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The Mechitarists are a society or sect of Armenian Christians acknowledging the authority of the pope, but retaining their own ritual with a few alterations. They have printed the best editions of Armenian classics. The name originated from Mechitar Da Petro, who founded a religious society at Constantinople (Istanbul) for the purpose of disseminating a knowledge of the old Armenian language and literature.
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Medici was a Florentine family who rose to wealth and influence by successful commerce, and who continued to combine the career of merchants and bankers with the exercise of political power, a princely display of private munificence, and a liberal patronage of literature and art.
The Medici were associated with the history of the Florentine republic from an early period, but they first became prominent in the person of Salvestro, who became gonfalonier in 1378.
Giovanni De Medici (1360-1429) amassed great riches by trade; rendered great services to the city, and in 1421 became gonfalonier. He was succeeded by his son Cosmo (the elder, 1389-1464), surnamed the father of his country. Cosmo acquired immense wealth and influence, and laid the foundation of his reputation by the munificent patronage of art and letters, and the conjunction of consummate statesmanship with his commercial enterprise. He was for thirty-four years the sole arbitrator of the republic and the adviser of the sovereign houses of Italy.
His grandson Lorenzo The Magnificent (1449-92) was the second great man of the house of Medici. He governed the state in conjunction with his brother Giuliano (1453-78) until the latter was assassinated by the Pazzi, a rival Florentine family. Escaping from this massacre he sustained a war with Ferdinand of Naples, with whom he signed a definitive peace in 1480. The rest of Lorenzo's reign was passed in peace and in those acts of profuse liberality and magnificent patronage of arts and sciences, in which he rivalled or excelled his grandfather. He left three sons-Piero (1471-1503), Giovanni (afterwards Pope Leo X), and Giuliano, duke of Nemours. Piero succeeded his father, but was deprived of his estates when the French invaded Italy in 1494. He finished his career in the service of France.
His eldest son Lorenzo came to power by the abdication of his uncle Giuliano, who became Duke of Urbino. He died in 1519, leaving a daughter, the famous Catherine de Medici, queen of France. After several reverses in the family, Alessandro, an illegitimate son of the last named Lorenzo, was restored to Florence by the troops of Charles V, and by an imperial decree he was declared head of the republic, and afterwards Duke of Florence.
The next name of importance in the family is that of Cosmo 'the great,' in 1537 proclaimed Duke of Florence and afterwards Grand-duke of Tuscany. A learned man himself, he was a great patron of learning and art, a collector of paintings and antiquities. He died in 1574.
Francisco Maria, his son, obtained from the Emperor Maximilian II, whose daughter Joanna he had married, the confirmation of his title of grand-duke in 1575, which continued in his family until it became extinct in 1737 on the death of Giovanni Gasto, who was succeeded by Francis, duke of Lorraine.
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Medicine man is a North American Indian term for a priest or a prophet - someone who practices healing.
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Mehemed Fuad Pasha was a Turkish statesman and man of letters. He was born in 1814at Constantinople (Istambul) and died in 1869. His diplomatic career took him to London, Madrid, and St. Petersburg; he was four times minister of foreign affairs, and for five years grand vizier; and was the chief support of the reform party in the Turkish empire. He wrote poetry, political pamphlets, and a Turkish grammar, which has been translated into several languages.
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Mehemet Aali was a Turkish statesman. He was born in 1815 at Constantinople and died in 1871. He was the son of a government official. Entering the diplomatic service of his country he became successively secretary of the Embassy in Vienna, minister in London, and foreign minister under Reshid Pasha. In 1852 he was promoted to the post of grand vizier, but after a short time retired into private life. During the Crimean War he was recalled in order to take the portfolio of foreign affairs for a second time under Reshid Pasha, and in this capacity took part in 1855 in the conference of Vienna. Again becoming in that year grand vizier, an office he filled no less than five times, he represented Turkey at the congress of Paris in 1856. In 1867 he was appointed regent of Turkey during the sultan's visit to the Paris Exhibition. Aali Pasha was one of the most zealous advocates of the introduction of Western reforms under the sultans Abdul Mejid and Abdul Aziz. A scholar and a linguist, he was a match for the diplomats of the Christian powers, against whom he successfully defended the interests of his country.
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Mehemet Ali was Viceroy of Egypt. He was born in 1769 at Kavala, in Macedonia and died in 1849. He entered the Turkish army, and served in Egypt against the French; rose rapidly in military and political importance and became pasha of Cairo, Alexandria, and subsequently of all Egypt. In 1811 he massacred 470 Mamelukes in Cairo, and about 1200 over the country. He then commenced, by the orders of the Porte, a war of six years' duration against the Wahabees of Arabia, which was brought to a successful conclusion by his son Ibrahim, and secured him the possession of Hejaz. Ibrahim also aided in bringing a large part of the Sudan under Egyptian rule.
By means of a vigorous domestic policy Mehemet Ali reduced the finances to order; organized an army and a navy; stimulated agriculture, and encouraged manufactures. In 1824-1827 he assisted the sultan in endeavouring to reduce the Morea, which led to the destruction of his fleet by the allied European powers at Navarino in 1827. Subsequently he turned his arms against the sultan, and in his efforts to secure dominion over Syria by armed invasion, he was so far successful that the European powers had to interfere and compel him to sign a treaty in 1839, which gave him the hereditary pashalic of Egypt in lieu of Syria, Candia, and Hejaz.
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Meier Aaron Goldschmidt was a Danish novelist. He was born in 1819 and died in 1887. In 1840 he founded what became the most famous of Danish newspapers, The Corsair, celebrated for its brilliant wit and audacious satire. In 1845 he published his first novel, A Jew, which was translated into English and several other European languages. In 1847 he published a collection of short stories, and began the issue of another newspaper, North and South. His chief novels are Homeless, The Heir, The Haven, and The Vacillator. He also published a series of short stories of Jewish life, and a play, The Rabbi and the Knight. His style is said to be one of the most graceful in the language.
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Meindert Hobbema was a Dutch landscape painter. He was born in 1638 at Amsterdam and died in 1709. After a life of poverty, about which little is recorded, his pictures achieved popularity after his death, and are amongst the finest of Dutch landscapes. His paintings consist chiefly of forest scenes, ruins, villages, erc, and are highly valued for their excellence in perspective and colouring. The figures in them were generally painted by others.
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Pomponius Mela was a Roman geographer who lived during the 1st century AD. He was the author of a treatise, De Situ Orbis, containing a concise view of the state of the world as known to the Romans.
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Melancthon Smith was an American politician. He was born in 1724 and died in 1798. He was a member of the first New York Provincial Congress in 1775. In 1777 he was a commissioner for detecting and defeating conspiracies in the State. He was a delegate from New York to the Continental Congress from 1785 to 1788. In the New York convention in 1788 to consider the ratification of the Constitution, he supported the Anti-Federal party.
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Melanie Chisholm (also known as 'Sporty Spice' and 'Mel C') is an English singer. She was born in 1974 at Widnes, Merseyside. She became known as 'Sporty Spice' in the 1990's all-girl, manufactured pop group 'The Spice Girls'.
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Melchiore Cesarotti was an Italian poet. He was born in 1730 at Padua and died in 1808. He became professor of rhetoric at Padua, and subsequently professor of the Greek and Hebrew languages. Besides his own poems, his works include translations of Voltaire's tragedies, Ossian, Demosthenes, and the Iliad, and essays on the Philosophy of Languages, on Studies, etc.
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The Melchites are an Eastern sect of Christians who, while adhering to the ceremonies and liturgy of the Greek Church, acknowledge the authority of the pope. The name is also given to such members of the Greek community as are the Roman Catholics.
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Meldrim Thomson Jr was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Hampshire from 1973 until 1979.
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Meleager was an ancient Greek poet who wrote epigrams.
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Melita Norwood (Melita Sirnis) was an English NKGB, GRU, MGB and KGB spy. She was born in 1912. Melita Norwood (codename Hola) worked for the Soviet intelligence services during the Second World War, first being recruited in 1937 and afterwards, refusing payment for her services, passing details of Britain's first atomic bomb to her Soviet controllers. Her first job was the Woolwich arsenal, where in 1938 all the other members of her spy ring were arrested, but her identity was not discovered by MI5 and she escaped. She was later identified in 1965 by the British Security Service but was not interviewed so as not to compromise other counter intelligence activities.
After the end of the Cold War in 1992 Vasili Mitrokhin defected to the West and brought with him confirmation of Melisa Norwood being a Soviet spy, but the British Security Services decided they didn't have enough evidence to prosecute her. In 1999 when Mitrokhin's memoirs were published news of Melisa Norwood became public and she was questioned by the police in 1999 during which she confessed fully - she said she would gladly do it again - but no action was taken against the then very elderly Melita Norwood perhaps because the manner of her confession mean that it was not admissible as evidence.
Speaking about why she spied for the Soviets, Melita Norwood said that 'she wanted Russia to be on equal footing'. Decorated with the highest KGB award, the Order of The Red Banner, Melita Norwood was one of the most important spies ever and undoubtedly prevented the American use of nuclear weapons against the USSR or its allies during the Cold War by equipping the USSR with its own nuclear weapons with which it could retaliate.
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The Melungeons are a race of mixed descendants of northern Europeans and Angolan Africans of 17th century Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and the Carolinas. These African ancestors first arrived in Virginia in 1619, one year before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Early Virginians had not yet embraced chattel slavery and many Africans were indentured in the same class along with white servants. After seven years, black and white servants were released from bondage. Prosperous Melungeons married whites, owned black and white servants, voted and served on juries before 1680. However, as chattel slavery took hold, new colonial laws curbed the rights of mixed Melungeons. After 1720 they fell into a legal crevice of being neither slave nor white. Fleeing persecution, Melungeons settled in the Appalachian Mountains in the 18th century where isolated communities remain today. Early 20th century racial policies in Tennessee designed to discriminate against Melungeons based on the science of eugenics, were studied by Adolf Hitler prior to the Second World War. The name 'Melungeon' comes from the Kimbundu-Angolan word 'malungu' meaning 'comrades who came on the same ship from a common homeland'.
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Melvin E Thompson was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Georgia from 1947 until 1948.
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Menander was a Greek writer of the new comedy. He was born in 324 BC at Athens and died in 291 BC. He was the pupil of Theophrastus, an intimate friend of Epicurus, and wrote one hundred comedies, of which we have only a few fragments remaining. The comedies of Terence were imitated or adapted from Menander.
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Mencius is the Latinized name of Meng-tse, a Chinese teacher and philosopher, who was born about 370 BC, and died about 288 BC. He was educated by his mother with such success that the approbation contained in the phrase 'the mother of Meng' has become proverbial. Mencius was one of the greatest of the early Confucians.
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The Mende are a west African people living in the rainforests of central east Sierra Leone and west Liberia. They number approximately one million. The Mende are farmers as well as hunter-gatherers, and each of their villages is led by a chief and a group of elders. The Mende language belongs to the Niger-Congo family.
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The Mengrelians are a western Georgian tribe of the Grazinian people.
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Baron Menno van Coehorn was a Dutch military engineer. He was born in 1641 and died in 1704. Having entered the Dutch military service he distinguished himself by his invention of small mortars, called after him coehorns, but more by his eminence as a master of the art of fortification, whence he has been called the Dutch Vauban. He fortified almost all the strong places in Holland.
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The Mennonites were a sect that sprang up in Holland and Germany about the time of the Reformation, through the influence of Simon Menno. In doctrine they were allied to the Baptists. Members of this body went to America as early as 1683, and by invitation of William Penn settled in Pennsylvania. In 1727 they published a Confession of Faith.
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The Menominee are an Algonquian tribe of Indians, generally resembling the Ojibwa, but with a distinct language. They formerly ranged over north Wisconsin and upper Michigan. They were unfriendly to the English settlers, but took sides against the colonists during the American War Of Independence. In 1813 also they allied themselves with the British, taking part in several engagements. Treaties were made in 1817, 1825, and 1827. In 1831 they began to cede their lands around Green Bay and Lake Michigan. They aided the Government in the Sac and Fox War and in the Rebellion.
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The Merchants of the Steelyard were a league of German merchants established in London in the 13th century. Their headquarters, the Steelyard, stood near London Bridge. They were expelled in 1578.
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The Mercia were a large and powerful tribe of Anglo-Saxon Britons ruling the English Midlands from Wales in the west, East Anglia in the east, the River Humber in the north and the River Thames in the south, and the less powerful tribes that lived in those parts. Suffering from Viking attacks during the 9th century, the kingdom was divided between Britons and Danes until during the 10th century Edward the Elder conquered the Danish lands and the area was ruled by earldormen on behalf of the Wessex Kings, who ruled all England.
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Meredith M Marmaduke was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Missouri during 1844.
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Meriwether Lewis was an American explorer. He was born in 1774 and died in 1809. He was secretary to President Jefferson from 1801 to 1803. He commanded an expedition with William Clark across the continent of America from 1803 to 1806. They ascended the Missouri River, named three of its tributaries the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin Rivers, and descended the Columbia River to its mouth. From 1807 to 1809 he was Governor of Missouri Territory.
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Meriwether Smith was an American politician. He was born in 1730 and died in 1790. He was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1770 and of the Revolutionary conventions of 1775 and 1776. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1778 to 1782, and a member of the convention that ratified the Federal Constitution in 1788.
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Merle Haggard is an American country music musician.
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Merlin was a magician who aided Arthur.
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Merovaeus was son-in-law of Clodion the Hairy, and king of France in 447.
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The Merovingians were the first dynasty of Frankish kings which ruled in the northern part of Gaul from 496 to 752, when they were supplanted by the Carlovingians. They derived their name from Merwig or Merowig (Merovasus), the grandfather of Clovis.
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Merritt C Mechem was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Mexico from 1921 until 1923.
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Meshech Weare was an American politician. He was a governor of New Hampshire from 1776 until 1785.
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The Meskhetian (Meskhians) are a community of the Grazinian of Turkish descent that formerly inhabited Meskhetia, on the then Turkish-Soviet border.
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Valeria Messalina was the third wife of the Roman emperor Claudius. She is notorious in history on account of her licentiousness and cruelty. She was murdered in 48 AD.
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Mestizos are people of mixed origin in countries where Spanish Europeans have settled and intermingled with the natives.
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A metayer is a cultivator who tills the soil for a land-owner on condition of receiving a share, generally half its produce, the owner providing the whole or part of the stock, tools etc.
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The Methodists are a Protestant Christian sect. The organisation was founded by John Wesley in England in the middle of the 18th century, and were called 'Methodists' in derision of their methodical habits by people not of the organisation. The religious movement which resulted in the foundation of this sect began at Oxford in 1729, the chief leaders besides John Wesley being his brother Charles and George Whitefield. The first general conference of the Methodists was held in 1744, and the Methodists were constituted a legally corporate body in 1784. Their doctrines are substantially those of the Church of England. The appointment of a minister of the body to any place is always for three years. There are in addition to the ordained ministers lay preachers, leaders, trustees, and stewards.
The body is governed by an annual conference, having at its head a president and secretary; whose term of office lasts but for a year. In each district the ministers hold half-yearly meetings, the several chairmen being appointed by the conference. There are also quarterly circuit meetings of ministers and lay officers. The supreme legislative and judicial power is vested in the conference, to which the half-yearly and quarterly district and circuit meetings are subordinated. The number of members at Wesley's death was 76,968; but the denomination increased with rapidity, and by 1900 there were estimated to be in different parts of the world above 28,000,000 adherents.
Various secessions have from time to time taken place from the original body, which, though differing as to points of church government, generally agree as to doctrine. The chief of these bodies are - the Calvinistic Methodists, which originated in a difference between Wesley and Whitefield regarding the Calvinistic doctrines; they have been organized into three denominations, Lady Huntingdon's Connexion, the Whitefield Methodists, and the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists; the Methodist New Connexion, founded in 1797-98 by Alexander Kilham; Primitive Methodists, founded by two lay preachers, Hugh Bourne and William Clowes (1808-10); Bible Christians, founded by a Cornish local preacher named O'Bryan; the Wesleyan Reform Union, and the United Methodist Free Churches, originating in the Wesleyan Methodist Association of 1836; with the subsequent additions of the Protestant Methodists of 1828, and the seceders from the parent connection in 1850-52.
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Meyer Guggenheim was an American industrialist. He was born in 1847 in Switzerland and died in 1905. He went to the USA in 1901, and dominated the American mining industry.
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The Miautse are a race of people found in the provinces of Yunnan, Kweichow, Kwang-tse, and Kwang-tung in China. They are one of the aboriginal tribes of the country.
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The Miccosukee are an aboriginal people of southern Florida, USA. The Miccosukee never signed a peace treaty with the colonists, and are still officially at war with the American government to regain control of their lands which were taken by force by the European settlers, however in the 20th century this 'war' was a peaceful one conducted through the courts.
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Michael William Balfe was an Irish composer, He was born in 1808 at Dublin and died in 1870. In his seventh year he performed in public on the violin, and at sixteen took the part of the Wicked Huntsman in Der Freischiitz at Drury Lane. In 1825 he went to Italy, wrote the music for a ballet La Peyrouse for the Scala at Milan, and in the following year sang at the Theatre-Italien, Paris, with moderate success. He returned to Italy, and at Palermo was given his first opera, I Rivali (1829). For five years he continued singing and composing operas for the Italian stage. In 1835 he came to England, and composed a number of operas, amongst others The Bohemian Girl (1843), Rose of Castile (1857), Satanella (1858), and The Talisman (first performed in 1874). His operas are melodious and many of the airs are excellent.
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Michael Baius (Michael De Bay) was an English Catholic theologian. He was born in 1513, at Hainaut and died in 1589. Educated at Louvain, he was made professor of theology there in 1563 or 1564, and chosen a member of the Council of Trent. Leaving the scholastic method, he founded systematic theology directly upon the Bible and the Christian fathers, of whom he particularly followed St Augustine. His doctrines of original sin and of salvation by grace led to his persecution as a heretic by the old Scotists, and the Jesuits, who succeeded in obtaining a Papal bull in 1567, condemning the doctrines imputed to him. Baius, however, remained in the possession of his dignities, was appointed in 1578 chancellor of Louvain University; and the King of Spain even conferred upon him the office of inquisitor-general in the Netherlands. He died in 1589. His Augustinian views descended to the Jansenists, while his doctrine of pure undivided love to God formed the staple of Quietism.
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Prince Michael Barclay de Tolly was a Russian soldier. He was born in 1755 and died in 1818. His family, of Scottish origin, had been established in Livonia since 1689. He entered the army at twelve years of age, served in various campaigns against the Turks, Swedes, and Poles, and in 1811 was named minister of war. On the invasion of Napoleon he was transferred to the chief command of the army, and adopted a plan of retreat; his forces did not greatly exceed 100,000 men, but the court became impatient, and after the capture of Smolensk by the French he was superseded by Mikhail Kutusoff. Sinking all personal feeling, he asked leave to serve under his successor, commanded the right wing at the battle of the Moskwa, maintained his position, and covered the retreat of the rest of the army. After the battle of Bautzen, in 1813, he was reappointed to the chief command, which he had soon after to resign to Prince Schwarzenberg. He forced the surrender of General Vandamme after the battle of Dresden, took part in the decisive battle of Leipzig, and was made a field-marshal in Paris. In 1815 he received from the emperor the title of prince, and from Louis XVIII the badge of the order of Military Merit.
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Michael Bruce was a Scottish poet. He was born in 1746 at Kinnesswood and died in 1767 from consumption. He struggled his whole life against poverty, starting off as a herd boy he managed to attend Edinburgh University.
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Michael Angelo Buonarotti was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect and poet. He was born in 1475 at Tuscany and died in 1563. He studied drawing under Domenico Ghirlandaio, and sculpture under Bertoldo at Florence, and having attracted the notice of Lorenzo de'Medici, was for several years an inmate of his household.
Having distinguished himself both in sculpture and painting, He was commissioned (together with Leonardo da Vinci) to decorate the senate-hall at Florence with a historical design, but before it was finished, in 1505, he was induced by Pope Julius II to settle in Rome. Here he sculptured the monument of the pontiff (there are seven statues belonging to it) now in the church of St Pietro in Vincoli; and painted the dome of the Sistine Chapel, his frescoes representing the creation and the principal events of sacred history.
In 1530 he took a leading part in the defence of Florence against Charles V. Three years later he began his great picture in the Sistine Chapel, the Last Judgment, which occupied him eight years. His last considerable works in painting were two large pictures: the Conversion of St Paul and the Crucifixion of St Peter in the Pauline Chapel.
In sculpture he executed the Descent of Christ from the Cross, four figures of one piece of marble. His statue of Bacchus was thought by Raphael to possess equal perfection with the masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles. As late as 1546 he was obliged to undertake the continuation of the building of St Peter's, and planned and built the dome, but he did not live long enough to see his plan finished, in which many alterations were made after his death. Besides this, he undertook the building of the Piazza del Campidoglio (Capitol), of the Farnese Palace, and of many other edifices. His style in architecture is distinguished by grandeur and boldness, and in his ornaments the untamed character of his imagination frequently appears, preferring the uncommon to the simple and elegant. His poems, which he considered merely as pastimes, contain, likewise, convincing proofs of his great genius. His prose works consist of lectures, speeches, etc.
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Michaela C Kerr was an American politician. He was born in 1827 and died in 1876. He was a member of the Indiana Legislature In 1856 and 1857. He was reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court from 1862 to 1865. He represented Indiana in the Congress of the United States as a Democrat from 1865 to 1873, and was Speaker from 1875 to 1876. He served on the Committees on Elections, Civil Service and Ways and Means.
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Michael Cadbury was an English businessman and the brother of George Cadbury. He was born in 1835 and died in 1899.
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Michael Cimino is an American director and screenwriter. He was born in 1940.
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Michael Collins was an Irish politician. He was born in 1890 and died in 1922 when he was ambushed and shot. He took part in the Easter rising in Dublin of 1916 and was elected Sinn Fein member for Cork in 1918.
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Sir Michael Costa was an Italian-born English musical composer and conductor of Spanish extraction. He was born in 1810 at Naples of an old Spanish family and died in 1884. In 1828 he came to England, and in 1839 became a naturalized British subject. He was conductor of the Philharmonic Society, the Sacred Harmonic Society, Her Majesty's Opera, the Handel Festivals, etc. His chief works are the opera Don Carlos and the oratorios Eli and Naaman. He was knighted in 1869.
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Michael Davitt was an Irish Nationalist. He was born in 1846 in County Mayo and died in 1906. He joined the Fenians and was sentenced to 15 years penal servitude in 1865 on a charge of importing arms into Ireland. On his release in 1879 he returned to Ireland and with Parnell started the Land League, an anti-landlord organisation.
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Michael Drayton was an English poet. He was born in 1563 and died in 1631. He is said to have studied at Oxford, and afterwards held a commission in the army. The poem by which his name is chiefly remembered is his Polyolbion, a sort of topographical description of England. It is generally extremely accurate in its details, with, at the same time, many passages of true poetic fire and beauty. Other works are his Nymphidia, the Court of Fairy; the Barons' Wars; the Legend of Great Cromwell; the Battle of Agincourt; besides numerous legends, sonnets, and other pieces. Michael Drayton was made poet-laureate in 1626. He died in 1631, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
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Michael Faraday was a British chemist and physicist. He was born in 1791 at Newington Butts and died in 1867. At an early age he was apprenticed to a bookbinder in London, but occupied himself in his leisure hours with electrical and other scientific experiments.
Having been taken by a friend to Sir Humphry Davy's lectures, he attended the course, and conceived such an ardent desire for study that be resolved to quit trade. With this end he sent his notes of the lectures to Sir Humphry Davy, who was so struck with the great ability they showed that he appointed him his assistant at the Royal Institution. In 1829 he became lecturer at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and in 1833 he was appointed to the newly-established chair of chemistry at the Royal Institution. It was while in this office that he made most of his great electrical discoveries. He discovered electrical currents and invented the dynamo, for example. The farad is named after Michael Faraday.
His communications to the Philosophical Transactions were published separately in three volumes in 1839, 1844 and in 1855. In 1832 he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from Oxford, was made an honorary member of the Academy at Berlin, with many other honours too numerous to mention. In 1835 he received a pension of 300 pounds a year from Lord Melbourne.
As an experimentalist Michael Faraday was considered the very first of his time. As a popular lecturer he was equally distinguished, and used to draw crowds to the Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution. Amongst his published works were: Researches in Electricity (1831-1855), Lectures on Non-metallic Elements (1853), Lectures on the Forces of Matter (1860), Lectures on the Chemical History of a Candle (1861).
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Prince Michael Gortschakoff was a Russian general. He was born in 1792 and died in 1861. He took part as an artillery officer in the Battle of Borodino in 1812, and served in the subsequent campaigns of the allies against t'he French. He took a prominent part in the Turkish war of 1828 to 29; the Polish war of 1831; the invasion of Hungary in 1849; and in the war with Turkey and the western powers from 1853 to 1855. In the Crimean War he held the command in Sebastopol during the siege. After the war he was made governor of Poland.
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Michael Hahn was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Louisiana from 1864 until 1865.
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Michael Joseph Jackson (nicknamed Wacko Jacko) was an American singer. He was born in 1958 at Gary, Indiana and died in 2009 of a heart attack. He started his career with his brothers singing in 'The Jackson Five', when he was eleven years old and went on to become one of the biggest music stars of all time, his album 'Thriller' selling more copies than any other record. Michael Jackson was denied a child hood, by his father, being pushed to become a music star and forced to perform, an abuse which left the performer an eccentric character, his adult life being dogged by peculiarities, not least of which was the constant operations to alter his appearance and make him appear more caucasian and less negro. Allegations of child abuse were denied, and he was acquitted, though the suspicion remained, fuelled in no small part by his reclusive nature and obsession with infantile behaviour, he lived on a ranch he called 'Never Land', a reference to the play Peter Pan.
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Count Michael Tarielovitch Tainoff Loris-Melikoff was a Russian general. He was born in 1826 at Tiflis and died in 1888. He entered the army in 1843; distinguished himself in the Caucasus in 1847, and at the siege of Kars in 1854; was made lieutenant-general in 1863; commander of the army in Armenia in 1876, and took Kars.
In 1878 he was made a count; in 1879 governor-general of Charkow, in which post he suppressed the Nihilistic conspiracies with much vigour. In 1880 he was appointed minister of the interior, in which post he showed a tendency towards measures of a wide remedial kind, and had persuaded the czar, Alexander II, to call a kind of national representative assembly, when the assassination of the latter occurred, March, 1881. On the accession of Alexander III Loris-Melikoff's position became untenable, and he resigned in 1881.
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Michael Norman Manley was Prime Minister of Jamaica from 1989 to 1992. He was born in 1924 and educated in economics at London University. During the Second World War he served as a pilot officer with the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1943 to 1945. After the war he was a freelance journalist with the BBC from 1950 to 1951.
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Michael George Mulhall was a British statistician. He was born in 1836 at Dublin and died in 1900. He went to South America and there founded the first English daily paper, the Buenos Ayres Standard, in 1861. He also wrote the first English book printed in Argentina, the Handbook of the River Plate, published in 1869, but his chief work was in the compilation of statistics.
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Michael Munkacsy was a Hungarian painter. He was born in 1846 at Munkacs and died in 1900. He was born Michael Lieb, but changed his name based on his place of birth. He studied at Gyula, Vienna, Munich, and Dusseldorf, and settled in Paris in 1872. Among his best-known pictures are Last Day of a Condemned Man, Milton dictating Paradise Lost, Christ before Pilate, Last Moments of Mozart.
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Michael N Castle was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Delaware from 1985 until 1993.
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Michael O'Herlihy was an Irish film director. He was born in 1928 at Dublin and died in 1997.
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Michael S Dukakis was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Massachusetts from 1983 until 1991.
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Sir Michael Scott was a mediaeval Scottish scholar and man of science, wrongly identified with Sir Michael Scot of Balwearie, in Fifeshire, who was sent in 1290 to fetch the Maid of Norway to Scotland. He was born about 1175 and died around 1235. Educated at Oxford, Paris, and Bologna, he learned Arabic in Toledo, and became astrologer to Frederick II in Sicily. Having taken orders, he was appointed by the pope archbishop of Cashel, but declined the post. Legend has transformed him into a magician, and he is mentioned as such by Dante and Boccaccio. He plays a prominent part in the superstitions of the Scottish borders.
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Michael Scott was a Scottish writer. He was born in 1789 at Glasgow and died in 1835. He was the author of Tom Cringle's Log and The Cruise of the Midge and was educated at the high-school and university of Glasgow before moving to Jamaica, where he engaged in commerce and agriculture, from 1806 to 1822; and finally settled back in Scotland, and embarked in commercial affairs. The two brilliant sea-novels of which he was the author appeared anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine.
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Michael Servetus (properly Miguel Servede) was a Spanish heretic and physician. He was born in 1511 at Villa Nueva, in Arragon and died in 1553. He was the son of a notary, who sent him to Toulouse for the study of the civil law. Here he began to give his attention to theology, and having formed views of the trinity antagonistic to the orthodox doctrine he moved to Germany, where he printed a tract entitled De Trinitatis Erroribus (1531), followed a year later by his Dialogorum de Trinitate Libri duo. Finding that his opinions were obnoxious in Germany, he escaped to France under the name of Michael of Villa Nueva. After fulfilling an engagement with the Prellons, booksellers of Lyons, he went to Paris, where he graduated as doctor of medicine. At Paris Servetus met Calvin for the first time, and an arrangement was made for a theological discussion between them; but Servetus failed to appear. In 1538 he quarrelled with the medical faculty at Paris, and went to Charlieu, near Lyons, where he practised for three years, subsequently moving to Vienne. Here, in 1553, he published his matured theological system under the title of Christianismi Restitutio (Restoration of Christianity). He was arrested for heresy and imprisoned, but escaped, and intended to proceed to Naples. He was, however, apprehended at Geneva on a charge of blasphemy and heresy, and his various writings were sifted in order to ensure his condemnation. The divines of all the Protestant Swiss cantons unanimously declared for his punishment, and Calvin was especially urgent and emphatic as to the necessity of putting him to death. As he refused to retract his opinions he was burnt at the stake on the 27th of October, 1553. Servetus was one of the anatomists who made the nearest approach to the doctrine of the circulation of the blood.
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Michael Gregorovitch Tchernaiev was a Russian general. He was born in 1828 and died in 1898. He gained distinction in the Crimean War. In 1864 he stormed Chimkend, and in 1865 reduced Tashkent. He retired in 1874 and edited the journal Ruski Mir. In 1876 he was Commander-in-chief of the Serbian army but was defeated at Alexinatz. In 1879 he incited a rising of the Bulgarians and was arrested and deported back to Russia.
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Michael V Di Salle was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Ohio from 1959 until 1963.
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Michael Wilson was an American screenwriter. He was born in 1914 and died in 1978.
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Michel Adanson was a French naturalist and traveller. He was born in 1727 and died in 1806. He lived five years in Senegal, and wrote a natural history of this region as well as works on botany. The baobab genus is named Adansonia after him.
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Michel Begone was a French botanist. He was born in 1638 and died in 1710. The begonia is named after him.
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Michel Angelo Amerighi Caravaggio was an Italian painter. He was born in 1569 at Caravaggio and died in 1609. He attained distinction as a colourist of the Neapolitan school, being considered the head of the so-called Naturalists' school. He was coarse and violent in his character and habits, and was in continual trouble through his quarrelsome disposition. Among his chief pictures are the Card Player, the Burial of Christ, St Sebastian, Supper at Emmaus, and a Holy Family.
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Michel Chevalier was a French economist. He was born in 1806 at Limoges and died in 1879. He was educated as an engineer in the School of Mines, joined the St Simonians, and suffered six months' imprisonment for promulgating the free doctrines of Pere Enfantin's party. On his liberation Michel Chevalier renounced his extreme doctrines, and was sent to the United States and to England on special missions. He became a councillor of state in 1838, professor of political economy in the College de France in 1840, member of the chamber of deputies in 1846, and member of the Institute in 1851. By this time he had written a number of works: Lettres sur L'Amerique du Nord; Des Interets Materiels en France; Essais de Politique Industrielle; Cours d'Economie Politique, etc. He was known as a strong advocate of free-trade, and as a specialist on questions of currency. Along with Cobden and Bright he had a great part in the commercial treaty of 1860 between France and Britain.
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Michel Eugene Chevreui was a French chemist. He was born in 1786 and died in 1889. In 1813 he became professor of physical science in the Charlemagne Lyceum, in 1824 director of dyeing in the Gobelins manufactory, in 1830 professor of chemistry in the College de France. In 1879 he retired. He has written various works on chemistry and dyeing, and an important work on the Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours, translated into English.
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Michel de L'Hopital was a French chancellor and author/ He was born about 1504 and died in 1573. Admitted to the bar in Paris, he rapidly rose in his profession until he became superintendent of the royal finances in 1554, a position in which his services were of the highest value. In 1560 he was appointed to the chancellorship of France. The country suffered severely at this time from the struggles between Catholics and Protestants. Michel L'Hopital rendered great service in mediating between the rival factions, and was the principal author of the Edict of Tolerance of 1562. When violence was resolved on for the extermination of the reformed religion he found it necessary to resign. It was said that the atrocities of St Bartholomew's day in 1572 were a great shock to him, and he only survived that event by a few months.
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Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was a French essayist. He was born in 1533 at Bordeaux and died in 1592. He learned Latin conversationally before he could speak French, and Greek was also an early acquisition. At the age of six he became a pupil at the College de Guienne at Bordeaux, and at thirteen he began to study law. Little is known of his youth and early manhood. He was a parliamentary counsellor from 1554 until 1567; he seems to have seen some military service in 1556; he married the daughter of a fellow counsellor; and at some period was appointed a gentleman of the chamber to the king.
In 1571, however, he retired to his ancestral chateau at Perigord, and devoted himself to peaceful study and meditation. In 1580 he published the first two books of his Essais, and immediately afterwards set out on a journey through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy to restore his health, which had been shattered by the attacks of a hereditary disease. In 1582 and 1584 he was chosen mayor of Bordeaux. In 1588 he re published his Essais, with the addition of a third book. After a last visit to Paris (in the course of which he was thrown into the Bastille for a short time by the Leaguers) Montaigne seems to have dwelt quietly in his chateau. He died of quinsy in 1592.
Montaigne's Essais have at all times been one of the most popular books in the French language. They embrace an extraordinary variety of topics, which are touched upon in a lively entertaining manner, with all the raciness of strong native good sense, careless of system or regularity. Sentences and anecdotes from the ancients are interspersed, with his own remarks and opinions, and with stories of himself in a pleasant strain of egotism, and with an occasional license, to which severer moralists can with some difficulty reconcile themselves. His Voyages, a diary of his journeys in 1580-82, the manuscript of which was discovered 180 years after his death, were published in 1774.
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Michel Gerard Christophe Duroc, Duke of Friuli, was a French soldier. He was born in 1772 at Pont-a-Mousson and died in 1813, at the battle of Bautzen. He served as aide-de-camp to Napoleon in the Italian and Egyptian campaigns. In 1805 he was made grand-marshal of the palace; and was frequently employed in diplomatic missions, though he still took his full share in the wars of France until the time of his death. He was a great favourite of Napoleon, and was killed by his side.
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Michel Ney (Duke of Elchingen, Prince of the Moskwa) was a French general and peer of France. He was born in 1769 at Sarre-Louis and died in 1815. He entered the military service in 1788 as a private hussar, and rose by degrees to the rank of captain in 1794, adjutant-general in 1796, general of division in 1798, and as such he distinguished himself in the Rhine campaign. Appointed marshal of the empire by Napoleon in 1805, he achieved victory over the Austrians at Elchingen, and took part in the Battle of Jena.
During the Russian campaign he commanded the third division at the Battle of the Moskwa, and conducted the rear-guard in the disastrous retreat. In the campaign of 1813 his skill and courage decided the victory of Lutzen, and assisted at Bautzen and Dresden.
When Napoleon abdicated and the Bourbon dynasty was establislied Michel Ney took the oath of allegiance to the king and received a command; but when the emperor landed from Elba his old general joined him at Lyons and opened the way to Paris. In the campaign which followed it was Michel Ney who led the attack on the British centre at the Battle of Waterloo, and after five horses had been killed under him he only retired from the field at nightfall. When the allies entered Paris he escaped in disguise to the provinces, but was finally arrested, brought back to Paris, tried for treason, and found guilty and was executed on the 7th of December, 1815.
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Michel Jean Sedaine was a French dramatist. He was born in 1719 at Paris and died in 1797. He is regarded as the founder of comic opera. Two of his comedies, Le Philosophe sans le Savoir and La Gageure Imprevue, held the stage for over 100 years and were ranked among the best French plays.
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Michel Van Coxie or Michel Van Coxcie was a Flemish painter. He was born about 1500 and died in 1592. He travelled to Rome, where he remained for several years attracted by the works of Raphael. Here he executed several paintings in fresco, and many other pieces. For Philip II of Spain he executed an admirable copy of Van Eyck's altar-piece at Ghent.
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Michelle Heaton is an English singer. She was born in 1980 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She is best known as a member of the pop group Liberty X.
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Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruyter was a Dutch sailor. He was born in 1607 at Flushing and died in 1676 in the port of Syracuse from a wound received in an engagement with the French. He rose to the rank of admiral from the situation of cabin-boy and distinguished himself for remarkable seamanship and bravery in many naval battles, but more especially in 1653, in 1666, and in 1672, against the British fleet. He was buried at Amsterdam, where the states-general erected a monument to his memory.
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Micipsa was king of Numidia in ancient Africa. He succeeded his father Masinissa, and reigned from 1480 to 118 BC. He was on good terms with the Romans, whom he assisted with auxiliary troops both against Viriathus in Spain in 142 BC and against Numantia in 133 BC.
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Sir Michael Philip Jagger (popularly known as Mick Jagger) is an English musician. He was born in 1943 at Dartford, Kent. During the early 1960's he and his long-time friend Keith Richards formed the pop group the 'Rolling Stones' with Mick Jagger on lead vocals and Keith Richards on guitar together with Bill Wyman on bass guitar, Charlie Watts on drums and Brian Jones on guitar. He was knighted in 2002 for his services to the British music industry.
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The Micmac are a tribe of North American Indians, an eastern branch of the Algonquin family, who formed the dominant element in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and adjacent parts. They were among the first native Americans met by Europeans, and John Cabot took three back to England in 1497.
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Midhat Pasha was a Turkish statesman. He was born in 1822 and died in 1884. He was educated in Constantinople (Istanbul) entered the Turkish civil service. He attracted attention by his administrative capacity and became governor of Bulgaria in 1862, and was ultimately in 1876 created grand vizier. In this position he was supreme in the palace, and caused Abdul Aziz and Murad V to be deposed. In the following year, however, he was himself banished and in 1881, after a judicial investigation into the murder of Abdul Aziz, he was condemned and exiled to Arabia, where he died.
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Miguel Ricardo de Alava was a Spanish soldier. He was born in 1771 and died in 1843. He served first in the navy and then in the army of Spain. During 1808 to 1811 he fought on the side of the French, then joined the Spanish independents, and served under Wellington, who gave him command of a brigade. Later he was Spanish ambassador in the Netherlands in 1819, London in 1834 and Paris in 1835. In 1822 he was elected president of the Cortes.
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Miguel Aleman was a Mexican politician. He was born in 1902 and died in 1983. He was president of Mexico from 1946 to 1952.
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Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish writer. He was born in 1547 at Acala de Henares and died in 1616. He was the author of the book Don Quixote de la Mancha.
He removed to Madrid at the age of seven and commenced writing verses at an early age, his pastoral Filena attracted the notice of Cardinal Acquaviva, whom he accompanied to Italy as a page. In 1570 he served under Colonna in the war against the Turks and African corsairs, and in the battle of Lepanto of 1571 he lost the use of his left hand. After this he joined the troops at Naples, in the service of the Spanish king, winning the highest reputation as a soldier. In 1575, while returning to his country, he was taken by the corsair Arnaut Mami, and sold in Algiers as a slave - a condition in which he remained for seven years, displaying great fortitude. In 1580 his friends and relations at length ransomed him, and, rejoining his old regiment, he fought in the naval battle and subsequent storming of Terceira. In 1583, however, he retired from service, and recommenced his literary work, publishing in 1584 his pastoral Galatea. In the same year he married, and lived for a long time by writing for the stage, to which he contributed between twenty and thirty plays, of which two only have survived.
F'rom 1588 to 1599 he lived retired at Seville, where he held a small office. He did not appear again as an author until 1605, when he produced the first part of Don Quixote, a work having, as its immediate aim, the satirical treatment of the novels of chivalry then popular, but embodying at the same time human types of cosmopolitan interest, and having a profounder bearing upon life than its express object covered.
In 1613 his twelve Exemplary Novels (his best work after Don Quixote), in 1614 his Journey to Parnassus, and in 1615 eight new dramas, with intermezzos, were published. In 1614 an unknown writer published, under the name of Alonzo Fernandez de Avellaneda, a continuation of Don Quixote, full of abuse of Cervantes, who thereupon published the real continuation, which was the last work of his issued during his lifetime. His novel Persiles and Sigismunda was published after his death.
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Miguel Molinos was a Spanish mystic and theologian. He was born in 1627 and died in 1696. In 1675 he published the Spiritual Guide, an ascetical treatise, which promulgated the new religious doctrine known as Quietism. In 1685 he was cited before the Holy Office, and in 1687 the Inquisition condemned his works. He spent the rest of his days as a prisoner in a convent of the Dominicans.
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Mihail Eminescu was a Romanian poet. He was born in 1849 and died in 1889. He studied philosophy, started life as a teacher and was then appointed to the University Library at Jassy. He later became the editor of Timpul, a Romanian Conservative paper. In 1883 he developed signs of alleged madness and was killed by a fellow inmate in an institution in 1889.
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A Mikado is the emperor of Japan, the spiritual as well as temporal head of the empire.
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Mike Hayden was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Kansas from 1987 until 1991.
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Mike O'Callaghan was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Nevada from 1971 until 1979.
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Mike Sullivan was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Wyoming from 1987 until 1995.
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Mikhail Alexeyev was a Russian military commander during The Great War. He was born in 1855 and died in 1918. In 1914 he was Chief of Staff to General Ivanoff on the South-east Front, becoming Chief of Staff to the Russian Army 1915, a post he held until 1917 when after the March 1917 revolution he was replaced by General Brusilov, and following the October Revolution he helped found the Volunteer Army, fighting with the counter- revolutionary army against the Bolsheviks.
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Mikhail Fokine was a Russian dancer. He was born at St Petersburg in 1880. He died in 1942. He is famous for his work with ballet.
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Mikhail Glinka was a Russian composer. He was born in 1803 at Smolensk and died in 1857.
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Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin was a Russian politician. He was born in 1875 at Tver and died in 1946. He was President of the Soviet Central Executive Committee from 1919 to 1938 and President of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1938 to 1946.
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Mikhail Kutusoff was a Russian field-marshal. He was born in 1745 and died in 1813. He served against the Poles and the Turks, and became lieutenant-general in 1789. He was successively ambassador at Constantinople (Istanbul) and Berlin, and in 1805 took command of the first corps of the Russian army against the French. He defeated Marshal Mortier at Durenstein, and commanded under the Emperor Alexander at the Battle of Austerlitz. In 1812 he superseded Barclay de Tolly in the war against Napoleon shortly before the battle of Borodino. For his victories over Ney and Davoust near Smolensk, he received the title of Prince Smolensky.
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Mikhail Yurevitch Lermentoff was a Russian poet and novelist. He was born in 1814 at Moscow, of Scottish descent and died in 1841. He became an officer in the Russian army. The death of Pushkin inspired his first poem. This incurred the displeasure of the Tsar, who sent him to serve in the Caucasus. He was killed in a duel in 1841.
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Mikhail Dimitrievich Skobolev was a Russian general. He was born in 1843 and died in 1882. He entered the army as sub-lieutenant in 1861 and distinguished himself against the Poles in 1866, and afterwards in Central Asia. In 1876 he was appointed military governor of the province i"f Furghana. In the Russo-Turkish war Skobelev distinguished himself at the second battle of Plevna, and also at Loftscha. In 1878 he was created adjutant-general to the emperor. In 1880 he successfully led an expedition against the Tekke Turkomans, and captured Geok Tepe on the 12th of January 1881. He was then promoted to the rank of general. Skobelev was a brilliant and scientific officer, and much beloved by the troops.
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Baron Miklos Josika was a Hungarian novelist. He was born in 1796 and died in 1865. He entered the Austrian army, but in 1818 resigned his commission, and settled down to literary work. Drawn into politics he became a zealous supporter of Kossuth, and during the revolution of 1848 was a member of the committee of national defence. On the fall of the revolutionary government, he escaped to Brussels, where he resided until 1864. Amongst the best of his novels are: Az utolso Batori (The Last Batori); Zryni a Kolto (Zryni, the Poet); Josika Istvan (Stephen Josika); A' Csehek Magyaror-szagban (The Bohemians in Hungary).
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Mildred E Sisk later Mildred Gillars after she married (known during the Second World War as Axis Sally) was an American-born German propaganda radio broadcaster of the Second World War. She was born in 1900 at Portland, Maine and died in 1988. Educated for the stage, she dropped out of acting school and lived in France and America between 1927 and 1933, before moving to Germany in 1934 where she was employed by the Berlitz School of Languages, before being hired as an announcer for the Reichsrundfunk Overseas Service in Berlin.
Introducing herself catchily as 'Midge at the mike', her program 'Home Sweet Home' ran through the evening. She became known to American soldiers for her sultry voice when making propaganda broadcasts, backed by popular American music. Soldiers dubbed her'Axis Sally', but she was also known as 'Berlin Betty' and 'Berlin Bitch'.
One of her most infamous broadcasts was made in the Spring of 1944, shortly before the Normandy landings, when she took on the role of an 'American mother' dreaming that her son was killed in the English Channel. She continued her broadcasts until two days before Germany's surrender, and was then returned to the USA in 1948 and charged with ten counts of treason.
Among the charges were accusations that she signed an oath of allegiance to Germany and had posed as an International Red Cross worker to solicit interviews for propaganda purposes from American prisoners of war. Her defence argued that her broadcasts stated an unpopular opinion, but were not actual treason and that she was under the influence her German boy friend. In March 1949 she was convicted of one count of treason and sentenced to between ten and thirty years imprisonment. She was paroled in 1961. After being released from prison she remained in the USA and worked as a music teacher in schools.
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Miles B McSweeney was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of South Carolina from 1899 until 1903.
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Miles Coverdale was an English bishop. He was born in 1488 at Yorkshire and died in 1568. He was educated at Cambridge, and was ordained priest in 1514. He was led some years afterwards to embrace the reformed doctrines, and, having gone abroad, assisted Tindall in his translation of the Bible. In 1535 his own translation of the Scriptures appeared, with a dedication to Henry VIII. Miles Coverdale was almoner to Queen Catharine Parr, and officiated at her funeral. In 1551, during the reign of Edward VI, he was appointed Bishop of Exeter, but was ejected on the accession of Mary, and thrown into prison. After two years' confinement he was liberated, and proceeded first to Denmark, and subsequently to Geneva, where he was employed in preparing the Geneva translation of the Scriptures. On the accession of Elizabeth I he returned to England, and held for a short time the rectory of St Magnus, London Bridge.
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Miles Standish was an English colonist. He was born in about 1584 in Lancashire and died in 1656. He claimed to be the descendant of the Standish family of Duxbury Hall and served as a captain in the Netherlands, and joined the Puritans when they sailed for New England in the May flower in 1620. He took an active part in the early struggles of the colony, and a tradition regarding his courtship is celebrated in a well-known poem by Longfellow.
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Milesians is a name sometimes given to natives of Ireland, a portion of whose inhabitants, according to Irish tradition or legend, are descended from Mliesius, a fabulous king of Spain, whose two sons conquered the island 1300 years before Christ, establishing a new nobility.
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Millard F Caldwell was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Florida from 1945 until 1949.
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Millard Fillmore was the thirteenth president of the USA from 1850 to 1853. He was born in 1800 at Locke, New York and died in 1874. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1823 and began practice in Aurora, New York, and by the mid-19th century was a recognised political leader of New York state, being elected to the state assembly in 1828 after which he secured the passage of a law abolishing imprisonment for debt. He represented New York as a Whig in the Congress of the United States from 1833 until 1835, and again from 1837 until 1843, when he served as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and drafted the tariff bill of 1842. From 1847 until 1849 he was State Controller.
In 1848 he was elected Vice-President of the United States on the Whig ticket with Zachary Taylor for President. He became president upon the death of President Taylor in 1850. During his administration the Compromise Acts of 1850 were passed and the Japanese expedition of 1853 was arranged. In 1856 he was defeated as the National American candidate for President of the United States. He commanded a corps during the American Civil War, and was president, of the Buffalo Historical Society.
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Milledge L Bonham was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of South Carolina from 1862 until 1864.
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Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett was a leader of the movement for women's suffrage in England. She was born in 1847 at Aldeburgh, Suffolk and died in 1929. A daughter of a radical ship owner, she married the blind Henry Fawcett in 1867 and immediately began to work for women's suffrage, making her first speech on the subject in 1868 and in 1897 became president of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.
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Mills E Godwin Jr was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Virginia from 1974 until 1978.
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A millwright is a mechanic whose occupation is to build mills, or to set up their machinery.
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Miltiades was an Athenian general of the 5th century BC. When Greece wag invaded by the Persians he was elected one of the ten generals, and drew up the army on the field of Marathon, where, in 490 BC, he gained a memorable victory. Next year he persuaded the Greeks to intrust him with a fleet of seventy vessels, in order to follow up his success. With this, to gratify a private revenge, he attacked the island of Paros, but was repulsed, and dangerously wounded. On his return to Athens he was impeached, and condemned to pay a fine of fifty talents. Being unable to pay, he was thrown into prison, where he soon after died of his wound.
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Milton Byron Babbitt is an American composer. He was born in 1916 at Philadelphia. He studied with the American composer Roger Sessions and joined the Princeton University faculty in 1938, and in 1959 he helped found the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. In 1982 he was awarded a Pulitzer Special Citation for his life's work. His works include 'Philomel' written in 1964, for soprano and magnetic tape, and 'Concerti for Violin, Small Orchestra', and the 1976 Synthesized Tape.
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Milton J Shapp was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Pennsylvania from 1971 until 1979.
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Milton S Latham was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of California during 1860.
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Milward L Simpson was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Wyoming from 1955 until 1959.
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Minangkabau are an Indonesian people of west Sumatra. In addition to approximately 3 million Minangkabau in west Sumatra, there are sizeable communities in the major Indonesian cities. The
Minangkabau language belongs to the Austronesian family.
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Mindy McReady is an American country singer. She was born in 1975 at Fort Meyers, Florida.
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The Minims or Minim Friars (named from the Latin minimus, least), are an order of reformed Franciscans, founded by St Francis of Paula in Calabria in 1473. Their dress is black, and, like that of the Franciscans, provided with a scourge. They belong to the mendicant orders, and possessed, in the 18th century, 450 convents in thirty provinces.
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The minnesingers or minnesanger were a class of German lyric poets of the 12th and 13th centuries, so called from love being the chief theme of their verse. They consisted almost exclusively of men of aristocratic birth, the most prominent names being Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Strassburg, Hartmann von der Aue, and Walther von der Vogelweide. They sang their lyrics to the accompaniment of the viol, generally in honour of high-born dames. The songs, chiefly in the Swabian dialect, were seldom written down by their authors, and the manuscripts which contain their verse are mostly the result of oral traditions and repetitions. The largest collection of their songs was compiled by Rudiger von Manesse, burgomaster of Zurich in the early part of the 14th century, and a good selection was published by Bartsch, entitled Deutsche Liederdichter in Leipzig in 1864. This remarkable poetical movement gradually merged into that other class of German lyric poets called Meistersingers.
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A minstrel is a singer and musical performer on instruments. In the middle ages minstrels were a class of men who subsisted by the arts of poetry and music, and sang to the harp or other instrument verses composed by themselves or others. The person of the minstrel was sacred; his profession was a passport; he was 'high placed in hall, a welcome guest.' So long as the spirit of chivalry existed the minstrels were protected and caressed, but they afterwards sank to so low a level as to be classed, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, with beggars and vagabonds.
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The Minyae were one of the tribes of the original Pelagic race in early Greece.
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Mirabeau Lamar was an American soldier. He was born in 1798 and died in 1859. He was commissioned a major in the Texan revolution. He was vice-president of Texas from 1836 to 1838, and president from 1838 to 1841. He was prominent at Monterey during the Mexican War.
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Miriam A Ferguson was an American politician. She was a Democratic governor of Texas from 1924 to 1926 and again from 1933 until 1935.
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A miscellanist is a writer of miscellanies (books containing miscellaneous pieces on various subjects).
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The Miskito are an American Indian people of Central America, living mainly in the area that is now Nicaragua.
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Mithridates or Mithradares (Mithridates the Great) was king of Pontus, on the southern shore of the Black Sea. His father was murdered in 120 BC, and Mithridates ascended the throne at the age of thirteen. Soon after becoming an adult he commenced his career of conquest, which made him master of nearly all Asia Minor, besides Greece, and brought him into conflict with Rome.
In 88 BC, Sulla led a Roman army into Greece, and restored the Roman power in that country. For four years Mithridates disputed possession of Asia, but was at last compelled to succumb, in 84 BC, and to confine himself to his hereditary dominions, though he soon again began the war. After the death of Sulla, which occurred in 78 BC, Mithridates levied another army with a determination to expel the Romans from Asia. Being defeated by Lucullus, who was appointed consul in 74 BC, he was followed by the victorious Romans into his own states, and driven to seek a refuge in Armenia, then ruled by Tigranes, who refused to deliver him up. Here Mithridates raised a third great army, and in 67 BC completely defeated the Romans under Triarius, the lieutenant of Lucullus, who had been recalled; and, following up his success, rapidly recovered the larger part of his dominions. The Romans now invested Pompey with absolute power in the East, and by him, in 66 BC, the forces of Mithriridates were completely routed near the Euphrates. The king retired to Bosporus (the Crimea), where his troops, headed by his son Pharnaces, broke out in mutiny, and Mithridates killed himself in 63 BC.
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The Mixtecs were a civilized nation of Central America whose territory (Mixtecapan) was conterminous with that of the kindred Zapotecs, with whom they were allies against the Aztecs. Their ancestors now live in southern Mexico.
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The Moabites were a Palestinian tribe east of the Red Sea. They were supposedly descended from Moab, son of Lot. They were at constant strife with Israel, until David subdued them and their king Mesha later revolted against Israel.
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Mob Jokai (Maurice Jokai) was a Hungarian novelist. He was born in 1825 and died in 1904. His first novel, Working Days, was published in 1846, and he produced altogether over 200 volumes of novels and tales, dramatic and other poems, humorous essays, etc.
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The Moderates were a party in the Church of Scotland which arose early in the 18th century, and claimed the character of moderation in doctrine, discipline, and church government. It differed from the Evangelical party more particularly on the question of patronage. The difference of opinion between the two parties led to the Disruption in the Church of Scotland in 1843.
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Modest Petrovich Moussorgsky was a Russian composer. He was born in 1835 at St Petersburg and died in 1881.
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The Modocs or Modoc Indians are an American Indian tribe. They lived on the south shore of Klamath Lake in California and on the Oregon frontier. They began attacks against the whites as early as 1847. Hostilities continued until 1864, when they ceded their lands and agreed to go on a reservation which was not set apart until 1871. In the meantime they were placed on the Klamath reservation, and later on the Yainax reservation. A band under Captain Jack left the reservation and settled on Lost River, whence they refused to depart. Hostilities followed, Captain Jack retreated to the Lava Beds and was not finally conquered until June, 1873 when most of them died. The survivors were removed to the Klamath reservation in Indian Territory where they numbered less than 300 in 1900.
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The Moeso-Goths were a tribe of Goths who settled in Moesia on the Lower Danube and devoted themselves to architecture under the protection of the Roman emperors.
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Mohammed (Mahomet, Mehmet, Muhammad) was the founder of the religion of Islam. He was born in 570 or 571 at Mecca to the tribe of Koreish and died in 632. His parents died when he was young, and he was brought up by his uncle Abu Talib, who trained him to commerce, and with whom he journeyed through Arabia and Syria. When he was twenty-five his uncle recommended him as agent to a rich widow, named Chadidja, and he acquitted himself so much to her satisfaction that she married him, and thus placed him in easy circumstances. She was fifteen years older than he, but he lived with her in happy and faithful wedlock.
He seems to have had from his youth a propensity to religious contemplation, for he was every year accustomed, in the month Ramadhan, to retire to a cave in Mount Hara, near Mecca, and dwell there in solitude. Mohammed began his mission when he was fourty years old by announcing his apostleship to his own family. His wife was one of the first to believe in him, and among other members of his family who acknowledged his mission was his cousin Ali, the son of Abu Talib. Of great importance was the accession of Abu Bekr, a man of estimable character, who stood in high respect, and persuaded ten of the most considerable citizens of Mecca to join the believers in the new apostle. They were all instructed by Mohammed in the doctrines of Islam, as the new religion was styled, which were promulgated as the gradual revelations of the divine will, through the angel Gabriel, and were collected in the Koran.
After three years Mohammed made a more public announcement of his doctrine, but his followers were few for years. In 621 Mohammed lost his wife, and the death of Abu Talib took place about the same time. Deprived of their assistance he was compelled to retire, for a time, to the city of Taif. On the other hand, he was readily received by the pilgrims who visited the Kaaba, and gained numerous adherents among the families in the neighbourhood. Mohammed now adopted the resolution of encountering his enemies with force. Only the more exasperated at this they formed a conspiracy to murder him; warned of the imminent danger, he left Mecca, accompanied by Abu Bekr alone, and concealed himself in a cave not far away.
Here he spent three days undiscovered, after which he arrived safely at Medina in 622, but not without danger. This event, from which the Muslims commence their era, is known under the name of the Hejra, which signifies flight. In Medina Mohammed met with the most honourable reception; thither he was followed by many of his adherents. He now assumed the sacerdotal and regal dignity, married Ayesha, daughter of Abu Bekr, and as the number of the faithful continued to increase, declared his resolution to propagate his doctrines with the sword.
In the battle of Bedr in 623, the first of the long series of battles by which Islam was established over a large portion of the earth, he defeated Abu Sofian, the chief of the Koreishites. He in turn was defeated by them at Ohod, near Medina, soon after, and in 625 they unsuccessfully besieged Medina, and a truce of ten years was agreed on. Wars with the Jewish tribes followed, many Arabian tribes submitted themselves, and in 630 he took possession of Mecca as prince and prophet. The idols of the Kaaba were demolished, but the sacred touch of the prophet made the black stone again the object of the deepest veneration, and the magnet that attracts hosts of pilgrims to the holy city of Mecca. The whole of Arabia was soon after conquered, and a summons to embrace the new revelation of the divine law was sent to the Emperor Heraclius at Constantinople (Istanbul), the King of Persia, and the King of Abyssinia.
Preparations for the conquest of Syria and for war with the Roman Empire were begun, when Mohammed died at Medina in 632. His body was buried in the house of Ayesha, where he died, and which afterwards became part of the adjoining mosque, and a place of pilgrimage for the faithful in all time to. come. Of all his wives, the first alone bore him children, of whom only his daughter Fatima, wife of Ali, survived him.
There is no doubt that Mohammed was a man of extraordinary insight and deep reflection. Though without book-learning, he had a deep knowledge of psychology, was familiar with Bible narratives and eastern legends, and possessed a grasp of the eternal ground of all religion though tinged and modified by his vivid imagination and egoism.
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Mohammed Shems Ed Din Hafiz was one of the most celebrated and most charming poets of Persia. He was born in the beginning of the 14th century at Shiraz and died about 1390. He studied theology and law, sciences which, in Muslim countries, were intimately connected with each other. He preferred independent poverty as a dervish to a life at court, whither he was often invited by Sultan Ahmed, who earnestly pressed him to visit Bagdad. His poems, known collectively as the Divan, are Anacreontic in sentiment, abounding in the praise of love and wine.
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Mohammed Anwar el Sadat was president of Egypt. He was born in 1919 and died in 1981 when he was assassinated.
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The Mohawks or Agmegue are a North American Indian people, part of the Iroquois confederation, who lived in the Mohawk Valley, New York, and now live on reservations in Ontario, Quebec, and New York State, as well as among the general population. Their language belongs to the Macro-Siouan group. The English early secured their friendship, and during the French and Indian Wars they proved valuable allies of the colonists. In the American War of Independence the tribe under Brant carried on hostilities against the Americans. In 1784 the Mohawks retired to Upper Canada.
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The Mohican were a North American Indian people, speaking an Algonquian language, who formerly occupied the Hudson Valley, New York. In 1628 they were driven to the Connecticut River by the Mohawks, but a part subsequently returned to their old home. Others who had previously gone eastward became known as the Pequots. The Mohicans were continually friendly to the English colonists during the struggle with the French, and also served the Americans in the American War Of Independence. The tribe finally became divided. Some were assigned a reservation at Red Springs, and many became citizens.
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The Mohocks were ruffians usually armed with razors and knives, who went about London at night, wounding and disfiguring men and indecently exposing women. A reward of one hundred pounds was offered by royal proclamation in 1712 for apprehending any one of them. One of their favourite tricks was to roll a victim down Snow Hill in a tub, another was to push over coaches onto rubbish heaps.
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The Moi (Montagnard) are an aboriginal people inhabiting the highlands of south Vietnam.
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Mojos was a collective name for a large number of South American tribes who gathered about the missions around the Mamore and Beni rivers in Bolivia.
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Jean Baptiste Poquelin (Moliere) was a French actor and dramatist. He was born in 1622 at Paris and died in 1673 of an apoplectic stroke. His father was a tradesman connected with the court, and he received a good education. He studied law, but gave it up for the career of an actor, assuming in this profession the name of Moliere. After obtaining great success in the provinces he settled in Paris in 1658, having previously produced his two comedies L'Etourdi and Le Depit Amoureux. In the following year his reputation was greatly advanced by the production of the Precieuses Ridicules, a delicate satire on the prevailing affectation of the character of bel esprit, on the pedantry of learned females, and on affectation in language, thoughts, and dress. It produced a general reform when it was brought forward in Paris. Continuing to produce new plays, and performing the chief comic parts himself, he became a great favourite both with the court and the people, though his enemies, rival actors and authors, were numerous. Louis XIV was so well pleased with the performances of Moliere's company that he made it specially the royal company, and gave its director a pension. In 1662 Moliere made an ill-assorted marriage with Armande Bejart, upwards of twenty years younger than himself, a union that embittered the latter part of his life..
Among his works other than those mentioned may be noted: L'Ecole des Maris, L'Ecole des Femmes, Le Mariage Force, Don Juan, Le Misanthrope, Le Medecin Malgre Lui, Le Tartufe, L'Avare, George Dandin, Les Fourberies de Scapin, Le Bourgeois Gentil-homme, Le Malade Imaginaire, etc. As a player he was unsurpassed in high comic parts; and in the literature of comedy he bears the greatest name among the moderns after William Shakespeare. He borrowed freely from Latin, Spanish, and Italian writers, but whatever materials he appropriated he so treated them as to make the result entirely his own and original. The Archbishop of Paris at first refused him burial as being an actor and a reviler of the clergy; but the king himself insisted on it.
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Mollah is an honorary title accorded to any one in Turkey who has acquired respect from purity of life, or who exercises functions relating to religion or the sacred or canon law. The title is not conferred by any special authority, but springs spontaneously from public respect. It is nearly equivalent to master, excellency, in English.
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The Molly Maguires were an Irish secret society which afterwards established a reign of terror in the coal regions of Pennsylvania, USA from 1854 to 1877. The society was brought to an end by the conviction and execution of its leaders including twenty members in 1876 and 1877.
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Molly Mog (the Fair Maid of the Inn) was an English beauty. She was born in about 1699 at Oakingham, Berkshire and died in 1766. the daughter of an inn keeper, she was renowned for her beauty and had a ballad written about her.
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The Molokani were a west Russian sect dating from the 16th century who maintained primitive Christian doctrines and practices. In 1905 they were persecuted by the local authorities around the Caucasus.
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The Mon are a minority ethnic group living in the Irrawaddy delta region of lower Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. The Mon language belongs to the Mon- Khmer branch of the Austro-Asiatic family. They are Buddhists, but also retain older animist beliefs.
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A Monegasque is a person that comes from Monaco.
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Mongols are any of the various Mongol (or Mongolian) ethnic groups of Central Asia. Mongols live in Mongolia, Russia, Inner Mongolia (China), Tibet, and Nepal. The Mongol language belongs to the Altaic family; some groups of Mongol descent speak languages in the Sino-Tibetan family, however. The Mongols are primarily pastoral nomads, herding sheep, horses, cattle, and camels. Traditionally the Mongols moved with their animals in summer to the higher pastures, returning in winter to the lower steppes.
The Mongols proper, the typical example of the Mongol races, were a race of people in north-east Asia in Mongolia and part of Siberia. Their first great advance was due to Genghis Khan, who having been, originally, merely the chief of a single Mongol horde, compelled the other hordes to submit to his power, and then, in 1206, conceived the bold plan of conquering the whole earth. After the death of Genghis Khan, in 1227, his sons and grandsons pursued his conquests, subjugated all China, subverted the caliphate of Bagdad in 1263, and made the Seljuk sultans of Iconium tributary. In 1237 a Mongol army invaded Russia, devastated the country with the most horrible cruelty, and from Russia passed, in two divisions, into Poland and Hungary. At Pesth the Hungarian army was routed with terrible slaughter, and at Liegnitz, in Silesia, Henry, duke of Breslau, was defeated in a bloody battle, on April the 9th, 1241.
The Mongols were recalled, however, from their victorious career by the news of the death of Ogdai, in December 1241, the immediate successor of Genghis Khan. The empire of the Mongols was at the summit of its power during the reigns of Mangu Khan between 1251 and 1259 and Khubilai or Kublai Khan, the patron of Marco Polo between 1259 and 1294. At that time it extended from the Chinese Sea and from India far into the interior of Siberia, and to the frontiers of Poland. The principal seat of the khakan or great khan was transferred by Khubilai from Karakorum to China; the other countries were governed by subordinate khans, all of whom were descended from Genghis, and several of whom succeeded in making themselves independent. This division of the empire was the cause of the gradual decay of the power and consequence of the Mongols in the 14th century. The adoption of new religions (Buddhism in the east and Islam in the west) also contributed to their fall.
In 1368 the empire of the Mongols in China was overturned by a revolution which set the native Ming dynasty on the throne. Driven northwards to their original home, the eastern Mongols remained for a time subject to the descendants of Genghis Khan, but gradually splitting up into small independent tribes they finally were subdued and absorbed by the Manchu conquerors of China. Of the western Mongols the most powerful were the Kipchaks or Golden Horde, who lived on the Volga, and the khanate founded in Bokhara, on the Oxus, by Jagatai, the eldest son of Genghis Khan. The former gradually fell under the power of the Russians; but among the latter there appeared a second formidable warrior, Timur Lenk (Timur the Lame, hence he was known as Tamerlane), called also Timur Beg. In 1369 he chose the city of Samarcand for the seat of his new government. The other Mongol tribes, with Persia, Central Asia, and Hindustan, were successively subjugated by him. In 1402, at Ancyra (Angora), in Asia Minor, he defeated and captured the Sultan Bajazet I, who had been hitherto victorious against the Christians in Europe, and before whom Constantinople (Istanbul) trembled.
After Timur's death, in 1405, his empire barely held together until 1468, when it was again divided. Baber (Babur), a descendant of Timur, founded in India, in 1519 the empire of the Great Mogul, which existed in name until 1857, though its power ended in 1739. After the commencement of the 16th century the Mongols lost all importance in the history ot the world, became split up into a number of separate khanates and tribes and fell under the power of the neighbouring peoples.
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Mongoloid refers to one of the three major races of humans, including the indigenous peoples of Asia, the Indians of the Americas, Polynesians, and the Inuit and Aleuts. General physical traits include dark eyes with epicanthic folds; straight to wavy dark hair; little beard or body hair; fair to tawny skin; low to medium-bridged noses; thin to medium lips.
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Sir Monier Monier-Williams was an English orientalist. He was born in 1819 at Bombay and died in 1899. His father, Colonel Monier-Williams, held the post of surveyor-general at Bombay. He was educated at King's College, London, and at Baliol and University Colleges, Oxford. He was professor of Sanskrit at Haileybury from 1844 to 1858, and in 1860 became Boden Sanskrit professor at Oxford. He was a fellow of Balliol, and held the degrees of DCL and LLD. He was the author of a Sanskrit grammar, a Sanskrit dictionary, Hinduism, Modern India, Religions Thought and Life in India, etc. He travelled extensively in India, and was knighted in 1886.
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A Monk is a man who retires from the world to live in a monastery as a member of some religious order. Originally all monks were laymen, but after the 8th century the seniors and by degrees the other member were admitted to holy orders.
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The Monophysites were those who maintained that there was but one nature in the incarnate Christ, that is, that the divine and human natures were so united as to form but one nature, yet without any change, confusion, or mixture of the two natures. They were condemned as heretics by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Eastern and Egyptian clergy were inclined to the Monophysite doctrine, while the Western church contended for the decree of the council. After long and often bloody contests, the orthodox church succeeded in overawing the heresy in the first half of the 6th century. In Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia the Monophysite congregations, however, remained the strongest, had patriarchs at Alexandria and Antioch, existing, without interruption, by the side of the imperial orthodox patriarchs; and after Jacob Baradaeus, had, about 570, established their religious constitution, formed the independent churches of the Jacobites and Armenians, which have maintained themselves ever since. The Coptic Christians of Egypt and the Abyssinian church are also Monophysites in doctrine.
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The Monothelites were a sect of heretics who maintained that Christ had but one will (hence the name which derives from the Greek monos, single, and thelein, to will). Their doctrine was the logical extension of the heresy of the Monophysites, who were all Monothelites. The sect rose into prominence in the 7th century, but a synod of the Lateran formally adopted the opposite doctrine of dyothelism, which has since been the orthodox doctrine in both the Western and the Eastern churches. The heresy, which at one time caused a great commotion in the church, gradually became extinct except in the Monophysite churches.
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Monrad C Wallgren was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Washington from 1945 until 1949.
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The Montagnards or La Motagne (the Mountain) was a popular name in French history, given to the extreme democratic party in the Convention, because they occupied the higher rows of benches in the hall where it met. The chiefs of the Montagnards were Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, the men who introduced the 'Reign of Terror'. The Montagnards rose to the height of their power in June, 1793, and for more than a year was sufficiently formidable to stifle all opposition. Soon after the fall of Robespierre on July the 28th 1794 the names of 'Montagnard' and 'Montagne' gradually disappeared from party nomenclature. A futile attempt was made by the extreme party in the National Assembly, after the revolution of 1848, to revive the title.
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Montagu William Lowry-Corry (Baron Rowton) was an English philanthropist. He was born in 1838 at London and died in 1903. He was the grandson of the second earl of Belmore and was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge, and called to the bar in 1863. In 1866 he became private secretary to Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), and continued to hold that post until the latter's death in 1881. At the Congress of Berlin he acted as one of the joint secretaries of the special British Embassy, and in 1880 was raised to the peerage, taking his title from Rowton Castle, Shrewsbury.
He is best remembered as the originator of the 'Rowton Houses'. Disapproving of the ordinary cheap lodging-houses in London, he decided to erect houses of a superior type, where for sixpence a night a man could have a separate cubicle, and the use of comfortable dining, smoking, and reading rooms, baths, lavatories, etc, during the day. Cheap meals were provided, and lodgers were also allowed to cook their own food. The first of these houses was erected in Vauxhall in 1892 at a cost of 30,000 pounds, defrayed by Lord Rowton, and after that others were built, a company having been formed. The project having proved a success, the Rowton Houses were taken as a model for other lodging-houses erected by various bodies. Personally Lord Rowton was a man of great charm, and his intimate friends included Queen Victoria. To him Lord Beaconsfield bequeathed the whole of his papers, letters, etc.
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Montagus was the founder of a Christian sect, who appeared about the middle of the 2nd century in Phrygia, as a new Christian prophet, advocating an ascetic code of morals and behaviour, fasting, celibacy, and willing submission to martyrdom. He sought to establish a community of all true believers at Pepuza in Phrygia, there to await the second Advent. The Montanists were forced to withdraw from the Catholic C'hurch and form themselves into a separate sect in Phrygia about 180. In North Africa they survived for some time, but by the 4th century they seem everywhere to have disappeared.
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The Montauks were an American Indian tribe which, at the time of the settlement of Long Island by whites, occupied the east end of the island. In 1659 they were nearly exterminated by the Block Island Indians. In 1660, 1663, 1670 and 1687 they conveyed their lands to certain bodies of settlers at Easthampton, reserving the right to live on them or parts of them. By the end of the 19th century they were extinct.
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The Montenegrin are Slavic inhabitants of Montenegro whose culture has much in common with the Serbs.
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Montezuma I was the fifth Aztec sovereign of Mexico. He was born in 1390 and died in 1464. He succeeded to the throne in 1436, enlarged his capital Tenochtitlan, and extended his power to the Atlantic and to the Pacific.
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Montezuma II was an Aztec sovereign of Mexico. He was born in 1466 and died in 1520. He succeeded to the throne in 1502 and pushed the Aztec conquests further south. Upon the appearance of Cortes he vacillated - believing in the ancient prophecies of his race - and died while a prisoner of the Spanish.
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Montfort Stokes was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of North Carolina from 1830 until 1832.
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The Montgolfier brothers made a hot air balloon, in which Jean François Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Ariandes made the world's first aerial voyage over Paris on November the 21st 1783.
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Bernard Law Montgomery was a British soldier. He was born in 1887 at County Donegal in Ireland. He entered the army in 1908 and served in the Great War. In 1939 he was Divisional Commander. He took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk and in 1942 took over command of the Eight Army in North Africa. In 1944 he led the 21st Army Group in Normandy to the Rhine.
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Montmorency was the name of a noble family of France and the Netherlands, derived from the village of Montmorency near Paris. One of its most distinguished members was Anne De Montmorency, first duke of Montmorency, Constable of France, and a distinguished general, born in 1492. He distinguished himself at the battle of Marignano in 1515, and for his valour at Bicocca in 1522 was made marshal. He was taken prisoner along with Francis I at the battle of Pavia in 1525, but was soon after ransomed. In 1536 he defeated Charles V. Francis I conferred on him the dignity of Constable in 1538. In 1551 he was made a duke. In 1557 he lost the battle of St. Quentin against Philip II of Spain, and was taken prisoner, but he regained his freedom by the Peace of Cateau-Cambresisis in 1559. Under Charles IX he joined the Duke of Guise and Marshal St Andre in forming the famous triumvirate against Conde and the Huguenots. At the battleof Dreux in 1562 Montmorency was made prisoner by the Huguenots; on the renewal of the civil war he gained a decisive victory over them at St Denis, on November the 10th 1567, though the following day be died of his wounds. His grandson, Duke Henry II, was born in 1595, and when he was eighteen was made Admiral of France. He fought successfully against the Huguenots and Spaniards, and was made a marshal but having joined Gaston, duke of Orleans, in rebellion against the influence of Richelieu, he was taken prisoner at the battle of Castelnaudary, and executed at Toulouse as a traitor in 1632.
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Moody Currier was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Hampshire from 1885 until 1887.
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The Moors were a Muslim, Arabic-speaking race of mixed descent, forming part of the population of Barbary, and deriving their name from the Mauri, the ancient inhabitants of Mauretania, whose pure lineal descendants are, however, the Amazirgh, a branch of the Berbers. The modern Moors have sprung from a union of the ancient inhabitants of this region with their Arab conquerors, who appeared in the 7th century. As the Muslim conquerors of the Visigoths in Spain (711-713) came from North Africa, the name Moor was also applied to them by Spanish chroniclers, and in that connection is synonymous with Arab and Saracen. These Moors pushed northwards into France, until their repulse by Charles Martel at the great Battle of Tours in 732, after which they practically restricted themselves to Spain south of the Ebro and the Sierra Guadarrama. Here, for centuries, art, science, literature, and chivalry flourished amongst them, whilst the rest of Europe was still sunk in the gloom of the dark ages. Their internal dissensions and divisions, however, weakened them in face of the new Christian kingdoms of Aragon and Castile, and before the close of the 13th century their possessions were limited to the kingdom of Granada. This, too, was finally subdued by Ferdinand the Catholic in 1492; and while great numbers of the Moors emigrated to Africa, the remainder, under the name of Moriscos, assuming in great part a semblance of Christianity, submitted to the Spaniards.
The cruel proselytizing zeal of Philip II, however, excited a sanguinary insurrection among the Moors in 1568-1570, which was followed by the banishing of many thousands, while Philip III completed the work in 1610 by finally expelling the last of these, the most ingenious and industrious of his subjects.
Between 1492 and 1610 about 3,000,000 Moriscos are estimated to have left Spain. The expulsion of the Moors was one of the chief causes of the decadence of Spain; for both agriculture and industries fell into decay after their departure. The expelled Moors, settling in the north of Africa, founded cities from which to harass the Spanish coasts, and finally developed into the piratical states of Barbary, whose depredations were a source of irritation to the civilized Christian powers even until well into the nineteenth century.
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The Moplahs are a tribe of Indian Muslims, numerous in the Malabar or west coast of South India, believed to be the descendants of Moors or Arabians who settled here.
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The Moquis were an American Indian tribe in Arizona on the Little Colorado and San Juan Rivers. They killed or expelled the early missionaries who visited them. They suffered greatly from the attacks of Apaches and Navajos.
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The Moravian Brethren also called United Brethren, Herrnhuter, and officially Unitas Fratrum (Unity of Brethren), are a Protestant sect or church which originally sprang up in Bohemia after the death of John Huss. After the sanguinary religious wars which prevailed in Bohemia until 1627 they were everywhere almost annihilated. Their doctrines were still, however, secretly cherished in Moravia, and in 1722 a colony emigrated thence, and were invited by the Lutheran Count Zinzendorf to settle on his estate near Berthelsdorf, in Saxony, where they built the town of Herrnhut, still the head-quarters of the church. The doctrines of the brethren had hitherto been more in harmony with the Calvinistic than with the Lutheran form of Protestantism, but under the influence of Count Zinzendorf, who himself became a bishop, they attached themselves to the Lutheran Church.
From Herrnhut the Moravian Church extended to other points in Germany, and to Hugland and the United Status in 1735. These three countries form self-supporting home-provinces of theUnitas, to which in 1889 the West Indies, hitherto a mission-field, was added as a fourth. Each has its synod and elders' conference, subject to the General Synod, which meets at Herrnhut once every 7-12 years.
The Moravian Brethren have always distinguished themselves as missionaries, and maintained stations in North and Central America, South Africa, Australia.and Tibet. The Moravian Brethren are distinguished for the Puritanical simplicity of their life and manners, and for their earnest, if somewhat narrow and austere, piety. The practice of living in exclusive communities or villages still occurred in Germany before the Great War. Within these communities the unmarried men sometimes lived in common in a building assigned for that end, the unmarried women in another, widows in a third.
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Mordecai Bartley was an American politician. He was a Whig governor of Ohio from 1844 until 1846.
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Mordecai Gist was an American soldier. He was born in 1743 and died in 1792. He was elected captain of the first Maryland company in the American War Of Independence, fought at Camden in 1780, and gained a victory over the British at Combahee in 1783.
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Mordecai Menahem Kaplan was an American rabbi and philosopher. He was born in 1881 at Svencionys, Lithuania and died in 1983. After emigrating with his family to the USA in 1889, Kaplan studied theology and became ordained as a rabbi in 1902. He founded the Jewish Center in New York in 1916 and in 1922 the Society for the Advancement of Judaism. He was a reformist, campaigning for a more equal role for women within the Jewish religion.
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The Mordvin are a Finnish people inhabiting the middle Volga Valley in west Asia. They are known to have lived in the region since the 1st century. There are 1 million speakers of Mordvin scattered throughout west Russia, about one-third of whom live in the Mordvinian republic. *Morgan F. Larson
Morgan F Larson was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of New Jersey from 1929 until 1932.
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Sir Morell Mackenzie was an English physician. He was born in 1837 at Leytonstone, Essex and died in 1892. He was educated at London Medical College, Paris, and at Vienna. He obtained the Jackson prize for diseases of the larynx; became physician to the London Hospital, and lecturer on diseases of the throat. In 1887-1888 he was associated with the specialists of Berlin and Vienna in the treatment of the larynx disease of the Emperor Frederick (at first, while he was C'rown Prince) of Germany. He was the author of a treatise on Diseases of the Throat and Nose and several other works.
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Morgan Lewis was an American politician. He was born in 1754 and died in 1844. He served in the American Continental army from 1776 to 1783, commanding at Stone Arabia and Crown Point. He was Chief Justice of New York from 1801 to 1804 and Governor from 1804 to 1807. He was a major-general in the Niagara campaign and commanded at Sackett's Harbor and French Creek.
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Morgan L Smith was an American soldier. He was born in 1822 and died in 1874. He fought at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, and led a brigade at Shiloh and Corinth. He commanded a division at Vicksburg, Missionary Ridge, Knoxville and Chattanooga.
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Moritz Retzsch was a German artist. He was born in 1779 at Dresden and died in 1857. He studied at the art academy of his native city, of which he was appointed a professor in 1824. His most celebrated works are his outline illustrations of Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Fouque, and others.
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Moritz Saphir was a German humorist. He was born in 1795 at Pesth and died in 1858. At a young age he went to Berlin, and successively edited the Berliner Schnellpost, Der Deutsche Horizont, Der Korsar, and Der Humorist.
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Moritz Von Schwind was an Austrian painter. He was born in 1804 at Vienna and died in 1871.
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Morley Griswold was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Nevada from 1934 until 1935.
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The Mormons are a religious sect originally located in Utah and the Territories and States in its neighbourhood. The sect was founded by Joseph Smith, of Sharon, Vermont, and Palmyra, New York, the first organized conference being held on June the 1st, 1830, at Fayette, New York.
The distinguishing peculiarities of the sect are: the belief in a continual divine revelation through the inspired medium of the prophet at the head of their church, the practice of polygamy, and a complete hierarchical organization. The supreme power, spiritual and temporal, rests with the president or prophet (elected by the whole body of the church), who alone works miracles and receives revelations.
The Mormons accept both the Bible and the book of Mormon as divine revelations, but hold them equally subject to the explanation and correction of the prophet. The latter mentioned book (in large part a kind of historical romance written by one Solomon Spaulding in 1812) pretends to be a history of America from the first settlement of the continent after the destruction of the tower of Babel up to the end of the 4th century of our era, at which time lived the legendary prophet Mormon, its reputed author. It was said to have been written on gold plates, and concealed until its hiding-place was revealed to Joseph Smith by an angel. The name given to it was evidently owing to the important part which Spaulding had assigned to Mormon and his son Moroni in his novel; but Joseph Smith and his coadjutors, instead of confining themselves to the original manuscript, had clumsily engrafted upon it a number of maxims, prophecies, etc, evidently garbled from the sacred volume, and interpolated in such a manner as to involve anachronisms and contradictions.
The doctrine of the Mormons is a mixture of materialism and millenarianism, and their most distinctive feature, polygamy, which, though originally condemned in the Book of Mormon, was introduced under a theory of 'spiritual wives', and a mysterious system of unrestricted marriage called 'sealing'.
The Mormons first settled in Missouri, but were expelled thence, probably because of their anti-slavery sentiments. In 1839. they settled at Nauvoo, Illinois. In 1844 an Illinois mob killed the leader Joseph Smith while he was in Cartilage prison. Emigrating again, by 1848 they were settled at Salt Lake City.
The advance made by Mormonism seems to have been due far more to the abilities of Brigham Young, the successor of Joseph Smith, than to the founder himself, who was little better than a dissipated and immoral scamp. Under Brigham Young's direction large tracts of land at Salt Lake were brought under cultivation, an emigration fund was established, and a skilful system of propaganda set on foot, by which large numbers of converts were brought from Europe, especially from Great Britain. A state was organized under the name of Deseret. Congress refused to recognize it, but erected Utah into a territory, and Brigham Young was appointed governor of it. He was soon removed by the United States authorities, but after a time the Mormons were left pretty much to themselves. In 1870 Congress passed a bill to compel them to renounce polygamy, or quit the United States. A prosecution was instituted against Brigham Young, who was sentenced to fine and imprisonment. In 1877 Brigham Young died and was succeeded by John Taylor, an Englishman, who in turn was succeeded as president by Wilford Woodruff in 1887. In 1890 he proclaimed that polygamy was no longer taught as a doctrine of Mormonism.
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Morocco men was the name given to the touts who wandered around the public houses and streets of England selling lottery tickets during the 18th century. In 1796 the great State Lottery employed 7500 Morocco men to sell their tickets.
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Morrie Ryskind was an American comedy writer. He was born in 1895 at New York and died in 1985.
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Morrison K Waite was an American jurist. He was born in 1816 and died in 1888. He was called to the bar in 1839 and soon was acknowledged as a leader. He was a member of the Ohio Legislature in 1849. He won distinction as a counsel for the United States in the Alabama claims before the tribunal of arbitration at Geneva, Switzerland, from 1871 to 1872. He was elected President of the Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1874. He became Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court in 1874 and served until his death.
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Mortician is an American term for an undertaker - someone who arranges funerals.
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Mortimer R Proctor was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Vermont from 1945 until 1947.
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Moschus was a Greek pastoral poet, A native of Syracuse, the time when he lived is not accurately known, some making him a pupil of Bion, who is supposed to have lived under Ptolemy Philadelphus in the 3rd century BC, while others suppose him a contemporary of Ptolemy Philometor around 160 BC. Four idyls form the whole of the remains of Moschus, of which the most beautiful is the fine lament for Bion.
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Moses was the founder and legislator of the Israelite nation. He was born in Egypt about 1600 BC, during the time of the oppression of the Hebrews. His father, Amram, and mother, Jochebed, both of the race of Levi, were obliged to expose him in obedience to a royal edict, but placed him in a basket of bulrushes on the river border, where he was found by the daughter of the Egyptian king as she went to bathe. She adopted him as her son, and in all probability had him educated for the duties of the priesthood, the means of instruction thus afforded him being the best which his time possessed.
His expedition into Ethiopia, when he was forty years old, as leader of the Egyptians, when he subdued the city of Saba (Meroe), won the affections of the conquered Princess Tharbis, and married her, rests only on the tradition preserved by Josephus. An outrage committed by an Egyptian on a Hebrew excited his anger, and he secretly killed the Egyptian. The deed became known, and he escaped the vengeance of the king only by a hasty flight into Arabia. Here he took refuge with Jethro, a Midianitish prince and a priest, and espoused his daughter Zipporah. The promises of God that his race would become a great nation occupied much of his thoughts, and at last God 'appointed' him the chosen deliverer from the bondage in Egypt.
Being a slow speaker, and possessing none of the arts of an orator, God therefore supposedly gave him power to prove his mission by miracles, and joined to him his elder brother Aaron, a man of little energy, but of considerable eloquence. Thus prepared, Moses returned to Egypt at the age of eighty years to undertake the work.
At first he had the greatest obstacles to overcome, but after the visitation of ten destructive plagues upon the land, Pharaoh allowed the Hebrews to depart. Moses conveyed them safely through the Red Sea, in which Pharaoh, who pursued them, was drowned with his army.
New difficulties arose, however. The distress of the people in the desert, the conflicts with hostile races, the jealousies of the elders, often endangered his authority and even his life, despite the miraculous attestations of his mission. During the term of the encampment at Sinai he received the Ten Commandments and the laws for the regulation of the lives of the Israelites. When they were already near the end of their journey towards Canaan Moses saw himself compelled, in consequence of new evidences of discontent, to lead them back into the desert, for forty years more of toilsome wandering. He was not himself permitted, however, to see the Israelites settled in their new country on account of a murmur which, in the midst of his distresses, he allowed to escape against his God.
After appointing Joshua to be the leader of the Hebrews he ascended a mountain beyond Jordan, from which he surveyed the land of promise, and so ended his life in his 120th year. All superstitious reverence for his bones or his place of sepulture was prevented by the secrecy of his burial, and its effectual concealment from the people.
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Moses Alexander was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Idaho from 1915 until 1919.
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Moses Cleveland was an American pioneer. He was born in 1754 at Connecticut and died in 1806. He was a promoter of the purchase from Connecticut of the so-called Western Reserve, and was the founder of the city of Cleveland.
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Moses Mendelssohn was a German philosopher. He was born in 1729 and died in 1786. Of Jewish parents, he studied hard under adverse circumstances to acquire a knowledge of Jewish and modern literature and became bookkeeper to a Jewish silk manufacturer and tutor to his family. In 1754 he formed a friendship with Lessing, who made him the hero of his Nathan the Wise, while he in turn defended his friend from the attacks of Jacobi, who accused Lessing of being a Spinozist. The chief works of Mendelssohn are a treatise on Metaphysics; Phaedon, a dialogue on immortality (1767);
Jerusalem (1783); and Morgenstunden (1785).
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Sir Moses Haim Montefiore was a Jewish philanthropist who made a fortune on the London stock market. He was born in 1784 and died in 1885. He became sheriff of London in 1837 and was knighted the same year. He secured better treatment for Jews in various countries, including: Turkey, Russia, Moldavia and Morocco.
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Moses Robinson was an American politician. He was a governor of Vermont from 1789 until 1790.
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Moses Stuart was an American theologian. He was born in 1780 at Wilton, Connecticut and died in 1852. He was educated at Yale College and was called to the bar in 1802, but abandoned law for theology. In 1810 he was appointed professor of sacred literature at the theological seminary in Andover, a post he held for thirty-eight years, during which time he published several Greek and Hebrew grammars, commentaries on some of St Paul's Epistles and on the Apocalypse, Hints on the Prophecies, A Critical History and Defence of the Old Testament Canon, and many other works.
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Moses Wisner was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Michigan from 1859 until 1860.
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The Mosquitos are native Indians of the Sumo-Mosquito group of the Mosquito coast on the Atlantic side of Nicaragua, and Honduras in Central America. They are a mixed race people evolved from local aborigines, Carib Indians, Negro slaves and Europeans. They were formerly protected by Britain, which thereby claimed a footing in Central America but this caused severe problems with the USA which culminated in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850.
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The Mossi are the majority ethnic group living in Burkina Faso. Their social structure, based on a monarchy and aristocracy, was established in the 11th century. The Mossi have been prominent traders, using cowrie shells as currency. At the end of the 20th century there were reckoned on being about four million Mossi.
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The Mosstroopers were bandits who plagued the border area between England and Scotland. They were so named from camping on the mosses.
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The Motazilites were a numerous and powerful sect of Muslim heretics, who to a great extent denied predestination, holding that man's actions were entirely within the control of his own will. They maintained also that before the Koran had been revealed man had already come to conclusions regarding right and wrong, and held extremely heretical opinions with reference to the quality or attributes of Deity. They appeared a few generations after Mohammed, and became the most important and dangerous sect of heretics in Islam.
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Mother Shipton (Urusla Southill) was an English prophetess. She was born around 1487 and died in 1561. She lived in Knaresborough, Yorkshire. She was popularly believed to have occult powers and to have foretold the Great Fire of London. A book published in 1641, with the title The Prophecie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry 8th, ascribes to her a prediction of the death of Cardinal Wolsey and other eminent persons, and various prophecies were subsequently attributed to her, some in recent times.
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The moundbuilders is a name given to an American prehistoric race the principal remains of which are extensive earthworks found in the Mississippi Valley extending from the lakes southward to the gulf. Many of these are clearly defensive works or places of sepulture. Fort Hill, Ohio, has a line of circumvallation about four miles in extent. These defensive works also include structures used for religious purposes. Many mounds are of regular outline assuming the form of various geometrical figures. In Newark, Ohio, works of this character cover an area of more than two square miles. A mound near St Louis is 700 feet long by 500 broad at the base and ninety feet high. Some mounds of this character contain skeletons. Mounds, such as those near Wheeling, West Virginia, and Miamisburg, Ohio, are possibly the graves of distinguished personages. In Wisconsin and Iowa are earthworks which assume the outline of men and animals. One in Adams County, Ohio, has the form of a serpent. It is over 1000 feet in length and its mouth is partially closed around an egg of perfectly regular dimensions. The figure reaches a height of about five feet. Various theories prevail as to the question what race built the mounds. It is now frequently thought to have been a race related to the Indians.
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Sue Mountstuart Elphinstone Frant Duff was a Scottish writer on political and other subjects. He was born in 1829 at Aberdeenshire and died in 1906. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, The Grange, Bishop Wearmouth, and Balliol College, Oxford. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1854, and in 1857 entered the House of Commons as Liberal member for the Elgin Burghs, which constituency he continued to represent until 1881. He was under-secretary for India in Gladstone's ministry from 1868 to 1874, and under-secretary for the colonies from 1880 to 1881, in which latter year he was appointed governor of Madras. His Indian administration was most successful, and on his retirement in 1886 he was made a GOSI. He was president of the Royal Geographical Society from 1889 until 1893, and of the Royal Historical Society from 1892 until 1899, and was also a trustee of the British Museum. His published works include Studies in European Politics (1866); A Political Survey (1868); Elgin Speeches (1871); Notes of an Indian Journey (1876); Miscellanies, Political and Literary (1879); Memoir of Sir H. S. Maine (1892); Ernest Renan (1893); and Notes from a Diary (published in seven volumes between 1897 and 1905).
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Mountstuart Elphinstone was an English statesman and historian. He was born in 1779 at Scotland and died in 1859. He joined the Bengal civil service in 1795, was ambassador to the Afghan court in 1808, was resident at the court of Poonah from 1810 to 1817, and was British commissioner to that province from 1817 to 1819, when he became governor of Bombay. During a government of seven years he established a code of laws, lightened taxes, and paid great attention to schools and public institutions. He resigned in 1827. A college established by the natives was called after him Elphinstone College. He was the author of an Account of the Kingdom of Cabul and its Dependencies (1815), and a History of India (1841). He was offered the governor-generalship of India in 1835, and afterwards that of Canada, both of which he declined.
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William Moy Thomas was a British author and journalist. He was born in 1828 and died in 1910. He was private secretary to Charles Wentworth Dilke; on the staff of Household Words from 1851 until 1858; was dramatic critic, and contributor to The Daily News from 1868 until1901; dramatic critic of The Academy from 1875 until 1879; and first editor of Cassell's Magazine, for which he wrote his novel, 'A Fight for Life' from 1866 until 1867. He edited the poetical works of William Collins, with memoir in 1806 ; and re-edited Lord Wharncliffe's Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 2 vols. In 1861.
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Mozarabs was a name applied by the Muslims in Spain to the Christians among them who retained their own religion. The Mozarabic liturgy which they used was suppressed about 1060, but was revived at the beginning of the 16th century in Toledo
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The Mpongwa are a native tribe of the Gabon.
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Mrs Grant of Laggan was a Scottish author. She was born in 1755 at Glasgow and died in 1838. Her maiden name was M'Vicar and her husband, the Reverend James Grant of Laggan, died in 1801, leaving her a widow, with eight children, and little money and income. In 1803 she published by subscription a volume of poems, and in 1806 won reputation by her Letters from the Mountains, a series of letters describing her life in the Highlands, the character of the people, and the natural scenery. For some time she conducted a boarding establishment for young ladies in Edinburgh. Her chief subsequent works are her Memoirs of an American Lady, and Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland (published in 1811); Eighteen Hundred and Thirteen, a poem (published in 1814), and her Memoirs, published posthumously in 1844. In 1825 she obtained a pension from government.
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A Muezzin or Mueddin is an Islamic crier attached to a mosque, whose duty it is to proclaim the ezam or summons to prayers five times a day - at dawn, at noon, 4 pm., sunset, and nightfall. He makes his proclamation from the balcony of a minaret; and as this elevated position enables a person to see a good many of the private proceedings of the inmates of the neighbouring houses, the post of muezzin is often intrusted to a blind man. Towards the end of the 20th century muezzins were frequently replaced with recordings played through loud speakers.
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The Muggletonians were a sect that arose in England about the middle of the 17th century, of which the founders were John Reeve and Ludovic Muggleton, who claimed to have the spirit of prophecy. They affirmed themselves to be the 'two witnesses' of the book of Revelations in the bible. The sect was thought to be extinct by 1900.
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Mugwump is a word of the Massachusetts Indians, meaning a great personage (mugquomp). After long use in American localities, and occasional use in American politics, it came into prominence in 1884, being then applied to those independent members of the Republican party, who openly refused to vote for the party's candidate, Blaine. Thus the name came to be applied to all Independent Republicans.
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Muhammad Abduh was an Egyptian theologian and patriot. He was born in 1849 and died in 1905. He campaigned for an independent Egypt and educational reorganisation.
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Muhammed Ali (formerly Cassius Clay) is an American former world champion boxer. He was born in 1942. He won the world heavyweight title in 1964, four years after winning the Olympic light-heavyweight championship. In 1967 his boxing license was withdrawn because he refused to serve in the US armed forces (as his religious faith forbade). His license was reinstated in 1970 and in 1971 he lost on points to Joe Frazier when trying to regain his title.
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Mulatta is an offensive term for the female offspring of a white man and a black woman. A male child is similarly termed a Mulatto. Both terms mean a mongrel or mule.
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Mulatto is an offensive term for the male offspring of a white man and a black woman. A female child is similarly termed a Mulatta. Both terms mean a mongrel or mule. In the Victorian era, the term mulatto was widely used for the mixed-race offspring of parents one of whom was Caucasian or 'White' and the other 'Black', irrespective of whether the offspring was male or female, and which parent was which.
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The Munda are any one of several groups living in north east and central India, numbering about 5 million in 1983. Their most widely spoken languages are Santali and Mundari, languages of the Munda group, an isolated branch of the Austro-Asiatic family. The Mundas were formerly nomadic hunter- gatherers, but now practise shifting cultivation. They are Hindus, but retain animist beliefs.
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The Mundrucus are a tribe of South American Indians. They live along the south bank of the Amazon.
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Mungo Park was a Scottish explorer. He was born in 1771 near Selkirk and died in 1806 when he is believed to have drowned at Boussa. He was educated at Edinburgh for the medical profession; received an appointment as assistant-surgeon on board an East India-man and made a voyage to India. Returning to England in 1793 he was engaged by the African Society to trace the course of the Niger. He reached the Gambia at the end of 1795, and advancing north-eastward arrived at the Niger near Segu. After exploring part of the course of the river he returned home, and published his Travels in the Interior of Africa in 1799.
He settled at Peebles as a country doctor, but in 1805 accepted command of a government expedition to the Niger. Having advanced from Pisania on the Gambia to Sansanding on the Niger, he built a boat at the latter place, with the intention of following the Niger to the sea. It was afterwards ascertained that the expedition advanced down the river as far as Boussa, where it was attacked by the natives. It is supposed that Mungo Park was drowned in his efforts to escape. The Journal of his second expedition as far as the Niger was published in 1815.
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Murphy J Foster was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Louisiana from 1892 until 1900.
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Murray D Van Wagoner was an American politician. He was a Democratic governor of Michigan from 1941 until 1942.
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The Murut are an indigenous aboriginal people of northern Borneo and Sarawak.
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The Muskogean (Creeks) were a race of North American Indians including the Choctaws, Chickasaws and the Seminoles. They lived in the Gulf states east of the Mississippi.
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A Muslim is someone who professes the religion of Islam.
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Mustafa Kemel Ataturk was a Turkish army officer and president of Turkey from 1923 to 1938. He was born in 1881 at Salonika, Greece and died in 1938. He entered a military career early in life and proved himself a capable - if irritating commander. Following the Great War he organised resistance before being elected president of the Turkish Republic which he set about modernising in a dictatorial manner, but with the aim of instigating democracy which he succeeded in doing and also tempering the religious fervour of some of his country folk and instead adopting western attitudes of tolerance. The result was that he re-established Turkey's international position and ended the animosity which had existed previously between Turkey and so many other countries. Today, Mustafa Kemel Ataturk is suitably remembered as the founder of modern Turkey and a great statesman and soldier.
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Mustapha-Ben-Abdallah Hadji Khalifah was a Turkish historian. He was born about 1605 at Constantinople (Istanbul) and died in 1658. He became 'first secretary' to Sultan Mourad IV. His most important work is Keshf-ul-tzunun, a kind of encyclopaedia of Arabic, Turkish, and Persian literature. Among his other works are Chronological Tables, Mirror of the World, History of the Maritime Wars of the Turks. All the works mentioned have been translated into Latin or modern languages.
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The Mutazilites were an 8th-century liberal Muslim sect that later merged into the Shiahs.
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Mutsuhito was Emperor of Japan from 1867 until 1912. He was born in 1852 and died in 1912. He abolished the feudal system and modernised Japan with state schools, conscription and the Western calendar. Under his rule Japan became a world naval and military power. In 1889 he introduced a constitution.
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Muzio Clementi was an Italian composer. He was born in 1752 and died in 1832. As young as twelve years old he wrote a successful mass for four voices, and had made such progress in the pianoforte that an Englishman, Mr. Beckford, took him to England to complete his studies. He was then engaged as director of the orchestra of the opera in London, and his fame having rapidly increased he went in 1780 to Paris, and in 1781 to Vienna, where he played with Mozart before the emperor. In 1784 he repeated his visit to Paris, but after that remained in England until 1802, when he went back to the Continent. He returned in 1810 to England, where he settled down as superintendent of one of the principal musical establishments in London.
He is best known for his Gradus ad Parnassum pianoforte studies. He was a brilliant pianist, competing with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in a contest at Vienna in 1781. After a brilliant career as a concert pianist he established in London the music-publishing and pianoforte manufacturing business which became Collard & Collard.
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Myers Y Cooper was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Ohio from 1929 until 1931.
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Myleene Klass is an English musician. She was born in 1978 at Norfolk. She forms part of the band 'Hear'say' which achieved prominence through the British television programme 'Popstars' in 2001.
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Myles Cooper was an English clergyman. He was born in 1735 and died in 1785. He was president of King's College, New York, from 1763 until 1775, in which year, being a Tory, he returned to England. His sermon at Oxford, 'On the Causes of the Present Rebellion in America', aroused much controversy.
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Myles Birket Foster was an English water-colour painter and illustrator. He was born in 1825 at North Shields and died in 1899. He trained as a wood- engraver and began a successful career as an illustrator in 1846.
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Myles Standish (also known as Miles Standish) was one of the Pilgrim Fathers. He was born in 1584 at Duxbury, Lancashire and died in 1656. He sailed in the Mayflower for Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. He led the exploring expeditions to discover a suitable place for settlement. He was appointed military captain in 1621, being the first commissioned military officer in New England. He rendered valuable service in repelling Indian hostilities. He visited England in 1625 as agent for the colony and returned with supplies in 1626. He founded Duxbury in 1632. He was a member of the executive council, and for many years treasurer of the colony. His courtship of Priscilla Mullens was commemorated by Henry Longfellow, in his 'Courtship of Miles Standish'.
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Myrick Davies was an American politician. He was a Whig governor of Georgia from 1780 until 1781.
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The Myrmidons were an ancient Greek people of Thessaly, who accompanied Achilles to the Trojan War. They are said to have emigrated into Thessaly under the leadership of Peleus. The term has come to signify the followers of a daring and unscrupulous leader, or the harsh and unfeeling agents of a tyrannical power.
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Myron Holley was an American politician. He was born in 1779 and died in 1841. While in the New York Assembly from 1816 to 1824, he advocated the construction of the Erie Canal. He was prominent among the Anti-Masons, and afterwards laboured on behalf of the Liberty party.
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Myron Holley Clark was an American politician. He was a Whig governor of New York from 1855 until 1856.
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Myron T Herrick was an American politician. He was a Republican governor of Ohio from 1904 until 1906.
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In the mysteries of antiquity, a Mystagogue was one who introduced the person to be initiated; hence, in later times, the term was applied to one who introduced others into the sacred mysteries of the Christian faith.
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