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The History Channel - Encyclopedia Category: History and Culture > History Date & country: 02/12/2007, UK Words: 25833

Washington, Bushrod
(1762-1829) US Supreme Court justice. He fought in the American Revolution and served the Virginia legislature (from 1787). President John Adams appointed him to the US Supreme Court (1798-1829), where he...

Washington, George
(1732-1799) Commander of the American forces during the American Revolution and 1st president of the USA 1789-97; known as `the father of his country`. An experienced soldier, he had fought in campaigns...

Washington, Harold
(1922-1987) US politician. A decorated air force veteran of World War II, he was a member of the Illinois legislature (1966-76), the state senate (1978-80), and the US House of Representatives as a Democrat...

Washington, Martha Custis
(1731-1802) US first lady. Her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis, died in 1757, and two years later she married future US president, George Washington, in 1759. She had four children by her first marriage, two...

Washington, Treaties of
Any of four international agreements. (1) Between the USA and Britain 1846, by which the boundary west of the Rocky Mountains was established. (2) Between the USA and Britain 1854 concerning...

Wasmosy Monti, Juan Carlos
(1938) Paraguayan politician and president 1993-98. He was successful in making some improvements in national economic conditions during his term in office but came under attack...

WASP
Common (frequently derogatory) term to describe the white elite in US society, specifically those educated at Ivy League universities and belonging to the Episcopalian Church. The term was...

Wassenhove, Joos van
Probable identity of the painter Justus of Ghent. ...

Wassermann, Jakob
(1873-1934) German novelist. Most of his novels are studies of post-1918 conditions and problems, and include Christian Wahnschaffe/The World's Illusion 1919, Der Fall Maurizius/The Maurizius Case 1928 and...

Waste Land, The
Poem by T S Eliot, first published in 1922. A long, complex, and innovative poem, it expressed the prevalent mood of disillusionment after World War I and is a key work of modernism in literature. ...

Water Babies, The
Fantasy by English author Charles Kingsley, published in England in 1863. Tom, an orphan child who works as a chimney sweep, inadvertently frightens a girl, Ellie, and runs away. He drowns and is...

Water Lily Pond, the
Oil painting by Claude Monet (1899; National Gallery, London), one of a series of ten views of this subject painted in his garden of Giverny in Normandy, France. Monet's subordination of form to...

watercolour painting
Method of painting with pigments mixed with water, known in China as early as the 3rd century. Watercolour is usually diluted to the point where it is translucent and applied to paper in broad areas...

Watergate
US political scandal, named after the building in Washington, DC, which housed the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the 1972 presidential election. Five men, hired by the...

Waterhouse, Alfred
(1830-1905) English architect. He was a leading exponent of Victorian Neo-Gothic, typically using multicoloured tiles and bricks. His works include the Natural History Museum, London (1868). ...

Waterhouse, Keith Spencer
(1929) English journalist, novelist, and dramatist. His second novel, Billy Liar (1959), an account of a whimsical day in the life of a fantasy-prone undertaker's clerk, became a successful play and...

Waterloo Bridge
Bridge spanning the River Thames, between Blackfriars Bridge and Charing Cross, in central London, England. It was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, and opened in 1945. A previous bridge on this site...

Waterloo, Battle of
Final battle of the Napoleonic Wars on 18 June 1815 in which a coalition force of British, Prussian, and Dutch troops under the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon near the village of Waterloo, 13...

Waterman, Alan (Tower)
(1892-1967) US physicist and scientific administrator. He expanded radar's military applications in the Office of Scientific Research and Development (1942-46) and assigned scientists to military units. He...

Waterton, Charles
(1782-1865) British naturalist who travelled extensively in South and North America 1804-24. In the UK, he was the first person to protest against pollution from industry, and created a nature reserve around...

Watie, Stand
(1806-1871) US Cherokee leader and Confederate soldier. He published a Cherokee newspaper with his brother, Elias Boudinot, and when they and two others signed the treaty in which southeastern Cherokees agreed...

Watkins, Gino (Henry George)
(1907-1932) English polar explorer whose expeditions in Labrador and Greenland helped to open up an Arctic air route during the 1930s. He was drowned in a kayak accident while leading...

Watkins, Vernon
(1906-1967) Welsh poet. He used musical rhythms and intonations in his poetry, of which he published eight volumes, including Ballad of the Mari Lwyd 1941, The Lamp and the Veil 1945, The Death Bell 1954, and...

Watling Street
Roman road running from London to Wroxeter (Viroconium) near Shrewsbury, in central England. Its name derives from Waetlingacaester, the Anglo-Saxon name for St Albans, through which it passed. ...

Watson, Charles Roger
(1873-1948) Egyptian-born missionary and educator of Scottish descent. He directed the activities of the United Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions (1902-16), and founded Cairo Christian University in...

Watson, James Dewey
(1928) US biologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA and determining the significance of this structure in the...

Watson, James Eli
(1864-1948) US politician. A lawyer, he served as a Republican representing Indiana in the US House of Representatives (1895-97, 1899-1909) and the Senate (1916-33), becoming majority leader (1929-33)....

Watson, John
(1850-1907) Scottish novelist. He wrote under the name `Ian Maclaren` and was one of the victims of criticism of the Kailyard School. His works include Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush 1894, The Days of Auld...

Watson, John Christian
(1867-1941) Australian trade union leader and Labor politician, prime minister of Australia in 1904. His administration was the first to be formed by the Labor Party (founded 1891) in...

Watson, Thomas Edward
(1856-1922) US populist politician. He served Georgia as a Populist in the US House of Representatives (1891-93), where he won the first appropriation for free delivery of rural mail. He was nominated for...

Watson, William
(1858-1935) English poet. His works include Wordsworth's Grave and Other Poems 1890 and `Lachrymae Musarum` 1892, an official elegy for Tennyson. His poem `April, April, Laugh thy girlish laughter`...

Watt, George Fiddes
(1873-1960) Scottish portrait painter. He became noted for portraits of celebrated men of his time, for example Lord Haldane (Lincoln's Inn, London) and Lord Asquith (Balliol College, Oxford). Born in Aberdeen,...

Watteau, (Jean-)Antoine
(1684-1721) French rococo painter. He developed a new category of genre painting known as the fête galante- fanciful scenes depicting elegantly dressed young people engaged in outdoor entertainment. One of...

Watterson, Bill
(1958) US cartoonist. After graduating from Kenyon College in 1980, where he had done political cartooning, he spent five years trying to find his niche. Starting in 1985 he produced the syndicated...

Watterson, Henry
(1840-1921) US journalist and politician. As a progressive-minded editor of the Kentuckian Louisville Courier-Journal (1868-1902) and then editorial writer (through 1919), he became the most influential...

wattle and daub
Method of constructing walls consisting of upright stakes bound together with withes (strong flexible shoots or twigs, usually of willow), and covered in mud or plaster. This was the usual way of...

Wattle Day
An Australian commemorative day held either on 1 August or 1 September in which the wattle blossom is utilized as a symbol encouraging national sentiment. ...

Watts-Dunton, Walter Theodore
(1832-1914) English writer. He was the author of Aylwin (1898), a novel of Romany life; poems, including The Coming of Love (1898); and critical work, including The Renascence...

Watts, George Frederick
(1817-1904) English painter and sculptor. Influenced by the Venetian masters, he painted biblical and classical subjects, but his fame was based largely on his moralizing allegories, such as Hope (1886; Tate...

Watts, Isaac
(1674-1748) English Nonconformist writer of hymns, including `O God, our help in ages past`. ...

Wattson, Lewis Thomas
(1863-1940) US Catholic religious leader. After a decade as an Episcopalian pastor in 1898, he cofounded, with Lurana Mary White, the Society of the Atonement, a Franciscan-type religious congregation, at...

Wauchope, Robert
(1909-1979) US archaeologist and anthropologist. He was the influential director of the Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University (1942-75). A specialist in Latin American prehistory and the...

Waugh, Alec (Alexander Raban)
(1898-1981) English novelist, the brother of Evelyn Waugh. His first novel, The Loom of Youth (1917), was a realistic story of school life containing controversial references to homosexuality. Waugh travelled...

Waugh, Evelyn (Arthur St John)
(1903-1966) English novelist. His humorous social satires include Decline and Fall (1928), Vile Bodies (1930), Scoop (1938), and The Loved One (1948). He developed a serious concern with religious issues in ...

Wax, Ruby
(1953) US comedian, television editor, and presenter who specializes in `at home` television interviews of celebrities. Series in the 1980s include Don't Miss Wax, Full Wax, and East Meets Wax. She...

Way of All Flesh, The
Novel by Samuel Butler, published in 1903. The story tells of Ernest Pontifex, the hapless son of a clergyman, who is cruelly treated by his sanctimonious father and mother. After Ernest has been...

wayang kulit
Indonesian shadow-puppet theatre, with characters drawn from the Sanskrit epic tradition contrasted with grotesque demons and clowns. Performances, with jointed puppets cut...

Wayland the Smith
In Norse mythology, an elfish metalworker, captured and lamed by King Nidud. Wayland killed the king's sons and raped his daughter, then escaped on wings made from birds' feathers. Wayland's Smithy...

Wayland, Francis
(1826-1904) US lawyer and educator. A Massachusetts and Connecticut lawyer trained at Harvard Law School, he was dean of Yale Law School (1873-1903), where he revitalized and expanded the school and...

Wayland, Francis
(1796-1865) US clergyman and educator. He wrote the classic Moral Dignity of the Missionary Enterprise (1823). As president of Brown University (1827-55), he greatly strengthened the faculty and curriculum....

Wayne, Anthony
(1745-1796) American Revolutionary War officer and Indian fighter. He secured a treaty in 1795 that made possible the settlement of Ohio and Indiana. He built Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. ...

Wayne, James Moore
(1790-1867) US Supreme Court justice. He served as mayor of Savannah, as a circuit court judge (1824-29), and in the US House of Representatives serving Georgia (from 1829). President Andrew Jackson appointed...

Waynflete, William
(c. 1400-1486) English cleric and schoolteacher. Headmaster of Winchester College from 1430, he moved in 1441 to the new royal foundation of Eton College, of which he became provost. Royal favour secured his next,...

Wazhazhe
Alternative name for a member of the American Indian Osage people. ...

Wazyk, Adam
(1905-1982) Polish writer who made his name with Poem for Adults (1955), a protest against the regime that preceded the fall of the Stalinists in 1956. In 1957 he resigned with others from the Communist Party,...

WCC
Abbreviation for World Council of Churches, international Christian body. ...

wealth
In economics, the wealth of a nation is its stock of physical capital, human capital, and net financial capital owned overseas. Physical capital is the stock of buildings, factories, offices,...

weapons of mass destruction
Nuclear, chemical, biological, and radiological weapons with the potential to kill many people or to render a large area uninhabitable. Development and acquisition of nuclear weapons is controlled...

Wearing, Gillian
(1963) English artist. Her basic media are photography and video, which she uses in a documentary fashion to explore how people think and behave. The subjects can be people s ...

weatherboard
One of a set of thin boards, usually thicker along one edge than the other, nailed on an outside wall in an overlapping fashion to form a covering that will shed water. It is a popular building...

Weaver, James (Baird)
(1833-1912) US politician. A brigadier general in the Union army and a district attorney, he was elected by the Greenback Party in Iowa to the US House of Representatives (1879-81, 1885-89). He was the...

Weaver, Robert
(1924) US illustrator. He is considered the forerunner of modern expressive illustrators. He worked as an illustrator for such periodicals as Fortune, Esquire, Life, and Playboy. He influenced many...

Weaver, Robert Clifton
(1907-1997) US housing administrator and cabinet member. A member of President Franklin Roosevelt's informal `Black Cabinet` (1933-42), he became a New York housing commissioner (1954-59) and Federal...

Weaver, William
(1923) US writer, translator, and music critic. In 1948 he moved to Italy and, as a writer and European newspaper correspondent, eventually became known in the USA as a lecturer and opera broadcaster. He...

weaving
The production of textile fabric by means of a loom. The basic process involves the interlacing at right angles of vertical threads (the warp) and horizontal threads (the weft). The weft is...

Webb
English social reformers, writers, and founders of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1895. They were early members of the socialist Fabian Society, and advocates of a...

Webb, Aston
(1849-1930) English architect responsible for numerous public buildings. His work in London includes the main section of the Victoria and Albert Museum (1891-1909); Admiralty Arch (1911); the facade of...

Webb, Electra Havemeyer
(1888-1960) US museum founder. In 1947 she founded the Shelburne Museum, a centre for American folk art, paintings, and crafts. She collected numerous artefacts and buildings, which she reconstructed on site....

Webb, Francis
(1925-1973) Australian poet. His lucid early verse includes the book-length poems A Drum for Ben Boyd 1948, Leichhardt in Theatre 1952, and Birthday 1953. The later volumes Socrates 1961 and The Ghost of the...

Webb, James (Edwin)
(1907-1992) US business executive and government official. A Sperry Gyroscope executive (1936-41) and Marine Corps major, he served as US president Harry Truman's...

Webb, James Watson
(1802-1884) US journalist and diplomat. After serving in the US Army, where he won a reputation as a duellist, he bought the New York Morning Courier in 1827, soon merging it with the Enquirer, and eventually...

Webb, Mary (Gladys)
(1881-1927) English novelist. She wrote of country life and characters, as in Precious Bane (1924), a rustic novel of primitive passions, with a heroine who suffers, as she herself did, from a harelip; it was...

Webb, Philip Speakman
(1831-1915) English architect and designer. He was a leading figure (along with Richard Norman Shaw and Charles Voysey) of the Arts and Crafts Movement, which was instrumental in the revival of English domestic...

Webb, William Snyder
(1882-1964) US physicist and archaeologist. He was long on the faculty of the University of Kentucky (1904-50), where he headed the departments of physics and anthropology and archaeology. He was...

Webber, Charles Wilkins
(1819-1856) US explorer and journalist. He served in the Texas struggle for independence and went to New York City to become a journalist. His acquaintance with John James Audubon influenced his writing, which...

Weber and Fields
Vaudeville comedians and theatrical producers. They perfected a long-running act (1877-1904) that involved song-and-dance, dialect, slapstick, and routines in which Fields was the bullying...

Weber, Kem
(1889-1963) German-born US designer. Stranded in California by World War I, he became a leading West Coast art deco and modernist freelance designer of interiors and furniture. Weber was...

Weber, Max
(1881-1961) Russian-born US painter and sculptor. Influenced by Parisian avant-garde painters of the cubist and Futurist schools, he was a prominent figure in importing these styles to the USA and also...

Webster, Daniel
(1782-1852) US politician and orator. He sat in the US House of Representatives 1813-27 and the Senate 1827-41, 1845-50, at first as a Federalist...

Webster, Jean
(1876-1916) US novelist. She wrote Daddy-Long-Legs 1912, a romance about an orphan and her mysterious guardian, which was filmed 1955. Dear Enemy 1915 was a sequel, and she published several other books. ...

Webster, John
(c. 1580-c. 1625) English dramatist. His reputation rests on two tragedies, The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (c. 1613). Though both show the preoccupation with melodramatic violence and horror typical...

Webster, Margaret
(1905-1972) US-born English actor and director. After establishing her acting career in London, she turned to directing in the USA from 1936, working on Broadway, and co-founding the influential American...

Webster, William H(edgcock)
(1924) US lawyer and government official. A St Louis lawyer (1949-60) and US attorney (1960-71), he was an outstanding federal court of appeals judge (1971-78). Hired to restore integrity to the FBI...

Wechsler, Herbert
(1909-2000) US assistant attorney general and criminal law adviser. He helped establish the International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg, Germany, in 1945, and served as technical adviser to the tribunal judge....

Weddell, James
(1787-1834) British Antarctic explorer. In 1823, he reached 75°S latitude and 35°W longitude, in the Weddell Sea, which is named after him. ...

Wedekind, Frank
(1864-1918) German dramatist. He was a forerunner of expressionism with Frühlings Erwachen/The Awakening of Spring (1891), and Der Erdgeist/The Earth Spirit (1895) and its sequel Der Marquis von Keith. Die...

wedging
In ceramics, a technique in which clay is thoroughly kneaded before modelling to make it malleable and easy to use. Air pockets, which can cause pottery forms to crack on firing, are also removed...

Wedgwood, C(icely) V(eronica)
(1910-1997) British historian. An authority on the 17th century, she published studies of Cromwell (1939) and The Trial of Charles I (1964). Created Dame...

Wedgwood, Josiah
(1730-1795) English pottery manufacturer. He set up business in Staffordshire in the early 1760s to produce his agateware as well as unglazed blue or green stoneware (jasper) decorated with white...

Wedmore
Village in Somerset, England, 8 km/5 mi northwest of Glastonbury; population (2001) 3,200. It is associated with the peace treaty (sometimes called the Treaty of Chippenham) concluded here in 878...

Weems, Mason Locke
(1759-1825) American writer and cleric. His biography The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington, published around 1800, contained the first published version of the `cherry-tree` legend which...

Weenix, Jan Baptist
(1621-1660) Dutch painter. He spent four years in Italy 1642-46, with marked results on his landscape style. He painted still lifes in the Flemish manner of Frans Snyders. His son Jan Weenix (1640-1719),...

weft and warp
Two sets of thread or yarn which make up a piece of woven fabric. During the weaving process the warp threads are stretched from the back to the front of the loom. The weft threads are inserted...

Wei, Jingsheng
(1951) Chinese pro-democracy activist and essayist, imprisoned 1979-97 for attacking the Chinese communist system. He is regarded as one of China's most important political dissidents. In 1978 he...

Weidenmann, Jacob
(1829-1893) Swiss-born US landscape architect. An engineer and architect in Panama and South America, he emigrated to the USA in 1861 to be superintendent of parks in Hartford, Connecticut, where he designed...

Weidenreich, Franz
(1873-1948) German-born US physical anthropologist. The University of Chicago sent him to China (1934-41), where his excavations of the fossil Peking (Beijing) Man resulted in a series of definitive...

Weigel, Gustave A
(1906-1964) US Catholic priest and theologian. A Jesuit, he was a theology professor in Chile (1937-48) and at a Jesuit seminary in Maryland (from 1949). He was a pioneering advocate of ecumenism and played a...

Weigel, Helene
(1900-1971) Austrian actor and director. She co-founded the Berliner Ensemble with her husband Bertolt Brecht in 1949 and...

Weigel, Valentin
(1533-1588) German Protestant mystic. A Lutheran pastor, he developed an unorthodox interpretation of the Gospels influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance physician and alchemist Paracelsus. His writings were...

Weight, Carel
(1908-1997) English figurative painter. His most characteristic works are street scenes that superficially seem ordinary but have an underlying feeling of tension or menace. His other subjects included...