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Commagene

(Encyclopedia)Commagene kŏməjēˈnē [key], ancient district of N Syria, on the Euphrates River and S of the Taurus range, now in SE Asian Turkey. Its metropolis, Samosata, was founded by Samos, the king of Comma...

Ladislaus IV

(Encyclopedia)Ladislaus IV, 1262–90, king of Hungary (1272–90), son and successor of Stephen V. Ladislaus became unpopular by favoring the Cumans, from whom he was descended through his mother. During his reign...

Malcolm IV

(Encyclopedia)Malcolm IV, 1141–65, king of Scotland (1153–65), grandson and successor of David I. On his accession the young king was at once faced with a rebellion of the western Gaels, supported by the Norse,...

Mustafa IV

(Encyclopedia)Mustafa IV, 1778–1808, Ottoman sultan (1807–8), son of Abd al-Hamid I. He was raised to the throne by the reactionary Janissaries who had deposed Mustafa's cousin, Selim III, because they opposed ...

Murad IV

(Encyclopedia)Murad IV, 1612?–1640, Ottoman sultan (1623–40), nephew and successor of Mustafa I. He recovered (1638) Baghdad, which Shah Abbas I of Persia had seized. On his victory he sent an order to murder h...

Gustavus IV

(Encyclopedia)Gustavus IV, 1778–1837, king of Sweden (1792–1809). On the assassination of his father, Gustavus III, he succeeded under the regency of his uncle, later King Charles XIII, a liberal. Attaining his...

Haakon IV

(Encyclopedia)Haakon IV (Haakon Haakonsson), 1204–63, king of Norway (1217–63), illegitimate son of Haakon III and grandson of Sverre. Secretly reared by the Birkebeiner faction (see Sverre), he was chosen king...

Geoffrey IV

(Encyclopedia)Geoffrey IV, known as Geoffrey Plantagenet plătăjˈənət [key] [O.Fr.,=sprig of broom; he usually wore a sprig in his helmet], 1113–51, count of Anjou (1129–51); son of Fulk, count of Anjou and...

Innocent IV

(Encyclopedia)Innocent IV, d. 1254, pope (1243–54), a Genoese named Sinibaldo Fieschi, a distinguished jurist who studied and later taught law at the Univ. of Bologna; successor of Celestine IV. He was of a noble...

Ivan IV

(Encyclopedia)Ivan IV or Ivan the Terrible, 1530–84, grand duke of Moscow (1533–84), the first Russian ruler to assume formally the title of czar. In his later years, Ivan's character, always stern, grew tyra...