A-Z Browse

Chinese middle- and long-distance runner, who in 1993 set world records for women in the 3,000-metre and 10,000-metre events....

The dynasty that ruled Koryŏ was formed by General Wang Kŏn, who in 918 overthrew the state of Later Koguryŏ, established in north-central Korea by the monk Kungye. Changing the name of the state to Koryŏ, he established his capital at Songak, present-day Kaesŏng. With the surrender of the kingdoms of Silla, in 935, and of Later Paekche, in 936, Wang......

Chinese scholar, historian, literary critic, and poet known for his Western approach to Chinese history....

Chinese-born American executive and electronics engineer who founded Wang Laboratories....

Chinese revolutionary and ardent supporter of Chairman Mao Zedong and his Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s who nonetheless was imprisoned, 1967-82, on Mao’s orders after he incited the Red Guards to seize the Foreign Ministry (b. 1921--d. Oct. 21, 1996)....

founder of the short-lived Xin dynasty (ad 9–25). He is known in Chinese history as Shehuangdi (the “Usurper Emperor”), because his reign (ad 9–23) and that of his successor interrupted the Liu family’s succession of China’s Han dynasty (206 bc–...

...literature,” a sort of national catharsis that immediately followed the 10-year “holocaust,” gave way to more professional and more daring writing, as exemplified in the stories of Wang Meng, with their stylistic experiments in stream of consciousness; the symbolic “obscure” poetry of Pei Tao and others; the relatively bold dramas, both for the stage and for t...

Chinese painter who is placed among the group later known as the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty (1206–1368), although, being in the second generation of that group, he had a more personal style that was less based upon the emulation of ancient masters....

...a systematic treatise on painting them; he remains unsurpassed as a skilled bamboo painter. Kao K’o-kung followed Mi Fu and Mi Yu-jen in painting cloudy landscapes that symbolized good government. Wang Mien, who served not the Mongols but anti-Mongol forces at the end of the dynasty, set the highest standard for the painting of plums, a symbol of irrepressible purity and, potentially, of...

...of Nationalist-communist rivalry for the leadership of the united front are related to the continuing struggle for supremacy within the Chinese Communist Party, for Mao’s two chief rivals—Wang Ming, who had just returned from a long stay in Moscow, and Zhang Guotao (Chang Kuo-t’ao), who had at first refused to accept Mao’s political and military leadership—wer...

one of the most famous men of arts and letters during the Tang dynasty, one of the golden ages of Chinese cultural history. Wang is popularly known as a model of humanistic education as expressed in poetry, music, and painting. In the 17th century the writer on art Dong Qichang established Wang as the founder of the revered Southern school o...

Chinese businesswoman who became Asia’s richest woman after she inherited the estate of her husband, Teddy Wang, the founder of Chinachem Group, a private property firm, and built it into a multinational empire. After her husband was kidnapped in 1990 (he was declared legally dead in 1999), Wang waged a contentious legal battle with her father-in-law, who sought control of his son’s...

...given to eunuchs considered loyal to the throne. The death of Dezong in 805 was followed by the brief reign of Shunzong, an invalid monarch whose court was dominated by the clique of Wang Shuwen and Wang Pei. They planned to take control of the palace armies from the eunuchs but failed....

one of the most brilliant and precocious Chinese philosophers of his day....

Chinese prose writer and critic who was the first Chinese literary theorist to promote the Marxist point of view....

associate of the revolutionary Nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen, rival of Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) for control of the Nationalist government in the late 1920s and early ’30s, and finally head of the regime established in 1940 to govern the Japanese-conquered territory in China....

...is drained largely by two river systems: the Chao Phraya in the west and the Mekong in the east. Three major rivers in the northern mountains—from west to east, the Ping (and its tributary the Wang), the Yom, and the Nan—flow generally south through narrow valleys to the plains and then merge to form the Chao Phraya, Thailand’s principal river. The delta floodplain of the C...

The kŏmungo was invented in the 7th century ad by Korean musician Wang San-ak. Since the Koryŏ dynasty it has been an essential instrument in court ensemble music (hyang-ak). The kŏmungo is part of many types of court and folk music ensembles and i...

...the empire was entirely pacified. After the suppression of Xue Ju and the pacification of the northwest, the Tang had to contend with three principal rival forces: the Sui remnants commanded by Wang Shichong at Luoyang, the rebel Li Mi in Henan, the rebel Dou Jiande in Hebei, and Yuwen Huaji, who had assassinated the previous Sui emperor Yangdi and now led the remnants of the Sui’s south...

leading dramatist of the Yuan dynasty (1206–1368), which saw the flowering of Chinese drama....

leading dramatist of the Yuan dynasty (1206–1368), which saw the flowering of Chinese drama....

probably the paramount member of the group of Chinese painters known as the Four Wangs (including Wang Shimin, 1592–1680, Wang Jian, 1598–1677, and Wang Yuanqi, 1642–1715), who represented the so-called “orthodox school” of painting in the Ming and early Qing periods. The orthodox school was based upon the dicta laid down by Dong Qichang (1555–1636). It wa...

...different Tang and Song exemplars. No Ming practitioner of traditional poetry has won special esteem, though Ming literati churned out poetry in prodigious quantities. The historians Song Lian and Wang Shizhen and the philosopher-statesman Wang Yangming were among the dynasty’s most noted prose stylists, producing expository writings of exemplary lucidity and straightforwardness. Perhaps...

Chinese scholar-official whose Idealistic interpretation of Neo-Confucianism influenced philosophical thinking in East Asia for centuries. Though his government career was rather unstable, his suppression of rebellions brought a century of peace to his region. His philosophical doctrines, emphasizing understanding of the world from within the mind, were in dir...

...Command was given to eunuchs considered loyal to the throne. The death of Dezong in 805 was followed by the brief reign of Shunzong, an invalid monarch whose court was dominated by the clique of Wang Shuwen and Wang Pei. They planned to take control of the palace armies from the eunuchs but failed....

one of the pioneers of modern journalism in China and early leader of the movement to reform traditional Chinese institutions along Western lines....

one of the pioneers of modern journalism in China and early leader of the movement to reform traditional Chinese institutions along Western lines....

one of the most famous men of arts and letters during the Tang dynasty, one of the golden ages of Chinese cultural history. Wang is popularly known as a model of humanistic education as expressed in poetry, music, and painting. In the 17th century the writer on art Dong Qichang established Wang as the founder of the revered Southern school o...

The greatest exponents of Chinese calligraphy were Wang Xizhi and his son Wang Zianzhi in the 4th century. Few of their original works have survived, but a number of their writings were engraved on stone tablets and woodblocks, and rubbings were made from them. Many great calligraphers imitated their styles, but none ever surpassed them for artistic transformation....

Chinese mathematician who made important advances in the solution of problems involving cubic equations....

the most celebrated of Chinese calligraphers....

Chinese scholar-official whose Idealistic interpretation of Neo-Confucianism influenced philosophical thinking in East Asia for centuries. Though his government career was rather unstable, his suppression of rebellions brought a century of peace to his region. His philosophical doctrines, emphasizing understanding of the world from within the mind, were in dir...

Chinese scholar-official whose Idealistic interpretation of Neo-Confucianism influenced philosophical thinking in East Asia for centuries. Though his government career was rather unstable, his suppression of rebellions brought a century of peace to his region. His philosophical doctrines, emphasizing understanding of the world from within the mind, were in dir...

one of the three major schools of Neo-Confucianism that developed in Japan during the Tokugawa period (1603–1867). See Neo-Confucianism....

...was in 118 volumes. One of the richest and most important of all Chinese encyclopaedias, the Yuhai (“Sea of Jade”), was compiled about 1267 by the renowned Song scholar Wang Yinglin (1223–92) and was reprinted in 240 volumes in 1738....

one of the most famous men of arts and letters during the Tang dynasty, one of the golden ages of Chinese cultural history. Wang is popularly known as a model of humanistic education as expressed in poetry, music, and painting. In the 17th century the writer on art Dong Qichang established Wang as the founder of the revered Southern school o...

the most celebrated of Chinese calligraphers....

probably the paramount member of the group of Chinese painters known as the Four Wangs (including Wang Shimin, 1592–1680, Wang Jian, 1598–1677, and Wang Yuanqi, 1642–1715), who represented the so-called “orthodox school” of painting in the Ming and early Qing periods. The orthodox school was based upon the dicta laid down by Dong Qichang (1555–1636). It wa...

Chinese eunuch who monopolized power during the first reign of the Ming emperor Yingzong (reigned as Zhengtong; 1435–49)....

Chinese politician and military leader (b. 1908, Liuyang [Liu-yang] county, Hunan province, China--d. March 12, 1993, Guangzhou [Canton], Guangdong [Kwangtung], China), was an uncompromising hard-liner who used his position as vice president (1988-93) of China to promote Maoism. He supported Deng Xiaoping (Teng Hsiao-p’ing) in the military suppression of the student-led 1989 Tiananmen (T...

Wang Mang was born into a distinguished Chinese family. Three years earlier, his father’s half sister Wang Zhengjun had become the empress with the accession of the Yuandi emperor. Upon the death of her husband, she was given the traditional title of empress dowager, which meant added prestige and influence for herself and her clan. Yuandi’s successor, the Chengdi emperor, her son an...

...the empire enjoyed stability, tranquillity, and prosperity. But state administration began to suffer when weak emperors were exploitatively dominated by favoured eunuchs: Wang Zhen in the 1440s, Wang Zhi in the 1470s and ’80s, and Liu Jin from 1505 to 1510. The Hongxi (reigned 1424–25), Xuande (1425–35), and Hongzhi (1487–1505) emperors were nevertheless able and......

The greatest exponents of Chinese calligraphy were Wang Xizhi and his son Wang Zianzhi in the 4th century. Few of their original works have survived, but a number of their writings were engraved on stone tablets and woodblocks, and rubbings were made from them. Many great calligraphers imitated their styles, but none ever surpassed them for artistic transformation....

city (“district”) and port, southwestern North Island, New Zealand, near the mouth of the Wanganui River. The site lies within a tract bought by the New Zealand Company in 1840. The company established a settlement in 1841 and named it Petre. It was renamed in 1844, the present name deriving from a Maori term meaning “big mouth,” “big bay,...

river in central North Island, New Zealand. It rises on the western slopes of Mount Ngauruhoe and flows northwest to Taumarunui and then south to empty into the Tasman Sea at South Taranaki Bight. Draining a basin of 2,850 square miles (7,380 square km), the Wanganui, 180 miles (290 km) long, is fed by the Ongarue, Tangarakau, and Ohura rivers. A sandbar at its mouth, near Wanganui city, blocks t...

city, northern Victoria, Australia. It lies at the confluence of the Ovens and King rivers, northeast of Melbourne. The site was first settled in 1837 by a sheepherder, George Faithfull, and was proclaimed a town in 1845. Its name is derived from an Aboriginal term meaning either “meeting of the rivers” or “home of the cormorants.” The city is a junct...

...Shiji, a comprehensive history written during the 1st century bc, and much ingenuity has been devoted to identifying certain Late Neolithic fortified sites—such as Wangchenggang (“Mound of the Royal City”) in north-central Henan and Dengxiafeng in Xia county (possibly the site of Xiaxu, “Ruins of Xia”?), southern Shanxi...

...days by mule could be made in just a few hours by car along a winding mountain road from the border town of Phuntsholing. The governmental structure also changed radically. Reforms initiated by King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk (reigned 1952–72) in the 1950s and ’60s led to a shift away from absolute monarchy in the 1990s and toward the institution of multiparty parliamentary democracy in...

On Dec. 14, 2006, Jigme Singye Wangchuk abdicated, passing the throne to his Oxford-educated son, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk. This event catalyzed the country’s transition to a fully democratic government. Over the next year the public was trained in the democratic process through a mock vote, and the country’s first official elections—for seats in the National Council, the...

In 1972, 16-year-old Jigme Singye Wangchuk succeeded his father as king. The new king agreed to abide by the treaty with India and also sought to improve ties with China. Jigme Singye Wangchuk continued his father’s reform and development policies, channeling money into infrastructure, education, and health, but he also tried to preserve Bhutan’s rich cultural heritage and natural en...

...raja had died and the deb raja had withdrawn into a life of contemplation, the then-strongest penlop, Ugyen Wangchuk of Tongsa, was “elected” by a council of lamas, abbots, councillors, and laymen to be the hereditary king (druk gyalpo) of Bhutan...

...and Johnny Green for Easter ParadeSong: “Buttons and Bows” from The Paleface; music and lyrics by Ray Evans and Jay LivingstonHonorary Awards: Sid Grauman and Adolph Zukor; Walter Wanger for Joan of Arc; Ivan Jandl for The Search; Monsieur Vincent ...

...major shopping centres. Since 1990, however, Western-style shopping malls and department stores have been established in various parts of the city. One of the most vibrant retail areas is along Wangfujing Dajie, which is a few streets east of the Imperial Palaces. As part of a 20-year development plan for this shopping street that began in 1991, it was transformed in 1999 when storefronts......

Over the next few years China concluded a series of similar treaties with other powers; the most important treaties were the Treaty of Wanghia with the United States and the Treaty of Whampoa with France (both 1844). Each additional treaty expanded upon the rights of extraterritoriality, and as a result the foreigners obtained an independent legal, judicial, police, and taxation system within......

approximately 12 groups of people of the Nguni branch of Bantu-speaking peoples that are scattered throughout eastern Africa. Their dispersal was due to the rise of the Zulu empire early in the 19th century, during which many refugee bands moved away from Zululand. One Ngoni chief, Zwangendaba, led his party to Lake Tanganyika; the descendants of his group, th...

...preserved today, the Liu Garden in Su-chou offers the finest general design and the best examples of garden rockery and latticed windows, while the small and delicate Garden of the Master of Nets (Wang-shih Yüan), also in Su-chou, provides knowledgeable viewers a remarkable series of sophisticated surprises....

...of the state as scholars not by becoming bureaucratic functionaries but by assuming the responsibility of teaching the ruling minority humane government (jen-cheng) and the kingly way (wang-tao). In dealing with feudal lords, Mencius conducted himself not merely as a political adviser but also as a teacher of kings. Mencius made it explicit that a true man cannot be corrupted......

Alcoholic drinks, such as sake in Japan and wang-tsin in China, are made from rice with the aid of fungi. The hull or husk of paddy, of little value as animal feed because of a high silicon content that is harmful to digestive and respiratory organs, is used mainly as fuel....

Over the next few years China concluded a series of similar treaties with other powers; the most important treaties were the Treaty of Wanghia with the United States and the Treaty of Whampoa with France (both 1844). Each additional treaty expanded upon the rights of extraterritoriality, and as a result the foreigners obtained an independent legal, judicial, police, and taxation system within......

...in China. There is no definite record of when the Japanese began to use Chinese words—called kanji in Japanese. It is known that a Korean scribe named Wani brought some Chinese books of Confucian classics, such as the Analects, Great Learning, and Book of Mencius, to Japan near the end of the 4th.....

Dutch historian internationally recognized for his Herfsttij der middeleeuwen (1919; The Waning of the Middle Ages)....

...around, is said to remind initiates of human imperfection. Animal-head masks usually combine characteristics of several creatures—hyena, warthog, and antelope. A type of animal mask called waniugo has a cup for a magical substance on top; these masks blow sparks from their muzzles in a nighttime ritual protecting the village from sorcerers. Among the Naffara group of the Senufo,.....

...Inca overlords, frequently more is known about the pre-Inca occupants than about Cuzco rule. Inca power was broken and decapitated within 40 years of 1532. The ethnic groups, many of which (like the Wanka or the Cañari) sided with Europeans against the Inca, were still easy to locate and identify in the 18th century. In isolated parts of Ecuador (Saraguro, Otavalo) and Bolivia (Chipaya,....

type of internal-combustion rotary engine distinguished by an orbiting triangular rotor that functions as a piston. See gasoline engine....

German engineer and inventor of the Wankel rotary engine. The Wankel engine is distinguished by the presence of an orbiting rotor in the shape of a curved equilateral triangle that does the work done by the moving pistons in other internal-combustion engines. Advantages of the Wankel engine include light weight, few moving parts, compactness, low initial cost, fewer repairs, and...

type of internal-combustion rotary engine distinguished by an orbiting triangular rotor that functions as a piston. See gasoline engine....

town, western Zimbabwe. It was founded about 1900 after the discovery of coal in the vicinity and was named for a local chief, Whanga, who was the dynastic head of the Abananza people. By 1908 a brickyard was established, utilizing local clays, and the production of coke began in 1913. The town is located on road and rail lines to Bulawayo and Zambia, and the coal-mining industr...

park in northwestern Zimbabwe, on the Botswana frontier. It was established in 1928 as a game reserve, and as a national park in 1930. The park’s area of 5,657 square miles (14,651 square km) is largely flat and contains fine hardwood forests of mukwa and Zimbabwean teak. Hwange is one of Africa’s largest elephant sanctuaries and is also the habitat of thousands of Cape buffalo as we...

river in southern Honduras and northern Nicaragua, rising west of the town of San Marcos de Colón, in southern Honduras, near the Honduras-Nicaragua border. The Coco flows generally eastward into Nicaragua, then turns northward near Mount Kilambé. For much of its middle and lower course the river flows generally northeastward, forming a delta and emptying into the Caribbean Sea at Ca...

reign name (nianhao) of the emperor of China from 1572 to 1620, during the latter portion of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644)....

reign name (nianhao) of the emperor of China from 1572 to 1620, during the latter portion of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644)....

extensive bulwark erected in ancient China. It is one of the largest building-construction projects ever carried out, running (with all its branches) about 4,500 miles (7,300 km) east to west from Shanhai Pass near the Bo Hai (Gulf of Chihli) to Jiayu Pass (in modern Gansu province). Without its branches and other secondary sections, the wal...

extensive bulwark erected in ancient China. It is one of the largest building-construction projects ever carried out, running (with all its branches) about 4,500 miles (7,300 km) east to west from Shanhai Pass near the Bo Hai (Gulf of Chihli) to Jiayu Pass (in modern Gansu province). Without its branches and other secondary sections, the wal...

...emperors. A palette containing underglaze blue in conjunction with green, yellow, aubergine purple, and iron red (the precursor of the later Ch’ing famille verte palette) was known as “Wan-li five-colour” ware (Wan-li wu ts’ai). The red and green Chia-ching decoration was also used, and vast quantities of blue-and-white porcelain were produced for expor...

...emperors. A palette containing underglaze blue in conjunction with green, yellow, aubergine purple, and iron red (the precursor of the later Ch’ing famille verte palette) was known as “Wan-li five-colour” ware (Wan-li wu ts’ai). The red and green Chia-ching decoration was also used, and vast quantities of blue-and-white porcelain were produced for expor...

a leading Chinese poet of the Northern Song dynasty whose verses helped to launch a new poetic style linked with the guwen (“ancient literature”) revival....

...and hole separate in space, and each wanders away. The Swiss-American scientist Gregory Hugh Wannier first suggested that the electron and hole could bind together weakly. This bound state, called a Wannier exciton, does exist; the hole has a positive charge, the electron has a negative charge, and the opposites attract. The exciton is observed easily in experiments with electromagnetic......

meeting of Nazi officials on January 20, 1942, in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to plan the “final solution” (Endlösung) to the so-called “Jewish question” (Judenfrage). On July 31, 1941, Nazi leader Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring...

Syrian playwright, producer, and critic (b. 1941, Hosain al-Bahr [near Tartus], Syria--d. May 15, 1997, Damascus, Syria), was widely regarded as one of the leading innovators in Arab drama. He reportedly invented masrah at-tasyis, or "political theatre," largely in response to his profound shock following Israel’s victory over the Arabs in the 1967 Six-Day War. His best plays ...

The first connected texts in Estonian are religious translations from 1524; the Wanradt-Koell Catechism, the first book, was printed in Wittenberg in 1535. Two centres of culture developed—Tallinn (formerly Revel) in the north and Tartu (Dorpat) in the south; in the 17th century each gave rise to a distinct literary language. Influenced by the Finnish ......

Chinese landscape painter whose vigorous style received critical acclaim in the late 20th century....

district, administrative and historic county of Northumberland, northern England, along the North Sea in the southeastern part of the county. Wansbeck spans a narrow coastal plain edging the Northumberland uplands to the west. Its three principal towns (Ashington, Bedlington, and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea) suffered economic decline in the 1960s and ’70s because of the loss of ...

zoological garden on the western outskirts of Peking, founded in 1906 by the empress dowager Tz’u-hsi. The zoo is managed by the Peking Office of Parks and Forestry, financed with government funds, and noted for its collection of rare Asian species....

...published play, Xiaocheng gushi (1940; Tale of a Small Town), is a comedy about the psychological conflicts of a woman in love. Wanshi shibiao (1943; “Model Teacher of Myriad Generations”), considered his best play, follows the fortunes of a group of Chinese intellectuals from 1919 to 1937....

town (parish), Vale of White Horse district, administrative county of Oxfordshire, historic county of Berkshire, England. It is an old market town and the birthplace of the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great (871–899), whose statue stands in the marketplace. The town is a modest service centre in rural surroundings, ...

Back in England he became a full-time and prolific professional writer. Under the pseudonym Anthony Burgess he wrote the novels The Wanting Seed (1962), an antiutopian view of an overpopulated world, and Honey for the Bears (1963). As Joseph Kell he wrote One Hand Clapping (1961) and Inside Mr. Enderby (1963)....

...planar means certain solid constructions (like the cube duplication and angle trisection). These results were established only by algebraists in the 19th century (notably by the French mathematician Pierre Laurent Wantzel in 1837)....

former city, northeastern Chongqing shi (municipality), central China. It has been a district of Chongqing since the municipality was established in 1997. The district is an important port along the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang), being situated at the western end of the river’s renowned Three Gorges region. Before C...

temple name (miaohao) of the leader of the nomadic Juchen (Chinese: Nüzhen, or Ruzhen) tribes who occupied north and east Manchuria. He founded the Jin, or Juchen, dynasty (1115–1234) and conquered all of North China. The Juchen were originally vassals of the Mongol-speaking Khitan tribes who had occupied part of North China ...

one of the cluster of Shona-speaking peoples inhabiting extreme eastern Zimbabwe and adjacent areas of interior Mozambique south of the Púnguè River. The Manyika have existed as an ethnic group discrete from other Shona groups only since the 1930s....

former city, northeastern Chongqing shi (municipality), central China. It has been a district of Chongqing since the municipality was established in 1997. The district is an important port along the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang), being situated at the western end of the river’s renowned Three Gorges region. Before C...

The generation, transmission, and distribution of power is the responsibility of the Pakistani Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), a public-sector corporation. WAPDA lost its monopoly over generation after Pakistan entered into an agreement in 1989 with a consortium of foreign firms to produce power from giant oil-fired plants located at Hub, near Karachi; the plants were completed......

an administrative division of the English counties of York, Lincoln, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, and Rutland, first clearly referred to in 962/963 and corresponding to the “hundred” in other parts of England. The term wapentake is of Scandinavian origin and meant the taking of weapons; it later signified the clash of arms by which the people assemble...

...extends southeastward across the border into Ukraine. Low and rolling, the range is approximately 100 miles (160 km) in length, and its highest peaks are Rogaty Goraj (1,280 feet [390 metres]) and Wapielnia (1,263 feet [385 metres]). The range provides a number of scenic views and is composed of forested terrain indented with deep gorges and streams overflowing slabs of limestone. A few small.....

(species Cervus canadensis), North American deer, family Cervidae (order Artiodactyla), considered by some authorities to be of the same species as the red deer (C. elaphus) of Eurasia. Once common over most of North America, the elk now is confined to the Rocky Mountains and southern Canada. The second largest living deer, it is exceeded in size only by the moose...

...Mississippi River just above Helena, Ark., after a course of 425 mi (684 km). For 40 mi the river forms part of the Missouri–Arkansas boundary. In Wayne County, Mo., the river is impounded by Wappapello Dam (built in 1941). Heavy rainfall in the Ozarks, which make up 70 percent of the river’s drainage basin of 8,400 sq mi (21,800 sq km), runs off rapidly and despite the dam still ...

confederacy of Algonquian-speaking Indians in eastern North America. Early in the 17th century the Wappinger lived along the east bank of the Hudson River from Manhattan Island to what is now Poughkeepsie and eastward to the lower Connecticut River valley....

tunnel designed by Marc Isambard Brunel and built under the River Thames in London. Drilled from Rotherhithe (in the borough of Southwark) to Wapping (now in Tower Hamlets), it was the first subaqueous tunnel in the world and was for many years the largest soft-ground tunnel. To drive his heading, Brunel...

city, seat (1850) of Napa county, west-central California, U.S. The area was originally inhabited by Wappo Indians, who called the southern part of the valley Napa (“Land of Plenty”). In 1836 the Mexican government granted a parcel of land to Nathan Coombs, who founded the city. Most of the local Indians were killed during a smallpox outbreak in 1838. Lying on the Napa River, the......

Cheever’s ability in his short stories to focus on the episodic caused him difficulty in constructing extended narratives in his novels. Nonetheless, his first novel, The Wapshot Chronicle (1957)—a satire on, among other subjects, the misuses of wealth and psychology—earned him the National Book Award. Its sequel, The Wapshot Scandal (1964), was less....