Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

0-9

War Refugee Board ... Warner, Susan Bogert; and Warner, Anna Bartlett

War Refugee Board: United States agency established January 22, 1944, to attempt to rescue victims of the Nazis-mainly Jews-from death in German-occupied Europe. The board began its work after the Nazis had already killed millions in concentration and extermination camps. A late start, ...
war, law of: that part of international law dealing with the inception, conduct, and termination of warfare. Its aim is to limit the suffering caused to combatants and, more particularly, to those who may be described as the victims of war-that is, noncombatant ...
Warabi: city, Saitama ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. It lies on the alluvial plain of the Ara River. An early post town, it has long been a centre of cotton fabric manufacture. The city was linked to a major railway in 1899, ...
Warangal: city, northern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India. It lies along the Madras-Kazipet-Delhi railway. Warangal was the ancient capital of the Kakatiyas, an Andhra dynasty that flourished in the 12th century AD. Warangal's fort, lying southeast of the present-day city, was ...
Warbeck, Perkin: impostor and pretender to the throne of the first Tudor king of England, Henry VII. Vain, foolish, and incompetent, he was used by Henry's Yorkist enemies in England and on the European continent in an unsuccessful plot to threaten the ...
warble fly: any of several species of insects included either in the bot fly family Oestridae or the family Hypodermatidae (order Diptera). The warble flies Hypoderma lineatum and H. bovis (see )-large, heavy, and beelike-deposit their eggs on cattle legs. The larvae ...
warbler: any of various species of small songbirds belonging to either the family Sylviidae (sometimes considered a subfamily, Sylviinae, of the family Muscicapidae; q.v.) or the family Parulidae, with both belonging to the order Passeriformes. Warblers are small, active insect eaters ...
Warburg Family: a family whose members were eminent in banking, philanthropy, and scholarship.
Warburg, Otto: German biochemist awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1931 for his research on cellular respiration.
Warburton, William: Anglican bishop of Gloucester, literary critic and controversialist.
Ward, Artemus: one of the most popular 19th-century American humorists, whose lecture techniques exercised much influence on such humorists as Mark Twain.
Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps: popular 19th-century American author and feminist.
Ward, Frederick Townsend: adventurer who commanded the "Ever Victorious Army," a body of Western-trained troops that aided the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911/12) in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion, the giant religiouspolitical uprising that occupied South China between 1850 and 1864.
Ward, Hortense Sparks Malsch: American lawyer and reformer who campaigned energetically and successfully in Texas for women's rights, particularly in the areas of property, labour, and voting laws.
Ward, James: philosopher and psychologist who exerted a major influence on the development of psychology in Great Britain.
Ward, John: composer of instrumental and choral music known for his madrigals. He published his First Set of English Madrigals in 1613; it was republished in volume 19 (1922) of The English Madrigal School. Works by Ward appeared in William Leighton's Teares ...
Ward, Lester Frank: American sociologist who was instrumental in establishing sociology as an academic discipline in the United States. An optimist who believed that the social sciences had already given mankind the information basic to happiness, Ward advocated a planned, or "telic," society ...
Ward, Montgomery: U.S. merchant who introduced the mail-order method of selling general merchandise and who founded the great mail-order house of Montgomery Ward & Company, Inc.
Ward, Mrs. Humphry: nee Mary Augusta Arnold English novelist whose best known work, Robert Elsmere, created a sensation in its day by advocating a Christianity based on social concern rather than theology.
Ward, Nancy: Native American leader who was an important intermediary in relations between early American settlers and her own Cherokee people.
Ward, Nathaniel: Puritan minister and writer.
Ward, Samuel Ringgold: black American abolitionist known for his oratorical power.
Ward, Sir Joseph: New Zealand statesman, prime minister (1906-12, 1928-30), and a key member of the Liberal Party ministries from 1891 to 1906, noted for his financial, social welfare, and postal measures.
Ward, Sir Leslie: English caricaturist noted for his portraits of the prominent people of his day in the pages of Vanity Fair.
Ward, William George: English author and theologian, one of the leaders of the Oxford movement, which sought to revive in Anglicanism the High Church ideals of the later 17th-century church. He eventually became a convert to Roman Catholicism.
Wardha: town, eastern Maharashtra state, western India, near the Wardha River, southwest of Nagpur. Situated on major routes between Nagpur and Bombay, it is closely linked with the history of Nagpur. The town was important in the national freedom movement; the ...
wardrobe: in furniture, a large cupboard, usually equipped with drawers, a mirror, and other devices, used for storing clothes.
Wardrobe: in medieval English history, a department of the king's household that became an office of state, enjoying in the 13th and early 14th centuries a period of political importance unparalleled in any other European country.
wardship and marriage: in feudal law, rights belonging to the lord of a fief with respect to the personal lives of his vassals. The right of wardship allowed the lord to take control of a fief and of a minor heir until the ...
Ware: town ("parish"), East Hertfordshire district, administrative and historic county of Hertfordshire, England. The parish is situated on the northern periphery of the metropolitan area of Greater London. In ancient times it was probably the site of a fishing weir on ...
Warens, Louise-Eleanore de la Tour du Pil, baronne de: (baroness of) benevolent aristocrat who engaged the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in an idyllic liaison from 1728 to 1742, furthering his education and social position as his lover and maternal protectress.
Wareru: also called Mogado, or Chao Fa Rua famous king of Hanthawaddy (Hansavadi, or Pegu), who ruled (1287-96) over the Mon people of Lower Burma.
Warfield, David: one of the few American pre-motion-picture actors who became a millionaire. He made his fortune and enjoyed a stellar career as a result of playing four major roles over a 25-year period: Anton von Barwig in The Music Master, Wes ...
Wargla: city, east-central Algeria. It is situated on the western edge of a sabkha (large, enclosed basin) in the Sahara. One of the oldest settlements in the Sahara was made by the Ibadiyah, a Muslim heretical sect, at ...
Warham, William: last of the pre-Reformation archbishops of Canterbury, a quiet, retiring intellectual who nonetheless closed his career with a resolute stand against the anticlerical policies of King Henry VIII of England. His natural death perhaps prevented a martyrdom similar to that ...
Warhol, Andy: American artist and filmmaker, an initiator and leading exponent of the Pop art movement of the 1960s whose mass-produced art apotheosized the supposed banality of the commercial culture of the United States. An adroit self-publicist, he projected a concept of ...
Waring, Laura Wheeler: American painter and educator who often depicted African American subjects.
Warkworth: village ("parish") in Alnwick district, administrative and historic county of Northumberland, England. It lies along the River Coquet, 1.5 miles (2.5 km) from that stream's North Sea mouth. The town is dominated by a ruined Norman castle. Dating from 1200 ...
warlock: a male witch. See witchcraft.
Warlock, Peter: English composer, critic, and editor known for his songs and for his exemplary editions of Elizabethan music. He used his real name chiefly for his literary and editorial work, reserving his assumed name for his musical works.
warlord: independent military commander in China in the early and mid-20th century. Warlords ruled various parts of the country following the death of Yuan Shih-k'ai (1859-1916), who had served as the first president of the Republic of China from 1912 to ...
Warm Springs: health resort, Meriwether county, western Georgia, U.S. It lies about 20 miles (30 km) southeast of LaGrange, near Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park. The springs discharge about 800 gallons (3,000 litres) of water per minute at a temperature of about ...
warm-bloodedness: in animals, the ability to maintain a relatively constant internal temperature (about 37° C [99° F] for mammals, about 40° C [104° F] for birds), regardless of the environmental temperature. The ability to maintain an internal temperature distinguishes these animals ...
Warmerdam, Cornelius: American pole-vaulter, the first to attain 15 feet (4.57 metres) and the last to set major records with a bamboo pole.
Warming, Johannes Eugenius Bulow: Danish botanist whose work on the relations between living plants and their surroundings made him a founder of plant ecology.
Warminsko-Mazurskie: wojewodztwo (province), northern Poland. It is bordered by Russia to the north, by the provinces of Podlaskie to the east, Mazowieckie to the south, Kujawsko-Pomorskie to the southwest, and Pomorskie to the west, and by the Baltic ...
Warner Brothers: American motion-picture studio that introduced the first genuine talking picture (1927). The company was founded by four brothers, Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack Warner, who were the sons of Benjamin Eichelbaum, an immigrant Polish cobbler and peddler. The brothers began ...
Warner Robins: city, Houston county, central Georgia, U.S., 10 miles (16 km) south of Macon. It originated as the small railside village of Wellston, which rapidly developed after the establishment in 1941 of Robins Air Force Base, once the home of the ...
Warner, Pop: American college gridiron football coach who devised the dominant offensive systems used over the first half of the 20th century. Over a 44-year career as coach (1895-1938), Warner won 319 games, the most in the NCAA until the 1980s. He ...
Warner, Rex: British novelist, Greek scholar, poet, translator, and critic who in his fictional work warned-in nightmarish allegory-against the evils of a capitalist society.
Warner, Susan Bogert; and Warner, Anna Bartlett: American writers who, together and individually, wrote a number of highly popular novels, hymns, and nonfiction works.