward none, charity for all' was the burden of his second inaugural. He had visited Richmond after its fall, and was pondering the questions of reconstruction, when on the night of April the 14th he was shot in Ford's Theatre at the capital, and died the next morning.
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Abraham Viktor Rydberg was a Swedish poet, novelist and archaeologist. He was born in 1828 at Jonkoping and died in 1895. From 1855 to 1877 he edited the Handelstidning of Gothenburg; in 1884 he was appointed professor of the history of civilization at Stockholm, and in 1877 was elected to the Swedish academy.
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Abraham Whipple was an American sailor. He was born in 1733 at Rhode Island and died in 1819. He commanded the privateer Gamecock during the French War from 1759 to 1760. He headed the expedition which burned the Gaspe in Narragansett Bay in 1772. In 1775 he was placed in command of two Rhode Island vessels and fought one of the first naval engagements of the American War of Independence. In 1776 he commanded the Providence, which captured more prizes than any other American vessel.
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The Abraham-men were originally a set of mendicant-lunatics from Bethlehem Hospital, London; but as many people assumed, without right, the badge worn by them the term came to signify an impostor who travelled about the country seeking alms, under the pretence of lunacy.
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Abram A Hammond was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Indiana from 1860 until 1861.
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Abram M Scott was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Mississippi from 1832 until 1833.
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Absalom was the third and favourite son of David. He was killed leading a rebellion against his father.
Absalom, or Axel, was a Danish prelate, statesman, and warrior. He was born in 1128 and died in either 1201 or 1202. He became the intimate friend and counsellor of his sovereign Waldemar I, who appointed him Archbishop of Lund. He cleared the sea of the Slavonic pirates who had long infested it, secured the independence of the kingdom by defeating a powerful fleet of the Emperor Barbarossa, and built the castle of Axelborg, the nucleus of Copenhagen. Turning his thoughts to literature he caused the History of Denmark to be drawn up by Saxo Grammaticus and Sueno Aagesen.
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Absalon or Axel was a Danish prelate and statesman. He was born in 1129 and died in 1201. The foster-brother of Valdemar I, whom he helped to the throne in 1157, he was appointed Bishop of Roskilde in 1158 and elected Archbishop of Lund in 1177. As Chief Minister to Valdemar I, he led an army against the Wends in 1169 and extended Danish territories in the Baltic by capturing Rugen. In 1169 he built a fortress at Havn, around which subsequently developed the city of Copenhagen. In 1184, as Chief Minister to Knut VI he led an expedition that captured Mecklenburg and Pomerania. While Archbishop of Lund, he organised the systematization of Danish ecclesiastical law.
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Abu Al-Fida (Abulfida) was an Arabian historian and geographer. He was born 1273 at Damascus and died in 1331 He took part in the siege of Tripoli in 1289 and the siege of Acre in 1291. In 1310 he was appointed governor of the city of Hamah, which he ruled over with almost absolute power. In 1312 he was made prince, and in 1320 he was given the title of sultan and the right to transmit the title to his descendants. His most important work was 'An Abridgment of the History of the Human Race', a book that traces human history until 1329 and is especially valuable as a source for the period of the Crusades.
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Abu Bakr was the first caliph from 632 to 634. He was born in 573 at Mecca and died in 634. He was the father of Aisha, the wife of the prophet Mohammed. He became Mohammed's most trusted follower, accompanying him on the Hegira. After Mohammed died, Abu Bakr was made caliph, or successor to the Prophet, by an assembly of the faithful. As caliph, he prevented some tribes from reverting to heathenism and fought successfully against Persia and the Byzantine Empire. He was succeeded by Umar I.
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Abu Nuwas was a Persian poet. He was born about 760 and died about 814. A favourite at the court of the caliph Harun al-Raschid in Baghdad, he is mentioned in the Arabian Nights. He abandoned older, traditional forms for erotic and witty lyrics and was considered one of the greatest poets of the 'Abbasid period.
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AbuTammam (Abu Tamman Habib ibn Aws) was a Palestinian poet. He was born in 807 near Lake Tiberias and died in 850. He rose to favour under caliphs al-Ma'mun and al-Mutasim as a composer of panegyrics. He travelled extensively and discovered a private library of desert poetry at Hamadhan from which he compiled an anthology of early Arab poetry, the Hamasu.
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Abu-Abdallah Mohammed Edrisi was an Arabian geographer. He was born about 1100 and died about 1180. A descendant of the ancient princely family of the Edrisites, he studied at the Moorish University of Cordova, after which he travelled through various countries. At the request of King Roger II of Sicily he constructed a globe with a map of the earth, which represented all the geographical knowledge of the age. He accompanied this with a descriptive treatise completed about 1150, and still extant in the 19th century.
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Abul Kasim Mansu Firdusi was a Persian epic poet. He was born about 931 at Khorassan and died in about 1020. At the request of the Sultan Mahmud, of Ghuznee, Firdusi undertook to write an epic on the history of the Persian kings, the sultan promising him a piece of gold for each verse. Firdusi devoted a large number of years to this work, and produced an historical poem of 60,000 verses, entitled Shanameh ('Book of the King's'), containing the history of the Persian rulers from the beginning of the world to the downfall of the Sassanian dynasty in 632 AD, and consisting properly of a succession of historical epics. The sultan, prejudiced against Firdusi by the poet's enemies, gave him only a piece of silver for each verse. In return Firdusi retaliated with one of the bitterest and severest satires ever penned. The resentment of Mahmud compelled the poet to wander from court to court seeking a protection which the sovereigns were afraid to give. The Shanameh is one of the finest Asiatic poems. No work in the Persian language can be compared with it. It abounds in rich imagery, contains many passages of splendid poetry, and is of great interest to historians and ethnologists. A French translation of the Shanameh by Mohl, with the Persian text, was published by the French government.
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Abulfeda was an Arab writer and sultan of Hamah. He was born in 1273 and died in 1331. He achieved successes against the Crusaders and Mongols on the battlefield and wrote various books.
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The Acacians were followers of Acacius, bishop of Caesarea, in the 4th century, who held peculiar doctrines respecting the nature of Christ. The
Acacians were partisans of Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople, promoter of the Henoticon.
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The Accadians were the primitive inhabitants of Babylonia described in the cuneiform inscriptions.
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An accountant is someone who keeps accounts.
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The Achaeans were one of the four races into which the ancient Greeks were divided. In early times they inhabited a part of Northern Greece and of the Peloponnesus. They are represented by Homer as a brave and warlike people, and so distinguished were they that he usually calls the Greeks in general Achaeans. Latterly they were settled in the district of the Peloponnesus, called after them Achaia, and forming a narrow belt of coast on the south side of the Gulf of Corinth. From very early times a confederacy or league existed among the twelve towns of this region. After the death of Alexander the Great it was broken up, but was revived again, in 280 BC, and from this time grew in power until it spread over the whole Peloponnesus. It was finally dissolved by the Romans, in 147 BC, and after this the whole of Greece, except Thessaly, was called Achaia or Achgea. *Acholi
The Acholi are a farming and pastoral people of northern Uganda and southern Sudan.
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The term acolyte was used in the ancient Latin and Greek Churches, for a person of ecclesiastical rank next in order below the sub-deacons, whose office it was to attend to the officiating' priest. The name is still retained in the Roman Catholic Church.
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An acrobat is someone who performs daring gymnastics.
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An actress is a female dramatic performer (actor). A woman who performs in plays. Samuel Pepys, a keen spectator of plays, describes first seeing women performing in a play - 'Beggars Bush' which had previously opened in Autumn 1660 with an all-male cast - in early January 1661, previous to that date, in England and western Europe, the parts of women in plays were played by men.
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An acutiator was a person in the Middle Ages who attended armies and knights to sharpen their weapons and instruments of war.
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Ada Negri was an Italian poet. She was born in 1870 and died in 1945. Her first book of verses, 'Fatalita/Destiny', was published in 1892 and her success was rapid. Her early poetry was that of an authentic daughter of the people, and was filled with a sense of revolt. The later work lost some of its spontaneity and became more classical in form although her themes were still humanitarian and feminist. Among her books of poems are 'Tempeste' published in 1895, 'Maternita' published in 1904, 'Esilio' published in 1914, 'Il libro di Mara' published in 1919, 'I canti dell'isola' published in 1925, and 'Vespertina' published in 1931. In the novel 'Stella Mattutina' published in 1921 she gave a lyrical description in poetic prose of her childhood.
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Adam Afzelius was a Swedish naturalist. He was born in 1750 and died in 1837. He was a pupil of Linnaeus; demonstrator of botany at Upsala in 1785, visited Sierra Leone in 1792 and lived for a time in London as secretary to the Swedish Ambassador. From 1812 he was professor of materia medica at Upsala.
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Adam Bell was a northern British outlaw, reputedly an excellent archer from whence evolved the term Adam Bell meaning a good archer.
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Adam Clarke was an Irish Methodist divine and scholar. He was born in 1762 in county Londonderry, Ireland and died in 1832 of cholera. He became an itinerant Methodist preacher, and continued to travel in various circuits until 1805, after which he resided chiefly in London, dying of cholera at Bayswater in 1832. He was learned in the Oriental languages, and published a commentary on the Scriptures (1810-26), a Bibliographical Dictionary, and other works.
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Prince Adam George Czartoryski was a Polish statesman and patriot. He was born in 1770 and died in 1861. Educated at the University of Edinburgh and in London, he fought under Kosciusko, and after the partition of his country in 1795 was sent to St Petersburg, where he formed a close friendship with Prince Alexander, and was made minister of foreign affairs. In 1805 he resigned his office, and withdrew soon after from public affairs. On the outbreak of the Polish revolution in 1830 he took an active part and became the head of the national government. After the failure he lived at Paris.
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Adam De La Halle (Adam le Bossu) was a French trouvere. He was born in 1237 at Arras and died in 1287. He was a member of the retinue of Charles of Anjou, later King Charles II of Naples. His prose drama, Le jeu de la feuillee (The Play of the Greensward), a satirical fantasy, is commonly considered the earliest comedy in French. His musical play Le jeu de Robin et Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a pastoral comedy to his own music and text, is regarded as a precursor of comic opera. He also composed motets and polyphonic songs.
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Viscount Adam Duncan was a Scottish seaman, He was born in 1731 at Dundee and died in 1804. He went to sea when young, and was a post-captain in 1761. In the following year he served at the taking of Havana; and in 1779 he shared in the victory of Admiral Rodney over the Spaniards. In 1789 he became rear-admiral of the blue, and in 1794 vice-admiral of the white squadron. The following year he was appointed commander of the North Sea fleet, and in October, 1797, won a brilliant victory over the Dutch fleet off Camperdown, for which he was rewarded with the title of Viscount Duncan and a pension of 2000 pounds a year.
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Adam Ferguson was a Scottish historical and political writer. He was born in 1724 and died in 1816. In 1757 he succeeded David Hume as keeper of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, in 1759 was made professor of natural philosophy in the university, and in 1764 of moral philosophy. He resigned his chair in 1784. Among his chief works are an Essay on Civil Society (1767), Institutes of Moral Philosophy (1769), History of the Roman Republic (1783), Moral and Political Science (1792).
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Adam McMullen was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Nebraska from 1925 until 1929.
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Adam Sedgwick was an English geologist. He was born in 1785 and died in 1873. He mapped the rocks of the Lake District in 1822.
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Adam Smith was a Scottish economist. He was born in 1723 at Kirkcaldy and died in 1790. Educated at Kirkcaldy and the University of Glasgow in 1740 he went to Balliol College, Oxford. In 1748 he began to lecture in Edinburgh, and in 1751 was chosen professor of logic at Glasgow, where from 1752 until 1763 he was professor of moral philosophy. In 1764 he went abroad with a pupil, the duke of Buccleuch, after which he gave ten years mainly to writing and study. In 1776 the result of his labour appeared in the first scientific work on the principles of economy, 'The Wealth of Nations'. Two years later he was appointed a commissioner of customs, a post he held until his death.
Although remembered as an economist, Adam Smith also enunciated a philosophy of his own, that all our sentiments arise from sympathy, and published his thoughts in 1759 in a book entitled 'Theory of Moral Sentiments'.
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The Adamites were a Gnostic sect in Africa about 130, who appeared naked in their religious assemblies, asserting that if Adam had not sinned there would have been no marriages. Their chief was named Prodicus and they defied the elements, rejected prayer and said it was not necessary to confess Christ.
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Adda was the eldest son of Ida and king of Bernicia in 560.
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Adela was queen of England. She was born in 1062 and died in died 1137. She was the fourth daughter of William The Conqueror, wife of Stephen, Earl of Blois and Chartres, and mother of Stephen, King of England. In her husband's absence in the first crusade, and after his death as regent for her sons she proved herself an able ruler and a generous patroness of learning.
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Adelaide was queen of England. She was born in 1792 and died in 1849. The daughter of George, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Meiningen, and wife of the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV, King of England whom she married on the 11th of July, 1818. She had two daughters, who died in infancy. She became queen-consort on William attaining the throne in 1830, and was for a time unpopular from being supposed to be averse to reform. On the death of William she passed into private life, with an allowance of 100,000 pounds a year.
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Adelaide Phillips was an American singer. She was born in 1833 and died in 1882. She went to America from England in 1840. She was for many years the leading contralto singer in America. Her voice had a compass of two and a half octaves.
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Adelard of Bath was an English philosophical writer of the twelfth century. He travelled through Spain, north Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor, and acquired much knowledge from the Arabs, which he put in systematic shape. His chief works were Perdifficiles Quaestiones Naturales, and De Eodem et Diverso.
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Adelbert Ames was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Mississippi from 1874 until 1876.
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Adelbert de Chamisso was a French-born German poet. He was born in 1781 at the castle of Boncourt, in Champagne and died in 1838. His family being driven to Berlin by the revolution, he became, from 1796 to 1798, page to the queen-mother, and afterwards entered the Prussian service, where he remained until 1808. He then revisited France but shortly after returned to Prussia, and for three years devoted himself to the study of natural science at Berlin. In 1815 he accompanied as naturalist an expedition for the discovery of the north-west passage, and on his return took up his residence at Berlin, where he was appointed superintendent of the botanic garden.
He wrote several works on natural history and botany, and an account of his voyage, but his reputation as a naturalist has been somewhat eclipsed by that which he acquired as a poet. In 1804-1806, in concert with Karl Varnhagen von Ense, he published a collection of poems, under the name of the Muses' Almanac; and in 1813 appeared his famous tale, Peter Schlemihl, or the Shadowless Man, the plot suggested by a casual question of Fouque's.
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Adele Marie Emilie Filleul, Marquis de Souza-Botelho, was a French novelist. She was born in 1761 at Paris and died in 1836. In 1779 she married the Comte de Flahaut, and during the French Revolution her husband being executed she fled to England and Germany. While in exile she published the first of her novels, 'Adele de Senange' in 1794. In 1804 she returned to Paris and married the Portuguese minister, the marquez de Souza-Botelho.
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An adept is someone who is proficient at some thing.
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In English history, adjutators were representatives elected by the parliamentary forces in 1647 to act with the officers in compelling parliament to satisfy the demands of the army.
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Adlai E Stevenson was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Illinois from 1949 until 1953.
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An admiral is the commander-in-chief of a squadron or fleet of ships of war, or of the entire naval force of a country, or simply a naval officer of the highest rank. In the British navy admirals are of four ranks: admiral of the fleet, admiral, vice-admiral, and rear-admiral. They were also divided formerly into three classes, named after the colours of their respective flag's, admirals of the red, of the white, and of the blue. In 1864, however, this distinction was given up, and now there is one flag common to all ships of war, namely, the white ensign divided into four quarters by the cross of St George, and having the union in the upper corner next the staff.
The title admiral of the fleet is conferred on a few admirals, and carries an increase of pay along with it. A vice-admiral is next in rank and command to the admiral: he carries his flag at the foretop-gallant-mast head, while an admiral carries his at the main. A rear-admiral, next in rank to the vice-admiral, carries his flag at the mizzentop-gallant-mast head.
In Great Britain the title Lord high admiral is an officer who (when this rare dignity is conferred) is at the head of the naval administration of Great Britain. There have been few high admirals since 1632, when the office was first put in commission. James Duke of York (afterwards James II) held it for several years during Charles II's reign. In the reign of William and Mary it was vested in lords commissioners of the admiralty, and since that time it has been held for short periods only by Prince George of Denmark in the time of Queen Anne, and by William IV, then Duke of Clarence, in 1827 to 1828.
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Adolf Bastian was a German traveller and ethnologist. He was born in 1826 and died in 1905. His travels embraced various parts of Europe, the United States, Mexico, Peru, Australia and New Zealand, Southern and Western Africa, Egypt, Arabia, India, South-eastern Asia, the Asiatic Archipelago, Japan, China, Mongolia, Siberia, etc. His numerous writings threw light on almost every subject connected with ethnology or anthropology, as well as psychology, linguistics, non-Christian religions, geography, etc. One of his chief works is Die Volker des ostlicben Asien (Peoples of Eastern Asia; published in six volumes, 1866-1871).
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Adolf Hitler was a German dictator. He was born in 1889 at Braunau and died in 1945 when he committed suicide. He was responsible for the Second World War and the murder of millions of Jews, Cripples, Homosexuals, Blacks, Gypsies and Communists throughout Europe.
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Adolf Schreyer was a German painter. He was born in 1828 at Frankfort-on-Main and died in 1899. He notably painted battle scenes and animals.
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Adolf Stieler was a German cartographer. He was born in 1775 at Gotha and died in 1836.
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Adolf Von Henselt was a German composer. He was born in 1814 and died in 1890.
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Adolph O Eberhart was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Minnesota from 1909 until 1915.
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Adolphe Charles Adam was a French composer, more especially of comic operas. He was born in 1803 and died in 1856. He wrote Le postilion de Lonjumeau and Le Brasseur de Preston (Brewer of Preston).
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Adolphe William Bouguerea was a French painter. He was born in 1825 and died in 1905. He studied for seven years at the Ecole des Beaux Arts from 1843 to 1850, and for five years at Rome from 1850 to 1855, and in 1855 made a name for himself by his Martyr's Triumph, a picture representing the body of St Cecilia borne to the Catacombs. His works are very numerous, and are generally marked by refinement and elegance. Many of them deal with subjects connected with classical mythology, the Triumph of Venus being the chief. Some are religious or ecclesiastical in subject, a certain number being frescoes, and others portraits, etc.
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Adolphse Bernard Granier de Cassagnac was a French journalist and politician. He was born in 1806 and died in 1880. He began his career at Paris as contributor of literary criticisms to the Journal des Debats, and soon made himself known, and latterly notorious, as editor of various papers, the Globe, the Pouvoir, the Pays, etc, and as being involved in many controversies and duels. He published various books, chiefly historical. Amongst the principal are: Portraits Litteraires, Histoire des Causes de la Revolution Francaise, Histoire des Girondins, L'Empereur et la Democratie moderne.
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Sir Adolphus William Ward was an English scholar. He was born in 1837 and died in 1924. He was master of Peterhouse from 1900, president of the British Academy from 1911 to 1913 and was knighted in 1913.
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Adriaan Brouwer (Adriaan Brauwer) was a Flemish painter. He was born in 1605 at Oudenaarde and died in 1638. He was probably a student and associate of Frans Hals and also was influenced by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. Brouwer worked in Dutch cities and in Antwerp. One of the best of the Flemish genre painters, he is noted for his bright paintings of peasant life, especially raucous tavern scenes. Examples are Smokers and Tavern Interior. In Antwerp he produced fine landscapes, such as Twilight, in subdued earth tones.
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Adrian I was pope from 772 to 794. He established the temporal power of the papacy. A Roman aristocrat by birth, Adrian was elected pope by unanimous acclamation when he was only a deacon. After papal territory was attacked by the Lombard king Desiderius, Adrian called for assistance of Charles, king of the Franks. Charles defeated the Lombards and confirmed the pope in possession of many parts of Italy previously granted by Pepin.
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Adrian II was Pope. He was born in 792 and died in 872. A Roman, he was elected pope in 867, at the age of seventy-five years. He died in the midst of conflicts with the Greek Church.
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Adrian III was Pope. He was a Roman, and was elected in 884, was pope for one year and four months only. He was the first pope that changed his name on the occasion of his exaltation.
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Adrian IV was the only ever English born pope. He was born in 1100 and died in 1159. He was born Nicholas Breakspear and entered the monastery of Saint Rufus near Avignon in France. He was successively appointed abbot of the monastery in 1137, cardinal bishop of Albano in 1150, and papal legate to Scandinavia in 1152, holding the post until 1154. When he returned to Rome, he was unanimously elected pope upon the death of Anastasius IV in 1154, and held the post until his death in 1159.
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Adrian V was Pope. He was born Ottoboni da Fiesco. A native of Genoa, he settled, as legate of the pope, the dispute between King Henry III of England and his nobles, in favour of the former; but died a month after his election to the papal chair in 1276.
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Adrian Van de Velde was a Dutch painter. He was born in 1639 at Amsterdam and dued in 1672. The son of Willem Van de Velde the elder, he studied under his father, and under Wynants, Wouverman, and Paul Potter. He excelled in landscapes and coast scenes, with or without human figures or animals. There are many examples of his art in the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam, and he is well represented in the National Gallery, London. A proportion of his works were executed in collaboration with Ruysdael and Hobbema.
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Adrian Van Ostade was a Dutch painter. He was born in 1610 at Haarlem and died in 1685. He was a pupil of Franz Hals and was later influenced by Rembrandt.
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Adrian VI was the only ever Dutch born pope. He was born in 1459 and died in 1523. He was Born Adrian Florensz and became a theologian and teacher. He was appointed tutor to the future Charles V, Holy Roman emperor, and in 1516 became administrator of Castile. He was unanimously elected pope, even though he was not present at the conclave in 1522 and held the post until 1523.
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Adrian Willaert was a Venetian composer and the founder of the Venetian school of musical composers. He was born in 1480 at Bruges in Belgium and died in 1562. In 1527 he was appointed music-master of St Mark's in Venice. He was a prolific composer of motets and madrigals.
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Adrien Balbi was a Venetian geographer and statistician. He was born in 1782 at Venice and died in 1848. In 1808 his first work on geography procured his appointment as professor of geography in the College of San Michele at Murano, and he became in 1811 professor of natural philosophy in the Lyceum at Fermo. In 1820 he proceeded to Portugal, and collected there materials for his Essai Statistique sur Le Boyaume de Portugal et d'Algarve and Varietes Politiques et Statistiques de la Monarchic Portugaise, both published in 1822 at Paris, where he resided until 1832. He then settled in Padua, where he died in 1848. Balbi's admirable Abrege de Geographie was written at Paris, and translated into the principal European languages.
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Adrien Francois Boieldieu was a French composer. He was born in 1775 at Rouen and died in 1834 of pulmonary disease. He early displayed great musical talent, his first opera, La Famille Suisse, being well received in 1795 at Rouen. In 1795 he repaired to Paris, and rose rapidly in reputation, producing several operas, of which the best was Le Calife de Baghdad (1799). Domestic difficulties drove him in 1802 to Russia, where he became musical director to the emperor.
On his return to Paris in 1811 he produced, among other works, his two masterpieces, Jean de Paris (1812) and La Dame Blanche (1825), which place him in the first rank of composers of French comic opera. For some years he was professor of composition and the piano-forte at the Conservatoire.
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Adscripti Glebae (persons attached to the soil) was a term applied to a class of Roman slaves attached in perpetuity to and transferred with the land they cultivated. Colliers and salt workers in Scotland were in a similar position until 1775.
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Adventists are those Christians whose most important belief is in the imminent and literal second coming of Christ. They have occurred in most places in history. A separate movement began in the USA with William Miller, who predicted Christ's return and the end of the world in 1843 - 1844. His followers formed the denomination called Seventh Day Adventists who believe that the second coming of Christ is delayed only by a failure to keep the Sabbath (Friday evening to Saturday evening).
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Aedh was King of Scotland from 877 to 878.
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Aediles were Roman magistrates who had the supervision of the national games and spectacles; of the public edifices, such as temples (the name comes from aedes, a temple); of private buildings, of the markets, cleansing and draining the city, etc.
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The Aedui (Haedui) were a Celtic people of central Gaul between the Arar (Saone) and the Liger (Loire). They were conquered by Caesar in 52 BC.
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Aelfric was a British ecclesiastical biographer. He was born in 955 and died in 1020. He wrote 'Lives of the Saints'.
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Aelius Donatus was a Roman grammarian and commentator. He was born in 333. He was the preceptor of St. Jerome, wrote notes on Virgil and Terence, and a grammar of the Latin language so universally used in the middle ages that 'Donat' became a common term for grammar or primer of instruction.
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The Aequi were an Italian race subdued by the Romans and their lands annexed between 471 and 302 BC. The Aequi were conspicuous in the early wars of Rome, and inhabiting the mountain district between the upper valley of the Anio (Teverone) and Lake Fucmus. They were probably akin to the Yolscians, with whom they were in constant alliance. They were defeated by Cincinnatus in 458 BC, and again by the dictator Postumus Tubertus in 428 BC, and were finally subdued about 302 BC. Soon after they were admitted to Roman citizenship.
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The Aerians were followers of Aerius, a presbyter, in the 4th century, who held that there was no distinction between a bishop and a presbyter and that prayers should not be offered for the dead.
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Aesc was king of the Heptarchy in 488. He was a son of Hengist. In honour of
Aesc the kings of Kent were sometimes called Aescings.
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Aeschylus was a Greek poetic dramatist. He was born in 525 BC and died in 456 BC.
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Aesop was a Greek writer of fables. Aesop is said to have been a contemporary of Croesus and Solon, and thus probably lived about the middle of the sixth century BC. But so little is known of his life that his existence has been called in question. He is said to have been originally a slave, and to have received his freedom from a Samian master, Iadmon. He then visited the court of Croesus, and is also said to have visited Pisistratus at Athens. Finally he was sent by Croesus to Delphi to distribute a sum of money to each of the citizens. For some reason he refused to distribute the money, whereupon the Delphians, enraged, threw him from a precipice, and killed him. No works of Aesop are extant, and it is doubtful whether he wrote any. Bentley inclined to the supposition that his fables were delivered orally and perpetuated by repetition. Such fables are spoken of both by Aristophanes and Plato. Phaedrus turned into Latin verse the Aeopian fables current in his day, with additions of his own. In modern times several collections bearing to be Aesop's fables have been published.
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Aetius Flavius was a Roman general of the western Roman Empire. He was born in 396 and died in 454. As commander in the reign of Valentinian III he defended the empire against the Huns, Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians, etc, completely defeating the first in particular under Attila in a great battle at Chalons in 451. For twenty years he was at the head of public affairs, and latterly was murdered by Yalentinian from jealousy of his power.
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Affonso de Albuquerque was a Portuguese admiral. He was born in 1452 and died in 1515. He was viceroy of Portuguese West Africa in 1503. Portugal having subjected to its power a large part of the western coast of Africa, and begun to extend its sway in the East Indies, Affonso de Albuquerque was appointed viceroy of the Portuguese acquisitions in this quarter, and arrived in 1503 with a fleet on the coast of Malabar. His career here was extremely successful, he having extended the Portuguese power over Malabar, Ceylon, the Sunda Islands, and the Peninsula of Malacca, and made the Portuguese name respected by all the nations and princes of India. Notwithstanding his services and his virtues, he was unjustly superseded in his commands, and so severely did he feel, that he died a few days later.
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An Afghan is an inhabitant of Afghanistan.
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An African is an inhabitant of Africa.
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The Afridis are a tribe or clan on the north-west frontier of India, about the Khyber Pass, who have at various times in history given trouble to the British when India was occupied as part of the British Empire. In 1897-98 a campaign (known as the 'the Tirah campaign') had to be undertaken against them, costly both in men and money before British authority was asserted. In 1905 the Afridis of the force called the Khyber Rifles formed an escort for the Prince and Princess of Wales on their visit to the famous pass, which was then entrusted to their charge.
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The Aga was the title of the leader of the Ottoman empire.
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Aga Khan is the title of the hereditary spiritual leader of the Isma'ili sect of Islam. The Aga Khan claims descendancy from Fatima.
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Agesilaus was a king of Sparta. He was born in 442 BC and died about 360 BC. He was elevated to the throne after the death of his brother Agis II. He acquired renown By his exploits against the Persians, Thebans, and Athenians. Though a vigorous ruler, and almost adored by his soldiers, he was of small stature and lame from his birth. Xenophon, Plutarch, and Cornelius Nepos are among his biographers.
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Agha Mohammed was Shah of Persia and founder of the Kajar Dynasty. He was born in 1740 and died in 1797. Agha Mohammed was the son of the Kajar chief Mohammed Hasan. Mutilated while a child by Adil Shah he became known as the Eunuch. After his father's death he surrendered to the Zend chief Karim Khan by whom he was kept in honourable captivity at Shiraz. At Karim's death in 1779 Agha Mohammed escaped from Shiraz and began his struggle for the crown. In 1795 he took Kerman, massacred the inhabitants, murdered the reigning sovereign, Lutf Ali Khan, and almost exterminated his family. Agha Mohammed was crowned shah in 1796 at Teheran, which he made his capital. The following year he was assassinated by two of his slaves.
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Agis IV was a king of Sparta. He succeeded to the throne in 244 BC, and reigned for four years. He attempted a reform of the abuses which had crept into the state - his plan comprehending a redistribution of the land, a division of wealth, and the cancelling of all debts. Opposed by his colleague Leonidas, advantage was taken of his absence in an expedition against the Aetolians, to depose him. Agis at first took sanctuary in a temple, but he was entrapped and hurriedly executed by his rival.
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Agnes Bernauer was the daughter of a poor Augsburg citizen, whom Duke Albert of Bavaria, only son of the reigning prince, secretly married. He conducted her to his own castle of Vohburg; but his father wishing to marry him to Anne, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick, he was compelled to proclaim his marriage with Agnes, giving her for residence the castle of Straubing on the Danube. The incensed Duke of Bavaria, however, caused her to be seized in her castle during the absence of his son, accused her of sorcery, and had her drowned in the Danube in 1435. Albert in revenge took arms against his father, but the Emperor Sigismund finally reconciled them. The Duke Ernest raised a chapel to the memory of Agnes, and Albert married the Princess of Brunswick.
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Agnes Sorel was the mistress of king Charles VII of France. She was born in 1409 at Fromenteau in Touraine and died in 1450. After entering the service of the duchess of Anjou in 1431 she was taken to the royal court where she attracted the attention of Charles VII and in 1444 became his mistress, remaining so until her sudden and suspicious death in 1450 which the dauphin, afterwards Louis IX, was thought to be responsible.
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Agnes Strickland was an English historian. She was born in 1796 at London and died in 1874. Educated at home, in 1818 following the death of her father she took up writing for a living, producing historical fiction and non-fiction works both alone and in conjunction with her sister Elizabeth.
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Agnolo Gaddi was a Florentine artist. He was born in 1324 and died in 1390. The son of Taddeo Gaddi, his style was compounded from his father and Giotto, and he has been called
the founder of the Venetian school.
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Agostino Di Duccio was an Italian sculptor. He was born in 1418 at Florence and died in 1481. He was an original sculptor, who unlike the other 15th century Florentine sculptors did not follow the work of either Donatello or Ghiberti. Among his early works are reliefs at Moderna Cathedral.
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Cneius Julius Agricola was a Roman consul, general and colonial governor. He was born in 37 and died in 93. A Roman consul under the Emperor Vespasian, and governor in Britain, the greater part of which he reduced to the dominion of Rome he distinguished himself as a statesman and general. His life, written by his son-in-law, the historian Tacitus, gives the best extant account of Britain in the early part of the period of the Roman rule. He was the twelfth Roman general who had been in Britain, but was the only one who effectually subdued the southern portion of it and reconciled the Britons to the Roman yoke. This he did by teaching them the arts of civilization and to settle in towns. He constructed the chain of forts between the Forth and the Clyde, defeated Galgacus at the battle of the Grampians, and sailed round the island, discovering the Orkneys.
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Ahab was a king of Israel. he was born in 875 BC and died in 853 BC. The husband of Jezebel, he allowed the worship of Baal and defended the kingdom against the Syrians and Assyrians.
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Ahmad Ibn Baso was an architect. He was employed by the Almohad rulers of Southern Spain between 1160 and 1185 to produce fortifications and public works. In 1172 he began work on the Giralda minaret, now the bell tower of Seville Cathedral.
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Ahmad Shah was the first king of Afghanistan. He was born in 1724 and died in 1773. He founded the kingdom of Afghanistan.
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Ahmed Shah was the founder of the Durani dynasty in Afghanistan. He was born in born 1724 and died in 1773, On the assassination of Nadir he proclaimed himself shah, and set about subduing the provinces surrounding his realm. Among his first acts was the securing of the famed Koh-i-noor diamond, which had fallen into the hands of his predecessor. He crossed the Indus in 1748, and his conquests in northern India culminated in the defeat of the Mahrattas at Panipat on the 6th of January 1761. Affairs in his own country necessitated his withdrawal from India, but he extended his empire vastly in other directions far beyond the limits of modern Afghanistan. He was succeeded by his son Timur.
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Ahmed Bey Zogu Zog was king of Albania from 1928 to 1939. He was born in 1895 and died in 1961. He became prime minister of Albania in 1922, president of the republic in 1925, and proclaimed himself king in 1928. He was driven out by the Italians in 1939 and fled to England.
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Ahmose I was a king of Egypt. he was born in 1580 BC and died in 1558 BC. he founded the 18th dynasty and freed Egypt from the Hyksos.
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The Ahtnas are a tribe of North American Indians inhabiting the Copper River Valley in south-east Alaska.
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Aidan was king of the Dalriada around 600. He was crowned by St Columba at Iona and completed the separation of Dalriada from the parent kingdom in Ireland, and in 588 conquered the Isle of Man. He attempted to extend his kingdom south by attacking Ethelfrith, king of Bernicia, but was defeated in 603. He died in 606.
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Aime Bonpland was a French botanist. He was born in 1773 at Rochelle and died in 1858 in Brazil. He accompanied Alexander Von Humboldt on his expedition to the New World, during which he collected over 6000 plants, previously unknown and on his return to France in 1804 he was made director of the gardens at Navarre and Malmaison. He later returned to South America to study and live.
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Aime Millet was a French sculptor and painter. He was born in 1819 at Paris and died in 1891. He began to exhibit in 1842, and created a great sensation by his sculptor entitled 'Ariadne' in 1857.
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Aimo Kaarlo Cajander was a Finnish politician. He was born in 1879 and died in 1943. he was Prime Minister of Finland in 1922, 1924 and from 1937 to 1940.
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The Ainos were the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan. They were a short race, averaging about five feet in height with black hair and typically hairy bodies. As recently as 1900 they inhabited the island of Yesso.
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The Ainu are an aboriginal people of Japan noted for their hairiness, they now also live in neighbouring parts of Asia.
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Airey Middleton Sheffield Neave was a British intelligence officer and Conservative member of Parliament. He was born in 1916 and died in 1979. During the Second World War he escaped from Colditz, a German high-security prison camp. He became a Conservative MP in 1953 and as shadow undersecretary of state for Northern Ireland from 1975 and a close advisor of Margaret Thatcher, he became a target for extremist groups and was assassinated by an Irish terrorist bomb.
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Aisha (or Ayesha) was the second wife of Mohammed. She was born in 614 and died in 678. The daughter of Abu Bekr she outlived her husband for fifty years and had a major influence on early Islam.
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The Ajawa or Wayao are an indigenous tribe of Mozambique. They are a warlike, hard working race which until recently were also cannibals. Chuma, the servant of David Livingstone belonged to the
Ajawa.
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The Akawaios are a South American Indian tribe still found in Guyana.
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Akbar was a Mogul emperor of India. He was born in 1542 at Amerkote and died in 1605. He was perhaps the greatest Asiatic prince of modern times. He succeeded his father, Humayun, at the age of thirteen, and governed first under the guardianship of his minister, Beyram, but took the chief power into his own hands in 1560. He fought with distinguished valour against his foreign foes and rebellious subjects, conquering all his enemies, and extending the limits of the empire further than they had ever been before, although on his accession they embraced only a small part of the former Mogul Empire. His government was remarkable for its mildness and tolerance towards all sects; he was indefatigable in his attention to the internal administration of his empire, and instituted inquiries into the population, character, and productions of each province. The result of his statistical labours, as well as a history of his reign, were collected by his minister, Abul Fazi, in a work called Akbar-Nameh (Book of Akbar), the third part of which, entitled Ayini-Akbari (Institutes of Akbar), was published in an English translation at Calcutta between 1783 and 1786 in three volumes, and reprinted in London. His mausoleum at Secundra, near Agra, is a fine example of Islamic architecture.
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The Akka (Tikki-Tikki) are a dwarfish race found in Central Africa in 1869 by Schweinfurth. They average 4.5 feet in height with brown skin, large heads and a projecting jaw. They are a hunting race, renowned for their skill with a bow and arrow.
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The Akurio are an aboriginal people of the jungle of south-east Suriname. They were first contacted by Westerners in 1969 and found to be living with the Trio Indians, who have great respect for the Akurio's knowledge of the forests. By 1998 the Akurio had almost lost their own language, speaking the language of the Trio Indians instead.
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The Akyode are a people of east central Ghana, living in the forests and savannah close to the border with Togo in some nine remote villages. They are an agricultural people growing cassava, yams, plantain, peanuts, rice, cocoa and coffee and trading with other neighbouring peoples.
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Al Capp (Alfred Gerald Caplin) was an American strip cartoonist. He was born in 1909 at New Haven and died in 1979.
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Alain Chartier was a French poet and moralist. He was born about 1386 at Bayeux and died in 1449. He is often considered the father of French eloquence. His poems are often graceful and nervous, and his vigorous prose contains many fine thoughts and prudent maxims.
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Alain-Rene Lesarge was a French author. He was born in 1668 at Sarzeau and died in 1747. He went to Paris, studied law, and became a member of the bar. In 1743 he retired to Boulogne-sur-mer. Lesage may be called the first French 'man of letter'. He resembled the writers of the 17th century, with whom he had much more in common than with Voltaire and his set.
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Sir Alan Mawer was an English philologist and toponymist. He was born in 1879 at Bow, London and died in 1942. After graduating from Cambridge University,
Alan Mawer taught at several provincial universities before becoming provost of University college, London in 1930, a post he held until his death. His early interest was in early English and Scandinavian history, but in 1920 he turned his attention to the origins of English place names, being a founder member of the English Place-Names Society in 1924 and director of its Survey of English Place Names until his death. He was knighted in 1937.
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The Alani (Alans) were a warlike Tartar tribe which migrated from Asia westwards at he time of the decline of the Roman empire. During the 5th century they merged with the Vandals.
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Alaric was a king of the Visigoths. He was born in 370 and died in 410. He is first mentioned in history in 394,when Theodosius the Great gave him the command of his Gothic auxiliaries. The dissensions between Arcadius and Honorius, the sons of Theodosius, inspired Alaric with the intention of attacking the Roman empire. In 396 he ravaged Greece, from which he was driven by the Roman general Stilicho, but made a masterly retreat to Illyria, of which Arcadius, frightened at his successes, appointed him governor. In 400 he invaded Italy, but was defeated by Stilicho at Pollentia in 403, and induced to transfer his services from Arcadius to Honorius on condition of receiving 4000 lbs. of gold. Honorius having failed to fulfil this condition, Alaric made a second invasion of Italy, during which he besieged Rome thrice. The first time in 408 the city was saved by paying a heavy ransom; the second in 409 it capitulated, and Honorius was deposed, but shortly afterwards restored. His sanction of a treacherous attack on the forces of Alaric brought about the third siege, and the city was taken on the 24th August, 410, and sacked for six days, Alaric, however, doing everything in his power to restrain the violence of his followers. He quitted Rome with the intention of reducing Sicily and Africa, but died at Cosenza in 410.
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Alaric II was King of the Visigoths from 484 until 507 when he was killed at the battle of Poictiers by the army of the Franks. At the beginning of his reign the dominions of the Visigoths were at their greatest extent, embracing three-quarters of the modern Spain and all Western Gaul to the south of the Loire. His un-warlike character induced Clovis, King of the Franks, to invade the kingdom of the Visigoths. In a battle near Poictiers in 507 Alaric was slain and his army completely defeated. The Breviarium Alaricianum, a code of laws derived exclusively from Roman sources, was compiled by a body of Roman jurists at the command of this King Alaric.
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Alban Berg was an Austrian composer. He was born in 1885 and died in 1935. He composed Wozzeck, Lulu.
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Alban Butler was an English Roman Catholic writer. He was born in 1711 and died in 1773. He was educated at the English (Roman Catholic) College, Douay, where he became professor first of philosophy and then of divinity; latterly he was president of the English college St Omer. His Lives of the Saints is a monument of erudition which cost him thirty years' labour.
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Albany William Fonblanque was an English journalist. He was born in 1797 and died in 1872. He was educated for the bar, but, devoting himself to journalism, he gained a position on the Times, the Morning Chronicle, and succeeded Leigh Hunt as editor of the Examiner. A reprint of many of his articles, under the title England under Seven Administrations, appeared in 1837. In 1852 he was appointed chief of the statistical department of the Board of Trade.
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Alben William Barkley was an American politician. He was born in 1877 and died in 1956. Brought up on a farm, he graduated from Marvin College and went on to study law at the University of Virginia before entering the law practice in 1901 at Paducah, Kentucky and becoming involved in politics as a Democrat. In 1912 he was elected to the house of representatives and served seven successive terms, winning recognition as a conscientious legislator and supporter of Woodrow Wilson. In 1926 he was elected to the US senate and served until 1949, in 1948 being elected vice-president. He was re- elected to the senate in 1954.
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Albert was first Duke of Prussia, and last grand-master of the Teutonic Order. He was born in 1490 and died in 1568. In 1511 he was chosen by the Teutonic knights grand-master of their order. Being nephew of Sigismund, King of Poland, the knights hoped by his means to be freed from the feudal superiority of Poland, and placed under the protection of the empire. This superiority, however, Sigismund refused to surrender, and war broke out between uncle and nephew. He subsequently became reconciled to his uncle, and obtained his investiture as hereditary duke of Prussia under the Polish crown, the territorial rights of the Teutonic Order being thus set aside. The latter years of his reign were spent in organizing the government and promoting the prosperity of his duchy; he founded schools and churches, established a ducal library, and opened the University of Konigsberg in 1543.
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Albert B Chandler was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Kentucky from 1935 until 1939.
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Albert B Cummins was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Iowa from 1902 until 1908.
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Albert B White was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of West Virginia from 1901 until 1905.
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Albert Barnes was an American theologian. He was born in 1798 at New York and died in 1870. In 1825 he was ordained pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Morristown, New Jersey, and from 1830 until his death in 1870 he had charge of the first Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. He is chiefly known by his Notes on the New Testament, and Notes on the Old Testament.
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Albert Bitzius (Jeremias Gotthelf) was a popular Swiss author. He was born in 1797 and died in 1854. His chief works were 'Scenes and Traditions of the Swiss' published in 1842; 'Grandmother Katy' published in 1848; 'Uli the Farm-servant, and Uli the Farmer' published in 1850; 'Stories and Pictures of Popular Life in Switzerland' published in 1851.
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Albert C Ritchie was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Maryland from 1920 until 1935.
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Albert Camus was a French writer. He was born in 1913 and died in 1959.
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Albert D Rossellini was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Washington from 1957 until 1965.
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Albert Durer was a German painter, designer, sculptor, and engraver on wood and metal. He was born in 1471 at Nurnberg and died in 1528. His father was a skilful goldsmith of Hungary. In 1486 he left his father's trade and became an apprentice of Michael Wohlgemuth, then the best painter in Nurnberg. Having finished his studies he entered upon his 'wanderjahre,' the usual course of travels of a German youth. On his return to Nurnberg he married the daughter of Hans Frey, a mechanic, who has been falsely accused for centuries of embittering his life and bringing him to his grave. In 1505 he went to Venice to improve himself in his art.
His abilities excited envy and admiration. He painted the Martyrdom of Bartholomew for St. Mark's church, which painting was purchased by the Emperor Rudolph and removed to Prague. He also travelled to Bologna, to improve bis knowledge of perspective. On his return to Nurnberg his fame spread far and wide. Maximilian I appointed him his court-painter, and Charles V confirmed him in this office.
All the artists and learned men of his time honoured and loved him, and for many years he was one of the chief burghers of his native town. Profound application and great facility in the mechanical part of his art were the characteristics of Albert Durer, and enabled him to exert a great influence on German art. He was the first in Germany who taught the rules of perspective, and of the proportions of the human figure. He not only made use of the burin, like his predecessors, but was also among the first to practice etching and invented the method of printing woodcuts with two colours.
Among his masterpieces in painting are a Crucifixion, Adam and Eve, an Adoration of the Magi, and portraits of Raphael, Erasmus, and Melanchthon, who were his friends. Among his best engravings on copper are his Fortune, Melancholy, Adam and Eve in Paradise, St. Hubert, St. Jerome, and the Smaller Passion (so called), in sixteen plates. Among his best engravings on wood are the Greater Passion (so called), in thirteen plates; the Smaller Passion, with the frontispiece, thirty-seven pieces; the Revelation of St. John, with the frontispiece, fifteen plates; the Life of Mary, two prints, with the frontispiece. Albert Durer has also much merit as a writer, and published works on Human Proportion, Fortification, and the Use of the Compass and Square.
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Albert E Mead was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Washington from 1905 until 1909.
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Albert E Sleeper was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Michigan from 1917 until 1920.
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Albert Einstein was a German Swiss mathematical physicist. He was born in 1879, and died 1955. His first job was in a patent office in Berne, where, finding the work undemanding, he turned his attention to problems in theoretical physics and in 1905 successfully used the quantum theory to explain the photoelectric effect, for which he received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. In 1905 he also published a paper on molecular motion, and a paper in which he put forward the special theory of relativity, describing the effects of motion on observed values of length, mass, and time. One consequence of his theory is that mass, m, is equivalent to energy, E, a concept expressed by the equation E = mc2, where c is the speed of light. This equation is the basis of all calculations of the energy released by nuclear reactions. He extended his ideas in the general theory of relativity which was published in 1915, and which is concerned with gravitation and the effects of accelerated motion.
The first independent verification of general relativity was obtained in 1919 when the bending of light was observed during an eclipse. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. However, he was unable to accept as final the probabilistic description of physics which quantum theory involved. In 1913 he returned to his native Germany to take up a professorship at the University of Berlin, but as a Jew he experienced Nazi persecution, and in 1932 was forced to leave the country. After a brief stay in Britain he settled in the USA, and eventually became an American citizen.
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Albert G Brown was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Mississippi from 1844 until 1848.
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Albert G Porter was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Indiana from 1881 until 1885.
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Albert G Schmedeman was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Wisconsin from 1933 until 1935.
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Albert Gallatin was an American statesman. He was born in 1761 at Geneva, Switzerland and died in 1849. Educated at the university of Geneva, he emigrated to America in 1780. After varied experiences he settled as a manufacturer in Pennsylvania in 1784. By 1790 he was in the legislature. His rise to State and national prominence as a leader in the Democratic-Republican party was rapid. He was elected US Senator in 1793, but was not admitted to his seat. The following year he helped by his influence to suppress the Whiskey Insurrection. From 1795 to 1801 he was a member from Pennsylvania of the National House of Representatives, and took a leading part almost from the start, especially on financial topics. When his party came into power with Jefferson, Gallatin was invited to take the Treasury portfolio. He filled this position from 1801 to 1813, and has passed into history as one of the ablest of American financiers. In 1813 to 1814 he was peace commissioner in Europe, where his services in negotiating the Treaty of Ghent were conspicuous. He was US Minister to France from 1816 until 1823, and in 1826 he was sent as Envoy Extraordinary to Great Britain. He was later a bank president in New York City, and died at Astoria on Long Island.
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Albert H Quie was an American politician. He was an Independent-Republican governor of Minnesota from 1979 until 1983.
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Albert I was Duke of Austria and Emperor of Germany. He was born in 1248 and died in 1298. The son of Rodolph of Hapsburg, on the death of his father in 1292 he claimed the empire, but his arrogant conduct drove the electors to choose Adolphus of Nassau emperor. Adolphus, after a reign of six years, having lost the regard of all the princes of the empire, Albert was elected to succeed him. A battle ensued near Gellheim, in which Adolphus fell by the hand of his adversary, who was elected and crowned. Pope Boniface VIII, however, refused to acknowledge him as emperor, and ordered the electoral princes to renounce their allegiance to him. On the other hand, Albert formed an alliance with Philip le Bel of France, and offered so determined and successful a resistance to the papal authority that Boniface was induced to withdraw his opposition, on condition that Albert would break with his French ally. During the subsequent years of his reign the emperor was engaged in unsuccessful wars with Holland, Hungary, Bohemia, and other states. His measures to still further strengthen his authority over the Swiss Forest Cantons of Unterwalden, Schwyz, and Uri drove the inhabitants into open revolt in January 1308. While on his way to crush the Swiss he was assassinated, at Aix-la-Ohapelle in 1298, by his nephew, John, Duke of Suabia, whose inheritance he had seized upon.
Albert I was King of Belgium. He was born in 1875 and died in 1934.
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Albert II was a Holy Roman emperor. He was born in 1397 and died in 1439. He was duke of Austria as Albert V and also crowned king of Hungary and Bohemia.
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Albert III was Elector of Brandenburg. He was born in 1414 and died in 1486. The third son of Frederick I he succeeded him in 1440 in the principality of Ansbach and in 1464 inherited the principality of Ansbach from his brother John. In 1470 he received the electorate of Brandenburg from his brother, Frederick II. Under his rule the Franconian lands were reunited with Brandenburg.
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Gustav Albert Lortzing was a German composer, actor, tenor, and librettist. He was born in 1801 at Berlin and died in 1851. After working as an actor he produced his first opera 'Ali Pascha von Janina' in Muenster in 1824.
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Albert Abraham Michelson was an American scientist. He was born in 1852 and died in 1931. He collaborated with Morley and accidentally disproved the existence of an all pervading ether and experimented to find out the speed of light, this work proving useful to Einstein. He won the Nobel Prize in 1907.
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Albert Joseph Moore was an English artist. He was born in 1841 and died in 1893.
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Albert O Brown was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Hampshire from 1921 until 1923.
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Albert P Brewer was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Alabama from 1968 until 1971.
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Albert P Morehouse was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Missouri from 1887 until 1889.
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Albert S Marks was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Tennessee from 1879 until 1881.
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Albert Schweitzer was an Austrian doctor, writer, and religious thinker. He was born in 1875 and died in 1964.
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Albert Sidney Johnston was an American soldier. He was born in 1803 at Kentucky and died in 1862. A distinguished Confederate general, he graduated at West Point in 1826. He served in the Black Hawk War, and soon after entered the army of Texas, and became Secretary of War for that republic. He passed through the Mexican War, was for a short time a planter, and again in the US army rose to be paymaster and colonel. He commanded skilfully the expedition to Utah, and was in charge of the Department of the Pacific when the American Civil War broke out. Having espoused the Confederate cause he was appointed a general and entrusted with command in the West. He fortified the strategic point of Bowling Green, but his forces were driven back, and he was compelled to concentrate at Corinth. From this point he planned a surprise on Grant's army lying at Pittsburg Landing. The attack was executed in one of the fiercest battles of the war, but General Johnston was killed in the afternoon of the first day while leading a charge.
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Albert Sorel was a French historian. He was born in 1842 at Honfleur and died in 1906. Educated at Paris and in Germany, having abandoned the idea of becoming a lawyer, in 1866 he became a public official, but his main interests were literary, and he soon started producing works of verse and prose. His life work, however, was on diplomatic history, particularly the French Revolution, with the first volume of his 'Europe and the French Revolution' published in 1885, the eighth volume being published in 1904.
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Albert the Bold was Duke of Saxony. He was born in 1443 and died in 1500. Son of the Elector, Frederick, he passed a portion of his early life at the court of Frederick III in Vienna. He was a brave and accomplished soldier who fought in the wars of Frederick of Austria against Charles the Bold and others.
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Albert Edward Trott was an Australian cricket player. He was born in 1873 at Melbourne and died in 1914. Moving to England he played for Middlesex, and represented Australia against England in the 1894 1895 season. During his career he twice scored over 1000 runs and took upwards of 200 wickets in one season.
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Albert W Gilchrist was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Florida from 1909 until 1913.
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Albert W McIntire was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Colorado from 1895 until 1897.
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Albertis S Harrison Jr was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Virginia from 1962 until 1966.
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Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great) was Count of Bollstadt and a distinguished German scholar of the thirteenth century. He was born in 1193 and died in 1280. He studied at Padua, became a monk of the Dominican order, teaching in the schools of Hildeslioini, Ratisbon, and Cologne, where Thomas Aquinas became his pupil. In 1245 he went to Paris and publicly expounded the doctrines of Aristotle, notwithstanding the prohibition of the church. He became rector of the school of Cologne in 1249; in 1254 he was made provincial of his order in Germany; and in 1260 he received from Pope Alexander IV the appointment of Bishop of Ratisbon. In 1263 he retired to his convent at Cologne, where he composed many works, especially commentaries on Aristotle. Owing to his profound knowledge he did not escape the imputation of using magical arts and trafficking with the 'Evil One'.
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The Albigenses were a sect which spread widely in the south of France and elsewhere about the twelfth century, and which differed in doctrine and practice from the Roman Catholic Church, by which they were subjected to severe persecution. They are said to have been so named from the district of Aibi, where, and about Toulouse, Narbonne, etc, they were numerous. A crusade was begun against them, and Count Raymond VI of Toulouse for tolerating them, in 1209, the army of the cross being called together by Pope Innocent III. The war was carried on with a cruelty which reflected deep disgrace upon the Catholic Church. Beziers, the capital of Raymond's nephew Roger, was taken by storm, and 20,000 of the inhabitants, without distinction of creed, were put to the sword. Simon de Montfort, the military leader of the crusade, was equally severe towards other places in the territory of Raymond and his allies. After the death of Raymond VI, in 1222, his son, Raymond VII, was obliged, notwithstanding his readiness to do penance, to defend his inheritance against the papal legates and Louis VIII of France. When hundreds of thousands had fallen on both sides, a peace was made in 1229, by which Raymond was obliged to cede Narbonne with other territories to Louis IX, and make his son-in-law, a brother of Louis, his heir. The heretics were now delivered up to the proselytising zeal of the Dominicans, and to the courts of the Inquisition, by which means it was brought about that the Albigenses disappeared after the middle of the thirteenth century.
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Albinus Nance was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Nebraska from 1879 until 1883.
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Albion K Parris was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Maine from 1822 until 1827.
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Albius Tibullus was a Roman poet. He was born in 53 BC and died in 18 BC. A member of the equestrian order, he served under Messalla in Gaul and Corcyra, and then retired to Rome, where he devoted himself to literature.
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Alboin was King of the Lombards from 561. He died in 573 or 574 when he was assassinated at the orders of his wife Rosamond. He succeeded his father Audoin in 561, and reigned in Noricum and Pannonia. Narses, the general of Justinian, sought his alliance, and received his aid, in the war against Totila, king of the Ostrogoths. Alboin afterwards (in 568) undertook the conquest of Italy, where Narses, who had subjected this country to Justinian, offended by an ungrateful court, sought an avenger in Alboin, and offered him his co-operation. After a victorious career in Italy he was slain at Verona, in 573 or 574, by an assassin, instigated by his wife Rosamond, whose hatred he had incurred by sending her, in one of his fits of intoxication, a cup wrought from the skull of her father, and forcing her to drink from it.
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Albrecht Adam was a German painter of battles and animals. He was born in 1786 and died in 1862. Three sons of his also distinguished themselves as painters, especially Franz Adam who was born in 1815 and died in 1886, among whose best pictures are several representing scenes of the Franco-German war.
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Albrecht Altdorfer was a German painter and engraver. He was born in 1480 and died in 1538. His paintings and etchings are primarily landscapes, with 'The Victory of Alexander' painted in 1529 his chief work.
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Albrecht Durer was a German painter and engraver. He was born in 1471 at Nuremberg and died in 1528.
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Albrecht Theodor Count Von Roon was a Prussian soldier. He was born in 1803 and died in 1879. He was German minister of war from 1859 until 1873.
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Albrecht von Haller was a Swiss physician and physiologist. He was born in 1708 at Bern and died in 1777. He studied medicine at Tubingen, and afterwards at Leyden under the famous Boerhaave. He became a public lecturer on anatomy at Bern, and afterwards physician to the hospital and principal librarian. In 1736 he was made professor of anatomy and surgery in the University of Gottingen. In 1747 his Primae Lineae Physiologiae appeared, and in 1757 his Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani. Amongst his other works are: Icones Anatomicae (1743), Bibliotheca Botanica (1771), Bibliotheca Anatomica (1774), .Bibliotheca Chirurgica (1774), Bibliotheca Medicinae Practicae (1776). He was ennobled by the Emperor Francis I, and became chief magistrate of Bern, to which he had retired in 1753. Albrecht von Haller had a considerable reputation as a poet. He also wrote three philosophical romances, Usong, Alfred the Great, and Fabius and Cato.
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Alcaeus was one of the greatest Grecian lyric poets He was born at Mitylene, in Lesbos, and nourished there at the close of the seventh and beginning of the sixth centuries B.C.; but of his life little is known. A strong manly enthusiasm for freedom and justice pervades his lyrics, of which only a few fragments are left. He wrote in the AEolic dialect, and was the inventor of a metre that bears his name, which Horace has employed in many of his odes.
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An Alcalde or Alcaide is the magistrate in the Spanish and Portuguese towns, to whom the administration of justice and the regulation of the police is committed. His office nearly corresponds to that of the British justice of the peace. The name and the office are of Moorish origin.
An Alcalde was the principal officer in the local government of the earlier towns of California, USA. The office was borrowed from the Spanish settlements, and was first introduced in the mining camps, where the miners made laws and elected officers to enforce them.
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Alcibiades was an Athenian general and statesman. He was born in 450 BC and died in 404 BC.
An Athenian of high family and of great abilities, but of no principle, he was the son of Cleinias, and a relative of Pericles, who also was his guardian. In youth he was remarkable for the beauty of his person, no less than for the dissoluteness of his manners. He came under the influence of Socrates, but little permanent effect was produced on his character by the precepts of the sage. He acquired great popularity by his liberality in providing for the amusements of the people, and after the death of Cleon attained a political ascendancy which left him no rival but Nicias. Thus he played an important part in the long-continued Peloponnesian war.
In 415 he advocated the expedition against Sicily, and was chosen one of the leaders, but before the expedition sailed he was charged with profaning and divulging the Eleusinian mysteries, and mutilating the busts of Hermes, which were set up in public all through Athens. Rather than stand his trial he went over to Sparta, divulged the plans of the Athenians, and assisted the Spartans to defeat them. Sentence of death and confiscation was pronounced against him at Athens, and he was cursed by the ministers of religion. He soon left Sparta and took refuge with the Persian satrap Tissaphernes, ingratiating himself by his affectation of Persian manners, as he had previously done at Sparta by a similar affectation of Spartan simplicity.
He now began to intrigue for his return to Athens, offering to bring Tissaphernes over to the Athenian alliance, and latterly he was recalled and his banishment cancelled. He, however, remained abroad for some years in command of the Athenian forces, gained several victories, and took Chalcedon and Byzantium. In 407 BC he returned to Athens, but in 406, the fleet which he commanded having suffered a severe defeat, he was deprived of his command. He once more went over to the Persians, taking refuge with the satrap Pharnabazus of Phrygia, and here he was assassinated in 404 BC.
*Alcuin
Alcuin (real name Ealhwine) was an English theologian and scholar. He was born in 755 and died in 804. He was the confidant, instructor, and adviser of Charles the Great (Charlemagne). . He was educated and latterly had the management of the school at York. Alcuin having gone to Rome, Charlemagne became acquainted with him at Parma, invited him in 782 to his court, and made use of his services in his endeavours to civilize his subjects. To secure the benefit of his instructions Charlemagne established at his court a school, called Schola Palatinci, or the Palace School. In the royal academy Alcuin was called Flaccus Albinus. Most of the schools in France were either founded or improved by him; thus he founded the school in the abbey of St Martin of Tours, in 796, after the plan of the school in York. Alcuin left the court in 801, and retired to the abbey of St Martin of Tours, but kept up a constant correspondence with Charles to his death in 804. He left works on theology, philosophy, rhetoric, also poems and letters, all of which have been published.
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Alcman was the chief lyric poet of Sparta. A Lydian by birth, he flourished between 671 BC and 631 BC and wrote (in the Doric dialect) love songs, hymns, paeans, etc, of which only fragments remain.
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An alderman was formerly a senior member of a local council. The Saxon ealdorman was next to the king, and frequently a viceroy; but after the settlement of the Danes the title was gradually displaced by that of earl. Aldermen in corporations were next in dignity to the mayor.
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Aldhelm was an Anglo-Saxon scholar and prelate, and Bishop of Sherborne. He was born about 640 and died in 709. He was a great fosterer of learning and builder of churches, and has left Latin writings on theological subjects.
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Aldobrandini was the name of a Florentine family, latterly of princely rank (now extinct), which produced one pope (Clement VIII) and several cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and men of learning.
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Aldred or Ealdeed was an Anglo-Saxon prelate, Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop of York. He was born about 1000 and died in 1069. He improved the discipline of the church and built several ecclesiastical edifices. On the death of Edward the Confessor he is said to have crowned Harold. Having submitted to William The Conqueror, whose esteem he enjoyed and whose power he made subservient to the views of the church, he also crowned him as well as Matilda.
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Aldulf was king of the East Angles in 664.
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Aldus Manutius (real name Aldo Manuzzio) was a Venetian scholar and printer. He was born in 1450 and died in 1515. He printed Greek and Latin texts in a budget format so that scholars could afford to buy them. He also had cut the first italic script to be used, in 1501, in books.
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An Ale-conner was formerly an officer in England appointed to assay ale and beer, and to take care that they were good and wholesome, and sold at a proper price. The duty of the ale-conners of London was to inspect the measures used in public-houses, to prevent frauds in selling liquors. Four of these were chosen annually by the liverymen, in common hall, on Midsummer's Day.
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Alefrid was king of Northumberland in 685.
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Aleksandr Scriabin was a Russian composer. He was born in 1872 and died in 1915. He composed Prometheus.
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Aleksei Frolovich Filippov was the first Cheka intelligence agent posted abroad. He was born in 1870 and trained as a lawyer before becoming a newspaper publisher. He was recruited to the Cheka in 1917 to go on intelligence assignments to Finland under cover as a journalist and businessman. He left for Finland in January 1918 with the main assignment to report on the former Tsarist General Karl Mannerheim who was leading the opposition to the Communist putsch. However his career ended with the German intervention in April 1918.
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The Alemanni were a confederacy of several German tribes which, at the commencement of the third century lived near the Roman territory, and came then and subsequently into conflict with the imperial troops. Caracallci first fought with them in 213, but did not conquer them; Severus was likewise unsuccessful. About 250 they began to cross the Rhine westwards, and in 255 they overran Gaul along with the Franks. In 259 a body of them was defeated in Italy at Milan, and in the following year they were driven out of Gaul by Postumus. But the Alemanni did not desist from their incursions, notwithstanding the numerous defeats they suffered at the hands of the Roman troops. In the fourth century they crossed the Rhine and ravaged Gaul, but were severely defeated by the Emperor Julian and driven back. Subsequently they occupied a considerable territory on both sides of the Rhine; but at last Clovis broke their power in 496 and deprived them of a large portion of their possessions. Part of their territory was latterly formed into a duchy called Alemannia or Swabia, this name being derived from Suevi or Swabians, the name which they gave themselves. It is from the Alemanni that the French have derived their names for Germans and Germany in general, namely, Allemands and Allemagne, though strictly speaking only the modern Swabians and northern Swiss are the proper descendants of that ancient race.
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Alessandro Algardi was an Italian sculptor. He was born in 1602 and died in 1654. He was one of the chief Italian sculptors of the seventeenth century and lived and worked chiefly at Borne. He executed the tomb of Leo XI in St. Peter's, and a marble relief with life-size figures over the altar of St Leo there.
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Allesandro Farnese was an Italian noble. He became Pope Paul III in 1534 and remained pope until 1549. His gifts to his natural son Pier Luigi Farnese of the duchies of Parma and Piacenza laid the foundation of the wealth and greatness of the Farnese family.
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Alessandro Gavazzi was a popular Italian preacher and religious reformer. He was born in 1909 at and died in 1889. At the age of fifteen he became a monk of the Barnabite order, at twenty he was professor of rhetoric in the College of Naples, and soon after made his mark as a pulpit orator. In 1846 he was chaplain-general of the Roman patriotic league. Subsequently he threw off his papal allegiance and joined the agitation which ended in the short-lived republic. The French occupation of Rome drove him into exile, when he travelled through Britain and America lecturing against the Church of Rome, his power as an orator evoking much enthusiasm. He was with Garibaldi in 1860, and made subsequent visits to Britain gathering funds for the Free Italian Church, in the interests of which he lectured, preached, and travelled on deputation work until his death.
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Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian composer. He was born in 1659 at Trapani, Sicily and died in 1725. For some years he was attached to the court of Christiana, queen of Sweden, at Rome, and in 1694 was appointed musical director to the viceroy of Naples. Subsequently he became a teacher in three of the four conservatories in Naples. He founded the modern school of Italian Opera, and was a prolific composer in nearly every branch of music.
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Alessandro Tassoni was an Italian poet and critic. He was born in 1565 at Modena and died in 1635. He first received attention for his critical disquisition on Petrarch in which he questioned the accepted authorities in matters of taste. Among his chief poetical works is the mock heroic epic 'La Secchia Rapita' (The Rape of the Bucket').
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Alessandro Volta was an Italian scientist. He was born in 1745 and died in 1827. He invented the voltaic cell. The electrical unit the volt is named after him.
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Alex Agassiz was a Swiss-born American marine zoologist with a particular interest in coral formations. He was born in 1835 at Neuchatel and died in 1910. Emigrating with his family to America in 1849 he studied at Harvard and in 1874 became curator at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, holding the post until 1897.
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Alex James was a Scottish Association Football player. He was born in 190 and died in 1953. Alex James played for Raith Rovers, Preston North End and Arsenal as well as appearing for Scotland first in 1925 and subsequently on seven other occasions. In 1929 he transferred to Arsenal for £9000 and became the most successful goal-maker in the history of English Association Football, being the key player behind Arsenal's success over the next six seasons in which they won the championship four times and reached the final of the FA Cup three times.
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Alexander Adam was a Scottish classical scholar. He was born in 1741 and died in 1809. In 1768 he became rector of the High School of Edinburgh, and held the post until his death. He wrote 'Principles of Latin and English Grammar'; 'Roman Antiquities, a useful school-book'; 'Summary of Geography and History'; 'Classical Biography', and other works.
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Alexander Bain was a Scottish writer on mental philosophy and education. He was born in 1818 at Aberdeen in 1818 and died in 1903. He was educated at Marischal College (then a separate university), Aberdeen; was for some years a deputy professor in the university; subsequently held official posts in London; and in 1860 was appointed professor of logic and English in Aberdeen University, a post which he held until his resignation in 1881. His most important works are: The Senses and the Intellect (1855); the Emotions and the Will (1859), together forming a complete exposition of the human mind; Mental and Moral Science (1868); Logic, Deductive and Inductive (1870); Mind and Body (1873); Education as a Science (1879); James Mill, a Biography (1881); John Stuart Mill, a Criticism with Personal Recollections (1882); besides an English Grammar, English Composition and Rhetoric, an Autobiography, etc.
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Alexander Barclay was a British poet. He was born about 1475 probably in Scotland and died in 1552. For some years he was a priest and chaplain of St Mary Ottery, in Devonshire, afterwards he was a Benedictine monk of Ely, subsequently a Franciscan, and latterly the holder of one or two livings. His principal work was a satire, entitled The Shyp of Folys of this Worlde, part translation and part imitation of Brandt's Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools), and printed by Pynson in 1509. He also wrote a Myrrour of Good Manors, and some Egloges (Eclogues), both printed by Pynson, as well as translations, etc.
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Alexander Baring (Lord Ashburton) was a British statesman and financier. He was born in 1774 and died in 1848. A younger son of Sir Francis Baring, he was bred to commercial pursuits, which for some years kept him in the United States and Canada, and in 1810 he became head of the great firm of Baring Brothers & Co. After serving in Parliament for many years he was raised to the peerage in 1835, after being a member of Peel's government from 1834 until 1835).
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Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten was a German philosopher. He was born in 1714 at Berlin and died in 1762. In 1740 he was made professor of philosophy at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. He was the founder of aesthetics as a science, and the inventor of this name. His ideas were first developed in his De Nonnullis ad Poema pertinentibus in 1735, and afterwards in the two volumes of his uncompleted Aesthetica, published 1750-1758.
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Alexander Berthier was a prince of Neufchatel and Wagram, marshal and vice-constable of France. He was born in 1753. A son of a distinguished officer, while yet young he served in America with Lafayette, and after some years' service in France he joined the army of Italy in 1795 as general of division and chief of the general staff, receiving in 1798 the chief command. In this capacity he entered Rome, abducted Pius VI, abolished the papal government, and established a consular one.
He followed Bonaparte to Egypt as chief of the general staff; was appointed by him minister of war after the 18th Brumaire; accompanied him to Italy in 1800, and again in 1805, to be present at his coronation; and was appointed chief of the general staff of the grand army in Germany. In all Napoleon's expeditions he was one of his closest companions, on several occasions rendering valuable services, as at Wagram in 1809, when he gained the title of Prince of Wagram. After Napoleon's abdication he was taken into the favour and confidence of Louis XVIII, and on Napoleon's return the difficulty of his position unhinged his mind, and he put an end to his life by throwing himself from a window.
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Alexander Borodin was a Russian composer. He was born in 1833 and died in 1887. He composed Prince Igor, In the Steppes of Central Asia, Polovtzian Dances.
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Alexander Brome was an English poet and dramatist. He was born in 1620 and died in 1666. He was the author of many royalist songs and epigrams. Published The Cunning Lovers, a comedy, 1654; Fancy's Festivals, 1657; Songs, etc, 1660; Translation of Horace, 1666.
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Alexander Buchan was a Scottish meteorologist. He was born in 1829 and died in 1907. He spent most of his life observing the weather from the Scottish Meteorological Society's observatory on Ben Nevis.
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Sir Alexander Burnes was an English soldier. He was born in 1805 at Montrose and died in 1841. He studied at the academy at Montrose, and having obtained a cadet-ship in the Indian army arrived at Bombay in 1821. His promotion was rapid, and in 1832 he was sent on a mission to Central Asia, and visited Afghanistan, Bokhara, Merv, etc, returning by way of Persia. He was then sent to England, and published his travels, which were read with a kind of enthusiasm. In 1839 he was appointed political agent at Kabul. Here, in 1841, he was murdered on the breaking out of an insurrection.
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Sir William Alexander Bustamante (born William Alexander Clarke, he changed his name to show his opposition to racism) was a Jamaican politician. He was the Prime Minister of Jamaica on its independence from Britain, from 1962 to 1967. He founded the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in 1943 and was minister for communications in the executive council of 1944.
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Alexander Campbell was an Irish theologian. He was born in 1788 at Ireland and died in 1866. He went to the USA in 1809. He was the founder of the sect called Disciples of Christ or Campbellites, and of Bethany College in West Virginia,
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Alexander Carlyle was a Scottish Presbyterian minister. He was born in 1722 at Dumfriesshire and died in 1805. He became minister of Inveresk in 1747, and was one of the leaders of the Moderate party in the church. He was present at the Porteous riot, served as a volunteer in the '45 rebellion, and was present at the battle of Prestonpans. He was intimate with all the most eminent Scotchmen of the day, and got into trouble with the presbytery for assisting at the production of Home's Douglas. In his old age he wrote an autobiography, which was not published until 1860. It is a singularly interesting production, both from the vigour and sprightliness of its style and the pictures which it presents of Scottish society in the 18th century.
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Alexander Chalmers was a British journalist, editor, and miscellaneous writer. He was born in 1759 at Aberdeen and died in 1834. His father, the founder of the first Aberdeen newspaper, was a printer. About 1777 Alexander Chalmers came to London, was employed as journalist, and edited the British Essayist, from the Tatler to the Observer, published 1803. He also issued an edition of Shakespeare, with notes, in 1809; and the works of the English Poets from Chaucer to Cowper, with Johnson's Lives, and additional Lives in 1810. His most extensive work was the General Biographical Dictionary, published in thirty-two volumes between 1812 and 1817.
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Sir Alexander F I Cochrane was a British admiral. He was born in 1758 and died in 1832. He commanded the British North American fleet in 1812, assisted in the capture of Washington in 1814, and in the attack on New Orleans.
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Alexander Cruden was the compiler of the Concordance to the Scriptures. He was born in 1701 at Aberdeen and died in 1770. He took the degree of MA at Marischal College, and in 1722 proceeded to London, where he was employed as tutor. He afterwards opened a bookseller's shop under the Royal Exchange, and in 1735 was appointed bookseller to Queen Caroline. His great work appeared in 1737, under the title of A Complete Concordance of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. In a pecuniary point of view it was not at first successful, and the embarrassments to which it reduced him unsettled his reason and led to his confinement at Bethnal Green. He was again temporarily confined in 1753. Three editions of the Concordance appeared in his lifetime, and he was also the author of A Scripture Dictionary, or Guide to the Holy Scriptures; and The History and Excellency of the Scriptures.
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Alexander James Dallas was a Jamaican-born American economist and lawyer. He was born in 1759 and died in 1817. He took the oath of allegiance to Pennsylvania in 1783, and was US District Attorney from 1801 to 1814, when he became Secretary of the Treasury in Madison's Cabinet. On his suggestion the Second National Bank was incorporated in 1816, and to his efforts was largely due the financial success of the US Government from 1814 to 1817.
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Alexander de Hales also known as Alexander the Irrefragable Doctor was an English theologian. He was born at Hales in Gloucestershire and died in 1245, date unknown. He was celebrated among the controversialists of the 13th century. He studied at the universities of Oxford and Paris, became, in 1230, a professor in the latter city. His Summa Theologiae put the Sententiee of Peter Lombard into syllogistic form. He also commented on Aristotle, on the Psalms, and the Apocalypse.
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Alexander Doniphan was an American soldier. He was born in 1808 and died in 1887. A colonel during the Mexican War, he accomplished amid many hardships a difficult march from New Mexico to Chihuahua, and there defeated a Mexican force more than four times the size of his own.
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Sir Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home is a British Conservative statesman. He was educated at Eton and Oxford. He entered Parliament in 1931. In 1960 he became Foreign Secretary. In 1963 he became Prime Minister.
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Alexander Duff was a Scottish missionary. He was born in 1806 at Perthshire and died in 1878. Educated at St Andrews, in 1829 he became the first missionary sent by the Church of Scotland when he was sent to India. Arriving in Calcutta after being twice shipwrecked, he began associating education with evangelism, and was instrumental in setting up many schools and colleges, and had much to do with the founding of Calcutta University.
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Alexander Dyce was a Scottish Shakespearian editor. He was born in 1798 at Edinburgh and died in 1869. He was educated at Edinburgh and Oxford, but in 1827 settled in London, where most of his life was passed. He first became known by his editions of Collins, Peele, Webster, Marlowe, Skelton, etc, accompanied by notes and biographies of the authors. His chief work was an edition of Shakespeare in six volumes, with notes, etc. published between 1853 and 1858.
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Alexander John Ellis (born Alexander Sharpe) was an English philologist. He was born 1814 and died in 1890. A distinguished graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, he was elected to the Royal Society in 1864, and was long an influential member of the Philological Society, being more than once its president. Though phonetics was the subject in which he most highly distinguished himself, he was equally at home in mathematical and musical subjects. His chief published work is Early English Pronunciation (in five parts) between 1869 and 1889; but his publications in the form of books, pamphlets, papers, and articles on phonetics, music, mathematics, etc, were numerous.
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Alexander Hill Everett was an American statesman. He was born in 1792 at Boston and died in 1847. After studying at Harvard, in 1809 he accompanied John Quincy Adams to St Petersburg as secretary of legation. He was charge d'affaires to the Netherlands from 1818 until 1824, was Minister to Spain from 1825 until 1829, and was a prolific writer upon political, economic and literary subjects.
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Alexander Campbell Fraser was a Scottish philosophical writer. He was born in 1819 and died after 1905 . He succeeded Sir William Hamilton in the professorship of logic and metaphysics at Edinburgh, in 1856, and retired in 1891. He edited the North British Review, and has published Essays in Philosophy; Bishop Berkeley's works, with Life, etc; an edition of Locke's Essay; Monographs on Locke and Berkeley; Biography of Thomas Reid; Philosophy of Theism; Biographia Philosophica; &c.
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Alexander G McNutt was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Mississippi from 1838 until 1842.
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Alexander Geddes was a Scottish Roman Catholic divine, poet, and miscellaneous writer. He was born in 1737 at the county of Banff and died in 1802. At the age of twenty-one he was sent to the Scottish college at Paris, and, returning to Scotland in 1769, he took charge of a Roman Catholic congregation at Auchinhalrig in Banffshire, where he became known for his scholarship. In 1779 the University of Aberdeen granted him the degree of LLD., and the next year he moved to London with a view of obtaining facilities for his scheme of a new English translation of the Old and New Testaments. Two volumes of his translation and a volume of critical remarks were published, but the rationalistic views promulgated met with much censure, and his own immediate superiors suspended him. He was in the midst of a translation of the Psalms when he died. His other works include numerous pamphlets, translations, macaronic poems, etc.
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Alexander Glazunov was a Russian composer. He was born in 1865 at St Petersburg and died in 1936.
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Alexander Michaelovitch Gortschakoff was a Russian diplomatist. He was born in 1798 and died in 1883. The brother of Prince Michael Gortschakoff, he entered the diplomatic service in 1824 as secretary to the Russian embassy in London. His experience in diplomacy was extended in Vienna, Florence, Stuttgart, etc, and he showed considerable dexterity in securing the neutrality of Austria during the Crimean War. In 1856 he became minister of foreign affairs, and in 1862 chancellor of the empire. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Congress, 1878.
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Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish inventor. He was born in Edinburgh in 1847 and died in 1922. He was educated at Edinburgh and in Germany, and settled in Canada in 1870. In 1872 he went to the United States and introduced for the education of deaf-mutes the system of visible speech contrived by his father Alexander Melville Bell. He became professor of vocal physiology in Boston University, and exhibited his telephone, designed and partly constructed some years before, at the Philadelphia exhibition in 1876.
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Sir Alexander Bartholomew Grant was an English academic. He was born in 1826 and died in 1884. Educated at Harrow and at Oxford, where he became public examiner. In 1858 he was appointed inspector of schools in the Madras presidency; became professor of history and political economy in Elphinstone College, Madras, in 1860, and its principal in 1862; vice-chancellor of Bombay University in 1863; director of public instruction in Bombay Presidency, 1865; and vice-chancellor and principal of Edinburgh University in 1868. He is best known by his annotated edition of Aristotle's Ethics (first published 1857), and his Story of the University of Edinburgh (1884), published in connection with the University Tercentenary.
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Alexander H Bullock was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1866 until 1869.
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Alexander H Rice was an American politician. He was born in 1818 and died in 1895. He represented Massachusetts in the US Congress as a Republican from 1859 to 1867. He served on the naval committee. He was Governor of Massachusetts from 1876 to 1879.
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Alexander Hamilton was an American patriot. He was born in 1757 at Nevis in the West Indies and died in 1804 in a duel. He was on the one side of Scottish, on the other of French birth. Deprived of parental care at an early age, he developed an astonishing precocity, and was, in 1772, sent to New York City. There, after a short period of preparation, he entered King's (later Columbia) College. While the Revolutionary fever was at its height Hamilton, in July, 1774, made a public speech on the patriotic side, marvellous for a boy of seventeen. He followed up this success by a vigorous war of pamphlets. When hostilities began Hamilton organized a cavalry company and served at Long Island and White Plains. As a member of George Washington's staff he rendered valuable aid; resigning from membership in the staff in 1781 he ended a brilliant military career at Yorktown, studied law, and married the daughter of General Schuyler. For a short time, between 1782 and 1783 he was in the Continental Congress.
He had risen to eminence at the New York bar, when he took part in the Annapolis Convention of 1786. There followed two years of contests and triumphs of the greatest renown to himself and moment to his country. Alexander Hamilton was one of the chief members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He advocated a very strong-central government, but accepted the results of that assembly, and returned to New York to further by pen and voice the ratification of the American National Constitution. It is little exaggeration to say that Alexander Hamilton was practically the Federal party in New York. Of the eighty-five papers in the Federalist fifty-one are undisputedly his, and he had a part in the production of others.
At the State ratifying Convention in 1788 at Poughkeepsie he contended almost single-handed against a two-thirds majority, which he converted into a minority. He entered George Washington's Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury in 1789. His report on the public credit, reports on revenue, the mint, the bank, manufactures, etc., were of the utmost value in placing the finances on a sound footing. Meanwhile within the Cabinet he was confronted with Jefferson, advocate of radically different ideas; the two great leaders quarrelled almost incessantly, and Alexander Hamilton resigned in 1795.
He had previously accompanied the army for the suppression of the Whiskey Insurrection. He defended Jay's Treaty with Great Britain in the able Camillus letters, and was concerned in the preparation of George Washington's Farewell Address. He was, in 1798, appointed inspector-general in view of the imminent war with France. But he quarrelled with President John Adams and intrigued against the latter and in favour of Pinckney. Alexander Hamilton and Burr had been political enemies; the latter, while Vice-President, brought on a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey, on July the 11th, 1804, in which Alexander Hamilton was mortally wounded.
He also wrote, the Pacificus letters, report on the public debt in 1789, etc. Alexander Hamilton was perhaps one of the most brilliant of early American statesmen; his state papers were models of luminous and convincing argumentation; and he had an extraordinary genius for administrative organization. His weaknesses were, an imperious self-confidence, and want of popular sympathies.
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Alexander Hamilton Stephens was an American politician. He was born in 1812 at Georgia and died in 1883. Educated at Franklin College he practiced law, served in the Legislature of Georgia, and from 1843 to 1859 was a Whig member of the national House of Representatives. He supported Douglas in his slavery policy, but opposed secession strongly in 1860. Nevertheless, when the step had once been taken, he sided with the Confederacy, and was its Vice-President, from 1861 to 1865. He differed with President Davis as the war progressed. In 1864, he favoured peace, and in 1865 he took part in the Hampton Roads Conference. He was imprisoned in 1865, but was shortly afterward released. Having been elected US Senator, he was refused a seat. From 1875 to 1882, Stephens was again a Congressman from Georgia. In the latter year he was elected Governor of his State, but died soon after entering upon the duties of the office. Of his works the most valuable is his 'Constitutional View of the War Between the States'," in two volumes.
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Alexander Hays was an American soldier. He was born in 1819 and died in 1864. He enlisted in the American Civil War as a colonel in the Maryland campaign, fought at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, was brevetted colonel USA, and was killed at the Battle of the Wilderness.
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Alexander Herzen was a Russian writer. He was born in 1812 at Moscow and died in 1870. While a student at Moscow he imbibed extreme philosophical and socialistic views, which brought about his imprisonment and exile. He was afterwards pardoned, but spent the latter part of his life from 1847 onwards abroad. Among his numerous works are the novels, Who is to Blame? and Dr. Krupow; Letters from France and Italy; On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia; Recollections of my Lifetime; Memoirs of the Empress Catharine, etc.
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Alexander Humboldt was a German scientist and explorer. He was born in 1769 and died in 1859. He made several expeditions to South America and Central America.
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Alexander I was King of Scotland from 1107 to 1124. A son of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret of England, he succeeded his brother Edgar in 1107, and governed with great ability until his death in 1124. He was a great benefactor of the church, and a firm vindicator of the national independence.
Alexander I, was pope from 109 to 119.
Alexander I was a King of Yugoslavia. He was born in 1888 and died in 1934. He was of the Karageorgevic dynasty of Serbia, ascending the throne in 1921 he tried to overcome the ethnic, religious, and regional rivalries in his country by means of a personal dictatorship in 1929, supported by the army. In the interest of greater unity, he changed the name of his kingdom, which consisted of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, to 'Yugoslavia' in 1929. In 1931 some civil rights were restored, but they proved insufficient to quell rising political and separatist dissent, aggravated by economic depression. He was planning to restore parliamentary government when he was assassinated by a Croatian terrorist.
Alexander I was an Emperor of Russia. He was born in 1777 and died in 1825. He was the son of Paul I, and is believed to have assisted indirectly in his father's murder. He ascended the throne in 1801 and reigned until 1825. He set out to reform Russia and correct many of the injustices of the preceding reign. His private committee - the Neglasny Komitet - introduced plans for public education, but his reliance on the nobility made it impossible for him to abolish serfdom. His adviser, Speransky, pressed for a more liberal constitution, but the nobles secured his fall in 1812. At first a supporter of the coalition against Napoleon, his defeats by the latter at Austerlitz in 1805 and Friedland in 1807 resulted in the Treaties of Tilsit and in his support of the Continental System against the British.
His wars with Persia from 1804 to 1813 and with Turkey from 1806 to 1812 brought territorial gains, including the acquisition of Georgia and his armies helped to defeat Napoleon's grande armee at Leipzig, after its retreat from Moscow in 1812. In an effort to uphold Christian morality in Europe he formed a Holy Alliance of European monarchs, and became increasingly conservative in his domestic policies. The constitution he gave to Poland scarcely disguised the rule of the military there. He was reported to have died while in the Crimea, but rumour persisted that he had escaped to Siberia and became a hermit.
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Alexander II was King of Scotland from 1214 to 1249. Alexander II was born in 1198 and died in 1248. He succeeded his father William the Lion in 1214. He was a wise and energetic prince, and Scotland prospered greatly under him, though disturbed by the Norsemen, by the restlessness of some of the Celtic chiefs, and by the attempts of Henry III of England to make Alexander II do homage to him. Alexander II married Henry's sister, Joan, in 1221, who lived until 1238. In 1244 war with England almost broke out, but was fortunately averted. Alexander II died in 1248 at Kerrera, an island opposite Oban, when on an expedition in which he hoped to wrest the Hebrides from Norway. He was succeeded by his son, Alexander III
Alexander II (Czar Liberator) was Czar of Russia. He was born in 1818 and died in 1881. He was the eldest son of Czar Nicholas, whom he succeeded in 1855, before the end of the Crimean War. After peace was concluded the new emperor set about effecting reforms in the empire, the greatest of all being the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, a measure which gave freedom, on certain conditions, to 22,000,000 human beings who were previously in a state little removed from that of slavery. Under him, too, representative assemblies in the provinces were introduced, and he also did much to improve education, and to reorganize the judicial system. During his reign the Russian dominions in Central Asia were extended, a piece of territory south of the Caucasus, formerly belonging to Turkey, was acquired, and a part of Bessarabia, belonging since the Crimean War to Turkey in Europe, but previously to Russia, was restored to the latter power. The latter additions resulted from the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. He was assassinated in 1881 by the explosion from dynamite thrown at his carriage in St Petersburg by Nihilists.
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Alexander III was King of Scotland from 1249 to 1286. He succeeded his father, Alexander II when just a boy of eight. In 1251 he married Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry III of England. Like his father, Alexander II, he was eager to bring the Hebrides under his sway, and this he was enabled to accomplish in a few years after the defeat of the Norse King Haco at Largs, in 1263. The mainland and islands of Scotland were now under one sovereign, though Orkney and Shetland still belonged to Norway. Alexander III was strenuous in asserting the independence both of the Scottish kingdom and the Scottish church against England. He died in 1285 by the falling of his horse while he was riding in the dark between Burntisland and Kinghorn. He left as his heiress Margaret, the Maiden of Norway, daughter of Eric of Norway, and of Alexander's daughter, Margaret. Under him Scotland enjoyed greater prosperity than for generations afterwards.
Alexander III was an Emperor (Tsar) of Russia. The son of Alexander II, he was born in 1845 and died in 1894 of kidney disease. He became heir to the throne on the death of his eldest brother, Nicholas in 1865, and succeeded in 1881, on the assassination of his father, being crowned in Moscow in 1883. He gave up the reforms begun by his father, and ruled in the old autocratic fashion, restricting the liberties of Finland and the Baltic Provinces, and encouraging persecution of the Jews. He spent much time in the closely-guarded castle of Gatchina, to be safe from Nihilistic attempts, several of which he narrowly escaped. 'He endeavoured to put down corruption and underhand dealing among the bureaucracy, and in his own habits gave an example of simplicity and economy. While showing himself suspicious of Germany and Austria-Hungary, he entered on friendly relations with France. He began to suffer from disease of the kidneys in 1893, and died at Livadia in 1894.
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Alexander J Groesbeck was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Michigan from 1921 until 1926.
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Alexander Johnston was an American jurist and historian. He was born in 1849 and died in 1889. He was admitted to the bar in 1876. He was professor of jurisprudence and political economy at Princeton from 1883 to 1889. He was an enthusiastic student of American history and published a 'History of American Politics', 'Representative American Orations', 'History of the United States for Schools', and a history of Connecticut.
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Alexander M Dockery was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Missouri from 1901 until 1905.
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Alexander Macomb was an American soldier. He was born in 1783 and died in 1841. He entered the US army in 1799, and at the outbreak of the War of 1812 was adjutant-general of the army. Taking service in the field he, in September 1814, won the victory of Plattsburg over Sir George Provost, and was made major-general. From 1835 to 1841 he was commander-in-chief of the army.
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Alexander Martin was an American politician. He was a governor of North Carolina from 1782 until 1784.
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Alexander McGillivray was a Creek Indian chief. He was born in 1740 and died in 1793. He aided the British during the American War Of Independence, and soon afterward conducted atrocious raids along the Cumberland River.
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Alexander McNair was an American politician. He was a Democratic-Republican governor of Missouri from 1820 until 1824.
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Alexander Melville Bell was a Scottish teacher of elocution. He was born in 1819 at Edinburgh in 1819 and died in 1905. He was a distinguished teacher of elocution in Edinburgh until in 1865 he removed to London to act as a lecturer in University College. In 1870 he went to Canada and became connected with Queen's College, Kingston. Latterly he went to Washington, where he died. He was inventor of 'visible speech', in which all possible articulations of the human voice have corresponding characters designed to represent the respective positions of the vocal organs, a system employed in teaching the profoundly deaf to speak. Besides writing on this subject he wrote on elocution, stenography, etc.
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Alexander Sutherland Neill was a Scottish educationist. He was born in 1883 and died in 1973. In 1924, partially in reaction to his own repressive upbringing, he founded a school, Summerhill, where liberal and progressive ideas such as self-government by pupils and the voluntary attendance of lessons achieved remarkable results, especially with problem children.
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Alexander Nevski was Prince of Novgorod. He was born in 1219 and died in 1263. He was the second son of Grand Duke Jaroslav II. He became Prince of Novgorod in 1239. In 1240 he routed the invading Swedes, Danes and Livonians near the Neva, whence he earned the name Nevski. He succeeded his father in 1247 and opposed Pope Innocent IV's attempt to reunite the Eastern and Western Churches. Reverenced in life, he was canonized after his death. In his honour Peter the Great founded a monastery in 1710 near the scene of his famous victory and in 1722 created the Order of Alexander Nevski.
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Alexander Nevskoi was a Russian hero and saint. He was born in 1219 and died in 1263. A son of the Grand-duke Jaroslav, he fought valiantly against assaults of the Mongols, the Danes, Swedes, and knights of the Teutonic order. He gained the name of Nevskoi in 1240, for, a splendid victory, on the Neva, over the Swedes. The gratitude of his countrymen commemorated the hero in popular songs and raised him to the dignity of a saint. Peter the Great built a splendid monastery at St Petersburg in his honour, and in memory of him established the order of Alexander Nevskoi.
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Alexander Pope was an English poet. He was born in 1688 at London, and died in 1744. He is remembered for his satire.
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Alexander Sergeyevitch Pushkin was a Russian poet. He was born in 1799 at Pskov and died in 1837 from wounds received duelling. He was educated at the lyceum at Tsarskoye-Selo, and was early noted for his mastery of languages and his wide reading. His first poems were published when he was fifteen, and he entered the civil service in 1817. In 1820 his fairy-tale poem, 'Ruslan and Lyudmila' made him famous, but in the same year he was banished to Bessarabia on account of some outspoken versus, circulated in manuscripts.
Visiting the Caucasus, he found inspiration for much fresh work, notably his 1822 'The Prisoner of the Caucasus'. In 1824 an intercepted letter in which he spoke slightingly of religion caused his banishment to his father's estate in the province of Pskov, and while there for two years he wrote much of his best work, including a large part of the autobiographical poem, 'Eugene Onegin', and his great tragedy, the 1825 'Boris Godunov'. In 1826 he was pardoned by the Tsar and allowed to return to St Petersburg. In 1831 he married Natalia Gontcharev and in 1832 published the completed 'Eugene Onegin', Byronic in form but essentially Russian in spirit. This poem was translated into English by Spalding in 1881.
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Alexander Ramsey was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Minnesota from 1860 until 1863.
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Alexander Henry Rhind was a Scottish antiquary. He was born in 1833 at Wick and died in 1863. Originally intended for the bar, his poor health forced him to seek warmer climates, and in France, Italy and Egypt he continued his antiquarian investigations. He published an important treatise on Thebes, in 1862 and founded the Rhind lectures on archaeology.
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Alexander Russel was a Scottish journalist. He was born in 1814 at Edinburgh and died in 1876. He was appointed to the Berwick Advertiser in 1839, acting as reporter as well as editor; became editor of the Fife Herald at Cupar in 1842, and of a journal at Kilmarnock in 1844. He joined the staff of the Scotsman in Edinburgh in 1845 and was promoted to editor in 1848. His articles infused vigour and freshness into the paper. Under his able management, the Scotsman, hitherto issued twice weekly, appeared daily at the reduced price of one penny in 1855.
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Alexander Selkirk was a Scottish adventurer. He was born in 1676 at Largo, Fifeshire and died in 1721. He joined Dampier's privateering expedition in 1703; but when the vessel he was aboard landed at Juan Fernandez, off the west coast of South America, in 1704, he asked to be put ashore because of an argument with the ship's captain. In 1709 he left the island with Dampier, returned to Largo where he led a reclusive life, before returning to the sea. His experiences were the inspiration for the character Robinson Crusoe in the book by Daniel Defoe.
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Alexander Severus was a Roman emperor. He was born in 205 and died in 235. He was raised to the imperial dignity in 222 by the praetorian guards, after they had put his cousin the emperor Heliogabalus to death. He governed ably both in peace and war; and also occupied himself in poetry, philosophy, and literature. In 232 he defeated the Persians under Artaxerxes, who wished to drive the Romans from Asia. When on an expedition into Gaul to repress an incursion of the Germans, he was murdered with his mother in an insurrection of his troops, headed by the brutal Maximin who succeeded him as emperor.
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Alexander Smith was a Scottish poet. He was born in 1830 at Kilmarnock and died in 1867. A pattern designer at Glasgow, he started writing verses and his first considerable work 'Life Drama' was published in 1853. In 1854 he was appointed secretary of Edinburgh University. His poetry is described as belonging to the Spasmodic School of poetry.
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Alexander Spotswood was an American colonial governor. He was born in 1676 and died in 1740. He was Governor of Virginia from 1710 to 1723, and greatly improved the condition of the colony by wise laws and careful administration. He was Deputy Postmaster-General of the colonies. from 1730 until 1739.
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Alexander Stambolisky (also known as Alexander Stamboliski) was a Bulgarian statesman. He was born in 1879 and died in 1923. Born into a peasant family, he was educated in Germany and became a journalist and in 1902 edited the leading journal of the agrarian party in Bulgaria. In 1911 he became a member of the Sobranje. Always in opposition to the royal party, in 1913 he headed the agrarians in outspoken criticism of Ferdiand I's actions and government, and when in 1915, Bulgaria was definitely committed to assist Germany in the Great War, Alexander Stambolisky registered an emphatic protest warning the tsar of the consequences. He was subsequently arrested and imprisoned for three year. On his release from prison Alexander Stambolisky headed the insurgent troops who deposed Ferdinand I. In 1919 he became premier, and signed the peace treaty in Paris in 1920. As premier he organised an authoritive, anti-communist regime. In 1923 he was overthrown in a military coup and was tortured and executed by beheading by members of the VMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation).
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Alexander H H Stuart was an American politician. He was born in 1807 and died in 1891. He represented Virginia in the US Congress as a Whig from 1841 to 1843. He was Secretary of the Interior in Fillmore's Cabinet from 1850 to 1853. He was a member of the Virginia Senate from 1857 to 1861, and zealously opposed the policy of secession. He was a delegate to the National Union Convention at Philadelphia in 1866.
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Alexander Louis Teixeira de Mattos was a Dutch journalist and translator. He was born in 1865 at Amsterdam and died in 1921. As a child he settled in England in 1874 and was educated at the Kensington Catholic Public School, Beaumont and privately. He worked as a correspondent on several Dutch newspapers and was also an editor and dramatic critic. During the Great War he was head of the intelligence section, war trade intelligence department.
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Alexander The Great was king of Macedon (Macedonia). He was born in 356 BC at Pella and died in 323 BC.
Following the assassination of his father, Philip, in 336 BC Alexander ascended the throne determined to carry out the expedition that his father had been preparing against the Persians. Before he could, however, he had to chastise the barbarian tribes on the frontiers of Macedon, as well as quell a rising in Greece in which he took and destroyed Thebes, killing 6000 of the inhabitants and imprisoning 30,000. Leaving Antipater confirmed as commander-inc-chief of the Greek forces in the general assembly of the Greeks, he crossed over the Hellespont into Asia in 334 BC with 30,000 foot and 5000 horse soldiers.
His first encounter with the Persian forces (assisted by Greek mercenaries) was at the small river Granicus, where he gained a complete victory. Most of the cities of Asia Minor surrendered to him, and Alexander restored democracy in all the Greek cities. Marching onwards he conquered Lycia, Ionia, Caria, Pamphylia and Cappadocia. In 333 BC he defeated the Persian emperor Darius and his army of 500,000 men near Issus. Heading south, Alexander conquered the Mediterranean cities, including Tyre following a seven month siege, and then Palestine and Egypt, founding the city Alexandria as he did so.
Returning, Alexander was met by Darius and a new immense army which Alexander defeated at Gaugamela in 331 BC, taking Babylon and Susa and afterwards the Persian capital Persepolis. He later decided to unite the nations of Macedon and Persia, married the eldest daughter of Darius and rewarded those of his men who married Persian women. Following his sudden death in 323 BC his empire was divided among his chief generals, and became the scene of continual wars.
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Alexander VI (real name Rodrigo Borgia) was Pope from 1492 to 1503. He was born in 1431 at Valencia, in Spain, and died in 1503. When he was only twenty-five years of age his uncle, Pope Calixtus III, made him a cardinal, and shortly afterwards appointed him to the dignified and lucrative office of vice-chancellor. By bribery he prepared his way to the papal throne, which he attained in 1492, after the death of Innocent VIII.
In 1493 he issued a bull dividing the non-Christian world into two parts, Spain to have the western half and Portugal the eastern. This line of division was to be a meridian 100 leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, but in 1494 was moved to a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.
At the time of Alexander's crowning as pope, both the authority and revenues of the popes were much impaired, and he set himself to reduce the power of the Italian princes, and seize upon their possessions for the benefit of his own family. To effect this end he is said not to have scrupled to use the vilest means, including poison and assassination. His policy, foreign as well as domestic, was faithless and base, and his private life was stained by sensuality. He understood how to extract immense sums of money from all Christian countries under various pretexts. He sold indulgences, and set aside, in favour of himself, the wills of several cardinals. His excesses roused against him the powerful eloquence of Savonarola, who, by pen and pulpit, urged his deposition, but had to meet his death at the stake in 1498. Not long after his election Alexander had the honour of deciding the dispute between the kings of Portugal and Castile concerning their respective claims to the foreign countries recently discovered. His son, Cesare Borgia, and his daughter Lucrezia Borgia, are equally notorious with himself.
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Alexander W Randall was an American politician. He was born in 1819 and died in 1872. He was a member of the Wisconsin Assembly in 1855. He was a district judge in 1856. He was a Republican Governor of Wisconsin from 1857 to 1861, and was energetic in raising troops for the American Civil War. He was Minister to Italy from 1861 to 1862, Assistant Postmaster-General in Johnson's Cabinet from 1866 to 1869.
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Alexander Wilson was a Scottish naturist and poet. He was born in 1766 and died in 1813. he went to America in 1794 where he made a valuable collection of American birds and published nine volumes of an 'American Ornithology'. He enjoyed considerable reputation as a poet.
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Alexander Winchell was an American geologist. He was born in 1824 and died in 1891. He was professor of geology, zoology and botany at the University of Michigan from 1855 to 1873. He made valuable geological investigations in Michigan and Minnesota.
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Queen Alexandra was the daughter of Christian IX of Denmark. She was born in 1844 and died in 1925. She married Edward VII in 1863 when he was the prince of Wales, becoming princess of Wales and on his coronation in 1901 she became consort She was highly popular from the first in Britain, and the feeling never waned, the Queen constantly showing an interest in all benevolent causes. She was the mother of six children, one of whom died in infancy, while the eldest, Edward, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, was cut off in 1892 at the age of twenty-eight. Queen Alexander founded theImperial (Royal) Military Nursing Service in 1902.
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Viscount Alexandre Beauharnais was a French soldier. He was born in 1760 at Martinique and died in 1794. He married Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie, who was afterwards the wife of Napoleon. At the breaking out of the French revolution he was chosen a member of the National Assembly, of which he was for some time president. In 1792 he was general of the army of the Rhine. He was falsely accused of having promoted the surrender of Mainz, and was sentenced to death on July the 23rd,1794.
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Alexandre Brongniart was a French geologist and mineralogist. He was born in 1770 and died in 1847. In 1800 he was appointed director of the porcelain manufactory at Sevres. In 1807 appeared his Traite Elementaire de Mineralogie; and along with Georges Cuvier he wrote Description Geologique des Environs de Paris. He also wrote other works on mineralogy and geology, and in 1844 appeared his Traite des Arts Ceramiques. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1822 succeeded Hauy as professor of mineralogy in the Museum of Natural History.
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Alexandre Cabanel was a French artist. He was born in 1823 at Montpelier and died in 1889. He studied painting under Picot, and in 1863 became professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. He is best known for his paintings of women of the French aristocracy.
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Alexandre Gabriel Decamps was a French painter. He was born in 1803 at Paris and killed while hunting at Fontainebleau in 1860. His paintings include pictures of Oriental scenery and character, historical pictures, genre pictures, and animals.
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Alexandre Dumas was a French novelist and dramatist. He was born in 1803 at born at Villers-Cotterets and died in 1870. He was the son of a republican general, and grandson of Marquis de la Pailleterie and a negress, Tiennette Dumas. In 1823 he went to Paris, and obtained an assistant-secretaryship from the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis Philippe. He soon began to write for the stage, and in 1829 scored his first success with his drama Henry III. It was produced when the battle between the Romanticists and the Classicists was at its height, and hailed as a triumph by the former school. The same year appeared his Christine, and in quick succession Antony, Richard d'Arlington, Teresa, Le Tour de Nesle, Catharine Howard, Mile. de Belle-Isle, etc. Dumas had now become a noted Parisian character.
The critics fought over the merits of his pieces, and the scandalmongers over his prodigality and galanteries. Turning his attention to romance, he produced a series of historical romances, among which may be mentioned, Les Deux Dianes;
La Reine Margot; Les Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers), with its continuations Vingt Ans Apres, and Vicomte de Bragelonne. His Monte-Cristo (Count of Monte-Cristo) and several others are also well known to English readers through translations. Several historical works were also written by him: Louis XIV et son Siecle; Le Regent et Louis XV; Le Drame de '93; Florence et les Medicis, etc. The works which bear his name amount to some 1200 volumes, including about 60 dramas; but the only claim he could lay to a great number of the productions issued under his name, was that he either sketched the plot or revised them before going to press. He earned vast sums of money, but his recklessness and extravagance latterly reduced him to the adoption of a shifty, scheming mode of living. His Memoires, begun in 1852, present interesting sketches of literary life during the restoration, but display intense egotism. In 1860 he accompanied Garibaldi in the expedition which freed Naples from the Bourbons.
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Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was a French engineer. He was born in 1832 at Dijon and died in 1923. He attended, from 1852 to 1855, the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures at Paris, and devoted himself chiefly to the designing of large structures in iron, especially bridges and viaducts, the great bridge over the Douro being one of his works. In 1865 he founded an iron works at Levallois-Perret. He built the Garabit viaduct in 1882 and the Eiffel tower in Paris which he completed in 1889 for the Paris Exhibition of 1889. He was condemned in 1893 to two years' imprisonment and a fine of 20,000 francs for misappropriation of funds belonging to the Panama Canal Company, but the judgment was set aside on technical grounds.
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Alexandre Mouton was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Louisiana from 1843 until 1846.
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Alexandre Alberto De La Rocha Serpa Pinto was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in 1846 and died in 1900. He commanded a scientific expedition to South Africa, and in 1877 traversed the continent of Africa from west to east, recording his travels in a book entitled 'How I crossed Africa' and published in 1881. In 1884 he explored the country between Mozambique and Lake Nyasa, and in 1889 became governor of Mozambique, failing in his attempt to bring Matabeleland under the dominion of Portugal.
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Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet was a Swiss critic and theologian. He was born in 1797 and died in 1847. He advocated complete religious freedom and in 1845 founded the Swiss Free Church.
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Alexandre Henri Wallon was a French historian and politician. He was born in 1812 and died in 1904.
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Alexei Vasilievitch Suvarov was a Russian soldier. He was born in 1729 at Moscow and died in 1800. His early career as a soldier involved serving against the Swedes and in the Seven Years War, later earning himself a reputation in conflicts against the Poles and the Turks. As a general in command he was constantly in the field and won a number of victories between 1775 and 1795, securing the capitulation of Warsaw in 1794. In 1799 he emerged from an enforced retirement to lead an army to aid the Austrians in Italy. Having defeated the French in several engagements he took his troops across the Alps into Switzerland where he was defeated and forced to retreat back into Austria.
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Alexey Novikov-Priboy was a Soviet writer. He was born in 1877 and died in 1944. He served in the Tsarist navy, and was a prisoner of war in Japan. He wrote realistic sea stories and novels based on his own experiences, of which the best-known is Tsushinra.
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Alexis Boyer was a French surgeon. He was born in 1757 and died in 1833. He was appointed first surgeon to Napoleon and appointed Baron of the Empire. He wrote several books on anatomy and surgery. His chief works are Traite d'Anatomie (Paris, 1797-1799); Traite des Maladies Chirurgicales et des Operations qui leur conviennent (published in eleven volumes, 1814-1826).
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Alexis Claude Clairaut was a French mathematician. He was born in 1713 at Paris and died in 1765. In his eleventh year he composed a treatise on the four curves of the third order, which, with his subsequent Recherches sur les Courbes a double Courbure, 1731, procured him a seat in the Academy at the age of eighteen. He accompanied Maupertuis to Lapland, to assist in measuring an arc of the meridian, and obtained the materials for his work Sur la Figure de la Terre. In 1752 he published his Theorie de la Lune, and in 1759 calculated the perihelion of Halley's comet.
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Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clebel de Tocqueville was a French politician and writer.
He was born in 1805 at Verneuil, Seine-et-Oise and died in 1859. A great-grandson of Malesherbes, he was called to the bar in 1826, and became a judge in 1830. He visited the USA in 1831, and published his famous study of La Domocratie en Amerique in 1835. He was admitted to the Academie Francaise in 1841. Deputy for Valogne from 1839 to 1848, he was a member of the moderate group of the opposition, a man of open and liberal mind, with a wide knowledge of democratic institutions. Elected to the constituent assembly in 1848, he became minister of foreign affairs in 1849. His protest against the coup d'etat in1851, led to a short imprisonment.
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Alexis Michailovitch was the second Russian Czar of the line of Romanof. He was born in 1629 and died in 1676. He succeeded his father Michael Feodorovitch in 1645 and did much for the internal administration and for the enlargement of the empire; reconquered Little Russia from Poland, and carried his authority to the extreme east of Siberia. He was father of Peter the Great.
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Alexis Petrovitch was a Russian prince. He was born in 1690 at Moscow and died in 1718. He was the eldest son of Peter the Great and opposed the innovations introduced by his father, who on this account disinherited him by a ukase in 1718, and when he discovered that Alexis was paving the way to succeed to the crown he had his son tried and condemned to death. This affected the latter so much that he died in a few days, leaving a son, afterwards the emperor Peter II.
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Alexis Benoit Soyer was a French cook. He was born in 1809 at Meaux and died in 1858. A famous chef in Paris, he fled to England during the French Revolution in 1830. He was head cook at the Reform Club from 1837 until 1850. In 1847 he persuaded the British government to establish food-kitchens in Dublin to relieve the distress caused by the Irish famine. In 1854 he published 'The Shilling Cookery Book' and in 1855 he went to the Crimea and with Florence Nightingale reorganised the system of food supply.
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Alexius Comnenus was a Byzantine Emperor. He was born in 1048 and died in 1118. He was a nephew of Isaac the first emperor of the Comneni, and attained the throne in 1081, at a time when the empire was menaced from various sides, especially by the
Turks and the Normans. From these dangers, as well as from later - caused by the first Crusade, the Normans, and the Turks- he managed to extricate himself by policy or warlike measures, and maintained his position until the age of seventy, during a reign of thirty-seven years. His daughter Anna wrote a life of him known as the Alexiad, which is one continuous eulogy.
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Alfarabi was an Arabian philosopher. He lived around 900 and was born at Farab. In his encyclopaedia he recognised six orders of sciences - language, logic, mathematics, natural science, civil science and divine science.
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Alfonso Castro was a Spanish theologian and pulpit orator. He was born in 1495 at Zamora and died in 1558. He was chaplain to Philip II and accompanied him in 1554 to England when he went to marry Queen Mary.
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Alfonso I (Alfonso the Conqueror) was king of Portugal. He was born in 1110 and died in 1185. He was a son of Henry of Burgundy, and in 1128 undertook control of state affairs which until then had been undertaken by his mother, Theresa of Castile. He waged a successful war against the Moors, inflicting a decisive defeat on them at Ourique in 1139 when he assumed the title of King of Portugal. He captured Lisbon in 1147.
Alfonso I was king of Asturias (Spain). He was born in 693 and died in 757.
Alfonso I (Alfonso the Victorious) was King of Aragon and Navarre from 1105 to 1134. He waged a war against the Moors, seizing Saragossa and Tarragona. He was mortally wounded during the siege of Fraga in 1134.
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Alfonso II (Alfonso The Chaste) was king of Asturias (Spain). He was born in 759 and died in 842. The son of Fruela I he faced frequent and determined attacks by the armies of the emirate of Cordoba and was often defeated, but his determination saved Asturias from destruction and he built a new capital, Oviedo, on a strategic site in the mountains and set about giving the Asturian kingdom a national identity.
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Alfonso III (Alfonso the Great) was King of Leon, Galicia and Asturias. He was born in 848 and died in 910. He was an intrepid champion of Christendom against the Moors in Spain. He succeeded his father, Ordono I in 866. In a succession of hard-fought campaigns he extended his rule over Old Castile and part of Portugal. Popular discontent, represented by his son Garcias in 888, and later by his queen, forced him to abdicate in favour of his three sons, but a Moorish invasion recalled him to power.
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Alfonso IV (Alfonso The Monk) was king of Leon and Asturias (Spain). He died in 933. Known as Alfonso The Monk because he abdicated to become a monk, he tried to reclaim his throne but chaos ensued.
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Alfonso VI (Alfonso The Brave) was king of Leon and later king of the united Castile and Leon (Spain). He was born about 1040 and died in 1109. A Christian king, his oppression of Muslims led to the invasion of Spain by an Almoravid army from North Africa in 1086.
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Alfred or Aelfred the Great was a King of England. He was born in 849 at Wantage, Berkshire and died in 901. He was one of the most illustrious rulers on record. His father was Ethelwolf, son of Egbert, king of the West Saxons. He succeeded his brother Ethelred in 872, at a time when the Danes, or Nosemen, had extended their conquests widely over the country, and they had completely overrun the kingdom of the West Saxons by 878. Alfred was obliged to flee in disguise, and stayed for some time with one of his own neat-herds.
At length he gathered a small force, and having fortified himself on the Isle of Athelney, formed by the confluence of the rivers Parret and Tone, amid the marshes of Somerset, he was able to make frequent sallies against the enemy. It was during his abode here that he went, if the story is true, disguised as a harper into the camp of King Guthrum (or Guthorm), and, having ascertained that the Danes felt themselves secure, hastened back to his troops, led them against the enemy, and gained such a decided victory that fourteen days afterwards the Danes begged for peace. This battle took place in May, 878, near Edington, in Wiltshire. Alfred allowed the Danes who were already in the country to remain, on condition that they gave hostages, took a solemn oath to quit Wessex, and embraced Christianity. Their king, Guthrum, was baptized, with thirty of his followers, and ever afterward remained faithful to Alfred. They received that portion of the east of England now occupied by the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge, as a place of residence.
The few years of tranquillity (886-893) which followed were employed by Alfred in rebuilding the towns that had suffered most during the war, particularly London; in training his people in arms and no less in agriculture; in improving the navy; in systematizing the laws and internal administration; and in literary labours and the advancement of learning. He caused many manuscripts to be translated from Latin, and himself translated several works into Anglo-Saxon, such as the Psalms, AEsop's Fables, Boethius on the Consolation of Philosophy, the History of Orosius, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, etc. He also drew up several original works in Anglo-Saxon. These peaceful labours were interrupted, about 894, by an invasion of the Norsemen, who, after a struggle of three years, were finally driven out.
Alfred married, in 868, Alswith or Ealhswith, the daughter of a Mercian nobleman, and left two sons: Edward, who succeeded him, and Ethelwerd, who died in 922. Alfred presents us with one of the most perfect examples of the able and patriotic monarch united with the virtuous man.
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Alfred A Taylor was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Tennessee from 1921 until 1923.
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Alfred Adler was an Austrian psychologist. He was born in 1870 and died in 1937. He put forward the theory of the inferiority complex.
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Alfred Ainger was a British clergyman and writer. He was born in 1837 and died in 1904. He was educated at King's College, London, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, took orders after gaining his degree, and in 1866 was appointed reader of the Temple Church, London, being appointed Master of the Temple in 1893, while holding also a canonry in Bristol Cathedral, to which he had been appointed in 1887. He was highly successful as a preacher, but is chiefly known by his literary labours, especially those connected with Lamb and Hood, both of whose works he edited. The volumes on Lamb and on Crabbe in the English Men of Letters series are from his pen, and he wrote a memoir of Hood for his edition of the works.
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Brigadier-General Alfred Cecil Critchley (nicknamed 'the father of greyhound racing') was a Canadian greyhound racing promoter. He was born in 1890 and died in 1964. He introduced greyhound racing to England, building and operating the first greyhound racing track at Belle Vue, Manchester in 1926.
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Alfred Crowquill was a pseudonym for Alfred Forrester the English artist.
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Count Alfred D'Orsay was a French dilettante artist and man of fashion. He was born in 1798 at Paris 1798 and died in 1852. When a young man he visited England, and became acquainted with Byron and other literary and fashionable celebrities. He married a daughter of the Earl of Blessington, but after the earl's death a separation took place, and Alfred D'Orsay became an inmate of Gore House, which the Countess of Blessington had made the centre of a famous literary coterie. A zealous Bonapartist, he followed Prince Louis Napoleon to Paris in 1849, whose favour he enjoyed until his death.
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Alfred de Musset was a French romantic poet. He was born in 1810 at Paris and died in 1857. From early childhood he was the pet and darling of the most brilliant social circles. At seventeen he began to write poetry, the quality of which so charmed Victor Hugo, that he invited De Musset to join the Cenacle. De Musset's earliest work was 'Contes d'Espagne et d'Italie', published in 1830, which took Paris by storm. He next wrote a play, 'La Nuit Venitienne' published in 1830, but it was not successful.
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Alfred Deakin was an Australian politician. He was born in 1856 and died in 1919. He entered the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1878 and the federal Cabinet in 1901 and became Prime Minister of Australia in 1903, and was returned to office in 1905 to 1908 and 1909 to 1910. He was a racist, and insisted that Australia should be preserved for the white races.
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Alfred Drake (real name Alfredo Capurro) was an Italian-American singer and dancer. He was born in 1914 and died in 1992.
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Alfred E Driscoll was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Jersey from 1947 until 1954.
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Alfred E Smith was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of New York from 1919 until 1920.
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Sir Alfred East was a British painter and etcher. He was born in 1849 at Kettering and died in 1913. He studied art at Glasgow School of Art and at Paris under Tony Fleury and Bouguereau. He became a landscape painter of pronounced individuality, though with a strong sympathy with Jean Corot. Sir Alfred East was elected ARA in 1899 and RA in 1913. In 1906 he was chosen as president of the Royal Society of British Artists and in 1910 was knighted.
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Alfred Henry Forrester (Alfred Crowquill, as he was commonly known) was an English artist. He was born in 1804 and died in 1872. He contributed sketches to Punch, the Illustrated London News and other journals.
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Alfred H Colquitt was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Georgia from 1877 until 1882.
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Alfred H Littlefield was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Rhode Island from 1880 until 1883.
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Alfred Hajos was a Hungarian swimmer. He was born in 1878 and died in 1955. He was the first Olympic champion, winning two out of a possible three gold medals at the Athens Games of 1896. His real name was Arnold Guttmann, but eventually he changed his name to Alfred Hajos, his swimming pseudonym.
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Sir Alfred Charles William Harmsworth was an Irish publisher. He was born in 1865 and died in 1922. Alfred Harmsworth had an insight into what the public wanted, and revolutionished British newspapers by producing the first tabloid newspaper, the Daily Mail, in 1896 which included gossip and pictures rather than the dry court reports and the like of the established and unpopular newspapers. In 1903 he started the Daily Mirror newspaper as a paper for women and later bought The Times and lowered its retail price to increase sales. His concept of low cost, large volume sales, was applied to a set of affordable encyclopaedias published in 1906 as The Harmsworth Encyclopaedia, and later re-issued as The Harmsworth Universal Encyclopaedia in about 1922.
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Sir Alfred Hitchcock was a British film director. He was born in 1899 and died in 1981.
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Alfred Edward Housman was a British novelist. He was born in 1859 and died in 1936.
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Alfred Howe Terry was an American general. He was born in 1827 and died in 1890. He was one of the most successful of the civilian officers in the War of the Rebellion. Before the struggle he had been a lawyer, paying some attention to militia matters. During the first year he commanded a regiment at the capture of Port Royal and Fort Pulaski. Being made a brigadier-general, he served in 1862-1863 in the operations near Charleston. He commanded a corps in the Army of the James, and fought at Chester Station, Drewry's Bluff and the siege of Petersburg. He was entrusted with the military part of the second attempt on Fort Fisher, in January, 1865, co-operating with the admiral. The successful storming of the fort on January the 14th made Alfred Howe Terry a brigadier-general in the regular army. He captured Wilmington, and was a departmental commander after the war. General Alfred Howe Terry became major-general in 1886, and retired in 1888.
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Alfred Iverson was an American politician. He was born in 1798 and died in 1873. He represented Georgia in the US Congress as a Democrat from 1847 to 1849 and from 1855 to 1861. He was also a brigadier-general in the Confederate army.
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Alfred Jarry was a French writer. He was born in 1873 at Laval and died in 1907. He wrote short stories, poems and plays in a Surrealist style, inventing a logic of the absurd which he called pataphysique.
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Alfred Krupp was a German industrialist. He was born in 1812 and died in 1887. In the 1840s he began to manufacture ordnance at the ironworks founded in Essen by his father, and built the company up to become the largest ordnance manufacturer in Europe.
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Alfred M Landon was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Kansas from 1933 until 1937.
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Alfred Moore was an American jurist. He was born in 1755 and died in 1810. He fought at Charleston and Fort Moultrie during the American War Of Independence. He was Attorney-General of North Carolina from 1792 to 1798. He was a Justice of the US Supreme Court from 1799 to 1805.
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Alfred O P Nicholson was an American politician. He was born in 1808 and died in 1876. He represented Tennessee in the US Senate as a Democrat from 1841 to 1843 and from 1859 to 1861. He wrote the famous 'Nicholson Letter' to aspirants for the Presidential nomination in 1848.
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Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish engineer and the inventor of dynamite. He was born in 1833 at Stockholm and died in 1896. On his death he left money that annual prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and the cause of peace could be made (the Nobel prizes).
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Alfred Pleasonton was an American soldier. He was born in 1824 and died in 1897. He served with distinction during the Mexican War. He served throughout the Virginia peninsular campaign, and commanded a brigade at Boonesborough, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville where his brilliant-action saved the national army from disaster. He was commander-in-chief of cavalry at Gettysburg. He retired in 1888 with the rank of colonel in the regular army.
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Sir Alfred E Ramsey was an English Association Football player. He was born in 1922. Alfred Ramsey played for Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur and England and went on to manage Ipswich Town and England. He first played for Southampton as a full-back before leaving for Tottenham Hotspur in 1949 with whom he played for England 32 times before becoming manager of Ipswich Town in 1955. In 1962 he was appointed team manager of the England Association Football team, and was knighted after managing England's world cup victory in 1966.
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Alfred Rethel was a German painter. He was born in 1816 at Diepenbend and died in 1859. He studied at Dusseldorf under Schadow, and became famous by his fresco, 'Scenes from the Life of Charlemagne' for Aix-la-Chapelle painted in 1844, and the water colour 'Hannibal crossing the Alps'.
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Alfred Ridley is an English clergyman and taxation protester. He was born in 1934. In 2005 he made headline news when he was jailed for 28 days by a court in Towcester, Northamptonshire for refusing to pay what he described as an illegal rise in the council tax. The reverend Alfred Ridley, a retired vicar, is one of numerous people protesting against the tax which makes no allowance for one's ability to pay - the poor are expected to pay like the rich.
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Alfred Stevens was an English artist and designer. He was born in 1818 at Blandford, Dorset and died in 1875. He studied painting in Italy, but while there turned to sculpture and about 1841 entered Thorwaldsen's studio. He returned to England in 1843 and from 1856 to 1857 received the commission for his great work on Wellington's monument in St Paul's Cathedral, which he never completed.
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Alfred Swaine Taylor was a British medical jurist. He was born in 1806 at Northfleet and died in 1880. Educated at Guy's Hospital and at St Thomas' Hospital he became professor of medical jurisprudence at Guy's Hospital in 1831, remaining in the post until 1877. He was the first lecturer in England on the subject of medical jurisprudence and was constantly in demand as a medical expert witness at trials where his profound knowledge of poisons, wounds and the like was much valued. In 1844 his 'Manual of Medical Jurisprudence' was published.
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Alfred Tennyson was an eccentric English poet and Poet Laureate. He was born in 1809 at Somersby, Lincolnshire and died in 1892. He started writing poetry at the age of eight and had written most of a blank verse play by the age of fourteen. In 1827 he entered Cambridge, and his first published poetry appeared in ' Poems by Two Brothers'. At Cambridge, he made friends with Edward Fitzgerald, Thackeray, and Arthur Henry Hallam. In 1829 Alfred beat Thackeray, among others, for a poetry prize. The following year, his Poems, Chiefly Lyrical won some critical praise, and he met Emily Sellwood, the love of his life. Arthur Hallam introduced them and himself became engaged to Alfred's sister Emily.
In 1839, Alfred and Emily were officially engaged and by 1840, officially unengaged. Emily's father had put a stop to the match, supposedly because Alfred was too poor to marry. He was, but the real reason was probably the very unhappy marriage between Charles, Alfred's older brother, and Louisa Sellwood, Emily's sister. Charles was an opium addict, and though he eventually gave up the habit, by then Louisa had worked herself into a nervous collapse trying to help him. So Alfred and Emily suffered the pain of separation, which showed strongly in Alfred's poetry of the time. He threw himself into travelling and studying, and he eventually became proficient in several languages, including Persian and Hebrew.
By 1842, he found himself famous with the publication of his 'Poems'. Unfortunately, he had decided that his health was bad and let his doctors talk him into not writing or even really reading for almost two years. In 1849, his brother Charles was reconciled with his wife and the following year, on the 13th of June, Alfred and Emily married in great secrecy. By then, Wordsworth had died and the Court was looking for a new Poet Laureate. The job was first offered to the 87-year-old Samuel Rogers, who turned it down. Alfred's name was submitted with two others, but Prince Albert had read Alfred's poem 'In Memorium', and that tipped the balance in Alfred's favour. He loved being Poet Laureate, though he never quite got used to all the attention from complete strangers.
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Alfred T A Torbert was an American soldier. He was born in 1833 and died in 1880. He led a Federal brigade at Manassas, Crampton's Gap and Gettysburg in 1862. In 1864 he was placed in command of a division of cavalry in the Army of the Potomac. He fought at Cold Harbor, Trevillian Station, Winchester and Cedar Creek. He commanded at Tom's River, Liberty Mills and Gordonsville. He was Consul General at Paris from 1873 to 1878.
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Alfred Vail was an American inventor. He was born in 1807 at New Jersey and died in 1859. He was associated with Professor Samuel Morse in the invention of the telegraph. The alphabetical characters and many of the essential features of the telegraph were his invention.
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Alfred Russel Wallace was an English naturalist. He was born in 1823 and died in 1913. He made important discoveries regarding the geographical distribution of animals and independently of Darwin formulated the theory of natural selection.
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Alfwold was king of Northumberland in 806.
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Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet and dramatist. He was born in 1837 at London and died in 1909. The eldest child of Admiral Charles Swinburne he was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford where he refused to conform and left Oxford without graduating. He was later to declare that he learnt most from Lamb's Specimens and the Bible.
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The Algonquin (Algonkin) were scattered small groups of American Indians speaking Algonkian languages and living in forest regions around the Ottawa River in Ontario, Canada. Most were slaughtered by the Iroquois or died of European diseases although about 2000 still survive.
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Ali was the cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed. He was born in 600 and died in 660. He was the first of his converts, and the bravest and most faithful of his adherents. He married Fatima, the daughter of the prophet, but after the death of Mohammed in 632 his claims to the caliphate were set aside in favour successively of Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman. On the assassination of Othman, in 656, he became caliph, and after a series of struggles with his opponents, including Ayesha, widow of Mohammed, finally lost his life by assassination at Kufa in 660. A Mohammedan schism arose after his death, and has produced two sects. One sect, called the Shiites, put Ali on a level with Mohammed, and do not acknowledge the three caliphs who preceded Ali. They are regarded as heretics by the other sect, called Sunnites. The Maxims and Hymns of Ali are yet extant.
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Ali Bey was a ruler of Egypt. He was born in 1728 in the Caucasus and died in 1773. He was taken to Cairo and sold as a slave, but having entered the force of the Mamelukes, and attained the first dignity among them, he succeeded in making himself virtual governor of Egypt. He now refused the customary tribute to the Porte, and coined money in his own name. In 1769 he took advantage of a war in which the Porte was then engaged with Russia, to endeavour to add Syria and Palestine to his Egyptian dominion, and in this he had almost succeeded, when the defection of his own adopted son Mohammed Bey drove him from Egypt. Joining his ally Sheikh Daher in Syria, he still pursued his plans of conquest with remarkable success, until in 1773 he was induced to make the attempt to recover Egypt with insufficient means. In a battle near Cairo his army was completely defeated and he himself taken prisoner, dying a few days afterwards either of his wounds or by poison.
*Ali Pasha
Ali Pasha was an Albanian chief. He was born in 1741 and died in 1822. A bold and able, but ferocious and unscrupulous Albanian, he was the son of an Albanian chief, who was deprived of his territories by rapacious neighbours. Ali by his enterprise and success, and by his entire want of scruple, got possession of more than his father had lost, and made himself master of a large part of Albania, including Yanma, which the Porte sanctioned his holding, with the title of pasha. He now as a ruler displayed excellent qualities, putting an end to brigandage and anarchy, making roads, and encouraging commerce. He still farther extended his sway by subduing the brave Suliotes of Epirus, whom he conquered in 1803, after a three years' war. He had long been aiming at independent sovereignty, and had intrigued alternately with England, France, and Russia. Latterly he was almost independent of the Porte, which at length determined to put an end to his power; and in 1820 Sultan Mahmoud pronounced his deposition. Ali resisted several pashas who were sent to carry out this decision, only surrendering at last in 1822, on receiving assurances that his life and property should be granted him. Faith was not kept with him, however; he was killed, and his head was cut off and conveyed to Constantinople, while his treasures were seized by the Porte.
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Princess Alice Maud Mary was the second daughter of Queen Victoria, Duchess of Saxony, and Grand-duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was born in 1843 and died in 1878. In 1862 she married Frederick William Louis of Hesse, nephew of the grand-duke, whom he succeeded in 1877. She showed exemplary devotion to her father Prince Albert during his fatal illness and to the Prince of Wales during his attack of fever in 1871. During the Franco-German war she did noble nursing service to both French and Germans. She died from diphtheria caught while nursing her husband and children.
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Alicia Cockburn was a Scottish poet. She was born in 1713 and died in 1794.
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Alicia Keys is an American singer. She was born in 1981 at New York of a black father and white mother. Introduced to the piano at the age of seven to escape the misery of a rough neighbourhood, she studied classical music, developing a passion for Chopin before writing her first song when she was fourteen.
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Alicia Anne Spottiswoode was a Scottish song-writer and antiquarian. She was born in 1810 and died in 1900.
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Alighieri Dante was an Italian poet. He was born in 1265 at Florence and died in 1321. Of a family belonging to the lower nobility, his education was confided to the learned Brunetto Latini. He is said also to have studied in various seats of learning, and it is certain that either at this time or in the course of his wandering life he made himself master of all the knowledge of his time.
He seems to have been quite a boy, no more than nine years of age, when he first saw Beatrice Portinari, and the love she awakened in him he has described in that record of his early years, the Vita Nuova, as well as in his later great work, the Divina Cornmedia, in terms which make it hard to distinguish the real personality of Beatrice from some ideal power of beauty and virtue of which she is to Dante the symbol. Their actual lives at least went far enough apart, Beatrice marrying a noble Florentine, Simone Bardi, in 1287, and dying three years afterwards; while the year following Dante married Gemma dei Donati, by whom he had seven children. At this time the Guelfic party in Florence became divided into the rival factions of Bianchi and Neri (Whites and Blacks), the latter being an extreme party while the former leaned to reconciliation with the Ghibellines. Dante's sympathies were with the Bianchi, and being a prior of the trades and a leading citizen in Florence he went on an embassy to Rome to influence the pope on behalf of the Bianchi.
The rival faction of the Neri, however, had got the upper hand in the city, and in the usual fashion of the time were burning the houses of their rivals and slaying them in the open street. In Dante's absence his enemies obtained a decree of banishment;
against him, coupled with a heavy fine, a sentence which was soon followed by another condemning him to be burned alive for malversation and peculation.
From this time the poet became, and to the end of his life remained, an exile; and his history, first lost by the indifference of contemporaries and then hallowed by the legends of later generations, becomes semi-mythical. He has told us himself how he wandered 'through almost all parts where this language is spoken,' and how hard he felt it 'to climb the stairs and eat the bitter bread of strangers.' During this period he is said to have visited many cities, Arezzo, Bologna, Sienna, etc, and even Paris.
In 1314 he found shelter with Can Grande della Scala at Verona, where he remained until 1318. In 1320 we find him staying at Ravenna with his friend Guido da Polenta. In September 1321 his sufferings and wanderings were ended by death. He was buried at Ravenna, where his bones still lie.
His great poem, the Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy), written in great part, if not altogether, during his exile, is divided into three parts, entitled Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. The poet dreams that he has wandered into a dusky forest, when the shade of Virgil appears and offers to conduct him through hell and purgatory. Further the pagan poet may not go, but Beatrice herself shall lead him through paradise. The journey through hell is first described, and the imaginative power with which the distorted characters of the guilty and the punishments laid upon them are brought before us; the impressive pathos of these short histories - often compressed in Dante's severe style into a couple of lines - of Pope and Grhibelline, Italian lord and lady; the passionate depth of characterization, the subtle insight and intense faith, make up a whole which for significance and completeness has perhaps no rival in the work of any one man.
From hell the poet, still in the company of Virgil, ascends to purgatory, where the scenes are still mostly of the same kind though the punishments are only temporary. In the earthly paradise Dante beholds Beatrice in a scene of surpassing magnificence, ascends with her into the celestial paradise, and after roaming over seven spheres reaches the eighth, where he beholds 'the glorious company which surrounds the triumphant Redeemer.' In the ninth Dante feels himself in presence of the divine essence, and sees the souls of the blessed on thrones in a circle of infinite magnitude. The Deity himself, in the tenth, he cannot see for excess of light.
There are many notable translations of Dante's great poem. Amongst English versions we may mention those of Gary, Longfellow, and Dean Plumptre, and an excellent prose translation by Dr. John Carlyle. The Vita Nuova has been admirably translated by D. G. Rossetti in his Early Italian Poets.
Dante's other works are: Il Convito (the Banquet), a series of philosophical commentaries on the author's canzoni; Il Canzoniere, a collection of poems; a Latin treatise, De Monarchia, a work intended to prove the supremacy of the head of the holy Roman Empire; a treatise on the Italian language entitled, De Vulgari Eloquio; and an inquiry into the relative altitude of the water and the land, De Aqua et Terra.
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Alistair MacLean was a Scottish writer. He was born in 1922 at Glasgow and died in 1987. Educated at Glasgow university, he served in the Royal Navy from 1941 until 1946 before becoming a school teacher. In 1954 he won a competition in the Glasgow Herald for writing a short story about an adventure at sea. After which, he was encouraged by the publishers William Collins to write a novel, HMS Ulysses, which became an international hit. In 1957 he wrote his second adventure novel, The Guns of Navarone and followed it by several more adventure novels all of which have proved very popular and many of which have been made into successful films.
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Allan Cunningham was a Scottish poet. He was born in 1785 at Vlackwood and died in 1842. Apprenticed at the age of eleven to a stone-mason, having been employed by Cromek to collect materials for his Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, he sent instead his own productions, which were printed, but quickly recognized as being forgeries. He then proceeded to London, where he at first supported himself by journalism, but afterwards obtained a situation in the studio of Chantrey, with whom he remained until his death. His later works comprise the drama of Sir Marmaduke Maxwell; the novels of Paul Jones and Sir Michael Scott; the Songs of Scotland; his British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1829); and lives of Burns and of Mary Queen of Scots.
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Allan Dias is bass player with the rock music band Public Image Ltd.
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Allan Pinkerton was a Scottish-born detective. He was born in 1819 and died in 1884. He fled from Scotland as a Chartist to America in 1842. He established Pinkerton's Detective Agency in Chicago in 1850, and organized the secret service of the American National army in 1861.
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Allan Shivers was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Texas from 1949 until 1957.
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Allan Gibson Steel was an English cricketer. He was born in 1858 and died in 1914. Educated at Marlborough and Trinity Hall, Cambridge he played cricket for his school and university, being captain of Cambridge in 1880, and then of the Lancashire eleven. On nine occasions he represented England against Australia, and also toured in Australia. Both a batsman and a bowler, he scored 135 and 148 not out against Australia, and in 1879 bowled unchanged throughout both innings for the Gentleman against the Players. In 1883 he became a barrister, in 1901 a KC and in 1904 recorder at Oldham.
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Allen Bathurst (Earl Bathurst) WAS AN ENGLISH statesman. He was born in 1684 and died in 1775. He took part with Harley and St. John in opposing the influence of Marlborough, was raised to the peerage in 1711, impeached the promoters of the South Sea scheme, opposed the bill against Atterbury, and was a leading antagonist of Walpole. He was created earl in 1772. His name is also associated with those of the leading writers and wits of the day.
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Allen D Candler was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Georgia from 1898 until 1902.
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Allen I Olson was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Dakota from 1981 until 1984.
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Allen M Fletcher was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Vermont from 1912 until 1915.
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Allen Granbery Thurman was an American politician and judge. He was born in 1813 at Lynchburg, Virginia and died in 1895. In 1837 he was called to the Ohio judicial bench and served in congress as a Democrat for one term from 1845 to 1847, and in the Senate from 1869 to 1881 where he was chairman of the judiciary committee. The Thurman Act, regulating bond-aided railways was due to him.
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Allen Trimble was an American politician. He was a Federalist governor of Ohio during 1822.
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An almoner is a hospital social worker.
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The Almonhades (Almohades) were a dynasty of Berber princes who expelled the Almoravides, and reigned over a large part of north-west Africa and the southern half of Spain during the 12th and 13th centuries. They were founded as a Moslem sect by Mohammed-ibn-Abdallah. They conquered Morocco and extended their power in Spain by defeating the Castilians at Alarcos in 1195. They were defeated in Spain at the Battle of Navas de Tolosa in 1212 and in Morocco by a revolt of the nomadic tribes in 1269.
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The Almoravides were a Moorish dynasty which arose in north-western Africa in the eleventh century, and, having crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, gained possession of all Arabic Spain, but was overthrown by the Almonhades in the following century.
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Formerly, in England, an alnager was an official whose duty it was to inspect, measure, and stamp woollen cloth.
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Alois da Cadamosto was a Venetian explorer. He was born about 1432 and died in 1464. He explored the west coast of Africa as far south as the Gambia. His Book of the First Voyage over the Ocean to the Land of Negroes in Lower Ethiopia was published in 1507.
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Alonso Cano was a Spanish painter, sculptor and architect. He was born in 1601 at Granada and died in 1667. In 1639 he was appointed court painter and architect and around 1664 designed the façade of Coranda Cathedral.
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Alonzo B Cornell was an American politician. He was born in Ithaca, New York in 1832. In 1866 and 1867 he was a member of the Republican State Committee, and in 1868 was nominated for Lieutenant-Governor. He was elected to the State Assembly in 1872 and made Speaker in 1873. He received important appointments from President Grant, and was Governor of New York from 1880 until 1883.
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Alonzo Cano was a Spanish painter, sculptor and architect. He was born in 1601 at Granada and died in 1667. He produced the sculptor 'Madonna and Child' in the church of Nebrissa.
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Alonzo Garcelon was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Maine from 1879 until 1880.
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Alonzo M Clark was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Wyoming from 1931 until 1933.
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Aloys Senefelder (Alois Senefelder) was a German writer and the inventor of lithography. He was born in 1771 at Prague, Austria and died in 1834. As a writer, he printed and published his own books and it while was while experimenting with a means of printing engravings that he discovered a method of printing using a slab of Kelheim stone, which he improved and established as a commercial undertaking.
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Aloys Sprenger was an Austrian orientalist. He was born in 1813 at Nassereit and died in 1893. After acting as principal of a Muslim college at Delhi in 1857 he was naturalized as a British subject and left India and became professor of Oriental languages at Bern from 1858 to 1881.
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Alpheus Felch was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Michigan from 1846 until 1847.
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Alphonse Daudet was a French novelist. He was born in 1840 at Nimes and died in 1897. He settled in Paris in 1857, and wrote poems, essays, plays, etc, without much success, until he discovered his powers as a novelist, when he speedily became famous. His best works include Fromont jeune et Risler Aine (1874); Jack (1876); Le Nabab (1877); Les Rois en Exil (1879);
Numa Roumestan (1881); L'Evangeliste (1882); Sappho (1884); Tartarin sur les Alpes (1886), a sequel to Les Aventures Prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tarascon (1874); Trente Ans a Paris (autobiographical), 1888; Port Tarascon, dernieres Aventures d'lllustre Tartarin (1890); Rose et Ninette (1892). His chief works have been translated into English.
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Alphonse de Beauchamp was a French historian and publicist. He was born in 1767 at Monaco and died in 1832. Under the Directory he had the surveillance of the press, a position which supplied him with materials for his History of La Vendee. He contributed to the Moniteur and the Gazette de France. Among his chief works are the History of the Conquest of Peru, the History of Brazil, and the Life of Louis XVIII. The Memoires of Fouche is also with good reason ascribed to him.
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Alphonse Marie De Neuville was a French military painter. He was born in 1836 at St Omer and died in 1885. He studied under Ferdinand Delacroix, and achieved considerable success with his earlier pictures, which dealt with incidents in the Crimean War, the Italian Campaign of 1859 and other wars in which France took part.
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Alphonso de la Cueva Bedmar was a Spanish cardinal. He was born in 1572 and died in 1655. He was sent in 1607 by Philip III as ambassabor to Venice, and rendered himself famous by an alleged conspiracy with the Milanese and Neapolitan governors to overthrow the republic of Venice and subject it to Spanish domination in 1618. On its discovery Bedmar escaped, and was appointed governor of the Low Countries by the king and cardinal by the pope. The plot is the subject of Otway's Venice Preserved.
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Alphonso Taft was an American politician. He was born in 1810 at Ohio and died in 1891. He was Secretary of War in Grant's Cabinet from March to May, 1876, when he was made Attorney-General and served until 1877. He was Minister to Austria from 1882 to 1884, and to Russia from 1884 to 1885.
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Alphonso X (alphonso the Astronomer, Alphonso the Philosopher or Alphonso the Wise) was king of Castile and Leon,. He was born in 1226 and died in 1284. He succeeded to the throne in 1252. Being grandson of Philip of Hohenstaufen, son of Frederick Barbarossa, he endeavoured to have himself elected emperor of Germany, and in 1257 succeeded in dividing the election with Richard, earl of Cornwall. On Richard's death in 1272 he again unsuccessfully contested the imperial crown. Meantime his throne was endangered by conspiracies of the nobles and the attacks of the Moors. The Moors he conquered, but his domestic troubles were less easily overcome, and he was finally dethroned by his son Sancho in 1282. Alphonso X was the most learned prince of his age. Under his direction or superintendence were drawn up a celebrated code of laws, valuable astronomical tables which go under his name - the Alphonsine Tables, the first general history of Spain in the Castilian tongue, and a Spanish translation of the Bible.
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Alphonso XII was King of Spain. He was born in 1857 and died in 1885. The only son of Queen Isabella II and her cousin Francis of Assisi, he left Spain with his mother when she was driven from the throne by the revolution of 1868, and until 1874 resided partly in France and partly in Austria. In the latter year he studied for a time at the English military college, Sandhurst, being then known as Prince of the Asturias. His mother had given up her claims to the throne in 1870 in his favour, and in 1874 Alphonso came forward himself as claimant, and in the end of the year was proclaimed by General Martinez Campos as king. He now passed over into Spain and was enthusiastically received, most of the Spaniards being by this time tired of the republican government, which had failed to put down the Carlist party. Alphonso XII was successful in bringing the Carlist struggle to an end in 1876, and henceforth he reigned with little disturbance. He married first his cousin Maria de las Mercedes, daughter of the Duire de Montpensier; second, Maria Christina, archduchess of Austria, whom he left a widow with two daughters, a son (later Alphonso XIII) being born posthumously.
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Alphwuld was king of the East Angles in 746.
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Alred was king of Northumberland in 765. He was deposed.
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Alric was a son of Wihtred and king of the Heptarchy in 760.
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Alruna was a name given to a witch or prophetess by ancient Teutonic tribes.
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Althea Gibson is an American lawn tennis player. She was born in 1927. She won the 1956 French and Italian singles titles, and with Buxton the Wimbledon women's doubles.
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Alva Adams was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Colorado from 1887 until 1889.
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Alvan Stewart was an American abolitionist. He was born in 1790 at New York and died in 1849. He gained distinction as an advocate of temperance and slavery reform. He was the first in America to earnestly advocate a political party to promote the abolition of slavery.
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Alvar Aalto was a Finnish architect. He was born in 1898 and died in 1976. He is renowned for his organic approach to architecture, producing buildings which relate to environmental and human needs.
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Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was a Spanish explorer. He was born in 1507 and died in 1559. He went with Narvaez to Florida in 1527, and accompanied him on his westward march and voyage. He was wrecked near Matagorda Bay in Texas, captured by Indians among whom he became a medicine-man, and after finally escaping reached Mexico and discovered the Rio Grande. Afterwards he was the first European to explore Paraguay.
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Alvin Hawkins was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Tennessee from 1881 until 1883.
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Alvin O King was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Louisiana during 1932.
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Alvin P Hovey was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Indiana from 1889 until 1891.
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Alvin T Fuller was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1925 until 1929.
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Alvise Da Cadamosto was a Venetian explorer. He was born in 1432 and died in 1477. He explored the west coast of Africa as far south as the Rio Grande, and discovered the Cape Verde Islands in 1457.
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