Hellespont See Dardanelles
Heilman, Lillian (Florence) (b. June 20, 1905, New Orleans, La., U.S.—d. June 30, 1984, Vineyard Haven, Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.) U.S. playwright. After working as a book reviewer, press agent, and play reader, she began writing plays in the 1930s. Her first major success. The Chil¬ dren’s Hour (1934), concerned two schoolteachers falsely accused of les¬ bianism. She examined family infighting in her hit The Little Foxes { 1939) and political injustice in Watch on the Rhine (1941). All were made into successful films. Called before the House Un-American Activities Com¬ mittee in 1952, she refused to testify. She wrote several memoirs and edited the works of her longtime companion, the novelist Dashiell Hammett.
Hells Canyon Gorge of the Snake River in the U.S. Forming part of the Idaho-Oregon boundary, it is 125 mi (200 km) long and for 40 mi (64 km) is more than a mile deep. A maximum depth of 7,900 ft (2,400 m) makes it the deepest gorge in North America. With its surrounding area of 662,000 acres (268,000 hectares), Hells Canyon was designated a national recreation area in 1975.
Helmand River or Helmund Vhel-mondX River ancient Etyman- der River, southwestern Afghanistan and eastern Iran. Rising in east- central Afghanistan, it flows southwest across more than half the country before flowing north for a short distance through Iran and emptying into the Helmand (Sistan) swamps on the border of Afghanistan and Iran. At 870 mi (1,400 km) long, it is one of Afghanistan’s most important rivers and has been extensively developed for irrigation. A long-standing dis¬ pute between Afghanistan and Iran has centred on Iran’s claim to a por¬ tion of the Helmand’s waters.
Helmholtz Vhelm- I holts\ / Hermann (Ludwig Ferdinand) von
(b. Aug. 31, 1821, Potsdam, Prussia—d. Sept. 8, 1894, Charlottenburg, Berlin, Ger.) German scientist, one of the greatest of the 19th century. After training in medicine, he taught physiology and later physics at sev¬ eral German universities. His interests continually shifted to new disci¬ plines, in which he applied his earlier insights to every problem he examined. He made fundamental contributions to physiology, optics, elec¬ trodynamics, mathematics, acoustics, and meteorology, but is best known for his statement (1847) of the law of conservation of energy. His approach was strongly empirical at a time when many scientists embraced deduc¬ tions from mental concepts. He invented several measurement instru¬ ments, including the myograph, ophthalmoscope, and ophthalmometer. He described body heat and energy, nerve conduction, and the physiol¬ ogy of the eye. His mathematical analysis of vortices in fluids (1858) was a tour de force. His work in electrodynamics built on that of Michael Fara¬ day and James Clerk Maxwell but was eventually superseded by that of Albert Einstein.
Helmont, Jan Baptista van (b. Jan. 12, 1580, Brussels, Belg.—d. Dec. 30, 1644, Vilvoorde, Spanish Netherlands) Belgian chemist, physi¬ ologist, and physician. Though he tended to mysticism, he was a careful observer and exact experimenter. The first to recognize gases other than air, he coined the word gas and discovered that the “wild spirits” (carbon dioxide) produced by burning charcoal and by fermenting grape juice were the same. For applying chemical principles to digestion and nutri¬ tion, he has been called the “father of biochemistry.” His collected works were published in 1648.
helot \'he-bt\ Any of the native peoples of Laconia and Messenia con¬ quered and controlled by Sparta. They were state-owned serfs or slaves who worked the land to feed and clothe the Spartan population, whom they vastly outnumbered. Their masters could not free them or sell them. The Spartans lived in constant fear of a helot revolt and annually declared war on them to legally keep them in place by force. During wartime, helots attended their masters on campaigns, serving as troops and as rowers in the fleet. The Messenian helots were liberated c. 370 bc, those in Laconia not until the 2nd century bc.
Helper, Hinton Rowan (b. Dec. 27, 1829, Davie county, N.C., U.S.—d. March 9, 1909, Washington, D.C.) U.S. antislavery writer. His 1857 work The Impending Crisis of the South argued that slavery harmed nonslaveholding whites and inhibited economic progress in the South. It became influential in the antislavery movement in the North; in the South it caused a furor and was banned in several states. For his safety Helper moved to New York City. After the American Civil War, Helper wrote three bitter racist tracts advocating the deportation of blacks to Africa or Latin America.
Helpmann, Sir Robert (Murray) (b. April 9, 1909, Mount Gam- bier, Austl.—d. Sept. 28, 1986, Sydney) Australian ballet dancer, chore¬ ographer, actor, and director. After dancing and acting in Australia, in 1933 he went to London to study, joining the Vic-Wells Ballet (later Royal Ballet), where he became a regular partner of Margot Fonteyn. His own ballets included Hamlet (1942), Miracle in the Gorbals (1944), and Adam Zero (1946). He danced in the films The Red Shoes and Tales of Hoff¬ mann, acted in many Shakespeare plays, and also directed several plays. He was artistic codirector of the Australian Ballet (1965-76).
Helsinki Swedish Helsingfors City (pop., 2002 est.: city, 559,718; metro, area, 964,953), capital of Finland. Located in southern Finland on a peninsula with natural harbours, it is the country’s leading seaport. Often called the “white city of the north” because many of its buildings are made of a local light-coloured granite, it was founded by Sweden in 1550 and moved to its present site in 1640. With Finland it came under Russian rule in 1808. Under Russian Tsar Alexander I, Helsinki became the capital of the grand duchy of Finland in 1812, and it remained as the capital of the coun¬ try. In 1917 Finland declared independence from Russia, and a brief but bloody civil war ensued in the capital. In subsequent decades it developed into an important trade centre. It was damaged by Russian bombing during World War II (see Russo- Finnish War) but was rebuilt. It was the site of a 1975 international diplomatic conference (see Helsinki Accords). Helsinki has theatres, an opera and ballet company, and several symphony orches¬ tras, and it hosted the 1952 Olympic Summer Games.
Helsinki Accords International agreement signed in 1975, designed to reduce tension between the Soviet and Western blocs. It was an attempt to secure common acceptance of the post-World War II status quo in Europe, including the division of Germany. The accords, signed by all the countries of Europe (except Albania) as well as the U.S. and Canada, were nonbinding and lacked treaty status. They were sought by the Soviet Union to gain implicit recognition of its postwar hegemony in eastern Europe. In return, the U.S. and its western European allies pressed for respect for human rights and cooperation in economic, scientific, and other humanitarian areas. Follow-up meetings in Belgrade (1977-78), Madrid (1980-83), and Ottawa (1985) were marked by strong criticism of Soviet human-rights abuses and by Soviet counteraccusations. A 1990 conference in Paris formally ended the Cold War and recognized German reunification.
Helvetic Republic Republic founded in March 1798, constituting the greater part of Switzerland, after it had been conquered by France in the French Revolutionary Wars. The government was patterned after that of the Directory in France. Delegates called on Napoleon to mediate in fac¬ tional disputes, and in 1803 he substituted a new Swiss Confederation for the republic, forcing it into close association with France.
Helvetius \el-vas-'yiEs\, Claude-Adrien (b. Jan. 26, 1715, Paris, France—d. Dec. 26, 1771, Vore, Collines des Perches) French philoso¬ pher, controversialist, and patron of the philosophes. He is remembered for his hedonism, his criticism of the religious foundations of ethics, and his educational theory. His On the Mind (1758) immediately became notori¬ ous for its attack on all forms of morality based on religion. He held that all men are equally capable of learning—a belief that led him to argue against the position taken by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his work Emile — and that through education all human problems could be solved.