Lay investiture - The induction of clerics by a king (a layman).
Lenin, Vladimir(1870-1924) - The leader of the Bolshevik party and the first Premier of the Soviet Union; enacted the New Economic Policy.
Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519) - Italian Renaissance architect, inventor, engineer, sculptor, and painter; most known for The Last Supper and Mona Lisa; the archetype of the "Renaissance man."
Leopold III(1835?1909) - King of Belgium; founder of the Congo Free State, a private project to extract rubber and ivory.
Levée en masse - French term for mass conscription, used to mobilize armies during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Lord - The owner of land who grants a fief to a vassal (feudal system).
Lorenzo de' Medici(1449-1492) - Ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Renaissance; Christian supporter of Platonism and humanism.
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte(1808-1873) - The nephew of the Emperor Napoleon I of France; member of the Carbonari in his youth; elected President of the Second Republic of France in 1848; reigned as Emperor Napoleon III of the Second French Empire from 1852 to 1870.
