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

Kingo, Thomas Hansen
(1634-1703) Danish poet. The greatest Danish baroque poet, he was the author of many magnificent hymns and other poetry. He became bishop of Odense 1677. ...

Kingsford Smith, Charles Edward
(1897-1935) Australian aviation pioneer who was the first pilot to circumnavigate the world. He undertook many record-breaking endurance flights in the 1920s and 1930s, making a solo journey from Britain to...

Kingsley, Charles
(1819-1875) English author. A rector, he was known as the `Chartist clergyman` because of such social novels as Yeast (1848) and Alton Locke (1850). His historical novels include Westward Ho! (1855) and...

Kingsley, Henry
(1830-1876) English novelist and younger brother of Charles Kingsley. He wrote two novels with Australian settings -The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn 1859 and The Hillyars and the Burtons 1865, both...

Kingsley, Mary Henrietta
(1862-1900) English ethnologist. She made extensive expeditions in West Africa and published lively accounts of her findings, for example Travels in West Africa 1897. She died while nursing Boer prisoners...

Kingsley, Sidney
(1906-1995) US playwright. His first play, Men in White (1933), won a Pulitzer Prize. As with the bulk of his work, it explored serious themes relating to contemporary society. Among his other plays was...

Kingsolver, Barbara
(1955) US writer. Her novels depict family and political struggles and contain rich descriptions of natural surroundings, especially in the southwestern USA. These include Bean Trees (1988), Animal Dreams...

Kingston, Maxine Hong
(1940) US writer. A major voice of Chinese-American culture, her semi-fictional The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976) was followed by China Men (1980), which continued her...

Kingston, William Henry Giles
(1814-1880) English writer. He became one of the most popular authors of adventure stories for children. Peter the Whaler 1851 was followed by about 130 more stories over the next 30 years. Among them were From...

Kinneir, John Macdonald
(1782-1830) British traveller and diplomat. He published Narrative of Travels in Asia Minor, Armenia, and Kurdistan in 1813-14 1818. He was envoy to Persia 1824-30, and his mediation brought to an end the...

Kinnock, Neil Gordon
(1942) British Labour politician, party leader 1983-92 and European Union commissioner 1995-2004. As party leader, succeeding his ally Michael Foot, he moderated his strongly left-wing position and...

Kino, Eusebio Francisco
(c. 1644-1711) Italian-born Jesuit missionary in America. In 1687 he began exploration of Pimería Alta, now modern Sonora, Mexico, and southern Arizona. There he established the missions of Tumacacori and San...

Kinross-shire
Former county of east-central Scotland, merged in 1975 in Tayside Region. Kinross was the county town. ...

Kinsella, Thomas
(1928) Irish poet and translator. Collections like Fifteen Dead (1979) confront the violence and what Kinsella perceives as the moral vacuum in contemporary Ireland. Later poems are more experimental than...

Kiowa
Member of an American Indian people who moved from the Rocky Mountains of Montana to the Great Plains of South Dakota in the 1600s. Their language belongs to the Kiowa-Tanoan family. Originally...

Kiowa-Tanoan
Branch of the American Indian Aztec-Tanoan language family spoken by the Kiowa and Tewa of the Great Plains region of the USA. ...

Kiplinger, Willard Monroe
(1891-1967) US journalist and publisher. He started with a one-page weekly, The Kiplinger Washington Letter (1923), and added a series of newsletters focusing on economic and business affairs. In 1947 he...

Kipsigi
Member of a people of the western highlands of Kenya. Once a pastoral people, they are now agriculturalists and have organized many farming cooperatives. They have no centralized political...

kiral karna
Sikh term for honest and appropriate work. All Sikhs are expected to work to keep themselves; it is regarded as dishonourable to beg or live off the earnings of others. This applies equally to Sikhs...

Kirby-Smith, Edmund
US soldier; see Edmund Kirby Smith. ...

Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig
(1880-1938) German artist. He was a leading member of the expressionist die Brücke group in Dresden from 1905 and in Berlin from 1911. In Berlin he painted city scenes and portraits, using lurid colours and...

Kirchwey, George Washington
(1855-1942) US law educator, criminologist, and penologist. He helped elevate criminology to a scientific discipline while fighting for prisoner rehabilitation through state and national prison reform...

Kirghiz
Member of a pastoral people numbering approximately 1.5 million. The Kirghiz live in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China (Xinjiang), and Afghanistan (Wakhan corridor). They are Sunni Muslims,...

Kiribati
Republic in the west central Pacific Ocean, comprising three groups of coral atolls: the 16 Gilbert Islands, 8 uninhabited Phoenix Islands, 8 of the 11 Line Islands, and the...

Kiriyenko, Sergei Maksimovich
(1963) Russian politician, prime minister March-August 1997. Kiriyenko was the youngest, and shortest-lived, Russian prime minister to date. A banker and oil-refinery executive who rose with Boris...

Kirk, Norman Eric
(1923-1974) New Zealand Labour centre-left politician, prime minister 1972-74. He withdrew New Zealand troops from the Vietnam War, attempted to block French nuclear tests in the Pacific, and developed...

Kirkcaldy of Grange, William
(c. 1520-1573) Scottish soldier and politician. Although he was a convert early in life to Protestantism, he later championed the cause of Mary Queen of Scots and was put to death for defending Edinburgh Castle...

Kirkland-Casgrain, Marie-Claire
(1924) Canadian Liberal politician who was the first woman elected to the Legislative Assembly of Québec 1961-73 and also the first woman appointed as a cab ...

Kirkland, (Joseph) Lane
(1922-1999) US labour leader. A merchant marine pilot during World War II, he joined the staff of the American Federation of Labor in 1948, and worked his way up the staff hierarchy. He was elected...

Kirkoswald
Village in South Ayrshire unitary authority, Scotland, 6 km/4 mi southwest of Maybole; population (2001) 1,400. The poet Robert Burns studied here briefly and two of his fictional characters, Tam...

Kirkpatrick, Ivone (Augustine)
(1897-1964) Irish-born British diplomat and writer. Kirkpatrick specialized in German affairs, acting as interpreter to Neville Chamberlain during the talks leading to the Munich Agreement with Hitler in...

Kirkpatrick, Jeane Duane Jordan
(1926-2006) US politician and professor of political science. She served as US ambassador to the United Nations 1981-85. Originally a Democrat, she often spoke out against communism and left-wing causes....

Kirkwood, Samuel Jordon
(1813-1894) US politician and cabinet member. A lawyer and flour mill owner, he served as Iowa's Republican governor (1859-63), using his own money to equip the Iowa Union volunteers, and quashing proslavery...

Kirlian photography
Process by which colour photographs can be taken of the electric field radiating from living things. A photographic plate is placed between the object to be photographed and a high-frequency...

Kirov, Sergei Mironovich
(1886-1934) Russian Bolshevik leader who joined the party in 1904 and played a prominent part in the 1918-20 civil war. As one of Stalin's closest associates, he became first secretary of the Leningrad...

Kirstein, Lincoln Edward
(1907-1996) US writer and dance impresario. In 1933 he recognized George Balanchine's talents and sponsored his emigration to the USA. In order to provide vehicles for Balanchine's talents, he founded the...

kirtan
Hindu song of praise. Other songs and hymns are known as bhajan. In a temple, music and dance may also form part of the worship. ...

Kishi, Nobusuke
(1896-1987) Japanese right-wing politician and prime minister 1957-60. A government minister during World War II and imprisoned in 1945, he was never put on trial and returned to politics in 1953. During...

Kisling, Moïse
(1891-1953) Polish-born French painter. Responding first to cubism, he had by the 1920s developed a distinctive style of lyrical expressionism. His Woman in a Pol ...

Kissinger, Henry (Alfred)
(1923) German-born US diplomat. After a brilliant academic career at Harvard University, he was appointed national security adviser in 1969 by President Nixon, and was secretary of state 1973-77. His...

Kiswahili
Another name for the Swahili language. ...

Kit-Cat Club
Club founded in London in 1703 to encourage literature and art, and named after Christopher Cat (or Katt), at whose tavern it met. Ultimately it became a Whig society to promote the Hanoverian...

Kita, Ikki
(1883-1937) Japanese political activist whose convictions were a mixture of socialism, anti-Westernism. and nationalism. These ideas influenced the young officers who attempted an unsuccessful coup against...

Kitaj, Ronald Brooks
(1932) US painter and graphic artist, active in Britain. His work is mainly figurative, and employs a wide range of allusions to art, history, and literature. The Autumn of Central Paris (After Walter...

kitchen midden
Prehistoric refuse heap. The mounds are largely composed of shells but may contain fragments of animal and bird bones, pottery, and implements of stone and wood. Some burnt wood has been found, as...

kitchen-sink drama
Genre of British drama which depicts the real and often sordid quality of family life. The plays are socially and politically motivated, seeking to focus attention on the destruction of moral values...

kitchen-sink painters
Loose-knit group of British painters, active in the late 1940s and early 1950s. They depicted drab, everyday scenes with an aggressive technique and often brilliant, `crude` colour. The best...

Kitchener armies
British volunteer armies raised at the outbreak of World War I at the urging of Lord Kitchener; also known as `New Armies`. Kitchener issued a call for 100,000 men on 7 August 1914 and further...

Kitchener, Horatio (Herbert)
(1850-1916) Irish soldier and administrator. He defeated the Sudanese at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898 and reoccupied Khartoum. In South Africa, he was commander-in-chief 1900-02 during t ...

Kitchin, Claude
(1869-1923) US politician. A Democrat, he was a lawyer before going to the US House of Representatives (1901-23), where he served North Carolina. A brilliant debater, his support of the Payne-Aldrich tariff...

Kíthira
Greek for Cythera, one of the Ionian Islands of Greece. ...

Kitikiti'sh
Alternative name for a member of the American Indian Wichita people. ...

Kits Coty
Prehistoric megalith near the village of Aylesford, Kent, England. Its three upright sarsen stones crossed by a single capstone are all that remains of an entrance to a long barrow destroyed by...

Kittredge, George Lyman
(1860-1941) US philologist, Shakespearen scholar, and educator. He was inextricably identified with Harvard University, where he was educated and later taught (1888-1936). At Harvard, `Kitty` inaugurated...

Kivi, Alexis
(1834-1872) Finnish novelist, poet, and dramatist. The first great writer in Finnish, he was most prolific as a dramatist and his comedy Nummisuutarit/The Cobblers on the Heath 1864 remains one of the most...

Klamath
Member of an American Indian tribe who inhabited the Great Basin region of Oregon and California until the mid-19th century. They spoke a Lutuamian language belonging to the Penutian family, and...

Klapka, György
(1820-1892) Hungarian general who played a leading part in the Hungarian revolution of 1848. He was a lieutenant-general in the Austrian army, but fought valiantly to defend his homeland against the...

Klaus, Václav
(1941) Czech politician and economist, prime minister of the Czech Republic 1993-97 and president from 2003. Before the break-up of Czechoslovakia, he served as finance minister in the government of...

Klee, Paul
(1879-1940) Swiss painter and graphic artist. He was one of the most original and prolific artists of the 20th century. Endlessly inventive and playful, and suggesting a childlike innocence, his works are an...

Klein, Abraham Moses
(1909-1972) Canadian poet. A leader in the Canadian Jewish community for many years, his first two books of poetry explored his Jewish heritage. The Rocking Chair (1948) reached a wider audience and expressed a...

Klein, Lawrence Robert
(1920) US economist. Klein was a leading figure in the golden period of econometric model-building, especially the big econometric model with hundreds of equations describing the workings of different...

Klein, Yves
(1928-1962) French painter and leading exponent of the neo-Dada movement. He painted bold abstracts and devised provocative experimental works, including imprints of nude bodies. ...

Kleist, (Paul Ludwig) Ewald von
(1881-1954) German field marshal. Commissioned into the cavalry 1902, he was a lieutenant-general by 1935 and retired 1938. He was recalled 1939 and given command of XXII Army Corps in Poland, then led Panzer...

Kliegl
German-born US brothers who in 1911 invented the brilliant carbon-arc (klieg) lights used in television and films. They also created scenic effects for theatre and film. John emigrated to the...

Klima, Ladislav
(1872-1928) Czech novelist and philosopher. His novel The Sorrows of Prince Sternenhoch 1928 and the short story `Slavná Nemesis/Glorious Nemesis` 1932 combine slapstick and philosophy in a grotesque...

Klimt, Gustav
(1862-1918) Austrian painter. He was influenced by Jugendstil (art nouveau) and was a founding member of the Vienna Sezession group in 1897. His paintings, often sensual and erotic, have a jewelled effect...

Kline, Franz Joseph
(1910-1962) US abstract expressionist painter. He created large, graphic compositions in black and white using angular forms resembling magnified calligraphic brushstrokes - a style derived, in part, from...

Klinger, Friedrich Maximilian von
(1752-1831) German playwright and poet. His drama Sturm und Drang 1776 gave its name to that movement in German literature which exalted passionate feelings, the power of the individual will, and the democratic...

Klitias
(lived early 6th century BC) Greek vase painter. His minute and elaborate work in the Black Figure style is seen in the François Vase (Etruscan Museum, Florence), which has hundreds of elegant figures in rows. ...

Kloos, Willem Johan
(1859-1938) Dutch poet and critic. He was one of the leaders of the new literary group called `the men of '80`, and editor 1885 of their journal De Nieuwe Gids/The New Guide. The force of his language and...

Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb
(1724-1803) German poet. His religious epic Der Messias/The Messiah (1748-73) and Oden/Odes (1771) anticipated Romanticism. Written in hexameters, Der Messias is a very uneven poem, some parts of it being...

Kluckhohn, Clyde (Kay Maben)
(1905-1960) US cultural anthropologist. His chief research interest was the culture of the Navajo Indians; his classic study, Navaho Witchcraft, appeared in 1944. A major contributor to culture theory, he set...

Kluge, (Hans) Gunther von
(1882-1944) German field marshal. He served in the invasions of Poland and France and was promoted to field marshal July 1940. He led 4th Army in the invasion of the USSR, later succeeding von Bock as commander...

Klyuchevski, Vasili Osipovich
(1841-1911) Russian historian who wrote widely on the social history of Russia. He was especially interested in the representation of the people, and became involved in liberal movements for constitutional...

kneading
In ceramics, an essential step for the preparation of clay before working or firing. In kneading, the clay is cut, folded, squeezed, and worked until it is warm, soft, and easy to mould. The process...

Kneale, Matthew
(1960) English writer whose novel English Passengers won the 2001 Whitbread Prize and was shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize. His other novels include Whore Banquets (1987), which won the Somerset...

Kneeland, Abner
(1774-1844) US Protestant clergyman. The son of a Revolutionary War veteran, he preached as a Baptist. Appointed to a Universalist pulpit in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1812, he soon grew to doubt the divine...

Kneller, Godfrey
(1646-1723) German-born portrait painter who lived in England from 1674. A successful and prolific painter of nearly 6,000 portraits, he dominated English portraiture of the late 17th and early 18th...

Knerr, Hugh Johnston
(1887-1971) US aviator. A 1908 Naval Academy graduate, he transferred to the army, and in 1917, joined the air service. An associate of William (`Billy`) Mitchell, he argued for air power as the primary US...

Knesset
The Israeli parliament, consisting of a single chamber of 120 deputies elected for a period of four years. ...

Knickerbocker School
Group of US writers working in New York State in the early 19th century, which included Washington Irving, James Kirke Paulding (1778-1860), and Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867). The group took...

Knight, Charles
(1874-1953) US palaeontological artist who was influential in bringing dinosaurs to life in the public imagination. His extensive knowledge of anatomy and his collaborations with palaeontologists, such as...

Knight, Frank Hyneman
(1885-1972) US economist. His book, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, remains a classic that accounts for profits under perfect competition and distinguishes risk from uncertainty. He spent many years on the...

Knight, Laura
(1877-1970) English painter. Her reputation was based on her detailed, narrative scenes of Romany, fairground, and circus life, and the ballet. During World War II she was an official war artist. She was made...

Knight, Sarah Kemble
(1666-1727) American diarist. Her Diary of her travels in New York State in 1704-05, first printed in 1825, describes the life of the early settlers. She ran a writing school, which Benjamin Franklin is said...

knight's fee
In the 150 years after the Norman Conquest, a grant of land by the Crown which was held by a lord on condition that a knight would perform strict duties as required, such as 40 days' military...

knighthood, orders of
Fraternity carrying with it the rank of knight, admission to which is granted as a mark of royal favour or as a reward for public services. During the Middle Ages in Europe such fraternities fell...

Knights of Labor
See Labor, Knights of. ...

Knights of the Golden Circle
American antifederal, proslavery secret society and political organization that flourished in the North between 1855 and 1864, and sympathized with those in the Southern states wishing to secede...

Knights of the Round Table
In British legend, the knights of King Arthur; see Round Table. ...

Knights of the Teutonic Order
German Christian military order, founded in 1190; see Teutonic Knight. ...

Knights Templar
Military Christian order, founded in Jerusalem 1119-20; see Templars. ...

knitting
Method of making fabric by looping and knotting yarn, originally with two or four needles. Knitting may have developed from crochet, which uses a single, hooked needle, or from netting. A mechanized...

Knoblock, Edward
(1874-1945) US-born British dramatist. His plays include Kismet 1911, an Arabian Nights' fantasy;Milestones 1912, a comedy of three generations of a family, in which he collaborated with Arnold Bennett;My...

Knocknarea
Massive prehistoric cairn perched on the summit of Knocknarea Mountain, County Sligo, Republic of Ireland. Unexcavated, its 40,000 tonnes of stone are believed to cover a passage-grave, reputedly...

Knole
House in Kent, England, situated 1.5 km/1 mi from Sevenoaks. One of the largest private houses in England, it was begun by Thomas Bourchier (c. 1404-1486), archbishop of Canterbury, in 1456, but...

Knoll, Florence
(1917) US designer. After architecture and design study and work with Eliel Saarinen, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe, she joined the Hans G Knoll furniture company in 1943, where she...

Knollys, Francis
(c.1514-1596) English politician and diplomat. A staunch Protestant, he was made the first custodian of Mary Queen of Scots, from 1568 to 1569, during her long imprisonment in England by Elizabeth I. Knollys, a...

Knopf, Alfred
(1892-1984) US publisher. He founded his own firm in 1915, and with the aid of his wife, Blanche, made it successful while retaining a commitment to high literary excellence; his authors included 16 Nobel Prize...

Knossos
Middle and Late Bronze Age settlement, 8 km/5 mi south of present-day Iraklion, Crete. Knossos is one of the main cities of what is known as the Minoan civilization (a modern name derived from the...