elector of Saxony and a fervent supporter of Martin Luther; he took a leading part in forming alliances among Germany's Protestant princes against the Habsburg emperors' attempts at forced reconversion.
margrave of Brandenburg-Kustrin and a German Protestant ruler who remained loyal to the Catholic Habsburg emperors; he fought against his fellow Protestant princes and was conspicuously successful in the government of his territories.
king of Saxony (1854-73) who was passionately interested in law and in the arts. Under the name Philalethes he published a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (1839-49).
king of England from 1199 to 1216. In a war with the French king Philip II, he lost Normandy and almost all his other possessions in France. In England, after a revolt of the barons, he was forced to seal ...
king of Bohemia from 1310 until his death, and one of the more popular heroic figures of his day, who campaigned across Europe from Toulouse to Prussia.
king of Denmark (1481-1513) and Norway (1483-1513) and king (as John II) of Sweden (1497-1501) who failed in his efforts to incorporate Sweden into a Danish-dominated Scandinavian union. He was more successful in fostering the commercial development of Danish burghers ...
mapmaking and publishing company of the United Kingdom, located in Edinburgh and specializing in the use of hypsometric (layer) colouring in relief maps. The company was established in 1826 by John Bartholomew. It originally published such diverse items as checkbooks, ...
private organization founded in the United States on Dec. 9, 1958, by Robert H.W. Welch, Jr. (1899-1985), a retired Boston candy manufacturer, for the purpose of combating Communism and promoting various ultraconservative causes. The name derives from John Birch, an ...
in literature and political caricature, a conventional personification of England or of English character. Bull was invented by the Scottish mathematician and physician John Arbuthnot as a character in an extended allegory that appeared in a series of five pamphlets ...
private, coeducational institution of higher learning in University Heights, Ohio, U.S. It is affiliated with the Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic church. The university comprises the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Business, and the Graduate School. ...
Byzantine monk and author of Climax tou paradeisou (Greek: "The Ladder of Divine Ascent," the source of his name "John of the Ladder"), a handbook on the ascetical and mystical life that has become a Christian spiritual classic.
city, Grant county, northeast-central Oregon, U.S., situated at the confluence of John Day River and Canyon Creek, near the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness Area. (The North Fork of the John Day is part of the U.S. Wild and Scenic Rivers system.) ...
Ernestine duke of Saxony, or Saxe-Coburg-Eisenach, whose attempts to regain the electoral dignity, lost by his father to the rival Albertine branch of the House of Wettin, led to his capture and incarceration until his death.
last elector of the Ernestine branch of the Saxon House of Wettin and leader of the Protestant Schmalkaldic League. His wars against the Holy Roman emperor Charles V and his fellow princes caused him to lose both the electoral rank ...
elector of Brandenburg who in 1571 succeeded his father, Joachim II. Under his rule the divided electorate was reunited. His economies earned him the surname Oekonom (Steward) and made him popular with the nobility, to whom he granted concessions at ...
elector of Saxony from 1611, whose irresolution lost for Saxony, then the richest and most powerful of the German states, opportunities for ascendancy and territorial expansion.
hero of a widely sung U.S. black folk ballad. It describes his contest with a steam drill, in which John Henry crushed more rock than did the machine but died "with his hammer in his hand." Writers and artists see ...
high priest and ruler of the Jewish nation from 135/134 to 104 BC. Under his reign the Hasmonean kingdom of Judaea in ancient Palestine attained power and great prosperity, and the Pharisees, a scholarly sect with popular backing, and the ...
high priest of Judaea from 76 to 40 BC, and, with his brother Aristobulus II, last of the Maccabean (Hasmonean) dynastic rulers. Under Hyrcanus' vacillating leadership, Judaea (southern of the three traditional divisions of ancient Palestine, today mostly in Israel) ...
king of Aragon (1387-1395), son of Peter IV. Influenced by his wife, Violante, he pursued a pro-French policy but refused to become involved in the Hundred Years' War. He died by a fall from his horse, like his namesake, cousin, ...
king of France, the posthumous son of Louis X of France by his second consort, Clemence of Hungary. He died just a few days after his birth but is nevertheless reckoned among the kings of France.
duke of Brittany (from 1237), son of Peter I. Like his father, he sought to limit the temporal power of the clergy; consequently he was excommunicated, upon which he journeyed to Rome to win absolution. Subsequently, he and his wife, ...
king of Portugal from 1385 to 1433, who preserved his country's independence from Castile and initiated Portugal's overseas expansion. He was the founder of the Aviz, or Joanina (Johannine), dynasty.
Byzantine emperor (969-976) whose extension of Byzantine influence into the Balkans and Syria and maintenance of domestic tranquillity assured the prestige and stability of the empire for his immediate successors.
pope from 523 to 526 who ended the Acacian Schism (484-519), thus reuniting the Eastern and Western churches by restoring peace between the papacy and the Byzantine emperor Justin I.
king of France from 1350 to 1364. Captured by the English at the Battle of Poitiers on Sept. 19, 1356, he was forced to sign the disastrous treaties of 1360 during the first phase of the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) ...
king of Castile from 1406 to 1454; his political weakness led him to rely on his favourite, Alvaro de Luna, whom he made constable. He was nevertheless considered a man of cultivated taste and a patron of poets.
duke of Brittany (from 1286) and count of Richemont, son of John I. He accompanied his father on St. Louis's crusade to Tunisia (1270) and fought also in Palestine. He returned to Europe in 1272 and, in subsequent years, shifted ...
king of Portugal from 1481 to 1495, regarded as one of the greatest Portuguese rulers, chiefly because of his ruthless assertion of royal authority over the great nobles and his resumption of the exploration of Africa and the quest for ...
count of Hainaut (1280-1304) and of the Dutch provinces of Holland and Zeeland (1299-1304), who united the counties and prevented the northward expansion of the house of Dampierre, the counts of Flanders.
king of Aragon (1458-79) and also king of Navarre (1425-79); he was the instigator of the union of Castile and Aragon through the historic marriage of his son Ferdinand with Isabella of Castile.
king of Poland (1648-68) and pretender to the Swedish throne, whose reign was marked by heavy losses of Polish territory incurred in wars against the Ukrainians, Tatars, Swedes, and Russians.
Byzantine emperor (1118-43) whose reign was characterized by unremitting attempts to reconquer all important Byzantine territory lost to the Arabs, Turks, and Christian Crusaders.
duke of Brittany (from 1312), son of Arthur II. His death without heirs resulted in the War of the Breton Succession, pitting two indirect heirs, John of Montfort and Charles of Blois. Despite three marriages-to Isabella of Valois (d. 1309), ...
king of Sweden (1568-92), a deeply religious ruler who attempted to reconcile the Swedish Lutheran Church with the Catholic leadership in Rome and to revive discarded elements of the Catholic liturgy.
king of Portugal from 1521 to 1557. His long reign saw the development of Portuguese seapower in the Indian Ocean, the occupation of the Brazilian coast, and the establishment of the Portuguese Inquisition and of the Society of Jesus.
emperor of Nicaea (1222-54) who, by acquiring territory, encouraging economic growth, and supporting a cultural revival from his capital at Nicaea (modern Iznik, Turkey), paved the way for the recovery of Constantinople from the Latin emperors and the reestablishment of ...
