WThe ceremonial start of the 35th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race across the U.S. state of Alaska began amidst the crowds of Anchorage at 10 am (AKST) on March 3, 2007, and the start of the competitive race, or "restart", began at 2 pm the next day in Willow. The race followed the southern route for 1,151 mi (1,852 km) across the Alaska Range, through the sparsely inhabited Interior, along the Yukon River, and then up the coast of the Bering Sea to the city of Nome.
WAgriprocessors was the corporate identity of a slaughterhouse and meat-packaging factory based in Postville, Iowa, best known as a facility for the glatt kosher processing of cattle, as well as chicken, turkey, duck, and lamb. Agriprocessors' meat and poultry products were marketed under the brand Iowa Best Beef. Its kosher products were marketed under various labels, including Aaron’s Best, Shor Habor, Supreme Kosher, and Rubashkins.
WAnti-tank dogs were dogs taught to carry explosives to tanks, armored vehicles and other military targets. They were intensively trained by the Soviet and Russian military forces between 1930 and 1996, and used in 1941–1942, against German tanks in World War II. Initially dogs were trained to leave a timer-detonated bomb and retreat, but this routine was replaced by an impact-detonation procedure which killed the dog in the process. The U.S. military started training anti-tank dogs in 1943 in the same way the Russians used them, but this training exposed several problems and the program was discontinued.
WBanjawarn Station is a remote cattle station that previously operated as a sheep station in Western Australia. In the 1990s Banjawarn was owned by the Aum Shinrikyo, and following the Tokyo subway attack was the subject of an Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigation. Banjawarn is one of the seventy largest stations in Australia.
WBat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican free-tailed bat with a small, timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats, which would then disperse and roost in eaves and attics in a 20–40-mile radius (32–64 km). The incendiaries, which were set on timers, would then ignite and start fires in inaccessible places in the largely wood and paper constructions of the Japanese cities that were the weapon's intended target.
WBeautiful Joe was a dog from the town of Meaford, Ontario, whose story inspired the bestselling 1893 novel Beautiful Joe, which contributed to worldwide awareness of animal cruelty.
WBen-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a 1925 American silent epic adventure-drama film directed by Fred Niblo and written by June Mathis based on the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by General Lew Wallace. Starring Ramon Novarro as the title character, the film is the first feature-length adaptation of the novel and second overall, following the 1907 short.
WThe Brown Dog affair was a political controversy about vivisection that raged in England from 1903 until 1910. It involved the infiltration by Swedish feminists of University of London medical lectures; pitched battles between medical students and the police; police protection for the statue of a dog; a libel trial at the Royal Courts of Justice; and the establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate the use of animals in experiments. The affair became a cause célèbre that divided the country.
WHarold Pitney Brown was an American electrical engineer and inventor known for his activism in the late 1880s against the use of alternating current for electric lighting in New York City and around the country.
WButterball is a brand of turkey and other poultry products produced by Butterball LLC. The company manufactures food products in the United States and internationally — specializing in turkey, cured deli meats, raw roasts and specialty products such as soups and salads, sandwiches, and entrées.
WCannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian Colombian cannibal film directed by Ruggero Deodato and written by Gianfranco Clerici. It stars Robert Kerman as Harold Monroe, an anthropologist from New York University who leads a rescue team into the Amazon rainforest to locate a crew of filmmakers. Played by Carl Gabriel Yorke, Francesca Ciardi, Perry Pirkanen, and Luca Barbareschi, the crew had gone missing while filming a documentary on local cannibal tribes. When the rescue team is only able to recover the crew's lost cans of film, an American television station wishes to broadcast the footage as a sensationalized television special. Upon viewing the reels, Monroe is appalled by the team's actions and objects to the station's intent to air the documentary.
WCastor and Pollux were two elephants kept at the zoo Jardin des Plantes in Paris. They were killed and eaten, along with many other animals from the zoo, in late 1870 during the Siege of Paris. The two elephants may have been siblings, and were named after the twin brothers of Greek and Roman mythology. They had been popular before the siege for giving rides on their backs around the park, but the food shortages caused by the German blockade of the city eventually drove the citizens of Paris to kill them for their meat.
WThe Charge of the Light Brigade is a 1936 American historical adventure film from Warner Bros., starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. It was directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Samuel Bischoff, with Hal B. Wallis as executive producer, from a screenplay by Michael Jacoby and Rowland Leigh, from a story by Michael Jacoby based on the 1854 poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The music score was composed by Max Steiner, his first for Warner Bros., and the cinematography was by Sol Polito. Scenes were shot at the following California locations: Lone Pine, Sherwood Lake, Lasky Mesa, Chatsworth and Sonora. The Sierra Nevada mountains were used for the Khyber Pass scenes.
WChunee was an Indian elephant who was brought to Regency London in 1811.
WJeffrey Lionel Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who committed the murder and dismemberment of 17 men and boys from 1978 to 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeleton.
WJoseph James DeAngelo Jr. is an American serial killer, serial rapist, burglar, and former police officer who committed at least 13 murders, 50 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California between 1973 and 1986. DeAngelo was responsible for at least three crime sprees throughout California, each of which spawned a different nickname in the press, before it became evident that they were committed by the same offender. In the San Joaquin Valley, he was known as the Visalia Ransacker before moving to the Sacramento area, where he became known as the East Area Rapist and was linked by modus operandi to additional attacks in Contra Costa County, Stockton, and Modesto. DeAngelo committed serial murders in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Orange counties, where he was known as the Night Stalker and later the Original Night Stalker. DeAngelo is believed to have taunted and threatened both victims and police in obscene phone calls and possibly written communications.
WWim Delvoye is a Belgian neo-conceptual artist known for his inventive and often shocking projects. Much of his work is focused on the body. As the critic Robert Enright wrote in the art magazine Border Crossings, "Delvoye is involved in a way of making art that reorients our understanding of how beauty can be created". Wim Delvoye has an eclectic oeuvre, exposing his interest in a range of themes, from bodily function, and scatology to the function of art in the current market economy, and numerous subjects in between. He lives and works in Brighton, UK.
WThe Dnepropetrovsk maniacs are Ukrainian serial killers responsible for a string of murders in Dnipropetrovsk in June and July 2007. The case gained additional notoriety because the killers made video recordings of some of the murders, with one of the videos leaking to the Internet. Two 19‑year-old locals, Viktor Sayenko, born 1 March 1988, and Igor Suprunyuk, born 20 April 1988, were arrested and charged with 21 murders.
WA Dog's Purpose is a 2017 American comedy-drama adventure film directed by Lasse Hallström and written by W. Bruce Cameron, Cathryn Michon, Audrey Wells, Maya Forbes, and Wally Wolodarsky, based on the 2010 novel of the same name by W. Bruce Cameron. The film stars Britt Robertson, KJ Apa, Juliet Rylance, John Ortiz, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Peggy Lipton, Dennis Quaid, and Josh Gad. The film, like the book, tells the story of a devoted dog who is looking for his rightful purpose and wants to fulfill it.
WFaces of Death is a 1978 American mondo horror film written and directed by John Alan Schwartz, credited under the pseudonyms "Conan LeCilaire" and "Alan Black" respectively.
WFear Factor was an American stunt/dare game show that first aired on NBC from 2001 to 2006 and was initially hosted by comedian and UFC commentator Joe Rogan. The show was adapted from the original Dutch version Now or Neverland and renamed Fear Factor by Endemol USA and NBC for the American market. The show has spawned many spin-offs, creating the Fear Factor franchise.
WGita was a 48-year-old Asian elephant who died at the Los Angeles Zoo on 10 June 2006. Gita's death prompted dozens of animal rights activists, including In Defense of Animals, to accuse the zoo of neglecting and endangering its animals by placing them in unsatisfactory living conditions, and fueled a years-long debate in the city government over the ethics of keeping elephants in a zoo at all.
WA gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their lives and their legal and social standing by appearing in the arena. Most were despised as slaves, schooled under harsh conditions, socially marginalized, and segregated even in death.
WGordo was one of the first monkeys to travel into space. As part of the NASA space program, Gordo, also known as Old Reliable, was launched from Cape Canaveral on December 13, 1958, in the U.S. PGM-19 Jupiter rocket on its AM-13 mission. The rocket would travel over 1,500 miles and reach a height of 310 miles (500 km) before returning to Earth and landing in the South Atlantic. A technical malfunction prevented the capsule's parachute from opening and, despite a short search, neither his body nor the vessel were ever recovered.
WGrecia is a chestnut-mandibled toucan known as the first toucan to receive a prosthetic 3D printed beak.
WHeaven's Gate is a 1980 American epic Western film written and directed by Michael Cimino, and starring Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Bridges, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Joseph Cotten, Geoffrey Lewis, David Mansfield, Richard Masur, Terry O'Quinn, Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe and Nicholas Woodeson, the last two in their first film roles. Loosely based on the Johnson County War, it portrays a fictional dispute between land barons and European immigrants in Wyoming in the 1890s.
WAmy T. Hebert is a woman from Mathews, an unincorporated area in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, who was convicted of murdering her two children in August 2007 in an act of revenge against her ex-husband; she also killed the family dog. She was sentenced to life in prison. As per her sentence she cannot get parole.
WThe Isle is a 2000 South Korean film written and directed by Kim Ki-duk, his fifth film, and the first to receive wide international acclaim for his now recognizable style. The film has gained notoriety for gruesome scenes that caused some viewers to vomit or faint when the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
WJesse James is a 1939 American Western film directed by Henry King and starring Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Nancy Kelly and Randolph Scott. Written by Nunnally Johnson, the film is loosely based on the life of Jesse James, the outlaw from whom the film derives its name. The supporting cast features Henry Hull, John Carradine, Brian Donlevy, Jane Darwell and Lon Chaney, Jr..
WDaniel Victor Jones was an American man who died by suicide on a Los Angeles freeway in 1998. The incident was broadcast on live television by news helicopters. Jones died by suicide as a form of protest towards health maintenance organizations after he had been diagnosed as HIV-positive several months earlier. Footage of his suicide was shown in the 2002 documentary film Bowling for Columbine.
WLøvejagten was a controversial 1907 silent film by Danish producer Ole Olsen and director Viggo Larsen. The short ten-minute movie caused an enormous public protest in Denmark because it depicted the actual shooting of two captive lions.
WThe Lychee and Dog Meat Festival is an annual festival held in Yulin, Guangxi, China, during the summer solstice in which festival goers eat dog meat and lychees. The festival began in 2009 and spans about ten days during which thousands of dogs are reportedly consumed. The festival has drawn criticism both domestically and abroad.
WIl paese del sesso selvaggio, also known as Man From Deep River, Deep River Savages and Sacrifice!, is a 1972 Italian cannibal exploitation film directed by Umberto Lenzi and starring Ivan Rassimov, Me Me Lai and Pratitsak Singhara. It is perhaps best known for starting the "cannibal boom" of Italian exploitation cinema during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
WMeet Your Meat is a 2002 documentary about factory farming created by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), narrated by Alec Baldwin, and directed by Bruce Friedrich and Cem Akin. The documentary explores the treatment of animals in modern animal agriculture. The film runs 12 minutes long.
WMelancholie der Engel is a 2009 German independent experimental horror film directed, shot, and edited by Marian Dora and co-written by Dora and Carsten Frank.
WOro is a 2016 Filipino film written and directed by Alvin Yapan, starring Irma Adlawan, Mercedes Cabral, and Joem Bascon. The film, which was produced by Feliz Film Productions and distributed by Solar Pictures, was an official entry to the 2016 Metro Manila Film Festival. The film was based on the 2014 murder of four miners in Sitio Lahuy, Barangay Gata, Caramoan, Camarines Sur by armed members of Sagip Kalikasan Task Force, an environmental group formed in 2004 by former Camarines Sur governor Luis Villafuerte.
WDuring a 1983 family vacation, Mitt Romney drove 12 hours with his dog on top of the car in a windshield-equipped carrier. This incident became the subject of negative media attention and political attacks on Romney in both the 2008 and the 2012 presidential elections.
WThe Silver Spring monkeys were 17 wild-born macaque monkeys from the Philippines who were kept in the Institute for Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. From 1981 until 1991, they became what one writer called the most famous lab animals in history, as a result of a battle between animal researchers, animal advocates, politicians, and the courts over whether to use them in research or release them to a sanctuary. Within the scientific community, the monkeys became known for their use in experiments into neuroplasticity—the ability of the adult primate brain to reorganize itself.
WA serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease occurred in South Korea in 2010–2011, leading to the culling of hundreds of thousands of pigs in an effort to contain it. The outbreak began in November 2010 in pig farms in Andong, Gyeongsangbuk-do, and has since spread in the country rapidly. More than 100 cases of foot-and-mouth disease have been confirmed in the country so far, and South Korean officials have started a mass cull of approximately 12 percent of the entire domestic pig population and 107,000 of three million cattle of the country to halt the outbreak.
WSpeed Racer is a 2008 sports action comedy film written, co-produced and directed by the Wachowskis and based on the 1960s anime and manga series of the same name. Starring Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox, Roger Allam, Benno Fürmann, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rain and Richard Roundtree, it is an American-German venture produced by Village Roadshow Pictures, Silver Pictures, Anarchos Productions, Velocity Productions and Studio Babelsberg, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The plot revolves around Speed Racer, an 18-year-old automobile racer who follows his apparently deceased brother's career. His choice to remain loyal to his family and their company Racer Motors causes difficulties after he refuses a contract offered by E.P. Arnold Royalton, the owner of Royalton Industries.
WSun Yuan and Peng Yu are artists living and working collaboratively in Beijing since the late 1990s.
WLa Terra Trema is a 1948 Italian dramatic film directed by Luchino Visconti. The movie is loosely adapted from Giovanni Verga's novel I Malavoglia (1881) for the screen.
WTopsy was a female Asian elephant who was killed by electrocution at Coney Island, New York, in January 1903. Born in Southeast Asia around 1875, Topsy was secretly brought into the United States soon thereafter and added to the herd of performing elephants at the Forepaugh Circus, who fraudulently advertised her as the first elephant born in America. During her 25 years at Forepaugh, Topsy gained a reputation as a "bad" elephant and, after killing a spectator in 1902, was sold to Coney Island's Sea Lion Park. When Sea Lion was leased out at the end of the 1902 season and replaced by Luna Park, Topsy was involved in several well-publicized incidents, attributed to the actions of either her drunken handler or the park's new publicity-hungry owners, Frederic Thompson and Elmer "Skip" Dundy.
WTyke was a female African bush elephant from Mozambique who performed with Circus International of Honolulu, Hawaii. On August 20, 1994, during a performance at the Neal Blaisdell Center, she killed her trainer, Allen Campbell, and seriously injured her groomer, Dallas Beckwith. Tyke then ran from the arena and through the streets of the Kakaʻako central business district for more than thirty minutes. Unable to calm the elephant, local police opened fire on the animal, which collapsed from the wounds and died. While the majority of the attack in the arena was recorded on consumer videotape by several spectators, additional professional video footage captured the attack on local publicist Steve Hirano and the shooting of Tyke herself.
WIn 1985, a raid took place at a laboratory belonging to the University of California, Riverside (UCR) that resulted in the removal of a monkey by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). This monkey, called Britches, was a stump-tailed macaque who was born into a breeding colony at UCR. He was removed from his mother at birth, had his eyelids sewn shut, and had an electronic sonar device attached to his head—a Trisensor Aid, an experimental version of a blind travel aid, the Sonicguide—as part of a three-year sensory-deprivation study involving 24 infant monkeys. The experiments were designed to study the behavioral and neural development of monkeys reared with a sensory substitution device.
WUnnecessary Fuss is a film produced by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), showing footage shot inside the University of Pennsylvania's Head Injury Clinic in Philadelphia. The raw footage was recorded by the laboratory researchers as they inflicted brain damage to baboons using a hydraulic device. The experiments were conducted as part of a research project into head injuries such as is caused in vehicle accidents.
WVase de Noces a 1974 Belgian avant-garde art exploitation film directed by Thierry Zéno and starring Dominique Garny.
WThe Whistler sled dog cull was a controversial cull of 56 sled dogs in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, that prompted investigation by the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). It occurred on April 21 and April 23, 2010, performed by Robert Fawcett, who later filed a claim at WorkSafeBC for post-traumatic stress disorder. Fawcett, an employee of Howling Dog Tours Whistler Inc., was allegedly told to euthanize the dogs because of a downturn in business after the 2010 Olympic Games.
WThe White Viking is a 1991 film set in Norway and Iceland during the reign of Olaf I of Norway. The film loosely follows actual events.
WWhite Wilderness is a 1958 American-Canadian nature documentary produced by Walt Disney Productions. It is noted for its propagation of the misconception of lemming suicide.