U Nu (1907-1995) was the first prime minister of independent Burma (now called Myanmar) after freedom was obtained in 1948 from British colonial rule. He was also a leader of the Buddhist revival and a noted writer. After being ousted by t...

Yoshiko Uchida almost single-handedly created a body of Japanese-American literature for children, where none existed before. As the first Nissei writer to devote an entire career to writing for young people about her own rich cultural her...

The Italian author Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827) was a poet, critic, and dramatist as well as a patriot. His romantic temperament and flamboyant life characterize his role as a key transitional figure in Italian literary history. Born Niccol&ogr...

Ulfilas (ca. 311-ca. 382), Arian bishop of the Visigoths, or West Goths, translated at least part of the Bible into Gothic. He developed the Gothic alphabet on the basis of the Greek and Roman alphabets and enriched the Gothic, or East Ger...

The German imperial knight and humanist Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523) advocated the dissolution of Germany's ties with the papacy. He advanced an unrealistic program, however, for solving German national problems by reversion to medieval k...

Omar ibn al-Khattab (died 644) was the second caliph of the Moslems and directed the spectacular Arab conquests and organized the Arab Empire. Because Omar was one of the most adamant opponents of Mohammed's preaching in Mecca, his dramati...

The Italian artist Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) was the leading theoretician of futurism, the most talented of its painters, and the creator of its first sculptures. He is considered the master of the innovative esthetic generated by the m...

The Italian explorer and airship designer Umberto Nobile (1885-1978) was a pioneer in Arctic aviation. His dirigible flight over the North Pole encouraged greater use of aircraft in the Arctic. Umberto Nobile was born in Lauro, Italy, near...

Upton Sinclair was a writer whose main concerns were politics and economics. His ideas about literature—his own, written over more than six decades, and that of others—were inseparable from his dreams of social justice. Consequ...

Urho Kekkonen (1900--1986) was Finland's president from 1956 to 1981. He kept the nation on a steady political course, despite continuing to keep that nation actively politically neutral to assure peaceful relations with its powerful neigh...

Queen Urraca (c. 1078--1126), who ruled the Kingdom of Leon-Castilla (also known as Castille-Leon) in northern Spain from 1109 to 1126, was the only woman during the Spanish medieval era to rule in her own right. The failure of her politic...

Uthman don Fodio (1755-1816) was a Moslem teacher and theologian. One of the principal reformers of Islam in Hausaland in Northern Nigeria, he founded an Islamic empire at the beginning of the 19th century. Uthman don Fodio whose complete ...

Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806), one of the greatest masters of the Ukiyo-e school of Japanese wood-block printing, excelled in the exotic portrayal of Japanese women, especially those of the Yoshiwara district. Many contemporary critics rega...