All articles starting with W
11,426 articles
William Wesley
William Wesley, "World Wide Wes", American basketball power broker from southern New Jersey; longtime CAA consultant, hired 2020 as Knicks EVP Senior Basketball Advisor under Leon Rose.
William Westmoreland
William Childs Westmoreland (1914–2005), American four-star general, commanded U.S. forces in Vietnam as MACV chief 1964–1968, built forces to over 500,000, pursued attrition and search-and-destroy, was replaced by Abrams after Tet, later Army chief of staff.
William Whewell
William Whewell (1794–1866) was an English polymath and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, known for his philosophy of science, his theory of induction, and coining "scientist."
William Whiston
William Whiston (1667–1752) was an English theologian and mathematician who succeeded Isaac Newton in the Lucasian chair at Cambridge and was expelled in 1710 for publicly denying the Trinity.
William Whitaker (geologist)
William Whitaker (1836–1925) was a British geologist with the Geological Survey of Great Britain who mapped the Tertiary strata of the London Basin and is regarded as the father of English hydrogeology.
William White Howells
William White Howells (1908–2005) was an American physical anthropologist at Harvard who replaced racial typology with population-based analysis, chiefly through multivariate statistical study of human skulls.
William White Williams
William White Williams, known in the white nationalist movement as Will Williams, is an American Vietnam veteran and former Special Forces captain who has chaired the National Alliance since 2014.
William Whitehead Watts
William Whitehead Watts (1860–1947) was a British geologist, born in Broseley, Shropshire, who mapped Charnwood Forest and held the geology chair at Imperial College from 1906.
William Whiteman Carlton Topley
William Whiteman Carlton Topley (1886–1944) was a British bacteriologist who pioneered experimental epidemics in mouse colonies and first published the term 'herd immunity' in 1923.
William Whittlesey
William Whittlesey, also spelled Wittleseye, was an English churchman and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1368 until his death in June 1374, previously bishop of Rochester and Worcester.
William Wickner
William T. Wickner is an American cell biologist and biochemist, professor at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine, known for reconstituting yeast vacuole membrane fusion from purified components.
William Wijns
William Wijns is a Belgian interventional cardiologist who was Co-Director of the Cardiovascular Center Aalst from 1994 to 2016 and is now a professor at the University of Galway.
William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce (1759–1833), British MP for Hull and Yorkshire, was the parliamentary spokesman of the abolition movement, securing the 1807 Slave Trade Act after 18 years of annual motions.
William Willcox Perrin
William Willcox Perrin (1848–1934) was an Anglican bishop who served as the second Bishop of British Columbia from 1893 to 1911, appointed by Queen Victoria.
William Williams Keen
William Williams Keen (1837–1932) was an American surgeon who performed the first successful removal of a brain tumor in the United States, in Philadelphia in 1887.
William Wilson (physicist)
William Wilson (1887–1948) was an English physicist born in Preston who studied radioactivity under Rutherford, joined Bell Laboratories in 1914, and led its vacuum-tube and radio research.
William Wilson Hunter
Sir William Wilson Hunter (1840–1900) was a British administrator in India and historian who directed the first Imperial Gazetteer of India and served as Director-General of Statistics.
William Wilson Morgan
William Wilson Morgan (1906–1994) was an American astronomer at Yerkes Observatory who created the MK system of stellar classification and mapped the Milky Way's spiral arms.
William Windom (actor)
William Windom (1923–2012), American character actor; Emmy winner for My World and Welcome to It (1970); Commodore Decker in Star Trek's Doomsday Machine; Dr. Seth Hazlitt on Murder, She Wrote.
William Windsor (goat)
William 'Billy' Windsor was a cashmere goat serving as lance corporal in the 1st Battalion, Royal Welsh, 2001–2009; demoted to fusilier in 2006 after misbehaving at the Queen's birthday parade in Cyprus, then reinstated and retired to Whipsnade Zoo.
William Wirt (attorney general)
William Wirt (1772-1834), 9th U.S. Attorney General 1817-1829, longest-serving holder of the office; established the Official Opinions record, limited the office to legal advice, argued McCulloch and Gibbons, defended the Cherokee Nation, and was the 1832 Anti-Masonic presidential nominee.
William Wisden
William Wisden is a molecular neuroscientist and Chair in Molecular Neuroscience at Imperial College London known for characterizing GABA receptor genes and discovering sleep circuits in mice.
William Woodhouse
Bill Woodhouse (William Woodhouse, 1936-2014), American sprinter at Abilene Christian under Oliver Jackson; twice tied the 9.3-second 100-yard world record (1957, 1959), ran on world-record relays, and won 4x100m gold at the 1959 Pan American Games.
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (1770–1850), English Romantic poet born at Cockermouth, co-founder of Romanticism with Lyrical Ballads, author of the 1800 Preface and The Prelude, poet laureate 1843–1850, buried at Grasmere.
William Wrede
William Wrede (1859–1906) was a German Protestant New Testament scholar, professor at Breslau, known for the messianic secret thesis and for calling Paul the second founder of Christianity.
William Wrigley Jr.
William Wrigley Jr. (1861–1932) was an American chewing-gum manufacturer who built the Wrigley Company into America's dominant gum maker, and used his fortune to buy the Chicago Cubs and Catalina Island.
William Wycherley
William Wycherley (about 1640 to 1715) was an English Restoration dramatist and poet remembered for four comedies, above all The Country Wife (1675) and The Plain Dealer (1676).
William Wyler
William Wyler (Willi Wyler, 1902-1981), Alsatian-born American film director, three-time Best Director Oscar winner (Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben-Hur) with a record 12 directing nominations, known for deep-focus style and Goldwyn collaborations.
William Yeck
William L. Yeck is an American seismologist and research geophysicist with the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program in Golden, Colorado, who received the 2025 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
William Yorzyk
William "Bill" Yorzyk (1933-2020), American swimmer, first Olympic champion in a butterfly event, winning the 200 m butterfly at Melbourne 1956; set 11 world records, became an Air Force anesthesiologist, ISHOF inductee 1971.