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Wutai Shan (mountain, China)
mountain in northeastern Shanxi province, northern China. It is actually a cluster of flat-topped peaks, from which it takes its name, wutai meaning “five terraces”; the highest peak is 10,033 feet (3,058 metres) above sea level. It is also the name of a mountain chain, a massif with a southwest-northeast a...
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Wuthering Heights (film by Wyler [1939])
Screenplay: Sidney Howard for Gone with the WindOriginal Story: Lewis R. Foster for Mr. Smith Goes to WashingtonCinematography, Black-and-White: Gregg Toland for Wuthering HeightsCinematography, Color: Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan for Gone with the WindArt Direction: Lyle Wheeler for Gone with the WindOriginal Score: Herbert Stothart for The Wizard of......
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Wuthering Heights (novel by Brontë)
English novelist and poet who produced but one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), a highly imaginative novel of passion and hate set on the Yorkshire moors. Emily was perhaps the greatest of the three Brontë sisters, but the record of her life is extremely meagre, for she was silent and reserved and left no correspondence of interest, and her single novel darkens rather than solves......
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Wuthering Heights (song by Bush)
English novelist and poet who produced but one novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), a highly imaginative novel of passion and hate set on the Yorkshire moors. Emily was perhaps the greatest of the three Brontë sisters, but the record of her life is extremely meagre, for she was silent and reserved and left no correspondence of interest, and her single novel darkens rather than solves.......
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Wüthrich, Kurt (Swiss scientist)
Swiss scientist who, with John B. Fenn and Tanaka Koichi, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2002 for developing techniques to identify and analyze proteins and other large biological molecules....
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Wutongqiao (former town, Leshan, China)
former town, south-central Sichuan sheng (province), southwestern China. It is now a southern district of the city of Leshan....
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wutu (snake)
...is found chiefly in Brazil, where it is abundant in grassy regions. Its bite causes many deaths. It usually grows to about 1.2 m (4 ft) and is olive- or grayish-brown with darker brown blotches. The wutu, also South American, is a dangerous snake about 1.2 m long. It is brown, boldly marked on its sides with thick, dark semicircles outlined in yellow. The jumping viper is an aggressive, brown o...
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Wuwang (ruler of Zhou)
reign name (nianhao) of the founder and first ruler (1046–43 bc) of the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 bc). He was regarded by later Confucians as a wise king....
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Wuwei (China)
city, east-central Gansu sheng (province), northwestern China. It is situated at the eastern end of the Hexi (Gansu) Corridor (through which the Silk Road ran southeast to northwest) to the north of the provincial capital, Lanzhou. Wuwei became an important defensive area under the Han dynasty (206 ...
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wuwei (Chinese philosophy)
(Chinese: “nonaction”), in Chinese Taoism, the principle of yielding to others as the most effective response to the problems of human existence. Wu-wei does not mean total passivity. Rather, it is natural, nonaggressive behaviour that compels others (through shame, if for no other reason) to desist voluntarily from violence or overly aggressive conduct. Taoism, therefore, is...
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Wuxi (China)
city, southern Jiangsu sheng (province), eastern China. It is situated along the Grand Canal at that waterway’s junction with local rivers near the northeastern corner of Lake Tai. The city is the principal route focus of the dense network of canals and waterways that provides the basic transpor...
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wuxian (musical instrument)
...bipa), to Japan (the biwa), and to Vietnam (the tyba). The wuxian (“five-string”) also arrived by means of the Silk Road, arriving with Buddhism from India during the 5th century ad. Like the body of the ......
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Wuxian (China)
city, southern Jiangsu sheng (province), eastern China. It is situated on the southern section of the Grand Canal on a generally flat, low-lying plain between the renowned Lake Tai to the west and the vast Shanghai metropolis to the east. Surrounded by canals on all four sides and cris...
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Wuxing (China)
city, northern Zhejiang sheng (province), southeastern China. It is situated close to the southern shore of Lake Tai, some 45 miles (75 km) north of the provincial capital Hangzhou and 39 miles (63 km) west of Jiaxing. Situated at the confluence of the Dongtiao and Xitiao rivers, whi...
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wuxing (Chinese philosophy)
originally a moral theory associated with Zisi, the grandson of Confucius, and Mencius. In the 3rd century bce, the sage-alchemist Zou Yan introduced a systematic cosmological theory under the same rubric that was to dominate the intellectual world of the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce). In ancient Chinese cosmology, the five basic p...
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Wuyi Mountains (mountains, China)
mountain range on the border between Fujian and Jiangxi provinces, southeastern China. Originally used in reference to a cluster of peaks in northwestern Fujian, the name is now applied generally to the range along a southwest-northeast axis forming the northern and central parts of the Fujian-Jiangxi border. The individual peaks of the Wuyi...
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Wuyi Shan (mountains, China)
mountain range on the border between Fujian and Jiangxi provinces, southeastern China. Originally used in reference to a cluster of peaks in northwestern Fujian, the name is now applied generally to the range along a southwest-northeast axis forming the northern and central parts of the Fujian-Jiangxi border. The individual peaks of the Wuyi...
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Wuzhi Shan (mountain, China)
...terrain that is surrounded by a maritime plain much broader in the north than in the south. The southern third of the island consists of a number of mountain chains, the highest of which is Mount Wu-chih in the southeast, reaching an elevation of 6,125 feet (1,867 m) above sea level. To the west stretch the Ying-ke and Ya-chia-ta ranges, averaging from 1,600 to 3,300 feet (490 to 1,000......
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Wuzhou (China)
city, eastern Zhuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi, southern China. It is situated at the confluence of the Xi River with its northern tributary, the Gui River, just west of the border with Guangdong province. The city occupies a location of strategic and economic importance, dominating the principal route between Guangxi and southwestern Chi...
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Wuzong (emperor of Ming dynasty)
reign name (nianhao) of the 11th emperor (reigned 1505–21) of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), during whose reign eunuchs achieved such power within the government that subsequent rulers proved unable to dislodge them....
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Wuzong (emperor of Tang dynasty)
...Sweet Dew (Ganlu) coup of 835, which misfired and led to the deaths of several ministers and a number of other officials. But the apogee of the eunuchs’ power was brief, ending with the accession of Wuzong in 840. Wuzong and his minister, Li Deyu, managed to impose some restrictions on the eunuchs’ power, especially in the military....
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WWF (international organization)
international organization committed to conservation of the environment. In North America it is called the World Wildlife Fund....
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WWI (1914-18)
an international conflict that in 1914–18 embroiled most of the nations of Europe along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The war pitted the Central Powers—mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey—against the Allies—mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan, and, from 1917, the United States. It ended with the defeat of the ...
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WWII (1939-45)
conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during the years 1939–45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies—France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and, to a lesser extent, China. The war was in many respects a continuation, after an uneasy 20-year hiatus, of the disputes left unsettled ...
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WWSSN
...with seismographs of various types and frequency responses. Few instruments were calibrated; actual ground motions could not be measured, and timing errors of several seconds were common. The World-Wide Standardized Seismographic Network (WWSSN), the first modern worldwide standardized system, was established to help remedy this situation. Each station of the WWSSN had six......
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WWSU
...waterskiing standards in the United States. The association certifies performance records and levels of achievement, grants awards, and keeps records and statistics of competitions. In 1946 the World Water Ski Union (WWSU) was formed as the international governing body of worldwide waterskiing competition. Claims for world records are ratified by the WWSU....
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WWW (information network)
the leading information retrieval service of the Internet (the worldwide computer network). The Web gives users access to a vast array of documents that are connected to each other by means of hypertext or hypermedia links—i.e., hyperlinks, electronic connections that link related pieces of information in order to allow a user easy access to them...
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Wyandotte (chicken)
...has good size and meat quality and is a good layer. The White Plymouth Rock, a variety of the Barred Plymouth Rock, has white plumage and is raised for its meat. Both varieties lay brown eggs. The Wyandotte, developed in 1870 from five or more strains and breeds, has eight varieties and is characterized by a plump body, excellent meat, and good egg production. Only the white strain is of any......
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Wyandotte (Kansas, United States)
Present-day Kansas City was formed by the consolidation of eight separate towns. The earliest, Wyandotte, was bought from an Indian tribe, laid out in 1857 by a town company, and incorporated in 1859. The founding of rival settlements by proslavery and abolitionist supporters after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) brought rapid development. The Kansas constitution, under which the......
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Wyandotte (Michigan, United States)
city, Wayne county, southeastern Michigan, U.S., on the Detroit River, just southwest of Detroit. Settled about 1820, it was laid out in 1854 on the site of the Huron village near where the Ottawa chief Pontiac had planned his attack on Detroit in 1763. Its name recalls the We...
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Wyandotte Cave (cave, Indiana, United States)
cave in Crawford county, southern Indiana, U.S., near the village of Wyandotte, about 30 miles (48 km) west of New Albany. With 25 miles (40 km) of passages on five levels, it is the largest of the many such caves dissolved out in the horizontally bedded Mississippian limestones that extend southward into the cave-bearing regions of Kentucky and Tennessee. The entrance is about 200 feet (60 metres...
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Wyandotte Constitution (United States history)
in the period immediately preceding the American Civil War, document under which Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state (Jan. 29, 1861), concluding the struggle known as Bleeding Kansas. Drawn up at Wyandotte (now part of Kansas City) in July 1859, it rejected slavery and suffrage for women and blacks but affirmed property rights for women. The docu...
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Wyat, Sir Thomas (English poet)
poet who introduced the Italian sonnet and terza rima verse form and the French rondeau into English literature....
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Wyat, Sir Thomas, the Younger (English soldier)
English soldier and conspirator who led an unsuccessful rebellion against Queen Mary I, probably the most formidable uprising ever faced by a Tudor monarch....
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Wyatt, Bob (British cricketer)
("BOB"), British cricketer (b. May 2, 1901, Milford, Surrey, England--d. April 20, 1995, Treliske, Cornwall, England), in a first-class career (always as an amateur) that lasted from 1923 to 1957, was a reliable middle-order batsman and medium-fast bowler, scoring 39,405 runs (average, 40.04), including 85 centuries, and taking 901 wickets (average, 32.84). Between 1927 and 1937 he made 40 Test ap...
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Wyatt, Hattie Ophelia (United States senator)
American politician who became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate....
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Wyatt, James (British architect)
English architect chiefly remembered for his Romantic country houses, especially the extraordinary Gothic Revival Fonthill Abbey....
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Wyatt, Jane (American actress)
American actress (b. Aug. 12, 1910?, Campgaw, N.J.—d. Oct. 20, 2006, Bel Air, Calif.), won three Emmy Awards (1958–60) for her role as Margaret Anderson, the archetypical housewife and mother on the popular television sitcom Father Knows Best (1954–60). Probably her most compelling performance in a motion picture was as a luminous Shangri-la beauty who bewitches plane-c...
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Wyatt, John (English mechanic)
English mechanic who contributed to the development of power spinning....
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Wyatt, Robert Elliott Storey (British cricketer)
("BOB"), British cricketer (b. May 2, 1901, Milford, Surrey, England--d. April 20, 1995, Treliske, Cornwall, England), in a first-class career (always as an amateur) that lasted from 1923 to 1957, was a reliable middle-order batsman and medium-fast bowler, scoring 39,405 runs (average, 40.04), including 85 centuries, and taking 901 wickets (average, 32.84). Between 1927 and 1937 he made 40 Test ap...
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Wyatt, Sir Thomas (English poet)
poet who introduced the Italian sonnet and terza rima verse form and the French rondeau into English literature....
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Wyatt, Sir Thomas, the Younger (English soldier)
English soldier and conspirator who led an unsuccessful rebellion against Queen Mary I, probably the most formidable uprising ever faced by a Tudor monarch....
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Wyatville, Sir Jeffry (British architect)
...Castle (1806–11), Westmorland, and Eastnor Castle (c. 1810–15), Herefordshire—were in this style. The most spectacular was Windsor Castle, by James Wyatt’s nephew, Sir Jeffry Wyatville, who began the remodeling in 1824. Gothic was also employed in collegiate work. William Wilkins built the screen and hall at King’s College, Cambridge, between 1824 and 1...
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Wybicki, Józef (Polish writer)
...between Russia, Austria, and Prussia in 1795–96, the tradition of patriotic poetry was continued by émigré soldier-poets in the Polish legions of Napoleon’s army. Among them was Józef Wybicki, whose popular patriotic song “Mazurek Dąbrowskiego” (1797; “Dąbrowski’s Mazurka”) was adopted as the national anthem in ...
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Wych elm (tree)
...as ornamentals include Chinese elm (U. parvifolia), a small-leaved species with interesting mottled bark; English elm (U. procera), with a compact crown and deeply fissured bark; Wych elm (U. glabra), with smoother bark; and Camperdown elm (U. glabra camperdownii), a variety of Wych elm also known as umbrella elm because of its drooping branches. The......
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Wychavon (district, England, United Kingdom)
district, administrative county of Worcestershire, west-central England, in the southeastern part of the county. Most of the district is in the historic county of Worcestershire, but the area around Hinton and Childwickham and the parishes of Ashton-under-Hill and Kemerton belong the historic county of Gloucestershire. Wychavon district consists mostly of the ...
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Wyche, Richard (English bishop)
bishop of Chichester, who championed the ideals of St. Edmund of Abingdon....
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Wycherley, William (English dramatist)
English dramatist who attempted to reconcile in his plays a personal conflict between deep-seated puritanism and an ardent physical nature. He perhaps succeeded best in The Country-Wife (1675), in which satiric comment on excessive jealousy and complacency was blended with a richly comic presentation, the characters unconsciously revealing themselves in laughter-provoking...
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Wyckoff, Ralph Walter Graystone (American chemist)
American research scientist, a pioneer in the application of X-ray methods to determine crystal structures and one of the first to use these methods for studying biological substances....
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Wyclif, John (English theologian)
English theologian, philosopher, church reformer, and promoter of the first complete translation of the Bible into English. He was one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation. The politico-ecclesiastical theories that he developed required the church to give up its worldly possessions, and in 1378 he began a systematic attack on the beliefs and practices of the church. ...
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Wyclif Reading His Translation of the Scriptures to John of Gaunt (painting by Brown)
...of the former Lukasbund, or Nazarenes. This meeting undoubtedly influenced both Brown’s palette and his style. His interest in brilliant, clear colour and neomedievalism first appears in Wyclif Reading His Translation of the Scriptures to John of Gaunt (1847). In 1848 Brown briefly accepted Dante Gabriel Rossetti as a pupil, and in 1850 Brown contributed to the......
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Wycliff, John (English theologian)
English theologian, philosopher, church reformer, and promoter of the first complete translation of the Bible into English. He was one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation. The politico-ecclesiastical theories that he developed required the church to give up its worldly possessions, and in 1378 he began a systematic attack on the beliefs and practices of the church. ...
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Wycliffe Bible
By the middle of the 13th century the English component in the Anglo-Norman amalgam had begun to assert itself and the close of the century witnessed a Northumbrian version of the Psalter made directly from Latin, which, because it survived in several manuscripts, must have achieved relatively wide circulation. By the next century, English had gradually superseded French among the upper......
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Wycliffe Bible Translators
Bible societies, including the United Bible Societies (1946), have coordinated and aided the translation work of missionaries in this task for almost 200 years. Wycliffe Bible Translators (1936) concentrated its work among the language groups having the smallest numbers of speakers. From 1968, Roman Catholics and the United Bible Societies have coordinated their efforts and cooperated in......
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Wycliffe, John (English theologian)
English theologian, philosopher, church reformer, and promoter of the first complete translation of the Bible into English. He was one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation. The politico-ecclesiastical theories that he developed required the church to give up its worldly possessions, and in 1378 he began a systematic attack on the beliefs and practices of the church. ...
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Wycliffite Bible
By the middle of the 13th century the English component in the Anglo-Norman amalgam had begun to assert itself and the close of the century witnessed a Northumbrian version of the Psalter made directly from Latin, which, because it survived in several manuscripts, must have achieved relatively wide circulation. By the next century, English had gradually superseded French among the upper......
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Wycombe (district, England, United Kingdom)
district, administrative and historic county of Buckinghamshire, England, in the southern part of the wooded Chiltern Hills. The River Thames forms its southern boundary. The predominantly rural district overlaps the designated Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Prehistoric burial mounds and earthworks are visible. Towns include High Wycombe, Marlow...
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wydah (bird)
any of several African birds that have long dark tails suggesting a funeral veil. They belong to two subfamilies, Viduinae and Ploceinae, of the family Ploceidae (order Passeriformes). The name is associated with Whydah (Ouidah), a town in Benin where the birds are common....
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Wydeville, Elizabeth (queen of England)
wife of King Edward IV of England. After Edward’s death popular dislike of her and her court facilitated the usurpation of power by Richard, duke of Gloucester (King Richard III)....
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wye connection (electronics)
...together to form a neutral point that may either be connected to ground or in some cases left open. The power of all three phases can be transmitted on three conductors. This connection is called a star, or wye, connection. Alternatively, since the three winding voltages also sum to zero at every instant, the three windings can be connected in series—a′ to b,......
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Wye Memorandum (Arab-Israeli agreement)
The breakdown of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiation at high levels led the United States to intervene again in early 1998 to end the stalemate. Both sides met in rural Maryland in October, and after intensive negotiations that included President Clinton’s active participation produced the Wye River Memorandum. The new agreement restored old Israeli promises (such as the opening of a......
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Wye Oak State Park (Maryland, United States)
...House (1682–84) was the nucleus of an early Quaker settlement and is one of the oldest frame structures for worship in the United States. Nearby are Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum (west) and Wye Oak State Park (north), which preserved a 460-year-old white oak, 96 feet (29 metres) high and nearly 32 feet (10 metres) around the trunk, a spectacular example of Maryland’s official sta...
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Wye, River (river, United Kingdom)
river in England and Wales, about 130 mi (210 km) long. It flows from the moorlands of central Wales, generally southeastward through England to its Irish Sea mouth in the Severn Estuary. It is one of the major rivers of Britain....
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Wye River Memorandum (1998, Israel-Palestinian Liberation Organization)
...Israelis and the newly formed Palestinian Authority (PA) arranged further exchanges of territory as part of the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, signed in September 1995, and the Wye River Memorandum of October 1998. The transfers, executed in stages, actually occurred more slowly than originally agreed, with a number of stages delayed or postponed. In 2002 Israel also began.....
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Wyeth, Andrew Newell (American artist)
American watercolourist and worker in tempera noted primarily for his realistic depictions of the buildings, fields, hills, and people of his private world....
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Wyeth, N. C. (American artist)
...Academy at West Point, N.Y., resigning after two years to pursue a career in painting. During a term at Haverford College in Pennsylvania he made the acquaintance of the renowned illustrator N.C. Wyeth, who lived in the area, and subsequently apprenticed in his studio. At Wyeth’s urging he entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1924. In 1929 Hurd married Wyeth’s eldest d...
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Wyeth, Newell Convers (American artist)
...Academy at West Point, N.Y., resigning after two years to pursue a career in painting. During a term at Haverford College in Pennsylvania he made the acquaintance of the renowned illustrator N.C. Wyeth, who lived in the area, and subsequently apprenticed in his studio. At Wyeth’s urging he entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1924. In 1929 Hurd married Wyeth’s eldest d...
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Wykeham, William of (English prelate and statesman)
English prelate and statesman, the founder of Winchester College and of New College, Oxford....
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Wyld, James Hart (American aeronautical engineer)
...1926. Goddard proved that flight was possible at speeds greater than the speed of sound and that rockets can work in a vacuum. The major impetus in rocket development came in 1938 when the American James Hart Wyld designed, built, and tested the first U.S. regeneratively cooled liquid rocket engine. In 1947 Wyld’s rocket engine powered the first supersonic research aircraft, the Bell X-1...
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Wyler, William (American director)
American director of motion pictures that combine a high technical polish with a clear narrative style and sensitive handling of human relationships. Most of his films were based on novels or plays....
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Wylie, Elinor (American writer)
American poet and novelist whose work, written from an aristocratic and traditionalist point of view, reflected changing American attitudes in the aftermath of World War I....
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Wylie, Lake (lake, South Carolina, United States)
...northern South Carolina, U.S. North Carolina forms the northern border, the Catawba River part of the eastern border, and the Broad River part of the western border. On the northern border is Lake Wylie, created by one of the state’s first hydroelectric projects, the Catawba Dam on the Catawba River. York county lies in a hilly piedmont region. The eastern portion is urban, while the......
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Wyman, Bill (British musician)
Formed in London as an alliance between Jagger, Richards, and multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones along with Watts and bassist Wyman, the Stones began as a grubby conclave of students and bohemians playing a then-esoteric music based on Chicago ghetto blues in pubs and clubs in and around West London. Their potential for mass-market success seemed negligible at first, but by 1965 they were second......
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Wyman, Jane (American actress)
American actress who had a long, distinguished career in film and television, but she was perhaps equally well known as the first wife (1940–48) of former president Ronald Reagan. Wyman was a singer on the radio, appeared in the choruses of movie musicals and in bit parts, and starred in a number of B movies before her portrayal of an alcoholic’s girlfriend in The Lost Weekend...
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Wynants, Jan (Dutch painter)
...was landscape and began to learn the language of this art from the Dutch 17th-century landscapists, who by 1740 were becoming popular with English collectors; his first landscapes were influenced by Jan Wynants. The earliest dated picture with a landscape background is a study of a bull terrier, Bumper—A Bull Terrier (1745), in which many of the details are.....
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Wynder, Ernst (American medical researcher)
German-born American physician and cancer researcher who in 1950 co-wrote the first major scientific study to link lung cancer with smoking; he went on to found the American Health Foundation, an independent institute for cancer research, in 1969 (b. April 30, 1922, Herford, Ger.—d. July 14, 1999, New York, N.Y.)....
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Wyndham (Western Australia, Australia)
most northerly seaport of Western Australia. It lies at the mouth of the King River, on the West Arm of Cambridge Gulf (an inlet of Joseph Bonaparte Gulf of the Timor Sea). Founded in 1885 as a port for the Kimberley goldfield, it was named after the son of Sir Napier Broome, governor at the time. In 1919 the state government selected Wyndham as the site of a meatworks, which no...
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Wyndham, George (British politician)
British Conservative politician and man of letters who, as chief secretary for Ireland, was responsible for the Irish Land Purchase Act of 1903, also known as the Wyndham Land Purchase Act, which alleviated the problem of Irish farm ownership with justice to landlords as well as to peasants....
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Wyndham, John (British writer)
English science-fiction writer who examined the human struggle for survival when catastrophic natural phenomena suddenly invade a comfortable English setting....
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Wyndham Land Purchase Act (United Kingdom [1903])
...the Conservatives initiated a policy designed to “kill Home Rule by kindness” by introducing constructive reforms in Ireland. Their most important achievement in this field was the Land Purchase Act of 1903. By providing generous inducements to landlords to sell their estates, the act effected by government mediation the transfer of landownership to the occupying tenants....
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Wyndham, Sir Charles (British theatrical manager)
...at the Lyceum (1866), and Two Roses, produced at the Vaudeville (1870). Albery’s wife was actress Mary Moore (b. 1861—d. 1931), who after his death became Lady Wyndham when she married Sir Charles Wyndham (1916), founder of Wyndham’s Theatre (1899) and the New Theatre (1903; renamed Albery, 1973). The Wyndhams managed both theatres in addition to the Criterion Theatr...
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Wyndham, Sir William, 3rd Baronet (British politician)
English Tory politician, a close associate of Henry Saint John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke....
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Wynette, Tammy (American singer)
American singer, who was revered as the “first lady of country music” from the 1950s to the ’80s, perhaps best known for her 1968 hit Stand by Your Man....
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Wynfrid (English missionary)
English missionary and reformer, often called the apostle of Germany for his role in the Christianization of that country. Boniface set the church in Germany on a firm course of undeviating piety and irreproachable conduct. In his letters and in the writings of his contemporaries, he appears as a man of purpose and dedication, an innovator with a powerful though willful personal...
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Wynfrith (English missionary)
English missionary and reformer, often called the apostle of Germany for his role in the Christianization of that country. Boniface set the church in Germany on a firm course of undeviating piety and irreproachable conduct. In his letters and in the writings of his contemporaries, he appears as a man of purpose and dedication, an innovator with a powerful though willful personal...
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Wynkyn, Jan Van (English printer)
Alsatian-born printer in London, an astute businessman who published a large number of books (at least 600 titles from 1501). He was also the first printer in England to use italic type (1524)....
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Wynn, Early (American athlete)
American baseball player (b. Jan. 6, 1920, Hartford, Ala.—d. April 4, 1999, Venice, Fla.), was a phenomenal right-handed knuckleballer and fastballer who became only the 14th baseball pitcher to win 300 major league games. Wynn, who maintained that he would knock down his own grandmother if she stood too close to the strike zone, was, according to Ted Williams, “the toughest pitcher ...
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Wynn, Ed (American actor)
American comedian and actor in vaudeville, theatre, and motion pictures and on radio and television. He was also a producer, author, and songwriter....
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Wynn, Gus (American athlete)
American baseball player (b. Jan. 6, 1920, Hartford, Ala.—d. April 4, 1999, Venice, Fla.), was a phenomenal right-handed knuckleballer and fastballer who became only the 14th baseball pitcher to win 300 major league games. Wynn, who maintained that he would knock down his own grandmother if she stood too close to the strike zone, was, according to Ted Williams, “the toughest pitcher ...
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Wynn, Keenan (American actor)
...of Anne Frank (1959), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. His later motion pictures included The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and Mary Poppins (1964). His son, Keenan Wynn (1916–86), became a well-known actor and his grandson, Tracy Keenan Wynn, a screenwriter....
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Wynn, Steve (American entrepreneur)
...years, beginning with a nationwide economic recession in the late 1970s; in addition, tourism declined after a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel killed more than 80 people in November 1980. Entrepreneur Steve Wynn, who had operated the Golden Nugget Casino since the early 1970s, used the downturn to acquire and renovate old casinos and build new ones, foremost among them the lavishly expensive......
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Wynn, Tracy Keenan (American screenwriter)
...Award. His later motion pictures included The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) and Mary Poppins (1964). His son, Keenan Wynn (1916–86), became a well-known actor and his grandson, Tracy Keenan Wynn, a screenwriter....
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Wynne, Ellis (Welsh writer)
clergyman and author whose Gweledigaetheu y Bardd Cwsc (1703; “Visions of the Sleeping Bard”) is generally considered the greatest Welsh prose classic. An adaptation of Sir Roger L’Estrange’s translation of the Spanish satirist Quevedo’s Sueños (1627; “Visions”), savage pictures of contemporary evils, it follo...
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Wynne, Greville Maynard (British spy)
...Portland, Dorset. Arrested on Jan. 7, 1961, he was tried for espionage with four other persons and imprisoned until April 22, 1964, when he was exchanged for the British intelligence agent Greville Wynne. His autobiography, Spy, was published in 1965....
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Wynne o Lasynys, Ellis (Welsh writer)
clergyman and author whose Gweledigaetheu y Bardd Cwsc (1703; “Visions of the Sleeping Bard”) is generally considered the greatest Welsh prose classic. An adaptation of Sir Roger L’Estrange’s translation of the Spanish satirist Quevedo’s Sueños (1627; “Visions”), savage pictures of contemporary evils, it follo...
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Wynne-Edwards, Vero (British zoologist)
British zoologist who espoused a theory of evolution known as group selection, the view that animals behave altruistically to control population growth. His theory supported the claim that natural selection operates not only at the level of the individual, as Darwin’s theory of natural selection contends, but at the level of the group as well; his theories, published in Animal Dispersion...
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Wynns, Nellie Tayloe (governor of Wyoming, United States)
first woman in the United States to serve as governor of a state and the first woman to direct the U.S. mint....
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Wyntoun, Andrew of (Scottish writer)
Scottish chronicler whose Orygynale Cronykil is a prime historical source for the later 14th and early 15th centuries and is one of the few long examples of Middle Scots writing....
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Wynyard (Tasmania, Australia)
town, northern Tasmania, Australia, at the mouth of the River Inglis on Bass Strait. Settled in 1841, it was gazetted a town in 1861, its name honouring Major General Edward Wynyard, who had served as commander in chief of British forces in Australasia around 1850. From 1907 the town was the centre of Table Cape Municipality, named for a high promontory nearby; in 1945 the munic...
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Wyoming (county, Pennsylvania, United States)
county, northeastern Pennsylvania, U.S., consisting of a mountainous region on the Allegheny Plateau that is bisected northwest-southeast by the Susquehanna River. Other principal waterways are Mehoopany, Tunkhannock, Bowman, and Meshoppen creeks, as well as Lakes Carey and Winola....
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