Since 1949 NASCAR has been crowning a season champion, using a scoring system that awards drivers points in each race in the Cup Series. While a number of drivers have won multiple championships, three are in a league (or lane) of their own: Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, and Jimmie Johnson. Each

First presented in 1929, the Academy Awards are among the most prestigious prizes in the film industry. Competition is fierce, and a number of individuals have won multiple awards. With 22 Oscars, producer Walt Disney holds the record for the most wins; he was also the recipient of four special or

First awarded in 1893, the Stanley Cup is the oldest trophy in North American professional sports. It was originally given to “the championship hockey club of the Dominion of Canada,” but since 1926 it has been presented to the winner of the NHL’s championship series. Which team has hoisted the

The biggest game in the NFL is the Super Bowl, and the biggest prize is the Vince Lombardi Trophy, which is given to the winners. Two teams have hoisted the trophy a record-setting six times: the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers. Close behind are the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco

the Who, British rock group that was among the most popular and influential bands of the 1960s and ’70s and that originated the rock opera. The principal members were Pete Townshend (b. May 19, 1945, London, England), Roger Daltrey (b. March 1, 1944, London), John Entwistle (b. October 9, 1944,

Barnstable: …is the home of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Marine Biological Laboratory. In November 1620, before landing at Plymouth, the Pilgrims sheltered at what is now Provincetown, where they signed the Mayflower Compact. The main Indian inhabitants were the Nausets and Wampanoags. Mashpee is the

François Hédelin, abbé d’Aubignac: …La Pratique du théâtre (1657; The Whole Art of the Stage, 1684), was commissioned by Richelieu and is based on the idea that the action on stage must have credibility (vraisemblance) in the eyes of the audience. Aubignac proposed, among other things, that the whole play should take place as…

blood transfusion: Transfusion procedures and blood storage: …its use in specialized forms:

Bay Psalm Book, (1640), perhaps the oldest book now in existence that was published in British North America. It was prepared by Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on a press set up by Stephen Day, it included a dissertation on the lawfulness and

Bay Psalm Book, (1640), perhaps the oldest book now in existence that was published in British North America. It was prepared by Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on a press set up by Stephen Day, it included a dissertation on the lawfulness and

Bay Psalm Book, (1640), perhaps the oldest book now in existence that was published in British North America. It was prepared by Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on a press set up by Stephen Day, it included a dissertation on the lawfulness and

copra: Whole copra, also called ball or edible copra, is produced by the less common drying of the intact, whole nut kernel.

Samuel, baron von Pufendorf: Career in Sweden: …an excerpt from it, titled The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature, in which Pufendorf departed from the traditional approach of the medieval theologians to natural law and based it on man’s existence as a social being (socialitas). He argued that every individual has a right…

The WELL, long-standing Internet community that features message-board-style discussions on a wide variety of topics. Founded by Americans Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant, The WELL’s origins trace back to 1985, when it began as a dial-up bulletin board system (BBS) located in San Francisco. Since

Internet: The WELL: …as an extension of his Whole Earth Catalog, the WELL was one of the first electronic communities organized around forums dedicated to particular subjects such as parenting and Grateful Dead concerts. The latter were an especially popular topic of online conversation, but it was in the parenting forum where a…

Whole Foods Market, the largest American chain of supermarkets that specializes in natural and organic foods. It operates stores in the United States and also in Canada and the United Kingdom. Corporate headquarters are in Austin, Texas. In 2017 Whole Foods was acquired by Amazon.com. The first

whole genome sequencing, the act of deducing the complete nucleic acid sequence of the genetic code, or genome, of an organism or organelle (specifically, the mitochondrion or chloroplast). The first whole genome sequencing efforts, carried out in 1976 and 1977, focused respectively on the

whole genome sequencing: Sequencing methods: from genes to genomes: …using instead an approach called whole genome shotgun sequencing. This approach avoided the time and expense needed to create physical maps and provided more-rapid access to the DNA sequence.

meat processing: Hogs: In whole hog sausage production all the skeletal meat is trimmed off the carcass, and therefore the carcass is routinely skinned following exsanguination.

life insurance: Whole life insurance, which runs for the whole of the insured’s life, is established with a fixed premium and a fixed payout amount. Most whole life contracts also accumulate a cash value that is paid when the contract matures or is surrendered; the cash value…

Jerry Lee Lewis: …on Sun Records with “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Great Balls of Fire,” and “Breathless,” all Top Ten hits in 1957 and 1958. His rhythmically assured and versatile “pumping” piano style (the left hand maintaining a driving boogie pattern while the right added flashy ornamentation) was influenced by church…

Wilco: …first album for the label, The Whole Love (2011), opened with an adventurous seven-minute sound collage, “Art of Almost,” and closed with a 12-minute meditation, “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend).” In between were more concise examples of Tweedy’s songwriting range, from Beatles-inspired chamber pop to autumnal folk,…

Reynolds Price: …up in North Carolina, and A Whole New Life (1994), which recounts his illness.

Tim Rice: Later career: Chess, Disney, and Elton John: …Alan Menken; their song “A Whole New World” won an Academy Award as well as two Grammys. Rice had continued success with The Lion King (1994), collaborating with singer-songwriter Elton John on various songs, notably the Oscar-winning “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.” The two men also worked on…

Matthew Perry: Other credits: The Whole Nine Yards and The West Wing: More successful was The Whole Nine Yards (2000), a popular comedy in which he played a dentist whose new neighbor (Bruce Willis) is a gangster. He reprised the role in the 2004 sequel, The Whole Ten Yards.

natural number, any number in the set of positive integers {1, 2, 3…} and sometimes zero. The term natural likely refers to humanity’s innate understanding and use of positive discrete values. Sometimes called “counting numbers,” natural numbers predate recorded history, as it is believed that

Matthew Perry: Other credits: The Whole Nine Yards and The West Wing: …role in the 2004 sequel, The Whole Ten Yards.

Edward G. Robinson: The Whole Town’s Talking (1935), in which he played the dual roles of a timid bank clerk and a ruthless hoodlum, showed Robinson capable of fine understated comedy, whereas in Bullets or Ballots (1936) he at last got to play somebody on the right side…

Keanu Reeves: The Matrix and John Wick series: Reeves’s later films included The Whole Truth (2016), To the Bone (2017), Destination Wedding (2018), and Always Be My Maybe (2019). In 2020 he returned to his first movie franchise, starring in the well-received Bill & Ted Face the Music. Reeves turned to another iconic series when he reprised…

Vincent D’Onofrio: …pulp magazine Weird Tales in The Whole Wide World (1996). He had a particularly memorable turn as an alien-occupied yokel in the cult classic Men in Black (1997).

Samuel A. Alito, Jr.: …to obtain an abortion (Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt [2016]).

Germaine Greer: In 1999 she published The Whole Woman, in which she criticized many of the supposed gains of the women’s movement as being handed down by the male establishment. Her revisionist biography of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s Wife (2007), casts doubt on earlier portrayals of Hathaway as being little more than…

phonics: …challenged by proponents of “whole-language” instruction, a process in which children are introduced to whole words at a time, are taught using real literature rather than reading exercises, and are encouraged to keep journals in which “creative” spelling is permitted. A strong backlash against whole-language teaching polarized these two…

whole-tone scale, in music, a scalar arrangement of pitches, each separated from the next by a whole-tone step (or whole step), in contradistinction to the chromatic scale, which consists of half steps (or semitones), and the various diatonic scales, such as major scales and most minor scales,

baking: Whole wheat bread: Whole wheat bread, using a meal made substantially from the entire wheat kernel instead of flour, is a dense, rather tough, dark product. Breads sold as wheat or part-whole-wheat products contain a mixture of whole grain meal with sufficient white flour to…

flour: …wheat flours generally available includes whole wheat, or graham, flour, made from the entire wheat kernel and often unbleached; gluten flour, a starch-free, high-protein, whole wheat flour; all-purpose flour, refined (separated from bran and germ), bleached or unbleached, and suitable for any recipe not requiring a special flour; cake flour,…

quilting: Early quilts: …may be two large 14th-century wholecloth (i.e., entire, not pieced) Sicilian pieces whose whitework surfaces are heavily embellished with trapunto, also known as corded or stuffed quilting. One quilt is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the other in the Bargello Museum in Florence. Both…

marketing: Off-price retailers: Warehouse (or wholesale) clubs operate out of enormous, low-cost facilities and charge patrons an annual membership fee. They sell a limited selection of brand-name grocery items, appliances, clothing, and miscellaneous items at a deep discount. These warehouse stores, such as Walmart-owned Sam’s Club and Costco…

wholesale price index, measure of changes in the prices charged by manufacturers and wholesalers. Wholesale price indexes measure the changes in commodity prices at a selected stage or stages before goods reach the retail level; the prices may be those charged by manufacturers to wholesalers or by

wholesaling, the selling of merchandise to anyone other than a retail customer. The merchandise may be sold to a retailer, a wholesaler, or to an enterprise that will use it for business, rather than individual, purposes. Wholesaling usually, but not necessarily, involves sales in quantity and at a

Lethbridge: A replica of Fort Whoop-Up (1860), once notorious for its whisky trade with the Indians, stands in Indian Battle Park on the Oldman River. The park marks the site of the last great encounter (1870) between the Cree and the Blackfoot Indians prior to a peace treaty (1871).…

whooping cough, acute, highly communicable respiratory disease characterized in its typical form by paroxysms of coughing followed by a long-drawn inspiration, or “whoop.” The coughing ends with the expulsion of clear sticky mucus and often with vomiting. Whooping cough is caused by the bacterium

infectious disease: Pertussis vaccine: The number of cases of pertussis (whooping cough), a serious disease that is frequently fatal in infancy, can be dramatically reduced by the use of the pertussis vaccine. The pertussis immunizing agent is included in the DPT vaccine. Active immunity can be induced…

whooping crane, (Grus americana), tallest American bird and one of the world’s rarest. At the beginning of the 21st century fewer than 300 whooping cranes remained in the wild. Most are part of a flock that migrates between Texas and Canada. Almost all the rest are part of a mainly nonmigrating

Burger King Corporation: A large hamburger called the Whopper is Burger King’s signature product. The Whopper was introduced in 1957, at a time when its competitor McDonald’s was still selling only small hamburgers. The chain took a new direction by adding hot dogs to the menu in 2016.

Ken Russell: … (1980), Crimes of Passion (1984), Whore (1991), and the musical horror-comedy The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002).

whore of Babylon, in Christianity, a portentous figure described in the apocalyptic Revelation to John. She is seen as analogous to the pagan nations and governments considered in direct opposition to the Christian faith, particularly the imperial city of Rome. The whore of Babylon is disclosed to

Whorfian hypothesis, in linguistics, a hypothesis given classic form by the American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf stating that language influences thought and perception of reality. It is also called linguistic relativity, because it focuses on how different languages lead to differences in

Benjamin Lee Whorf was a U.S. linguist noted for his hypotheses regarding the relation of language to thinking and cognition and for his studies of Hebrew and Hebrew ideas, of Mayan languages and dialects, and of Uto-Aztecan languages, including Nahuatl dialects and the Hopi language. Under the

Whorfian hypothesis, in linguistics, a hypothesis given classic form by the American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf stating that language influences thought and perception of reality. It is also called linguistic relativity, because it focuses on how different languages lead to differences in

gastropod: The shell: Generally, the coils, or whorls, added later in life are larger than those added when the snail is young. At the end of the last whorl is the aperture, or opening. The shell is secreted along the outer lip of the aperture by the fleshy part of the animal…

angiosperm: Leaves: A plant has whorled leaves when there are three or more equally spaced leaves at a node.

Samuel Beckett: Production of the major works: …slim volumes of poetry were Whoroscope (1930), a poem on the French philosopher René Descartes, and the collection Echo’s Bones (1935). A number of short stories and poems were scattered in various periodicals. He wrote the novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women in the mid-1930s, but it remained incomplete…

bilberry, (Vaccinium myrtillus), low-growing deciduous shrub belonging to the heath family (Ericaceae). It is found in woods and on heaths, chiefly in hilly districts of Great Britain, northern Europe, and Asia. The fruits are a principal food of the grouse and are used for tarts and preserves. The

Lord Peter Wimsey: Sayers in Whose Body? (1923).

Alasdair MacIntyre: After Virtue and later works: MacIntyre argued in Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988) and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990) that justification of such large-scale viewpoints must proceed historically: in order to assess the rationality of adherence to large-scale viewpoints—MacIntyre called them “traditions”—one must look to the history of their development. Traditions…

Richard Dreyfuss: …Fix (1978), The Competition (1980), Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981), and The Buddy System (1983), but his career had declined, and he suffered from a well-publicized problem with drug addiction. He made a strong comeback costarring with Bette Midler and Nick Nolte in the Paul Mazursky comedy Down and…

The average female gymnast is about 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall. That is about 4 inches (10 cm) less than the average American woman. Why are gymnasts so short? Because their smaller frames provide significant advantages in the sport, including a better power-to-weight ratio. This enables gymnasts to

Plants are green because of a pigment found in the chloroplasts of plant cells called chlorophyll. It plays a crucial role in photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert light into chemical energy. Chlorophyll absorbs light most efficiently in the blue and red parts of the electromagnetic

The Earth’s magnificent tropical rainforests represent a treasure trove of biological heritage. They not only retain many primitive plant and animal species with incredible and ancient evolutionary lineages but are also communities that exhibit unparalleled biodiversity and a great variety of

Different blood groups are the result of genetic variations that determine the presence or absence of specific antigens on the surface of red blood cells. These variations arise due to differences in genes that are inherited from parents, and they have evolved over time to serve various biological

American literature: New fictional modes: …An American Dream (1965) and Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967). As with many of the postmodern novelists, his subject was the nature of power, personal as well as political. However, it was only when he turned to “nonfiction fiction” or “fiction as history” in The Armies of the Night…

Colleen Moore: … (1927), Synthetic Sin (1929), and Why Be Good? (1929).

Jeanette Winterson: …Places (1998); the vivid memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (2011); and several children’s books and screenplays for television. She was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2006.

The Qurʾān states that the consumption of pork is not allowed, as it is considered impure, and pork is therefore considered to be haram (expressly forbidden). This prohibition is part of a broader set of dietary laws that aims to maintain ritual purity and cleanliness, which are central to Islamic

Maxine Kumin: The short-story collection Why Can’t We Live Together Like Civilized Human Beings? (1982) further explores issues of loss and relationships between men and women. Kumin again demonstrated her ability to buck genre constraints in her 1999 animal-rights mystery Quit Monks or Die!

John Skelton: …1521), Collyn Clout (1522), and Why come ye nat to courte (1522), were all directed against the mounting power of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, both in church and in state, and the dangers—as Skelton saw them—of the new learning of the Humanists. Wolsey proved too strong an opponent to attack further,…

Janet Jackson: …Married? (2007) and its sequel, Why Did I Get Married Too? (2010), both written and directed by Tyler Perry. She also appeared in For Colored Girls (2010), Perry’s adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 theatre piece For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Her life and career…

Tyler Perry: …2007 adaptation of his play Why Did I Get Married? (2004), an exploration of modern relationships, allowed Perry to move beyond the Madea character on-screen. He additionally began writing and directing films that were not based on previous work, such as Daddy’s Little Girls (2007) and The Family That Preys…

Vincent van Gogh is well known to have cut off a part of his own ear, but the circumstances of the incident are not fully understood. The event occurred on Christmas Eve in 1888, when van Gogh was living in Arles, in the south of France. He had been sharing a house with fellow artist Paul Gauguin,

While purring is often associated with a cat’s contentment, such as when they are being petted or snuggled up in a cozy spot, it can also occur in less happy circumstances. Cats may purr when they are frightened, in pain, or when they are sick. This suggests that purring might serve as a

The long neck of a giraffe (genus Giraffa) is a classic example of adaptation, which is the process by which a species becomes better suited to its environment. Giraffes use their long necks to browse foliage that is as high as six meters (20 feet) off the ground, primarily from thorny acacia

Eyebrows are like the unsung heroes of the face, quietly doing their job of protecting the eyes from the glare of the sun and from small hazards like dust, dirt, sweat, and rain. Eyebrows act as a barrier, diverting moisture away from the eyes toward the sides of the face through their shape and

Salmon are biologically programmed to die after spawning, a phenomenon known as semelparity. This is a reproductive strategy where an organism expends all its energy in a single, massive effort to reproduce. For Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus), this means they invest everything into their journey

As snakes grow, their skin does not grow with them. Instead, they periodically shed their outer layer of skin to accommodate their increasing size. This process, known as molting, or ecdysis, involves the formation of a new layer of skin beneath the old one. Once the new skin is ready, the old skin

Light emitted from stars does not actually twinkle but only appears to twinkle when viewed from Earth. As starlight passes through the different layers of Earth’s atmosphere, turbulence causes the starlight to bend. This distortion of the starlight makes the star appear as if twinkling. Technically

It’s breathtaking. It’s a digital masterpiece. Why do its hands look like that? In July 2022 OpenAI, an artificial intelligence (AI) company, introduced DALL-E 2, one of the first AI image generators widely available to the public. Users could type in a prompt—anything from “Beyoncé eating pizza”

Emerging market (EM) shares could give your portfolio a long-term tailwind, providing exposure to companies in fast-growing countries with developing economies. But for every emerging market success story like South Korea, there’s a Venezuela or a Russia that struggles to move forward. Like

John F. Kennedy: Early life: …thesis into a best-selling book, Why England Slept (1940).

Why I Live at the P.O., short story by Eudora Welty, first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1941 and collected in A Curtain of Green (1941). This comic monologue by Sister, a young woman in a small Mississippi town who has set up housekeeping in the post office to escape from her eccentric

The marathon’s origin traces back to ancient Greece, where a legendary Greek soldier ran from Marathon to Athens, covering about 25 miles (40 km), to announce a military victory. This heroic run inspired the marathon race, which was first introduced in the modern Olympic Games in 1896. Initially,

Cashmere is derived from the soft undercoat of the Kashmir goat, a breed that produces a limited amount of this precious fiber. Each goat yields only a few grams to about half a kilogram (1.1 pound) of cashmere annually, making it a scarce resource. To create a single sweater, the fleece of 4 to 6

While the wind might blow off Lake Michigan, the nickname “Windy City” is rooted in Chicago’s reputation for verbose political speeches. In the late 19th century, the city was known for its blustering politicians—New York City’s The Sun newspaper accused them of being “full of hot air”—and they

The distinct reddish color of Mars is primarily due to the presence of iron oxide (commonly called “rust”) in the dust and rocks that cover the planet’s surface. Mars has been associated with the color red for centuries. In various historical cultures and mythologies, Mars has been linked to death,

You have a new job—congrats! Even better, it’s payday! But, wait. You were supposed to earn $1,000 this pay period and not all of that money is in your bank account. What happened? Let’s go through your pay stub to learn how to read it. Employers use different software and companies to produce

The temperature people feel outside is largely based on the absorption of radiant energy from the Sun. Differing seasonal temperatures are caused by the tilt of Earth’s axis, which is at an angle of about 23.4 degrees relative to its orbit around the Sun. Summer occurs when a part of Earth is

When sunlight hits the ocean, the different colors of the solar spectrum are either absorbed or scattered by water molecules and other particles. Water absorbs colors in the red part of the light spectrum and reflects the blue part, which is why we perceive the ocean as blue. The depth and clarity

Saul Bass: His Why Man Creates (1968) won the Academy Award for best short-subject documentary.

Roy Del Ruth: Later work: His final film was Why Must I Die? (1960), an account of Barbara Graham, a party girl convicted and executed for murder; it was an alternate treatment to director Robert Wise’s I Want to Live! (1958).

Daron Acemoglu: Contributions to studies of political economy and economic development: Among them are Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012), authored with his fellow laureate James Robinson, which argues that countries with “inclusive” political institutions and respect for the rule of law tend to be prosperous, while those with “extractive” institutions that enforce extreme…

Christopher Hitchens: Hitchens’s later works include Why Orwell Matters (2002), Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (2005), and Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man: A Biography (2006). With God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007) Hitchens issued a rallying cry to the atheist movement; he dubbed the quartet formed by him…

Michael Fried: … (1987), Art and Objecthood (1998), Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before (2008), After Caravaggio (2016), and What Was Literary Impressionism? (2018).

No one likes paying more for something than they did last month or last year. Still, a little inflation is arguably essential for a healthy economy. The time to worry is when inflation goes “hyper”—or when it reverses and prices fall. When inflation is relatively stable over long periods, you don’t

The question “Why wasn’t Auschwitz bombed?” is not only historical. It is also a moral question emblematic of the Allied response to the plight of the Jews during the Holocaust. Moreover, it is a question that has been posed to a series of presidents of the United States. In their first meeting in

Anatole Litvak: The Hollywood years: …with Frank Capra on the Why We Fight series of documentaries, codirecting (uncredited) Prelude to War (1942), The Nazis Strike (1943), Divide and Conquer (1943), The Battle of Russia (1943), The Battle of China (1944), and War Comes to America (1945).

The gender wage gap continues to be a subject of study—mainly because it still exists even after women have made decades of progress in education and the workforce. So, why does the disparity in pay between men and women still exist? Key Points Why Does the Gender Wage Gap Persist?When will we find

Whyalla, city and port, southern South Australia, on the east coast of Eyre Peninsula opposite Port Pirie and northwest of Adelaide. It was created in 1901 by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Ltd. (BHP) as the Spencer Gulf terminus of a tramway bringing iron ore from the Middleback Ranges for

whydah, 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. In the Viduinae,

Ouidah, town in southern Benin, western Africa. It lies along the Gulf of Guinea. The town was the main port of the Kingdom of Abomey in the 18th and 19th centuries. Portuguese, French, Dutch, Danish, British, and Americans all vied for a share of the slave and palm-oil trade made available through

Canadian literature: Poetry and poetics: …while George Elliott Clarke’s collage Whylah Falls (1990) uncovers the life of Canadian blacks in a 1930s Nova Scotia village. In mapping arrivals and departures through an increasing diversity of voices and selves, celebrating and mourning differences, and protesting coercion, constraint, and smugness in a bountiful array of forms from…