CHARLOTTE encyclopedia topics

CHARLOTTE - 21 reference results

Yonge, Charlotte Mary, 1823-1901, English novelist. Her writing as well as her life was restricted by the rigid High Church tenets of her upbringing. In spite of their religiosity her books were long popular because of the excellence of their characterization and dialogue. The Heir of Redclyffe (1853), a novel, and The Daisy Chain (1856), a book for girls, are best known. She edited the Monthly Packet from 1851, and many of her stories first appeared there.

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Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education, case decided in 1971 by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court held that the constitutional mandate (see Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans.) to desegregate public schools did not require all schools in a district to reflect the district's racial composition, but that the existence of all-white or all-black schools must be shown not to result from segregation policies. The Court added that because bus transportation had traditionally been employed by school systems, busing could be used in efforts to correct racial imbalances.

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Sophia Charlotte

Sophia Charlotte, 1668-1705, first queen of Prussia, second wife of King Frederick I, daughter of Electress Sophia of Hanover, and sister of King George I of England. She was noted for her literary and philosophical interests and for her friendship with Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz.

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Queen Charlotte Islands

Queen Charlotte Islands, archipelago of several large and many small islands, off the coast of W British Columbia, Canada. The main islands are Graham and Moresby. Masset on Graham Island is the main settlement. About 2,000 of the Islands' 5,700 inhabitants are Haida, a native people whose ancient village, Ninstints, on Skungwai Island, was named a World Heritage Site by the United Nations. There are valuable timber and fishing resources and several good harbors. The Islands attract many scientists and tourists because they escaped glaciation, making them a biologically unique area in Canada. The archipelago was visited in 1774 by Juan Pérez and in 1778 by Capt. James Cook; in 1787 it was surveyed by Capt. George Dixon. Hecate Strait separates it from the mainland; Dixon Entrance lies between it and Alaska to the north; and Queen Charlotte Sound separates it from Vancouver Island to the south.

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Port Charlotte

Port Charlotte, uninc. town (1990 pop. 41,535), Charlotte co., SW Fla., on Charlotte Harbor (an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico) and the Peace and Myakka rivers. It is a planned residential community—one of several on a peninsula once owned by the Vanderbilt family. The area, formerly cattle pasture land, is now popular with retirees and vacationers. Port Charlotte has 145 mi (233 km) of artificial waterways, many with access to the Gulf of Mexico; 38 mi (61 km) of natural shoreline; and 42 bridges. The Cultural Center of Charlotte County and the Florida Bat Center are there. The population increased significantly in the late 20th cent., and the town suffered significant damage from Hurricane Charley in 2004.

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Gilman, Charlotte Perkins

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, 1860-1935, American feminist and reformer, b. Hartford, Conn.; great-granddaughter of Lyman Beecher. Prominent as a lecturer and writer on the labor movement and feminism, she edited the Forerunner, a liberal journal. She wrote many works on social and economic problems, the most important of which is Women and Economics (1898, repr. 1970). Incurably ill, she committed suicide.

See her autobiography (1935).

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Elizabeth Charlotte of Bavaria

Elizabeth Charlotte of Bavaria, 1652-1722, German princess, called the Princess Palatine and also known as Charlotte Elizabeth; wife of Philippe I d'Orléans, brother of King Louis XIV. She abjured the Protestant faith before her marriage (1671). The death of her brother, Elector Charles, provided Louis XIV with an opportunity to use her tenuous claims to part of the Palatinate as a pretext to expand French influence in that area, eventually contributing to the outbreak (1689) of the War of the Grand Alliance. Her frank and vigorous letters are a valuable source for the social history of her time. She was a friend and patron of Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz and mother of Philippe II d'Orléans, regent to King Louis XV.

See her letters ed. by M. Kroll (tr. 1970).

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Cushman, Charlotte Saunders

Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-76, one of the first outstanding American actresses, b. Boston. Cushman turned from opera to drama and in 1835 first played Lady Macbeth, the role in which she was said to be unequaled. Her portrayals of Romeo and Hamlet won her popular favor, but her most celebrated role was Meg Merrilies in Scott's Guy Mannering. An actress of dramatic power and regal bearing, she was the first of her profession to be elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans (1915).

See biography by J. Leach (1970); J. Markus, Across an Untried Sea (2000).

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Corday, Charlotte

Corday, Charlotte (Marie Anne Charlotte Corday d'Armont), 1768-93, assassin of Jean Paul Marat. Although of aristocratic background, she sympathized with the Girondists in the French Revolution and felt that Marat, in his persecution of the Girondists, was acting as the evil genius of France. She resolved to emulate the action of Brutus and destroy the "tyrant." Leaving her native Normandy for Paris, she gained an audience with Marat by promising to betray the Girondists of Caen and stabbed him (July 13, 1793) in his bath. She was guillotined.

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Charlotte Elizabeth

Charlotte Elizabeth: see Elizabeth Charlotte of Bavaria.

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Charlotte Amalie

Charlotte Amalie, town (2000 pop. 11,044), capital of the Virgin Islands of the United States, on St. Thomas Island. It is the commercial center of the islands, a free port, and a popular tourist resort. Founded in the late 17th cent., Charlotte Amalie was a center of Danish colonial life. It became important as a trading center during the American Civil War. It was renamed St. Thomas in 1921, but the former Danish name was restored in 1937. The town still retains a Danish flavor in its architecture and street names; it has one of the oldest synagogues in the New World. The St. Thomas campus of the Univ. of the Virgin Islands is outside the town.

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Charlotte

Charlotte (Charlotte Sophia), 1744-1818, queen consort of George III of England. The niece of Frederick, duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, she was married to George in 1761 and bore him 15 children. When the king became permanently disabled in 1810, she was given charge of his person and his household.

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Charlotte

Charlotte, 1896-1985, grand duchess of Luxembourg (1919-64). The second daughter of Duke William of Nassau-Weilburg and a Portuguese princess, Marie Anne of Braganza, she succeeded her sister, Marie-Adelaide, who had abdicated in her favor. In Nov., 1919, Charlotte married Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma. During the German occupation in World War II, the grand duchess and her family went into exile, eventually settling in Montreal. She returned home in 1945. In Nov., 1964, Charlotte abdicated in favor of her son, Jean.

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Charlotte

Charlotte, city (1990 pop. 395,934), seat of Mecklenburg co., S N.C.; inc. 1768. The largest city in the state and the commercial and industrial leader of the Piedmont region, Charlotte is the third-ranking U.S. banking center as well as an air, transportation, and distribution hub for the Carolina manufacturing belt. Hydroelectricity from the Catawba River powers industries producing textiles, chemicals, clothing, machinery, food, metals, and printed materials.

The Univ. of North Carolina at Charlotte, Queens College, and Johnson C. Smith Univ. are in the city. The Mint Museum of Art is a reproduction of the U.S. Mint located in Charlotte from 1837 until 1913. The city is home to professional football (the Panthers) and basketball (the Hornets) teams. The huge Charlotte Coliseum and high-rise office buildings have transformed the city's skyline since the 1980s. Lowe's (formerly Charlotte) Motor Speedway is in nearby Concord.

The city (settled c.1750) was named for Queen Charlotte, wife of George III of England. Its citizens were among the most outspoken in opposition to the British government, and it was at Charlotte that the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was signed in May, 1775. In his brief occupation of the city (Sept.-Oct., 1780), British General Cornwallis called it a "hornet's nest of rebellion." In 1971, Charlotte and Mecklenburg co. became the scene of the first major court-ordered busing program (ended 1999) to eliminate school segregation.

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Angoulěme, Marie Thérèse Charlotte, duchesse d'

Angoulěme, Marie Thérèse Charlotte, duchesse d', 1778-1851, wife of Louis Antoine d'Angoulěme; daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. She was imprisoned (1792-95) during the French Revolution. Energetic and ambitious, she exerted considerable political influence after the restoration of the French monarchy during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X. She died in Frohsdorf, Austria.

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Queen Charlotte Islands

Group of about 150 islands (pop., 2001: 4,935) off western British Columbia, Canada. They have an area of 3,705 sq mi (9,596 sq km). The two largest islands, Graham and Moresby, are irregular in shape and rise to nearly 4,000 ft (1,200 m). The inhabitants, including Haida Indians, engage in fishing and ranching.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Cushman, Charlotte (Saunders)

Charlotte Cushman as Meg Merrilies in Guy Mannering.

(born July 23, 1816, Boston, Mass., U.S.—died Feb. 18, 1876, Boston) U.S. actress. She made her opera debut in Boston at age 19, but her singing voice soon failed and she turned to acting. In 1837 she first played her most popular role, Meg Merrilies in Guy Mannering, and she became the first native-born U.S. theatre star. From 1842 she managed a theatre in Philadelphia, where she starred with William Macready in Macbeth. In 1854–55 she toured England to great acclaim. Noted for her powerful emotional reach, she portrayed Lady Macbeth and male roles such as Romeo and Hamlet.

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Corday (d'Armont), (Marie-Anne-) Charlotte

Charlotte Corday, engraving by É.-L. Baudran after a portrait by J.-J. Hauer.

(born July 27, 1768, Saint-Saturnin, near Séez, Normandy, France—died July 17, 1793, Paris) French political activist. A noblewoman from Caen, she moved to Paris to work for the Girondin cause in the French Revolution. Horrified at the excesses of the Reign of Terror, she sought an interview with Jean-Paul Marat, one of its leaders. On July 13, 1793, she stabbed him through the heart while he was in his bath. Arrested on the spot, she was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal and guillotined.

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Charlotte Amalie

City (pop., 2000: 11,004), capital of the island of Saint Thomas and of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Lying on St. Thomas Harbor, it was established as a Danish colony in 1672 and named for the Danish queen (its name was St. Thomas during 1921–36). The largest city in the Virgin Islands, it is built on three low volcanic spurs. Two castles, attributed to the pirates Blackbeard and Bluebeard, overlook the harbour. Tourism is economically important.

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Charlotte

City (pop., 2000: 540,828), North Carolina, U.S. The Carolinas' biggest metropolis, it lies near the Catawba River, 15 mi (24 km) north of South Carolina. It was settled circa 1748 and named for Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Streliz (later the wife of George III). In the American Revolution it was occupied by Lord Cornwallis, who dubbed it “the hornet's nest.” Until the California gold rush that began in 1848, it was the centre of U.S. gold production. In the American Civil War it was the site of a Confederate naval yard. Presidents Andrew Jackson and James Polk were born nearby and received their early schooling there. Its industry includes textiles, machinery, and chemical production, and it is the site of several institutions of higher education.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.