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  • Wernicke disease (pathology)
    Prolonged drinking that interferes with an adequate diet may lead to Wernicke disease, which results from an acute complete deficiency of thiamin (vitamin B1) and is marked by a clouding of consciousness and abnormal eye movements. It also can lead to Korsakoff syndrome, marked by irreversible loss of recent memory, with a tendency to make up for the defect by confabulation, the......
  • Wernicke encephalopathy (pathology)
    Prolonged drinking that interferes with an adequate diet may lead to Wernicke disease, which results from an acute complete deficiency of thiamin (vitamin B1) and is marked by a clouding of consciousness and abnormal eye movements. It also can lead to Korsakoff syndrome, marked by irreversible loss of recent memory, with a tendency to make up for the defect by confabulation, the......
  • Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (pathology)
    Vitamin A deficiency primarily affects the retinas and skin, but components of the vitamin B group are essential for normal development and functioning of the nervous system. Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (common in alcoholics) results from a thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency and consists of eye movement disorders, cerebellar incoordination, memory loss, and peripheral neuropathy. If......
  • Wernigerode (Germany)
    city, Saxony-Anhalt Land (state), central Germany. It lies at the confluence of the Holtemme and Zillierbach rivers, north of the Harz Mountains and southwest of Magdeburg. First mentioned in 1121 and chartered in 1229, it joined the Hanseatic League in 1267. In 142...
  • weroance (Algonquin title)
    ...was mamanatowick, and his territory was known as Tsenacommacah. Each tribe within the Powhatan empire had its own chief, or weroance, and Powhatan ruled as the chief of these chiefs....
  • Werowocomoco (capital of Powhatan empire)
    ...empire at the time of the colonists’ arrival essentially covered present-day eastern Virginia, extending from the Potomac River to the Great Dismal Swamp, and its capital was at the village of Werowocomoco. Powhatan initially acted ambivalently toward the English settlement, sometimes ordering or permitting attacks against the colonists while at other times trading tribal food for......
  • Werra River (river, Germany)
    ...river of western Germany that serves as an important transport artery from Bremerhaven and Bremen. Formed near the city of Münden by the union of its two headstreams—the Fulda and the Werra—the Weser flows 273 miles (440 km) northward through northern Germany to the North Sea. The major tributaries of the Weser are the Aller, Lesum, Geeste, Diemel, Ochtum, and Hunte rivers....
  • Werribee (Victoria, Australia)
    town and shire in southern Victoria, Australia, situated on the Werribee River about 19 mi (29 km) southwest by rail from Melbourne and nearly 5 mi from the coast of Port Phillip Bay. Three major government facilities are located at Werribee: The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works Farm (a sewage farm that experiments with water waste purification methods), the State (agri...
  • Wershikwar dialect (Asian dialect)
    The somewhat divergent Werchikwār, or Wershikwār, dialect of Burushaski is spoken in the valley of the Yāsīn River in Kashmir....
  • Wert, Giaches de (Flemish composer)
    At the court of Mantua (now Mantova, Italy), two important composers were active toward the very end of the 16th century—Giaches de Wert and Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi. Each of them, in his own particular way, helped to renew and transform madrigal techniques even though the countless admirers of Marenzio felt that the pinnacles of perfection had already been reached. De Wert’s......
  • Wertheim, Barbara (American author and historian)
    author who was one of the foremost American popular historians in the second half of the 20th century....
  • Wertheimer, Max (Czech psychologist)
    Czech-born psychologist, one of the founders, with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler, of Gestalt psychology, which attempts to examine psychological phenomena as structural wholes, rather than breaking them down into components....
  • Wertheimer, Samson (Austrian banker)
    ...perpetual war as well as great economic investments, both entailing excessive strain on state finances. At first the government resorted to rich bankers such as Samuel Oppenheimer and his successor Samson Wertheimer for funds. Soon, however, it attempted to establish state-controlled banking firms. The Banco del Giro, founded in Vienna in 1703, quickly failed, but the Vienna Stadtbanco of 1705....
  • Werther (opera by Massenet)
    ...novel by the Abbé Prévost d’Exiles on which Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille had based the libretto. Many of the same qualities have kept alive Massenet’s Werther (1892; libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet, and Georges Hartmann, derived from Goethe’s Leiden des jungen Werthers; “The Sorrow...
  • Wertmüller, Lina (Italian film director)
    Italian motion-picture director and screenwriter noted for her comedies focusing on the eternal battle of the sexes and on contemporary political and social issues....
  • Werve, Claus de (sculptor)
    ...tomb of his patron, Philip the Bold; and a large Calvary group for the Charterhouse cloisters. When he died in 1406, the continuance of his work was assured by the employment of his nephew and heir, Claus de Werve, until his death in 1439. Further, the pattern of the finally completed tomb of Philip the Bold became famous immediately and was frequently imitated all over Europe....
  • Werwolf (Nazi organization)
    ...network, military armaments (after the abortive attempt on Hitler’s life of July 20, 1944), the Volkssturm (“People’s Storm Troop”), a mass levy of mostly older men, and later the Werwolf, a guerrilla force intended to continue the struggle after the war. He also unsuccessfully commanded two army groups....
  • Wesak (Buddhist festival)
    most important of the Theravada Buddhist festivals, commemorating the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha. The event is observed on the full-moon day of the lunar month Vesakha, which falls in April or May. The day is observed as a public holiday in many Southeast Asian countries. It is marked by special devotional services and various deeds intended to be meritorious, such as the presen...
  • Wesel (Germany)
    town, North Rhine-Westphalia Land (state), northwestern Germany. It lies along the Rhine and Lippe rivers and the Lippe-Seiten Canal, northwest of the Ruhr. Chartered in 1241, it joined the Hanseatic League in about 1350 and has long been an important trade and shipping point. It was also a traditional district capital and cultural centre of the border area of the lower R...
  • Wesel, Andries van (Belgian physician)
    Renaissance Flemish physician who revolutionized the study of biology and the practice of medicine by his careful description of the anatomy of the human body. Basing his observations on dissections he made himself, he wrote and illustrated the first comprehensive textbook of anatomy....
  • Wesel-Datteln-Hamm Canal (canal, Europe)
    ...through the Dortmund–Ems Canal with the German North Sea coast and through the Mittelland Canal with the waterways of central and eastern Germany and eastern Europe; and by the less important Wesel–Datteln–Hamm Canal (1930), which runs parallel to the lower course of the Lippe. The Rhine–Herne Canal’s capacity for craft of 1,350 tons became the standard both f...
  • “Wesele” (play by Wyspiański)
    ...Kazimierz Wielki (1900; “Casimir the Great”) evoked Polish history and projected it on modern times. Wesele (1901; The Wedding, filmed in 1973 by Andrzej Wajda), his greatest and most popular play, premiered in 1901. Its story was suggested by the actual marriage of the poet Lucjan Rydel to a peasant gi...
  • “Wesen des Christentums, Das” (work by Feuerbach)
    ...transcendent realities but are instead expressive of human ideals, desires, hopes, attitudes, and intentions. Such thinking goes back to the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (The Essence of Christianity, 1841) in the 19th century. It was promoted in the early 20th century by George Santayana, John Dewey, and J.H. Randall, Jr., and later by Christian writers such as.....
  • “Wesen des Christentums, Das” (work by Harnack)
    ...and the historical-critical approach would achieve this. Harnack defended this position in his most popular book, Das Wesen des Christentums (1900; What Is Christianity?), which was the transcript of a course of lectures he had delivered at the University of Berlin....
  • Wesendonk, Mathilde (German writer)
    ...by his discovery of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. The outcome was Tristan und Isolde (1857–59), of which the crystallizing agent was his hopeless love for Mathilde Wesendonk (the wife of a rich patron), which led to separation from his wife, Minna....
  • Wesensschau (philosophy)
    ...and unchangeable structures—can be grasped. In the eidetic reduction one must forego everything that is factual and merely occurs in this way or that. A means of grasping the essence is the Wesensschau, the intuition of essences and essential structures. This is not a mysterious kind of intuition. Rather, one forms a multiplicity of variations of what is given, and while maintaini...
  • Wesenwille (social organization)
    ...and regulated on the basis of traditional social rules. People have simple and direct face-to-face relations with each other that are determined by Wesenwille (natural will)—i.e., natural and spontaneously arising emotions and expressions of sentiment....
  • Weser River (river, Germany)
    major river of western Germany that serves as an important transport artery from Bremerhaven and Bremen. Formed near the city of Münden by the union of its two headstreams—the Fulda and the Werra—the Weser flows 273 miles (440 km) northward through northern Germany to the North Sea. The major tributaries of the Weser are the Aller, Lesum, ...
  • Wesermünde (Germany)
    ...founded by Hanover in competition in 1845; and Lehe, a borough dating from medieval times that attained town status in 1920. The union of Lehe and Geestemünde in 1924 formed the town of Wesermünde, which in turn absorbed Bremerhaven in 1939, under Hanoverian jurisdiction. This unified city, restored to Bremen in 1947, was thereafter known by the name of Bremerhaven....
  • Wesker, Arnold (British playwright)
    ...in Anger initiated a move toward what critics called “kitchen-sink” drama. Shelagh Delaney (with her one influential play, A Taste of Honey [1958]) and Arnold Wesker (especially in his politically and socially engaged trilogy, Chicken Soup with Barley [1958], Roots [1959], and ...
  • Wesley, Arthur (prime minister of Great Britain)
    British army commander during the Napoleonic Wars and later prime minister of Great Britain (1828–30). He first rose to military prominence in India, won successes in the Peninsular War in Spain (1808–14), and shared in the victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo (1815)....
  • Wesley, Charles (English clergyman)
    English clergyman, poet, and hymn writer, who, with his elder brother John, started the Methodist movement in the Church of England....
  • Wesley, John (English clergyman)
    Anglican clergyman, evangelist, and founder, with his brother Charles, of the Methodist movement in the Church of England....
  • Wesley, Richard Colley (British statesman)
    British statesman who, as governor of Madras and governor general of Bengal (both 1797–1805), greatly enlarged the British Empire in India and who, as lord lieutenant of Ireland (1821–28, 1833–34), attempted to reconcile Protestants and Catholics in a bitterly divided country. Throughout his life he displayed an ever-increasing jealousy of his younger brother Arthur Wellesley,...
  • Wesley, Samuel (English composer)
    composer and organist who helped introduce the music of J.S. Bach into England. The son of Charles Wesley, the hymn writer, and the nephew of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, he began an oratorio, Ruth, at the age of 6 and at age 11 published Eight Lessons for the Harpsichord. Though he suffered from 1787 onward from an injury to his skull, he became one of t...
  • Wesley, Samuel Sebastian (English composer)
    composer and organist, one of the most distinguished English church musicians of his time. The natural son of Samuel Wesley, he was a chorister of the Chapel Royal and held posts in London and at Exeter cathedral, Leeds Parish Church, Winchester cathedral, and Gloucester cathedral. He was prominent as a conductor of the Three Choirs Festival and was professor of organ at the Roy...
  • Wesleyan Church (American Protestantism)
    U.S. Protestant church, organized in 1968 by the merger of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America and the Pilgrim Holiness Church. The Wesleyan Methodist Church originated in 1843 after members of the Methodist Episcopal Church withdrew from that church to organize a nonepiscopal, antislavery church. The Pilgrim Holiness Church originated in 1897 by uniting several Holiness groups....
  • Wesleyan Methodist Church (British Methodism)
    Wesley’s ordinations set an important precedent for the Methodist church, but the definite break with the Church of England came in 1795, four years after his death. After the schism, English Methodism, with vigorous outposts in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, rapidly developed as a church, even though it was reluctant to perpetuate the split from the Church of England. Its system centred in ...
  • Wesleyan Methodist Church of America
    ...perfectionism were largely ignored by American Methodists during the early decades of the 19th century. In 1843 about two dozen ministers withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Church to found the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America, establishing a pattern of defections or looser ties. Sizable numbers of Protestants from the rural areas of the Midwest and South were joining the Holiness......
  • Wesleyan University (university, Middletown, Connecticut, United States)
    private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Middletown, Connecticut, U.S. It comprises the College of Letters and the College of Social Studies and departments in the sciences, mathematics, humanities, arts, and social and behavioral sciences. Altogether it offers 50 major fields of study for undergraduate students, 11 master’s degree programs, and doctoral p...
  • Wessel, Gerhard (German general)
    ...Gehlen had headed the Foreign Armies East section of the Abwehr, the intelligence service of the German general staff. He directed the BND until 1968, when he was succeeded by General Gerhard Wessel, a noted specialist on Soviet affairs and organizations. The BND reported to the West German chancellor. Its divisions were concerned with subversion, counterintelligence, and foreign......
  • Wessel, Horst (German Nazi martyr)
    martyr of the German Nazi movement, celebrated in the song “Horst Wessel Lied,” adopted as an anthem by Nazi Germany....
  • Wessel Islands (islands, Northern Territory, Australia)
    chain of small islands extending 75 miles (120 km) northeast from the Napier Peninsula in northeastern Northern Territory, Australia, into the Arafura Sea. Named for a Dutch ship that explored the area in 1636, the islands form the western gate to the Gulf of Carpentaria at Cape Wessel, their northern extremity. Marchinbar, the largest island (30 miles by 7 miles [48 km by 11 km]), has undevelope...
  • Wessel, Johan Herman (Danish author)
    Norwegian-born Danish writer and wit, known for his epigrams and light verse and for a famous parody of neoclassical tragedy....
  • Wesselényi Conspiracy (Hungarian history)
    (c. 1664–71), group of Hungarians, organized by Ferenc Wesselényi, that unsuccessfully plotted to overthrow the Habsburg dynasty in Hungary; its efforts resulted in the establishment of an absolutist, repressive regime in Hungary....
  • Wesselényi, Ferenc (Hungarian palatine administrator)
    ...land to the Ottoman Turks (1664; Treaty of Vasvár), he provoked the opposition of many previously pro-Habsburg Hungarian Roman Catholic magnates, including the palatine administrator Ferenc Wesselényi; the bán (governor) of Croatia, Péter Zrínyi; the chief justice of Hungary, Ferenc Nádasdy; and Ferenc Rákóczi. They formed a......
  • Wesselman, Tom (American artist)
    ...prints of soup-can labels, soap cartons, and rows of soft-drink bottles; Claes Oldenburg’s soft plastic sculptures of objects such as bathroom fixtures, typewriters, and gigantic hamburgers; Tom Wesselman’s “Great American Nudes,” flat, direct paintings of faceless sex symbols; and George Segal’s constructed tableaux featuring life-sized plaster-cast figures p...
  • Wessely, Naphtali Herz (Danish author)
    ...Jew” who had embraced Western culture, Mendelssohn’s message to his own community was to become Westerners, to seek out the culture of the Enlightenment. To that end he joined with a poet, Naphtali Herz (Hartwig) Wessely (1725–1805), in translating the Torah into German, combining Hebrew characters with modern German phonetics in an effort to displace Yiddish, and wrote a m...
  • Wessely, Paula (Austrian actress)
    Austrian actress (b. Jan. 20, 1907, Vienna, Austria—d. May 11, 2000, Vienna), reigned as Austria’s most distinguished and beloved stage and screen actress almost from her debut at the Vienna Volkstheater in 1924 until her retirement in 1987; although she was castigated for her appearance in the anti-Semitic 1941 Nazi-propaganda film Heimkehr (“Homecoming...
  • Wessex (historical kingdom, United Kingdom)
    one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, whose ruling dynasty eventually became kings of the whole country. In its permanent nucleus, its land approximated that of the modern counties of Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, and Somerset. At times its land extended north of the River Thames, and it eventually expanded westward to cover Devon and Cornwall. The name Wessex is an elision of the Old Englis...
  • Wessex (fictional English company)
    ...career that was soon validated by an invitation to contribute a serial to the far more prestigious Cornhill Magazine. The resulting novel, Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), introduced Wessex for the first time and made Hardy famous by its agricultural settings and its distinctive blend of humorous, melodramatic, pastoral, and tragic elements. The book is a vigorous portrayal of.....
  • Wessex and Kent, Godwine, earl of (Anglo-Saxon earl)
    Tostig was a son, probably the third, of Godwine, earl of Wessex and Kent, and in 1051 married Judith, half sister of Baldwin V, count of Flanders. In the year of his marriage he shared the short exile of his father, returning with him to England in 1052, and he became earl of Northumbria after the death of Earl Siward in 1055. By stern measures, Tostig introduced a certain degree of order into......
  • Wessex, Edward and Sophie, Earl and Countess (British nobility)
    On June 19, 1999, Prince Edward, the youngest child of the U.K.’s Queen Elizabeth II, married Sophie Rhys-Jones, a public relations consultant. The couple insisted it was an informal, family occasion—and so it was, within the constraints imposed by a wedding attended by Britain’s royal family on the grounds of Windsor Castle and watched on television by an estimated 200 millio...
  • Wessex, House of (British royal house)
    one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, whose ruling dynasty eventually became kings of the whole country. In its permanent nucleus, its land approximated that of the modern counties of Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, and Somerset. At times its land extended north of the River Thames, and it eventually expanded westward to cover Devon and Cornwall. The name Wessex is an elision of the Old......
  • Wessex Poems (work by Hardy)
    Hardy seems always to have rated poetry above fiction, and Wessex Poems (1898), his first significant public appearance as a poet, included verse written during his years as a novelist as well as revised versions of poems dating from the 1860s. As a collection it was often perceived as miscellaneous and uneven—an impression reinforced by the author’s own idiosyncratic......
  • Wessex, Prince Edward, earl of and Viscount Severn (British prince)
    On June 19, 1999, Prince Edward, the youngest child of the U.K.’s Queen Elizabeth II, married Sophie Rhys-Jones, a public relations consultant. The couple insisted it was an informal, family occasion—and so it was, within the constraints imposed by a wedding attended by Britain’s royal family on the grounds of Windsor Castle and watched on television by an estimated 200 millio...
  • Wessex, Sophie, countess of (British royal)
    On June 19, 1999, Prince Edward, the youngest child of the U.K.’s Queen Elizabeth II, married Sophie Rhys-Jones, a public relations consultant. The couple insisted it was an informal, family occasion—and so it was, within the constraints imposed by a wedding attended by Britain’s royal family on the grounds of Windsor Castle and watched on television by an estimated 200 millio...
  • Wessobrunn (Germany)
    ...Johann Michael Feichtmayr created the superb series of larger than life-size saints and angels that are the glory of these Rococo interiors. Feichtmayr was a member of the group of families from Wessobrunn in southern Bavaria that specialized in stucco work and produced a long series of masters, including Johann Georg Übelherr and Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer, whose masterpieces are the......
  • West 1976 VI, Comet (astronomy)
    ...or even scores or hundreds of millennia), and they have not left any identifiable trace in prehistory. Bright Comet Bennett 1970 II (Figure 2) will return in 17 centuries, whereas the spectacular Comet West 1976 VI will reappear in about 500,000 years. Among the comets that can easily be seen with the unaided eye, Comet Halley is the only one that returns in a single lifetime. Approximately......
  • West Africa (region, Africa)
    region lying south of the Sahara and east and north of the Atlantic Ocean. It is latitudinally divided into two parallel belts of land: the western portion of the Sudan, a geographic area that stretches across the entire width of Africa, and the coastal region, or Guinea Coast. Each belt has its own geography, cultures, and history....
  • West African chimpanzee
    ...have traditionally been recognized: the tschego, or Central African chimpanzee (P. t. troglodytes), also known as the common chimpanzee in continental Europe; the West African, or masked, chimpanzee (P. t. verus; see photograph), known as the common chimpanzee in Great Britain; and the East African, or long-haired, chimpanzee (P. t.......
  • West African Conference (European history)
    a series of negotiations (Nov. 15, 1884–Feb. 26, 1885) at Berlin, in which the major European nations met to decide all questions connected with the Congo River basin in Central Africa....
  • West African Craton (geological region, Africa)
    The late Proterozoic (900 to 570 million years ago) is again characterized by platform deposits in stable areas, such as the West African craton (Taoudeni and Tindouf basins), the Congo craton, the Kalahari craton (Nama basin of Namibia), and the Tanzania craton (Bukoban beds). Tectonic and magmatic activity was concentrated in mobile belts surrounding these stable areas and took place......
  • West African Economic and Monetary Union (African organization)
    Mali, along with seven other French-speaking countries in western Africa, is a member of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (Union Économique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine). These countries share a common bank, the Central Bank of West African States (Banque Centrale des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest), which is headquartered in Dakar, Seneg. The bank iss...
  • West African Frontier Force (British military group)
    ...regiment that he was to employ in a second attempt to fend off the French, who then were competing with the British right across Africa from the Niger to the Nile. This was to become the famous West African Frontier Force. Lugard’s success in this difficult undertaking led to his appointment as high commissioner for Northern Nigeria....
  • West African green mamba (snake)
    ...metres) and are usually found in trees. The East African green mamba (D. angusticeps) of East and South Africa, Jameson’s mamba (D. jamesoni) of Central Africa, and the West African green mamba (D. viridis) are all more timid than the black mamba and have not been reported to attack humans. Like the black mamba, they will flatten...
  • West African manatee (mammal)
    ...River and associated drainage areas, including seasonally inundated forests. This species lives only in fresh water and can be found far inland through Brazil to Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. The West African manatee (T. senegalensis), found in coastal areas and slow-moving rivers from Senegal to Angola, also ranges far inland in some rivers....
  • West African Monetary Union (African organization)
    Burkina Faso, along with six other French-speaking states in western Africa, is a member of the West African Monetary Union. These states share a common central bank, with headquarters in Dakar, Senegal, and a common currency, the CFA (Communauté Financière Africaine) franc. Branches of the central bank in Burkina Faso are located in Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso. Among the......
  • West African monsoon
    The main characteristics of the West African seasons have been known to the scientific community for more than two centuries. The southwest winter monsoon flows as a shallow (less than 2,000 metres [about 6,600 feet]) humid layer of surface air overlain by the primary northeast trade wind, which blows from the Sahara and the Sahel as a deep stream of dry, often dusty air. As a surface......
  • West African Shield (geological formation, Africa)
    The crystalline rocks, collectively referred to as the West African shield or craton, comprise three main types of rock assemblage. The basement complexes are highly deformed and contorted gneisses, migmatites (metamorphosed and banded mixed rocks), quartzites, and amphibolites. The supracrustal formations of phyllites, schists, banded ironstones, quartzites, and greenstones were originally......
  • West African trypanosomiasis (pathology)
    ...also characteristic symptoms at this stage. In the more severe Rhodesian, or East African, form of sleeping sickness, the toxemia becomes so profound that the patient soon dies. In the Gambian, or West African, type, by contrast, the trypanosomes proceed to invade the brain and spinal cord. The resulting neurological symptoms include severe headache, mental dullness and apathy, a weary......
  • West Alligator River (river, Northern Territory, Australia)
    ...a now-abandoned mining base for uranium, and follows a northerly course for about 100 miles (160 km). The East Alligator rises in Arnhem Land and flows northwesterly for nearly 100 miles; the West Alligator (50 miles [80 km]) generally parallels the course of the South Alligator. The region includes Kakadu National Park....
  • West Allis (Wisconsin, United States)
    city, western suburb of Milwaukee, Milwaukee county, southeastern Wisconsin, U.S. It is situated just south of Wauwatosa. Potawatomi and Menominee Indians were among the early inhabitants of the region. In 1835 settlers from New York arrived and began farming along Honey Creek, for which the community wa...
  • West Antarctic Ice Sheet (ice sheet, Antarctica)
    The part of the main continent lying south of the Americas, between longitudes 45° W and 165° E, is characterized by irregular bedrock and ice-surface topography and numerous nunataks and deep troughs. Two large ice shelves occur in West Antarctica: the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf (often considered to be two separate ice shelves), south of the Weddell Sea, and the Ross Ice Shelf, south ...
  • West Antarctica (region, Antarctica)
    ...century, the concept arose that Antarctica is made up of two structural provinces—a long, stable Precambrian shield in East Antarctica and a much younger Mesozoic and Cenozoic mobile belt in West Antarctica—separated by the fault-block belt, or horst, of the Transantarctic Mountains. East and West Antarctica have come to be known respectively as the Gondwana and Andean provinces,....
  • West Aramaic (language)
    In the early centuries ad, Aramaic divided into East and West varieties. West Aramaic dialects include Nabataean (formerly spoken in parts of Arabia), Palmyrene (spoken in Palmyra, which was northeast of Damascus), Palestinian-Christian, and Judeo-Aramaic. West Aramaic is still spoken in a small number of villages in Lebanon....
  • West Asia (region, Asia)
    West Asia includes the highlands of Anatolia, the Caucasus, and the Armenian and Iranian highlands....
  • West Atlantic languages (African language)
    branch of the Niger-Congo language family spoken primarily in Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. The approximately 45 Atlantic languages are spoken by about 30 million people. One language cluster, Fula (also called Fulani, Peul, Fulfulde, and Toucouleur), accounts for more than half of this number and is the most widely sca...
  • West Australian Current (ocean current)
    relatively cold surface current of the southeast Indian Ocean, part of the general counterclockwise movement in the southern section of that ocean. As the South Indian Current (part of the West Wind Drift) approaches the west coast of Australia, it turns north to parallel that coast as the West Australian Current. The current, which is much affected by winds, is weak during the...
  • West Bank (region, Palestine)
    area of the former British-mandated (1920–47) territory of Palestine west of the Jordan River, claimed from 1949 to 1988 as part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan but occupied from 1967 by Israel. The territory, excluding East Jerusalem, is also known within Israel by its biblical names, Judaea a...
  • West Barney Peak (mountain, Queensland-New South Wales, Australia)
    ...the Queensland–New South Wales border from Point Danger to Wallangara (140 miles [225 km]). Occupying a well-dissected and rainforest-covered region, the range rises to its highest point at West Barney Peak, 4,459 feet (1,359 m). In 1770 the British navigator Captain James Cook sighted the range from the coast; he named the peak he saw Mount Warning. In 1827 Captain Patrick Logan became....
  • West Bend (Wisconsin, United States)
    city, seat (1853) of Washington county, southeastern Wisconsin, U.S. It lies on a bend in the Milwaukee River, about 35 miles (55 km) northwest of Milwaukee. Potawatomi and Menominee Indians were early inhabitants of the area. The city was founded in 1845 and became a stopping place on the road between Milwaukee and ...
  • West Bengal (state, India)
    state of India. It is located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bounded on the north by Bhutan and the state of Sikkim, on the east by Bangladesh, on the northeast by the state of Assam, on the south by the Bay of Bengal, on the southwest by the state of Orissa, on the northwest by Nepal, and on the west by the state of Bihār. Its area is 34,267 square miles (88,752 square kilo...
  • West Bengal Duars (region, India)
    physical region in extreme northeastern West Bengal state, northeastern India. It is bounded by Sikkim state and Bhutan on the north, Assam state on the east, Nepal on the west, and the continuation of West Bengal state on the south....
  • West Bengal Panchayat Act (Indian history [1956])
    With the object of developing rural self-government, mawzas have been grouped together and a pañcāyat—an elected local authority established under the West Bengal Panchayat Act of 1956—entrusted with sanitary and conservation services and with the supervision of the village police and the development of cottage industries. A three-tiered......
  • West, Benjamin (American painter)
    American-born painter of historical, religious, and mythological subjects who had a profound influence on the development of historical painting in Britain. He was historical painter to George III (1772–1801) and a founder of the Royal Academy (1768), of which in 1792 he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as president....
  • West Berkshire (unitary authority, England, United Kingdom)
    unitary authority, geographic and historic county of Berkshire, England. The unitary authority extends westward from the district of Reading along both sides of the River Kennet and edges into the Berkshire Downs on the north and the Hampshire Downs on the south; both downs are composed of chalk and rise to elevations of between 600 to 800 feet (185 to 245 met...
  • West Berlin (historical division, Berlin, Germany)
    the western half of the German city of Berlin, which until the reunification of the German state in 1990 was treated as a city and Land (state) of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), though it was not constitutionally part of that nation....
  • West Bridgewater (Massachusetts, United States)
    town (township), Plymouth county, eastern Massachusetts, approximately 25 miles (40 km) south of Boston. The area was deeded by Massasoit, a Wampanoag Indian chief and sachem (intertribal leader) of all Wampanoags, to six people in trust for 56 proprietors of Duxbury plantation for the price of knives, hatchets, hoes, coats, and cotton. It w...
  • West Bridgford (England, United Kingdom)
    town, Rushcliffe district, administrative and historic county of Nottinghamshire, England. The town now functions largely as a residential suburb of Nottingham, which lies just to the northwest. West Bridgford’s parish church was built in the 14th century. There is some modern light industry in the town. Trent Bridge cricket ground (one of England...
  • West Bromwich (England, United Kingdom)
    locality in the metropolitan borough of Sandwell, metropolitan county of West Midlands, historic county of Staffordshire, west-central England. It lies about 5 miles (8 km) northwest of the city of Birmingham. Though the town is of ancient origin, its appearance is modern and industrial. Coal was long mined in and around t...
  • West, Buster (American dancer)
    ...cane twirling and dazzling acrobatics. Cook and Brown had one of the finest knockabout acts. King, King, and King danced in convict outfits, chained together doing close-to-the-floor fast tap work. Buster West tap-danced in “slap shoes”—oversized clown-style shoes that, because of their extended length, slapped audibly on the floor during a routine—and did break danc...
  • West Cambridge (Massachusetts, United States)
    town (township), Middlesex county, east-central Massachusetts, U.S. It is a northwestern suburb of Boston. Settled in 1635 as part of Cambridge, it was known as Menotomy (from an Algonquian word meaning “swift waters”) until separately incorporated as West Cambridge in 1807. It was renamed for George Washington Parke Custis...
  • West Caroline Trench (submarine trench, Pacific Ocean)
    deep submarine trench in the western Pacific Ocean located east of the Yap Ridge and the Yap island group. The Yap Trench is about 400 miles (650 km) long from north to south and reaches a maximum depth of 27,976 feet (8,527 m) some 300 miles (480 km) northeast of the Palau Islands. It is a part of the chain of trenches that begins at the southwestern edge of the Bering Sea and runs southward towa...
  • West Chester (Pennsylvania, United States)
    borough (town), seat (1786) of Chester county, southeastern Pennsylvania, U.S. It lies 27 miles (43 km) west of Philadelphia. Settlement began in the early 1700s, and Turk’s Head Inn was established there in 1761; but the town’s growth was delayed by a prolonged dispute with Chester (now in Delaware county) over the permanent location of the coun...
  • West Chester Academy (university, West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States)
    public, coeducational institution of higher learning in West Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is part of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. The university comprises the College of Arts and Sciences and schools of Education, Health Sciences, Music, and Business and Public Affairs. In addition to undergraduate studies, West Chester offers some 70 master’s...
  • West Chester Normal School (university, West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States)
    public, coeducational institution of higher learning in West Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is part of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. The university comprises the College of Arts and Sciences and schools of Education, Health Sciences, Music, and Business and Public Affairs. In addition to undergraduate studies, West Chester offers some 70 master’s...
  • West Chester State College (university, West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States)
    public, coeducational institution of higher learning in West Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is part of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. The university comprises the College of Arts and Sciences and schools of Education, Health Sciences, Music, and Business and Public Affairs. In addition to undergraduate studies, West Chester offers some 70 master’s...
  • West Chester University of Pennsylvania (university, West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States)
    public, coeducational institution of higher learning in West Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is part of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. The university comprises the College of Arts and Sciences and schools of Education, Health Sciences, Music, and Business and Public Affairs. In addition to undergraduate studies, West Chester offers some 70 master’s...
  • West, Claudine (British writer)
    Screenplay: George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West, Arthur Wimperis for Mrs. MiniverOriginal Story: Emeric Pressburger for The InvadersOriginal Screenplay: Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner, Jr., for Woman of the......
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