Ma Yuan was a Chinese general who helped establish the Dong (Eastern) Han dynasty (25–220 ce) after the usurpation of power by the minister Wang Mang ended the Xi (Western) Han dynasty (206 bce–25 ce). Ma began his career in the service of Wang Mang, but, when revolts erupted throughout the

Wenceslas was a German king and, as Wenceslas IV, king of Bohemia. His weak and tempestuous, though eventful, reign was continually plagued by wars and princely rivalries that he was unable to control, plunging his territories into a state of virtual anarchy until he was stripped of his powers

Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz was an Austrian state chancellor during the eventful decades from the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) to the beginning of the coalition wars against Revolutionary France (1792). Kaunitz was responsible for the foreign policy of the Habsburg monarchy, and he served as principal

biblical literature: German versions: The Wenzel Bible, an Old Testament made between 1389 and 1400, is said to have been ordered by King Wenceslas, and large numbers of 15th-century manuscripts have been preserved.

Hanni Wenzel is a Liechtenstein Alpine skier who was the first athlete from her country to win an Olympic medal, earning a bronze at the 1976 Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria. She went on to win two gold medals and a silver at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, U.S., matching Rosi

Charles IV was a German king and king of Bohemia from 1346 to 1378 and Holy Roman emperor from 1355 to 1378, one of the most learned and diplomatically skillful sovereigns of his time. He gained more through diplomacy than others did by war, and through purchases, marriages, and inheritance he

Fan Zhongyan was a Chinese scholar-reformer who, as minister to the Song emperor Renzong (reigned 1022/23–1063/64), anticipated many of the reforms of the great innovator Wang Anshi. In his 10-point program raised in 1043, Fan attempted to abolish nepotism and corruption, reclaim unused land,

Zeng Guofan was a Chinese administrator, the military leader most responsible for suppressing the Taiping Rebellion (1850–64)—thus staving off the collapse of China’s imperial regime. Zeng Guofan was born into a prosperous family dominated by his grandfather Zeng Yuping, a farmer with social

Wenzhou, city and port, southeastern Zhejiang sheng (province), southeastern China. It is situated on the south bank of the Ou River, some 19 miles (30 km) from its mouth. The estuary of the Ou River is much obstructed by small islands and mudbanks, but the port is accessible by ships of up to

Western sculpture: Central Europe: The sculptor Christian Wenzinger worked at Freiburg im Breisgau in relative isolation, but his softly modelled figures have a delicacy that recalls the paintings of François Boucher.

Wenzong was the temple name (miaohao) of the 15th emperor (reigned 827–840) of the Tang dynasty (618–907) of China. He attempted unsuccessfully to free the court from the influence of the palace eunuchs, who had usurped much of the imperial power. His carefully laid plots against the eunuchs all

Xianfeng was the reign name (nianhao) of the seventh emperor of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty (1644–1911/12) of China. During his reign (1850–61) China was beset internally by the Taiping Rebellion (1850–64) and externally by conflicts with the encroaching European powers. By the time the Xianfeng

Sándor Weöres was a Hungarian poet who wrote imaginative lyrical verse that encompassed a wide range of techniques and metric forms. Weöres, who published his first poem at the age of 15, graduated from the University of Pécs (Ph.D., 1938) and worked as a librarian and as a freelance writer. He

Huntington, city, seat (1834) of Huntington county, central Indiana, U.S. It is located on the Little Wabash River, near its juncture with the Wabash, 24 miles (39 km) southwest of Fort Wayne. The original site (Forks of the Wabash) was a Miami village (home of the Miami chief Jean Baptiste

István Werbőczi was a statesman and jurist, whose codification of Hungarian law served as his country’s basic legal text for more than 400 years. A member of the lesser nobility, Werbőczi was commissioned by King Vladislas II to collect the customary and statute law of the Hungarian kingdom. His

Jack the Rapper: … station in the United States, WERD in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1949. Gibson learned about radio while working as a gofer for deejay Al Benson in Chicago. He learned even more while at WERD, where he discovered that a white disc jockey received twice the amount of payola (in the form…

Zuiderzee: …built the first seaworks—dikes and terpen (or werden), mounds to which they retreated during periods of high water. The volume of these terpen ranks them among the great engineering works of humankind.

classification of religions: Other principles: …great work on primitive religions, Das Werden des Gottesglaubens (“Development of the Belief in God”), Söderblom divided religions into dynamistic, animistic, and theistic types according to the way primitive peoples apprehend the divine. In other works (Einführung in die Religionsgeschichte, or “Introduction to the History of Religion,” and Thieles Kompendium…

nervous system disease: Hereditary motor neuropathies: Hereditary motor neuropathies (also known as spinal muscular atrophies and as Werdnig-Hoffman or Kugelberg-Welander diseases) are a diverse group of genetic disorders in which signs of ventral-horn disease occur in babies or young people. The usual symptoms of muscle atrophy and weakness…

pre-Columbian civilizations: The rise of Olmec civilization: This “were-jaguar” is the hallmark of Olmec art, and it was the unity of objects in this style that first suggested to scholars that they were dealing with a new and previously unknown civilization. There is actually a whole spectrum of such were-jaguar forms in Olmec…

wergild, (Old English: “man payment”), in ancient Germanic law, the amount of compensation paid by a person committing an offense to the injured party or, in case of death, to his family. In certain instances part of the wergild was paid to the king and to the lord—these having lost, respectively,

werewolf, in popular legend, a human who can shape-shift into a wolf or a hybrid wolf-human form. In many werewolf stories this transformation occurs at night, often under the influence of a full moon. Belief in werewolves has waxed and waned over millennia, although “sightings” are still sometimes

Song Joong-Ki: …in the lead role in A Werewolf Boy (2012; Neuk-dae-so-nyeon). The film became the most successful K-drama up to that time when it surpassed seven million ticket sales within two months. Song also had the lead role in the television series The Innocent Man (2012; Sesang Eodiedo Eobneun Chakhan Namja).

Viktor Pelevin: …vervolka v sredney polose (1994; A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia and Other Stories, also published as The Sacred Book of the Werewolf), both of which won a Russian Booker Prize. Not only were his works wildly popular with young Russian readers, but they also were highly regarded in the…

Warren Zevon: …which featured the rollicking “Werewolves of London”—Zevon’s only major hit—as well as the geopolitically inspired songs “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” and “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

Alma Mahler was known for her relationships with celebrated men, including her husband, Gustav Mahler. The daughter of the painter Emil Schindler, Alma grew up surrounded by art and artists. She studied art and became friends with the painter Gustav Klimt, who made several portraits of her. Her

Franz Werfel was a German-language writer who attained prominence as an Expressionist poet, playwright, and novelist. His works espoused human brotherhood, heroism, and religious faith. The son of a glove manufacturer, Werfel left home to work in a Hamburg shipping house. Shortly afterward he

Triassic Period: The Permian-Triassic boundary: …in the Alps is the Werfen Limestone; there the distinctive Lower Triassic bivalve genus Claraia is found in apparently conformable contact with the underlying Bellerophon Limestone, in which undisputed Permian faunas are found. However, recent studies suggest that the lowermost Werfen may contain Permian fossils. In the Himalayas Claraia occurs…

Henrik Arnold Wergeland was Norway’s great national poet, symbol of Norway’s independence, whose humanitarian activity, revolutionary ideas, and love of freedom made him a legendary figure. The clash between his faction (the “patriots”) and the pro-Danish “intelligentsia” led by Johan Welhaven

Camilla Collett was a novelist and passionate advocate of women’s rights; she wrote the first Norwegian novel dealing critically with the position of women. Its immense influence on later writers—especially Henrik Ibsen, Jonas Lie, and Alexander Kielland—is reflected in the late 19th century, when

wergild, (Old English: “man payment”), in ancient Germanic law, the amount of compensation paid by a person committing an offense to the injured party or, in case of death, to his family. In certain instances part of the wergild was paid to the king and to the lord—these having lost, respectively,

wergild, (Old English: “man payment”), in ancient Germanic law, the amount of compensation paid by a person committing an offense to the injured party or, in case of death, to his family. In certain instances part of the wergild was paid to the king and to the lord—these having lost, respectively,

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Production notes and credits:

Marie-Louise: Josef von Werklein, however, who became secretary of state in Parma after Neipperg’s death (1829), pursued a more reactionary policy, and in 1831 a rebellion in Parma forced the duchess to take refuge with the Austrian garrison in Piacenza. Restored to power by the Austrians,…

Kantianism: Non-German Kantianism: The American philosopher William H. Werkmeister represented a type of Neo-Kantianism inspired by the Marburg school (The Basis and Structure of Knowledge, 1948).

motorcycle racing: …1897, but two-wheelers like the Werner soon set the stage for an entirely different form of racing. In 1904 the Fédération Internationale du Motocyclisme (renamed the Fédération Internationale Motocycliste [FIM] in 1949) created the international cup, uniting five nations: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, and Britain. The first international cup race…

Karl Gutzkow: His domestic tragedy Werner oder Herz und Welt (1840; “Werner or Heart and World”) long remained in the repertory of the German theatres. Gutzkow also wrote Das Urbild des Tartüffe (1844; “The Model for Tartuffe”), a clever and topical satirical comedy; and Uriel Acosta (1846), which uses the…

progeria: …onset in early childhood, and Werner syndrome (adult progeria), which occurs later in life. A third condition, Hallerman-Streiff-François syndrome, is characterized by the presence of progeria in combination with dwarfism and other features of abnormal growth. Progeria is extremely rare; for example, the global incidence of Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome is…

black: …the invention of colour photography, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour (1814) was frequently used by scientists attempting to accurately describe colours observed in nature. In that book the so-called tint “Raven Black” is compared to the “Berry of Deadly Night-Shade” and “Oliven Ore.” In the Munsell colour system—adopted in the early…

Abraham Gottlob Werner was a German geologist who founded the Neptunist school, which proclaimed the aqueous origin of all rocks, in opposition to the Plutonists, or Vulcanists, who argued that granite and many other rocks were of igneous origin. Werner rejected uniformitarianism (belief that

Alfred Werner was a Swiss chemist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1913 for his research into the structure of coordination compounds. Werner was the fourth and last child of Jean-Adam Werner, a foundry worker and former locksmith, and his second wife, Salomé Jeanette Werner, who was

Fahrenheit 451: …town, Guy Montag (played by Oskar Werner) works as a fireman but with an ironic twist: his job is to create bonfires of books, which have been banned. Montag is content with his life until several encounters lead him to hide books himself and, eventually, become a fugitive from the…

Wendelin Werner is a German-born French mathematician who was awarded a Fields Medal in 2006 “for his contributions to the development of stochastic Loewner evolution, the geometry of two-dimensional Brownian motion, and conformal theory.” Werner received a doctorate from the University of Paris VI

scapolite: Wernerite (the former group name) has been used for members of intermediate composition between marialite and meionite. For chemical formulae and detailed physical properties, see feldspathoid (table).

Meier Helmbrecht: …of the Austrian-Bavarian border by Wernher der Gartenaere (Gärtner), who includes his name in the poem’s last line.

Meier Helmbrecht: …of the Austrian-Bavarian border by Wernher der Gartenaere (Gärtner), who includes his name in the poem’s last line.

Canada: SNC-Lavalin affair: …Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick said that they had not put inappropriate political pressure on Wilson-Raybould to intercede in the SNC-Lavalin matter.

Wernicke area: An individual with Wernicke aphasia has difficulty understanding language; speech is typically fluent but is empty of content and characterized by circumlocutions, a high incidence of vague words like “thing,” and sometimes neologisms and senseless “word salad.”

Wernicke area, region of the brain that contains motor neurons involved in the comprehension of speech. This area was first described in 1874 by German neurologist Carl Wernicke. The Wernicke area is located in the posterior third of the upper temporal convolution of the left hemisphere of the

alcoholism: Acute diseases: …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…

alcoholism: Acute diseases: …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…

Carl Wernicke was a German neurologist who related nerve diseases to specific areas of the brain. He is best known for his descriptions of the aphasias, disorders interfering with the ability to communicate in speech or writing. Wernicke studied medicine at the University of Breslau and did

nervous system disease: Deficiency states: 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 peripheral neuropathy is the only symptom of thiamine deficiency, the disorder is called beriberi. In each case, replacement of…

Wernigerode, 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 1429 it became the seat

Powhatan: …had its own chief, or weroance, and Powhatan ruled as the chief of these chiefs.

Powhatan: …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 sought-after English goods such as metal tools. During the colony’s early years, he appears to have viewed the English as…

Werra River, river in Germany that rises on the southwestern slopes of the Thüringer Wald (Thuringian Forest), just north of Eisfeld, and flows generally north for 181 miles (290 km) to Münden, where it joins the Fulda River to form the

Werribee, town and shire in southern Victoria, Australia, situated on the Werribee River about 19 miles (29 km) southwest by rail from Melbourne and nearly 5 miles from the coast of Port Phillip Bay. Three major government facilities are located at Werribee: the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of

Giaches de Wert was a Flemish composer best known to his contemporaries for his madrigals. He was highly praised by contemporary musicians, particularly Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Thomas Morley, and Claudio Monteverdi. It is likely that de Wert was taken to Italy as a boy to be a singer in

Giaches de Wert was a Flemish composer best known to his contemporaries for his madrigals. He was highly praised by contemporary musicians, particularly Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Thomas Morley, and Claudio Monteverdi. It is likely that de Wert was taken to Italy as a boy to be a singer in

Batman: The Caped Crusader in the Golden Age: …facing Batman—indeed, all comics—was psychiatrist Frederic Wertham. In his polemic against the industry, Seduction of the Innocent (1954), Wertham charged that comics morally corrupt their impressionable young readers, impeaching Batman and Robin in particular for supposedly flaunting a gay lifestyle. Wertham wrote, “They live in sumptuous quarters, with beautiful flowers…

Barbara Tuchman was an author who was one of the foremost American popular historians in the second half of the 20th century. Barbara Wertheim was born a member of a wealthy banking family and was educated at Walden School in New York City. After four years at Radcliffe College (B.A., 1933), she

60 Minutes: Jon Wertheim.

Max Wertheimer was a Czech-born psychologist, one of the founders, along with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler, of Gestalt psychology (q.v.), which attempts to examine psychological phenomena as structural wholes, rather than breaking them down into components. During his adolescence, Wertheimer

Austria: Social, economic, and cultural trends in the Baroque period: …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 managed to survive; the Universalbancalität of 1715 was liquidated after a short period of operation.

Werther, fictional character, a German Romantic poet who is the melancholy young hero of the novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774; The Sorrows of Young Werther), by Johann Wolfgang von

opera: Later opera in France: Massenet, including Manon (1884) and Werther (1892; libretto derived from Goethe’s Leiden des jungen Werthers; “The Sorrows of Young Werther”), were phenomenally popular in their day, as was Gustave Charpentier’s Louise (1900; libretto by the composer). The latter has remained in opera house repertories because of its loving, romanticized portrait…

Caritas Internationalis: …a young Roman Catholic priest, Lorenz Werthmann, to provide social welfare services to the poor and disadvantaged. Similar groups soon formed in other countries. International coordination efforts led in 1924 to the creation of a regular conference of national Roman Catholic social welfare organizations, which was given the name Caritas…

Lina Wertmüller was an Italian film director and screenwriter noted for her comedies focusing on the eternal battle of the sexes and on contemporary political and social issues. In 1977 she became the first woman to receive an Academy Award nomination for best director. Wertmüller graduated from

Western sculpture: Late Gothic: …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.

Heinrich Himmler: …older men, and later the Werwolf, a guerrilla force intended to continue the struggle after the war. He also unsuccessfully commanded two army groups.

Vesak, a festival of utmost significance in Buddhism, particularly in Theravada Buddhism, that commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of the Buddha. The holiday is observed on the full-moon day of the lunar month Vesakha, the fourth month of the lunar calendar, which falls in April, May,

gerrymandering: One year later, in Wesberry v. Sanders, the Court declared that congressional electoral districts must be drawn in such a way that, “as nearly as is practicable, one man’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s.” And in the same year, the Court…

Wesel, 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

Andreas Vesalius was a Renaissance 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

Rhine River: Navigational improvements: …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 for the minimum capacity of canals built since World War II and for barges. Nearer the Rhine’s mouth, the…

Stanisław Wyspiański: 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 girl in a village near Kraków. The marriage is used symbolically to…

Christianity: Influence of logical positivism: 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 D.Z. Phillips and Don Cupitt. According to them, true Christianity consists in…

Adolf von Harnack: …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.

Richard Wagner: Exile: …was his hopeless love for Mathilde Wesendonk (the wife of a rich patron), which led to separation from his wife, Minna.

phenomenology: Basic method: …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 maintaining the multiplicity, one focuses attention on what remains unchanged in the multiplicity; i.e., the essence…

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft: …are determined by Wesenwille (natural will)—i.e., natural and spontaneously arising emotions and expressions of sentiment.

Weser River, 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.

Bremerhaven: …1924 formed the town of Wesermünde, which in turn absorbed Bremerhaven in 1939 under Prussian jurisdiction. This unified city, restored to Bremen in 1947, was thereafter known by the name of Bremerhaven.

Delaware: Education: …curriculum, also in Wilmington; and Wesley College (1873), in Dover.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington was an Irish-born commander of the British army 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

Charles Wesley was an English clergyman, poet, and hymn writer who, with his elder brother John, started the Methodist movement in the Church of England. Charles Wesley, the youngest and third surviving son of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, entered Westminster School, London, in 1716. In 1726 he was

Donald Judd: …van Bruggen, David Rabinowitch, and John Wesley.

John Wesley was an Anglican clergyman, evangelist, and founder, with his brother Charles, of the Methodist movement in the Church of England. John Wesley was the second son of Samuel, a former Nonconformist (dissenter from the Church of England) and rector at Epworth, and Susanna Wesley. After six

Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquess Wellesley was a British statesman and government official. Wellesley, as governor of Madras (now Chennai) and governor-general of Bengal (both 1797–1805), greatly enlarged the British Empire in India and, as lord lieutenant of Ireland (1821–28, 1833–34), attempted

Samuel Wesley was a 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 a young age and at age 11 published Eight Lessons for the

Samuel Sebastian Wesley was a 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

Wesleyan Church, 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

Methodism: Origins: 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 the Annual Conference (at first of ministers only, later thrown open to…

Holiness movement: …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 movement. These people had a penchant for strict codes of dress and behaviour. Most of…

Wesleyan University, 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

Wessel Islands, 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

BND: …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 intelligence, and it was headquartered at Munich, West Germany. In addition to foreign intelligence the BND engaged in…

Horst Wessel was a martyr of the German Nazi movement, celebrated in the song “Horst Wessel Lied,” which was adopted as an anthem by Nazi Germany. A student and low-life bohemian, Wessel joined the Nazi Party in 1926 and became a member of the SA (Storm Troopers). In 1930 political enemies,

Johan Herman Wessel was a Norwegian-born Danish writer and wit, known for his epigrams and light verse and for a famous parody of neoclassical tragedy. From 1761 when he entered the University of Copenhagen until his death at 43, Wessel lived the bohemian life of a debt-ridden, perpetual student.