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B Gratz Brown was an American politician. He was a Liberal Republican governor of Missouri from 1871 until 1873.
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B K Henagan was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of South Carolina during 1840.
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Babe Ruth (George Herman Ruth) was an American baseball player. He was born in 1895 and died in 1948. He started his career as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox, but is best known for his batting, regularly driving balls out of the park, and in 1919 set a home run record of 29 which he broke in 1920 with 54 when playing for the New York Yankees. In 1927 he set another season record of 60 home runs. By the time he retired in 1935 he had set a record of 714 home runs, which stood until it was beaten in 1974 by Hank Aaron.
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Baber was the founder of the Mogul dynasty which ruled northern India for 300 years. He was born in 1483 and died in 1530. He was a grandson of the great Tartar prince Timur or Tamerlane, and was sovereign of Kabul. He several times invaded Hindustan, and in 1525 finally overthrew and killed Sultan Ibrahim, the last Hindu emperor of the Patan or Afghan race. He made many improvements, social and political, in his empire, and left a valuable autobiography.
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The Babi are a Persian religious sect formed in 1843 by Bab Ed Din.
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Babrius was a Greek poet who lived during the second or third century of the Christian era. He wrote a number of AEsopian fables. Several versions of these made during the middle ages have come down to us as AEsop's fables. In 1840 a manuscript containing 120 fables by Babrius, previously unknown, was discovered on Mount Athos.
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Babur was the first Mogul Emperor of India. He was born in 1483 at Ferghana, Central Asia and died in 1530. He was born into a princely family of mixed Mongol and Turkish blood. Failure to recover his father's lands caused him to turn reluctantly south-east, for India seemed to present the last hope for his ambitions. Defeat of Ibrahim Lodi, the Afghan ruler of Delhi, at the battle of Panipat in 1526 initiated 200 years of strong Mogul rule in India. Having conquered much of northern India,
Babur ruled by force, lacking any civil administration. In addition to his military genius, he possessed a love of learning and wrote his own memoirs.
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Bacchylides was a Greek lyrical poet. He was born about the middle of the 5th century BC at the island of Cos. He was a nephew of Simonides and a contemporary of Pindar.
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Baccio Bandinelli was Italian sculptor. He was born in 1493 at Florence and died in 1560. He was jealous of and strove to rival Michaelangelo. Among his works are a Hercules and Cacus, the dead body of Christ held up by an angel, Adam and Eve, etc.
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Baccio D'Agnolo was a Florentine wood-carver, sculptor, and architect. He was born in 1460 and died in 1543. He designed some of the finest palaces, etc, in Florence, such as the Villa Borghese, the Palais Bartolini, etc.
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Bachelor was a term applied anciently to a person in the first or probationary stage of knighthood who has not yet raised his standard in the field. The term also denotes a person who has taken the first degree in the liberal arts and sciences, or in divinity, law, or medicine, at a college or university; or a man of any age who has not been married.
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The Baganda are a group of settled farmers in Uganda. They constituted a kingdom in the 19th century, in which the king was seen as the supreme ruler who exercised his power through a system of district chiefs. The Baganda consist of fifty exogamous clans, each distinguished by totemic symbols. Originally practitioners of a form of ancestor worship, they are now predominantly Christian.
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The Baggara are a Muslim Bedouin people of the Nile Basin.
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Baha'dur Shah was the last of the Grand Moguls of India. A descendant of Tamerlane, in 1857, during the Indian mutiny, the Muslims who wished to restore the empire of the Moguls placed him, then a very old man, at the head of the movement in Delhi, but the city was soon retaken by the British, and the emperor was banished to Rangoon, where he died in 1862.
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The Bahmani were a dynasty of sultans of the Deccan plateau in central India from 1347 to 1518. The dynasty was founded by Ala-ud-din Bahman Shah, who in 1347 rebelled against his Delhi suzerain. His successors expanded over the west-central Deccan, reaching a peak in the late 15th century under Mahmud Gawan, who successfully held encroaching Hindu and Muslim powers at bay. During the early 16th century the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar to the south expanded at the Bahmanis' expense, and between 1490 and 1518 the sultanate gradually dissolved into five successor Muslim states, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda, Berar, and Bidar.
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Bajazet I (Bayasid I) was a Turkish emperor. In 1389, having strangled his brother Jacob, succeeded his father Murad or Amurath, who fell in the battle of Cassova against the Serbians. From the rapidity of his conquests he received the name of Ilderim, the Lightning. In three years he subjected Bulgaria, part of Serbia, Macedonia, Thessaly, and the states of Asia Minor, and besieged Constantinople (Istanbul) for ten years, defeating Sigismund and the allied Hungarians, Poles, and French, in 1395. The attack of Timur (Tamerlane) on Natolia, in 1400, saved the Greek Empire, Bajazet being defeated and taken prisoner by him near Ancyra, Galatia, 1402. The story of his being carried about in a cage by Timur is improbable; but Bajazet died in 1409, in Timur's camp, in Caramania. His successor was Soilman I.
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Bajazet II was a Turkish emperor, He succeeded his father, Mohammed II, as sultan of the Turks, in 1481. He increased the Turkish Empire by conquests on the north-west and in the east took Lepanto, Modon, and Durazzo in a war against the Venetians, and ravaged the coasts of the Christian states on the Mediterranean, to revenge the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. Having abdicated in favour of his younger son Selim he died on his way to a residence near Adrianople in 1513. He did much for the improvement of his empire and the promotion of the sciences.
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The Bakalahari are a Bechuana tribe inhabiting the Kalahari Desert, South Africa.
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A baker is a person who manufacturers bread.
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Bal Gangadhar Tilak was an Indian patriot. He was born in 1856 at Batnagiri and died in 1920. Born of the Brahman caste of Chitpavans, he was educated at the Deccan college, became a lawyer and in 1880 founded two newspapers, The Mahratta, printed in English and The Kesari printed in a local language. From his newspapers he attacked British occupation of India and appealed for independence. He was imprisoned by the British for sedition, and in 1908 following violent resistance among his supporters to the British occupation, he was sentenced to six years' transportation. In 1918 he went to Britain to prosecute his action against Sir Valentine Chirol claiming defamation contained in articles written by Chirol.
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Baldassare Castiglione was an Italian writer. He was born in 1478 and died in 1529. Among his works the Libro del Cortegiano (Book of the Courtier) is the most celebrated. His letters are valuable contributions to political and literary history.
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Baldomero Espartero (Duke of Vittoria) was a Spanish statesman. He was born in 1792 and died in 1879. The son of a wheelwright, be was educated for the priesthood, but joined the army as a volunteer in 1808. He took a leading part in the conflict witli the Carlists, and was one of the most prominent men in Spain during several decades of the 19th century. He was regent of the kingdom from 1841 until 1843, and again head of the government from 1854 until 1856. He was exiled in England for several years between 1843 and 1847. In 1868 his name way vaguely put forward in the Cortes as a candidate for the throne, but the proposal fell flat, and the closing years of his life were spent in retirement.
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Baldred was king of the Heptarchy in 805. He was killed by Egbert, king of Wessex in 823 who took over the kingdom of Heptarchy.
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Baldwin I was Emperor of Constantinople. He was born in 1172 and died in 1206. He was the founder of the short-lived dynasty of Latin sovereigns of the Eastern empire, and was hereditary Count of Flanders and Hainault. His courage and conduct in the fourth crusade led to his unanimous election as Emperor of the East after the capture of Constantinople by the French and Venetians in 1204. In the absence of Baldwin's brother with a large part of the army, the Greeks rose in revolt under the instigation of Joannices, King of Bulgaria. Baldwin marched on Adrianople, but was taken prisoner and died in captivity. Baldwin was succeeded by his brother Henry.
Baldwin I was the first Latin king of Jerusalem. He was born in 1058 and died in 1118. Having taken part in the first crusade with his eldest brother, Godfrey of Boulogne, he succeeded on the death of Godfrey to the government of Jerusalem in 1100.
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Baldwin II was the fifth and last Latin Emperor of Constantinople. He was born in 1217 and died in 1270. During his minority John of Brienne was regent, but on his assuming the power himself the empire fell to pieces. In 1261 Constantinople was taken by the forces of Michael Palaeologus, and Baldwin retired to Italy.
Baldwin II was king of Jersualem. He was the cousin and successor of Baldwin I, king of Jersualem, and reigned from 1118 until 1131. During his reign the reduction of Tyre and institution of the order of Templars took place.
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Baldwin III was King of Jerusalem from 1143 to 1162. He was son and successor of Foulques of Anjou, and the embodiment of the best aspects of chivalry. After defeating Noureddin in 1152, and again in 1157, he was enabled to devote himself to the hopeless task of improving the kingdom and establishing the Christian chivalry in the East. His death in 1162 was almost immediately followed by the total collapse of the kingdom.
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Balfour Stewart was a Scottish physicist. He was born in 1828 at Edinburgh and died in 1887. He was educated at St Andrews and Edinburgh. He went to Australia for several years and on his return was appointed successively assistant to Professor Forbes in Edinburgh, director of Kew Observatory, and professor of physics in Owen's College, Manchester. He wrote numerous books.
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The Bambara are a Negroid people of west Africa living chiefly in Mali and by the headwaters of the River Niger in Guinea.
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The Bamessing are a tribe of Cameroon.
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The Bamum (Mum, Mom) are a sedentary people of West Africa centred around Foumban in Cameroon. They are primarily farmers, who conduct a little fishing and less hunting, growing chiefly maize, millet, cassava and sweet potatoes.
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The term bandit,from the Italian bandito, originally meant an exile, banished man, or outlaw, and hence, as persons outlawed frequently adopted the profession of brigand or highwayman, the word came to be synonymous with brigand, and was around the late 19th century applied to members of the organized gangs which then infested some districts of Italy, Sicily, Spain, Greece, and Turkey.
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The Bania are a Hindu caste of traders (Vishnuites). They are vegetarian and distinguished by thrift and commercial acumen.
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A Banian, or Banyan is an Indian trader or merchant, one engaged in commerce generally, but more particularly one of the great traders of Western India, as in the seaports who traditionally carried on a large trade by means of caravans with the interior of Asia, and with Africa by vessels. They form a class of the Vaisya caste, wear a peculiar dress, and are strict in the observance of fasts and in abstaining from the use of flesh. Hence the term - Banian days which were days in which sailors in the navy had no flesh meat served out to them. Banian days were abolished before the start of the 20th century , but the term is still applied to days of poor fare.
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Sir Bannastre Tarleton was a British soldier. He was born in 1754 and died in 1833. A colonel, he went to America from England with Charles Cornwallis in 1776. He engaged in Colonel Harcourt's raid upon Baskingridge, New Jersey. In 1779 he organized the British Legion, or Tarleton's Legion, in South Carolina, with which he conducted partisan warfare. He slaughtered Colonel Buford's regiment at Waxhaw Creek and fought bravely at Camden and Fishing Creek. He was defeated at Blackstock Hill by General Sumter and his force was almost annihilated at Cowpens by General Morgan. He surrendered with Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown. He wrote 'A History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America'.
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A banneret is a dignity between baron and knight, which was anciently conferred by the king under the royal standard on the field of battle, a knight being so made as a reward for bravery, with the ceremony of cutting off the point of his pennon and making it into a banner.
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The Bantu are a wide-spread race in south Africa, which includes the Zulu, Matabele, Damaras and Mashonas. They were nicknamed Kaffirs (unbelievers) by Islamic traders to south Africa.
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The Banyarwanda are an indigenous people of Rwanda.
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Baptiate Honore Raymond Capefigue was a French historian and biographer. He was born in 1801 and died in 1872. He held various journalistic posts in connection with the Temps, the Messager, etc, his royalist articles winning him a temporary appointment in the foreign office under the Bourbons. His numerous works include biographies and histories extending over the whole field of French history from the time of Hugh Capet to that of the Empire.
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The Barabinzians were an uncultivated tribe of Tartars, living on the banks of the river Irtish, and subsisting chiefly on the produce of their herds and on fish supplied by the lakes of the Baraba steppe.
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Barbara Roberts was an American politician. She was a Democratic governor of Oregon from 1991 until 1995.
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A barber is someone who shaves and cuts the hair of a client for business. In England, a barber was formerly also a surgeon, and they were called Barber-Surgeons. A London company of barbers was formed in 1308. The union of barbers and surgeons was dissolved in 1540 by an act of Henry VIII which stated that; 'No person using any shaving or barbery in London shall occupy any surgery, letting of blood, or other matter, except only drawing of teeth.' And that the surgeons were not to shave or practise 'barbery,' and the barbers were to perform no higher surgical operation than blood-letting and tooth-drawing. This continued until the time of George II. The signs of the old profession - the pole which the patient grasped, its spiral decoration in imitation of the bandage, and the basin to catch the blood - are still sometimes retained. The barbers' shops, always notorious for gossip, were in some measure the news-centres of classic and mediaeval times.
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A bard was a Celtic poet.
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The Bari are a negro people of Africa, dwelling on both sides of the White Nile. They traditionally practise agriculture, cattle-rearing, smith work, etc. Their country was conquered by Baker for Egypt.
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The Barnabites were an order of monks established in Milan about 1530 who were much engaged in instructing youth, relieving the sick and aged, and converting heretics. A few monasteries of the order still existed in France and Italy at the start of the 20th century.
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The Barnburners were a mid-19th century faction of the American Democratic Party in New York State, so called from an alleged eagerness for radical measures, in allusion to the story of the Dutchman who burned down his barn in order to clear it of rats. The election of Polk in 1844 resulted in a split of the Democratic party in New York into two factions, the Barnburners, representing the Van Buren wing and opposing the extension of slavery in the territories, and the Hunkers, representing the administration and its views. In 1848 at the democratic National Convention there were contesting delegations from New York representing the two factions. Unable to secure complete recognition, the Barnburners joined in the Free-Soil Convention, voted for Van Buren, and in so doing helped to elect Taylor. The breach between the Barnburners and the Hunkers had more or less healed by 1852.
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Barnet Newman was an American painter. He was born in 1905 and died in 1970. He was a founder of Abstract Expressionism.
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Barnett Barnato was an Anglo-Jewish diamond merchant. He was born in 1852 at London and died in 1897 apparently committing suicide by jumping overboard of a ship. He went to South Africa and built a large diamond trading firm, before merging with the De Beers firm in 1888.
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Barney Oldfield (real name Berna Eli Oldfield) was an American racing driver. He was the first person to travel one mile in one minute.
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Baron is the lowest but oldest rank of nobility in Britain. The title seems to have been used first to describe men who held grants of land direct from the Crown. By the reign of Edward I 'barony by tenure' was becoming obsolete and the title became confined to the great landowners who were summoned by the king's writ as barons to attend the Great Council, the nucleus of Parliament. In 1387 the first barony by letters patent was created, but baronies still continued to be created by writ until 1607. The only form of creation nowadays is by letters patent, although there are still some barons who hold their rank hereditarily by writ. The baron's mantle has only two bars of ermine, and his coronet has six large silver balls fixed to a silver circlet.
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Baron de Kalb (real name Johann Kalb) was a French spy. He was born in 1731 and died in 1780. He visited America as a secret agent of the French Government in 1768. He was encouraged by Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane to join the Continental army, and accompanied Lafayette to the United States in 1777. He was appointed major-general and served under George Washington in New Jersey and Maryland. In 1780 he was despatched to South Carolina in command of the Delaware and Maryland troops. At Camden his troops defeated the opposing British force, but were subsequently surrounded and DeKalb was mortally wounded.
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Baron Munchhausen was a German soldier. He was born in 1720 and died in 1797. He is remembered for telling exaggerated tales about his adventures during the campaigns he served in. He is the feature of a book, The adventures of
Baron Munchhausen written by Rudolph Raspe in 1785.
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Baroness Emmusca Orczy was a Hungarian born novelist. She was born in 1865 and died in 1947. She is remembered for writing 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', which she wrote in 1905.
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Baronet is the first in rank among the gentry, and the only knighthood that is hereditary. They were instituted by James I in 1611 as a result of the rebellion in Ulster, it being required of a baronet on his creation, to pay into the exchequer as much as would maintain 'thirty soldiers three years at eight pence a day in the province of Ulster in Ireland.' It was also required that a baronet should be a gentleman born, and have a clear estate of 1000 pounds per annum.
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The Barrowists were a religious sect following the teachings of Henry Barrows, a church reformer of the late 16th century who advocated church government by elders, and freedom of religious thought within certain limits. The Congregational Church of New England developed from the Barrowists.
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Barry Humphries is an Australian entertainer, aesthete and novelist. He was born in 1934. He is perhaps best known for his stage alter-ego 'Dame Edna Everage'.
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Barry Pain was an English journalist and humours author. He was born in 1867 and died in 1928. He became editor of 'To-day' in 1897. Thomas Pain was an English author and agitator. He was born in 1737 and died in 1809. He published 'Common Sense' in 1776 which advocated American Independence.
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Barry Saint Leger was a British soldier. He was born in 1737 and died in 1789. He wemt to America as a soldier in 1757. He commanded a company at Louisbourg in 1758 and served under Wolfe at Quebec in 1759. He commanded the British expedition against Fort Stanwix and distinguished himself by his strategy at Oriskany. From 1780 to 1781 he conducted a guerilla warfare, with headquarters at Montreal.
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Barry Sheene was an English motorcycle racer. He was born in 1950 at London and died in 2003 of throat cancer. He was 500cc world champion in 1976 and 1977, riding for Suzuki, though he was perhaps best loved for his natural good looks, charm and survivability, enduring horrendous crashes during his career. In 1978 he was awarded the MBE . After suffering a terrible crash in 1982 (he smashed into a bike lying across the Silverstone track during a British Grand Prix practice) in which both his legs were rebuilt with metal pins and plates, he retired from motorcycle racing in 1984 and moved to Australia where he became a television star - though he returned to win the Jester International Classic race on a Molnar FWD Manx at Donnington park, England in July 2001.
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Barthel Beham was a German engraver and painter. He was born in 1498 at Nurnberg and died in 1540. he was a pupil of Durer. A picture by him in the Pinakothek at Munich ranks among the master-pieces of the old German school.
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Barthelemy Prosper Enfantin was one of the chief apostles of St Simonianism. He was born in 1796 at Paris and died in 1864. In 1825 he became acquainted with St Simon, who in dying confided to him the task of continuing the work. This he did with success until after the revolution of 1830, when, as the representative of the social and religious theories of the school, he quarrelled with Bazard, the representative of its political ideas. Barthelemy Enfantin organized model communities, which quickly fell to pieces; the new organ of the sect, the Globe, was a failure;
their convent at Menilmontant, of which Enfantin was 'supreme father,' was broken up by the government in 1832. He himself was imprisoned as an offender against public morality (being an advocate of free love), and on his release attempted to found a model colony in Egypt, which was broken up in the second year. He then retired to Tain (Drome), where he lived for some time as a farmer. In 1841 he was sent as member of a commission to explore the industrial resources of Algiers, and on his return published a work on the Colonization of Algiers (1848). On the revolution of 1848 he started a new journal, the Credit Public, but after two years withdrew from public notice. He held latterly a post on the Lyons and Mediterranean Railway until his death in 1864.
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Bartholomew Van Der Heist was a Dutch portrait-painter. He was born in 1611 or 1612 at Haariem and died in 1670. His picture of a banquet of a company of the civic guard in the Stadthouse at Amsterdam was called by Sir Joshua Reynolds 'perhaps the first picture of portraits in the world.'
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Bartolome Esteban Murillo was a Spanish painter. He was born in 1617 at Seville and died in 1682.
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Bartolomeo Ammanati was an Italian sculptor and architect. He was born in 1511 at Florence and died in 1589. He executed the Leda at Florence, a gigantic Neptune for St Mark's Place at Venice, a colossal Hercules at Padua, and built the celebrated Trinity Bridge at Florence.
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Bartolomeo Campagnoli was an Italian violinist. He was born in 1751 and died in 1827. He was a pupil and imitator of Nardini and attained celebrity status in his day by his marvellous technique.
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Bartolomeo Eustachio was an Italian physician and anatomist. He was born soon after 1500 and died about 1574. He devoted himself to medical science and in particular to anatomy, which he much enriched by his researches. Amongst his discoveries were the eustachian tube and the eustachian valve of the heart.
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Count Bartolommeo Borghesi was an Italian archaeologist and numismatist. He was born in 1781 at Savignano and died in 1860. He catalogued the Vatican collection of coins.
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Bartolommeo Diaz was a Portuguese navigator. He died in 1500. He was named in 1486 commander of one of that long succession of exploratory expeditions which the Portuguese court had during the 15th century become distinguished for promoting. The two vessels composing the expedition sailed along the African coast until they reached Cape Negro at latitude 15 degrees 50 minutes south, where Diego Cam, a previous explorer, had stopped. At 29 degrees 8 minutes they anchored at a point to which they gave the name of Angra das Voltas (Bay of Detours). In sailing south from this point they doubled the Cape of Good Hope without knowing it, and landed at a bay on the east coast. Bartolommeo Diaz now wished to continue his voyage in order to discover the country of Prester John, but the sailors refused to accompany him. In again doubling the Cape he gave it the name of Cabo Tormentoso (Cape of Storms), which the king changed to its present designation. In 1500 Bartolommeo Diaz had command of a vessel in the expedition of Cabral which discovered Brazil. In returning home the vessel which he commanded was lost on the 29th of May, 1500.
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Bartolommeo Suardi ('Bramantino') was an Italian painter, architect and military engineer. He was born in 1455 at Milan and died in 1535. He worked a great deal in Milan, and was also at one time employed by Pope Julius II.
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Baruch De Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher. He was born in 1632 at Amsterdam and died in 1677. At first a student of theology, his unorthodox ideas caused him to be excommunicated and an attempt made to kill him. As a result he left Amsterdam and devoted himself to philosophy, declining an offer of a professorship at Heidelberg lest it interfere with his studies, and instead earned a living polishing lenses.
His philosophy is based upon that of Descartes, but set forth according to a rigorously geometrical method. His most important work was entitled 'Ethics', a form of pantheism. In it he starts from the definition of substance as that which is in itself and is conceived by itself, he argues that there is only one substance - God, the absolutely infinite. This infinite substance he argues possesses infinite attributes, of which we only know two, thought and extension. Spinoza further argued that each of these attributes carries with it an infinity of modes; the totality of these modes is the world. By attribute he meant that which constitutes the essence of substance; by mode that which is in something else by which also it is conceived.
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Barzilla W Clark was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Idaho from 1937 until 1939.
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The Bashkirs are a tribe of Finnish or of Tatar origin, inhabiting the Russian governments of Ufa, Orenburg, Perm, and Samara. They formerly roamed about under their own princes in Southern Siberia, but in 1556 they voluntarily placed themselves under the Russian sceptre. They are nominally Islamic, and traditionally lived by hunting, cattle-rearing, breeding of cattle and horses, and keeping of bees.
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Basil Hall was a Scottish naval officer and traveller. He was born in 1788 at Edinburgh and died in 1844. The son of Sir James Hall of Dunglass he entered the navy in 1802, and became post-captain in 1817. Amongst his principal works are: A Voyage of Discovery to the west coast of Corea and the great Loo Choo Island (1817); Extracts from a Journal (written on the Pacific coast of America); Travels in North America (1829); Fragments of Voyages and Travels; Schloss Hoinfeld, or a Winter in Styria; besides many papers contributed to journals and scientific societies.
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Basil I 'the Macedonian' was a Byzantine Emperor and founder of the Macedonian Dynasty. He was born in Thrace and died in 886. He was emperor from 867 to 886, at first jointly with Michael III but assassinated him in 868.
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Basil II was a Byzantine Emperor. He was born in 958 and died in 1025. He became emperor in 976 and waged a 15-year war against the Bulgarians which culminated in his victory in the Belasica mountains, after which he had thousands of prisoners blinded and sent back to Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria who died of shock in 1015, Bulgaria being annexed to the Byzantine empire in 1018.
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The Basques or Biscayans (properly the Euscaldunac) are an ancient people of the Pyrenees of south-west France and northern Spain. They are probably descendants of the ancient Iberi, who occupied Spain before the Celts. They preserve their ancient language, former manners, and national dances, and even in the 19th century were renowned for making admirable soldiers, especially in guerrilla warfare. Their language is highly polysynthetic, and no connection between it and any other language has as yet been made out. There are four principal dialects, which are not only distinguished by their pronunciation and grammatical structure, but differ even in their vocabularies.Legend tells that the Basques visited America prior to Christopher Columbus in pursuit of whales and fish. During the 20th century an independence movement formed in northern Spain seeking independence from Spain for the Basque people, the campaign being often punctuated by terrorist attacks directed at the Spanish people.
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A Basselisse tapestry is a kind of tapestry wrought with a horizontal warp.
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The Bastarnae were a warlike tribe in Podolia and Moldavia. They were hired by Perseus, king of Macedon, in his wars with Rome, 168 BC.
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The Batak are six distinct but related peoples of northern and central Sumatra in Indonesia, speaking Austronesian languages. Their ancestors were Proto-Malayan people fairly isolated in the Sumatran highlands until the early 19th century.
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The Batavians were an old German nation which inhabited a part of the present Holland, especially the island called Batavia, formed by that branch of the Rhine which empties itself into the sea near Leyden, together with the Waal and the Meuse. Tacitus asserts them to have been a branch of the Catti. They were subdued by Germanicus, and were granted special privileges for their faithful services to the Romans, but revolted under Vespasian. They were, however, again subjected by Trajan and Adrian, and at the end of the third century the Salian Franks obtained possession of the island of Batavia.
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The Bathori were a Hungarian family, which gave Transylvania five princes, and Poland one of its greatest kings. The more important members were: Stephen born in 1532, elected Prince of Transylvania in 1571, on the death of Zapolya, and in 1575 king of Poland. He accomplished many internal reforms, recovered the Polish territories in possession of the Czar of Muscovy, and reigned prosperously until his death in 1586.
Sigismund, nephew of Stephen, educated by the Jesuits, became waiwode or prince of Transylvania in 1581, shook off the Ottoman yoke, and had begun to give hopes of reigning gloriously when he resigned his dominions to the emperor Rudolph II, in return for two principalities in Silesia, a cardinal's hat, and a pension. Availing himself, however, of an invitation by the Transylvanians, he returned, and placed himself under the protection of the Porte, but was defeated by the Imperialists in every battle, and finally sent to Prague, where he died almost forgotten in 1613.
Elizabeth, niece of Stephen, king of Poland, and wife of Count Nadasdy, of Hungary. She is said to have bathed in the blood of 300 young girls in the hope of renewing her youth, and to have committed other attrocities. She was latterly seized and confined until her death in 1614.
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The Battas are a people belonging to the Malayan race inhabiting the valleys and plateaus of the mountains that extend longitudinally through the island of Sumatra. They traditionally practised agriculture and cattle-rearing, and were skilful in various handicrafts; they also had a written literature and an alphabet of their own, their books treating of astrology, witchcraft, medicine, war, etc. They were traditionally under the rule of hereditary chieftains.
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Batthyanyi is one of the oldest and most celebrated Hungarian families, traceable as far back as the Magyar invasion of Pannonia in the ninth century. Among later bearers of the name have been Count Casimir Batthyanyi, who was associated with Kossuth, was minister of foreign affairs in Hungary during the insurrection of 1849, and who died in Paris 1854.
Count Louis Batthyanyi, born 1809, of another branch of the family, was leader of the opposition in the Hungarian diet until the breaking out of the commotions of 1848, when he took an active part in promoting the national cause; but on the entry of Windischgratz into Pesth he was arrested and shot in 1849.
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The Batwa are a nomad tribe of African pygmies living in the Congo. They were discovered in 1880 by Pogge and Wissmann. The Batwa are renowned for their habit of chipping their teeth to a point for fashion.
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Baxterians were followers of Richard Baxter in respect of his attempted compromise between Calvinism and Arminianism. They rejected the doctrine of reprobation, admited a universal potential salvation, becoming actual in the case of the elect, and asserted the possibility of falling from grace. Exponents of Baxterism were Dr. Watts and Dr. Doddridge.
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Bayaderes is the general European name for the dancing and singing girls of India, some of whom are attached to the service of the Hindu temples, while others travel about and dance at entertainments for hire. Those in the service of the temples are generally devoted to this profession (including that of prostitution) from their childhood.
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Pierre Du Terrail, Seigneur De Bayard was a French knight. He was born in 1476 at Catle Bayard and died in 1524. He was known as chevalier sanspeur et sans reproche (knight without fear and without reproach). At the age of eighteen he accompanied Charles VIII to Italy, and in the battle at Verona took a standard. At the beginning of the reign of Louis XII, in a battle near Milan, he entered the city at the heels of the fugitives, and was taken prisoner, but dismissed by Ludovico Sforza without ransom.
In Apulia he killed his calumniator, Sotomayor, and afterwards defended a bridge over the Garigliano singly against the Spaniards, receiving for this exploit as a coat of arms a porcupine, with the motto Vires agminis unus habet ('one has the strength of a band'). He distinguished himself equally against the Genoese and the Venetians, and, when Julius II declared himself against France, went to the assistance of the Duke of Ferrara.
He was severely wounded at the assault of Brescia, but returned, as soon as cured, to the camp of Gaston de Foix, before Ravenna, and after new exploits was again dangerously wounded in the retreat from Pavia. In the war commenced by Ferdinand the Catholic he displayed the same heroism, and the fatal reverses which embittered the last years of Louis XII only added to the personal glory of Bayard. When Francis I ascended the throne he sent Bayard into Dauphine to open a passage over the Alps and through Piedmont. Prosper Colonna lay in wait for him, but was made prisoner by Bayard, who immediately after further distinguished himself in the battle of Marignano.
After his defence of Mezieres against the invading army of Charles V he was saluted in Paris as the saviour of his country, receiving the honour paid to a prince of the blood. His presence reduced the revolted Genoese to obedience, but failed to prevent the expulsion of the French after the capture of Lodi. In the retreat the safety of the army was committed to Bayard, who, however, was mortally wounded by a stone from a blunderbuss in protecting the passage of the Sesia. He kissed the cross of his sword, confessed to his squire, and died on April the 30th, 1524. He was buried in a church of the Minorites, near Grenoble.
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Bayard Taylor was an American writer. He was born in 1825 at Chester County, Pennsylvania and died in 1878. After being apprenticed to a printer he published a volume of poems and then procured orders for travel articles and set off on a pedestrian tour of Europe. In 1847 he joined the staff of the New York Tribune, travelling as a special correspondent in California, Mexico, Egypt, the Middle East, Syria, India, China, Japan, Greece, Sweden and Russia. In 1871, while spending time in Germany he translated Faust, and in 1878 was for several months American ambassador at Berlin.
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The Bazigars are a tribe of Indians dispersed throughout the whole of Hindustan mostly in wandering tribes. They are divided into seven castes; their chief' occupation is that of jugglers, acrobats, and tumblers, in which both males and females are equally skilful. They present many features analogous to the gypsies of Europe.
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The Bazoche or Basoche were a brotherhood formed by the clerks of the parliament of Paris at the time it ceased to be the grand council of the French king. They had a king, chancellor, and other dignitaries; and certain privileges were granted them by Philip the Fair early in the fourteenth century, as also by subsequent monarchs. They had an annual festival, having as a principal feature dramatic performances in which satirical allusions were freely made to passing events. The representation of these farces or satires was frequently interdicted, but their development had a considerable effect on the dramatic literature of France.
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A beadle was a British parish officer, chosen by the vestry, who acted as a messenger and servant, keeping order in church and punishing petty offenders. The name was also used for a person whose duty it was to bid or cite persons to appear to a summons.
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The Beaker People were formerly thought to be people of Iberian origin who spread out over Europe in the 2nd millennium BC, however, it is now (since about 1990) known that they were in fact an industrialized and highly organised indigenous British stone-age people who built Stonehenge in England. They are called the Beaker People because their remains include earthenware beakers.
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Beatrice Cenci, called the beautiful parricide, was the daughter of Francesco Cenci, a noble and wealthy 16th century Roman, who, according to the common story, after his second marriage, behaved towards the children of his first marriage in the most shocking manner, procured the assassination of two of his sons, on their return from Spain, and sexually abused his youngest daughter Beatrice. She failed in an appeal for protection to the pope, and planned and executed the murder of her father assisted by her step-mother and brother. She was beheaded 1599 along with her accomplices, and the Cenci estates confiscated. She is the alleged subject of an admired painting by Guido, and is the heroine of one of Shelley's most powerful plays.
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Beauford H Jester was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Texas from 1947 until 1949.
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Bebe Buell (real name Beverle Lorence Buell) is an American glamour model. She was born in 1953 at Portsmouth, Virginia. Moving to New York, she started modelling when she was seventeen years old. A fashion model, in 1974 she became the first fashion model to pose nude for Playboy magazine, a contract which resulted in her being discharged by the Ford modelling agency.
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The Bechuanas or Betchuanas are a widely spread race of people inhabiting the central region of South Africa north of the old Cape Colony. They belong to the great Kaffre stem, and are divided into tribal sections. They traditionally live chiefly by husbandry and cattle rearing, and they work with some skill in iron, copper, ivory, and skins. During the 19th century they were led to seek British protection owing to the encroachments of the Boers, and subsequently had their lands taken by the British.
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The Venerable Bede (Beda or Baeda) was an Anglo-Saxon scholar. He was born in 672 or 673 in the neighbourhood of Monkwearmouth, county Durham and died in 735. He was educated at St Peter's monastery, Wearmouth; took deacon's orders in his nineteenth year at St Paul's monastery, Jarrow, and was ordained priest at thirty by John of Beverley, bishop of Hexham.
His life was spent in studious seclusion, the chief events in it being the production of homilies, hymns, lives of saints, commentaries, and works in history, chronology, grammar, etc. He was the most learned Englishman of his day, and in some sense the father of English history, his most important work being his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (or Ecclesiastical History of England), afterwards translated by King Alfred into Anglo-Saxon. Besides his familiarity with Latin, he knew Greek and had some acquaintance with Hebrew.
Most of his writings were on scriptural and ecclesiastical subjects, but he also wrote on chronology, physical science, grammar, etc, and had considerable ability in the writing of Latin verse. An interesting record of his closing days was preserved in a letter by his pupil Cuthbert. After his death his body was after a lapse of time removed from Jarrow church to Durham, but of the shrine which formerly inclosed them only the Latin inscription remains, ending with the verse 'Hac sunt in fossa Bedae venerabilis ossa.'
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Bedrich Smetana was a Czech composer. He was born in 1824 at Litomysl and died in 1884. He opened a music school, with funding from Franz Liszt in 1848, but is best known for composing the 1866 opera 'The Bartered Bride'.
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The beghards or beguards were a religious body which arose in Flanders in the thirteenth century. They disclaimed the authority of princes, and refused to submit unconditionally to the rules of any order, but bound themselves to a life of extreme sanctity without necessarily quitting their secular vocations. They were persecuted in the latter half of the fourteenth century as heretics, and either dispersed or distributed over the Dominican and Franciscan orders.
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The beguines were an order of females, who, without taking the monastic vows, formed societies for devotion and charity, living in houses called beguinages. The order originated, towards the end of the eleventh century, in Germany and the Netherlands, and was very flourishing in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They still existed in Holland, Belgium, and Germany in 1900, though the modern beguinage was an eleemosynary institution for lodging unmarried women rather than of the old type.
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Bela Bartok was a Hungarian composer. He was born in 1881 and died in 1945.
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Bela I was a king of Hungary. He was a son of Ladislaf, competed for the crown with his brother Andrew, whom he defeated, killed, and succeeded in 1061. He died in 1063, after introducing many reforms.
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Bela II (Bela the Blind) was a king of Hungarey. He mounted the throne in 1131, and after ruling under the evil guidance of his queen, Helena, died from the effects of his vices in 1141.
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Bela III was king of Hungary. He was crowned in 1174, corrected abuses, repelled the Bohemians, Poles, Austrians, and Venetians, and died in 1196.
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Bela IV was king of Hungary. He succeeded his father Andrew II in 1235 and was shortly after defeated by the Tartars and detained prisoner for some time in Austria, where he had sought refuge. In 1244 he regained his throne, with the aid of the knights of Rhodes, and defeated the Austrians, but was in turn beaten by the Bohemians. He died in 1270.
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The Belgae were a collection of German and Celtic tribes who anciently inhabited the country extending between the Marne and Seine and the lower Rhine, and bounded north-west by the sea. Caesar, on his invasion of Britain, found them established also in Kent and Sussex.
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Belisarius or the White Prince, was a Roman soldier. He was born about 505 in Illyria and died in 565. He served in the bodyguard of the emperor, soon after obtained the chief command of an army on the Persian frontiers, and in 530 gained a victory over a superior Persian army. The next year, however, he lost a battle, and was recalled. In the year 532 he checked the disorders in Constantinople arising from the Green and Blue factions; and was then sent with 15,000 men to Africa to recover the territories occupied by the Vandals.
He took Carthage and led Gelimer, the Vandal king, in triumph through Constantinople. Dissensions having arisen in the Ostrogothic kingdom, he was sent to Italy, and though ill supplied with money and troops, stormed Naples, held Rome for a year, took Ravenna, and led captive Vitiges, the Gothic king. He rendered honourable service in later campaigns in Italy and against the Bulgarians, but was accused of conspiracy and flung into prison. He afterwards seems to have recovered his property and dignities, the story of Tzetzes (a twelfth-century monk), that Belisarius wandered about as a blind beggar, being probably an invention. The only weaknesses in the character of Belisarius appear in connection with his profligate wife Antonina, an associate of the Empress Theodora.
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Bella Abzug (born Bella Savitzky) was an American feminist, lawyer and politician She was born in 1920 at the Bronx, New York City and died in 1998, Educated at Hunter College, New York and Columbia University, she practised as a lawyer in New York between 1944 and 1970. She became noted for defending those accused of un-American activities and was a prominent peace campaigner, founding the Women Strike for Peace movement in 1961 and the National Women's Political Caucus. She was elected to Congress in 1971, and championed welfare issues, and subsequently became known as 'Battling Bella'. After being unsuccessful in the Senate elections of 1976 and failing to be elected Mayor of New York in 1977, she returned to her lawyer's practice in 1980, but continued her involvement in political issues. Her works include Gender Gap: Bella Abzug's Guide to Political Power for American Women, published in 1984.
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Bellmen were appointed in London to proclaim the hour of the night before public clocks became general, and were numerous around 1556. They were to ring a bell at night and cry, 'Take care of your fire and candle, be charitable to the poor, and pray for the dead.'.
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The Bemba are an African people of northern Zambia.
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Ben Jonson was a British poet and dramatist. He was born in 1573 and died in 1637. He wrote 'Song to Celia'.
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Ben S Paulen was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Kansas from 1925 until 1929.
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Ben W Hooper was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Tennessee from 1911 until 1915.
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Ben W Olcott was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Oregon from 1919 until 1923.
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Bendigo (William Thompson) was a British boxer who won the prize ring championship of England in 1839 though little more than a middleweight. He was born in 1811 and died in 1880.
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Benedict Arnold was an American soldier. He was born in 1741 at Norwich, Connecticut and died in 1801. A druggist, he joined the Colonial army and was appointed a colonel by the Massachusetts Congress when the American War Of Independence broke out. Benedict Arnold served as a volunteer in capture of Ticonderoga, and became famous for his masterly conduct of the right flank in the attack on Canada in 1775, being wounded at the assault on Quebec. Promoted to brigadier-general he was defeated by the British flotilla at Valcour Island in Lake Champlain in October 1776 but managed a skilful retreat. Further promoted to major-general he took part in the Burgoyne Campaign.
He commanded in Philadelphia but was court-martialled on trivial charges and reprimanded by George Washington. Obtaining the charge of West Point he intrigued with Henry Clinton for the betrayal of West Point to the British, but the capture of the negotiator frustrated the scheme and Benedict Arnold escaped to the British who rewarded him with a position of brigadier-general, a sum of money and the chance to make attacks upon Virginia and New London. After the war he went to England and lived out the remainder of his life there. Benedict Arnold is perhaps the most notorious traitor in American history.
Benedict Arnold was an American politician. He was born in 1615 at Rhode Island and died in 1678. He was elected President of Rhode Island in 1657 and under the royal charter of 1663 was its first Governor.
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Benedict Biscop was an Anglo-Saxon monk. He was born in 628 or 629 in Northumbria and died in 690. He was of a noble Northumbrian family and at the age of twenty-five he accompanied Wilfrid on a pilgrimage to Rome. Here he lived for more than ten years, when he returned to England; but not very long after he again went to Rome on a mission from the King of Northumbria. On his way back he entered the Benedictine monastery of Lerius, in Provence, where he took the tonsure, and remained some time. On a third visit to Rome he was commissioned to return to England as assistant and interpreter to Theodoric, Archbishop of Canterbury.
In 674 he founded a monastery at the mouth of the Wear, and endowed it with numerous books, pictures, and relics obtained by him on his various journeys to Rome. In 682 he founded a second monastery at Jarrow, dependent on that of Wear-mouth. His great pupil the 'Venerable Bede,' who was a monk in the monastery of Jarrow, and who wrote his life, was undoubtedly much indebted to the collections made by Benedict Biscop for the learning he acquired.
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Benedict I was a pope. He became pope on the death of John III in 574.
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Benedict IX was a pope. He was born in 1021 and died in 1054. He succeeded John XIX. in 1033, being placed on the papal throne as a boy of twelve years. His licentiousness caused him to be ignominiously expelled by the citizens, who elected Sylvester III. Six months after he regained the ascendency, and excommunicated Sylvester III; but finding the general detestation too strong to permit him to resume his chair, sold it to John Gratianus, who assumed the title of Gregory VI. There was thus a trio of popes, and the emperor, Henry III, to put an end to the scandal, deposed all the three.
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Benedict XIII was a pope. He was a learned and well-disposed man, originally Cardinal Orsini and Archbishop of Benevento, he became pope in 1724, He bestowed his confidence on Cardinal Coscia, who was unworthy of it, and abused it in gratifying his avarice. He died in 1730, and was succeeded by Clement XII.
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Pope Benedict XIV (real name Prospero Lambertini) was Pope from 1740 until 1758. He was born in 1675 at Bologna and died in 1758. He became bishop of Ancona in 1727, cardinal in 1728, and archbishop of Bologna in 1731. In 1742 and 1743 he published bulls forbidding the accommodation of Christian usage to pagan superstition.
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BENEDICT XIV
Bendict XIV (real name Prospero Lambertini) was an Italian pope. He was born in 1675 at Bologna and died in 1758. A man of superior talents, passionately fond of learning, of historical researches, and monuments of art, Benedict XIII. made him, in 1727, bishop of Ancona; in 1728 cardinal, and in 1732 archbishop of Bologna. In every station he fulfilled his duties with the most conscientious zeal. He succeeded Clement XII as pope in 1740, and showed himself a liberal patron of literature and science. He was the author of several esteemed religious works.
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Benedictines are members of the most famous and widely-spread of all the orders of monks, founded at Monte Casino, about half-way between Rome and Naples, in 529, by St Benedict.
No religious order has been so remarkable for extent, wealth, and men of note and learning as the Benedictines. Among the branches of the order the chief were the Gluniacs, founded in 910 at Clugny in Burgundy; the Cistercians, founded in 1098, and reformed by St Bernard in 1116; and the Carthusians from the Chartreuse, founded by Bruno about 1080. The order was probably introduced into England about 600 by St Augustine of Canterbury, and a great many abbeys, and all the cathedral priories of England, save Carlisle, belonged to it. Their habit consists of a loose black gown with large wide sleeves, and a cowl on the head ending in a- point. The Benedictines have produced many valuable literary works.
The fraternity of St Maur, founded in 1618, had in the beginning of the 18th century 180 abbeys and priories in France, and acquired fame by means of its learned members, such as Mabillon and Montfaucon. They published the celebrated chronological work, L'Art de Verifier les Dates, besides others.
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The Beni-Israel are (were?) a race of people living in the west of India around the Konkan sea-board, Bombay, etc, who keep a tradition of Jewish origin, and whose religion is a modified Judaism. They were supposed to be a remnant of the ten tribes.
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The Beni-Mzab are a race or tribe of Berbers that live in the Sahara near its northern border.
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Benito P Juarez was a Mexican statesman. He was born in 1806 and died in 1872. He was Governor of Mexico from 1847 to 1852, including part of the war with the United States. He was Minister of Justice and Religion from 1855 to 1857. He was Secretary of the Interior from 1857 to 1858. In 1858 he assumed the control of the executive, and was recognized by the US Government in 1859. He maintained his government against the clerical party with difficulty throughout the revolutionary troubles, but from the withdrawal of the French and the death of Maximilian until his own death he ruled the republic.
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Benito Mussolini was an Italian dictator. He was born in 1883 at Predappio and died in 1945 when he was executed by Italian Partisans. He founded the fascist movement in 1919 and sided with Hitler during the Second World War.
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Benjamin Ames was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Maine from 1821 until 1822.
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Benjamin B Moeur was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Arizona from 1933 until 1937.
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Benjamin B Odell Jr was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New York from 1901 until 1904.
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Benjamin Britten was a British composer. He was born in 1913 and died in 1976. He composed Peter Grimes, Turn of the Screw, A Ceremony of Carols and War Requiem.
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Sir Benjamin Collins Bartholemew Brodie was an English surgeon. He was born in 1783 and died in 1862. He was the leading surgeon of his day, and attended George IV, and was sergeant-surgeon to William IV. and to Queen Victoria. He was made a baronet in 1834; from 1858 to 1861 was president of the Royal Society, and was connected with many other scientific and learned societies. He published a number of works all connected with his profession.
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Benjamin Gratz Brown was an American politician, journalist and soldier. He was born in 1826 and died in 1885. From 1852 until 1858 he was a member of the Missouri Legislature. From 1854 until 1859 he edited the 'Missouri Democrat'. During the American Civil War he commanded a brigade. From 1863 until 1867 he was a Republican Senator for Missouri, and played an important role in the Liberal-Republican movement and was the Liberal republican and Democrat candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with Horace Greeley in 1872.
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Benjamin Church was an American soldier. He was born in 1639 at Massachusetts and died in 1718. He was active in King Philip's War, was in the Great Swamp Fight in the Narragansett country and finally compassed Philip's death on August 12, 1676.
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Benjamin Conley was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Georgia from 1871 until 1872.
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Benjamin Crowninshield was an American sailor and politician. He was born in 1772 at Massachusetts and died in 1851. He was Secretary of the Navy from 1814, in Madison's cabinet until 1818 in James Monroe's Cabinet, was a Presidential elector in 1820, and a Democratic member of Congress from 1823 to 1831.
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Benjamin R Curtis was an American judge. He was born in 1809 and died in 1874. He was appointed to the US Supreme Court in 1851 by President Eillmore, dissented in the Dred Scott case and resigned in 1857. He was one of the counsel for President Johnson in the impeachment trial of 1868.
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Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) was a British statesman and writer. He was born in 1804 at London and died in 1881. Of Jewish extraction, he was the eldest son of Isaac D'Israeli, author of the Curiosities of Literature. He attended for a time a private school, and was first destined for the law, but showing a decided taste for literature he was allowed to follow his inclination. In 1826 he published Vivian Grey, his first novel; and subsequently travelled for some time, visiting Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Syria, and gaining experiences which were afterwards reproduced in his books. His travels and impressions are embodied in a volume of letters addressed to his sister and his father. In 1831 another novel, The Young Duke, came from his pen. It was followed at short intervals by Contarini Fleming, Alroy, Henrietta Temple, Venetia, The revolutionary Epic (a poem), etc.
In 1832, and on two subsequent occasions, he appeared as candidate for the representation of High Wycombe, with a programme which included vote by ballot and triennial parliaments, but was unsuccessful. His political opinions gradually changed: in 1835 he unsuccessfully contested Taunton as a Tory. In 1837 he gained an entrance to the House of Commons, being elected for Maidstone. His first speech in the house was treated with ridicule; but he finished with the prophetic declaration that the time would come when they would hear him. During his first years in parliament he was a supporter of Peel; but when Peel pledged himself to abolish the corn-laws, Benjamin Disraeli became the leader of the protectionists.
About this time he became a leader of what was known as the 'Young England' party, the most prominent characteristic of which was a sort of sentimental advocacy of feudalism. This spirit showed itself in his two novels of Coningsby and Sybil, published respectively in 1844 and 1845. Having acquired the manor pf Hughenden in Buckinghamshire, he was in 1847 elected for this county, and he retained his seat until raised to the peerage nearly thirty years later.
His first appointment to office was in 1852, when he became chancellor of the exchequer under Lord Derby. The following year, however, the ministry was defeated. He remained out of office until 1858, when he again became chancellor of the exchequer, and brought in a reform bill which wrecked the government. During the time the Palmerston government was in office Benjamin Disraeli led the opposition in the lower house with conspicuous ability and courage. In 1866 the Liberals resigned, and Derby and Benjamin Disraeli came into power, the latter being again chancellor of the exchequer. They immediately brought in, and carried, after a violent and bitter struggle, a reform Bill on the basis of household suffrage.
In 1868 he became premier on the resignation of Lord Derby, but his tenure of office was short. In 1874 he again became prime-minister with a strong Conservative majority, and he remained in power for six years. This period was marked by his elevation to the peerage in 1876 as Earl of Beaconsfield, and by the prominent part he took in regard to the Eastern question and the conclusion of the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. In 1880 parliament was rather suddenly dissolved, and the new parliament showing an overwhelming Liberal majority, he resigned office, though he still retained the leadership of his party. Within a few months of his death the publication of a novel called Endymion (his last, Lothair, had been published ten years before) showed that his intellect was still vigorous. Among others of his writings besides those already mentioned are: A Vindication of the English Constitution, 1834; Alarcos; a Tragedy, 1839; and Lord George Bentinck, a Political Biography, 1852.
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Benjamin Edes was an American newspaperman and agitator. He was born in 1732 and died in 1803. From 1755 until 1798 he was editor of the Boston Gazette and the Country Journal which were influential during the American War of Independence, and he actively supported, encouraged and financed the uprising known as the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
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Benjamin Franklin Butler was an American lawyer, soldier and politician. He was born in 1818 at Deerfield, New Hampshire and died in 1893. He became noted as a criminal lawyer; in 1853 commenced to take a prominent part in politics on the Democratic side and in 1861, on the outbreak of the American Civil War, held the commission of brigadier-general of militia, and took service with his brigade on the Union side. In his field operations he was not a successful general, and as governor of New Orleans, which had been taken by Admiral Farragut, he made his rule memorable by its severity. In 1866 he was elected Republican member of congress for Massachusetts and acquired great influence in the legislature, holding the post until 1875 and again from 1877 until 1879. In 1882 General Butler was elected Democratic governor of Massachusetts, a post he held until 1884.
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Benjamin F Perry was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of South Carolina during 1865.
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Benjamin F Prescott was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Hampshire from 1877 until 1879.
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Benjamin Fitzpatrick was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Alabama from 1841 until 1845.
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Benjamin Flanders was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Louisiana from 1867 until 1868.
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Benjamin Fletcher was an English colonial governor. He was appointed Governor of New York by William and Mary. He arrived in New York in 1692 and received a commission to assume also the government of Pennsylvania, which he did in 1693. He was zealous in the extension of the English Church. In 1698 he was deposed on account of suspicions of complicity with pirates.
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Benjamin Franklin was an American statesman and scientist. He was born in 1706 at Boston and died in 1790. The son of a tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, he was apprenticed to his elder brother, a printer, and developed an eager fondness for books and writing.
At seventeen he ran away to Philadelphia, where, in 1729, he established a newspaper. His public spirit, his talents as a writer and the fame of his scientific discoveries advanced him in prominence. In 1753 he was appointed deputy postmaster-general of the British colonies. In 1754, being a member of the Albany Convention, he proposed an important plan for colonial union.. From 1757 to 1763, and again from 1764 to the American War of Independence, he was agent of Pennsylvania in England; part of the time, also, for Massachusetts, New Jersey and Georgia.
In 1773, acting as agent for the political leaders in Massachusetts, he sent over to them the correspondence of Hutchinson, Oliver and other Massachusetts loyalists with a confidant of the British Ministry. The publication of the letters aroused great excitement in the colonies, and brought down upon Benjamin Franklin violent abuse on the part of the ministerialists, and dismissal from his office of postmaster-general.
In 1775 seeing that reconciliation was impossible, he returned to Pennsylvania, and was at once chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress. In 1776 he was one of the committee of five who drew up the Declaration of Independence,, and in the autumn was sent to join Arthur Lee and Silas Deane in the mission to France. In Paris he was received with great enthusiasm. He succeeded in obtaining from the French Government not only the treaty of 1778, but also large sums of money supplied in secret before that government declared war on England and openly afterward. Benjamin Franklin had a leading part in the beginnings of negotiation with Great Britain for peace and independence. In respect to the actual manner in which the treaty was concluded, he was overruled by John Adams and Jay, who deemed it best, contrary to the instructions of Congress, to negotiate apart from France and make separate terms. Benjamin Franklin played an important part in the arrangements of the treaty, especially those respecting the loyalists. After the Treaty of Versailles had thus been signed on September the 3rd, 1783, Benjamin Franklin negotiated a favourable treaty with Prussia.
In 1785 Benjamin Franklin returned to America, and was chosen president of Pennsylvania, and again in 1786 and 1787. He was an influential member of the Convention of 1787, and died at Philadelphia a few years later. Beside his eminence as a statesman and as a philosopher and scientific discoverer, Benjamin Franklin was noted as a shrewd and practical philanthropist, and was one of the best of English writers. He was renowned for his identification of lightning with electricity, but also wrote widely criticising corruption, philosophising and even describing Harvard College as a place where money was valued above intelligence.
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Benjamin G Humphreys was an American politician. He was a Whig governor of Mississippi from 1865 until 1868.
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Benjamin Goodhue was an American politiicna. He was born in 1748 and died in 1814. He was a Massachusetts member of the Continental Congress from 1784 until 1789, was a US Congressman from 1789 until 1795, and a Federalist Senator from 1796 to 1800. He drafted many of the revenue laws, and served on the Committee on Commerce in the Senate.
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Benjamin Guerard was an American politician. He was a governor of South Carolina from 1783 until 1785.
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Benjamin H Eaton was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Colorado from 1885 until 1887.
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Benjamin Harrison was an American politician. He was born in 1740 at Virginia and died in 1791. He was a member of the House of Burgesses in 1764, a member of the Correspondence Committee in 1773, and a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1778. From 1778 to 1782 he was Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and ardently advocated united opposition to Great Britain. He was Governor of the State from 1782 to 1784, and when a delegate to the State Convention of 1788 opposed the ratification of the Constitution as being a national and not a Federal document.
Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd president of the USA from 1889 to 1893. He was born in 1833 at North Bend, Ohio and died in 1901. The grandson of President William Henry Harrison, he graduated at Miami University in 1852, and settled as a lawyer in Indianapolis. He was elected reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court in 1860, but his term was interrupted by the American Civil War.
He volunteered in 1863 and was colonel of an Indiana regiment in the battles of Resaca and Peach Tree Creek in 1864 he won distinction. Leaving the army with the brevet of brigadier-general, he resumed his position of Supreme Court reporter.
General Harrison was a successful lawyer and campaign orator, and in 1876 he received the Republican nomination for Governor, being defeated by a small majority. His name was presented to the Republican National Convention of 1880. Elected to the US Senate, he served from 1881 to 1887. At the National Convention of 1888 he was a leading candidate from the start, received the nomination, and was elected over President Cleveland in a campaign in which protection was the principal issue.
In his Cabinet, James Blaine in the State and Windom in the Treasury Department were national figures. Proctor, and later Elkins, was in the War Department, B F Tracy in the Navy, Noble in the Interior, Rusk Secretary of Agriculture, Miller Attorney-General, and Wanamaker Postmaster-General. The administration was marked politically by the McKinley Tariff Act in 1890, with the attendant feature of reciprocity; the foreign relations with Chili and Hawaii were matters of interest.
In 1892 the President was a candidate for renomination, and received the gift over his powerful rival, James Blaine, who resigned from the Cabinet during the contest. President Harrison was in the election again confronted with Cleveland. The Democratic reaction, very marked in 1890, proved to be still in force, and the President was defeated and retired from office in 1893.
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Benjamin Harvey Hill was an American politician. He was born in 1823 at georgia and died in 1882. He was admitted to the bar in 1845. He was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1851, 1859 and 1860. He was a Unionist member of the State secession convention and strenuously opposed the ordinance of secession, but after its passage supported the Confederacy. He was a delegate from Georgia to the Confederate provisional Congress, and was a member of the Confederate Senate until 1865. He published 'Notes on the Situation', ably opposing the reconstruction measures. He earnestly supported Horace Greeley for the Presidency in 1872. He served in the US Congress from 1875 to 1877, and on the Electoral Commission, and was a member of the US Senate from 1877 to 1882.
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Benjamin Robert Haydon was an English painter. He was born in 1786 at Plymouth and died in 1846. He was admitted as a student to the Royal Academy in 1805 and exhibited his first picture in 1807 - Joseph and Mary Reposing (in Egypt), and his Dentatus in 1809. His Judgment of Solomon appeared in 1814. In 1815 he established a school in opposition to the Academy, an undertaking
which ended in pecuniary failure in 1823. His life was plagued with debts and he was several times in prison for debt, always complaining of injustice and neglect, finally he supposedly became deranged when he failed to be employed in decorating the new houses of parliament and he eventually committed suicide.
He was the chief English historical painter of his time, and a man of great intellectual ability generally. But he was self-willed, perverse, and devoid of tact. Of his pictures the principal are - Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, the Raising of Lazarus, the Mock Election, Chairing the Member, Pharaoh Dismissing Moses, the Burning of Rome, the Banishment of Aristides, and Quintus Curtiua Leaping into the Gulf. He left an interesting autobiography.
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Benjamin Hoadly was an English prelate. He was born in 1676 and died in 1761. He was educated at Cambridge; took orders in 1700, and after being settled in London distinguished himself in controversy with Bishop Atterbury and others. A staunch low-churchman, he was appointed Bishop of Bangor in 1715. A sermon preached before the king in 1717 gave rise to the 'Bangorian Controversy' regarding the divine authority of the king and the church. He was translated to the see of Hereford in 1721, to Salisbury in 1723, and Winchester in 1734.
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Benjamin B Hotchkiss was an American engineer. He was born in 1830 and died in 1885. He was considered at the time of his death the first artillery engineer in the world. He invented among others, a machine gun and a magazine rifle.
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Benjamin Jonson was a rival poet and dramatist to Shakespeare. He was born in 1572 and died in 1637.
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Benjamin F Kelley was an American soldier. He was born in 1807 and died in 1891. During the American Civil War fought at Philippi, Romney and at Blue Gap. In 1863 he commanded the Department of West Virginia. He was brevetted major-general in 1864 for services at Cumberland, New Creek and Morefield.
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Benjamin Lincoln was an American general. He was born in 1733 at Hingham, Massachusetts and died in 1810. He was a comrade of George Washington in his earlier campaigns, and commanded the expedition which cleared Boston harbour of British vessels in 1776. He unsuccessfully besieged Savannah in 1779 and surrendered Charleston to the British in 1787. In 1787 he suppressed Shay's rebellion and from 1781 to 1784 was Secretary of War.
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Benjamin Logan was a Kentucky pioneer. He was born in 1753 and died in 1802. He was renowned for his great courage and endurance. He distinguished himself at Fort Logan, Chillicothe and Bryan's Station during Indian troubles.
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Benjamin Lundy was an American abolitionist and journalist. He was born in 1789 and died in 1839. A Quaker, he originated an anti-slavery association in Ohio called the Union Humane Society in 1815. He contributed anti-slavery articles to periodicals, and from 1812 to 1836 edited The Genius of Universal Emancipation published at Baltimore after 1824. He advocated negro colonization. He was one of the first to deliver anti-slavery lectures and the first to found societies for the encouragement of free labour. Garrison was an assistant to him at first.
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Benjamin McCulloch was an American soldier. He was born in 1811 and died in 1862. He commanded a company during the Mexican War at Monterey, Buena Vista and the city of Mexico. He was a. US Marshal from 1853 to 1857. He was commissioned brigadier-general in the Confederate service in 1861 and fought with distinction at Wilson's Creek and Pea Ridge, where he met his death.
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Benjamin Meek Miller was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Alabama from 1931 until 1935.
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Benjamin of Tudela was a Jewish rabbi. He was born in the twelfth century at Navarre and died in 1173. He is chiefly known by his Itinerary, a record of his journey through Italy, Greece, Palestine, Persia, and other parts of Asia, as well aa Egypt and Sicily. His notes were first published in Hebrew at Constantinople in 1543, being afterwards translated into most European languages.
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Benjamin Ogle was an American politician. He was a Federalist governor of Maryland from 1798 until 1801.
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Benjamin Peirce was an American mathematician. He was born in 1809 and died in 1880. He won distinction for his original and extensive work in pure and in applied mathematics. He was a professor at Harvard from 1833 to 1867. He published many mathematical works.
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Benjamin Pierce was an American politician. He was a Democratic-Republican governor of New Hampshire from 1827 until 1828.
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Benjamin Prime was an American song writer. He was born in 1733 at New York and died in 1791. He composed many popular songs and ballads during the American Revolution. He was an able physician and a celebrated linguist. He wrote 'Columbia's Glory', a poem, and 'The Patriotic Muse'.
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Benjamin R Tillman was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of South Carolina from 1890 until 1894.
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Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson was an English doctor. He was born in 1828 at Somerby, and died in 1896. He graduated in medicine at St Andrews University in 1854 and in 1855 founded the Journal of Health. He gained the Astley Cooper prize for his treatise on the cause of the Coagulation of the Blood and the Fothergillian gold medal for a disquisition on the Diseases of the Foetus in Utero. He originated the use of ether spray for the local abolition of pain in surgical operations, and introduced methylene bichloride as a general anaesthetic. He was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and of the Royal Society, and was knighted in 1893. He published works on medicine and hygiene, and was an earnest sanitary and temperance reformer.
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Benjamin S Roberts was an American soldier. He was born in 1811 and died in 1875. He was brevetted lieutenant-colonel for services in the Mexican War. He served as chief of cavalry under General Pope in 1862, and fought at Cedar Mountain and Bull Run.
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Benjamin Rush was an American physician. He was born in 1745 near Philadelphia and died in 1813. He was elected a member of Congress to support the American Declaration of Independence, which he signed, and in 1777 was appointed physician- general of the army. This appointment he resigned for a private practice in Philadelphia, where he distinguished himself by his successful treatment of an epidemic of yellow fever in 1793. From 1799 until his death he was treasurer of the United States mint.
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Benjamin Silliman was an American scientist. He was born in 1779 and died in 1864. Known as 'The Nestor of American Science', he was professor at Yale College from 1803 to 1853, founded the American Journal of Science in 1818, and was sole editor until 1838. He exerted his influence for the Union and the abolition of slavery.
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Benjamin Smith was an American politician. He was a Democratic-Republican governor of North Carolina from 1810 until 1811.
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Benjamin McLane Spock is an American paediatrician and writer on child care. He was born in 1903. His 'Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care' written in 1946 urged less rigidity in bringing up children than had been advised by previous generations of writers on the subject, but this was misunderstood as advocating permissiveness. In his later work he stressed that his common- sense approach had not implied rejecting all discipline, but that his main aim was to give parents the confidence to trust their own judgement rather than rely on books by experts who did not know a particular child.
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Benjamin Stoddert was an American politician. He was born in 1751 at Maryland and died in 1813. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Brandywine. He was Secretary of the Board of War from 1777 to 1781. He was Secretary of the Navy in Adams' Cabinet from 1798 to 1801, being thus the first Secretary of the Navy.
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Benjamin J Sweet was an American soldier. He was born in 1832 and died in 1874. He was severely wounded at Perryville in 1861. In 1864 he took command of the prison at Camp Douglas, Chicago, where he defeated two well-planned attempts to liberate the prisoners and burn Chicago.
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Benjamin T Biggs was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Delaware from 1887 until 1891.
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Benjamin T Laney was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Arkansas from 1945 until 1949.
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Benjamin Tallmadge was an American soldier and politician. He was born in 1754 and died in 1835. He commanded detachments during the American War of Independence at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Lloyd's Neck and Fort George. He represented Connecticut in the US Congress as a Federalist from 1801 to 1817.
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Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford) was an Anglo-American soldier and scientist. He was born in 1753 at Massachusetts and died in 1814. He sympathized with the pre-Revolutionary movements in America, but the jealousy of his fellow-officers in the New Hampshire regiments alienated his patriotism. He carried dispatches from Howe to England in 1776. He raised the King's American Dragoons in New York in 1781 and was appointed lieutenant-colonel. He went to England in 1783. He entered the service of the Elector of Bavaria, acquired great influence, and was made prime minister and a count in 1790. He contributed valuable observations and discoveries to science, particularly on the nature and effects of heat and in chemistry, of which he was one of the founders.
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Benjamin Trumbull was an American clergyman and historian. He was born in 1735 and died in 1820. He was pastor at New Haven from 1760 to 1820. He wrote a 'General History of the United States', and 'History of Connecticut from 1630 to 1713'.
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Benjamin Vaughan was an English writer and politician. He was born in 1751 and died in 1835. He was prominent in the negotiations for peace between England and the United States in 1783. He was not officially connected with the transaction, but as a friend of Benjamin Franklin and Lord Shelburne. He was a member of Parliament from 1792 to 1796. He went to America in 1796. He accumulated a large library and wrote many political articles.
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Benjamin Franklin Wade was an American statesman. He was born in 1800 and died in 1878. He was a lawyer and Whig politician in Ohio; he had been in the State Senate and served as State Judge before his entrance into the US Senate. His term in that body covers the long period of 1851 to 1869. He rapidly became known as one of the most outspoken anti-slavery and later Republican leaders. He strongly opposed the Kansas-Nebraska measure, and during the Rebellion he was chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. Senator Wade opposed President Lincoln to some degree on the Reconstruction problem, and was naturally in the opposition to President Johnson. He was chairman of the Committee on Territories, and was chosen President pro tern. of the Senate in 1867. President Grant appointed him to the San Domingo commission in 1871. Wade was a leading candidate for the vice-presidency in 1868, and chairman of the Ohio delegation in the convention that nominated Hayes.
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Benjamin Waugh was an English social reformer. He was born at Settle in Yorkshire in 1839 and died in 1908. He founded the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
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Benjamin West was an American-born English painter. He was born in 1738 at Pennsylvania and died in 1820. He went to Italy in 1760 and settled in England in 1763. He was one of the most famous painters of the day. He was one of the founders of the Royal Academy and was its president from 1792 to 1802 and from 1803 to 1815. He painted many famous religious pieces and 'The Death of Wolfe' and 'The Treaty of Penn'.
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Benjamin Williams was an American politician. He was a Democratic-Republican governor of North Carolina from 1799 until 1802.
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Benning Wentworth was an American colonial governor. He was born in 1696 and died in 1770. He was Governor of New Hampshire from 1741 to 1767. His grants of land in what is now southern Vermont, which was claimed by New York, are known in history as the New Hampshire Grants.
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Benny Goodman was an American clarinettist and orchestra leader. He was born in 1909 at Chicago, Illinois and died in 1986.
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Benoit was a French poet of the 12th century. He wrote Le Roman de Troie which was a source of inspiration to many other writers.
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Benoit Camille Desmoulins was a French revolutionary. He was born in 1760 or 1762 and died in 1794. He was among the most notable of the pamphleteers and orators who urged the multitude forward in the path of revolution. He, along with others, prepared the plan for the taking of the Bastille in July, 1789, was one of the founders of the club of Cordeliers, and the promoter of the assembly in the Champ de Mars. In 1793 he gave his vote for the death of the king. Having become closely connected with Danton and the party of opposition to Robespierre, and inveighing against the reign of blood and terror, he was arrested on the order of the latter on the 30th of March, 1794, tried on the 2nd of April, and executed on the 5th.
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Benozzo Gozzoli was an Italian painter. He was born in 1424 at Florence and died some time after 1496. He was a pupil of Fra Angelico, and worked at Florence, Rome, Orvieto, and Pisa. His name is specially identified with the great series of mural paintings in the Campo Santo, at Pisa, consisting of twenty-four subjects from the Old Testament, from the Invention of Wine by Noah to the Visit oi the Queen of Sheba to Solomon.
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Benson J Lossing was an American writer and engraver. He was born in 1813 at New York and died in 1891. He published Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, and others of the American Civil War and War of 1812, a National History of the United States, the Statesman's Manual, biographies of Zachary Taylor, Winfield Scott, George Washington, etc., a history of New York, and Biographies of Eminent Americans.
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Benton McMillin was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Tennessee from 1899 until 1903.
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Benvenuto Cellini was a Florentine goldsmith and sculptor. He was born in 1500 at Florence and died in 1571. The son of a maker of musical instruments, he was intended for the same profession as his father but from an early age showed artistic talent, especially in design and was apprenticed to a goldsmith. Although always a musician and eventually one of the Papal Band, his life was given to work as a sculptor and goldsmith.
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Benvenuto Garofalo (properly Benvenuto Tisio da Garofalo) was an Italian historical painter. He born in 1481 at Ferrara and died in 1559. He painted at Cremona and at Rome, where he became intimate with Raphael, and then returned to Ferrara, where he he died. His works show the influence of the Lombard school and still more of Raphael, though it is denied that he was an imitator of the latter.
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Beorna was king of the East Angles in 749, reigning jointly with Ethelred and then solely in 758.
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Beornred was king of Mercia in 755. He was slain.
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Beornwulf was king of Mercia in 821. He was killed by his own subjects.
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The Berbers are a people spread over nearly the whole of Northern Africa, from whom the name Barbary was derived. The chief branches into which the Berbers are divided are, first, the Amazirgh or Amazigh, of Northern Morocco. They were traditionally for the most part quite independent of the former sultans of Morocco, and lived partly under chieftains and hereditary princes and partly in small republican communities. Second, the Shuluh, Shillooh, or Shellakah, who inhabited the south of Morocco. They were more highly civilized than the Amazirgh. Third, the Kabyles in Algeria and Tunis; and fourth, the Berbers of the Sahara, who inhabit the oases. Among the Sahara Berbers the most remarkable are the Beni-Mzab and the Tuaregs. To these we may also add the Guanches of the Canary Islands, now extinct, but undoubtedly of the same race.
The Berbers generally are about the middle height; their complexion is brown, and sometimes almost black, with brown and glossy hair. They are sparely built, but robust and graceful; the features approach the European type. Their language has affinities to the Semitic group, but Arabic is widely spoken. They are believed to represent the ancient Mauritanians, Numidians, Gaetulians, etc. The Berbers traditionally lived in huts or houses, and practised various industries. Thus they were known to smelt iron, copper, and lead, manufacture gun-barrels, implements of husbandry, etc., knives, swords, gunpowder, and a species of black soap. Some of the tribes bred mules, asses, and stock in considerable numbers, but many of the Berbers traditionally live by plunder.
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The Bereans (Barclayans) are a sect of dissenters from the Church of Scotland. They originated in Edinburgh in 1773, being founded by Barclay. They profess to follow the ancient Bereans in building their faith and practice upon the Scriptures alone, without regard to any human authority whatever.
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Berenice was the wife of Ptolemy Euergetes. When her husband went to war in Syria she vowed that if he returned safe she would dedicate her hair to the gods. Upon his safe return she hung her hair in the temple of Venus, from where it disappeared and is said to have been used to form the constellation Coma Berenices.
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Berenice Abbott was an American photographer. She was born in 1898 at Springfield, Ohio and died in 1991. She is famous for her documentation of New York City and for her pioneering camera work in the physical sciences. She studied sculpture in New York City and Paris before turning to photography in the mid-1920s at the suggestion of the American surrealist Man Ray. Through Ray she met the photographer Eugene Atget just before his death in 1927 and worked tirelessly to spread his fame. She Returned to the USA in 1929 and resolved to record New York City with a camera in the manner that Atget had recorded Paris; the result was her epic ' Changing New York'. From the 1940s to the 1960s Abbott explored natural phenomena (such as magnetism) with a camera.
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Beriah Magoffin was an American politician. He was born in 1815 and died in 1885. A prominent member of the Democratic party, he was Governor of Kentucky from 1859 to 1862. His sympathies inclined toward the Confederates, but he maintained a policy of neutrality.
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Bernard Barton was a British bank clerk and amateur poet. He was born in 1784 at Carlisle and died in 1849. He worked all his life as a clerk at a bank in Woodbridge, Suffolk, but also wrote books of poetry including the 1812 'Metrical Effusions' and 1822 'Napoleon and Other Poems'.
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Bernard de Ventadour was a troubadour of the twelfth century. The son of a domestic servant he was caught making love to the wife of his master, the Oomte de Ventadour, and took refuge at the court of Haymond V, Comte de Toulouse. His songs, which were praised by Petrarch, are yet highly esteemed.
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Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle was a French writer. He was born in 1657 at Rouen and died in 1757. In 1674 he went to Paris, and soon became known by his poetical effusions and learned works. Before the age of twenty he had assisted in the composition of the operas of Psyche and Bellerophon, which appeared under the name of his uncle, Thomas Corneille. In 1681 he brought out his tragedy Aspar; but it and the other dramas and pastorals with which he opened his literary career were on the whole unsuccessful. In 1683 appeared his Dialogues of the Dead, which were favourably received. His Discourse on the Plurality of Worlds (1686) was the first book in which astronomical subjects were discussed with taste and wit. Among his other works are the History of Oracles and an Essay on the Geometry of the Infinite.
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Bernard of Treviso was an Italian alchemist. He was born in 1406 at Padua and died in 1490.
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Bernard Palissy was a French potter and glass painter. He discovered how to manufacture enamel. He was born in 1510 and died in 1589.
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Bernard Vaughan was a Roman Catholic clergyman. He was born in 1847 and died in 1922. Educated a t Stonyhurst, he became a priest and joined the Society of Jesus.He was for eighteen years a distinguished worker in the religious and civic life of Manchester before transferring to London in 1901 where he continued his work and where he was attached to the Jesuit church in
Farm St. His outspoken addresses on social questions aroused considerable interest, some being published as The Sins of Society, in 1906.
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Bernardino Baldi was an Italian mathematician, theologian, geographer, historian and poet. He was born in 1533 at Urbino and died in 1617. He studied at Padua and became abbot of Guastalla. He knew upwards of twelve languages, and is said to have written over a hundred works, most of which remain in manuscript form. His works include a poem on Navigation, various translations and commentaries, Lives of Celebrated Mathematicians, etc.
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Bernardo Belotti Canaletto was a Ventian painter. He was born in 1724 and died in 1780. A nephew of Antonio Canaletto, he lived in Dresden, where he was a member of the Academy of Painters.
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Bernardo Rossellino was an Italian sculptor, architect and military engineer. He was born in 1409 and died in 1464. The eldest brother of Antonio Rossellino he was employed by Pope Nicholas V and Pope Pius II, restoring many of the basilicas of Rome. He also restored many churches and built military fortifications at Spoleto, Orvieto and other places.
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Bernardo Tasso was an Italian poet. He was born in 1493 at Venice and died in 1569. He was the father of Torquato Tasso. He spent his life in the service of Count Guido Rangone, Duchess Renata d' Este, Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno and Duke William of Mantua.
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Bernhard, Duke of Weimar, was a soldier. He was born in 1604 and died in 1639, probably as the result of murder by poisoning. He was the fourth son of Duke John of Saxe-Weimar, and entered the service of Holland, and afterwards the Danish army employed in Holstein. He then joined Gustavus Adolphus, and in the battle of Lutzen, 1632, commanded the victorious left wing of the Swedish army.
In 1633 he took Bamberg and other places, was made Duke of Franconia, and after the alliance of France with Sweden raised an army on the Rhine to act against Austria. After many brilliant exploits he captured Breisach and other places of inferior importance, but showed no disposition to hand them over to the French, who began to find their ally undesirably formidable. He rejected a proposal that he should marry Richelieu's niece, the Duchess d'Aiguillon, seeking instead the hand of the Princess of Rohan. This the French court refused lest the party of the Huguenots should become too powerful. He died somewhat suddenly in 1639 at Neuberg, the common opinion being that he was poisoned by Richelieu.
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Bernhard Severin Ingemann was a Danish poet and novelist. He was born in 1789 and died in 1862. He helped to spread German Romanticism in Denmark. He was the author of the romantic tragedy 'Blanca' published in 1815; the historical novels 'Valdemar Seier' published in 1826, 'Erik Menveds Barndom' published in 1828, and 'Kong Erik' published in 1833; the lyrics 'Holger Danske' published in 1837 and 'Morgen og aftensange' published in 1839.
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Berosus was a priest of the temple of Belus at Babylon early in the third century BC. He wrote in Greek a history of the Babylonian Chaldeans founded on the ancient archives of the temple of Belus. It is known only by the quotations from it in Apollodorus, Eusebius, Josephus, etc.
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Bert Hardy was an English photographer. He was born in 1913 at London and died in 1995. A self-taught photographer he worked for the 'Picture Post', recording the life of ordinary people in photographs, receiving acclaim for his record of life in London during the Blitz of the Second World War.
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Bert M Fernald was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Maine from 1909 until 1911.
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Bert T Combs was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Kentucky from 1959 until 1963.
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Bertel Thorwaldsen was a Danish sculptor. He was born in 1770 at Copenhagen and died in 1844. His father had been a carver of ships' figure heads, and Bertel Thorwaldsen started studying art when he was eleven years old at the free classes of the Copenhagen Acacdemy. In 1793 he gained the gold medal and the scholarship enabling him to spend three years abroad. In 1796 he went to Rome, where in 1809 he produced a figure of Jason which won him reputation. He remained in Italy until 1819 when he returned to Copenhagen for three years before returning to Rome.
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Bertha was the wife of Ethelbert, King of Kent. She was a Frankish Princess who married Ethelbert around 560 and converted him to Christianity, as a result the religion spread widely through the Anglo-Saxons.
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Bertha Amalie Skram (born Bertha Amalie Sivertsen) was a Norwegian novelist. She was born in 1847 at Bergen and died in 1905. When she was seventeen she married a captain in the merchant navy, and spent the next ten years travelling. In 1878 she divorced and in 1884 she married the author Erik Skram. Bertha Skram wrote stories and articles for the press and in 1885 published her first novel, 'Constance Ring' which was followed by 'Dwellers on the Moor' published in three volumes between 1887 and 1890, 'Lucie' published in 1888 and 'Professor Hieronimus' published in 1895.
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Berthold Auerbach was a German author. He was born 1812 and died in 1882. Of Jewish extraction, he abandoned the study of Jewish theology in favour of philosophy, publishing in 1836 his Judaism and Modern Literature, and a translation of the works of Spinoza with critical biography (published in 5 volumnes in 1841). His later works were tales or novels, and his Village Tales of the Black Forest (Schwarzwalder Dorfgeschichten) as well as others of his writings have been translated into several languages.
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Berthulf was king of Mercia in 838.
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Bertrand De Born was a French troubadour and warrior. He was born about the middle of the 12th century in the castle of Born, Perigord and died about 1209. He dispossessed his brother of his estate, whose part was taken by Richard Coeur de Lion in revenge for Bertrand De Born's satirical lays. Dante places him in the Inferno on account of his verses intensifying the quarrel between Henry II and his sons.
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Bertrand Du Guesclin was Constable of France. He was born about 1314 and died in 1380. He was largely responsible for the expulsion of tlie English from Normandy, Guienne, and Poitou. He was captured by Chandos at the battle of Auray in 1364, and ransomed for 100,000 francs. While serving in Spain against Peter the Cruel he was made prisoner by the English Black Prince, but was soon liberated. For his services in Spain be was made Constable of Castile, Count of Trastamare, and Duke of Molinas; and in 1370 he was made Constable of France.
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Bertrand Arthur William Russel was a British philosopher and mathematician. He was born in 1872 in Trelleck and died in 1970.
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Bertric was king of the West Saxons in 784. He died after being poisoned by a cup his queen had prepared for another person.
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Beryl Burton is an English amateur road cyclist. She was born in 1937. During the 1960's and 1970's she was a world record and champion cyclist, regularly beating the male riders.
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Beryl F Carroll was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Iowa from 1909 until 1913.
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Bethlem-Gabor or Gabriel-Bethlem was a Hungarian soldier. He was born in 1580 and died in 1629. He fought under Gabriel Bathori, and then joined the Turks, by whose aid he made himself Prince of Transylvania in 1613. In 1619 he assisted the Bohemians against Austria, and, marching into Hungary, was elected king by the nobles in 1620. This title he surrendered in return for the cession to him by the Emperor Frederick II of seven Hungarian counties and two Silesian principalities. After a brilliant reign he died in 1629 without heir.
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Beverley Randolph was an American politician. He was a governor of Virginia from 1788 until 1791.
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Beverly Robinson was an American soldier. He was born in 1723 at New York and died in 1792. He commanded the Loyalist American regiment during the American War of Independence. He was concerned in the negotiations of Bennedict Arnold, and was prominent in the trial of Major Andre. After the war his immense estate was taken from him by the American authorities.
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Bhartrihari was an Indian poet who lived around 1 BC. He was the reputed author of a book of apophthegms. According to legend, he was a dissolute brother of King Vikramaditya, who became a hermit and ascetic. The collection of 300 apophthegms bearing his name is, however, probably an anthology. 200 of them were translated into English and published at Nurnberg by Abraham Roger as early as 1653, the first Indian writings known in Europe.
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The Bheels or Bhils are one of the non-Aryan races of India, usually included under the name Dravidic, and inhabiting the Vindhya, Satpura, and Satmala Hills. They are a relic of the Indian aborigines driven from the plains by the Aryan Rajputs. They appear to have been orderly and industrious under the Delhi emperors; but on the transfer of the power In the eighteenth century from the Moguls to the Mahrattas they asserted their independence, and being treated as outlaws took to the hills. Various attempts to subdue them were made by the Gaekwar and by the British in 1818 without success. A body of them was, however, subsequently reclaimed, and a Bheel corps formed, which stormed the retreats of the rest of the race and reduced them to comparative order.
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The Bhotias are a race of nomadic people living high in the central Himalayan mountains of Hindustan, near to the border with Tibet and Nepal.
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Bias was one of the seven sages of Greece. He was born at Priene and lived around 570 BC. He gained repute as a political and legal adviser and has many sayings of practical wisdom attributed to him.
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Bibb Graves was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Alabama from 1927 until 1931.
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The Bible Christians or Bryanites were a small sect founded by a Cornish Methodist preacher called O'Bryan, who professed to follow only the doctrines of tlie Bible and reject all human authority in religion.
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A bibliophile is a collector of books.
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A bibliopole is a dealer in rare books.
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Bill Clements was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Texas from 1987 until 1991.
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Bill Clinton was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Arkansas from 1979 until 1981.
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Billie Jean King is an American Lawn Tennis player. She was born in 1943. She was Wimbledon champion from 1966 to 1968, runner up in 1969 and 1970 and champion again in 1972 and 1973.
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Billy Bremner was a Scottish association football player. He was born in 1942 at Stirling and died in 1997. Billy Bremner started his professional football career with Leeds United, having been rejected by both Arsenal and Chelsea because of his small stature. At Leeds United FC Billy Bremner made 771 appaearances between 1959 and 1976 before leaving to play for Hull City in 1976, leaving them for Doncaster Rovers in 1978 and retiring from playing in 1982 to become a manager. During his career Billy Bremner was captain of Leeds United FC and also captained in Scotland in 54 internationals. Less honourably he was infamously sent off for fighting with Kevin Keegan in the 1974 Charity Shield football match at Wembley.
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Birket Foster was an English artist. He was born in 1825 at North Shields and died in 1899. He learned wood-engraving under Landells, and at a young age became a draughtsman. He soon achieved a high reputation as a book illustrator, and illustrated the works of Goldsmith, Scott, Longfellow, Beattie, etc. His landscape drawings on wood are excellent. He afterwards devoted himself to water-colour painting, in which his reproductions of rustic life were very successful.
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Bishan Singh Bedi is an Indian cricket player. He was born in 1946. He played cricket for India (first in 1966 against the West Indies), Northern Punjab, Delhi and Northamptonshire (England). A slow, left-handed bowler he was the top wicket taker in England in 1973, taking 105 wickets.
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The Bisharin are a people inhabiting Nubia between the Nile and the Red Sea. They are Islamic in religion and live by pasturage.
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Bishop is the highest of the three orders in the Christian ministry - bishops, priests, and deacons - in such churches as recognize three grades. The name is derived from the Greek episkopos, meaning literally an overseer, through the Anglo-Saxon biscop, bisceop. Originally in the Christian church, the name was used interchangeably with presbyter or elder for the overseer or pastor of a congregation; but at a comparatively early period a position of special authority was held by the pastors of the Christian communities belonging to certain places, and the name of bishop became limited to these by way of distinction.
There is much that is doubtful or disputed in regard to the history of the episcopal office. Roman Catholics and many others hold that it is of divine ordination and existed already in apostolic times; and they maintain the doctrine of the apostolical succession, that is to say, the doctrine of the transmission of the ministerial authority in uninterrupted succession from Christ to the apostles, and through these from one bishop to another. Presbyterians deny that the office was of divine or apostolic origin, and hold that it was an upgrowth of subsequent times easily accounted for, certain of the presbyters or pastors acquiring precedence as bishops over others, just as the bishops of the chief cities (Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Rome) obtained precedence among the bishops and received the title of metropolitan bishops; while the Bishop of Rome came to be regarded as the head of the church and the true successor of Peter.
Already in the fifth century the popes had begun to send to the newly-elected metropolitan bishops (now called archbishops) the pallium, a kind of official mantle, as a token of their sanction of the choice. Two centuries later it became the custom to consecrate bishops by investing them with the ring and crosier, the former as a token of marriage with the church, the latter as a symbol of the pastoral office. This investiture, as giving validity to the election of the bishops, became the source of long-continued contests between the popes and the temporal sovereigns in the middle ages. In the Roman Catholic Church the bishop is usually elected by the presbyters of the diocese, subject to the approbation of the pope and of the secular power. When the monarch is Roman Catholic a bishopric may be in the royal gift, subject to papal approval.
The bishop comes next in rank to the cardinal. His special insignia are the mitre and crosier or pastoral staff, a gold ring, the pallium, dalmatica, etc. He guards the purity of doctrine in his diocese, appoints professors in the clerical colleges, licenses books on religious subjects, ordains and appoints the clergy, consecrates churches, takes charge of the management of funds for ecclesiastical or pious purposes, etc. The bishops of the Greek Church have similar functions but on the whole less authority. They are always selected from the monastic orders.
In the Church of England bishops are nominated by the sovereign, who, upon request of the dean and chapter for leave to elect a bishop, sends a conge d'elire, or license to elect, with a letter missive, nominating the person whom he would have chosen. The election, by the chapter, must be made within twelve days, or the sovereign has a right to appoint whom he pleases. A bishop, as well as an archbishop, has his consistory court to hear ecclesiastical causes, and makes visits to the clergy, etc. He consecrates churches, ordains, admits, and institutes priests; confirms, suspends, excommunicates, grants licenses for marriage, etc. He has his archdeacon, dean, and chapter, chancellor, and vicar-general to assist him.
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A bishti was formerly an Indian water carrier.
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Bjork Guomundsdottir is an Icelandic singer and composer. She was born in 1965 at Reykjavik. Brought up in a hippie-style commune, she studied classical music from the age of five before releasing her first album in 1977 and then joining various punk-rock bands before forming the band the 'Sugarcubes', releasing her fist solo album in 1993. An Icelandic hero, in recognition of her promotion of Iceland abroad, the Icelandic government presented her with the island of Ellidaey.
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Bjornstjerne Bjornson was a Norwegian novelist, poet, and dramatist. He was born in 1832 and died after 1905. He entered the University of Christiania in 1852, and he speedily became known as a contributor of articles and stories to newspapers and as a dramatic critic. From 1857 to 1859 he was manager of the Bergen theatre, producing during that time his novel Arne, and his tragedy of Halte Hulda.
He was at Christiania part-editor of the Aftenblad in 1860, then lived several years abroad, and in 1866 became editor of the Norsk Folkeblad. From 1869 until 1872 he was co-director of a Copenhagen periodical, and much of his later life was passed abroad. The democratic tendencies to be found in his novels have found a practical outcome in the active part taken by him in political questions bearing upon the Norwegian peasantry and popular representation. Among his tales and novels, a number of which may be had in English, are: Synnoeve Solbakken; Arne; The Fishermaiden; A Happy Boy; Railways and Churchyards. Among his dramatic pieces are: The Newly-married Couple; Mary Stuart in Scotland; A Bankruptcy, etc. He also wrote poems and songs.
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Black Baron was the alias of one Christopher Pile, an English man born in 1969, who in the mid-1990's wrote a series of computer viruses employing an advanced polymorphic technique he called 'SMEG'. In all three variants of SMEG were developed and distributed; Pathogen, Queeg and Smeg 3.. After leaving school at the age of sixteen with a handful of CSE's and a burning desire to be a commercial airline pilot he learned to drive, passed his driving test and settled down to several years unemployed. After reading Ross M Greenberg's comments about computer virus authors, which was very scathing and critical of people who write computer viruses, describing them as 'slime buckets' and challenging them to write a virus that he couldn't disarm, the Black Baron decided to take up the challenge and produce a computer which would spread widely, and which would be immune to Mr Greenberg's anti-virus software. The
Black Baron was subsequently arrested and sentenced to eighteen months in jail.
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Black Beard (real name Edward Teach) was an English pirate. He was born at Bristol and died in 1718. He made frequent ravages along the New England coast and West Indies from his 40-gun warship, Queen Anne's Revenge. He was gladly received by the inhabitants of Charleston in the matter of trade. Black Beard's headquarters were in North Carolina. From thence he preyed upon the Spanish possessions in the south and traded as far north as Philadelphia, where prominent citizens were in league with him and with Evans, another pirate. He was finally driven away by Governor Johnson, of North Carolina, and was shot by Robert Maynard in 1718.
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Black Hawk was Chief of the Sac and Fox Indians. He was born in 1767 and died in 1838. He joined the British in the war of 1812, and opposed the treaty of 1830 giving lands east of the Mississippi to the white settlers, resulting in the Black Hawk War in 1831.
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The Blackfeet (Blackfoot) are a confederacy of three related north American Indian tribes of the Algonquin family: the Siksika, Kainah and Piegan. The Blackfeet got their name after separating from the Kena Indians and migrating to the area north of the Saskatchewan River in Alberta, Canada south to the headwater of the Missouri River in Montana, USA.
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Blaise Pascal was a French philosopher, theologian and mathematician. He was born in 1623 at Clermont-Ferrand and died in 1662. He was educated at Paris and Rouen by his father who was the President of the Court of Aids. Blaise Pascal's early mathematical genius is evident from his 1639 'Geometry of Conics'.
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Blanche Bingley was a British lawn tennis player. She was born in 1863 and died in 1938. She competed in the first women's championship at Wimbledon in 1884, winning the title in 1886.
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Blanche of Castile was rge daughter of Alphonso IX and the queen of Louis VIII., king of France, and mother of St Louis. She was born in 1187 and died in 1252 or 1253. On the death of Louis VIII she procured the coronation of her son, and during his minority held the reins of government in his name with distinguished success. In 1244, when St Louis left for the Holy Land, she again became regent, and gave new proofs of her abilities and firmness as a ruler.
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The Blanketeers were an assembly of some 500 Manchester operatives who in 1817 assembled at St Peter's Field, each carrying provisions and a blanket, proposing to walk to London to lay their grievances before the Prince Regent. The gathering caused some consternation, and the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended. The leaders were taken and imprisoned and the project frustrated.
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Blondel was a French minstrel and poet of the 12th century. He is a legendary character, tales about him being recorded in 'Chronicles of Rheims' . One story tells how his master was taken prisoner, and Blondel trying to find him walked all Palestine and Germany singing his master's favourite song until at last the song was taken up and answered by the imprisoned master.
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The blue-gowns were an order of paupers in Scotland, called also the King's -Bedesmen, to whom the kings annually distributed certain alms on condition of their praying for the royal welfare. Their number was equal to the number of years the king had lived. The alms consisted of a blue gown or cloak, a purse containing as many shillings Scots (pennies sterling) as the years of the king's age, and a badge bearing the words 'Pass and reposs', which protected them from all laws against mendicity. Edie Ochiltree, in Sir Walther Scott's novel of the Antiquary, is a type of the class. The practice of appointing bedesmen was discontinued in 1833, and the last of them drew his last allowance from the exchequer in Edinburgh in 1863.
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A Blue-stocking was a literary lady. The term was applied around the time of Dr Johnson when ladies would hold conversation with distinguished literary men. One of the men, Benjamin Stillingfleet, always wore blue stockings and his conversation was so prized at the meetings that in his absence the ladies would remark, 'we can do nothing without the blue-stockings', and hence the meetings became known as blue-stocking clubs, and the ladies who attended them as blue-stockings.
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Abu-Abdullah Boabdil was the last Moorish king of Granada. He gained the throne in 1481 by expelling his father, Mulei Hassan; and became the vassal of Ferdinand of Aragon. By his tyranny he provoked the hostility of his own subjects, and Ferdinand, taking advantage of the dissensions which prevailed, laid siege to Granada. The Moors made a valiant defence, but Boabdil capitulated, and retired to a domain of the Alpujarras assigned him by the victor. He afterwards passed into Africa, and fell in battle while assisting the King of Fes in an attempt to dethrone the King of Morocco.
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Boadicea was Queen of the Iceni, in Britain during the reign of Nero. Following the death of her husband, the Romans broke their peace treaty with the Iceni, stole lands left to Boadicea, raped her two young daughters, and publicly flogged her to humiliate her. Boadicea, understandably outraged, rallied the Celtic tribes of Britain together and headed a general insurrection of the Britons, first attacking and destroying Colchester, and then burned London to the ground. She and her army was defeated by Suetonius and his troops, sent from Rome to put down the insurrection, in 62, and rather than be captured committed suicide with poison.
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Bob Dylan (real name Robert Allen Zimmerman) is an American musician. He was born in 1941 at Duluth, Minnesota.
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Bob Graham was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Florida from 1979 until 1987.
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Bob Martinez was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Florida from 1987 until 1991.
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Robert Moore (Bobby Moore) was an English Association Football player. He was born in 1941 at Barking, Essex and died in 1993. He played for West Ham from 1958 to 1974 and then Fulham from 1974 to 1977. He captained the England football team that won the 1966 World Cup.
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Bobby Rydell is an American musician. He was born in 1942. He appeared in the 1963 film Bye Bye Birdie.
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Bobby Sands was an Irish patriot and politician. He was born in 1954 at Belfast, Northern Ireland and died in 1981 following a hunger-strike at Long Kesh prison. Following the civil unrest in Northern Ireland, and the Sands family being harassed out of their home, Bobby Sands joined the IRA and in 1973 was arrested on arms charges. He is best remembered for his political writings (at the time of his death he had been elected to the British parliament) and the hunger-strike in which a number of IRA members starved themselves to death in protest at being treated as criminals, rather than political prisoners, by the British government.
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The Boers (from the Dutch Boer, a farmer) were early Dutch farming colonists in South Africa. In 1836-1837 many Boers, being dissatisfied with the British government in Cape Colony, migrated beyond the Orange River, and a number found their way to what is now Natal. Here there had been British settlements for some years, and the British formally annexed the country in 1843. Subsequently the Boers were allowed to establish the Orange Free State as an independent republic, and several other small republics, which finally were combined into one - the South African Republic, or Transvaal. In 1877 the Transvaal was annexed by Britain, according to the wish of many of the people, but war broke out in 1880, British forces suffered more than one defeat, and in 1881 the country was accorded a modified independence. Henceforth it was a common feeling among the Boers that they and not the British must be predominant in South Africa, and in October, 1899, after an insolent ultimatum, the united forces of the Transvaal and Orange State invaded Natal. The war which followed with Britain was concluded by the final surrender of the Boers in May, 1902; the two states having been declared British territory in 1900.
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Anicius Manlius Severinus Boerthius was a celebrated Roman statesman and philosopher. He was born about 470 AD in Rome or Milan, of a rich and ancient family and died in 525 when he was executed. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, then master of Italy, loaded him with marks of favour and esteem, and raised him to the first offices in the empire. He was three times consul, and received the greatest possible honour from people, senate, and king. But Theodoric, as he grew old, became irritable, jealous, and distrustful of those about him, and was worked upon by some whom Boethius had made enemies by his strict integrity and vigilant justice. These at last succeeded in prejudicing the king against him, and he was accused of a treasonable correspondence with the court of Constantinople, imprisoned for a time, and then put to death.
He made translations of the Greek philosophers, particularly Aristotle, which, in the middle ages, caused him to be regarded as the highest authority in philosophy. There is no evidence that he was a Christian. His fame now chiefly rests on his Consolations of Philosophy, written in prison, partly in prose and partly in verse, a work of elevated thought and diction. We have an Anglo-Saxon translation of it by King Alfred, and it was early translated into other languages.
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The Bogomili were an ascetic and mystical sect of the Greek Church founded in the 12th century. They held that God had two sons, Sathaniel and Logos, the former of whom rebelled and created the material world, but was finally subdued by the Logos or Christ. The sect was powerful in Bulgaria for about five centuries, and by its method of teaching did much to preserve and circulate old legends and folk-lore, including many early versions of Oriental myths and legends.
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The Bogos are a pastoral Hamitic people of Northern Syria occupying a fine plateau and mountain district, traditionally almost entirely engaged in cattle-rearing. They have peculiar patriarchal institutions with regularly established laws. The religion is the Christian, but Islam has a considerable number of adherents.
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The Bohemian Brethren were a Christian sect of Bohemia, formed from the remains of tho stricter sort of Hussites, in the latter half of the 15th century. They took the Scriptures as the ground of their doctrines throughout, and sought to frame the constitution of their churches on the apostolic model. They had a rigid system of mutual supervision extending even to the minute details of domestic life. Being persecuted numbers retired into Poland and Prussia. Those who remained in Moravia and Bohemia, and who had their chief residence at Fulneck in Moravia, were hence called Moravian Brethren.
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Bohemond I was prince of Antioch. He was born in 1056 and died in 1111. He was the eldest son of Robert Guiscard, under whom he served with distinction in the war against Alexius Comnenus, emperor of Byzantium. He took a distinguished part in the first crusade and captured Antioch in 1098 of which he became prince, but was himself captured by the Turks in 1100 and imprisoned for three years. He married a daughter of Philip of France, and with a French army renewed unsuccessfully the war against Alexius.
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The Boiars or Boyars were an order of the old Russian aristocracy next in rank to the ruling Princes, and bearing much the same relation to them as the lesser barons of England and Scotland did to the greater in the feudal ages. The boiars enjoyed many exclusive privileges, held all the highest military and civil offices, and were so powerful that the ancient imperial ukases contained the clause, 'The emperor has willed it, the boiars have approved it.' The order was abolished by Peter the Great, who gave its members a place in the Russian nobility.
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The Boii were a Celtic people whose original seat is supposed to have been between the Upper Saone and the higher parts of the Seine and Marne. They migrated to Cisalpine Gaul, crossed the Po, and established themselves between it and the Apennines, in the country previously occupied by the Umbrians. After a more or less constant strife with the inhabitants of Southern Italy they attacked the Romans in support of Hannibal in 218 BC, and though defeated, maintained the war until their subjugation by Scipio Nasica in 191 BC. The remnant of the tribe sought refuge among the Tauriscans in the territory since called after them Bohemia, from which there was a later migration, about 58 BC, to Bavaria, to which also they gave their name.
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The Bois-Brules are a race of people in North America, the descendants of Canadian, Frenchmen and Indian women. They are also known as half-breeds.
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Bollandists are the society of Jesuits which published the Actca Sanctorum, a collection of lives of the saints of the Roman Catholic Church. They received this name from John Bolland who died in 1665, and who edited the first five volumes from materials already accumulated by Heribert Rosweyd, a Flemish Jesuit who died in 1629. The society was first established at Antwerp, removed to Brussels on the abolition of the society of Jesuits in 1773, and dispersed in 1794. A new association was formed in 1837 under the patronage of the Belgian government, and the publication of the Acta Sanctorum was continued.
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A bona-roba was a smartly dressed, exclusive Italian prostitute (courtesan), so named from their smart dress.
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Bonaparte was the French form which the great Napoleon was the first to give to the original Italian name Buona-parte, borne by his family in Corsica. As early as the 12th and 13th centuries there were families of this name in Northern Italy, members of which reached some distinction as governors of cities (podesta), envoys, etc. But the connection between the Corsican Bonapartes and these Italian families is not clearly established, though probably the former descended from a Genoese branch of the family, which transplanted itself about the beginning of the 16th century to Corsica, an island then under the jurisdiction of Genoa. From that time the Buona-partes ranked as a distinguished patrician family of Ajaccio.
About the middle of the 18th century there remained three male representatives of this family at Ajaccio, viz. the archdeacon Luciano Bonaparte, his brother Napoleon, and the nephew of both, Carlo, the father of the Emperor Napoleon I. Carlo or Charles Buonaparte, born in 1746, studied law at Pisa University, and on his return to Corsica married Letizia Ramolino. He fought under Paoli for the independence of Corsica, but when further resistance was useless he went over to the side of the French, and was included by Louis XV amongst the 400 Corsican families who were to have rights in France as noble. In 1777 he went to Paris, where he resided for several years, procuring a free admission for his second son Napoleon to the military school of Brienne. He died in 1785 at Montpellier. By his marriage with Letizia Ramolino he left eight children: Giuseppe, or Joseph, king of Spain; Napoleon I, emperor of the French; Lucien, prince of Canino; Maria Anna, afterwards called Elise, princess of Lucca and Piombino, and wife of Prince Bacciocchi, Luigi, or Louis, king of Holland; Garlotta, afterwards named Marie Pauline, princess Borghese, Annunciata, afterwards called Caroline, wife of Murat king of Naples; and Girolamo, or Jerome, king of Westphalia.
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The Bongo are (were?) a Sudanese tribe living between the head-waters of the bahr el-Ghazal and the Ubangi.
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Boniface I was a pope. He was elected in 418. He was the first to assume the title of the First Bishop of Christendom. He died in 422
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Boniface II was a pope. He was elected in 530 and died in 532. He acknowledged the supremacy of the secular sovereign in a council held at Rome.
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Boniface III was a pope. He was chosen pope in 607 and died nine months after his election.
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Bonigace IV wasa pope. He was elected pope in 608. He converted the Pantheon at Rome into a Christian church.
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Boniface IX was a pope from 1389 until 1404. He was elected during the schism in the church while Clement VII resided at Avignon. He made a shameless traffic of ecclesiastical offices, dispensations, etc, and lavished the treasures thus procured on his relations or on costly edifices - the fortification of the castle of St Angelo, for instance, and the Capitol. He died in 1404.
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Boniface V was a pope. He was pope from 619 to 625. He endeavoured to diffuse Christianity among the English.
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Boniface VI was a pope. He was elected in 896 and died a fortnight after.
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Boniface VII was a pope. He was elected in 947, during the lifetime of Benedict VI, and therefore styled antipope. Expelled from Rome in 984, he returned and deposed and put to death Pope John XIV. He died in 985.
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Boniface VIII (real name Benedict Cajetan) was a pope from 1294 until 1303. He was one of the ablest and most ambitious of the popes. His idea was, like that of Gregory VII, to raise the papal chair to a sort of universal monarchy in temporal as well as spiritual things. In pursuit of this design he was engaged in incessant quarrels with the German emperors and King Philip of France. He was not, however, very successful. The excommunication which he launched against Philip of France met with no respect, and he was proceeding to lay all France under interdict when he was seized at Anagni by an agent of Philip and a member of the great Colonna family which Boniface had banished from Rome. After three days' captivity the people of Anagni rose and delivered him; but he died a month later probably from the privations and agitation he had undergone. In 1300 Boniface instituted the jubilees of the church, which, at first centennial, afterwards every twenty-five years, became a great source of revenue to the papal treasury.
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Bonzes was the name used by Europeans for Buddhist priests around 1900.
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Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American Negro Educationist. He was born in 1858 and died in 1915. The son of a mulatto slave woman and a white man he became the principal of a school in Tuskegee, Alabama and acquired a reputation as an eloquent speaker. In 1892 he founded the Tuskegee Conference and organised the National Negro Business League in 1900. He wrote several books including an autobiography.
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Booth Gardner was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Washington from 1985 until 1993.
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A bootlegger is someone who sells intoxicating liquor in countries where the sale is prohibited. The term was mainly applied in the USA, where it derived from the custom of traders carrying illegal bottles of liquor in the tops of their boots.
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Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian writer. He was born in 1890 at Moscow and died in 1960. He wrote only one novel, 'Doctor Zhivago'.
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Boris Vladimirovitch Sturmer was a Russian statesman. He was born in 1848 and died in 1917. Of German origins he held sympathies for Prussianism and was governor of Novgorod in 1894. He entered politics and became minister of the interior and of justice. In 1916 he was premier and in the same year was appointed foreign minister in succession to Sazonoff. He was denounced in the Duma by Miliukov in November 1916 as a traitor and resigned shortly afterwards.
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The Bororos are a South American tribe living in the Brazilian states of Matto Grosso and Goyaz and averaging a height of over six feet. They were reduced in number in 1650 by the Portuguese.
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The Bostanji were a class of men in Turkey, originally the sultan's gardeners, but later also employed in several ways about his person, as mounting guard at the seraglio, rowing his barge, etc, and likewise in attending the officer of the royal household.
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The Botocudos (called by themselves Nac-nanuk) are (were?) a tribe of Eastern Brazil. They were savagely exterminated by early Portuguese settlers who didn't approve of their cannibalism and strange customs, and in 1900 less than 15,000 remained, further reduced by 1904 to between 12,000 and 14,000. The Botocudos were described as very similar in appearance to the Mongolian people of Siberia, having round, flat features, a small nose and oblique eyes, lank, black coloured hair and a brown-yellowish complexion. They were noted for wearing round wooden disks as lip and ear ornaments from which they were given their Portuguese name or barrel plugs. Their language was said to not have any word for any number beyond one, containing a word for the number two which translated as much or many. A treatise about the Botocudos was published in 1883 by A H Keane entitled 'On The Botocudos'.
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The Bourbons were an ancient French family which has given three dynasties to Europe, the Bourbons of France, Spain, and Naples. The first of the line known in history is Adhemar, who, at the beginning of the 10th century, was lord of the Bourbonnais. The power and possessions of the family increased steadily through a long series of Archambaulds of Bourbon until in 1272 Beatrix, daughter of Agnes of Bourbon and John of Burgundy, married Robert, sixth son of Louis IX. of France, and thus connected the Bourbons with the royal line of the Capets.
Their son Louis had the barony converted into a dukedom and became the first Duc de Bourbon. Two branches took their origin from the two sons of this Louis, duke of Bourbon, who died in 1341. The elder line was that of the dukes of Bourbon, which became extinct at the death of the Constable of Bourbon in 1527, in the assault of the city of Rome. The younger was that of the counts of La Marche, afterwards counts and dukes of Vendome. From these descended Anthony of Bourbon, duke of Vendome, who by marriage acquired the kingdom of Navarre, and whose son Henry of Navarre became Henry IV of France. Anthony's younger brother, Louis, prince of Conde, was the founder of the line of Conde. There were, therefore, two chief branches of the Bourbons - the royal, and that of Conde.
The royal branch was divided by the two sons of Louis XIII, the elder of whom, Louis XIV, continued the chief branch, whilst Philip, the younger son, founded the house of Orleans as the first duke of that name. The kings of the elder French royal line of the house of Bourbon run in this way: Henry IV Louis XIIL Louis XIV Louis XV Louis XVI Louis XVII Louis XVIII, and Charles X. The last sovereigns of this line, Louis XVI, Louis XVIIL, and Charles X. (Louis XVII, son of Louis XVI., never obtained the crown), were brothers, all of them being grandsons of Louis XV Louis XVIII. had no children, but Charles X had two sons, viz. Louis Antoine de Bourbon, duke of Angouleme, who was dauphin until the revolution of 1830, and died without issue in 1844, and Charles Ferdinand, duke of Berry, who died, on the 14th of February 1820, of a wound given him by a political fanatic.
The Duke of Berry had two children: (1) Louise Marie Therese, called Mademoiselle d'Artois; and (2) Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonne, born in 1820, and at first called Duke of Bordeaux, but afterwards Count De Chambord, who was looked upon by his party until his death (in 1883) as the legitimate heir to the crown of France.
The branch of the Bourbons known as the House of Orleans was raised to the throne of France by the revolution of 1830, and deprived of it by that of 1848. It derives its origin from Duke Philip I of Orleans (who died in 1701), second son of Louis XIII, and only brother of Louis XIV. A regular succession of princes leads us to the notorious Egalite Orleans, who in 1793 died on the scaffold, and whose son Louis Philippe was king of France from 1830 to the revolution of 1848. His grandson Louis Philippe, count de Paris (born in 1838, died in 1894), after the death of Count de Ghambord the last male representative of the elder Bourbons, united in himself the claims of both branches, now vested in his son the present Duke of Orleans.
The Spanish-Bourbon dynasty originated when in 1700 Louis XIV placed his grandson Philip, duke of Anjou, on the Spanish throne, who became Philip V of Spain. From him descended the later occupant of the Spanish throne, Alphonso XIII, born in 1886.
The royal line of Naples, or the Two Sicilies, took its rise when in 1735 Don Carlos, the younger son of Philip V of Spain, obtained the crown of Sicily and Naples (then attached to the Spanish monarchy), and reigned as Charles III. In 1759, however, he succeeded his brother Ferdinand VI on the Spanish throne, when he transferred the Two Sicilies to his third son Fernando (Ferdinand IV), on the express condition that this crown should not be again united with Spain. Ferdinand IV had to leave Naples in 1806; but after the fall of Napoleon he again became king of both Sicilies under the title of Ferdinand I, and the succession remained to his descendants till 1860, when Naples was incorporated into the new kingdom of Italy.
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Bourgeoisie was a name applied to a certain class in France, in contradistinction to the nobility and clergy as well as to the working-classes. It thus included all those who did not belong to the nobility or clergy, and yet occupied an independent position, from financiers and heads of great mercantile establishments at the one end to master tradesmen at the other. It corresponded pretty nearly with the English term 'middle classes.' Etymologically the word refers to the old class of freemen or burgesses residing in towns.
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Bourke B Hickenlooper was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Iowa from 1943 until 1945.
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A bowyer is someone who makes or sells archery bows.
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The Boxers were a Chinese secret society professing fervent nationalism and a hatred of foreigners.
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Sir Boyle Roche was an Irish politician. He was born in 1743 and died in 1807. He served in the American War and entered the Irish revenue department in 1775; at in the Irish Parliament from 1777 until the union with England in 1801; was appointed chamberlain to the vice regal court; and created a baronet in 1782. He rendered service to the government in connection with the Reform Bill of 1783, and warmly advocated the union.
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Boz was a pseudonym adopted by Charles Dickens and under which he wrote a series of literary sketches for the Morning Chronicles which were later published by him in a book called Sketches by Boz. The Pickwick Papers first appeared under this pseudonym, which is a corruption of Moses, a name jocularly given to his youngest brother.
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The Brahui are a pastoral people of Baluchistan. They speak a Dravidian language (Brahui).
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Bram Stoker was an Irish author. He was born in 1847 and died in 1912. He wrote the novel Dracula.
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Brandon Thomas was a British playwright and actor. He was born in 1849 at Hull and died in 1914. He worked as a shipping clerk in Liverpool and Hull before going on the stage in John Hare's company in 1879. He acted in comedy parts in England and the USA, but was more successful as a playwright. His greatest triumph was with his farce, Charley's Aunt, produced in 1892. Among his other plays were Comrades, produced in 1882;The Colour-Sergeant produced in 1885; The Swordsman's Daughter produced in 1895; Women Are So Serious produced in 1901; and A Judge's Memory produced in 1906.
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Brasidas was a Spartan general who in the Peloponnesian War overthrew the Athenian army under Cleon at Amphipolls, but was himself mortally wounded, 422 BC.
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Bravi was the name formerly given in Italy, and particularly in Venice, to those who were ready to hire themselves out to perform any desperate undertaking. The word had the same signification in Spain, and both the word and the persons designated by it were found in France in the reign of Louis XIII. and during the minority of Louis XIV.
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Braxton Bragg was an American Confederate general. He was born in 1817 at Warren County, North Carolina and died in 1876. He graduated at West Point in 1837, was engaged in the Seminole War of 1837 to 1839 and served with distinction at Buena Vista during the Mexican War of 1846 to 1848 under General Taylor, after which he retired from the army in 1856 and became a planter in Louisiana. When the Civil War broke out, Braxton Bragg was made in 1861 commander-in-chief of all the state troops in Louisiana. In February 1862 he became a major-general, with his headquarters at Mobile, in command of the second division of the Confederate army, the centre of which he commanded at the Battle of Shiloh. In the summer of 1862 he invaded Kentucky, and was defeated in the West. He was defeated again at Murfreesboro', but in 1863 won the Battle of Chickamauga. Grant defeated his army at the battles around Chattanooga, and General Bragg was removed from his command.
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Braxton Bragg Comer was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Alabama from 1907 until 1911.
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Brehons were ancient magistrates among the Irish. They were hereditary, had lands assigned for their maintenance, and administered justice to their respective tribes - each tribe had one brehon - seated in the open air upon some hill or eminence.
Brehon law was reduced to writing at a very early period, as is evident from the antiquity of the language in which it is written, and in the earliest manuscripts we find allusions to a revision of it said to have been made in the 5th century by St Patrick and other learned men, who are said to have expunged from it the traces of heathenism, and formed it into a code called the Senchus Mor. The Brehon law was exclusively in force in Ireland until the year 1170. It was finally abolished by James I in 1605.
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Brendan T Byrne was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of New Jersey from 1974 until 1982.
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Brennus was the name or title of several princes of the ancient Gauls, of whom the most famous was the leader of the Senones, who invaded uhe Roman territory about the year 390 BC. He conquered Etruria from Ravenna to Picenum, besieged Clusium, defeated the Romans near the Allia, sacked Rome, and besieged the capitol for six months, but ultimately retired on payment of a large amount of gold. Connected with this invasion are the well-known stories of the massacre of about eighty venerable senators who awaited the Gauls in their chairs of office in the Forum; of the salvation of the capitol by the cackling of geese;
and of the throwing of the sword of Brennus into the scales when the Romans complained that the weights used by the Gauls were false.
According to Polybius the Gauls returned home in safety with their booty; but according to Livy, Brennus was disastrously defeated by Camillas, a distinguished Roman exile who arrived with succour in time to save the capitol.
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The Bretheren of the Free Spirit was a sect of heretics which originated in Alsace in the 13th century, and quickly became disseminated over Italy, France, and Germany. They claimed 'freedom of spirit,' and based their claims on Romans VIII 2-14: 'The law of the spirit hath made me free from the law of sin and death'. From which they deduced that they could not sin, and lived in open lewdness, going from place to place accompanied by women under the name of 'sisters'.
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A Bretwalda was one of the kings of the Saxon Heptarchy, chosen by the others as a leader in a war against their common enemies.
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Brian Boroimhe or Brian Boru was an Irish chieftain who became king of Munster in 978, defeated the Danes of Limerick and Waterford, attacked Malachi and became the nominal king of Ireland. He died in 1014 at the Battle of Clontarf.
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Brian Eno is an English musician. He was born in 1948 at Woodbridge, Suffolk. A singer, songwriter and keyboard player he was a member of the band Roxy Music during the 1970's.
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Brian Haw is an English peace campaigner. He was born in 1949. In 2001, Brian Haw commenced a constant vigil protest outside England's Houses of Parliament protesting against the USA led sanctions and bombing of Iraq. Within a year of his campaign starting, moves were made to evict Brian Haw under pretexts such as 'obstructing the highway' and supposed risks of terrorism, however all attempts failed and in 2005 the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, passed a new law banning all spontaneous protests within a half-mile radius of the House of Parliament in direct contradiction to the rights established under the Human Rights Act.
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The Briboci were a former people of part of Berkshire and the surrounding area living at the time of Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain.
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Brigham Young was an American Mormon leader. He was born in 1801 at Vermont and died in 1877. A mechanic in New York, he was converted to Mormonism in 1831, and became an intimate associate of Joseph Smith. Commencing to preach the next year, he soon removed to Kirtland, Ohio, was chosen elder in 1832 and apostle in 1835. Brigham Young was ore of the founders of the Nauvoo settlement in 1840, and in 1844 he succeeded Joseph Smith. Owing to persecution he conducted an emigration in 1846, and passed the following winter among the Indians of Nebraska. Having in 1847 explored the Salt Lake valley, he returned and led his band to the new home in 1848. He became Governor of Deseret in 1849, and was appointed Governor of the Territory of Utah in 1851. The next year he announced the dogma of polygamy, and systematically defied the National Government He submitted, however, to Johnston's expedition of 1857. He remained president of the Mormon Church until his death.
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Brillat-Savarin was a French author and magistrate. He was born in 1755 at Bellay and died in 1826. Although he wrote works on political economics, archaeology, and duelling, he is now known only by his famous book on gastronomy, the Physiologie du Gout, published in 1825.
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Britannicus was a son of the Roman Emperor Claudius by Messalina. He was born in 42 and died in 56 when he was poisoned by his brother Nero, who was the then Emperor.
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Briton Riviere was a British painter of animals. He was born in 1840 and died in 1920.
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A broderer is a person who embroiders.
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Brooke Valentine is an American pop singer and song writer. She was born in 1984 at Houston, Texas. After being a member of a band called 'Best Kept Secret' she later went solo.
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The Brownists were an English religious Separatist movement of the later part of the 16th century. They were so named after Robert Brown, the Church of England clergyman from Norwich who first introduced the Separatist doctrines. The Pilgrim Fathers were Brownists.
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Bruce is a family name distinguished in the history of Scotland. The family of Bruce (or de Brus) was of Norman descent, its founder having obtained from William the Conqueror large grants of land in Northumberland. After being frequently involved in border warfare with the Scots, the house of Bruce received about 1130 from David I a grant of the lands of Annandale, thus obtaining a footing in the south of Scotland.
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Bruce E Babbitt was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Arizona from 1978 until 1987.
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Bruce King was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of New Mexico from 1971 until 1975.
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Bruce Montgomery was an English composer, conductor and organist. He was born in 1921 and died in 1978. From 1948 he worked in films, composing music scores for films such as the 1958 'Carry On Sergeant' and other 'Carry On' films of the 1950s and early 1960s.
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Bruce Smith is drum player with the rock group Public Image Ltd.
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Bruce Sundlun was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Rhode Island from 1991 until 1995.
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Brunehilda was a Visigothic princess, married to Siegbert I, king of Austria. To avenge her sister who was assassinated at the instigation of Fredegonde, she involved her husband in a war with his brother Chilperic, in the course of which Siegebert was murdered and she was taken prisoner. She induced Meroveus, one of Chilperic's sons, to marry her, effected her escape and recovered her authority and maintained it until 613 when she was captured by Fredegonde's son Clothaire II of Soissons who had her put to death for the murder of ten kings and royal princes.
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Brunswick was a distinguished German family founded by Albert Azo II., Marquis of Reggio and Modena, a descendant, by the female line, of Charlemagne. In 1047 he married Cunigunda, heiress of the Counts of Altorf, thus uniting the two houses of Este and Guelph. From his son, Guelph, who was created Duke of Bavaria in 1071, and married Judith of Flanders, a descendant of Alfred of England, descended Henry the Proud, who succeeded in 1125, and by marriage acquired Brunswick and Saxony. Otho, the great-grandson of Henry by a younger branch of his family, was the first who bore the title of Duke of Brunswick (1235). By the two sons of Ernest of Zeil, who became duke in 1532, the family was divided into the two branches of Brunswick -Wolfenbluttel (II.) and Brunswick-Hanover, from the latter of which comes the present royal family of Britain. The former was the German family in possession of the duchy of Brunswick until the death of the last duke in 1884. George Louis, son of Ernest Augustus and Sophia, granddaughter of James I of England, succeeded his father as Elector of Hanover in 1698, and was called to the throne of Great Britain in 1714 as George I.
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Brut or Brutus was a hero of Troy, the great-grandson of Aeneas. On his banishment from Italy he managed to reach Albion (Britain) whose gigantic warriors he overcame in battle and so took possession of the island.
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The Brutti were an ancient people of southern Italy, occupying the interior of Bruttium. They helped Hannibal during the second Punic war and after its conclusion their territory was confiscated and they were declared as public slaves.
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Bryan Edwards was an English writer. He was born in 1743 at Wiltshire and died in 1800. He inherited a large fortune from an uncle in Jamaica, where he long resided. His History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies appeared in 1793.
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Bryan Ferry is an English musician. He was born in 1945 at Washington, County Durham. He was a founder member of the rock group Roxy Music in 1970.
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Bryant B Brooks was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Wyoming from 1905 until 1911.
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Buccaneer was a name derived from the Carib boucan, a place for smoking meat, first given to European settlers in Haiti or Hispaniola, whose business was to hunt wild cattle and swine and smoke their flesh. In an extended sense the name was applied to English and French adventurers, mostly seafaring people, who, combining for mutual defence against the arrogant pretensions of the Spaniards to the dominion of the whole of America, frequented the West Indies in the 17th century, acquired predatory and lawless habits, and became ultimately, in many cases, little better than pirates.
The earliest association of these adventurers began about 1625, but they afterwards became much more formidable, and continued to be a terror until the opening of the 18th century, inflicting heavy losses upon the shipping trade of Spain, and even attacking large towns. Among their chief leaders were Montbars (Il exterminador), Peter the Great of Dieppe, L'Olonnas, de Busco, Van Horn, and the Welshman Henry Morgan, who, in 1670, marched across the isthmus, plundered Panama, and after being knighted by Charles II, became deputy-governor of Jamaica. The last great exploit of the buccaneers was the capture of Carthagena in 1697, after which they are lost sight of in the annals of vulgar piracy.
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Buccleugh is the title (now a dukedom) of one of the oldest families in Scotland, tracing descent from Sir Richard Le Scott in the reign of Alexander III (the latter half of the 13th century), and first becoming conspicuous in the person of the border chieftain Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm and Buccleugh - the latter an estate in Selkirkshire. The son of Sir Walter, bearing the same name, was for his valour and services raised to the peerage in 1606 . as Lord Scott of Buccleugh, and his successor was made an earl in 1619. In 1663 the titles and estates devolved upon Anne, daughter of the second earl, who married the Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II, the pair in 1673 being created Duke and Duchess of Buccleugh, etc. Subsequently the Dukedom of Queensberry passed by marriage into the family.
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The Buchanites were a Scottish religious sect. They were formed in 1783 in a dissenting church at Irvine, Ayrshire, under the leadership of a Mrs. (more commonly known as Lucky) Buchan. She declared herself to be the woman of Revevelations XII, and
Mr. White, the clergyman of the congregation to which she belonged, her 'man-child', and taught her followers they would be translated to heaven without tasting of death. The sect was always small, and became extinct soon after the death of Mrs. Buchan in 1792. They are said to have lived in promiscuous intercourse, and to have despised marriage.
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The 'Bucktails' was a nickname applied to the Tammany Society of New York City, from the circumstance of the members of the organisation wearing a buck's tail in their hat as a badge. The Bucktails were a political organisation, from 182 until 1828 forming the anti-Clintonian New York democrats. After Governor Clinton's death in 1828 they became the Democratic party of the State.
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Buddha - meaning the wise or the enlightened one - is the sacred name of the founder of Buddhism, an Indian sage who appears to have lived in the 5th century BC. His real name was Siddhartha Gautama; and he is often called also Sakya-muni (from Sakya, the name of his tribe, and muni, a Sanskrit word meaning a sage). His father was King of Kapilavastu, a few days' journey north of Benares. Siddhartha Gautama, filled with a deep compassion for the human race, left his father's court, and lived for years in solitude until he had penetrated the mysteries of life, and become the Buddha. He then began to teach his new faith, in opposition to the prevailing Brahmanism, commencing at Benares. Among his earliest converts were the monarchs of Magadha and Kosala, in whose kingdoms he chiefly passed the latter portion of his life, respected, honoured, and protected.
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Budy Holly (real name Charles Hardin Holley) was an American singer and song writer. He was born in 1936 and died in 1959 in a plane crash while on tour with Richie Valens.
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Buddy Roemer was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Louisiana from 1988 until 1992.
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A buffoon is a merry-andrew, a clown, a jester. The term comes from the Italian buffone, from buffare, to jest, to sport. Buffo, in Italian, is the name given to a comic actor; a burlesque play is called a commedia buffa, and a comic opera opera buffa. The Italians, however, distinguish the buffo cantante, which requires good singing, from the buffo comico, in which there is more acting.
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Buford Ellington was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Tennessee from 1959 until 1963.
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The Bugan are a people of south-eastern Yunnan Province, China, where they are found in some seven villages living alone and with the Han Chinese.
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The Bugis (Bughis or Buginese) are a native people of southern Asia, particularly Celebes and Borneo.
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Bugsy Siegel (Benjamin Siegel) was an American gangster. He was born in 1906 at Brooklyn, New York and died in 1947. He was murdered on the orders of the National Crime Syndicate for refusing to operate by their rules.
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The Bulgarians are a race of Finnish origin, whose original seat was the banks of the Volga, and who subdued the old Moesian population and established a kingdom in the present Bulgaria in the 7th century. They soon became blended with the conquered Slavs, whose language they adopted. In the 14th century the country was conquered by the Turks, and until 1908 remained part of the Ottoman Empire. The Bulgarian language is divided into two dialects, the old and the new; the former is the richest and best of the Slavonic tongues, and although extinct as a living tongue is still used as the sacred language of the Greek Church. The Bulgarians are now spread over many parts of the Balkan peninsula.
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A bumbailiff was formerly an officer employed as a debt-collector and to arrest debtors for non-payment.
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The Bunu are an ethnic people of China. The Bunu generally speak their own language, Bunu and many are also fluent in Zhuang.
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Buonarroti Michelangelo was an Italian painter. He was born in 1475 at Caprese and died in 1564. He painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
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Buren R Sherman was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Iowa from 1882 until 1886.
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The Burghers were a body of Presbyterians in Scotland, constituting the majority of the early Secession Church, which was split into two in 1747 on the lawfulness of accepting the oath then required to be taken by the burgesses in certain burghs. The Burghers accepted the oath, while the Antiburghers did not deem it lawful.
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A Burgomaster is the chief magistrate of a municipal town in the Netherlands and Germany. The title is equivalent to the English mayor and the Scotch provost.
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The Burgundians (Burgundii) were a Teutonic race of people occupying the country between the Oder and the Vistula. They migrated first to the region of the Upper Rhine, and in the beginning of the fifth century passed into Gaul and obtained possession of the south-eastern part of the country, where they formed a kingdom having its seat of government sometimes at Lyons and sometimes at Geneva. They were finally wholly subdued by the Franks, but not before they had given their name to a region of Western Europe, Burgundy.
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Burhred was king of Mercia in 852.
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The Buriats are a nomadic Tartar people allied to the Kalmucks, inhabiting the southern part of the government of Irkutsk and Transbaikalia. They live in huts called yurts, which in summer are covered with leather, in winter with felt. They traditionally supported themselves by their flocks, by hunting, and the mechanical arts, particularly the forging of iron.
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Burnet R Maybank was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of South Carolina from 1939 until 1941.
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A bursar is an official in charge of finance at an educational institution.
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Burton M Cross was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Maine from 1952 until 1955.
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Busby Berkeley was an American stage and film director and choreographer. He was born in 1895 at Los Angeles, California and died in 1976.
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The Bushman are an aboriginal people living in south Africa.
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Bushrangers were Australian highwaymen, formerly escaped convicts living in the wild countryside (bush) and subsiting by plunder and extortion on the property of all and sundry within their reach. Considerable gangs of these lawless characters were sometimes collected, a body of fifty holding part of New South Wales in terror about 1830. A gang of four fell victims to justice in 1880, after having robbed a bank and committed other outrages - thesee were the last bushrangers known.
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Bushrod Washington was an American jurist. He was born in 1762 and died in 1839. He was a nephew of George Washington and was a member of the Virginia Convention in 1788 that ratified the federal Constitution. He was a Justice of the US Supreme Court from 1798 to 1829.
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Button Gwinnett was an American politician. He was born in 1732 in England and died in 1777. He went to America from England in 1770 and represented Georgia in the Continental Congress from 1775 to 1776, and signed the American Declaration of Independence.
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Byron Diman was an American politician. He was a Law and Order party governor of Rhode Island from 1846 until 1847.
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