Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Mühlberg mülˈbĕrkh [key], town, Saxony, E central Germany, on the Elbe River. In 1547, Emperor Charles V defeated the Schmalkaldic League there and captured Elector John Frederick I of Saxony. ...

(Encyclopedia) Ward, Frederick Townsend, 1831–62, American adventurer, b. Salem, Mass. A soldier of fortune, he served with William Walker in Nicaragua and with the French forces in the Crimean War. Ward arrived i...

(Encyclopedia) Charles X, 1622–60, king of Sweden (1654–60), nephew of Gustavus II. The son of John Casimir, count palatine of Zweibrücken, he brought the house of Wittelsbach to the Swedish throne when his cou...

(Encyclopedia) Westphalia, Peace of, 1648, general settlement ending the Thirty Years War. It marked the end of the Holy Roman Empire as an effective institution and inaugurated the modern European state system. The...

(Encyclopedia) Frederick VII, 1808–63, king of Denmark, duke of Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg (1848–63), son and successor of Christian VIII. He accepted a liberal constitution in 1849 that ended the absolu...

(Encyclopedia) Frederick III, king of Prussia: see Frederick III, 1831–88, emperor of Germany and king of Prussia. ...

(Encyclopedia) Temple, William, 1881–1944, archbishop of York (1929–42) and archbishop of Canterbury (1942–44); son of Frederick Temple. At Balliol College, Oxford, he became (1904) president of the Oxford Uni...

(Encyclopedia) Brunswick, dukes of: see Charles William Ferdinand; Ferdinand; Frederick William. ...

(Encyclopedia) Wittelsbach vĭˈtəlsbäkh [key], German dynasty that ruled Bavaria from 1180 until 1918. The family takes its name from the ancestral castle of Wittelsbach in Upper Bavaria. In 1180 Holy Roman Emper...

(Encyclopedia) Spalatin, George shpäˈlätēn [key], 1484–1545, German Protestant reformer. His original name was Georg Burckhardt; he was called Spalatin after his birthplace, Spalt, near Nuremberg. An early fri...