Duke of Cumberland Biography

Duke of Cumberland

(William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland; London, 1721-id., 1765) British military.Son of George II, in the middle of the War of Succession to the Austrian throne (1740-1748) he was appointed commander-in-chief of the allied forces and, shortly after taking office, he was defeated by the troops of the French commander Maurice de Saxe in the battle of Fontenoy (1745).However, that same year he was called by the deposed monarch George II to face the Jacobite revolt of the pretender Carlos Eduardo, whom he defeated in the battle of Culloden Moor in April 1746 and in which nearly a thousand Scots died.In the repression that followed the armed confrontation, he executed around 120 prisoners of war, which has led to his being known by the nickname "the Butcher" ever since.Later, and after staying in Scotland for three months, he returned to the French front, where in July 1747 he lost the Battle of Lauffeld.In July 1757, after being again defeated by the French army, he signed the Klosterzeven convention, by which he promised to evacuate Hannover.This confronted him with his father, the owner of said territory, as a result of which he withdrew.

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Jose Torre Bertucci Biography

José Torre Bertucci (Buenos Aires, 1888- id. , 1970) Argentine composer.A student of A.Williams and E.Fornarini, he stood out as an author of scholastic style music, but influenced by the folklore of his country.

Francisco Galí Biography

Francisco Galí (Seville, 1539-Mexico, 1591) Spanish navigator.In 1582 he undertook a trip to the coast of North America by order of the viceroy of Mexico Pedro Moya.He explored some of the islands of the Hawaiian archipelago, the coast of Baja California and the San Francisco Bay.He wrote an account of his travels.

Joseph Kasavubu Biography

Joseph Kasavubu (Tshela, 1910-Boma, 1969) Politician of Zaire.Defender of the interests of the Congolese vis-à-vis Belgium and of their independence, he actively participated in organizations aimed at achieving these ends, mainly in ABAKO (the nationalist movement "Alianza de Bakongo").He was the first president of the newly proclaimed Republic from 1960 to 1965, once independence from Belgium was achieved. Joseph Kasavubu In an early stage of his life, influenced perhaps by the education received from the Catholic missionaries, he served as a lay teacher.Subsequently, in 1942, he became a senior officer in the civil service, the most important position that a native of the Congo could access within the Belgian colonial administration.At the end of that decade he turned all his efforts into different Congolese independence movements that fought against the Belgian authorities, at the head of cultural organizations and student groups that were really masked political fo...

Hasday ibn Shaprut Biography

Hasday ibn Shaprut (Jaén, 915-Córdoba, 970) Hebraic-Spanish politician and patron.He was in the service of Caliph Abd al-Rahman III and actively intervened in his foreign policy.Appointed head of the Jewish aljamas of al-Andalus, he maintained relations with the eastern and North African Talmudic schools.Patron of his coreligionists, he laid the foundations of Jewish development in al-Andalus.

Jean Jacques Dessalines Biography

Jean Jacques Dessalines (Guinea, 1758-Jacmel, 1806) Emperor of Haiti (1804-1806).A slave in the French colony of Santo Domingo, he adopted the name of his master, from whom he fled in 1789.Two years later, at the outbreak of the black revolution led by Toussaint Louverture, he took his side; organized one of the slave bands that rejected the British invasion attempt and collaborated in the formation of a black state. Jean Jacques Dessalines In 1802 an army sent by Napoleon, under the command of French general Charles Leclerc, overthrew Toussaint Louverture.Dessalines had to accept the deposition and deportation of Toussaint Louverture and surrender to Leclerc, who entrusted him with command of the southern sector of the island.But when Napoleon's intention to reinstate slavery became evident in 1803, Dessalines, taking advantage of the weakness of the French army and with British help, led a rebellion that drove the French from the island. That same year a a congress held ...

Jose Zorrilla Biography

José Zorrilla (Valladolid, 1817-Madrid, 1893) Spanish writer.It is the main representative of medieval and legendary romanticism.In 1833 he entered the University of Toledo as a law student, and in 1835 he went to the University of Valladolid.José Zorrilla published his first verses in the Valladolid newspaper El Artista . José Zorrilla In Madrid, after abandoning his university career, he achieved fame after reading some of his verses at the funeral of Larra (1837).He held the position of the latter in the writing of El Español , where he published the series of poems entitled Poesías (1837), the first of a set of eight volumes that he completed in 1840.His poetic success would be renewed in 1852 with a descriptive poem, Granada , which remained unfinished.In 1839 he married Matilde O'Reilly, of whom he was widowed very soon.

Gerard walschap Biography

Gerard Walschap (Londerzeel, Flanders, 1898-Antwerp, 1989) Belgian writer in the Flemish language.His novels dealt with, from a strictly religious perspective, the political, moral and existential conflicts of the present time.The trilogy The Roothooft Family (1929-1933); Sister Virgilia (1951), his masterpiece; Rebellion in the Congo (1953) and Alter ego (1964).He also wrote plays, poems and essays.

Johann Philipp Wesdin Biography

Johann Philipp Wesdin (Called Pauline of Saint Bartholomew; Hof, 1748-Rome, 1806) Austrian missionary.Carmelite, she learned oriental languages in Rome.A missionary in Malabar, he is the author of the first Sanskrit grammar (1790) and revealed the affinities between this language and the Indo-European.

Fray Mauro Tenda Biography

Fray Mauro Tenda (Nice, 17th century) Savoyard Capuchin.Arrived in Madrid in 1698, his friendship with Froilán Díaz-confessor of King Carlos II-allowed him to enter the court as an exorcist, convincing the king to be possessed.His intrigues in favor of the Austrians in the succession question earned him being arrested (1700) by the Inquisitor General Baltasar de Mendoza, and expelled from Spain.

Ilias Venezis Biography

Ilias Venezis (Aivali, Asia Minor, 1904-Athens, 1973) Greek writer.The novel Matrícula 31328 (1931), which recounts his experience of deportation after the Greco-Turkish war (1920-1921), is his main work.He is also the author of novels ( Serenidad , 1939; Tierra eolia, 1943, and Los vancidos, 1954), of short stories ( The archipelago, 1969), from travel books ( Autumn in Italy, 1950, and Eftalón y viajes, 1973) and from the historical essay Los argonauts (1962).

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