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Walsingham, Sir Francis ... War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, The

Walsingham, Sir Francis: English statesman and the principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I from 1573 to 1590. He was a skilled diplomat whose knowledge of languages and capacity to organize espionage activities made ...
Walsingham, Thomas: English Benedictine monk and chronicler of the abbey at St. Albans (Hertfordshire).
Waltari, Mika: Finnish author whose historical novels were international best-sellers.
Walter Of Coventry: English monk or friar, compiler of historical materials, best known for his collection Memoriale Fratris Walteri de Coventria. He probably belonged to a religious house in York diocese.
Walter, Bruno: German conductor known primarily for his interpretations of the Viennese school. Though out of step with 20th-century trends, he was such a fine musician that he became a major figure-filling ...
Walter, John, I: English founder of The Times, London, and of a family that owned the newspaper for almost 125 years. Considered neither an outstanding nor an honest journalist, Walter ...
Walter, John, II: English journalist, second son of John Walter I, founder of The Times, London, who developed (along with Thomas Barnes, editor in chief from 1817 to 1841) a ...
Walter, John, III: English proprietor of The Times, London, from the death of his father, John Walter II, in 1847.
Walter, Lucy: mistress of the British king Charles II and reputed mother of James Scott, duke of Monmouth (q.v.).
Walter, Thomas Ustick: architect important in American architecture for the quality and influence of his designs based upon ancient Greek models.
Walters, Barbara: American journalist known particularly for her highly effective technique in television interviews of world-renowned figures.
Waltham: city, Middlesex county, eastern Massachusetts, U.S., on the Charles River, just west of Boston. Settled in the 1630s, it was part of Watertown until separately incorporated in 1738. Abundant waterpower ...
Waltham Forest: outer borough of London. It lies on the northeastern perimeter of the metropolis, adjoining the Green Belt, and is bounded on the north by Essex, on the east by Redbridge, ...
Waltharius: a Latin heroic poem of the 9th or 10th century dealing with Germanic hero legend. Its author was once thought to be the Swiss monk Ekkehard I the Elder (d. ...
Waltheof: earl of Northumbria and ancestor of the Scottish kings through the marriage of his daughter Matilda to King David I.
Walther Von Der Vogelweide: greatest German lyric poet of the Middle Ages, whose poetry emphasizes the virtues of a balanced life, in the social as in the personal sphere, and reflects his disapproval of ...
Walther, Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm: highly orthodox theologian whose conservative views played an important role in the early development of the Missouri Synod of American Lutheranism.
Walther, Johann Gottfried: German organist and composer who was one of the first musical lexicographers.
Walton, Ernest Thomas Sinton: Irish physicist, corecipient, with Sir John Douglas Cockcroft of England, of the 1951 Nobel Prize for Physics for the development of the first nuclear particle accelerator, known as the Cockcroft-Walton ...
Walton, Izaak: English biographer and author of The Compleat Angler (1653), a pastoral discourse on the joys and stratagems of fishing that has been one of the most frequently reprinted books in ...
Walton, Sam: American retail magnate who founded Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and developed it, by 1990, into the largest retail sales chain in the United States.
Walton, Sir William: English composer especially known for his orchestral music. His early work made him one of England's most important composers between the time of Vaughan Williams and that of Benjamin Britten.
Walton-le-Dale: town, industrial suburb of the town of Preston, South Ribble district, administrative and historic county of Lancashire, England. It overlooks the Rivers Darwen and Ribble. Waletune was of Anglo-Saxon origin, ...
waltz: highly popular ballroom dance evolved from the landler in the 18th century. Characterized by a step, slide, and step in 34 time, the waltz, with its turning, embracing couples, at ...
Walvis Bay: town and anchorage in west-central Namibia (formerly South West Africa), lying along the Atlantic Ocean. It constituted an exclave of South Africa until 1992.
Wambaugh, Sarah: American political scientist who was recognized as one of the world's leading experts on the subject of plebiscites.
Wampanoag: Algonquian-speaking Indians of eastern North America who formerly occupied parts of the states of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, Martha's Vineyard, and adjacent islands. They were semisedentary, with seasonal movements between ...
wampum: tubular shell beads that have been assembled into strings or woven into belts or embroidered ornaments, formerly used as a medium of exchange by some North American Indians. The terms ...
Wan-hsien: city in eastern Szechwan sheng (province), central China. It is an important port along the Yangtze River, being situated at the western end of that river's system of gorges.
Wan-li: emperor of China from 1573 to 1620, during the latter portion of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).
Wanaka Lake: lake in west-central South Island, New Zealand. The lake occupies 75 square miles (193 square km) of a valley that is dammed by a moraine (glacial debris) and that lies ...
Wanamaker, John: merchant and founder of one of the first American department stores.
wandering Jew: in Christian legend, character doomed to live until the end of the world because he taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion. A reference in John 18:20-22 to an ...
wandering Jew: in horticulture, any of several popular houseplants in the family Commelinaceae. See spiderwort; Zebrina.
wandering spider: any member of the family Ctenidae (order Araneida), a small group of large spiders of mainly tropical and subtropical regions, commonly found on foliage and on the ground. The first ...
Wandiwash, Battle of: (Jan. 22, 1760), in the history of India, a confrontation between the French, under the Count de Lally, and the British, under Sir Eyre Coote. It was the decisive battle ...
wandjina style: type of depiction in Australian cave paintings of figures that represent mythological beings associated with the creation of the world. Called wandjina figures, the images are believed by modern Aborigines ...
Wandsworth: inner borough of London, lying west of Lambeth and stretching for 5 miles (8 km) along the south bank of the River Thames. Wandsworth was established in 1965 by merging ...
Waner, Paul; and Waner, Lloyd: American professional baseball outfielders, brothers who played much of their career together. Their nicknames did not refer to their size but to their batting: Big Poison, who batted and threw ...
Wang Anshi: Chinese poet and prose writer, best known as a governmental reformer who implemented his unconventional idealism through the "New Laws," or "New Policies," of 1069-76. The academic controversy sparked by ...
Wang Ch'ung: one of the most original and independent Chinese thinkers of the Han period (206 BC-AD 220).
Wang Chen: Chinese eunuch who monopolized power during the reign of the Ming dynasty emperor Cheng-t'ung (1427-64).
Wang Ching-wei: associate of the revolutionary Nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen, rival of Chiang Kai-shek for control of the Nationalist (Kuomintang) government in the late 1920s and early '30s, and finally head of ...
Wang Fu-chih: Chinese nationalistic historian and poet in the early years of the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911), whose works were revived by Chinese nationalists in the middle of the 19th century.
Wang Guowei: Chinese scholar, historian, literary critic, and poet known for his Western approach to Chinese history.
Wang Hui: probably the paramount member of the group of Chinese painters known as the Four Wangs (including Wang Shimin, 1592-1680, Wang Jian, 1598-1677, and Wang Yuanqi, 1642-1715), who represented the so-called ...
Wang Junxia: Chinese middle- and long-distance runner, who in 1993 set world records for women in the 3,000-metre and 10,000-metre events.
Wang Mang: founder of the short-lived Hsin dynasty (AD 9-25). He is known in Chinese history as the "Usurper."
Wang Meng: Chinese painter who is placed among the group later known as the Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty (1206-1368), although, being in the second generation of that group, he had ...
Wang Pi: one of the most brilliant and precocious Chinese philosophers of his day.
Wang Shifu: leading dramatist of the Yuan dynasty (1206-1368), which saw the flowering of Chinese drama.
Wang Tao: one of the pioneers of modern journalism in China and early leader of the movement to reform traditional Chinese institutions along Western lines.
Wang Wei: one of the most famous men of arts and letters during the Tang dynasty, one of the golden ages of Chinese cultural history. Wang is popularly known as a model ...
Wang Xiaotong: Chinese mathematician who made important advances in the solution of problems involving cubic equations.
Wang Xizhi: the most celebrated of Chinese calligraphers.
Wang Yang-ming: Chinese scholar-official whose Idealistic interpretation of Neo-Confucianism influenced philosophical thinking in East Asia for centuries. Though his government career was rather unstable, his suppression of rebellions brought a century of ...
Wang, An: Chinese-born American executive and electronics engineer who founded Wang Laboratories.
Wanganui: city ("district") and port, Manawatu-Wanganui local government region, southwestern North Island, New Zealand, near the mouth of the Wanganui River. The site lies within a tract bought by the New ...
Wanganui River: river in central North Island, New Zealand. It rises on the western slopes of Mount Ngauruhoe and flows northwest to Taumarunui and then south to empty into the Tasman Sea ...
Wangaratta: city, northern Victoria, Australia. It lies at the confluence of the Ovens and King rivers, northeast of Melbourne. The site was first settled in 1837 by a sheepherder, George Faithfull, ...
Wankel engine: type of internal-combustion rotary engine distinguished by an orbiting triangular rotor that functions as a piston. See gasoline engine.
Wankel, Felix: German engineer and inventor of the Wankel rotary engine. The Wankel engine is distinguished by the presence of an orbiting rotor in the shape of a curved equilateral triangle that ...
Wannsee Conference: meeting of Nazi officials on January 20, 1942, in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to plan the "final solution" (Endlosung) to the so-called "Jewish question" (
Wansbeck: district, administrative and historic county of Northumberland, northern England, along the North Sea in the southeastern part of the county. Wansbeck spans a narrow coastal plain edging the Northumberland uplands ...
Wantage: town ("parish"), Vale of White Horse district, administrative county of Oxfordshire, historic county of Berkshire, England. It is an old market town and the birthplace of the Anglo-Saxon king Alfred ...
wapentake: an administrative division of the English counties of York, Lincoln, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, and Rutland, first clearly referred to at the end of the 10th century and corresponding to the ...
wapiti: (species Cervus canadensis), North American deer, family Cervidae (order Artiodactyla), considered by some authorities to be of the same species as the red deer (C. elaphus) of Eurasia. Once common ...
Wappinger: a confederacy of Algonquian-speaking Indians in eastern North America who early in the 17th century lived along the east bank of the Hudson River from Manhattan Island to what is ...
Waqidi, al-: Arab historian, author of the Kitab al-maghazi, a well-known work on the military campaigns (al-maghazi) of the Prophet Muhammad.
war: in the popular sense, a conflict among political groups involving hostilities of considerable duration and magnitude. In the usage of social science certain qualifications are added. Sociologists usually apply the ...
War Communism: in the history of the Soviet Union, economic policy applied by the Bolsheviks during the period of the Russian Civil War (1918-20). More exactly, the policy of War Communism lasted ...
war crime: in international law, serious violation of the laws or customs of war as defined by international customary law and international treaties.
War Democrat: in the history of the United States, any of the Northern Democrats who supported the continued prosecution of the American Civil War.
war finance: the fiscal and monetary methods that are used in meeting the costs of war, including taxation, compulsory loans, voluntary domestic loans, foreign loans, and the creation of money. War finance ...
War Hawk: in U.S. history, any of the expansionists primarily composed of young Southerners and Westerners elected to the U.S. Congress in 1810, whose territorial ambitions in the Northwest and Florida inspired ...
War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, The: a Dead Sea Scroll, and one of the most important documents of the Essene sect of Jews that established a community at Qumran in the Judaean desert during the first ...