Copy of `The History Channel - Encyclopedia`

The wordlist doesn't exist anymore, or, the website doesn't exist anymore. On this page you can find a copy of the original information. The information may have been taken offline because it is outdated.

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

Khajuraho
Village in Madhya Pradesh, central India, former capital of the Candella monarchs, and site of 35 sandstone temples - Jain, Buddhist, and Hindu - built in the 10th and 11th centuries. The...

Khakass
Member of a Turkic-speaking people living in the Khakass Republic of Russia in southern Siberia. Traditionally nomadic pastoralists, and now stockbreeders, they have occupied the area since 2000...

khaki
The dust-coloured uniform of British and Indian troops in India from about 1850, adopted as camouflage during the South African War (1899-1902), and later standard...

khaki election
Snap election in October 1900 called by the Conservative prime minister, the Earl of Salisbury, in the wake of British successes in the 2nd Boer War. Salisbury hoped to build on the public euphoria...

Khalaf, Salah
(1933-1991) Palestinian nationalist leader. He became a refugee in 1948 when Israel became independent, and was one of the four founder members - with Yassir Arafat - of the PLO in the 1960s. One of its...

Khaldi
In Urartian mythology, the supreme god who formed an all-male trilogy with Theispas, a thunder god, and Artinis, a sun god, as well as heading a pantheon of 46 minor, mostly local, deities. ...

Khalifa
Sudanese leader Abd Allah. ...

Khalifa, Sheik Hamad bin Isa al-
(1950) King of Bahrain 2002-â€Æ`. Sheik Hamad, a career soldier, became ruler of Bahrain following the sudden death of his father, Sheik Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa in March 1999. Hamad, who had been...

Khalifa, Sheikh Isa bin Sulman al-
(1933-1999) Emir of Bahrain 1961-99. Using the country's oil wealth, he improved transportation, housing, and education. His younger brother, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa (1935) became prime...

Khalistan
Projected independent Sikh state. See Sikhism. ...

Khalkin Gol, Battle of
Crushing Soviet victory in August 1939 over the Japanese Kwangtung army on the border of Manchuria and Outer Mongolia, about 645 km/400 mi northwest of Harbin. It was the most disastrous defeat ever...

Khalsa
The order or community of the Sikhs, created by Guru Gobind Singh at the festival of Baisakhi Mela in 1699. The Khalsa was originally founded as a militant group to defend the Sikh community from...

Khama, Seretse
(1921-1980) Botswanan politician, prime minister of Bechuanaland in 1965, and first president of Botswana 1966-80. He founded the Bechuanaland Democratic Party in 1962 and led his country to independence in...

Khamenei, Ayatollah Said Ali
(1939) Iranian Muslim cleric and politician, president of Iran 1981-89 and Supreme Spiritual Leader from 1989. From the early 1960s Khamenei founded the Council of Militant Clerics and was an active...

Khammurabi
(lived 18th century BC) Alternative spelling of Hammurabi, the sixth ruler of the first dynasty of Babylon. ...

Khan, Aga
Islamic leader, see Aga Khan. ...

Khan, Habibullah
(1872-1919) Afghan politician. He was emir of Afghanistan (1901-19). He renewed the arrangement with Britain by which the control of foreign relations was delegated to the British government. He also...

Khan, Ra'ana Liaquat Ali
(1905-1990) Pakistani politician. In 1933 she married Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, who became prime minister on partition in 1947, and she was one of the first to organize assistance for refugees during the mass...

khanda
Symbol of Sikhism. The double-edged sword at the centre of the Sikh symbol carries the same name. The emblem is complex in its symbolism. Truth and justice, themes that have permeated Sikh...

Khanty
People of northwestern Siberia, numbering about 20,000 (1993). Their language is part of the Finno-Ugric family. Many are reindeer herders on the tundra as well as fishers, hunters, and trappers....

Khaqani
(c. 1106-c. 1185) Persian poet. He is acknowledged as a master of the qasida (a highly stylized poetic form), though his style is regarded as extremely difficult and obscure. Khaqani also wrote satires, epigrams, a...

Kharkov, Battle of
In World War II, series of battles 1941-43 between Soviet and German forces over possession of Kharkov, the fourth most important city in the USSR, about 480 km/300 mi east of Kiev. The city...

Khasbulatov, Ruslan
(1943) Russian politician, chair of the Supreme Soviet 1991-93. As Russian first vice-president, he was a strong supporter of Boris Yeltsin, but from 1991 relations between the two deteriorated and...

Khasi
Member of a Mon-Khmer-speaking people living in the Khasi-Jaintia hills of Assam in India. Traditionally they were wet-rice cultivators. Their society was organized into ranked strata of...

Khatabi, Abdelkrim Mohamed al-
(1882-1963) Moroccan resistance leader. He led the uprising in the Rif mountains 1920-26 and extended his resistance to include Spanish- and French-occupied territories. His struggle to maintain his...

Khatami, Seyyed Muhammad
(1943) Iranian reformist political leader, president since 1997. Backed by the Servants of Iran's Construction Party (popularly known as G-16), the urban middle classes, and left-wing groups, he was...

Khatyn
Site of a village northeast of Minsk, Belarus, which was burnt to the ground by the Germans in 1943. The site houses the `Graveyard of Villages`, a memorial to the many Belorussian villages...

Khazar
Member of a people of Turkish origin from the lower Volga basin of Central Asia, who formed a commercial link and a buffer state in the 7th-12th centuries between the Arabs and the Byzantine...

Khe Sanh
In the Vietnam War, US Marine outpost near the Laotian border and just south of the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam. Garrisoned by 4,000 Marines, it was attacked unsuccessfully by...

khedive
Title granted by the Turkish sultan to his Egyptian viceroy in 1867, retained by succeeding rulers until 1914. ...

Khilafat movement
Campaign by Indian Muslims after World War I to protect the office of khalifa from abolition by the British, and to protest against partition of Turkey under the Treaty of Sèvres 1920, which was...

Khirbet Qumran
Archaeological site in Jordan; see Qumran. ...

Khmer
The largest ethnic group in Cambodia, numbering about 7 million. Khmer minorities also live in eastern Thailand and South Vietnam. The Khmer language belongs to the Mon-Khmer family of...

Khmer Rouge
Communist movement in Cambodia (Kampuchea) formed in the 1960s. Controlling the country 1974-78, it was responsible for mass deportations and executions under the leadership of Khnum
In Egyptian mythology, a ram-headed creator god with cult centres at Esna and Elephantine where he was guardian of the sources of the River Nile. He is depicted sitting at a potter's wheel with...

Khoikhoi
Member of any of several peoples living in Namibia and Cape Province of South Africa. They number about 30,000. Their language is related to San (spoken by the Kung) and uses clicks for certain...

Khojand
Industrial city and capital of Khojand oblast, northern Tajikistan, 200 km/124 mi north of Dushanbe; population (1995) 164,500. Khojand, Tajikistan's second city, is situated on the Syr Darya River...

Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah
(1900-1989) Iranian Shiite Muslim leader. Exiled from 1964 for his opposition to Shah Pahlavi, he returned when the shah left the country in 1979, and established a fundamentalist Islamic republic. His rule was...

Khond
Member of a Dravidian-speaking people of central India. Traditionally they practised shifting agriculture. ...

Khonsu
In Egyptian mythology, a youthful moon god, the youngest member of the Theban triad with Ammon and Mut. ...

Khorsabad
Village in Iraq, 21 km/13 mi northeast of Mosul, site of the Assyrian capital Dur Sharrukin, built by Sargon II. The acropolis, containing the palace and many temples, was excavated by Place...

Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich
(1894-1971) Soviet politician, secretary general of the Communist Party 1953-64, premier 1958-64. He emerged as leader from the power struggle following Stalin's death and was the first official to denounce...

Khufu
(lived c. 2550 BC) Egyptian king of Memphis, who built the largest of the pyramids, known to the Greeks as the pyramid of Cheops (the Greek form of Khufu). ...

Kickapoo
Member of an American Indian people who inhabited the Great Lakes region until the mid-17th century when they were forced west by the Iroquois. An Algonquian-speaking people, they were once part...

Kidd, `Captain` William
(c. 1645-1701) Scottish pirate. He spent his youth privateering for the British against the French off the North American coast, and in 1695 was given a royal commission to suppress piracy in the Indian Ocean....

Kidder, Alfred (Vincent)
(1885-1963) US archaeologist. He led major advances in US archaeology by developing a typology for southwestern American Indian pottery in 1914 and introducing large-scale systematic stratigraphic field...

Kidder, Daniel P(arish)
(1815-1891) US clergyman and educator. He spent three years as a missionary in Brazil, an experience which yielded, among other books, Brazil and the Brazilians (coauthored) 1857. As secretary of the Sunday...

kiddush
Jewish prayer and act of blessing. It forms part of the ceremony of the Sabbath or a holy festival conducted in the home or in synagogue. The kiddush prayer is recited over wine and challah (plaited...

kidnapping
The abduction of a person against his or her will. It often involves holding persons for ransom. It may also take place in child-custody disputes or involve psychosexual motives. The practice...

Kielland, Alexander Lange
(1849-1906) Norwegian novelist. He combines social criticism (of class differences in Garman og Worse 1880, of the hypocrisy of official Christianity in Skipper Worse 1882, and of the education system in Gift...

Kiely, Benedict
(1919-2007) Irish journalist and novelist. He successfully married modern fiction methods with the oral conversational methods of the traditional folk story. While working for a succession of Irish newspapers...

Kiepert, Johann Samuel Heinrich
(1818-1899) German geographer. His first work, in conjunction with Karl Ritter, Atlas von Hellas und den hellenischen Kolonien/Atlas of Greece and the Greek colonies (1840-46), established his reputation as a...

Kiesinger, Kurt Georg
(1904-1988) West German Christian Democrat politician. He succeeded Ludwig Erhard as chancellor in 1966, heading a `grand coalition` of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) until...

Kiev, Battle of
In World War II, German victory August 1941 over Soviet forces. Kiev, the third-largest Soviet city at the time, remained in German hands until liberated by the 1st...

Kikuyu
Member of the dominant ethnic group in Kenya, numbering about 3 million. The Kikuyu are primarily cultivators of millet, although many have entered the professions. Their language belongs to the...

Kildare
See Fitzgerald family. ...

Kiley, Dan(iel)
(1912) US urban designer. He was an early proponent of `site specific design`. From the 1940s he worked with prominent modern architects designing landscapes suitable for monumental urban buildings...

Kilgore, Carrie
(1838-1909) US teacher and lawyer. In Philadelphia, she introduced gymnastics into the schools, promoted women's rights, and worked for women's suffrage. Initially denied admission...

Kilgore, Harley M(artin)
(1893-1956) US senator. He served in the US Senate (Democrat, West Virginia) 1941-56. He chaired the so-called `Kilgore committee` that oversaw US mobilization efforts for World War II and helped to set...

Killers, The
Short story, published in Men Without Women (1928), by US writer Ernest Hemingway. When two killers arrive in a lunchroom...

Killiecrankie, Battle of
In British history, during the first Jacobite uprising, defeat on 27 July 1689 of General Mackay (for William of Orange) by John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, a supporter of James II, at...

Kilmainham Treaty
In Irish history, an informal secret agreement in April 1882 that secured the release of the nationalist Charles Parnell from Kilmainham jail, Dublin, where he had been imprisoned for six months for...

Kilmer, Joyce
(1886-1918) US poet. His first collection of poems Summer of Love was published 1911. He later gained an international reputation with the title work of Trees and Other Poems 1914. ...

kiln
High-temperature furnace used for drying timber, roasting metal ores, or for making cement, bricks, and pottery. Ceramic kilns include early kilns, such as bonfire, sawdust, and wood-fired...

Kilruddery House
Country house at Bray, County Wicklow, Republic of Ireland. It is one of the earliest Tudor revival mansions in Ireland, designed by Sir Richard Morrison for the 10th Earl of Meath about 1820. It...

Kilvert, (Robert) Francis
(1840-1879) English cleric. He wrote a diary recording social life on the Welsh border 1870-79, published 1938-39. He delineated landscape and human experience with great sensitivity and vividness. ...

Kim Dae Jung
(1924) South Korean social-democratic politician, president 1998-2002. As a committed opponent of the regime of General Park Chung Hee, he suffered imprisonment and exile. He was awarded the Nobel...

Kim Il Sung
(1912-1994) North Korean communist politician and marshal. He became prime minister in 1948 and led North Korea in the Korean War 1950-53. He became president in 1972, retaining the presidency of the...

Kim Jong Il
(1942) North Korean communist politician, national leader from 1994, when he succeeded his father, Kim Il Sung in what was the first dynastic succession in the communist world. Despite his official...

Kim Young Sam
(1927) South Korean democratic politician, president 1993-98. In 1990 he merged his Reunification Democratic Party with the ruling conservative Democratic Justice...

Kimball, (Sidney) Fiske
(1888-1955) US architectural historian. He brought a historical approach based on the use of primary documents to his published work on colonial American architecture. As a leading restoration architect he was...

Kimmel, Husband E
(1882-1968) US admiral; commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor December 1941. Severely criticized after the success of the Japanese attack, Kimmel complained that he had not been warned...

Kincaid, Thomas (Cassin)
(1888-1972) US naval officer. He took command of the USS Enterprise after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He took part in the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, and the eastern Solomons. As Douglas...

Kinck, Hans Ernst
(1865-1926) Norwegian novelist and playwright. His novels reflect his interest in the peasant psychology, though his use of colourful dialect often makes his style difficult to understand and to translate. His...

kinetic art
A work of art that has movement or parts that are set in motion. The movement may be real or imagined. Movement may be mechanically powered (for example, by electricity, or air or water motion), or...

King and Country debate
Controversial debate in Britain in February 1933 in which the Oxford Union, the university's debating society, passed the motion this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and its...

King Lear
Tragedy by William Shakespeare, first performed in 1605-06. Lear, king of Britain, favours his grasping...

King Philip
American chief of the Wampanoag people; see `King`Philip. ...

King-Queen's Champion
In English history, ceremonial office held by virtue of possessing the lordship of Scrivelsby, Lincolnshire. Sir John Dymoke established his right to champion the monarch on coronation day in 1377...

King-Smith, Dick (Ronald Gordon)
(1922) English author of over 90 books for children. Having been a farmer for over twenty years, and then a teacher, it seems natural that his books should focus largely on animals. His book The...

King, Cecil
(1921-1986) Irish painter, printmaker, designer, and art collector. Although he was a late starter in art, King became recognized as one of Ireland's leading abstract painters. Born in Rathdrum, County Wicklow,...

King, Cecil Harmsworth
(1901-1987) English journalist and newspaper proprietor, an influential figure in the development of popular British journalism. A member of the Harmsworth newspaper dynasty, King was the nephew of Lords...

King, Coretta Scott
(1927-2006) US singer, civil-rights campaigner, and writer. She married Martin Luther King in 1953. Two years later, the Montgomery (Alabama) bus strike led the couple into the struggle for civil rights for...

King, Edward
(1829-1910) English Anglican churchman. He was professor of pastoral theology at Oxford 1873-85, and bishop of Lincoln 1885-1910. In this latter post, his views were highly influential in shaping church...

King, Ernest Joseph
(1878-1956) US admiral. Commander-in-chief of the US Fleet December 1941, in March 1942 he also became chief of naval operations and was later a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Anglo-US...

King, Henry Churchill
(1858-1934) US theologian and educator. He was president of Oberlin college 1903-27, where he worked for the development of the `whole man` and Oberlin came to emphasize music, the fine arts, morals, and...

King, Martin Luther, Jr
(1929-1968) US civil-rights campaigner, black leader, and Baptist minister. He first came to national attention as leader of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955-56, and was one of...

King, Richard
(1730-1806) British admiral. He was in command of the landing party at the capture of Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Hooghly, India, 1756. In 1792 he was appointed governor and commander-in-chief of...

King, Rodney
(1965) US citizen whose beating by police in Los Angeles, California, in March 1991 provoked an outcry. The beating, caught on videotape by a bystander, was seen as racially motivated - King being...

King, Stephen (Edwin)
(1947) US writer of best-selling horror novels with small-town or rural settings. Many of his works have been filmed, including Carrie (1974), The Shining (1977), Christine (1983), Misery (1987),...

King, Thomas Starr
(1824-1864) US minister and lecturer. He went to San Francisco in 1860 where his orations helped to keep California in the Union during the US Civil War. California named two mountains after him and his statue...

King, W(illiam) L(yon) Mackenzie
(1874-1950) Canadian Liberal prime minister 1921-26, 1926-30, and 1935-48. He maintained the unity of the English- and French-speaking populations, and was instrumental in establishing equal status...

King, William
(1768-1852) US state governor. Following Maine's admission to the Union, he was the first governor of Maine 1820-21. He was a commissioner for the Adams-Onis Treaty with Spain 1821-24 and lost a race for...

King, William R(ufus) D(evane)
(1786-1853) US vice-president and politician. He was elected vice-president under Franklin Pierce in 1852. Ill with tuberculosis, he travelled to Cuba and took the oath of office there. He returned to his...

King's Counsel
In England, a barrister of senior rank; the term is used when a king is on the throne and Queen's Counsel when the monarch is a queen. ...

king's evil
Another name for the skin condition scrofula. In medieval England and France, it was thought that the touch of an anointed king could cure the condition. According to tradition, touching for the...

King's Friends
In the 1760s and 80s in Britain, those politicians, mainly Tories, who supported George III's view that the monarch had the right to choose his own ministers. The king presented this as a preference...

King's Peace
In England, form of jurisdiction of the former King's Court. In medieval times criminal matters and offences against public order were within the jurisdiction of local lords and local courts, while...

King's proctor
In England, the official representing the crown in certain court cases; the term is used when a king is on the throne, and Queen's Proctor when the monarch is a queen. ...

Kinglake, Alexander William
(1809-1891) English historian and travel writer. His tour of the Middle East 1835 gave rise to Eothen 1844, a brilliant account of his travels. He wrote the lengthy Invasion of the Crimea 1863-87, based on...