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The History Channel - Encyclopedia Category: History and Culture > History Date & country: 02/12/2007, UK Words: 25833

Karelia
Former independent Finnish state that came under Swedish rule in the 17th century and was annexed by Russia in 1721. The greater part of Karelia remaining in Finland after it gained independence in...

Karelian
A Finnish people living in the autonomous Russian republic of Karelia or in Finnish Karelia. The Karelian language is a dialect of Finnish; it has no written form. The K ...

Karen
Member of any of a group of Southeast Asian peoples. Numbering 1.9 million, they live in eastern Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and the Irrawaddy delta. Traditionally they practised shifting...

Karimov, Islam
(1938) Uzbek politician, president from 1990. A member of the Soviet Communist Party (CPSU) from 1964, he became Uzbekistan's communist party leader in 1989. Faced with rising nationalist sentiment, he...

Karlfeldt, Erik Axel
(1864-1931) Swedish poet. After the death of Gustav Fröding he came to be regarded as the leading Swedish poet. He developed an individual, often purposely archaic style and, with its feeling for nature, his...

karma
In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, the deeds carried forward from one life to the next through rebirth or reincarnation. The aim of believers is to free themselves from the cycle of rebirth,...

Karmal, Babrak
(1929-1996) Afghani communist politician, president 1979-86. In 1965 he formed the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). As president, with Soviet backing, he sought to broaden the appeal of the...

Karp, Ivan C
(1926) US gallery director and writer. He became the director of the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1959, and director and president of the O K Harris Gallery in 1969. He was called the `father of pop art`,...

Karr, (Jean-Baptiste-)Alphonse
(1808-1890) French novelist, critic, and journalist. His first novel was Sous les tilleuls 1832. He became editor of Le Figaro 1839 and the same year he started Les Guêpes, a keenly satirical monthly journal....

Karst, Kenneth L(eslie)
(1929) US legal educator. A scholar of constitutional and comparative law, he wrote among other works Latin American Legal Institutions, Law and Development in Latin America 1975 (coauthored) and Belonging...

Karytikeya
Hindu god of war. He is the chief military commander of the devas (heavenly beings), and is the son of Shiva and Parvati and brother of Ganesh. His mount is a peacock. In southern India he is...

Kasack, Hermann
(1896-1966) German writer. He was the author of allegorical novels which adopt an approach similar to that of Kafka. Die Stadt hinter dem Strom 1947 attempts a parallel treatment of...

Kasavubu, Joseph
(1910-1969) Congolese politician, first president of the Republic of Congo 1960-65. After winning a power struggle with prime minister Patrice Lumumba when the Congo gained independence from Belgium, he...

Kashmir
Disputed area on the border of India and Pakistan in the northwest of the former state of Kashmir, now Jammu and Kashmir; area 78,900 sq km/30,445 sq mi. Physical features include the west Himalayan...

Kashmiri
Inhabitants of or natives to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, a disputed territory divided between India and Pakistan. There are approximately 6 million Kashmiris, 4 million of whom live on the...

kashrut
In Judaism, the food laws of the Torah, as laid down in Deuteronomy. The kashrut specifies whether food is kosher (permitted) or trefah (forbidden). ...

Kasprowicz, Jan
(1860-1926) Polish poet. His naturalistic early verse contrasts with his later, reflective work, which combines symbolism, ballad motifs, myth, and metaphysical elements. He wrote a cycle of poems,...

Kasserine Pass
Pass in the Memetcha Mountains about 240 km/150 mi west of Gafsa, Tunisia, of great strategic importance in the North African campaign in World War II. Held by US II Corps under General Fredendall,...

Kataev, Valentin Petrovich
(1897-1986) Russian writer. His work divides into three distinct periods. In his first phase, Kataev wrote mainly parody and humour; for example, the picaresque novel Raztratchiki/The Embezzlers 1926 and a play...

Katayama, Sen
(1859-1933) Japanese labour and political organizer. Imprisoned in 1912, he went into permanent exile in 1914. After the October Revolution he joined the Communist Party. From 1922 he lived in the USSR, working...

Katayama, Tetsu
(1887-1978) Japanese politician. He headed a coalition government in 1947-48, becoming the country's first socialist prime minister. His government created a new ministry of labour, enacted an anti-monopoly...

Kathina
Theravada Buddhist robe-giving festival. It takes place in October/November, and celebrates the end of Vassa, the three-month retreat of ordained...

Kato, Kiyomasa
(1562-1611) Japanese warrior and politician who was instrumental in the unification of Japan and the banning of Christianity in the country. He led the invasion of Korea in 1592,...

Kato, Taka-akira
(1860-1926) Japanese politician, prime minister 1924-26. After a long political career with several terms as foreign minister, Kato led probably the most democratic and liberal regime...

Katsura, Taro
(1847-1913) Prince of Japan, army officer, politician, and prime minister (1901-06, 1908-11, 1912-13). He was responsible for the Anglo-Japanese treaty of 1902 (an alliance against Russia), the...

Katyn Forest
Forest near Smolensk, southwest of Moscow, Russia, where 4,500 Polish officer prisoners of war (captured in the German-Soviet partition of Poland 1940) were shot; 10,000 others were killed...

Katyusha
Soviet free-flight rocket of World War II. It was fired from racks mounted in a heavy truck and had a range of about 5 km/3 mi. Each truck had 48 launcher racks and a battalion could lay down an...

Katzav, Moshe
(1945) Israeli politician and member of the right-wing Likud Party who was unexpectedly elected president by the Knesset (parliament) in July 2000, in preference to the former Labour prime minister...

Kauffer, Edward McKnight
(1890-1954) US poster artist. He lived in the UK 1914-41. ...

Kaufman, George S(imon)
(1889-1961) US dramatist. He is the author (often in collaboration with others) of many Broadway hits, including Of Thee I Sing 1931, a Pulitzer prize-winning satire on US politics;You Can't Take...

Kaufman, Gerald Bernard
(1930) UK Labour Party politician and a long-serving member of Parliament from 1970. Described as a moderate, he has opposed the influence of the left-wing of the party. He joined former prime minister...

Kaufman, Irving (Robert)
(1910-1992) US judge. He was named to the federal bench for the Southern District of New York in 1949. In March 1951 Julius and Ethel Kaunitz, Wenzel Anton Dominik
(1711-1794) Austrian diplomat and politician, and one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment in Austria. As Austrian state chancellor and chief minister 1753-92, he was responsible for forming a...

Kautsky, Karl Johann
(1854-1938) German socialist theoretician who opposed the reformist ideas of Edouard Bernstein from within the Social Democratic Party. In spite of his Marxist ideas he remained in the party when its left wing...

Kavanagh, Dan
Pseudonym of the English writer Julian Barnes, under which he has written detective novels. ...

Kaw
Member of an American Indian people who originated from the lower Ohio Valley but had migrated to Kansas by the mid-17th century; Kansas state and river are named after...

Kawabata, Yasunari
(1899-1972) Japanese novelist. He translated Lady Murasaki, and was the author of Snow Country (1947) and A Thousand Cranes (1952). His novels are characterized by melancholy and loneliness. He was the first...

Kawakami, Hajime
(1879-1946) Japanese Marxist academic. As an economics professor at Kyoto University, Kawakami was the author of the best-selling Tale of Poverty (1916). He moved towards Marxism after the October Revolution...

Kay, John
(1704-c. 1780) English inventor who developed the flying shuttle, a machine to speed up the work of hand-loom weaving. He patented his invention in 1733. Kay was born near Bury, Lancashire, and may have been...

kayak
Long, narrow, sealskin-covered boat with a small opening in the middle for the paddler. Used by Inuit fishers and sealers, it has been adapted for recreational use. ...

Kaye-Smith, Sheila
(1887-1956) English novelist. She achieved success with Sussex Gorse 1916; other novels include Joanna Godden 1921, Shepherds in Sackcloth 1930, Ember Lane 1940, and The Lardners and the Laurelwoods 1948....

Kazakh
A pastoral Kyrgyz people of Kazakhstan. Kazakhs also live in China (Xinjiang, Gansu, and Qinghai), Mongolia, and Afghanistan. There are 5-7 million speakers of Kazakh, a Turkic language belonging...

Kazan, Elia
(1909-2003) Turkish-born US stage and film director. Among the plays he directed are The Skin of Our Teeth (1942), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof...

Kazantzakis, Nikos
(1885-1957) Greek writer. His works include the poem I Odysseia/The Odyssey (1938), which continues Homer's Odyssey, and the novels Zorba the Greek (1946), Christ Recrucified (1948), The Greek Passion, and The...

Kazin, Alfred
(1915-1998) US critic. He wrote On Native Grounds 1942, an interpretation of modern US writing; edited anthologies of the poets Ralph Waldo Emerson 1959 and William Blake 1948; and produced studies of the...

KBE
Abbreviation for Knight (Commander of the Order) of the British Empire. ...

KC
Abbreviation for King's Counsel. ...

Keable, Robert
(1887-1927) English novelist. He was a chaplain during World War I and as a result of his war experiences, of which he wrote in Standing By 1919, he decided to give up the church. Simon Called Peter 1921, a...

Kean, Charles John
(1811-1868) English actor and theatre manager. With his wife Ellen Tree (1806-1880), he managed a company that played for many years at the Princess's Theatre, London, and also toured the USA. He was the son...

Kean, Edmund
(1787-1833) English tragic actor. He was noted for his portrayal of villainy in the Shakespearean roles of Shylock, Richard III, and Iago. He died on stage, playing Othello opposite his son as Iago. His life...

Keane, John (Joseph)
(1839-1918) Irish-born US prelate. In 1878 he became bishop of Richmond. Regarded as a liberal, he earned a national reputation as a cofounder and first rector (1889-97) of Catholic University in...

Keane, John B(rendan)
(1928-2002) Irish writer. His most important work, The Field (1965), set in County Kerry, chronicles how one man's obsession with the land leads to tragic, deadly consequences. Staged across the world, The...

Keane, Molly (Mary Nesta)
(1905-1996) Irish novelist, born into an Anglo-Irish family in County Kildare, and raised in County Wexford. Keane's comic novels chronicling the loves, lives, and pursuits of the Anglo-Irish gentry include...

Kearny, Philip
(1814-1862) US military leader. In 1859 he served in the army of Napoleon III in Italy and received the French Croix de Guerre for his actions. With the outbreak of the American Civil War 1861, Kearny returned...

Kearny, Stephen Watts
(1794-1848) US military leader. As brigadier general he was given command of the Army of the West 1846. During the Mexican War 1846-48, he was the military governor of New Mexico and joined in the conquest of...

Keating, Geoffrey
(c. 1580-c. 1645) Irish Gaelic poet and historian, and Roman Catholic priest. Born in Burges, County Tipperary, he was educated on the Continent at Bordeaux and Salamanca. His Forás Feasa ar Éirinn/Groundwork of...

Keating, Paul John
(1944) Australian politician, Labor Party (ALP) leader, and prime minister 1991-96. As prime minister he introduced labour market and training reforms and historic indigenous legislation, which...

Keating, Séan
(1889-1977) Irish painter, mainly of figure subjects and landscapes. Keating's work is traditional in style and presents a romantic, picturesque, and sometimes heroic image of Ireland. In particular, his most...

Keating, Tom (Thomas Patrick)
(1917-1984) English art restorer and forger. Exposed in 1976, he admitted that nine pictures reputedly by Samuel Palmer were his own drawings, and estimated that there were some 2,500 of his fakes in...

Keats, John
(1795-1821) English poet. He produced work of the highest quality and promise, belonging to the artistic school of Romanticism, before dying at the age of 25. Poems (1817), Endymion (1818), the great odes...

Keble, John
(1792-1866) Anglican priest and religious poet. His sermon on the decline of religious faith in Britain, preached in 1833, heralded the start of the Oxford Movement, a Catholic revival in the Church of England....

Keeler, Christine
(1942) Englishwoman who became notorious in 1963 after revelations of affairs with both a Soviet attaché and the war minister John Profumo, who resigned after admitting lying to the House of Commons about...

Keeley, Edmund (Leroy)
(1928) US translator and academic. Often in collaboration with Philip Sherrard, he translated numerous modern Greek literary works. His books include The Salonika Bay Murder 1989, about the murder of CBS...

Keeley, James
(1867-1934) English-born US journalist. As general manager of the Chicago Tribune from 1898, he shaped it into an omnibus newspaper with many features, including an innovative `Friend of the People`...

Keene, Carolyn
US writer; see Edward L Stratemeyer. ...

Keene, Charles Samuel
(1823-1891) English graphic artist. He worked as a cartoonist for Punch magazine in the 1860s, and also made a few pen drawings, watercolours, and etchings. His studies of landscape and figures were admired by...

Keene, Donald (Lawrence)
(1922) US literary critic, translator, and educator. He was the leading Western expert on Japanese literature. His critical and historical studies and translations introduced...

Keene, Laura
(c. 1820-c. 1873) English-born US actor and theatre manager. In 1855 she became the first woman to manage a theatre in the USA, and she encouraged US playwrights. She was performing at Ford's Theatre in Washington,...

keep
The main tower of a castle, containing enough accommodation to serve as living quarters under siege conditions. ...

Keeper of the Great Seal
In the Middle Ages, an officer who had charge of the great seal of England (the official seal authenticating state documents). During the Middle Ages the great seal was entrusted to the chancellor....

Kefauver, (Carey) Estes
(1903-1963) US Democratic politician. He served in the House of Representatives 1939-49 and in the Senate 1949 until his death. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in...

Keillor, Garrison Edward
(1942) US writer and humorist. His hometown of Anoka, Minnesota, in the American Midwest, inspired his popular, richly comic stories about Lake Wobegon, including Lake Wobegon Days (1985) and Leaving Home...

Keita, Ibrahim Boubacar
Malian politician, prime minister 1994-2000. Keita, who held the post of secretary of external relations of his left-of-centre party, Alliance pour la Démocratie au Mali (ADEMA), served as...

Keita, Modibo
(1915-1977) Mali politician, president of the Independent Republic of Mali 1960-68. A pan-Africanist (see Keitel, Wilhelm
(1882-1946) German field marshal in World War II, chief of the supreme command from 1938 and Hitler's chief military adviser. He dictated the terms of the French armistice in 1940 and was a member of the court...

Keith, Arthur
(1866-1955) Scottish physiologist and anthropologist. Concerned with early hominid forms, Keith argued that competition was a key factor in the evolution of human species. He may have been responsible for the...

Keith, B(enjamin) F(ranklin)
(1846-1914) US performer and theatre manager. As part of an effort to make vaudeville more respectable, he developed a chain of theatres and formed the United Book ...

Keith, James Francis Edward
(1696-1758) Scottish soldier, who served abroad after taking part in the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1715. He rose to the rank of general in Russia (1737) and was made a field-marshal in the army of the...

Kekkonen, Urho Kaleva
(1900-1986) Finnish politician, prime minister of Finland four times in the early 1950s and president 1956-81. An advocate of détente, he was the prime mover behind the Helsinki Conference on European...

kelim
Oriental carpet or rug that is flat, pileless, and reversible. Kelims are made by a tapestry-weave technique. Weft thread of one colour is worked to and fro in one area of the pattern; the next...

Kellar, Harry (Harold)
(1849-1922) US magician who involved audiences in his sleight-of-hand tricks, slipping out of knots they had tied and handing out roses he `created` on stage. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, he was a...

Keller, Gottfried
(1819-1890) Swiss poet and novelist. His books include the autobiographical novel Der grüne Heinrich/Green Henry 1854-55. He was particularly skilful in his handling of the short story, and his sketches of...

Keller, Helen Adams
(1880-1968) US author and campaigner for the blind. She became blind and deaf after an illness when she was only 19 months old, but the teaching of Anne Sullivan, her lifelong companion, enabled her to learn...

Keller, James (Gregory)
(1900-1977) US religious leader. A Catholic priest, he was the founder (1945) and director (to 1969) of the Christophers, a nondenominational movement urging individual action to improve the world, under the...

Kellermann, François Christophe de
(1735-1820) French soldier who came to prominence in the Revolutionary Wars, playing a major part in the victory over the Prussians at the Battle of Valmy in 1792. He was made a Marshal of France by Napoleon in...

Kelley, Abby
(1810-1887) US abolitionist and women's rights activist. She spent 20 years travelling throughout the northeast USA, not only promoting the message of the abolitionists, but by her very presence and strength...

Kelley, Emmett
(1898-1977) US circus clown. He was over 40 when his sad-faced hobo in oversized rags, `Weary Willie`, found a home under the Ringling Brothers big top (1942-55) and made him the most celebrated US...

Kelley, Francis Clement
(1870-1948) Canadian-born US prelate. He founded the Catholic Church Extension Society in 1905 to introduce and maintain Catholicism in rural areas of the USA. He led the society until becoming bishop of...

Kellogg-Briand Pact
Agreement negotiated in 1928 between the USA and France to renounce war and seek settlement of disputes by peaceful means. It took its name from the US secretary of state Frank B Kellogg...

Kellogg, Frank Billings
(1856-1937) US politician and diplomat. Elected to the Senate in 1916, he was appointed ambassador to the UK by President Harding in 1922 and secretary of state under Calvin Coolidge 1925-29. He was awarded...

Kellogg, Paul Underwood
(1879-1958) US editor and social reformer. In 1909 he joined the magazine Survey and was editor 1912-52. He forged it into the USA's leading journal of social work and a major force in social reform, and...

Kellogg, William Pitt
(1831-1918) US senator and representative. He served in the US Senate (Republican, Louisiana) 1868-72 and 1877-83. As one of the so-called carpetbaggers, he won a disputed election to governor of...

Kells, Book of
8th-century illuminated manuscript of the Gospels produced at the monastery of Kells in County Meath, Ireland. It is now in Trinity College Library, Dublin. ...

Kelly, David Christopher
(1944-2003) English microbiologist and expert on biological weapons. He came to public attention in July 2003, after the British government named him as a possible Ministry of Defence source for a BBC report,...

Kelly, Edward (Joseph)
(1876-1950) US mayor. A leader of Chicago's corrupt Democratic Party machine, he was appointed to fill Anton Cermak's term and served as Democratic mayor 1933-48. He oversaw many public improvements, but his...

Kelly, Ellsworth
(1923) US painter and sculptor. He worked in a variety of media, and his sculptures are composed of curved metal planes. He was preoccupied with objects as art, colour patterns, and random collages, and...

Kelly, Emmett
(1898-1979) US clown and circus performer. He created his `Weary Willie` clown character while with the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus 1931. Joining the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus 1942, he...

Kelly, Gerald Festus
(1879-1972) English painter. He specialized in portraits, his sitters including George VI, Elizabeth II, and the writer Somerset Maugham. He also painted numerous studies of Burmese girls and dancers. He was...

Kelly, Ned (Edward)
(1855-1880) Australian bushranger. The son of an Irish convict, he wounded a police officer in 1878 while resisting the arrest of his brother Daniel for horse-stealing. The two brothers escaped and carried...

Kelly, Petra
(1947-1992) German politician and activist. She was a vigorous campaigner against nuclear power and other environmental issues and founded the German Green Party in 1972. She was a member of the Bundestag...