Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Warner, Sylvia Townsend ... Warwick, Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of, Baron Rich

Warner, Sylvia Townsend: English writer who began her self-proclaimed "accidental career" as a poet after she was given paper with a "particularly tempting surface" and who wrote her first novel, Lolly Willowes; or, The Loving Huntsman (1926), because she "happened to find very ...
Warner, W Lloyd: influential American sociologist and anthropologist who was noted for his studies on class structure.
Warner-Lambert Company: former diversified American corporation that manufactured products ranging from pharmaceuticals to candy. It became part of U.S. pharmaceutical conglomerate Pfizer Inc. in 2000.
warning system: in military science, any method used to detect the situation or intention of an enemy so that warning can be given.
Warragul: town, south-central Victoria, Australia. It is situated in Gippsland, 64 miles (103 km) east-southeast of Melbourne. European settlement was established first about 1865 at Brandy Creek, about a mile from the present townsite. Warragul, which takes its name from an ...
warrant: in law, authorization in writing empowering a person to perform an act or to execute an office. The term is applied to a great variety of documents, most commonly judicial or quasi-judicial warrants, of which the most common are for ...
Warrau: nomadic South American Indians speaking a language of the Macro-Chibchan group and, in modern times, inhabiting the swampy Orinoco River delta in Venezuela and areas eastward to the Pomeroon River of Guyana. Some Warrau also live in Suriname. The tribe ...
Warren: city, Trumbull county, northeastern Ohio, U.S. It lies along the Mahoning River and is part of the Youngstown metropolitan complex. Settled (1799) by Ephraim Quinby, a stockholder in the Connecticut Land Company, it was named for Moses Warren, a surveyor. ...
Warren: county, northwestern New Jersey, U.S., bordered by Pennsylvania to the west and northwest (the Delaware River constituting the boundary) and the Musconetcong River to the east and southeast. The rugged terrain includes Kittatinny Mountain to the northwest. In addition to ...
Warren: county, northwestern Pennsylvania, U.S., bounded to the north by New York state. It consists of a hilly region on the Allegheny Plateau drained by the Allegheny River and Brokenstraw, Caldwell, and Conewango creeks. The county contains Chapman State Park and ...
Warren: city, northern suburb of Detroit, Macomb county, southeastern Michigan, U.S. Organized in 1837 as Hickory township, it was called Aba (or Alba, 1838) until renamed (1839) for General Joseph Warren, a hero of the U.S. War of Independence. The village ...
Warren: city, seat (1800) of Warren county, northwestern Pennsylvania, U.S., on the Allegheny River near the mouth of the Conewango Creek, 21 miles (34 km) south of Jamestown, New York. Laid out in 1795, it was named for General Joseph Warren, ...
Warren: county, northeastern New York state, U.S., consisting of a mountainous region bounded by Lake George to the east and the Hudson River to the south. The Hudson, which bisects the county north-south, is the main drainage system. Other waterways include ...
Warren Commission: commission appointed by U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson on Nov. 29, 1963, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the assassination of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963, and the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald (q.v.), ...
Warren, Bertram Eugene: American crystallographer whose X-ray studies contributed to an understanding of both crystalline and noncrystalline materials and of the transition from the amorphous to the crystalline state.
Warren, Earl: American jurist, the 14th chief justice of the United States (1953-69), who presided over the Supreme Court during a period of sweeping changes in U.S. constitutional law, especially in the areas of race relations, criminal procedure, and legislative apportionment.
Warren, Harry: American songwriter who, by his own estimate, produced 300 to 400 songs from 1922 through 1960, many for Hollywood films and Broadway musical productions.
Warren, J. Robin: Australian pathologist who was corecipient, with Barry J. Marshall, of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discovery that stomach ulcers are an infectious disease caused by bacteria.
Warren, Joseph: soldier and leader in the American Revolution, who on April 18, 1775, sent Paul Revere and William Dawes to Lexington and Concord on their famous ride to warn local patriots that British troops were being sent against them (
Warren, Leonard: American operatic baritone known for his work in operas of Ruggero Leoncavallo and Giacomo Puccini.
Warren, Mercy Otis: American poet, dramatist, and historian whose proximity to political leaders and events of her day gives particular value to her writing on the American Revolutionary period.
Warren, Robert Penn: American novelist, poet, critic, and teacher, best-known for his treatment of moral dilemmas in a South beset by the erosion of its traditional, rural values. He became the first poet laureate of the United States in 1986.
Warrensburg: city, seat (1836) of Johnson county, west-central Missouri, U.S. It lies 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Kansas City. Named for Martin Warren, an American Revolutionary War soldier and blacksmith who settled in the area in 1833, the town developed ...
Warri: town and port, Delta state, southern Nigeria. It lies along the Warri River in the western Niger River delta, 30 miles (48 km) upstream from the port of Forcados on the Bight of Benin. Founded by Prince Ginuwa from Benin ...
Warring States: six or seven small feuding Chinese kingdoms whose careers constitute an era in Chinese history. The Warring States period was one of the most fertile and influential in Chinese history. It not only saw the rise of many of the ...
Warrington: urban area and unitary authority, geographic county of Cheshire, England. It lies along the River Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal between Liverpool and Manchester. The historic core of Warrington and the rest of the unitary authority north of the ...
Warriston, Archibald Johnston, Lord: Scottish Presbyterian who was a leading anti-Royalist during the English Civil Wars between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians. Later he became an official in Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth regime. He was known to his contemporaries as petulant and quarrelsome.
Warrnambool: city, southwestern Victoria, Australia, on Lady Bay, near the mouth of Hopkins River. The bay, too shallow for modern ships, was first visited in 1802 by Nicolas Baudin, a French admiral and scientific explorer. Once used by whalers, the bay ...
Warrumbungle Range: mountain chain in northern New South Wales, Australia. Extending northwest for 80 mi (130 km) and volcanic in origin, the massif rises abruptly from a plain to an average elevation of 2,000 ft (600 m) culminating in Mt. Exmouth (3,953 ...
Wars of Yahweh, Book of the: lost document referred to and quoted in the Old Testament (Num. 21:14ff.). The book is probably a collection of early Israelite war songs including hymns of victory, curses, mocking songs, and other literary genres recounting the victories of Yahweh, the ...
Warsaw: city, capital of Poland. The city, which is an autonomous administrative unit, is located in the east-central part of the country.
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: resistance by Polish Jews under Nazi occupation in 1943 to the deportations from Warsaw to the Treblinka extermination camp. The revolt began on April 19, 1943, and was crushed four weeks later, on May 16.
Warsaw Pact: treaty establishing a mutual-defense organization (Warsaw Treaty Organization) composed originally of the Soviet Union and Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. (Albania withdrew in 1968, and East Germany did so in 1990.) The treaty (which was renewed ...
Warsaw Uprising: (August-October 1944), insurrection in Warsaw during World War II by which Poles unsuccessfully tried to oust the German army and seize control of the city before it was occupied by the advancing Soviet army. The uprising's failure allowed the pro-Soviet ...
Warsaw, Compact of: (Jan. 28, 1573), charter that guaranteed absolute religious liberty to all non-Roman Catholics in Poland. After the death of Sigismund II Augustus (July 1572) had brought an end to the rule of the Jagiellon dynasty, the Polish nobility had the ...
Warsaw, Duchy of: independent Polish state created by Napoleon. It became a focal point of efforts to restore the Polish nation, which had been destroyed by the partitions of Poland made by Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1772, 1793, and 1795.
wart: a well-defined growth of varying shape and size on the skin surface, caused by a virus. Essentially an infectious, benign skin tumour, a wart is composed of an abnormal proliferation of cells of the epidermis; the overproduction of these cells ...
wart cress: (genus Coronopus), any of 10 species of plants of the mustard family (Brassicaceae), native to dry parts of Eurasia and North America. Lesser swine cress (C. didymus), a coarse, tough cosmopolitan weed with small, four-petaled white flowers and finely cut ...
wart snake: (genus Acrochordus), either of two species of fish-eating aquatic snakes of the Far East, constituting the family Acrochordidae, which is sometimes considered a subfamily of the Colubridae. Wart snakes have thick bodies, loose skins, tiny pyramidal scales that extend across ...
Warta River: river in west-central Poland, flowing 502 miles (808 km) north and west from its source near Zawiercie in the Silesian-Krakow uplands to its confluence with the Oder River at Kostrzyn in the western part of Gorzow Wielkopolski wojewodztwo (province). It ...
Wartburg: castle, renowned in German history and legend, standing on a steep hill overlooking the town of Eisenach, Thuringia, Germany. The hill was fortified as early as 1080. The landgrave Hermann I of Thuringia (died 1217) rebuilt the castle and made ...
warthog: (Phacochoerus aethiopicus), member of the pig family, Suidae (order Artiodactyla), found in open and lightly forested areas of Africa. The warthog is a sparsely haired, large-headed, blackish or brown animal standing about 76 centimetres (30 inches) at the shoulder. It ...
Warton, Joseph: English critic and classical scholar who anticipated some of the critical tenets of Romanticism. His brother Thomas was poet laureate from 1785 to 1790.
Warton, Thomas, The Younger: poet laureate from 1785 and author of the first history of English poetry, brother of the poet and critic Joseph Warton, and son of Thomas Warton the Elder (1688?-1745), professor of poetry at Oxford University (1718-26).
Warwick: city, Kent county, east-central Rhode Island, U.S., on the western shore of Narragansett Bay; it is basically a southern residential suburb of Providence comprising a group of about 20 scattered villages united administratively.
Warwick: city, southeastern Queensland, Australia, on the Condamine River, in the southern Darling Downs. It became associated with sheep breeding in 1840 when Patrick Leslie, the area's first settler, who later played a prominent role in the movement for separating Queensland ...
Warwick: district in the central part of the administrative and historic county of Warwickshire, England. It lies on the southern fringe of the Midlands industrial region, just south of the industrial city of Coventry, while its southern boundary adjoins the rural ...
Warwick: town ("parish"), Warwick district, administrative and historic county of Warwickshire, England, best known for its historic castle. Warwick originated at a crossing place on the River Avon and was fortified about 915. By 1086 "Warwic" was a royal borough with ...
Warwick, Richard Beauchamp, 5th Earl of: soldier and diplomatist, a knightly hero who served the English kings Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI.
Warwick, Richard Neville, 1st Earl of, 2nd Earl Of Salisbury: English nobleman called, since the 16th century, "the Kingmaker," in reference to his role as arbiter of royal power during the first half of the Wars of the Roses (1455-85) between the houses of Lancaster and York. He obtained the ...
Warwick, Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of, Baron Rich: English colonial administrator and advocate of religious toleration in the North American Colonies. As admiral of the fleet in 1642, he secured the adherence of the navy to the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil Wars (1642-51).