Leopold I (b. June 9, 1640 Vienna, Austria—d. May 5, 1705, Vienna) Holy Roman emperor (1658-1705). Son of Ferdinand III, Leopold was a devout Catholic destined for the church, but, when his elder brother died unexpectedly (1654), he became heir apparent to the Austrian Habsburg lands. He was crowned successively king of Hungary (1655) and of Bohe¬ mia (1656), and with his father’s death Leopold became emperor in 1658. During his lengthy reign Austria emerged from a series of struggles to become a great European power. In 1683 the Turks besieged Vienna and were repulsed; war continued until the Turks were defeated and ceded control of Hungary in the Treaty of Carlowitz (1699). Leopold also entered into the War of the Grand Alliance, but the unfavourable peace treaty ceded Strasbourg to France. He was drawn into the War of the Spanish Succession, and he died before its end. His third marriage, to Eleonore of Palatinate-Neuburg, was a happy union that produced 10 children, includ¬ ing the future emperors Joseph I and Charles VI.
Leopold II orig. Leopold-Louis-Philippe-Marie-Victor (b. April 9, 1835, Brussels, Belg.—d. Dec. 17, 1909, Laeken) King of the Belgians (1865-1909). Succeeding his father, Leopold I, he led the first European efforts to develop the Congo River basin. In 1876 he founded an associa¬ tion to explore the Congo area, with Henry Morton Stanley as his main agent. Leopold formed the Congo Free State in 1885 and ruled as its sov¬ ereign. Under Leopold, the Congo became the scene of barbarous cruelty by the colonial masters; when news of the conditions there broke c. 1905, it provoked an international scandal. Under British and U.S. pressure, the region was removed from Leopold’s personal rule and annexed to Bel¬ gium in 1908 as the Belgian Congo. Leopold was succeeded by his nephew, Albert I.
Leopold II (b. May 5, 1747, Vienna—d. March 1, 1792, Vienna) Holy Roman emperor (1790-92). Son of Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I, he became duke of Tuscany in 1765. A practitioner of what has been
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Leopold III ► Lermontov I 1099
termed enlightened despotism, he built an efficient state government and encouraged representative institutions. In 1790 he succeeded his brother Joseph II as emperor and retained many of Joseph’s reforms. In 1792 he allied with Prussia against revolutionary France, precipitating the French Revolutionary Wars.
Leopold III orig. Leopold-Philippe-Charles-Albert-Meinrad- Hubertus-Marie-Miguel (b. Nov. 3, 1901, Brussels, Belg.—d. Sept. 25, 1983, Brussels) King of the Belgians (1934-51). He succeeded his father, Albert I, and favoured an independent foreign policy but not strict neutrality. In World War II he assumed command of the Belgian army, but he surrendered his encircled forces 18 days after the German invasion in May 1940. The Belgian government repudiated his decision to surrender and remain with his forces rather than join the government-in-exile in London. Under house arrest through the war, he later went to Switzerland (1945-50) to await resolution of the controversy. Though 58% of voters voted for his return to the throne, he abdicated in 1951 in favour of his son Baudouin.
Leopold, (Rand) Aldo (b. Jan. 11, 1887, Burlington, Iowa, U.S.—d. April 24, 1948, near Madison, Wis.) U.S. environmentalist. After attend¬ ing Yale University, he worked for the U.S. Forest Service (1909-28), mainly in the Southwest. In 1924 the country’s first national wilderness area (Gila Wilderness Area in New Mexico) was created at Leopold’s urging. From 1933 to 1948 he taught at the University of Wisconsin. A fervent campaigner for the preservation of wildlife and wilderness areas, he was a director of the Audubon Society from 1935 and became a founder of the Wilderness Society in the same year. His Game Management (1933) was followed in 1949 by the posthumous A Sand County Almanac, which eloquently called for the preservation of ecosystems. Read by millions, it strongly influenced the budding environmental movement.
Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen X.ho-ont-'sol-om-'zek- ma-,riq-3n. Prince (b. Sept. 22, 1835, Krauchenweis, Prussia—d. June 8, 1905, Berlin, Ger.) Prussian candidate for the Spanish throne. He was a member of the Swabian line of the Hohenzollern dynasty and the brother of Carol I of Romania. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and Spain’s de facto leader, Juan Prim (1814-70), persuaded the reluctant Leopold to accept the Spanish throne, left vacant in 1868. Under French diplomatic pres¬ sure, Leopold’s candidacy was withdrawn, but Prussia refused to bow to French demands that it never be renewed. The Ems Telegram provoked the French into declaring war (see Franco-Prussian War).
Leopoldville See Kinshasa
Lepanto \le-'pan-to. Battle of (Oct. 7, 1571) Naval engagement between allied Christian forces (Venice, the pope, and Spain) and the Ottoman Turks during an Ottoman campaign to acquire the Venetian island of Cyprus. After four hours of fighting off the coast of Lepanto, Greece, the allies, under Juan de Austria, were victorious, capturing 117 galleys and thousands of men. The battle was of little practical value, since Venice would surrender Cyprus to the Turks in 1573, but it had a great impact on European morale and was the subject of paintings by Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese.
lepidopteran \,le-p9-'dap-t3-r3n\ Any of the more than 100,000 species constituting the order Lepidoptera (Greek: “scaly wing”): butterflies, moths, and skippers. The name refers to the dusting of minute scales that covers the wings and bodies of these insects. A slender proboscis is used for sucking. Nearly all lepidopterans are plant eaters, and species are found on every continent except Antarctica. Females may lay from a few to a thousand or more eggs at a time. All lepidopterans undergo complete metamorphosis. Many types move from one region to another, sometimes crossing thou¬ sands of miles of ocean, but the only species that truly migrates—the same individuals making a two-way flight—is the monarch butterfly.
Lepidus Vle-po-dosN, Marcus Aemilius (d. 13/12 bc) Roman consul (46, 42 bc) and triumvir (43-36). After the death of Julius Caesar, Lep¬ idus controlled parts of Gaul, Spain, and Africa and wielded great influ¬ ence. He and Mark Antony opposed the republican conspirators and in 43 formed the Second Triumvirate with Octavian (later Augustus). He acquired a second Spanish province but lost Spain and Gaul to Antony and Octavian, keeping only Africa. After helping defeat Sextus Pompeius (36), he challenged Octavian, but his soldiers defected and he was forced to retire.
Lepontine Ui-'pan-.tlnV Alps Segment of the central Alps along the Italian-Swiss border. It is bordered by the Pennine Alps in the west and
southwest and the Italian lake district in the south; its highest peak. Mount Leone, rises to 11,657 ft (3,553 m) and lies at its western end. Important passes include Simplon, Saint Gotthard, Lukmanier, and San Bernardino.
leprechaun Vlep-r3-,kan\ In Irish folklore, a fairy in the form of a tiny old man wearing a cocked hat and leather apron. Solitary by nature, leprechauns lived in remote places and worked as shoemakers. Each was believed to possess a hidden crock of gold. If captured and threat¬ ened, a leprechaun might reveal the gold’s hiding place, provided his captor never took his eyes off him.
Usually the captor was tricked into glancing away, and the leprechaun vanished. The word derives from the Old Irish luchorpan (“little body”).