Intellect PlusCards starting with W
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Walking the Kolovrat Ridge: Reconstructing the Italian Frontline at the Battle of CaporettoJoin Indiana Neidell and guide Leon as they explore the preserved trenches and bunkers of the Kolovrat Ridge. This video offers a firsthand look at the terrain where German and Au…
Walkovers and misread rain sums rewrote cricket's first African World CupIn 2003 Kenya, a country without Test status, reached a World Cup semi-final, something no side of its kind has managed before or since. It got there partly because New Zealand re…
Wall Street investors are waiting for thousands of strangers to die for profitA secondary market for life insurance allows individuals to sell their policies to investors. When the policyholder dies, the payout goes to the investor rather than the original …
Wall Street priced shares in Spanish pieces of eight until 2000For over two centuries, a share on the New York Stock Exchange never cost a tidy decimal. Prices moved in eighths of a dollar, a habit inherited from the seventeenth-century Spani…
Wallace lost his Amazon collection to fire at sea, then sailed eastIn 1852, twenty-five days out from Brazil, the cargo of Alfred Russel Wallace's ship caught fire. Two years of his finest Amazon specimens went down, and he drifted ten days in an…
Wallace Stegner, the Dean of Western Writers, and his famous Stanford studentsWallace Stegner said he had lived in twenty places in eight states and Canada, then spent his career explaining the American West. He won a Pulitzer for Angle of Repose, founded S…
Wallace Stevens: The Insurance Executive Who Redefined Modern Poetry Through His ImaginationWallace Stevens lived a double life: a prosperous insurance vice president by day and a profound modernist poet by night. While he spent decades evaluating surety claims in Hartfo…
Wallacea’s island stairway bred the Komodo dragonThe Lesser Sunda Islands—Nusa Tenggara in Indonesian usage—step from Bali to Timor and the Tanimbar group across Wallacea, with only Bali west of the Wallace Line on the Sunda She…
Wallachia’s citadel became Romania’s richest metropolisBucharest, Romania’s capital on the Dâmbovița, counts about 1.71 million in the city and 2.33 million across the metro. First mentioned in 1459, it became capital of the United Pr…
Wallenstein grew too powerful for the emperor he saved, and was killed for itA poor Protestant noble from Bohemia, Albrecht von Wallenstein converted, married money and raised an army of 50,000 men for the Catholic emperor. He became one of the richest men…
Waller County, Texas, is a rural landscape defined by a complex history of votingWhile Waller County is a major hub for manufacturing and home to a historic university, its identity is deeply tied to recurring legal battles over voting access. From the 1970s t…
Wallet once meant a knapsack, not a pocket for cardsToday's flat wallet holds cash, cards and IDs, but the word first appeared in late fourteenth-century English for a bag or knapsack, and Shakespeare's wallets were closer to backp…
Wallis Bird explores grief and societal struggle through three powerful, genre-bending musical performances.Musician Wallis Bird takes the TED stage to perform three songs that blend genres and tackle complex human experiences. Accompanied by singer Tracey Kelleher, these performances o…
Wally Schirra remains the only astronaut to fly in Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.A decorated naval aviator and test pilot, Wally Schirra was a cornerstone of early American space exploration. He holds the unique distinction of being the only astronaut to parti…
Walnut shells once cleaned Army aircraft parts, until one grounded a helicopterGround walnut shells made a cheap, gentle grit for blasting grime off United States Army aviation parts. Then investigators of a fatal Chinook crash in Mannheim on 11 September 19…
Walrus tusks did not evolve to help these animals find or consume foodThe evolution of the modern walrus spans nearly 20 million years. This video explores the history of these marine mammals and reveals the surprising truth that their iconic tusks …
Walruses use their tusks to haul out of the sea, not to digThe walrus's scientific name, Odobenus, joins Greek words for tooth and walk, because observers watched the animals heave themselves onto ice with their tusks. Those tusks, grown …
Walt Disney once planned to build a real, functioning city called EPCOT in Florida.Before it became a theme park, EPCOT was intended as an autocratic, utopian company town. Walt Disney envisioned a living blueprint of the future, featuring a climate-controlled c…
Walt Disney’s obsession with trains built the foundation of his most iconic theme park.Before Disneyland opened in 1955, Walt Disney was a dedicated rail enthusiast who built a miniature backyard railroad. When he designed his park, he insisted on a full-scale narro…
Walt Whitman on contradiction“Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” (Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass)
Walt Whitman spent 37 years rewriting one book of poemsWalt Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass on July 4, 1855: twelve untitled poems in 95 pages, with no author named on the cover. He then revised and expanded it until his death …
Walter Block and the provocative economics of defending the indefensibleWalter Block is a prominent Austrian school economist known for challenging conventional morality through a strictly libertarian lens. His work often explores the boundaries of pr…
Walter Bonatti was the greatest climber in history, yet he was vilified for decades.An Italian mountaineering legend, Bonatti defined an era of alpinism with daring solo climbs and technical mastery. Despite his unparalleled achievements, he spent fifty years fig…- Walter Chrysler made Durant repeat his salary offer out loudIn 1916 Walter Chrysler told General Motors founder William Durant he was quitting Buick. Durant rushed to Flint by train and offered $10,000 a month plus a $500,000 bonus each ye…
- Walter Cronkite once read the news as Walter Wilcox and argued with a puppetBefore he became the most trusted man in America, Walter Cronkite called games on Kansas City radio under the name Walter Wilcox and once bantered with a lion puppet on morning te…
Walter Lippmann gave us stereotypes and the Cold War, as wordsTwo phrases you probably use came from one newspaperman. Walter Lippmann gave stereotype its modern psychological sense in 1922 and made Cold War common currency with a 1947 book.…
Walter Murch is the only person to win Academy Awards for both sound and editing.As the first professional credited as a sound designer, Walter Murch redefined how we hear cinema. His career spans iconic films from The Godfather to Apocalypse Now, where he pio…
Walter Schottky: The Physicist Whose Name Is Etched Into Modern Semiconductor TechnologyFrom the screen-grid vacuum tube to the ubiquitous Schottky diode, Walter Schottky’s fingerprints are on the foundations of modern electronics. A brilliant German physicist, he pi…
Walter Winchell turned journalism into entertainment, but his legacy remains a cautionary taleWalter Winchell was the most feared and influential gossip columnist in American history. By blending staccato news briefs, Jazz Age slang, and ruthless personal attacks, he trans…
Waltham, Massachusetts: The Industrial Powerhouse That Built America's First Production MotorcycleLong before it became a hub for higher education and modern research, Waltham was an industrial titan. Known as Watch City for its pioneering assembly-line horology, the city also…
Walther Nernst: The Nobel-winning chemist who pioneered electric cars and electronic pianos.Walther Nernst was a titan of thermodynamics, but his restless mind spanned far beyond the laboratory. From inventing early electric lighting and pioneering chain reaction theory …
Walther Rathenau organised Germany's wartime raw materials, then nationalists killed himWhen the British blockade began choking Germany's supplies in 1914, the industrialist Walther Rathenau persuaded the War Ministry to create a department to manage scarce raw mater…
Walther Ritz: The brilliant physicist who challenged Einstein and pioneered modern computing methodsWalther Ritz was a Swiss theoretical physicist whose short life left an indelible mark on quantum mechanics and engineering. Though he died at 31, his work on spectral lines antic…
Walther von der Vogelweide: The medieval knight who turned poetry into a political weaponWalther von der Vogelweide was the greatest German lyricist before Goethe, yet he spent his life as a wandering minstrel. While his love songs defined the medieval courtly traditi…
Walther Wenck: The German General Who Prioritized Saving Refugees Over Defending BerlinAs the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, General Walther Wenck was ordered to save Berlin. Instead, he orchestrated a massive humanitarian effort, using his Twelfth Army to shepherd …
Wampum beads carried treaties, names and titles long before colonists spent them as cashShell beads drilled from whelk and quahog were how Northeastern Woodlands peoples recorded treaties, confirmed a chief's authority and handed a dead person's name to a successor. …
Wanda Landowska: The Polish Virtuoso Who Single-Handedly Resurrected the HarpsichordIn the early 20th century, the harpsichord was a forgotten relic. Wanda Landowska changed that, single-handedly reviving the instrument through relentless research, iconic recordi…
Wang Bo was a literary prodigy who died at 26, leaving a complex legacy.A member of the Four Paragons of the Early Tang, Wang Bo was a child prodigy who could write poetry by age six. Yet, his brilliant career was cut short by a scandalous murder, lea…
Wang Fuzhi: The Ming Loyalist Who Challenged Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy from the ShadowsLiving in hiding after the Manchu invasion of China, Wang Fuzhi spent his life crafting a radical philosophical system. He rejected the prevailing neo-Confucian focus on abstract …
Wang Kŏn’s Goryeo gave Korea its modern English nameGoryeo, founded in 918 amid the Later Three Kingdoms, unified the peninsula until Joseon replaced it in 1392. General Wang Kŏn (Taejo) seized power from Taebong’s erratic Kung Ye;…
Wang Ming: The Soviet-backed intellectual who lost the battle for China's communist futureBorn into poverty, Wang Ming rose to lead the Chinese Communist Party's delegation in Moscow. As a favorite of the Comintern, he championed strict Marxist orthodoxy and a united f…- Wang Yangming insisted that knowing what is right and doing it are one actFor the Ming philosopher Wang Yangming, knowing the good without acting on it was not real knowledge at all. He was also a formidable general who bluffed a rebel prince into fatal…
Want a rough corruption gauge? One study suggests checking ministers' waistlinesMeasuring graft is hard, so one study tried a blunt proxy: body fat. In post-Soviet states, how overweight cabinet ministers were tracked closely with more rigorous corruption mea…
Want to be a fossil? You must die in a very specific way.Becoming a fossil is an incredibly rare event that requires precise environmental conditions. Paleontologist Phoebe A. Cohen explains the natural processes necessary for a body to…
Wanting and liking are separate, and anhedonia can break one without the otherAnhedonia was first described in 1896 as a lost capacity for pleasure. Researchers now split pleasure into parts: the anticipation that drives you toward a reward, and the enjoyme…
Wapiti means white rump in Shawnee and CreeThe elk (Cervus canadensis), or wapiti, is the second-largest member of the deer family, native to North America and Central and East Asia. Its English name is a colonial hand-me-…
War does not reduce emissions; it simply rearranges themWhen cities fall silent during conflict, the air can appear deceptively clean. But beneath the temporary clarity of a quiet sky, modern warfare operates as a massive, carbon-inten…
War horses came in three sizes, each trading speed for carrying powerA horse can carry roughly 30 percent of its own weight, but pulling a wheeled load on a paved road it can shift about eight times its weight. That simple gap shaped millennia of w…
War is not a lawless free-for-all, but a conflict governed by international rules.Contrary to popular belief, warfare is strictly regulated by international agreements. This video explains the framework designed to minimize the suffering and damage inherent in …
War reparations from China paid for Japan's second university in KyotoIn the 1890s Japan had just one university, in Tokyo, and the government balked at funding another. Then Saionji Kinmochi, an aristocrat from an old Kyoto court family, proposed u…
War's Aftermath: How Labour Strikes Reshaped Britain's EconomyThe immense cost of the First World War—in lives, materials, and GDP—left Britain in an explosive economic situation. Returning soldiers demanded their due, sparking a wave of lab…
War's lieutenant became the century's prophet of peaceLeo Tolstoy (1828–1910) turned Sevastopol's siege into fiction, then wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina. A spiritual crisis made him a Christian anarchist whose nonviolence sha…
Warhammer 40,000 is a brutal, ironic, and massive tabletop simulation of eternal galactic conflict.Warhammer 40,000 is the world's most popular miniature wargame, where players command armies of plastic warriors in a dystopian future. Beyond the dice and tactical movement, it i…
Wari built Peru’s first highland empire with knotted cordsFrom about 500 to 1000 CE the Wari (Huari) flourished across Peru’s south-central Andes and coast, forming an early expansive state. Their capital sat eleven kilometres northeast …
Warlordism is not just chaos; it is a persistent, alternative model of human governance.We often view warlords as symbols of state failure, but history suggests they are a default condition of humanity. From feudal Europe to modern decentralized states, these leaders…
Warm springs named a Silk Road capital on the KuraTbilisi, Georgia's capital on the Kura, holds more than 1.3 million people—nearly a third of the nation. Old Georgian roots in tpili, warm, nod to sulfur springs; until 1936 most …
Warm water from power plants counts as pollution tooWater pollution is not only oil slicks and chemical sludge. Power stations and factories that use rivers as coolant return the water warmer, and that heat alone can upset aquatic …
Warm-water cichlids that fed pharaohs and American fryersTilapia names nearly a hundred African cichlid species across several tribes, with Oreochromis stars dominating modern farms. Ancient Egypt painted Nile tilapia as rebirth beside …
Warming oceans drive massive shifts and restructuring in marine plankton communitiesResearchers using species distribution models for 336 phytoplankton and 524 zooplankton species found that global warming is fundamentally reshaping ocean life. Under high emissio…
Warrane cove renamed after a British viscount in 1788Sydney, New South Wales' capital and Australia's largest city, wraps the Harbour for about eighty kilometres from Pacific beaches to the Blue Mountains. Aboriginal clans including…