Volkswagen AG (VW) Major German automobile manufacturer. It was founded in 1937 to mass-produce a low-priced “people’s car” ( Volks¬ wagen ). After World War II the company was rebuilt with Allied help, and within a decade it was producing half of West Germany’s motor vehicles. U.S. sales of the small, rounded car were initially low, but a humorous advertising campaign promoting the car as “the Beetle” lifted sales in the 1960s, making it the leading auto import in the U.S. Com¬ petition from other foreign compact cars brought VW near bankruptcy by 1974, but the firm rebounded by introducing sportier models such as the Rabbit. In 1998 it launched a fully redesigned version of the Beetle. With its affiliates, VW operates plants worldwide; it also owns other auto brands, including Audi and Bentley.
volleyball Game played by two teams of six players each, in which an inflated ball is volleyed over a high net. Each team tries to make the ball touch the court within the opposing side’s playing areas before it can be returned. A team is allowed to touch the ball three times before returning it. The team that first scores 15 points wins the game. Volleyball was invented in 1895 by William G. Morgan in Holyoke, Mass. It soon proved to have wide appeal for both sexes in schools, playgrounds, the armed forces, and other settings. International competition began in 1913, and volleyball became an Olympic sport in 1964. Beach volleyball, a varia¬ tion with two players on a side, has grown increasingly popular and became an Olympic sport in 1996.
Volsci Vvol-ske, 'val-,sl\ Ancient Italic people prominent in the history of Roman expansion in the 5th century bc. They belonged to the Osco- Sabellian group of tribes and lived (c. 600 bc) in the valley of the upper Liris River (then in southern Latium). They fought the Romans and the Latins intermittently for about 200 years. The Romans established several colonies to stem the Volsci advance. In 340 they joined the Latin revolt against Rome but were defeated. After submitting to Rome by 304, they quickly became fully Romanized.
Volstead Act See Prohibition
Vplsunga saga Vvoel-surj-o, 'vol-suq-oV (“Saga of the Volsungs”) Best of the Icelandic sagas known as fornaldar sQgur (“sagas of antiquity”). Dating from roughly 1270, it is the first of the fornaldar SQgur to have been written down. It contains the Northern version of the story told in the Nibelungenued. The saga was based on the heroic poems in the Poetic Edda and is especially valuable because it preserves in prose form some of the poems from the Edda that were lost. It became one of the sources of Richard Wagner’s operatic Ring tetralogy.
Volta Vvol-toV Alessandro (Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio) (b.
Feb. 18, 1745, Como, Lombardy—d. March 5, 1827, Como) Italian sci¬ entist. In 1775 he invented the electrophorus, a device used to generate static electricity. He taught physics at the University of Pavia (1779- 1804). After Luigi Galvani in 1780 produced an electric current by con¬ necting two different metals with the muscle of a frog, Volta began experimenting in 1794 with metals alone and found that animal tissue was not needed to produce current. He demonstrated the first electric battery in 1800. In 1801 he demonstrated the battery’s generation of current before Napoleon, who made him a count and senator of the kingdom of Lombardy. In 1815 he was appointed director of the philosophical faculty at the University of Padua. The volt was named in his honour in 1881.
Volta, Lake Lake, Ghana. One of the world’s largest artificial lakes, it was formed in 1965 when the Akosombo Dam dammed the Volta River and created a reservoir that extends about 250 mi (400 km) upstream to beyond the former confluence of the Black Volta and White Volta rivers. It covers 3,283 sq mi (8,502 sq km), or 3.6% of Ghana’s area. It is a major fishing ground and provides irrigation water for farmland in the Accra plains. The dam generates enough hydroelectric power to supply most of Ghana’s electricity needs.
Volta Vval-ts, 'vol-t3\ River River, Ghana, western Africa. The nation’s chief river, it flows from Lake Volta and receives the Black Volta and the White Volta rivers. It flows southward through Ghana to the Bight of Benin in the Gulf of Guinea. The river system is 1,000 mi (1,600 km) long.
Voltaic languages See Gur languages
Voltaire \vol-'ter\ orig. Francois-Marie Arouet (b. Nov. 21, 1694, Paris, France—d. May 30, 1778, Paris) French writer. Voltaire studied law but abandoned it to become a writer. He became acclaimed for his trag¬ edies and continued to write for the theatre all his life. He was twice imprisoned in the Bastille for his remarks and in 1726 was exiled to England, where his philosophical interests deepened; he returned to France in 1728 or 1729. His epic poem La Henriade (1728) was well received, but his lampoons of the Regency and his liberal religious opin¬ ions caused offense. Lettres philosophiques (1734), in which he spoke out against established religious and political systems, created an uproar. He fled Paris and settled at Cirey in Champagne with Mme du Chatelet, who became his patroness and mistress, and there he turned to scientific research and the systematic study of religions and culture. After her death he spent periods in Berlin and Geneva; in 1754 he settled in Switzerland. In addition to his many works on philosophical and moral problems, he wrote contes (“tales”) including Zadig (1747), Micromegas (1752), and his best-known work, Candide (1759), a satire on philosophical optimism.
Meadow vole (Microtus pennsylvani- cus).
JUDITH MYERS
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2016 I Volturno River ► Voting Rights Act
He kept up an immense correspondence and took an interest in any cases of injustice, especially those resulting from religious prejudice. Voltaire is remembered as a crusader against tyranny and bigotry and is noted for his wit, satire, and critical capacity.
Volturno River \val-'tur-no\ River, southern central Italy. It flows southeast from the Abruzzese Apennines, then turns west to empty into the Gulf of Gaeta. It is 109 mi (175 km) long and has a dam for flood con¬ trol and irrigation. During the wars for Italian unity, the Italian national¬ ist leader Giuseppe de Garibaldi defeated a Neapolitan army there in 1860. During World War II, German forces in southern Italy used it as their line of defense after the fall of Naples; after severe fighting, the Allies crossed the river in October 1943.
volume See length, area, and volume
voluntarism Vva-lon-to-.ri-zonA Metaphysical or psychological system that assigns a more predominant role to the will (Latin, voluntas ) than to the intellect. Christian philosophers who have been described as volun¬ tarist include St. Augustine, John Duns Scotus, and Blaise Pascal. A meta¬ physical voluntarism was propounded in the 19th century by Arthur Schopenhauer, who took will to be the single, unconscious force behind all of reality and all ideas of reality. An existentialist voluntarism was present in Friedrich Nietzsche’s doctrine of the overriding “will to power” whereby man would eventually recreate himself as “superman.” And a pragmatic voluntarism is evident in William James’s conception of knowl¬ edge and truth in terms of purpose and practical ends.
vomiting Forcible ejection of the stomach contents from the mouth, usually following nausea. Causes include illness, motion sickness, certain drugs, inner ear disorders, and head injury. Vomiting may occur without nausea (e.g., after extreme exertion). Two centres in the brain’s medulla oblongata are believed to control it; the vomiting centre initiates and con¬ trols a series of muscle contractions beginning at the small intestine and moving through the stomach and esophagus. This reaction may be set off by the chemoreceptor trigger zone, stimulated by many toxins and drugs, to rid the body of them, or by stimuli from various parts of the body that may be stressed or diseased. Severe vomiting may cause dehydration, malnutrition, or esophageal wall rupture. Vomiting of blood may be a sign of bleeding ulcer or other upper digestive tract disorders. See also bulimia.