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Italian Wars

(Encyclopedia)Italian Wars, 1494–1559, series of regional wars brought on by the efforts of the great European powers to control the small independent states of Italy. Renaissance Italy was split into numerous ri...

Holy Roman Empire

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Holy Roman Empire (c.1100) CE5 Holy Roman Empire, designation for the political entity that originated at the coronation as emperor (962) of the German king Otto I and endured until the renu...

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

(Encyclopedia)Emerson, Ralph Waldo ĕmˈərsən [key], 1803–82, American poet and essayist, b. Boston. Through his essays, poems, and lectures, the “Sage of Concord” established himself as a leading spokesman...

Peninsular War

(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 raised Britain's mi...

Louis XI, king of France

(Encyclopedia)Louis XI, 1423–83, king of France (1461–83), son and successor of Charles VII. A born diplomat, Louis skillfully checked his foreign and domestic enemies and set up an efficient central administ...

Calhoun, John Caldwell

(Encyclopedia)Calhoun, John Caldwell kălˌho͞onˈ [key], 1782–1850, American statesman and political philosopher, b. near Abbeville, S.C., grad. Yale, 1804. He was an intellectual giant of political life in his...

science

(Encyclopedia)science [Lat. scientia=knowledge]. For many the term science refers to the organized body of knowledge concerning the physical world, both animate and inanimate, but a proper definition would also hav...

Napoleon I

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Napoleonic Europe (1812) Napoleon I nəpōˈlēən, Fr. näpôlāōNˈ [key], 1769–1821, emperor of the French, b. Ajaccio, Corsica, known as “the Little Corporal.” The Napoleonic...

Nile

(Encyclopedia)Nile, longest river in the world, c.4,160 mi (6,695 km) long from its remotest headstream, the Luvironza River in Burundi, central Africa, to its delta on the Mediterranean Sea, NE Egypt. The Nile flo...

Vienna, Congress of

(Encyclopedia)Vienna, Congress of, Sept., 1814–June, 1815, one of the most important international conferences in European history, called to remake Europe after the downfall of Napoleon I. Although the territo...