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  • Wilderness of Mirrors, A (work by Frisch)
    Frisch’s early novels Stiller (1954; I’m Not Stiller), Homo Faber (1957), and Mein Name sei Gantenbein (1964; A Wilderness of Mirrors) portray aspects of modern intellectual life and examine the theme of identity. His autobiographical works include two noteworthy diaries, Tagebuch 1946–1949 (1950; Sketchbook 1946–1949) an...
  • Wilderness of Zin, The (work by Lawrence and Woolley)
    ...to Aqaba, destined to be of almost immediate strategic value. The cover study was nevertheless of authentic scholarly significance; written by Lawrence and Woolley together, it was published as The Wilderness of Zin in 1915....
  • Wilderness Road (historical trail, United States)
    ...near the point where Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee meet between Middlesboro, Kentucky, and the town of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee. The pass was discovered in 1750 by Thomas Walker, and the Wilderness Road blazed by Daniel Boone runs through it. Named for the duke of Cumberland, son of George II, it became the main artery of trans-Allegheny migration that opened the Northwest Territory......
  • Wilderness Society (American sporting organization)
    For regular and intensive walkers there are available services offered by such associations as the Ramblers’ Association in Great Britain and the Wilderness Society in the United States. These organizations encourage hiking and preserve footpaths, bridle paths, and rights of way in parkland and recognized open spaces in areas of natural beauty against the encroachment of builders, local......
  • Wilderspin, Samuel (British educator)
    Buchanan’s school was imitated by others, notably by the British educator Samuel Wilderspin, who wrote some of the earliest and most widely disseminated monographs on infant education....
  • Wildfang, Der (play by Kotzebue)
    As a dramatist Kotzebue was prolific (he wrote more than 200 plays) and facile, but dramatically adroit. He is at his best in such comedies as Der Wildfang (1798; “The Trapping of Game”) and Die deutschen Kleinstädter (1803; “The German Small-towner”), which contain admirable pictures of provincial German life. He also wrote some novels as well as.....
  • wildfire (disease)
    While a student at St. Petersburg University, Ivanovsky was asked in 1887 to investigate “wildfire,” a disease that was infecting tobacco plantations of the Ukraine and Bessarabia. In 1890 he was commissioned to study a different disease that was destroying tobacco plants in the Crimea. He determined that the infection was mosaic disease, which was believed at the time to be caused.....
  • wildfire
    uncontrolled fire occurring in vegetation more than 6 feet (1.8 m) in height. These fires often reach the proportions of a major conflagration and are sometimes begun by combustion and heat from surface and ground fires. A big forest fire may crown, that is, spread rapidly through the topmost branches of the trees before involving undergrowth or the forest floor. As a result, violent blowups are ...
  • wildflower (plant)
    any flowering plant that has not been genetically manipulated. Generally the term applies to plants growing without intentional human aid, particularly those flowering in spring and summer in woodlands, prairies, and mountains. Wildflowers are the source of all cultivated garden varieties of flowers. Although most wildflowers are native to the region in which they occur, some are the descendants o...
  • wildfowl (bird group)
    ...Anatidae comprises about 147 species of medium to large birds, usually associated with freshwater or marine habitats. This family is known collectively as waterfowl (in the United States) or wildfowl (in Europe). The three species of screamers are quite different from waterfowl in general appearance. They are moderately long-legged birds about the size of a turkey, with chickenlike beaks......
  • Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (nature preserve, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom)
    centre of the world’s largest collection of waterfowl. It was established in 1946 by Sir Peter Scott on 418 acres (169 hectares) along the River Severn near Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, Eng. Nearly a quarter of the land is fenced off for captive birds and breeding stock; the rest of the refuge is traditional wintering ground for many species of ducks and geese. In additio...
  • Wildfowl Trust, The (nature preserve, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom)
    centre of the world’s largest collection of waterfowl. It was established in 1946 by Sir Peter Scott on 418 acres (169 hectares) along the River Severn near Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, Eng. Nearly a quarter of the land is fenced off for captive birds and breeding stock; the rest of the refuge is traditional wintering ground for many species of ducks and geese. In additio...
  • Wildgans, Anton (Austrian dramatist and poet)
    Austrian dramatist and poet known for his mystical dramas charged with the symbolic messages typical of German Expressionism....
  • Wilding, Michael (Australian author)
    ...was fact, apart from impressing the reader that the world is a very strange place, put him completely at odds with the following generation of short-story writers as, for example, Frank Moorhouse, Michael Wilding, and Peter Carey. These writers, provocative and scandalous in the manner of the 1970s, broke free from all restraints and explored the many possibilities of fantasy—sexual,......
  • Wilding, Tony (New Zealander athlete)
    ...Brookes, the first in a long line of Australian champions and the first left-hander to reach the top. He won at Wimbledon in 1907 and again on his next visit, in 1914. He and his doubles partner, Tony Wilding of New Zealand, wrested the Davis Cup from Great Britain in 1907 and held it until 1911, arousing enduring public interest in Australia and New Zealand....
  • wildland fire
    uncontrolled fire in a forest, grassland, brushland, or land sown to crops....
  • Wildlife (work by Alston)
    ...either by creating a mood (sombre or festive, depending on the colour and ornamentation used) or by strengthening a choreographic image or concept. In Richard Alston’s Wildlife (1984) the geometrically shaped kites suspended from the flies actually inspired some of the dancers’ sharply angled movements as well as making them visually more striking in......
  • wildlife
    ...either by creating a mood (sombre or festive, depending on the colour and ornamentation used) or by strengthening a choreographic image or concept. In Richard Alston’s Wildlife (1984) the geometrically shaped kites suspended from the flies actually inspired some of the dancers’ sharply angled movements as well as making them visually more striking in......
  • wildlife conservation
    About 1900, as the bison neared extinction, concerted action by cattlemen and conservationists led by William T. Hornaday resulted in the protection of the remaining animals in government preserves. The present managed herds now total as many as 200,000 individuals and ensure the survival of the species. The woodland bison survives in only very small numbers, however, and is considered an......
  • Wildlife Conservation Society
    ...few societies have established special research institutions. In the United States the Penrose Research Laboratory, of the Philadelphia Zoo is particularly concerned with comparative pathology. The New York Zoological Society maintains an Institute for Research in Animal Behavior and, in Trinidad, the William Beebe Tropical Research Station. In Great Britain the Zoological Society of London......
  • wildlife refuges and sanctuaries
    ...few societies have established special research institutions. In the United States the Penrose Research Laboratory, of the Philadelphia Zoo is particularly concerned with comparative pathology. The New York Zoological Society maintains an Institute for Research in Animal Behavior and, in Trinidad, the William Beebe Tropical Research Station. In Great Britain the Zoological Society of London.......
  • Wildman, Sir John (English agitator)
    English agitator and Leveler associate who outlasted vicissitudes under three British kings and two protectors....
  • Wilds (South Carolina, United States)
    city, seat (1889) of Florence county, northeastern South Carolina, U.S. Established in the 1850s as a rail junction and transfer point for the Wilmington and Manchester, the Northwestern, and the Cheraw and Darlington railroads, it was called Wilds for a judge in the town but later renamed (c. 1859) for the daughter of William Wallace Harlee, head of the Wilmington and Mancheste...
  • Wildspitze (mountain, Austria)
    ...di Resia, west-southwest), the Inn River valley (north), the Zillertal Alps and Brenner Pass (east), and the Adige River valley (south). Many of the peaks are snow- and glacier-covered, including Wildspitze (12,382 feet [3,774 m]), the highest point both in the range and in the Austrian Tirol. The Ötztaler Ache, a tributary of the Inn River, divides the main part of the range to the......
  • Wiler, Lake (lake, Switzerland)
    ...Sweden, long prized as a national wildlife refuge, became the subject of an investigation in 1967. Lake Trummen, also in Sweden, was treated by dredging its upper sediments. In Switzerland, Lake Wiler (Wilersee) was treated by the removal of water just above the sediments during stagnation periods....
  • Wilersee (lake, Switzerland)
    ...Sweden, long prized as a national wildlife refuge, became the subject of an investigation in 1967. Lake Trummen, also in Sweden, was treated by dredging its upper sediments. In Switzerland, Lake Wiler (Wilersee) was treated by the removal of water just above the sediments during stagnation periods....
  • Wiles, Andrew John (English mathematician)
    British mathematician who proved Fermat’s last theorem; in recognition he was awarded a special silver plaque—he was beyond the traditional age limit of 40 years for receiving the gold Fields Medal—by the International Mathematical Union in 1998....
  • Wiles, Gordon (American film director)
    Original Story: Frances Marion for The ChampAdaptation: Edwin Burke for Bad GirlCinematography: Lee Garmes for Shanghai ExpressArt Direction: Gordon Wiles for TransatlanticHonorary Award: Walt Disney...
  • Wilfred of York (English saint)
    one of the greatest English saints, a monk and bishop who was outstanding in bringing about close relations between the Anglo-Saxon Church and the papacy. He devoted his life to establishing the observances of the Roman Church over those of the Celtic Church and fought a stormy series of controversies on discipline and precedent....
  • Wilfrid, Saint (English saint)
    one of the greatest English saints, a monk and bishop who was outstanding in bringing about close relations between the Anglo-Saxon Church and the papacy. He devoted his life to establishing the observances of the Roman Church over those of the Celtic Church and fought a stormy series of controversies on discipline and precedent....
  • Wilfridian (British religious society)
    British theologian, noted hymnist, and founder of the Wilfridians, a religious society living in common without vows....
  • Wilgus, William John (American engineer)
    technique of underwater tunneling used principally for underwater crossings. The method was pioneered by the American engineer W.J. Wilgus in the Detroit River in 1903 for the Michigan Central Railroad. Wilgus dredged a trench in the riverbed, floated segments of steel tube into position, and sank them; the segments were locked together by divers and pumped out and could then be covered with......
  • Wilhelm Alexander (grand duke of Luxembourg)
    grand duke of Luxembourg (1905–12), eldest son of grand duke Adolf of Nassau. Falling severely ill soon after his accession, he eventually on March 19, 1908, had his consort Maria Anna of Braganza named regent, or governor (Statthalterin). Also, having no sons and wishing to secure the succession of his daughters Marie-Adélaide and Charlotte, he had the Luxembourg Parliament a...
  • Wilhelm, C. (designer)
    ...historical dress in the ballet extravaganzas of the 1880s (forerunners of the Folies-Bergère 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 of most designers, however, lay in framing the female figure, and many......
  • Wilhelm der Weise (landgrave of Hesse-Kassel)
    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....
  • Wilhelm Ernst (duke of Weimar)
    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,......
  • Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig (emperor of Germany)
    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....
  • Wilhelm Heinrich (king of Great Britain)
    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....
  • Wilhelm, Hoyt (American baseball player)
    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...
  • Wilhelm I (emperor of Germany)
    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....
  • Wilhelm II (emperor of 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....
  • Wilhelm, James Hoyt (American baseball player)
    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...
  • Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (work by Goethe)
    ...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...
  • “Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre” (work by Goethe)
    ...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...
  • “Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung” (novel by Goethe)
    ...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......
  • “Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre” (work by Goethe)
    ...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....
  • Wilhelm Meister’s Years of Travel (work by Goethe)
    ...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....
  • Wilhelm of Holland (king of Germany)
    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....
  • “Wilhelm Tell” (play by Schiller)
    ...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...
  • Wilhelm von Hirsau (German abbot)
    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....
  • Wilhelm von Holland (king of Germany)
    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....
  • Wilhelm zu Wied (German prince)
    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,......
  • Wilhelmina (queen of The Netherlands)
    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....
  • Wilhelmina (margravine of Bayreuth)
    sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia and margravine of Bayreuth (from 1735)....
  • Wilhelmina (wife of William V)
    ...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 Prussian King Frederick II. Holland declared him deposed....
  • Wilhelmina Gebergte (mountains, Suriname)
    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...
  • Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria (queen of The Netherlands)
    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....
  • Wilhelmina Peak (mountain, Indonesia)
    ...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])....
  • Wilhelmine Friederike Sophie (margravine of Bayreuth)
    sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia and margravine of Bayreuth (from 1735)....
  • Wilhelmj, August Emil Daniel Ferdinand Viktor (German violinist)
    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.”...
  • Wilhelmshaven (Germany)
    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...
  • Wilhelmus Rubruquis (French explorer)
    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....
  • Wilkes, Charles (American explorer and naval officer)
    U.S. naval officer who explored the region of Antarctica named for him....
  • Wilkes, John (British journalist and politician)
    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....
  • Wilkes Land (region, Antarctica)
    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...
  • Wilkes, Maurice (British computer-science pioneer)
    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...
  • Wilkes, Maurice V. (British computer-science pioneer)
    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...
  • Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania, United States)
    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....
  • Wilkie, Sir David (British painter)
    British genre and portrait painter and draftsman known for his anecdotal style....
  • Wilkin, Marijohn (American songwriter)
    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...
  • Wilkins, John (British bishop and scientist)
    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 Mark Roget with his Thesaurus, published in 1852 and many times reprinted and......
  • Wilkins, Mac (American athlete)
    American world-record-holding discus thrower (1976–78). He was the first man ever to break the 70-metre barrier....
  • Wilkins, Mary Eleanor (American author)
    American writer known for her stories and novels of frustrated lives in New England villages....
  • Wilkins, Maurice (British biophysicist)
    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...
  • Wilkins, Maurice (American athlete)
    American world-record-holding discus thrower (1976–78). He was the first man ever to break the 70-metre barrier....
  • Wilkins, Maurice Hugh Frederick (British biophysicist)
    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...
  • Wilkins, Roy (American human-rights activist)
    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....
  • Wilkins, Sir George Hubert (Australian explorer)
    Australian-born British explorer who advanced the use of the airplane and pioneered the use of the submarine for polar research....
  • Wilkins, William (British architect)
    ...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...
  • Wilkinson, Bud (American football coach)
    ("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...
  • Wilkinson, Charles (American football coach)
    ("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...
  • Wilkinson, James (United States military officer)
    American soldier and adventurer, a double agent whose role in the Aaron Burr conspiracy still divides historians....
  • Wilkinson, Jemima (American religious leader)
    American religious leader who founded an unorthodox Christian sect, the Universal Friends, many of whose adherents declared her a messiah....
  • Wilkinson, John (English ironmaster)
    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....
  • Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (United States satellite)
    ...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....
  • Wilkinson, Norman (British artist)
    ...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.......
  • Wilkinson, Sir Geoffrey (British chemist)
    British chemist, joint recipient with Ernst Fischer of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1973 for their independent work in organometallic chemistry....
  • Wilkinson, Sir John Gardner (British archaeologist)
    ...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.......
  • Wilkinson’s catalyst (chemical compound)
    ...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....
  • will (law)
    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....
  • will (psychology and philosophy)
    ...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......
  • Will o’ the Wisp (American boxer)
    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....
  • “Will o’ the Wisp” (work by Drieu La Rochelle)
    ...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...
  • Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, The (work by James)
    ...“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...
  • will to power (philosophy)
    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...
  • Will to Power, The (work by Nietzsche)
    ...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...
  • Will You Love Me Tomorrow (song by Goffin and King)
    ...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 ...
  • Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (work by Carver)
    ...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....
  • will-o’-the-wisp (phenomenon)
    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...
  • Willa Cather Thematic District (area, Red Cloud, Nebraska, United States)
    ...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....
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