World Food Council (WFC), United Nations (UN) organization established by the General Assembly in December 1974 upon the recommendation of the World Food Conference. Headquartered in Rome, Italy, the WFC was designed as a coordinating body for national ministries of agriculture to help alleviate

Norman Ernest Borlaug: In 1986 Borlaug created the World Food Prize to honour individuals who have contributed to improving the availability and quality of food worldwide. In constant demand as a consultant, Borlaug served on numerous committees and advisory panels on agriculture, population control, and renewable resources. He also taught at Texas A&M…

World Food Programme (WFP), organization established in 1961 by the United Nations (UN) to help alleviate world hunger. Its headquarters are in Rome, Italy. In 2020 the World Food Programme (WFP) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to

Alfredo Bryce Echenique: …Un mundo para Julius (1970; A World for Julius), was acclaimed by critics and the public alike and won the Premio Nacional de Literatura in 1972. Among his best-known novels were Tantas veces Pedro (1977; “So Many Times Pedro”), La vida exagerada de Martín Romaña (1981; “The Exaggerated Life of…

government: Prospects in the 21st century: …suggested convincingly either how a world government could be set up without another world war or how, if such a government did somehow come peacefully into existence, it could be organized so as to be worthy of its name. Even effective global cooperation among national governments can be extremely difficult,…

Weltschmerz, the prevailing mood of melancholy and pessimism associated with the poets of the Romantic era that arose from their refusal or inability to adjust to those realities of the world that they saw as destructive of their right to subjectivity and personal freedom—a phenomenon thought to

idealism: Types of philosophical idealism: …and whose theory of the world ground, in which all things find their unity, was widely accepted by theistic philosophers and Protestant theologians. For Lotze, the world ground is the transcendent synthesis of an evolutionary world process, which is both mechanical and teleological (purposive); it is an infinite spiritual being,…

public health: International organizations: …under the direction of the World Health Assembly, which has representatives from the member states. The first assembly gave consideration to diseases and problems that exist in large areas of the world and that lend themselves to international action. Malaria, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted disease, the promotion of health, environmental conditions…

World Health Organization: …establishment, April 7, 1948, as World Health Day.

World Health Organization (WHO), specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) established in 1948 to further international cooperation for improved public health conditions. Although it inherited specific tasks relating to epidemic control, quarantine measures, and drug standardization from the

World Heart Day, annual observance and celebration held on September 29 that is intended to increase public awareness of cardiovascular diseases, including their prevention and their global impact. In 1999 the World Heart Federation (WHF), in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO),

World Heart Day: In 1999 the World Heart Federation (WHF), in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO), announced the establishment of World Heart Day. The idea for this annual event was conceived by Antoni Bayés de Luna, president of WHF from 1997–99. World Heart Day was originally (until 2011) observed…

World Heritage site: Origins of the World Heritage Convention: The primary impetus for the adoption of the World Heritage Convention was the construction of the Aswan High Dam. In 1959 the governments of the United Arab Republic (U.A.R.; now Egypt and Syria) and Sudan turned to UNESCO for help in salvaging…

Everglades National Park: …the park was on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger from 1993 to 2007. In 2010 it was again added to the list, because of concerns about decreases in water flowing into the Everglades and increases in pollution levels there.

World Heritage site, any of various areas or objects inscribed on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List. The sites are designated as having “outstanding universal value” under the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural

world history, branch of history concerned with the study of historical phenomena that transcend national, regional, or cultural boundaries or distinctions between peoples or with the study of history from a global, comparative, or cross-cultural perspective. Although the academic study of world

ice hockey: The National Hockey League: A new 12-team league, the World Hockey Association (WHA), was formed in 1972, and the ensuing rivalry caused an escalation in players’ salaries. In 1979 the NHL, which had grown to 17 teams, merged with the WHA to become a 21-team league; by 2017, 31 teams played in the NHL.…

Joy Division/New Order: …called acid house, and “World in Motion,” the official national theme for the 1990 World Cup, gave them their first U.K. number one hit. “Regret,” released in 1993, was nearly as successful.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), international organization designed to promote the worldwide protection of both industrial property (inventions, trademarks, and designs) and copyrighted materials (literary, musical, photographic, and other artistic works). The organization,

Albert Renger-Patzsch: In his book Die Welt ist schön (1928; “The World Is Beautiful”), he showed images from both nature and industry, all treated in his clear, transparent style. Such images were closely related to the paintings of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement of painters, who created detached and literal renderings…

Thomas L. Friedman: His next book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century (2005), which documents and analyzes the history of globalization, was met with both commercial success and critical acclaim. Beginning in 2003, Friedman commented extensively on the Iraq War. Although he originally supported the U.S.-led…

Jackie Collins: The resulting romp, The World Is Full of Married Men (1968; film 1979), became a succès de scandale as a result of its frank depictions of extramarital sex. It was banned in Australia and South Africa.

James Michener: …as was his 1992 memoir, The World Is My Home. His last completed book was A Century of Sonnets (1997).

The World Is Too Much with Us, sonnet by William Wordsworth, published in 1807 in Poems, in Two Volumes. True to the tenets of English Romanticism, the poem decries the narrowness of modern daily life, especially its disconnection from and ignorance of the beauty of nature: The poet concludes with

World Jewish Congress (WJC), international organization of Jewish communities, Jewish organizations, and individuals founded in Geneva in 1936. The WJC works to strengthen the bonds between Jews and to protect their rights and safety. It also works with governments and other authorities on matters

World Jewish Congress: …the group also cofounded the World Jewish Restitution Organization, which is dedicated to restoring Jewish property that was seized during World War II. The WJC is a strong political supporter of Israel.

jollof rice: Jollof wars: World Jollof Rice Day is celebrated annually on August 22.

Magnus Hirschfeld: In 1928 Hirschfeld founded the World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR), which had its roots in an early conference that he had organized in 1921, the First International Conference for Sexual Reform on a Scientific Basis. The WSLR called for reform of sex legislations, the right to contraception and sex…

American football: Showmanship on the field: …League of American Football (later NFL Europe; disbanded in 2007). The African American athletes who increasingly dominated football also brought a new style to the game. The beginnings of end zone dances in the 1970s escalated into highly choreographed routines, followed by other attention-grabbing gestures by defensive as well as…

Halldór Laxness: …economic independence; and Heimsljós (1937–40; World Light), a four-volume novel about the struggles of a peasant poet. These novels criticized Icelandic society from a socialist viewpoint, and they attracted a great deal of controversy. Although he had initially rejected the literary tradition of his native country, Laxness later embraced the…

relativity: Curved space-time and geometric gravitation: …the shortest natural paths, or geodesics—much as the shortest path between any two points on Earth is not a straight line, which cannot be constructed on that curved surface, but the arc of a great circle route. In Einstein’s theory, space-time geodesics define the deflection of light and the orbits…

Maccabiah Games: …from 1932, sponsored by the World Maccabi Union, an international Jewish sports organization founded in 1921. Events held are such Olympic events as athletics (track and field), swimming, water polo, fencing, boxing, wrestling, football (soccer), basketball, tennis, table tennis, and volleyball and such non-Olympic events as karate.

World Malaria Day, annual observance held on April 25 to raise awareness of the global effort to control and ultimately eradicate malaria. World Malaria Day, which was first held in 2008, developed from Africa Malaria Day, an event that had been observed since 2001 by African governments. The

A world mapAn all-encompassing world map like this one was not possible until relatively recently in the history of cartography.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Kenny Chmielewski world map, graphical representation, using projection, that depicts Earth’s exterior on a flat surface. World maps usually

medical association: …largest such organization is the World Medical Association, which has more than 60 member associations. It was founded in 1947.

World Meteorological Organization: The World Meteorological Congress, which consists of representatives of all 185 members, meets at least every four years to set general policy and adopt regulations. A 36-member Executive Council meets annually and implements policy. The Secretariat, headed by a secretary-general appointed by the congress for a…

World Meteorological Organization: …WMO was created by the World Meteorological Convention, which was adopted at the 12th director’s conference of the IMO in 1947. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the WMO began operations in 1951.

World Meteorological Organization (WMO), specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) created to promote the establishment of a worldwide meteorological observation system, the application of meteorology to other fields, and the development of national meteorological services in less-developed

World Methodist Council (WMC), cooperative organization of Methodist churches that provides a means for consultation and cooperation on an international level. It maintains various committees that are concerned with doctrine, evangelism, education, lay activities, youth, publications, and social

bridge: Bridge tournaments: …the World Mind Games, or Intellympiad, to be held in the Olympic city directly after a Winter or Summer Games.

Christianity: Missionary associations: …and unity reflected in the World Missionary Conference (WMC) held in Edinburgh in 1910. First, missionary “field” conferences affirmed comity (separation of spheres of work), cooperation in Bible translation and missionary councils, and shared sponsorship in major enterprises such as hospitals and colleges. A second stream involved missionary conferences in…

cosmology: Einstein’s model: To derive his 1917 cosmological model, Einstein made three assumptions that lay outside the scope of his equations. The first was to suppose that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic in the large (i.e., the same everywhere on average at any instant in time), an assumption that the English…

global music, broadly speaking, music of the world’s cultures. The term global music replaced world music, which had been adopted in the 1980s to characterize non-English recordings that were released in Great Britain and the United States. Employed primarily by the media and record stores, this

Everglades National Park: …Dry Tortugas National Park) a Biosphere Reserve in 1976 and a World Heritage site in 1979. The park’s area has been expanded several times, most recently in 1989. It encompasses 2,357 square miles (6,105 square km), including most of Florida Bay, and preserves a unique blend of temperate and tropical…

Peter Jennings: …of the three-man team of World News Tonight. He became the show’s sole anchor and senior editor in 1983 and returned to New York. Jennings received many awards, including 16 Emmys. In 2003, while retaining his Canadian citizenship, he became a U.S. citizen. In April 2005, in what was to…

Peter Jennings: …of the three-man team of World News Tonight. He became the show’s sole anchor and senior editor in 1983 and returned to New York. Jennings received many awards, including 16 Emmys. In 2003, while retaining his Canadian citizenship, he became a U.S. citizen. In April 2005, in what was to…

ocean, continuous body of salt water that is contained in enormous basins on Earth’s surface. When viewed from space, the predominance of Earth’s oceans is readily apparent. The oceans and their marginal seas cover nearly 71 percent of Earth’s surface, with an average depth of 3,688 metres (12,100

World Oceans Day: …2002 two conservation organizations, the World Ocean Network and The Ocean Project, first celebrated the day along with their network of zoos, aquariums, and environmental groups around the world. After a petitioning drive guided in large part by those two organizations, the General Assembly of the United Nations formally designated…

World Oceans Day, annual celebration honouring the majesty of Earth’s oceans and the economic, aesthetic, and environmental services they provide. World Oceans Day is celebrated yearly on June 8 to raise awareness of the plight of the oceans and the marine ecosystems they contain. In 1992 in Rio de

Satyajit Ray: The Apu Trilogy: …Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (1959; The World of Apu). Pather Panchali and its sequels tell the story of Apu, the poor son of a Brahman priest, as he grows from childhood to manhood in a setting that shifts from a small village to the city of Calcutta. Western influences impinge…

George Roy Hill: Film directing: In 1964 Hill directed The World of Henry Orient, which was adapted from a novel by Nora Johnson (who wrote the screenplay with her husband, Nunnally). The charming and original comedy centres on two teenage groupies who are obsessed with a pianist (played by Peter Sellers). It stands in…

Andrew Lang: …of Homeric literature, and his World of Homer (1910) is an important study.

James Roy Newman: …four-volume historical survey of mathematics, The World of Mathematics (1956).

WOMAD, international music and arts foundation known primarily for its festivals, held in multiple locations across the globe each year. WOMAD was conceived in 1980 by a group of individuals—most notably Peter Gabriel (former leader of the British rock band Genesis)—who shared a love of the world’s

Irving Howe: His World of Our Fathers (1976) is a sociocultural study of eastern European Jews who emigrated to the United States between 1880 and 1924. Celebrations and Attacks (1979) is a collection of his critical articles, and A Margin of Hope: An Intellectual Autobiography (1982) deals with…

Richard Quine: In the romance The World of Suzie Wong (1960), William Holden was cast as an aspiring artist anguishing over a prostitute (played by Nancy Kwan). The Notorious Landlady (1962), which Quine wrote with Larry Gelbart, was a black comedy starring Novak and Lemmon, and Paris When It Sizzles…

William Shatner: Early life and career: …for a two-year run in The World of Suzie Wong (1958–60), earning critical acclaim for his performance. He later played a U.S. Army captain in the film Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), about the post-World War II Nürnberg trials.

Charles Wright: The World of the Ten Thousand Things: Selected Poems, 1980–1990 (1990) demonstrates Wright’s experiments with autobiography and his reflections on the literature and history of numerous cultures.

World of Warcraft (WoW), massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) created by the American company Blizzard Entertainment and released on November 14, 2004. Massively multiplayer refers to games in which thousands, even millions, of players may participate online together, typically

World of Wonders, third of a series of novels by Robertson Davies known collectively as The Deptford

Claude Lévi-Strauss: …recognition with Tristes tropiques (1955; A World on the Wane), a literary intellectual autobiography. Other publications included Anthropologie structurale (rev. ed., 1961; Structural Anthropology), La Pensée sauvage (1962; The Savage Mind), and Le Totémisme aujourd’hui (1962; Totemism). His massive Mythologiques appeared in four volumes: Le Cru et le cuit (1964;…

public opinion: World opinion: Near the end of the 20th century, the increasing importance of global telecommunication, trade, and transportation contributed to interest in a new concept of world public opinion, or “world opinion.” The idea began to receive serious academic consideration as scholars noticed certain global…

international relations: Scholarship and policy: …has been manifest in “world order thinking,” which is usually traced to the approach to international relations espoused by President Wilson and set forth in his Fourteen Points for the post-World War I era. Proponents of world order thinking place major, if not primary, emphasis on building international organizations,…

Boy Scouts: The World Organization of the Scout Movement, established in 1920 and now based in Geneva, promotes scouting worldwide. It maintains regional offices in Belgium, Egypt, the Philippines, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Chile, and Ukraine.

Transcendental Meditation: …became the foundation for the World Plan Executive Council, the international organization that guided the spread of Transcendental Meditation worldwide. Each of the council’s divisions attempted to introduce meditation into a particular area of human life. In the mid-1970s the council introduced the siddha (“miraculous powers”) program, an advanced course…

space-time: …as a “here-now” or a world point. In every inertial reference frame, all physical laws remain unchanged.

World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), cooperative international organization of Congregational, United, and Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Originally known as the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Presbyterian and Congregational), the group was formed in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1970 by

World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), interdisciplinary professional association founded in 1978 to improve understandings of gender identities and to standardize treatment of transsexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people. WPATH was formed by Doctor Harry

New York Rens: The world’s best team: …Harry Wilson mounted the inaugural World Professional Basketball Tournament, sponsored by the Chicago Herald-American, in which the best professional teams—chosen without racial restrictions—would compete. The winning team would receive $1,000 and the title of the world’s best team. Two Black teams were invited to compete: the Rens and their rivals…

swimming: Distance swimming: …amateur and professional swimmers, the World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation was founded. From the 1960s through the 1980s the latter group sanctioned about eight professional marathons annually, the countries most frequently involved being Canada, Egypt, Italy, Argentina, and the United States. The British Long Distance Swimming Association has sponsored races…

Sébastien Loeb: …having won a record nine World Rally Championship (WRC) titles (2004–12).

Magnus Carlsen: …same year he won the World Rapid Championship (in which players are given a total of 15 minutes of time with an additional 10 seconds per move) in Dubai, and he won that title again in 2015 in Berlin.

Yurok: …ceremonies were those of the World Renewal cycle, which ensured an abundance of food, riches, and general well-being. This cycle included the recitation of magical formulas, repeating the words of an ancient spirit race, and other acts. The spiritual power to cure disease was granted only to women, giving these…

World Resources Institute (WRI), research institute established in 1982 to promote environmentally sound and socially equitable development. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The World Resources Institute conducts extensive scientific research and analysis on global environmental and economic

World Series, in baseball, a postseason play-off series between champions of the two major professional baseball leagues of North America: the American League (AL) and the National League (NL), which together constitute Major League Baseball. The World Series began in 1903 after the cessation of

New York Yankees: In 2009 the Yankees returned to the World Series for the first time in six years, under Joe Girardi, who had become the Yankees’ manager in 2008. In six games the Yankees dethroned the Philadelphia Phillies, en route to winning their 27th World Series title, the…

The World Series is Major League Baseball’s (MLB) postseason play-off series between the champions of its two leagues: the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). Since 1922 the World Series has followed a best-of-seven-games format. The table provides a list of World Series

The World Series of Poker consists of a series of poker events that culminate with a winner being crowned annually in the United States. The main event is a Texas hold’em game, and its winner is considered the poker world champion. The roots of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) championship date

British Broadcasting Corporation: BBC World Service radio broadcasts began in 1932 as the Empire Service. By the early 21st century the service broadcast in more than 40 languages to roughly 120 million people worldwide. World Service Television began broadcasting in 1991 and unveiled a 24-hour news channel, BBC News…

fair trade: History: In 1969 the first World Shop opened its doors in the Dutch town of Breukelen, initially selling sugarcane and handicrafts imported by Fair Trade Original. In 1973 coffee was added to the fair trade product line, with the first imports coming from cooperatives in Guatemala. Over time a range…

squash rackets: History: The World Squash Federation (WSF) promotes the game and coordinates tours and championships between nations. The WSF membership has grown to over 115 nations, each of which also belongs to one of five regional squash federations.

World TB Day, annual observance held on March 24 that is intended to increase global awareness of tuberculosis. This date coincides with German physician and bacteriologist Robert Koch’s announcement in 1882 of his discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacillus that causes the disease. The

Billie Jean King: …of a group that founded World TeamTennis (WTT) in 1974. King served as the player-coach of the Philadelphia Freedoms, thus becoming one of the first women to coach professional male athletes. The WTT folded after 1978 because of financial losses, but King revived the competition in 1981. In that same…

Alice Hoffman: In 2019 Hoffman released The World That We Knew, which is set during World War II.

Casey Affleck: …in the 19th-century historical drama The World to Come (2020), he was cast as a psychiatrist in the thriller Every Breath You Take (2021). In 2023 he appeared in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a historical epic about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the race to create the atomic bomb during World…

Julian Assange: Early WikiLeaks activity and legal issues: …interviews that were collected as The World Tomorrow, a talk show that debuted online and on the state-funded Russian satellite news network RT in April 2012. Hosting the program from a makeshift broadcast studio, Assange began the series with an interview with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Nasrallah’s first with a…

World Trade Center, complex of several buildings around a central plaza in New York City that in 2001 was the site of the deadliest terrorist attack in American history. (See September 11 attacks.) The complex—located at the southwestern tip of Manhattan, near the shore of the Hudson River and a

Oliver Stone: World Trade Center (2006), a retelling of the events of September 11, 2001, from the viewpoint of two police officers, returned Stone to the center of public debate. While the film was critically acclaimed, some questioned the propriety of making the film so soon after…

World Trade Center bombing of 1993, terrorist attack in New York City on February 26, 1993, in which a truck bomb exploded in a basement-level parking garage under the World Trade Center complex. Six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured in what was at that time the deadliest act of

World Trade Organization (WTO), international organization established to supervise and liberalize world trade. The WTO is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was created in 1947 in the expectation that it would soon be replaced by a specialized agency of the

Tunisia: Transportation and telecommunications: Tunisia signed the World Trade Organization Basic Telecommunications Services Agreement of 1997, which opened the country’s market, and its telecommunications infrastructure has expanded markedly since that time. Internet access is widespread, and cellular telephones far outnumber standard phone lines. Local communications are largely conducted over microwave radio links,…

transhumanism: History: …philosopher David Pearce founded the World Transhumanist Association (WTA), an international organization that promoted transhumanism as a serious academic discipline. The WTA rebranded itself as Humanity+ in 2008 to project a more diverse and cohesive vision of transhumanism—one that included branches of thought from both the Extropy Institute (which closed…

world tree, centre of the world, a widespread motif in many myths and folktales among various preliterate peoples, especially in Asia, Australia, and North America, by which they understand the human and profane condition in relation to the divine and sacred realm. Two main forms are known and both

underwater diving: …Mondiale des Activités Subaquatique (CMAS; World Underwater Federation).

World Union for Progressive Judaism, in Judaism, an international federation of Reform congregations that seeks to coordinate old and newly established Reform groups in various parts of the world. Since its founding in London in 1926 it has grown considerably and now maintains headquarters in New

public opinion: Regional and global surveys: The World Values Survey takes a slightly more political tack by examining the ways in which religious views, identity, or individual beliefs correspond to larger phenomena such as democracy and economic development. Using World Values Survey results, the American political scientist Ronald Inglehart found that democratic…

20th-century international relations: Allied politics and reparations: Congress created the World War Foreign Debt Commission to pressure the Allies to fund their war debts.) The grand economic conference promoted by Lloyd George was held at Genoa in April and May 1922 and was the first to bring German and Russian delegations together with the Allies…

World War I, 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,

World War II, 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

Greatest Generation, generation of Americans born between approximately 1901 and 1924, who came of age during the Great Depression and the 1940s, many of whom fought in World War II. The Greatest Generation is estimated to have had about 63 million people. It gained the moniker after the