(Encyclopedia) Sigismund II or Sigismund Augustus, 1520–72, king of Poland (1548–72). Crowned in 1530 to assure his succession, he assumed the royal functions at the death of his father, Sigismund I…
(Encyclopedia) RenéRenérənāˈ [key], 1409–80, king of Naples (1435–80; rival claimant to Alfonso V of Aragón and Ferdinand I of Naples), duke of Anjou, Bar, and Lorraine, count of Provence. He was…
(Encyclopedia) Peninsular War, 1808–14, fought by France against Great Britain, Portugal, Spanish regulars, and Spanish guerrillas in the Iberian Peninsula.
The Peninsular War immeasurably…
(Encyclopedia) Louis XII, 1462–1515, king of France (1498–1515), son of Charles, duc d'Orléans. He succeeded his father as duke. While still duke, he rebelled against the regency of Anne de Beaujeu…
(Encyclopedia) Somme, Battles of the, two engagements fought during World War I near the Somme River, N France. The first battle (July–Nov., 1916) was an Allied offensive. The British, commanded by…
Science Experiments by Christine Frantz Cardiff GiantIn 1869, New York cigar maker George Hull had a block of gypsum carved in the likeness of a man over 10 feet tall. It was artificially…
(Encyclopedia) electors, in the history of the Holy Roman Empire, the princes who had the right to elect the German kings or, more exactly, the kings of the Romans (Holy Roman emperors). Until the…
(Encyclopedia) World War I, 1914–18, also known as the Great War, conflict, chiefly in Europe, among most of the great Western powers. It was the largest war the world had yet seen.
World War I…
