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...historical dress in the ballet-extravaganzas of the 1880s (forerunners of the Folies-Bergères revues of Paris) that played at La Scala in Milan and the London Alhambra. The ingenious designer C. Wilhelm (original name C. Pitcher) translated insects, flowers, birds, and reptiles into dance costumes. The main interest, however, lay in framing the female figure, and most of the costumes wer...

landgrave (or count) of Hesse-Kassel from 1567 who was called “the Wise” because of his accomplishments in political economy and the natural sciences. The son of the landgrave Philip the Magnanimous, he participated with his brother-in-law Maurice of Saxony in the princely rebellion of 1552 that liberated Philip from his five-year captivity by the Holy Roman emperor Charles V....

Bach was, from the outset, court organist at Weimar and a member of the orchestra. Encouraged by Wilhelm Ernst, he concentrated on the organ during the first few years of his tenure. From Weimar, Bach occasionally visited Weissenfels; in February 1713 he took part in a court celebration there that included a performance of his first secular cantata, Was mir behagt,......

German emperor from 1871, as well as king of Prussia from 1861, a sovereign whose conscientiousness and self-restraint fitted him for collaboration with stronger statesmen in raising his monarchy and the house of Hohenzollern to predominance in Germany....

king of Great Britain and Ireland and king of Hanover from June 26, 1830. Personally opposed to parliamentary reform, he grudgingly accepted the epochal Reform Act of 1832, which, by transferring representation from depopulated “rotten boroughs” to industrialized districts, reduced the power of the British crown and the landowning aristocracy over the government....

American baseball player (b. July 26, 1923, Huntersville, N.C.—d. Aug. 23, 2002, Sarasota, Fla.), pitched knuckleballs that fluttered over the plate, baffling major league batters for 21 seasons. Unfortunately, his dancing pitch sometimes baffled his own catchers too, until Baltimore Orioles manager Paul Richards designed an oversized catcher’s mitt to handle it. Altogether he pitche...

German emperor from 1871, as well as king of Prussia from 1861, a sovereign whose conscientiousness and self-restraint fitted him for collaboration with stronger statesmen in raising his monarchy and the house of Hohenzollern to predominance in Germany....

German emperor (kaiser) and king of Prussia from 1888 to the end of World War I in 1918, known for his frequently militaristic manner as well as for his vacillating policies....

American baseball player (b. July 26, 1923, Huntersville, N.C.—d. Aug. 23, 2002, Sarasota, Fla.), pitched knuckleballs that fluttered over the plate, baffling major league batters for 21 seasons. Unfortunately, his dancing pitch sometimes baffled his own catchers too, until Baltimore Orioles manager Paul Richards designed an oversized catcher’s mitt to handle it. Altogether he pitche...

...commentary while Goethe rewrote, completed, and published his novel begun nearly 20 years before, now titled Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–96; Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship). In the new version of Wilhelm Meister’s story, his involvement with the theatre appears as an episode, perhaps an error (though errors are inevit...

...commentary while Goethe rewrote, completed, and published his novel begun nearly 20 years before, now titled Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–96; Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship). In the new version of Wilhelm Meister’s story, his involvement with the theatre appears as an episode, perhaps an error (though errors are inevit...

...thinner, all but dried up. He kept himself going as a writer by forcing himself to write one book of a novel, Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung (The Theatrical Mission of Wilhelm Meister), each year until 1785. In a rough-and-tumble, ironic way, reminiscent of the English novelist Henry Fielding, it tells the story of a gifted young......

...plans for a career in the theatre. Gradually in the course of the novel and its much later continuation, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (1821–29; Wilhelm Meister’s Years of Travel), the notion of a significant destiny toward which the hero develops—inward compulsion finding direction through experience, the ego-driven goal of....

...plans for a career in the theatre. Gradually in the course of the novel and its much later continuation, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (1821–29; Wilhelm Meister’s Years of Travel), the notion of a significant destiny toward which the hero develops—inward compulsion finding direction through experience, the ego-driven goal of....

German king from Oct. 3, 1247, elected by the papal party in Germany as antiking in opposition to Conrad IV and subsequently gaining general recognition. As William II he was also count of Holland, succeeding his father, Count Floris IV, in 1234....

...Braut von Messina (1803; The Bride of Messina), written in emulation of Greek drama, with its important preface, Schiller’s last critical pronouncement); and Wilhelm Tell (1804; William Tell), which depicts the revolt of the Swiss forest cantons against Habsburg rule and the assassination of a tyrannous Austrian governor by the hero, with the underlying questi...

German cleric, Benedictine abbot, and monastic reformer, the principal German advocate of Pope Gregory VII’s clerical reforms, which sought to eliminate clerical corruption and free ecclesiastical offices from secular control....

German king from Oct. 3, 1247, elected by the papal party in Germany as antiking in opposition to Conrad IV and subsequently gaining general recognition. As William II he was also count of Holland, succeeding his father, Count Floris IV, in 1234....

The great powers also appointed a German prince, Wilhelm zu Wied, as ruler of Albania. Wilhelm arrived in Albania in March 1914, but his unfamiliarity with Albania and its problems, compounded by complications arising from the outbreak of World War I, led him to depart from Albania six months later. The war plunged the country into a new crisis, as the armies of Austria-Hungary, France, Italy,......

queen of The Netherlands from 1890 to 1948, who, through her radio broadcasts from London during World War II, made herself the symbol of Dutch resistance to German occupation....

...in Holland and other provinces. Holland began organizing its own army, distinct from that under the prince’s command, and civil war seemed in the offing. William V fled to Gelderland with his wife, Wilhelmina, the sister of the Prussian King Frederick II. Holland declared him deposed....

sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia and margravine of Bayreuth (from 1735)....

mountain range in central Suriname, forming part of South America’s granitic Precambrian Guiana Shield, extending about 70 mi (113 km) from west to east. The range divides Suriname’s western district of Nickerie from the eastern districts of Saramacca, Brokopondo, and Marowijne. The Wilhelmina Gebergte descends gradually into two lesser ranges of hills to the north—the Bakhui...

queen of The Netherlands from 1890 to 1948, who, through her radio broadcasts from London during World War II, made herself the symbol of Dutch resistance to German occupation....

...part (Irian Jaya) of New Guinea, the range extends for 230 miles (370 km) east of the Sudirman Range to the Star Mountains and the border with Papua New Guinea. The range’s highest point is Trikora Peak (formerly Wilhelmina Peak; 15,580 feet [4,750 m])....

sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia and margravine of Bayreuth (from 1735)....

German violinist whose most famous work is his arrangement of the air from J.S. Bach’s orchestral Suite in D major, which became known as the “Air on the G String.”...

city and port, Lower Saxony Land (state), northwestern Germany. It lies on Jade Bay (Jadebusen), a North Sea inlet on the coast of East Friesland (Ostfriesland). Founded in 1853 by William I (Wilhelm I) on land bought by Prussia from Oldenburg, it was given its present name in 1869. I...

French Franciscan friar whose eyewitness account of the Mongol realm is generally acknowledged to be the best written by any medieval Christian traveller. A contemporary of the English scientist and philosopher Roger Bacon, he was cited frequently in the geographical section of Bacon’s Opus majus....

city, seat (1786) of Luzerne county, northeastern Pennsylvania, U.S. It lies in the Wyoming Valley and along the Susquehanna River, 18 miles (29 km) southwest of Scranton. Wilkes-Barre is the hub of a metropolitan district embracing more than 30 contiguous municipalities....

U.S. naval officer who explored the region of Antarctica named for him....

outspoken 18th-century journalist and popular London politician who came to be regarded as a victim of persecution and as a champion of liberty because he was repeatedly expelled from Parliament. His widespread popular support may have been the beginning of English Radicalism....

region in Antarctica, bordering the Indian Ocean between Queen Mary and George V coasts (100°–142°20′ E). The region is almost entirely covered by the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), averaging from 6,000 to 9,500 feet (1,800 to 2,900 metres) above sea level. First sighted (1838–42) by the U.S. naval commander Charles Wilkes, for whom the land is named, it was no...

At the University of Cambridge, meanwhile, Maurice Wilkes and others built what is recognized as the first full-size stored-program computer to provide a formal computing service for users. The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was built on von Neumann’s principles and, like the Manchester Mark I, became operational in 1949. (See photograph.) Wilkes built the mach...

At the University of Cambridge, meanwhile, Maurice Wilkes and others built what is recognized as the first full-size stored-program computer to provide a formal computing service for users. The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was built on von Neumann’s principles and, like the Manchester Mark I, became operational in 1949. (See photograph.) Wilkes built the mach...

British genre and portrait painter and draftsman known for his anecdotal style....

American songwriter (b. July 14, 1920, Kemp, Texas—d. Oct. 28, 2006, Nashville, Tenn.), was hailed as one of the greatest female country composers and lyricists. Wilkin wrote two hits in 1958: Stonewall Jackson’s “Waterloo” (written with John D. Loudermilk) and Jimmy C. Newman’s “Grin and Bear It,” which was followed by the 1959 classic “Long...

The “conceptual dictionary,” in which words are arranged in groups by their meaning, had its first important exponent in Bishop John Wilkins, whose Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language was published in 1668. A plan of this sort was carried out by Peter Marc Roget with his Thesaurus, published in 1852 and many times reprinted and re-edited.......

American world-record-holding discus thrower (1976–78). He was the first man ever to break the 70-metre barrier....

American writer known for her stories and novels of frustrated lives in New England villages....

New Zealand-born British biophysicist whose X-ray diffraction studies of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) proved crucial to the determination of DNA’s molecular structure by James D. Watson and Francis Crick. For this work the three scientists were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or...

American world-record-holding discus thrower (1976–78). He was the first man ever to break the 70-metre barrier....

New Zealand-born British biophysicist whose X-ray diffraction studies of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) proved crucial to the determination of DNA’s molecular structure by James D. Watson and Francis Crick. For this work the three scientists were jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or...

black American civil-rights leader who served as the executive director (1955–77) of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He was often referred to as the senior statesman of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement....

Australian-born British explorer who advanced the use of the airplane and pioneered the use of the submarine for polar research....

...1800 the interest in revival of Greek forms intensified and the stream of buildings based either wholly or in part on Greek models continued well into the 19th century. One of the earliest was William Wilkins’s Downing College, Cambridge (1806–11), with details closely copied from the Erechtheum on the Acropolis at Athens. Following this were Sir Robert Smirke’s Covent Gard...

("BUD"), U.S. football coach (b. April 23, 1916, Minneapolis, Minn.--d. Feb. 9, 1994, St. Louis, Mo.), led the University of Oklahoma Sooners to three national football championships (1950, 1955, and 1956), turned out 32 all-American players, and established a National Collegiate Athletic Association record for 47 consecutive victories between 1953 and 1957. The incredible string of wins was broke...

("BUD"), U.S. football coach (b. April 23, 1916, Minneapolis, Minn.--d. Feb. 9, 1994, St. Louis, Mo.), led the University of Oklahoma Sooners to three national football championships (1950, 1955, and 1956), turned out 32 all-American players, and established a National Collegiate Athletic Association record for 47 consecutive victories between 1953 and 1957. The incredible string of wins was broke...

American soldier and adventurer, a double agent whose role in the Aaron Burr conspiracy still divides historians....

American religious leader who founded an unorthodox Christian sect, the Universal Friends, many of whose adherents declared her a messiah....

British industrialist known as “the great Staffordshire ironmaster” who found new applications for iron and who devised a boring machine essential to the success of James Watt’s steam engine....

...to the nearby universe. The solar system is headed toward the constellation Leo with a velocity of 370 km/sec. This value was confirmed in the 2000s by an even more sensitive space telescope, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe....

...area, and a raised inner stage with curtains. This permitted a continuous flow of action and eliminated the rearrangement of scripts that had previously been necessary for nonillusionistic staging. Norman Wilkinson and Albert Rutherston, artists with reputations outside the theatre, were his principal designers, and their settings typically consisted of brightly painted, draped curtains.......

British chemist, joint recipient with Ernst Fischer of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1973 for their independent work in organometallic chemistry....

...expedition to Egypt in 1828 and published their research in Monuments de l’Égypte et Nubie. Karl Richard Lepsius followed with a Prussian expedition (1842–45), and the Englishman Sir John Gardner Wilkinson spent 12 years (1821–33) copying and collecting material in Egypt. Their work made copies of monuments and texts widely available to European scholars.......

...or metallocenes, and his researches into this previously unknown type of chemical structure earned him the Nobel Prize. His research on metal-to-hydrogen bonding, particularly his discovery of Wilkinson’s catalyst, a homogeneous hydrogenation catalyst for alkenes, had widespread significance for organic and inorganic chemistry and proved to have important industrial applications....

...wrote his histories of Florence and of Italy to show what people were like and to explain how they had reached their present circumstances. Human dignity, then, consisted not in the exercise of will to shape destiny but in the use of reason to contemplate and perhaps to tolerate fate. In taking a new, hard look at the human condition, Guicciardini represents the decline of humanist......

legal means by which an owner of property disposes of his assets in the event of his death. The term is also used for the written instrument in which the testator’s dispositions are expressed. There is also an oral will, called a nuncupative will, valid only in certain jurisdictions, but otherwise often upheld if it is considered a death-bed bequest....

American professional boxer, world featherweight (126 pounds) champion during the 1940s. Pep specialized in finesse rather than slugging prowess and competed successfully in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. His rivalry with American Sandy Saddler is considered one of the greatest of 20th-century American pugilism....

in meteorology, a mysterious light seen at night flickering over marshes; when approached, it advances, always out of reach. The phenomenon is also known as will-o’-the-wisp and ignis fatuus (Latin: “foolish fire”). In popular legend it is considered ominous and is often purported to be the soul of one who has been rejected by hell carrying its own hell coal on its wanderings...

...movement. Characteristic novels of this period include his first novel, L’Homme couvert de femmes (1925; “The Man Covered With Women”), and Le Feu follet (1931; The Fire Within, or Will o’ the Wisp; filmed by Louis Malle in 1963). Le Feu follet is the story of the last hours in the life of a young bourgeois Parisian addict who kills...

...“spontaneous variations.” These views were set forth in the period between 1893 and 1903 in various essays and lectures, afterward collected into works, of which the most notable is The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897). During this decade, which may be correctly described as James’s religious period, all of his studies were concerned with...

Nietzsche often identified life itself with “will to power,” that is, with an instinct for growth and durability. This concept provides yet another way of interpreting the ascetic ideal, since it is Nietzsche’s contention “that all the supreme values of mankind lack this will—that values which are symptomatic of decline, nihilistic values, are lordi...

...ruthless control over Nietzsche’s literary estate and, dominated by greed, produced collections of his “works” consisting of discarded notes, such as Der Wille zur Macht (1901; The Will to Power). She also committed petty forgeries. Generations of commentators were misled. Equally important, her enthusiasm for Hitler linked Nietzsche’s name with that of...

...for the Drifters and “A Natural Woman” for Aretha Franklin. Nowhere was this union stronger than in the classic hits of the girl groups of the early 1960s: Goffin and King’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” for the Shirelles and “One Fine Day” for the Chiffons and Mann and Weil’s “Uptown” and Pitney’s “He’s a ...

...1967 with the story “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?,” and he began writing full-time after losing his job as a textbook editor in 1970. The highly successful short-story collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976) established his reputation....

...home and other sites related to her works, such as the Pavelka Farmstead (home of Annie Pavelka, on whom the title character of My Ántonia was based), have been restored as the Willa Cather Thematic District, recognized as a national historic landmark. Inc. 1872. Pop. (2000) 1,131; (2005 est.) 1,029....

Swiss statesman who played a significant role in securing the transfer of the principality of Neuchâtel to the Prussian house of Hohenzollern (1707)....

Flemish composer who contributed significantly to the development of the Italian madrigal, and who established Venice as one of the most influential musical centres of the 16th century....

watercourse of western Oregon, U.S. It is formed by the confluence of the Coast and Middle forks southeast of Eugene. It flows northward for 183 miles (295 km) past Corvallis, Albany, Salem, and Oregon City into the Columbia River near Portland. It is navigable downstream to Eugene. The drainage basin extends between the Cascade Range on the east and other Coa...

...River near Portland. It is navigable downstream to Eugene. The drainage basin extends between the Cascade Range on the east and other Coast Ranges on the west, forming the 30-mile- (48-km-) wide Willamette Valley, which holds the state’s most populous cities. Its tributaries have many dams, which regulate the flow of water for flood control and navigation and supply hydroelectric power t...

...a steam engine working on a completely different principle. In the first category, one solution was to enclose the working parts of the engine and force a lubricant around them under pressure. The Willans engine design, for instance, was of this type and was widely adopted in early British power stations. Another important modification in the reciprocating design was the uniflow engine, which.....

The Willapa Hills parallel the coast from Grays Harbor to the Columbia River in the southwest. Gentle, forested slopes descend to an indented Pacific coastline and to the Chehalis and Cowlitz valleys on the north and east....

American educator whose work in women’s education, particularly as founder of Troy Female Seminary, spurred the establishment of high schools for girls and of women’s colleges and coeducational universities....

American educator, reformer, and founder of the World Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (1883). An excellent speaker, a successful lobbyist, and an expert in pressure politics, she was a leader of the national Prohibition Party....

American educator, reformer, and founder of the World Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (1883). An excellent speaker, a successful lobbyist, and an expert in pressure politics, she was a leader of the national Prohibition Party....

...1 (1938), and A Turning Wind (1939). Her use of fragmented, emotional imagery is sometimes considered excessive, but her work is noted for its power and acuity. In 1942 she published Willard Gibbs: American Genius, a biography of the 19th-century mathematician and physicist....

American prizefighter, world heavyweight boxing champion from April 5, 1915, when he knocked out American Jack Johnson in 26 rounds in Havana, to July 4, 1919, when he was knocked out by American Jack Dempsey in three rounds in Toledo, Ohio....

famous American clock maker. Willard was the creator of the timepiece that came to be known as the banjo clock, and he was the most celebrated of a family of Massachusetts clock makers who designed and produced brass-movement clocks between 1765 and 1850....

British civil engineer who proposed and designed the first Aswān (Assuan) Dam and executed major irrigation projects in South Africa and Turkey....

...in Germany. Founded in the 17th century as a royal garden for flowers, medicinal plants, vegetables, and hops (for the royal brewery), it eventually became badly neglected. In 1801 the botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow became director and began to rehabilitate the garden; a decade later he had created what was to become one of the outstanding botanical research centres and public displays of......

Swiss military leader and commander in chief of the Swiss Army during World War I who made major federal military reforms....

...ruthless control over Nietzsche’s literary estate and, dominated by greed, produced collections of his “works” consisting of discarded notes, such as Der Wille zur Macht (1901; The Will to Power). She also committed petty forgeries. Generations of commentators were misled. Equally important, her enthusiasm for Hitler linked Nietzsche’s name with that of...

...and northern France. Among the new canals and extensions built were the Mons-Condé and the Pommeroeul-Antoing canals, which connected the Haine and the Schelde; the Sambre was canalized; the Willebroek Canal was extended southward with the building of the Charleroi-Brussels Canal in 1827; and somewhat later the Campine routes were opened to serve Antwerp and connect the Meuse and......

...personality, consist of eight lyric poems, chiefly Tagelieder (“Dawn Songs,” describing the parting of lovers at morning); the epic Parzival; the unfinished epic Willehalm, telling the history of the crusader Guillaume d’Orange; and short fragments of a further epic, the so-called Titurel, which elaborates the tragic love story of Sigune from boo...

On Feb. 2, 2002, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands and Argentine-born Máxima Zorreguieta married in Amsterdam. Their many guests included foreign royals, other friends and family members, and some Dutch political leaders (who had secured official approval for the marriage) but not the bride’s father. He did not attend because of concerns in The Nethe...

On Feb. 2, 2002, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands and Argentine-born Máxima Zorreguieta married in Amsterdam. Their many guests included foreign royals, other friends and family members, and some Dutch political leaders (who had secured official approval for the marriage) but not the bride’s father. He did not attend because of concerns in The Nethe...

conservative king of The Netherlands and grand duke of Luxembourg (1849–90) who was influential in forming Dutch ministries until 1868 but was unable to prevent liberal control of the government....

first of the hereditary stadtholders (1572–84) of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and leader of the revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish rule and the Catholic religion....

king of The Netherlands and grand duke of Luxembourg (1815–40) who sparked a commercial and industrial revival following the period of French rule (1795–1813), but provoked the Belgian revolt of 1830 through his autocratic methods....

king of The Netherlands and grand duke of Luxembourg (1840–49) whose reign saw the reestablishment of fiscal stability and the transformation of The Netherlands to a more liberal monarchy through the constitution of 1848....

stadholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands as William III (1672–1702) and king of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1689–1702), reigning jointly with Queen Mary II (until her death in 1694). He directed the European opposition to Louis XIV of France and, in Great Britain, secured the triumph of Protestantism and of Parliament....

Geyl’s first published work (1913) was his dissertation on Christofforo Suriano, the Venetian resident in The Hague during the early 17th century. His next book, Willem IV en Engeland tot 1748 (1924), discussed the struggle between the party of Orange and the republican States Party and its effects on the Dutch Republic’s foreign policy, themes that were to become dominant in ...

prince of Orange and Nassau, general hereditary stadtholder of the United Netherlands....

count of Nassau, stadtholder of Friesland, Groningen, and Drenthe, who with his cousin, Maurice of Nassau, prince of Orange, formulated the military strategy of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, or Dutch Republic (now The Netherlands), against Spain from 1588 to 1609. He formed, with Maurice and with Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, advocate of Holland, the triumvirate that rule...

game sanctuary in Free State province, South Africa, adjoining Allemanskraal Dam northeast of Bloemfontein. Established in 1956, it occupies 46 sq mi (120 sq km) in the Highveld plateau typical of the Free State. It includes the Doringberg hills, a storage reservoir above the dam, and many deep ravines. The reserve is particularly known for its herds of black wildebeest; other wildlife include th...

French Franciscan friar whose eyewitness account of the Mongol realm is generally acknowledged to be the best written by any medieval Christian traveller. A contemporary of the English scientist and philosopher Roger Bacon, he was cited frequently in the geographical section of Bacon’s Opus majus....

...made a literary discovery: a translation of the medieval Persian poetry of Ḥāfeẓ. He started to write verse of his own in the style of the translation. In Frankfurt he met Marianne Jung, just 30 years old and about to marry the 54-year-old banker Johann Jakob von Willemer; Goethe and Marianne took to writing each other love poems in the Ḥāfeẓ......

white or greenish-yellow silicate mineral, zinc silicate, Zn2SiO4, that is found as crystals, grains, or fibres with other zinc ores in many deposits. Included are various localities in Sussex County, N.J., where it occurs in crystalline limestone and constitutes an important zinc ore; it was worked at Nutley for more than 100 years before the reserve was exhausted in 1954. ...

Flemish poet, playwright, essayist, “Father of the Flemish Movement,” and the most important philologist of the Dutch language of his time....