Born: October 24, 1908, Ottawa
[Died] April 15, 1993. Toronto, Canada. Geologist and geophysicist. Full name John Tuzo Wilson. He revealed the patterns of fault movement on a global scale and the crustal structure of the continents. His research on plate tectonics in particular had a major impact on theories such as continental drift, ocean-floor spreading, and mantle convection. He was born to a Scottish immigrant father. In 1930, he obtained a bachelor's degree from Trinity College, University of Toronto, becoming the first Canadian university to graduate from a geophysics department. He then studied at St. John's College, University of Cambridge (Bachelor's degree, 1932), Princeton University (PhD, 1936), and Cambridge University (Master's degree, 1940, Doctor of Science, 1958). He worked for the Geological Survey of Canada from 1936 to 1939, and at the start of World War II, he joined the Canadian Army Engineers, rising to the rank of colonel. After the war, in 1946, he became professor of geophysics at the University of Toronto. After serving in this position until 1974, he became director of the Ontario Science Centre. President of York University from 1983 to 1986. President of the Royal Society of Canada from 1972 to 1973. President of the American Geophysical Union from 1980 to 1982. In the early 1960s, when the view that the continents were fixed and did not move was mainstream, Wilson re-emphasized the theory of continental drift worldwide. Previous theories of continental drift had suggested that plates either approached each other (convergent type) or gradually moved apart (divergent type), but in 1965, in his paper "A New Class of Faults and Their Bearing on Continental Drift", Wilson claimed that there was a third type of movement in which plates pass each other (→ transform faults). This theory became one of the foundations of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1970s. Wilson
Wilson, Angus (Frank Johnstone) Born: August 11, 1913, Bexhill, Sussex
[Died] May 31, 1991. British novelist from Suffolk. Studied medieval history at Oxford University. After various jobs, he began working as a cataloger at the British Museum in 1936. In 1946, he suffered from neurosis and was encouraged to write short stories as a form of occupational therapy, which led him to enter literature. He established his reputation as a writer by publishing short stories collections The Wrong Set (1949) and Such Darling Dodos (1950), which sharply observed and satirized the human condition during the social upheaval following the Second World War. He then published Hemlock and After (1952), a novel about the ideals and failures of a liberal humanist writer. From 1955, he devoted himself to writing and completed his major work Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1956). His subsequent works include the short story collection A Bit of Stories (57), the novel The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot (58), No Laughing Matter (67), and As If by Magic (73). He has also written books on Zola and Dickens, and has served as visiting professor of English literature at the University of East Anglia and visited Japan twice. He can be described as a social novelist who draws on traditional novels while also incorporating experimental techniques. Wilson
Wilson, Edmund Born May 8, 1895 in Red Bank, New Jersey.
[Died] June 12, 1972, Talcottville, New York. American critic, novelist, and poet. After graduating from Princeton University in 1916, he worked as a reporter for the Evening Sun in New York, then worked at a field hospital in France from 1917 to 1919, and then at the U.S. Army Intelligence Service. After being discharged from the military, he worked for magazines such as The New Yorker in New York, and wrote critiques, novels, poetry, and plays. His critical work was particularly multifaceted, covering everything from 19th century historical criticism to Marxist criticism, new criticism, and psychoanalytic criticism, and he produced outstanding results in academic fields such as The Scrolls from the Dead Sea (1955), making him one of the leading critics of modern America. His representative works include Axel's Castle (31), which reinterprets iconic writers of the 1920s such as Joyce, TS Eliot, and Proust in the context of the 19th century Symbolist movement, The Wound and the Bow (41), which uses psychoanalysis, and Patriotic Gore (62), which is about the Civil War. Wilson
Wilson, (Thomas) Woodrow Born December 28, 1856 in Staunton, Virginia
[Died] February 3, 1924, Washington, DC
American politician. 28th president (in office 1913-21). Born into a Presbyterian minister's family, he graduated from Princeton University in 1879. He became a professor of law and finance at the same university in 1990, and president in 1902. He entered politics when he was elected governor of New Jersey in 2010, and attracted attention for his progressive politics. In 2012, he was elected president as a Democratic candidate. Under the slogan "New Freedom," he promoted progressive policies such as lowering tariffs, reforming the banking system, and expanding antitrust policies. Externally, he intervened militarily in the Caribbean, and although he initially declared neutrality during World War I, he entered the war in April 1917, and in January of the following year proposed the "Fourteen Points." After the war, he attended the Versailles Peace Conference (→Paris Peace Conference) and contributed to the conclusion of the peace treaty, including the establishment of the League of Nations, but after returning home he faced opposition from Congress and fell ill, so he was unable to realize America's membership in the League. In 1881 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. His main work is Congressional Government (1885). Wilson
Wilson, Edmund Beecher Born: November 19, 1856 in Geneva
[Died] March 3, 1939. New York American developmental biologist and cytologist. He studied at Yale, Johns Hopkins, Cambridge, Leipzig, and the Naples Institute. From 1883, he taught at Williams College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Bryn Mawr College, among others. In 1891, he moved to Columbia University, where he served as professor of zoology until 1928, and helped to turn it into one of the world's centers of biological research. He started out by studying development, then moved on to studying it at the cellular level. His major work, Cell in Development and Inheritance (1896; 3rd edition, 1925), attempted to explain various phenomena such as development and inheritance at the cellular level, and played a role in linking developmental biology, genetics, and cytology, and had a major impact on the development of biology thereafter. He then pursued the relationship between chromosome behavior and sex determination, and the series of papers he published from 1905 onwards became the foundational material for establishing the chromosome theory of inheritance. Wilson
Wilson, Kenneth Geddes Born June 8, 1936 in Waltham, Massachusetts
[Died] June 15, 2013. Sako, Maine. American physicist. Graduated from Harvard University in 1956, and received his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology under Murray Gell-Mann in 1961. After a year at CERN, he became an assistant professor at Cornell University in 1963, where he served as a professor from 1971 to 1988, before moving to Ohio State University in 1988. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1982 for developing a general method for calculating the second-order phase transition of matter. It was during his time at Cornell that he began working on the phase transition for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Second-order phase transitions occur at a fixed temperature (or pressure), but unlike first-order phase transitions, they occur simultaneously throughout the entire material at the moment the temperature (critical point) is reached. For example, certain metals lose all magnetism when heated to the Curie temperature (e.g., 750°C for iron). Wilson's research proposed a mathematical strategy for constructing a theory that can be generally applied to conditions near critical points. Wilson
Wilson, Harold Born: March 11, 1916, Huddersfield, Yorkshire
[Died] May 24, 1995. London. British politician. Graduated from Oxford University. In 1942, he collaborated with W. Beveridge and contributed to the creation of the Beveridge Report. In 1945, he was appointed Labour MP, and in 1947, he was appointed Secretary of State for Trade, but in April 1951, he resigned in opposition to the rearmament policy in the wake of the Korean War. After the Conservative Party took power in 1951, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Shadow Cabinet. From 1961 to 1962, he was Chairman of the Labour Party Executive. In January 1963, after the death of the Labour Party leader, H. Gaitskell, he became the leader of the party. In the general election of October 1964, he defeated the Conservative Party, returning the government to the Labour Party for the first time in 12 years, and became Prime Minister. In the March 1966 general election, he won a landslide victory over the Conservative Party and continued to serve as Prime Minister, remaining in that position for about five years and eight months until he was defeated by the Conservative Party in the June 1970 general election. He continued the democratic socialist policies of the C. Attlee government, including nationalizing coal mining and other industries, and achieving full employment and social security. He returned to the prime ministerial position for the third time in 1974, but retired in 1976. Wilson
Wilson, August Born: April 27, 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
[Died] October 2, 2005. Seattle, Washington. American playwright. Real name Frederick August Kittel. After dropping out of high school at age 15, he taught himself to write poetry, and in 1968 he organized his own theater company and began writing plays. After a long period of hard work, he was discovered by director Lloyd Richards, and in 1984 he made his Broadway debut with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which immediately drew attention. In 1987, he won both a Tony Award and a Pulitzer Prize for his next work, Fences (1986), establishing himself as one of the leading playwrights in American theater. He continued to be active, winning another Pulitzer Prize for The Piano Lesson (1990). Each work is structured like a series, telling the experiences of African Americans in the 20th century in ten-year increments, and is characterized by rhythmic dialogue that makes use of African American colloquialisms. Wilson
Wilson, Robert Born October 4, 1941 in Waco, Texas. American stage designer and director. While studying design in New York, he worked on theater projects with children with disabilities. In 1969, he founded the production organization Bard Hoffman Foundation. He attracted worldwide attention with his productions of The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud in the same year and Deafman Glance the following year. Since then, he has been active mainly in Europe. He departs from the traditional concept of directing, and does not use plays, but instead focuses on visual and auditory images in his productions. He calls his works operas, but in recent years he has also directed many regular operas and classical plays. Other notable works include Einstein on the Beach (1976) and the unfinished masterpiece The Civil Wars (83). Wilson
Wilson, Colin Born: June 26, 1931, Leicester
[Died] December 5, 2013. St. Austell. British novelist and critic. Full name Colin Henry Wilson. One of the so-called "Angry Young Men." Born to a shoemaker's family, he dropped out of technical high school and worked in various jobs, including as a factory worker, and even spent some time wandering around London. He gained fame with his critique The Outsider (1956), and published Religion and the Rebel (1957), The Age of Defeat (1959), Beyond the Outsider (1965), The Occult (1971), as well as the novel Ritual in the Dark (1960) and the science fiction novel The Philosopher's Stone (1969). Wilson
Wilson, Robert Woodrow Born January 10, 1936 in Houston. American radio astronomer. Graduated from Rice University (1957). Earned a doctorate from California Institute of Technology in 1962. Joined Bell Telephone Laboratories (63) and became head of the Radio Physics Research Department (76). In May 1964, while developing an antenna for space communications with A. Penzias, he captured weak microwaves coming from outer space. This discovery was evidence of the Big Bang theory, which posits that radio waves equivalent to a warmth of about 3K are scattered throughout the present universe as a remnant of a great explosion at the beginning of the universe. As a result, he and Penzias received the Henry Draper Prize from the National Academy of Sciences in 1977, the Herschel Medal from the Royal Astronomical Society in London, and the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978. Wilson
Wilson, James Born: September 14, 1742, Cascade
[Died] August 21, 1798, Eddington, North Carolina. American jurist and politician. Educated in Scotland, he emigrated to America in 1765. Taught Greek at Philadelphia College. He joined the independence movement and was elected to the Continental Congress. He was a radical theorist, but gradually became more conservative. He signed the Declaration of Independence as a delegate from Pennsylvania at the Second Continental Congress. In drafting the federal Constitution, he advocated direct election of the president and members of both houses of Congress based on the idea of sovereignty of the people, and argued that the government is not a collection of states, but a collection of individuals for a certain political purpose. As the first associate justice of the Supreme Court, he was involved in important decisions since 1790. Wilson
Wilson, Richard [Born] August 1, 1714, Benegoz
[Died] May 15, 1782, Llanberis. British painter. Around 1729, he became a portrait painter after becoming a pupil of the London portrait painter Thomas Wright. He stayed in Venice and Rome from 1749 to 1757, and thereafter switched to landscape painting. Influenced by Nicolas Poussin, Salvator Rosa and Claude Lorrain, he created his own uniquely British style of painting, and together with Joshua Reynolds, he established 18th century British landscape painting, inspiring the emergence of Joseph Mallord William Turner and John Constable half a century later. His main work is Snowdon (1770, Walker Art Museum, Liverpool). Many of his works are in the collection of the National Museum of Wales. Wilson
Wilson, CTR Born: February 14, 1869, Glencorse
[Died] November 15, 1959. Carlops British physicist and meteorologist. Full name Charles Thomson Rees Wilson. Educated at the University of Manchester and the University of Cambridge, he served as Professor of Physical Sciences at Cambridge from 1925 to 1934. From his research into the relationship between the generation of clouds and fog and dust, he discovered that supersaturated water vapor condenses with ions generated by radiation as nuclei. In 1911, he completed the cloud chamber, which became indispensable for subsequent research into nuclear physics and elementary particle physics. He was also active in the study of atmospheric electricity, and is known for inventing a device to protect wartime barrage balloons from lightning. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927. Wilson
Wilson, Frank Percy [Born] 1889
[Died] 1963
A British literary scholar, he was professor of English at Leeds (1929-36), London (1936-47), and Oxford (1947-57). He wrote many books related to Shakespeare, including Marlowe and the Early Shakespeare (53). He also supervised the Oxford History of English Literature. He also wrote a posthumous work, The English Drama, 1485-1585 (69). Wilson
Wilson, Dover Born: July 13, 1881, London
Died January 15, 1969. Barano British Shakespeare scholar. After graduating from Cambridge University, he served as professor at King's College London from 1924 to 1935, and at the University of Edinburgh from 1935 to 1945. He is the author of research books such as What Happens in Hamlet (1959), but his most important achievement is the editing and publication of the original and critically edited New Cambridge Edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare (1921-66). Wilson
Wilson, Henry Born February 16, 1812 in Farmington, New Hampshire.
Died: November 22, 1875, Washington, DC
American lawyer and politician. He served as vice president under the 18th President, U.S. President U. Grant (1873-75). He was an abolitionist and edited the Boston Republican (48-51). He also wrote History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave power in America (3 vols., 72-77). Wilson
Wilson, Charles Erwin Born July 18, 1890 in Minerva, Ohio
[Died] September 26, 1961, Norwood, Louisiana. American businessman. After working as an electrical engineer for Westinghouse Electric and president of Delco, he became an executive at General Motors in 1929 and president in 1941. In 1953, he was appointed Secretary of Defense in the D. Eisenhower administration. As a leading figure in the defense industry, he deepened ties between the Department of Defense (the Pentagon) and the business world. Wilson
Wilson, Thomas [Born] Around 1525
[Died] June 16, 1581, London. English humanist and politician. He held many important positions after 1561, including Secretary of State (1577-80). His major works were the Rule of Reason (51), a handbook on logic, and The Arte of Rhetorique (53), which was important in demonstrating the value of English as the language of scholars. Wilson
Wilson, John [Born] 1627?
[Died] 1696
English playwright. His representative works include the realistic satirical comedy The Cheats (1663) and The Projectors (64), both in the style of Ben Jonson. His other works include the tragicomedy Belphegor, or the Marriage of the Devil (77). Wilson
Wilson, Georges Born October 16, 1921 in Champigny-sur-Marne, France. French actor and director. In 1963, he succeeded J. Villard as director of the National Popular Theatre TNP, where he worked to expand the repertoire to more modern and international styles. However, he was unable to stop the decline in audience numbers at the theatre, and in 1972, when the theatre left government hands and moved to Lyon, he became a freelancer. Wilson
Wilson, Thomas [Birth] 1663
[Died] 1755
Bishop of the Church of England. As Bishop of Sodder and Mann, he reformed land ownership and wrote the Ecclesiastic Constitution (1704), which called for strict discipline in religious life. Wilson
Wilson, Benjamin Born: 1721. Leeds
[Died] June 6, 1788, London. British portrait and landscape painter and printmaker. He worked in Ireland from 1748 to 1750, and returned to London in 1750 to become a portrait painter. In 1761 he succeeded Hogarth as royal painter, and in 1776 he painted portraits of the King and Queen. Wilson
Wilson A city in eastern North Carolina, USA. It was named after General LD Wilson, a leader in the Mexican War. It is famous for producing Virginia tobacco, and various industries are centered around its processing. Population: 36,930 (1990). Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia About Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia Information |
