Skip this Advertisement

A-Z Browse

  • Kan language (Chinese language)
    Chinese language of the Sino-Tibetan language family spoken primarily in Jiangxi province and the southeastern corner of Hubei province. According to some scholars, there are five primary dialects: Changjing, Yiping, Jiliang, Fuguang, and Yingyi. Gan is somewhat intelligible with Mandarin and Wu, but it has much in common ...
  • kān wa kān (Arabic poetry form)
    ...were added several that utilized the colloquial form of the Arabic language (the qūmā, for example, and the kān wa kān). But the two additional forms that have occasioned the most interest among scholars originated in the Iberian Peninsula: the ......
  • Kan-chou (China)
    city, southern Jiangxi sheng (province), southeastern China. It is located on the Gan River and is a natural route centre at the confluence of the various river systems that branch off from the north-south route to Nanchang, the provincial capital....
  • “Kan-gyur” (Buddhist literature)
    the collection of Tibetan Buddhist sacred literature representing the “Word of the Buddha”—as distinct from the Bstan-’gyur (“Translation of Teachings”), or collection of commentaries and miscellaneous works. This body of canonical literature contains more than 1,000 works, most of them originally written in Sanskrit and most translated (with great ...
  • Kan-su (province, China)
    sheng (province) of China. Administratively a part of the Northwest region, it reaches into the geographic centre of the country. It is bordered by Mongolia to the north, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to the northeast, the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningsia and the province of Shensi to the east, the Chinese provinces of Tsinghai and Szechwan to the south, and the Uighur Autonomous Reg...
  • Kan-Too Choksu (mountain, Asia)
    peak in the Tien Shan range of Central Asia, at the juncture of the boundaries between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China. Situated in a heavily glaciated mountain knot, the mountain rises to 22,949 feet (6,995 metres) and is the highest point in Kazakhstan. Until ...
  • kana (Japanese writing)
    two parallel modern Japanese syllabaries (katakana and hiragana), each of which independently represents all the sounds of the Japanese language. Although each derives its simple elements from Chinese characters, the two serve different purposes and differ stylistically....
  • kana-zōshi (Japanese literary genre)
    The general name for the prose composed between 1600 and 1682 is kana-zōshi, or “kana books,” the name originally having been used to distinguish popular writings in the Japanese syllabary from more-learned works in Chinese. The genre embraced not only fiction but also works of a near-historical nature, pious tracts, books of practical....
  • Kanab (Utah, United States)
    city, seat (1864) of Kane county, southwestern Utah, U.S., on Kanab Creek, at the foot of Vermilion Cliffs, just north of the Arizona line. Settlement was first made in 1864 around Fort Kanab (from a Paiute Indian word meaning “willow”) but was abandoned because of Indian attacks. In 1870 Mormon missionaries reoccupied the place, which developed as a trading centre...
  • Kaṇāda (Indian philosopher)
    The Vaiśeṣika-sūtras were written by Kaṇāda, a philosopher who flourished c. 2nd–4th centuries. The system owes its name to the fact that it admits ultimate particularities (viśeṣa). The metaphysics is, therefore, pluralistic....
  • Kanada Tokumitsu (Japanese religious leader)
    ...words “perfect liberty” and a Japanese term for “church”). Hito-no-michi was a development of an earlier religious movement, Tokumitsu-kyō, named after its founder, Kanada Tokumitsu (1863–1919), who taught that the sufferings of his followers could be transferred to him by divine mediation and that he would vicariously endure their troubles. Hito-no-mic...
  • “Kanadehon Chūshingura” (drama by Takeda Izumo and others)
    classic play cycle of the Japanese kabuki theatre. The kabuki drama was adapted from an original written about 1748 for the puppet theatre (bunraku) by Takeda Izumo with Namiki Sōsuke (Senryū) and Miyoshi Shōraku. In 11 acts it dramatizes the incidents that took place from 1701 to 1703, when 47 rōnin (masterless samurai) waited two years before avenging themselve...
  • kanaga (African symbol)
    ...federation and its member states was to have equal vertical stripes of green-yellow-red with a black stylized human figure in the centre, his arms raised toward heaven. This symbol, known as the kanaga, originated with the Dogon people of Mali and was given modern meaning by the Negritude movement of West African and Caribbean intellectuals. In 1960, when Senegal and Mali split into......
  • Kanaga Island (island, Alaska, United States)
    one of the Andreanof Islands of the Aleutian Islands chain, southwestern Alaska, U.S. The uninhabited island measures 30 miles (50 km) long and 4 to 8 miles (6.5 to 13 km) wide; its northern tip is the site of the Kanaga Volcano, which rises to 4,287 feet (1,307 metres) and is roughly 3 miles (5 km) in diameter at its base. It is separated f...
  • Kanaga Volcano (volcano, Alaska, United States)
    ...Islands of the Aleutian Islands chain, southwestern Alaska, U.S. The uninhabited island measures 30 miles (50 km) long and 4 to 8 miles (6.5 to 13 km) wide; its northern tip is the site of the Kanaga Volcano, which rises to 4,287 feet (1,307 metres) and is roughly 3 miles (5 km) in diameter at its base. It is separated from Tanaga Island by the Kanaga Pass (water passage). Kanaga may be......
  • Kanagaki Robun (Japanese author)
    Japanese writer of humorous fiction who brought a traditional satirical art to bear on the peculiarities of Japanese society in the process of modernization....
  • Kanagawa (prefecture, Japan)
    ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, located south of Tokyo and bordered by Tokyo Bay to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the south. It occupies an area of 928 square miles (2,403 square km). The eastern coast is an important part of the Keihin Industrial Zone; Yokohama, Tokyo’s port, is the prefectural capital. The Pacific coast is a popular resort area, including such cities as Kamak...
  • Kanagawa, Treaty of (Japan-United States [1854])
    (March 31, 1854), Japan’s first treaty with a Western nation. Concluded by representatives of the United States and Japan at Kanagawa (now part of Yokohama), it marked the end of Japan’s period of seclusion (1639–1854). The treaty was signed as a result of pressure from U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who sailed into To...
  • kanak (New Caledonian culture)
    Melanesians make up more than two-fifths of the population and Europeans about one-third. Their differing cultures have given rise to two distinct ways of life, known as kanak and caldoche; people of mixed descent tend to adhere to one or the other. The kanak identity is based on......
  • Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (political party, New Caledonia)
    ...The French government granted complete self-government in territorial affairs under the Lemoine Statute of 1984, but the Independence Front rejected the statute and reconstituted itself as the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale Kanake et Socialiste; FLNKS). The FLNKS boycotted the elections in that year and, in an uprising, temporarily captured......
  • Kanaka (people)
    (Hawaiian: “Person,” or “Man”), in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, any of the South Pacific islanders employed in Queensland, Australia, on sugar plantations or cattle stations or as servants in towns. The islanders were first introduced into Queensland in 1847 for employment on cotton plantations; in succeeding years they f...
  • “Kanał” (film by Wajda)
    ...His first three films, Pokolenie (1954; A Generation), Kanał (1957; Canal), and Popiół i diament (1958; Ashes and Diamonds), won prizes at international film festivals. They constituted a trilogy......
  • Kanaloa (island, Hawaii, United States)
    volcanic island, Maui county, Hawaii, U.S. It lies 6 miles (10 km) off the southwestern shore of Maui island, from which it is separated by the Alalakeiki Channel. It is 45 square miles (117 square km) in area (the smallest of the main Hawaiian Islands) and rises to an elevation of 1,477 feet (450 metres) at Lua Makika, its highest point. Archaeological eviden...
  • Kanaloa (Polynesian deity)
    The Hawaiians held a vague belief in a future existence. They had four principal gods—Kane, Kanaloa, Ku, and Lono—and innumerable lesser gods and tutelary deities. Animals, plants, places, professions, families, and all other objects and forces had their gods or spirits. Temples of stone and idols of wood abounded, and hardly anything was undertaken without religious ceremonies.......
  • Kanalstrahlen (physics)
    ...1881. His career was spent at the Potsdam Observatory. He was primarily interested in electrical discharges in moderate to high vacuums. In 1886 he discovered what he termed Kanalstrahlen, or canal rays, also called positive rays; these are positively charged ions that are accelerated toward and through a perforated cathode in an evacuated tube. He also contributed greatly to the study o...
  • Kan’ami (Japanese author)
    Japanese actor, playwright, and musician who was one of the founders of nō drama....
  • Kan’ami Kiyotsugu (Japanese author)
    Japanese actor, playwright, and musician who was one of the founders of nō drama....
  • Kanamī, Muḥammad al- (Nigerian sheikh)
    ...of Fulani rebellion and invasion had reduced its ancient monarchy to impotence. Bornu and Kanem, however, had their own clerical class and tradition, and in the latter province arose a new leader, Muḥammad al-Kānemī, who asserted that the Fulani clerics did not have a unique right to interpret Muslim law for the government of humanity. Al-Kānemī was able to......
  • Kananaios (Christian Apostle)
    one of the Twelve Apostles. In the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, he bears the epithet Kananaios, or the Cananaean, often wrongly interpreted to mean “from Cana” or “from Canaan.” Kananaios is the Greek transliteration of an Aramaic word, qanʾ anaya, meaning “the Zealot,” the title given him...
  • Kananga (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
    city, south-central Democratic Republic of the Congo, situated just east of the Lulua River, a tributary of the Kasai. It is on road and rail routes to Lubumbashi (southeast) and the Kasai River port of Ilebo (northwest) and has air links to those and other Congolese cities. It was named Luluabourg in 1884 by a German explorer and became a military post that was the scene in 189...
  • Kanapoi (anthropological and archaeological site, Kenya)
    site of paleoanthropological excavations in northern Kenya southwest of Lake Turkana (Lake Rudolf), best known for its fossils of Australopithecus anamensis, an early hominin (member of the human lineage) dating to between 3.9 and 4.2 million years ago. Among these fossils is a relatively complete shinbone w...
  • Kanapoi fossil (paleontology)
    site of paleoanthropological excavations in northern Kenya southwest of Lake Turkana (Lake Rudolf), best known for its fossils of Australopithecus anamensis, an early hominin (member of the human lineage) dating to between 3.9 and 4.2 million years ago. Among these fossils is a relatively complete shinbone with features indicating that A. anamensis walked on two......
  • Kanara (region, India)
    region along the Malabar Coast of the Arabian Sea, western Karnātaka (formerly Mysore) state, India. It is bounded on the east by the Western Ghāts. Formerly divided between Bombay to the north and Madras (now Tamil Nādu) to the southeast, the region became part of Mysore state in the linguistic reorganization of India in 1956. Kanara produces rice (the main food crop) and su...
  • Kanarak (India)
    historic village, east-central Orissa state, eastern India, on the Bay of Bengal coast. It is famous for its 13th-century temple, the Sūrya Deuḷa. Formerly called the Black Pagoda, it was used as a navigation landmark by mariners sailing to Calcutta. Never completed and falling into ruins before its restoration, the temple represents the culmination of the Orissan ...
  • kanāreh (carpet)
    ...some 18 × 8 feet (5.5 × 2.5 metres), is placed in the centre. Flanking the mīān farsh are two runners, or kanārehs, which are mainly used for walking and which measure some 18 × 3 feet (5.5 × 1 metres). The principal rug, or kellegi...
  • Kanarese language
    language of the Dravidian family, spoken in southwestern India; it is the official language of Karnataka (formerly Mysore) state....
  • Kanarese literature (Indian literature)
    the literature written in Kannada, which, like the other languages of South India, is of the Dravidian family. The earliest records in Kannada are inscriptions dating from the 6th century ad onward. The earliest literary work is the Kavirājamārga (c. ad 850), a treatise on poetics based on a Sanskrit model. Nearly all of the extant early text...
  • Kanáris, Konstantínos (Greek statesman)
    Greek naval officer and statesman who achieved fame for his exploits against the Turks during the War of Greek Independence (1821–32)....
  • kanat (water-supply system)
    ancient type of water-supply system developed and still used in arid regions of the world. A qanāt taps underground mountain water sources trapped in and beneath the upper reaches of alluvial fans and channels the water downhill through a series of tunnels, often several kilometres long, to the places where it is needed for irrigation and domestic use. The development of qan...
  • Kanauj (India)
    city, central Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. Kannauj is situated near the Ganges River, northwest of Kānpur, with which it has road and rail connections. Its name probably has more popular spellings than any other place-name in India. Kannauj has existed since ancient times and contains numerous ruins and artifacts. It was important during the Gupta empire, and in the early 7th centur...
  • Kanawha River (river, West Virginia, United States)
    river formed at Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, U.S., by the confluence of the New and Gauley rivers. It flows 97 miles (156 km) in a northwesterly direction to enter the Ohio River at Point Pleasant. It is navigable via dams and locks to Kanawha Falls, 30 miles (50 km) upstream from Charleston, which itself is located at th...
  • Kanazawa (Japan)
    capital, Ishikawa ken (prefecture), Japan, on the Sai River. In the 16th century the city and the province of Kaga were given to the Maeda family, the richest daimyo family in Tokugawa times; Kanazawa remained under their jurisdiction for approximately 300 years. The walls, gates, and a few buildings of the Maeda family’s castle remain, giving the city the atmosphe...
  • Kanazawa Bunko Museum (museum, Yokohama, Japan)
    ...many warrior leaders developed a love of scholarship and a delight in waka poetry. One was Hōjō Sanetoki, who collected Japanese and Chinese books and founded a famous library, the Kanazawa Bunko, in the Shōmyō Temple (at what is now Yokohama). Reflecting the rise of the warrior class, military epics became popular. The most famous is the anonymously written The.....
  • kanban system (business)
    A second Japanese technique, called kanban (“card”), also permits Japanese firms to schedule production and manage inventories more effectively. In the kanban system, cards or tickets are attached to batches, racks, or pallet loads of parts in the manufacturing process. When a batch is depleted in the assembly process, its kanban is returned to the manufacturing....
  • Kanchanaburi (Thailand)
    town, western Thailand, 70 miles (110 km) northwest of Bangkok. The Khwae Noi River joins the Klong River near Kanchanaburi. Built in the 18th century as a defense against Burmese invaders, the walled town is the site of two paper factories. A cemetery there commemorates the Allied soldiers who died while constructing and operating the notorious “death railway” during World War II. ...
  • Kānchenjunga (mountain, Asia)
    world’s third highest mountain (28,169 feet [8,586 m]), in the Himalayas on the Nepalese border with Sikkim, India, 46 miles (74 km) north-northwest of Darjeeling. The Kānchenjunga massif is in the form of a gigantic cross, the arms of which lie north, south, east, and west. The individual summits connect to neighbouring peaks by four main ridges, from which four glaciers flow...
  • Kānchenjunga I (mountain, Asia)
    world’s third highest mountain (28,169 feet [8,586 m]), in the Himalayas on the Nepalese border with Sikkim, India, 46 miles (74 km) north-northwest of Darjeeling. The Kānchenjunga massif is in the form of a gigantic cross, the arms of which lie north, south, east, and west. The individual summits connect to neighbouring peaks by four main ridges, from which four glaciers flow...
  • kanchil (mammal)
    any of several small chevrotains, or mouse deer, native to Southeast Asia. Formerly believed to be separate species, they are now generally thought to be varieties of the species Tragulus kanchil. See chevrotain....
  • Kanchipuram (India)
    town, northern Tamil Nādu state, southeastern India, on the Pālār River and the Madras-Bangalore road and rail systems. One of the most ancient towns of southern India, it traces its history to the 2nd century bc as an early Cōla capital. From the 3rd to the 9th century ad it was the Pallava capital, and from the 10th to the 13th century it s...
  • Kanchow (China)
    city, southern Jiangxi sheng (province), southeastern China. It is located on the Gan River and is a natural route centre at the confluence of the various river systems that branch off from the north-south route to Nanchang, the provincial capital....
  • Kanchrapara (India)
    town, southeastern West Bengal state, northeastern India, just east of the Hooghly River, part of the Calcutta urban agglomeration. The town, within Hālisahar municipality, has one of the largest railway workshops in India; jute milling is the major industry. A temple is dedicated to Krishna, and a religious festival is held annually. Just north of the temple lies a governmental land-devel...
  • Kāñcī (India)
    town, northern Tamil Nādu state, southeastern India, on the Pālār River and the Madras-Bangalore road and rail systems. One of the most ancient towns of southern India, it traces its history to the 2nd century bc as an early Cōla capital. From the 3rd to the 9th century ad it was the Pallava capital, and from the 10th to the 13th century it s...
  • Kanda Uda Pas Rata (Sri Lanka)
    city in the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka, at an elevation of 1,640 feet (500 metres). It lies on the Mahaweli River on the shore of an artificial lake that was constructed (1807) by the last Kandyan king, Sri Wickrama Rājasinha. Kanda, the word from which Kandy is derived, is a Sinhalese word meaning ...
  • kāṇḍa-vīṇā (musical instrument)
    ...has been either a low-caste occupation or an accomplishment to be savoured in the confines of the home. In India during the Vedic period there seem to have been stringed instruments (such as the kanda-vina) that were played only by women; and Chinese tradition has it that the long zither, or zheng, was invented by a woman. In the West, instrument makers seem usually to be men,......
  • Kandahār (province, Afghanistan)
    The Kandahār region is a sparsely populated part of southern Afghanistan. The Durrānī Pashtun, who have formed the traditional nucleus of Afghanistan’s social and political elite, live in the area around the city of Kandahār itself, which is located in a fertile oasis near the Arghandāb River, and the Ghilzay inhabit the region between Kabul and Kandah...
  • Kandahār (Afghanistan)
    city in south-central Afghanistan. It lies on a plain next to the Tarnak River, at an elevation of about 3,300 feet (1,000 metres). It is southern Afghanistan’s chief commercial centre and is situated at the junction of highways from Kabul, Herāt, and Quetta (Pakistan). Kandahār has an international ai...
  • Kandalaksha Hollow (physical feature, White Sea)
    ...whose present form appears as a land’s-end depression on the slope of the ancient structural block known as the Baltic Shield. The bottom of the sea is badly broken up. In the northwest lies the Kandalaksha Hollow with its sharply formed sides that apparently originated as a fault. In the southern portion is an elevation known as the Solovets Islands. Many small underwater elevations are...
  • Kandariya Mahadeva (temple, Khajrāho, India)
    ...sensual and, in a few instances, sexually explicit. The temples are divided into three complexes, of which the western is the largest and best known, containing the magnificent Shaivite temple Kandariya Mahadeva (c. 1000), a 102-foot- (31-metre-) high agglomeration of porches and turrets culminating in a spire. The monuments at Khajuraho were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in......
  • Kandaswamy Kovil (temple, Sri Lanka)
    ...1658. The name Jaffna is a Portuguese adaptation of a Tamil word meaning “port of the lyre.” A fort and a church remain from the Dutch period, and near the fort is a famous Hindu temple, Kandaswamy Kovil. The British held Jaffna after 1795 until they relinquished control of the island in 1948. From 1983 to 1995 Jaffna was a stronghold of a Tamil separatist guerrilla group. Its......
  • Kandavu Island (island, Fiji)
    island of Fiji, in the South Pacific, 50 miles (80 km) south of Viti Levu, across the Kadavu (Kandavu) Passage. It was visited by the British naval captain William Bligh in 1792. Volcanic in origin, Kadavu has an area of 159 square miles (411 square km) and is bisected by a central mountain ridge with fertile slopes; it rises to 2,750 feet (838 metres) at Ndelainambukelevu (Moun...
  • Kandel, Eric (Austrian-American neurobiologist)
    Austrian-born American neurobiologist who, with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2000 for discovering the central role synapses play in memory and learning....
  • Kander, Lizzie Black (American welfare worker)
    American welfare worker who created a popular cookbook that became a highly profitable fund-raising tool for the institution she served....
  • Kandevān Pass (mountain pass, Iran)
    ...side. There are likewise many gorges, by which the rivers find their way down one or another of the slopes. Only two passes allow a relatively easy crossing in a single ascent—these are the Kandevān Pass, between the Karaj and the Chālūs rivers, and the Gadūk Pass, between the Hableh and the Tālā rivers. The main divide runs generally south of th...
  • Kandh (people)
    people of the hills and jungles of Orissa state, India. Their numbers are estimated to exceed 800,000, of which about 550,000 speak Kui and its southern dialect, Kuwi, of the Dravidian language family. Most Khond are now rice cultivators, but there are still groups, such as the Kuttia Khond, who practice slash-and-burn agriculture....
  • Kandi (Benin)
    town, northeastern Benin, 325 miles (523 km) north of the capital Porto-Novo. Iron deposits of high quality are in the vicinity, but the town is mainly an agricultural centre, with the major products being cotton, kapok, shea nuts, groundnuts (peanuts), corn (maize), and millet. There is cotton and kapok ginning. Situated on a principal highway, the town also has an airport. Pop. (1992) 26,365....
  • Kandinsky, Vasily Vasilyevich (Russian artist)
    Russian-born artist, one of the first creators of pure abstraction in modern painting. After successful avant-garde exhibitions, he founded the influential Munich group Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”; 1911–14) and began completely abstract painting. His forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric and, finally, to pictographic (e.g., “Tempered Éla...
  • Kandinsky, Wassily (Russian artist)
    Russian-born artist, one of the first creators of pure abstraction in modern painting. After successful avant-garde exhibitions, he founded the influential Munich group Der Blaue Reiter (“The Blue Rider”; 1911–14) and began completely abstract painting. His forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric and, finally, to pictographic (e.g., “Tempered Éla...
  • Kandla (India)
    town, northwestern Gujarāt state, west-central India, a port on the Gulf of Kutch of the Arabian Sea. The port was opened on Kandla’s natural deepwater harbour in the 1930s. Designed to serve a hinterland that is considerably larger than Gujarāt state, the town has continued to be improved. Petroleum, iron and steel machinery, and chemicals are Kandla’s major imports; ...
  • Kändler, Johann Joachim (German sculptor)
    late Baroque sculptor who was a major innovator in European porcelain sculpture....
  • Kandy (historical kingdom, Sri Lanka)
    important independent monarchy in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) at the end of the 15th century and the last Sinhalese kingdom to be subjugated by a colonial power. Kandy survived the attacks of Ceylon’s first two colonial rulers—the Portuguese and the Dutch—and finally succumbed to the third and last colonial ruler, the British, in 1818. While all th...
  • Kandy (Sri Lanka)
    city in the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka, at an elevation of 1,640 feet (500 metres). It lies on the Mahaweli River on the shore of an artificial lake that was constructed (1807) by the last Kandyan king, Sri Wickrama Rājasinha. Kanda, the word from which Kandy is derived, is a Sinhalese word meaning ...
  • Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, The (work by Wolfe)
    His first book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1964), is a collection of essays satirizing American trends and celebrities of the 1960s. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) chronicles the psychedelic drug culture of the 1960s. His other works include Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970), The Painted Word (1975), From......
  • Kandyan Convention (United Kingdom-Sri Lanka [1815])
    ...was a failure. By 1815, however, the Kandyan chiefs became dissatisfied with their tyrannical king (of South Indian descent) and welcomed British intervention. In the ensuing agreement of 1815, the Kandyan Convention, the Kandyan king was deposed and sovereignty was vested in the British crown, but the rights of the Kandyan chiefs were largely maintained. Soon, the chiefs became dissatisfied......
  • Kandyan dance
    The kandyan dance, shorn of occult ceremonies, is highly sophisticated and refined. It flourished under the Kandyan kings from the 16th through the 19th centuries, and today it is considered the national dance of Sri Lanka. It has four distinct varieties: The pantheru, naiyadi, udekki, and ves (the most artistic and renowned). Its energetic movements and postures are......
  • Kane (Polynesian deity)
    The Hawaiians held a vague belief in a future existence. They had four principal gods—Kane, Kanaloa, Ku, and Lono—and innumerable lesser gods and tutelary deities. Animals, plants, places, professions, families, and all other objects and forces had their gods or spirits. Temples of stone and idols of wood abounded, and hardly anything was undertaken without religious......
  • Kane, Bob (American cartoonist)
    American cartoonist who, with his partner, Bill Finger, created the comic-book characters Batman the Caped Crusader and Robin the Boy Wonder, Batman’s sidekick, as well as a collection of those crime fighters’ enemies, including the Joker, the Riddler, and the Penguin (b. Oct. 24, 1915, New York, N.Y.--d. Nov. 3, 1998, Los Angeles, Calif.)....
  • Kane, Cheikh Hamidou (Senegalese author)
    Senegalese writer best known for his autobiographical novel L’Aventure ambiguë (1961; Ambiguous Adventure), which won the Grand Prix Littéraire d’Afrique Noire in 1962....
  • Kane, Elisha Kent (American explorer)
    American physician and Arctic explorer who in 1850 led an unsuccessful expedition to northwestern Greenland to search for the British explorer Sir John Franklin, missing since 1845....
  • Kane, Francis (American author)
    American novelist (b. May 21, 1916, New York, N.Y.--d. Oct. 14, 1997, Palm Springs, Calif.), created gossipy-style formulaic works that featured the triple themes of sex, money, and power and made him one of the best-selling authors of all time. He once bragged that he had experienced firsthand all the vices he presented in his novels. Orphaned at birth, Robbins was placed in a Roman Catholic orph...
  • Kane, Gil (American artist)
    Latvian-born American comic book artist (b. April 6, 1926, Riga, Latvia—d. Jan. 31, 2000, Miami, Fla.), became a legend during his more than half-century-long career. His innovative and dramatic style and technique brought new life and vibrancy to such superheroes as Spider-Man, Green Lantern, Captain Marvel, the Incredible Hulk, and the Atom during what was known as the silver age of comic...
  • Kane, John (American artist)
    Scottish-born American artist who painted primitivist scenes of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Scotland....
  • Kane, Paul (American painter)
    ...Europeans. Canadian painters were greatly influenced by the styles of their European roots, but their subject matter increasingly came to be Canadian locales and landscapes. In the mid-19th century Paul Kane, an immigrant from Ireland, traveled across Canada and painted numerous canvases depicting Canadian landscapes and the lives of native people, fur traders, and missionaries, all rendered in...
  • Kane, Sarah (British playwright)
    controversial British playwright who earned a reputation as an enfant terrible because of the graphic sex and violence and bleak outlook on life exhibited in her plays, beginning in 1995 with the sensationalistic Blasted (b. Feb. 3, 1971, Essex, Eng.—d. Feb. 20, 1999, London, Eng.)....
  • Kane, Sheikh Hamidou (Senegalese author)
    Senegalese writer best known for his autobiographical novel L’Aventure ambiguë (1961; Ambiguous Adventure), which won the Grand Prix Littéraire d’Afrique Noire in 1962....
  • Kane, Sir Richard (governor of Minorca)
    ...markets. These included almonds, peaches, apricots, carob, and tomatoes. Dry farming predominates, though the waterwheels and windmills that were introduced by the Muslims for irrigation persist. Sir Richard Kane, governor of Minorca between 1712 and 1736, introduced cattle and sheep from North Africa and pigs from Sardinia; these breeds continue to be raised....
  • Kanehara, Hitomi (Japanese author)
    In early 2004 two young female novelists—Risa Wataya and Hitomi Kanehara—shared Japan’s most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize for promising new authors, and created a media sensation in Japan with works that captured the perspectives of a generation coming of age in Japan’s postbubble economy. Both Wataya’s Keritai senaka (roughly translated...
  • Kanem (historical empire, Africa)
    African trading empire ruled by the Sef (Sayf) dynasty that controlled the area around Lake Chad from the 9th to the 19th century. Its territory at various times included what is now southern Chad, northern Cameroon, northeastern Nigeria, eastern Niger, and southern Libya....
  • Kanem-Bornu (historical empire, Africa)
    African trading empire ruled by the Sef (Sayf) dynasty that controlled the area around Lake Chad from the 9th to the 19th century. Its territory at various times included what is now southern Chad, northern Cameroon, northeastern Nigeria, eastern Niger, and southern Libya....
  • Kanemaru Shin (Japanese politician)
    Japanese politician (b. Sept. 17, 1914, Suwa village, Yamanashi prefecture, Japan--d. March 28, 1996, Yamanashi), served in three Cabinet posts and as deputy prime minister (1986-87), but his real power was exercised behind the scenes, where he was the kingmaker who handpicked at least four prime ministers. He was known as Japan’s "godfather" for decades until a bribery and tax-evasion sca...
  • Kanembu (people)
    ...medieval period (9th to 16th century) the Lake Chad region was both an important refuge and an area in which diverse populations were consolidated by the authority of powerful kingdoms. The modern Kanembu, for example, are composed of several groups consolidated by Kanem in the 9th century; similarly, the modern Kanuri emerged from the imposed authority of Kanem’s successor state, Bornu,...
  • Kanembu-Zaghawa languages
    ...(2) the Mundang-Tuburi-Mbum languages, which are spoken by several hundred thousand people in southwestern Chad, (3) the Chado-Hamitic group, which is related to the Hausa spoken in Nigeria, (4) the Kanembu-Zaghawa languages, spoken in the north, mostly by nomads, (5) the Maba group, spoken in the vicinity of Abéché and throughout the Ouaddaï region of eastern Chad, (6) the...
  • Kānemī, Muhammad al-Amin al- (Nigerian sheikh)
    ...of Fulani rebellion and invasion had reduced its ancient monarchy to impotence. Bornu and Kanem, however, had their own clerical class and tradition, and in the latter province arose a new leader, Muḥammad al-Kānemī, who asserted that the Fulani clerics did not have a unique right to interpret Muslim law for the government of humanity. Al-Kānemī was able to......
  • Kaneohe (Hawaii, United States)
    town, Honolulu county, northeastern Oahu island, Hawaii, U.S. Situated 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Honolulu, it spreads from the foothills of the Koolau Range to Kaneohe Bay. Like neighbouring Kailua to the east, the Kaneohe (meaning “Bamboo Husband”) area was once the ...
  • Kaneohe Bay (bay, Hawaii, United States)
    bay on the northeastern shore of Oahu island, Hawaii, U.S. A major tourist destination, it contains clear, shallow waters and vivid underwater coral formations that can be viewed from glass-bottom boats. Extending between Kaneohe Beach Park (south) and Kualoa Point (north), its 20-mile (32-km) shoreline is rimmed with ancient royal fishponds, including Waikalu...
  • Kanes (archaeological site, Turkey)
    (Turkish: “Ash Hill”), ancient mound covering the Bronze Age city of Kanesh, in central Turkey. Kültepe was known to archaeologists during the 19th century, but it began to attract particular attention as the reputed source of so-called Cappadocian tablets in Old Assyrian cuneiform writing and language. Finally, in 1925, Bedřich Hrozn...
  • Kanesh (archaeological site, Turkey)
    (Turkish: “Ash Hill”), ancient mound covering the Bronze Age city of Kanesh, in central Turkey. Kültepe was known to archaeologists during the 19th century, but it began to attract particular attention as the reputed source of so-called Cappadocian tablets in Old Assyrian cuneiform writing and language. Finally, in 1925, Bedřich Hrozn...
  • Kanesville (Iowa, United States)
    city, seat (1851) of Pottawattamie county, southwestern Iowa, U.S., on the Missouri River across from Omaha, Nebraska. The Lewis and Clark Expedition passed there in 1804 and held consultations with the Oto and Missouri Indians at a place called Council Hill or Council Bluff; a monumen...
  • Kang Il-sun (Korean religious leader)
    Poch’ŏngyo was founded by Kang Il-sun (1871–1909), who initially gained a following by offering to cure illnesses through incantations and by medicine. The Japanese rulers of Korea, fearful that Poch’ŏngyo was an underground political movement, so restricted Kang’s activities that only a weak organization was established before his death. Leadership of the...
  • Kang Quantai (Chinese rebel)
    ...the 830s onward the first signs of unrest and banditry had appeared in the Huai valley and Henan, and trouble spread to the Yangtze valley and the south beginning in 856. Major uprisings were led by Kang Quantai in southern Anhui in 858 and Qiu Fu in Zhejiang in 859. The situation was complicated by a costly war against the Nanzhao kingdom on the borders of the Chinese protectorate in Annam,......
  • Kang Sheng (Chinese leader)
    Chinese communist official who is considered to have been one of the three or four most powerful individuals in the government during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76)....
Skip this Advertisement

Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.

If you think a reference to this article on "" will enhance your Web site, blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article, and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.

You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.

copy link

We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.

Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.

The Britannica Store
A-Z Browse

Image preview