A-Z Browse

  • Kennedy, Graham Cyril (Australian entertainer)
    Australian radio and television personality and actor (b. Feb. 15, 1934, St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia—d. May 25, 2005, Bowral, N.S.W., Australia), as one of Australia’s most popular radio and television talk-show and game-show hosts, earned the nickname “King of Television.” Over a 40-year career, he won 14 Logies (Australia’s annual TV awards), including Star...
  • Kennedy, Jackie (American first lady)
    American first lady (1961–63), the wife of John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States, who was noted for her style and elegance. Her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, was one of the wealthiest men in the world....
  • Kennedy, Jacqueline (American first lady)
    American first lady (1961–63), the wife of John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States, who was noted for her style and elegance. Her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, was one of the wealthiest men in the world....
  • Kennedy, James (bishop of Saint Andrews)
    ...II (1437–60) was six years old at the time of his accession. His minority was marked by struggles between the Crichton and Livingston families. During this minority and that of James III, James Kennedy, bishop of St. Andrews, played a statesmanlike part in seeking to preserve peace. James II took a violent line against overambitious subjects. In 1452 he stabbed William Douglas, 8th......
  • Kennedy, John Arthur (American actor)
    American character actor featured in many films and nominated for five Academy Awards....
  • Kennedy, John F. (president of United States)
    35th president of the United States (1961–63), who faced a number of foreign crises, especially in Cuba and Berlin, but managed to secure such achievements as the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the Alliance for Progress. He was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. (For a discussion of the history and nature of the presidency, see presidency of the United States o...
  • Kennedy, John F., International Airport (airport, New York City, New York, United States)
    On the basis of a 1960 design competition, Pei was selected to design the multiairline terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. In 1964 he was also chosen to design the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at Harvard University. Pei’s innovative East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1978), is an elegant triangular composition that was hailed as...
  • Kennedy, John F., Memorial Library (library, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States)
    On the basis of a 1960 design competition, Pei was selected to design the multiairline terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City. In 1964 he was also chosen to design the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at Harvard University. Pei’s innovative East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1978), is an elegant triangular composition that was hailed as...
  • Kennedy, John F., Space Center (test range, Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States)
    ...from the installation in his Project Mercury capsule, and the first lunar-landing flight, manned by Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins, was launched from the cape on July 16, 1969. The John F. Kennedy Space Center—including a space shuttle landing facility, a visitors’ centre, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and a space vehicle assembly building 525 feet (160 metr...
  • Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (president of United States)
    35th president of the United States (1961–63), who faced a number of foreign crises, especially in Cuba and Berlin, but managed to secure such achievements as the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the Alliance for Progress. He was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. (For a discussion of the history and nature of the presidency, see presidency of the United States o...
  • Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, Jr. (American publisher)
    American publisher and public figure (b. Nov. 25, 1960, Washington, D.C.—d. July 16, 1999, off Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.), was a member of the American family that to many people most resembled royalty and as such spent his entire life in the public eye. From the time of his birth to President-elect John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, to his poignant salute at his assassinated f...
  • Kennedy, John P. (American author and statesman)
    American statesman and writer whose best remembered work was his historical fiction....
  • Kennedy, John Pendleton (American author and statesman)
    American statesman and writer whose best remembered work was his historical fiction....
  • Kennedy, Joseph P. (American businessman)
    American businessman and financier who served in government commissions in Washington, D.C. (1934–37), and as ambassador to Great Britain (1937–40). He was the father of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and two other sons who became notable politicians....
  • Kennedy, Joseph P., Jr. (American pilot)
    ...New York Times at an early age, and small talk was not allowed at the dinner table. Instead, the family discussed national issues, sometimes with consequences not seen until years later. Joseph, Jr., for example, became an isolationist; John an ardent advocate of U.S. participation in world affairs; and Robert, perhaps because of the age gap, became shy—an affliction he batt...
  • Kennedy, Joseph Patrick (American businessman)
    American businessman and financier who served in government commissions in Washington, D.C. (1934–37), and as ambassador to Great Britain (1937–40). He was the father of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and two other sons who became notable politicians....
  • Kennedy, Joseph W. (American scientist)
    ...warm because of energy released in alpha decay, is a silvery metal that takes on a yellow tarnish in air. The element was first detected (1941) as the isotope plutonium-238 by Glenn T. Seaborg, Joseph W. Kennedy, and Arthur C. Wahl, who produced it by deuteron bombardment of uranium-238 in the 60-inch cyclotron at Berkeley, California. Traces of plutonium have subsequently been found in......
  • Kennedy, Leo (Canadian poet)
    ...in Montreal, the group included A.M. Klein; A.J.M. Smith, whose Book of Canadian Poetry (1943) and other anthologies contributed greatly to the modernization of literary standards in Canada; Leo Kennedy; and Francis Reginald Scott; as well as two kindred spirits from Toronto, E.J. Pratt and Robert Finch. First brought together at McGill University in Montreal, these poets founded the......
  • Kennedy, Paul (British historian)
    ...because Pitt the Younger’s abilities were more suited to peace than to war. But the main reason the conflict was so protracted was France’s overwhelming military superiority on land. The historian Paul Kennedy has written of British and French power in this period:Like the whale and the elephant, each was by far the largest creature in its own domain. But British contr...
  • Kennedy, Robert F. (American politician)
    U.S. attorney general and adviser during the administration of his brother Pres. John F. Kennedy (1961–63). Later U.S. senator (1965–68), he was assassinated while campaigning for the presidential nomination....
  • Kennedy, Robert Francis (American politician)
    U.S. attorney general and adviser during the administration of his brother Pres. John F. Kennedy (1961–63). Later U.S. senator (1965–68), he was assassinated while campaigning for the presidential nomination....
  • Kennedy, Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald (American personality)
    U.S. personality (b. July 22, 1890, Boston, Mass.--d. Jan. 22, 1995, Hyannis Port, Mass.), as the matriarch of the Kennedys, a family that created a political dynasty in the U.S., drew on her Roman Catholic faith to endure what she characterized as a life of agonies and ecstasies. The daughter of John Francis ("Honey Fitz") Fitzgerald, she was propelled into public life when her father embarked o...
  • Kennedy, Rosemary (sister of John F. Kennedy)
    American personality (b. Sept. 13, 1918, Brookline, Mass.—d. Jan. 7, 2005, Jefferson, Wis.), was the mentally challenged sister of Pres. John F. Kennedy who at age 23 was given a prefrontal lobotomy, a procedure that left her in an infantlike state and needing institutional care for most of the rest of her life. Her younger sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founded the Special Olympics in her...
  • Kennedy Round (international trade)
    ...of up to 50 percent, subject to reciprocal concessions from the European partners. This marked a fundamental shift away from the traditional protectionist posture of the United States and led to the Kennedy Round negotiations in GATT, held in Geneva from May 1964 to June 1967....
  • Kennedy Space Center (test range, Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States)
    ...from the installation in his Project Mercury capsule, and the first lunar-landing flight, manned by Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins, was launched from the cape on July 16, 1969. The John F. Kennedy Space Center—including a space shuttle landing facility, a visitors’ centre, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and a space vehicle assembly building 525 feet (160 metr...
  • Kennedy, Ted (United States senator)
    U.S. senator (from 1963), a prominent figure in the Democratic Party and in liberal politics from the 1970s....
  • Kennedy, the Rev. Dennis James (American evangelist)
    American evangelist (who was dedicated to spreading conservative Christianity through his broadcasts on radio and the outreach programs he established. After becoming (1960) pastor of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Kennedy increased his congregation from about 40 members to more than 10,000. The tremendous success of his ministry led to a weekly syndicated program, ...
  • Kennedy, Walter (Scottish poet)
    Scottish poet, remembered chiefly for his flyting (Scots dialect: “scolding”) with his professional rival William Dunbar. The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie, in which the two poets alternate in heaping outrageous abuse on one another, is the outstanding example of this favourite sport of the 16th-century Scots poets....
  • Kennedy, William (American author and journalist)
    American author and journalist whose novels feature elements of local history, journalism, and supernaturalism....
  • Kennel (missile)
    ...the war. The Soviets, however, saw antiship missiles as a counter to Western naval superiority and developed an extensive range of air- and surface-launched antiship missiles, beginning with the AS-1 Kennel. The destruction of an Israeli destroyer by two SS-N-2 Styx missiles fired by Soviet-supplied Egyptian missile boats in October 1967 demonstrated the effectiveness of the Soviet systems,......
  • Kennel Club of England (British organization)
    ...to be one whose genealogy is traceable for three generations within the same breed. National registries, such as the American Kennel Club (AKC) in the United States, the Canadian Kennel Club, the Kennel Club of England, and the Australian National Kennel Council, maintain pedigrees and stud books on every dog in every breed registered in their respective countries. The Foxhound Kennel Stud......
  • Kennelly, Arthur Edwin (American electrical engineer)
    U.S. electrical engineer who made innovations in analytic methods in electronics, particularly the definitive application of complex-number theory to alternating-current (ac) circuits....
  • Kennelly–Heaviside layer (atmospheric science)
    ionospheric region that extends from an altitude of 90 kilometres (60 miles) to about 160 kilometres (100 miles). As in the D region (70–90 kilometres), the ionization is primarily molecular—i.e., resulting from the splitting of neutral molecules—oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2)—into electrons and positively charged molecules...
  • Kenner, Duncan Farrar (Confederate politician)
    Duncan Farrar Kenner, a prosperous Louisiana sugar planter and Thoroughbred horse breeder, represented his state in the Confederate House of Representatives throughout the war. As the conflict dragged on, he became increasingly convinced that the South could not win without English and French recognition of the legitimacy of the Confederate government....
  • Kenner mission (Confederate history)
    in U.S. history, secret attempt on the part of the Confederacy in 1864 to elicit European recognition in exchange for Southern abolition of slavery....
  • Kenner, William Hugh (Canadian-American literary critic)
    Canadian-American literary critic (b. Jan. 7, 1923, Peterborough, Ont.—d. Nov. 24, 2003, Athens, Ga.), was a leading interpreter of American poet Ezra Pound and of Modernism in general. He was probably best known for his volume The Pound Era (1971), though his interests and book topics ranged widely—from geodesic math to cartoonist Chuck Jones and engineer and architect R. Buc...
  • Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park (park, Georgia, United States)
    ...Civil War a major battle was fought at Kennesaw Mountain (June 27, 1864), just west of Marietta. The city was subsequently occupied by Union troops, who burned the city as they departed in November. Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, established in 1917 and occupying 4.5 square miles (11.7 square km), preserves the site, and thousands of soldiers are buried in the Marietta National an...
  • Kennet (district, England, United Kingdom)
    district, administrative and historic county of Wiltshire, southern England, in the east-central part of the county, about midway between Bristol and London. Kennet is a rural district of rolling chalk uplands, including Marlborough Downs (about 400 to 950 feet [120 to 290 metres] high) in the north and northeast and the Salisbury Plain (nearly as high) in the south and southeas...
  • Kennet Avenue (ancient structure, Avebury, England, United Kingdom)
    East of the entrance causeway, excavations have revealed a socket for a large timber post, and on either side there are additional stone holes. These suggest a continuation of a route called the Kennet Avenue (or West Kennet Avenue) into the interior of the great circle. The Kennet Avenue originally consisted of stones 80 feet (25 metres) apart, arranged in pairs (according to their shapes)......
  • Kenneth I (king of Scots and Picts)
    first king of the united Scots of Dalriada and the Picts and so of Scotland north of a line between the Forth and Clyde rivers....
  • Kenneth II (king of Scots and Picts)
    king of the united Picts and Scots (from 971), son of Malcolm I....
  • Kenneth III (king of Scots)
    king of the Scots (from 997), son of Dub and grandson of Malcolm I. He succeeded to the throne perhaps after killing his cousin Constantine III (reigned 995–997); he was himself killed at Monzievaird by Malcolm (son of Kenneth II), who became Malcolm II. Gruoch, wife of the future King Macbeth, was apparently a granddaughter of Kenneth III....
  • Kenneth Kaunda Foundation (organization, Zambia)
    The Zambia Publishing House (formerly the Kenneth Kaunda Foundation) is a government-backed publisher of the works of Zambian authors and school textbooks. The few other publishers are mainly church-supported. Zambian scholars have contributed to knowledge in a wide range of disciplines, often in locally published academic journals, though opportunities for research have been restricted in......
  • Kenneth, Saint (Irish abbot)
    Irish abbot, monastic founder, and missionary who contributed to the conversion of the Picts. He is one of the most popular Celtic saints in Scotland (where he is called Kenneth) and in Ireland (where he is called Canice) and patron saint of the diocese of Ossory in Ireland....
  • Kennett, Jeff (Australian politician)
    In the early 1990s the state’s economy began a gradual recovery. The election of 1992 brought in a coalition government led by Jeff Kennett that almost immediately began implementing a liberalizing agenda. Publicly owned trains, trams, and buses were leased to private operators; the government-operated Gas and Fuel Corporation of Victoria was dismantled; and the state-owned electricity comp...
  • Kennewick (Washington, United States)
    city, Benton county, southeastern Washington, U.S. It lies along the Columbia River, opposite Pasco and immediately southeast of Richland. Laid out in 1892 by the Northern Pacific Irrigation Company, Kennewick is surrounded by farm country producing alfalfa, corn (maize), beans, sugar beets, grapes, and cherries. Hydroelectric dams on the Co...
  • Kennewick Man (prehistoric human)
    This issue reached a crisis point with the 1996 discovery of skeletal remains near the town of Kennewick, Wash. Subsequently known as Kennewick Man (among scientists) or the Ancient One (among repatriation activists), this person most probably lived sometime between about 9,000 and 9,500 years ago, certainly before 5,600–6,000 years ago. A number of tribes and a number of scientists laid......
  • Kenney, Annie (British suffragist)
    ...the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), which she founded in 1903 in Manchester. The union first attracted wide attention on Oct. 13, 1905, when two of its members, Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney, thrown out of a Liberal Party meeting for demanding a statement about votes for women, were arrested in the street for a technical assault on the police and, after having refused ...
  • Kenney Dam (dam, Canada)
    major tributary of the Fraser River, in central British Columbia, Canada. It originates at Kenney Dam and flows eastward for nearly 150 miles (240 km), draining the Nechako Plateau into the Fraser at Prince George, B.C. Stuart River, a 258-mile- (415-kilometre-) long tributary, joins the Nechako midway between Fort Fraser and Prince George, a stretch that is paralleled by the Canadian National......
  • Kenney, Mary (American labour leader)
    American labour leader and reformer who devoted her energies to improving conditions for factory workers in many industries through union organizing....
  • kenning (medieval literature)
    concise compound or figurative phrase replacing a common noun, especially in Old Germanic, Old Norse, and Old English poetry. A kenning is commonly a simple stock compound such as “whale-path” or “swan road” for “sea,” “God’s beacon” for “sun,” or “ring-giver” for “king.”...
  • Kennst du das Land (work by Wolf)
    ...late 16th and early 17th centuries), most successful songs incorporate either or both of these considerations into a melodic line that is satisfying because of musical qualities as well. Hugo Wolf’s “Kennst du das Land” (“Do You Know the Land”) faithfully reflects the iambic feet (˘′) of Goethe’s poem, but this prosodic awareness is combin...
  • Kenny, Saint (Irish abbot)
    Irish abbot, monastic founder, and missionary who contributed to the conversion of the Picts. He is one of the most popular Celtic saints in Scotland (where he is called Kenneth) and in Ireland (where he is called Canice) and patron saint of the diocese of Ossory in Ireland....
  • keno (gambling game)
    gambling game played with cards (tickets) bearing numbers in squares, usually from 1 to 80. A player marks or circles as many of these numbers as he wishes up to the permitted maximum, after which he hands in, or registers, his ticket and pays according to how many numbers he selected. At regular daily intervals a total of 20 numbered balls or pellets are randomly drawn from a container, and prize...
  • kenon (philosophy)
    ...cosmological doctrines were an elaborated and systematized version of those of his teacher, Leucippus. To account for the world’s changing physical phenomena, Democritus asserted that space, or the Void, had an equal right with reality, or Being, to be considered existent. He conceived of the Void as a vacuum, an infinite space in which moved an infinite number of atoms that made up Bein...
  • Kenora (Ontario, Canada)
    town, Kenora district, northwestern Ontario, Canada. It lies along the Lake of the Woods, 300 miles (480 km) northwest of Thunder Bay. The Hudson’s Bay Company built a trading post on Old Fort Island (1790), and lumbering in the locality was followed by a gold-mining boom (1890–91). The settlement was incorporated as a Manitoba...
  • Kenoran orogeny (geology)
    a Precambrian thermal event on the Canadian Shield that occurred 2.5 billion years ago (± 150 million years). Rocks affected by the Kenoran event represent some of the oldest rocks in North America and occur in the Superior Province surrounding Hudson Bay on the south and east, the Slave Province in northwestern Canada, and the small Eastern Nain Province on the northeas...
  • Kenosha (Wisconsin, United States)
    city, seat (1850) of Kenosha county, southeastern Wisconsin, U.S. It lies along Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Pike River, just north of the Illinois state line. Founded in 1835 by settlers from New York, it was first called Pike Creek, then was called Southport for its importance as a shipping centre, and in 1850 was renamed Kenosha, derived from the ...
  • kenotron (electronics)
    This discovery provided impetus for the development of electron tubes, including an improved X-ray tube by the American engineer William D. Coolidge and Fleming’s thermionic valve (a two-electrode vacuum tube) for use in radio receivers. The detection of a radio signal, which is a very high-frequency alternating current (AC), requires that the signal be rectified; i.e., the alternating curr...
  • Kenroku Garden (garden, Kanazawa, Japan)
    ...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 atmosphere of traditional Japan. Kenroku-en, formerly their garden, is an excellent example of Japanese landscape gardening. Manufacturing developed from Kanazawa’s luxury industries of fine lacquer and Kutani ware porcelain....
  • Kenroku-en (garden, Kanazawa, Japan)
    ...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 atmosphere of traditional Japan. Kenroku-en, formerly their garden, is an excellent example of Japanese landscape gardening. Manufacturing developed from Kanazawa’s luxury industries of fine lacquer and Kutani ware porcelain....
  • Kenseikai (political party, Japan)
    ...opposed the idea of political parties, during his third premiership (December 1912 to February 1913) he tried to counter Seiyūkai control of the Diet (parliament) by forming his own party. His Rikken Dōshikai was at first unsuccessful but eventually became one of the two major political groups in pre-World War II Japan. Katsura’s third premiership lasted only seven weeks (D...
  • Kenseitō (political party, Japan)
    ...house. These arrangements proved unsatisfactory, however, when party leaders raised their sights. In 1898 Itagaki and Ōkuma combined forces to form a single party, the Constitutional Party (Kenseitō), and were allowed to form a government. But their alliance was brittle as long-standing animosities and jealousies enabled antiparty forces among the bureaucracy and oligarchy to......
  • Kensett, John Frederick (American painter)
    American landscape painter, the leader of the second generation of the Hudson River school artists....
  • Kenshin Daishi (Japanese Buddhist philosopher)
    Buddhist teacher recognized as the founder of the Jōdo Shinshū (True Pure Land School), which advocates that faith, recitation of the name of the buddha Amida (Amitabha), and birth in the paradise of the Pure Land. For centuries Jōdo Shinshū has been one of the largest schools of Buddhism in Japan. During his life...
  • Kensington (Connecticut, United States)
    town (township), Hartford county, central Connecticut, U.S., on the Mattabesset River, just southeast of New Britain. It includes the villages of East Berlin and Kensington. The first white settler was Richard Beckley of New Haven, who established Beckley’s Quarter in 1660. Formerly called Kensington, the area was incorporated as a to...
  • Kensington and Chelsea (royal borough, London, United Kingdom)
    royal borough in inner London, part of the historic county of Middlesex, on the north bank of the River Thames west of the City of Westminster. The borough of Kensington and Chelsea forms part of London’s fashionable West End district; it is predominantly residential in characte...
  • Kensington Gardens (park, London, United Kingdom)
    park lying almost completely within the borough of Westminster, London; a small portion is in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It covers an area of 275 acres (111 hectares) and is bordered by the grounds of Kensington Palace (west), Bayswater (north), South Kensington (south), and Hyde Park (east)....
  • Kensington Glass Works (factory, Pennsylvania, United States)
    ...in the country. Among his better-selling products were Infallible Worm Destroying Lozenges and Vegetable Nervous Cordial. As his medicines required many bottles, in 1833 he purchased the Kensington (Pennsylvania) Glass Works, where he employed 400 workers. Here he found an outlet for his Utopian ambitions. No liquor was permitted in Dyottville, or “Temperanceville,” as......
  • Kensington Oval (cricket ground, Bridgetown, Barbados)
    ...to replace a building destroyed in a hurricane of 1780. The General’s House in Queen’s Park, northeast of the cathedral, is now used as a theatre and art gallery. Northwest of the cathedral is Kensington Oval, a historic cricket ground (1871; original structure demolished and rebuilt 2005–07) that has hosted international matches since 1895, including the International Cric...
  • Kensington Palace (palace, London, United Kingdom)
    royal palace in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Its grounds border the extensive Kensington Gardens to the east....
  • Kensington Stone (Scandinavian artifact)
    supposed relic of a 14th-century Scandinavian exploration of the interior of North America. Most scholars deem it a forgery, claiming linguistically that the carved writing on it is many years out of style; a few scholars, notably Robert A. Hall, Jr., former professor at Cornell University, have argued for its probable authenticity. A 200-pound (90-kilogram) slab of graywacke inscribed with runes...
  • Kent (county, Maryland, United States)
    county, northeastern Maryland, U.S. It consists of a coastal plain bordered by the Sassafras River to the north, Delaware to the east, the Chester River to the south, and Chesapeake Bay to the west. The county, named for Kent, Eng., dates to 1642. Chestertown, the county seat, contains Washington College (founded 1782), one of the oldest colleges in the United...
  • Kent (county, Delaware, United States)
    ...the Middle Atlantic seaboard. It is the second smallest state in the country and one of the most densely populated. The state is organized into three counties—from north to south, New Castle, Kent, and Sussex—all established by 1682. Its population, like its industry, is concentrated in the north, around Wilmington, where the major coastal highways and railways pass through from.....
  • Kent (county, Rhode Island, United States)
    county, west-central Rhode Island, U.S., lying between Connecticut to the west and Narragansett Bay to the east. The Pawtuxet River flows through the county’s northeastern corner. The county was created in 1750 and named for Kent, Eng. There is no county seat, but the principal towns are Coventry, West Warwick, and East Greenwich. Pri...
  • Kent (ancient kingdom, England)
    one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, probably geographically coterminous with the modern county, famous as the site of the first landing of Anglo-Saxon settlers in Britain, as the kingdom that received the first Roman mission to the Anglo-Saxons, and for its distinctive social and administrative customs....
  • Kent (Ohio, United States)
    city, Portage county, northeastern Ohio, U.S., on the Cuyahoga River, immediately northeast of Akron. The site was first settled in about 1805 by John and Jacob Haymaker and was called Riedsburg. It was later named Franklin Mills, and when incorporated as a village in 1867 it was renamed for Marvin Kent, a promoter of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad (later Erie Lackawann...
  • Kent (county, England, United Kingdom)
    administrative, geographic, and historic county of England, lying along the English Channel at the southeastern extremity of Great Britain. A line of chalk hills (the North Downs) running from west to east forms the spine of the county; north of the ridge the land falls to the marshy and low-lying shore of the Thames Estuary, while to the south there is an area of clays and sand...
  • Kent and Strathern, Edward Augustus, duke of, earl of Dublin (British military officer)
    fourth son of King George III of Great Britain, father of Queen Victoria....
  • Kent at Canterbury, University of (university, Canterbury, England, United Kingdom)
    fourth son of King George III of Great Britain, father of Queen Victoria.......
  • Kent, Clark (fictional character)
    20th-century American comic-strip superhero who first appeared in Action Comics in June 1938 and in a newspaper strip in January of the following year; both were written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joseph Shuster. Superman, the “man of steel,” later became the protagonist of a radio show, animated-film cartoons, a novel, a Broadway musica...
  • Kent, Earl of (Norman noble)
    half brother of William the Conqueror and bishop of Bayeux, Normandy. He probably commissioned the famed Bayeux tapestry, which pictures the Norman Conquest of England, for the dedication of his cathedral (1077)....
  • Kent, Edmund Plantagenet, 1st earl of (English noble)
    youngest brother of England’s King Edward II, whom he supported to the forfeit of his own life....
  • Kent, Hannah (American social worker and reformer)
    American welfare worker and reformer who was influential in state and national child welfare and juvenile criminal legislation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
  • Kent, James (American jurist)
    jurist whose decisions and written commentaries shaped the inchoate common law in the formative years of the United States and also influenced jurisprudence in England and other common-law countries. As chancellor of the New York Court of Chancery (1814–23), he is said to have made equity jurisprudence effective for the first time in U.S. legal history....
  • Kent, Joan of (English heretic)
    English Anabaptist burned at the stake for heresy during the reign of the Protestant Edward VI....
  • Kent, Mary Louisa Victoria, duchess of (British duchess)
    Victoria, by her own account, “was brought up very simply,” principally at Kensington Palace, where her closest companions, other than her German-born mother, the Duchess of Kent, were her half sister, Féodore, and her governess, Louise (afterward the Baroness) Lehzen, a native of Coburg. An important father figure to the orphaned princess was her uncle Leopold, her mother...
  • Kent Normal School (university, Kent, Ohio, United States)
    public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Kent, Ohio, U.S. A larger Kent State University system comprises the main campus in Kent, branch campuses in Ashtabula and East Liverpool, and two-year colleges in Salem and in Geauga, Stark, Trumbull, and Tuscarawas counties. The university consists of colleges of arts and sciences, business administration, education, fine...
  • Kent, Rockwell (American painter)
    painter and illustrator whose works, though never radically innovative, represented scenes of nature and adventure with such vividness and drama that he became one of the most popular U.S. artists of the first half of the 20th century. Kent studied architecture at Columbia University but turned to painting and was a pupil of William M. Chase, Robert Henri, and Abbott Thayer. His early works, mostl...
  • Kent State University (university, Kent, Ohio, United States)
    public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Kent, Ohio, U.S. A larger Kent State University system comprises the main campus in Kent, branch campuses in Ashtabula and East Liverpool, and two-year colleges in Salem and in Geauga, Stark, Trumbull, and Tuscarawas counties. The university consists of colleges of arts and sciences, business administration, education, fine...
  • Kent, Thomas Holland, 3rd Earl of (English noble)
    prominent English noble in the reign of Richard II....
  • Kent, William (British architect)
    English architect, interior designer, landscape gardener, and painter, a principal master of the Palladian architectural style in England and pioneer in the creation of the “informal” English garden....
  • Kentau (Kazakstan)
    city, south-central Kazakhstan, on the slopes of the Qarataū Range. Formed in 1955 from several settlements, Kentau (Kazak: “Ore Mountains”) is a rapidly growing mining city with a plant for enriching polymetallic ores and reinforced concrete (ferroconcrete), transformer, and excavator works. The city is linked by road to the Turkestan railway station on the Tashkent–Or...
  • Kentaū (Kazakstan)
    city, south-central Kazakhstan, on the slopes of the Qarataū Range. Formed in 1955 from several settlements, Kentau (Kazak: “Ore Mountains”) is a rapidly growing mining city with a plant for enriching polymetallic ores and reinforced concrete (ferroconcrete), transformer, and excavator works. The city is linked by road to the Turkestan railway station on the Tashkent–Or...
  • kentauromachia (Greek mythology)
    ...only over the east and west fronts and the east ends of the sides. The eastern frieze represents a battle scene with seated deities on either hand, the western one a kentauromachia (battle of centaurs). The temple is of Pentelic marble—except for the foundation and the lowest stylobate step, which are of Piraic stone, and the frieze of the......
  • Kentauros (Greek mythology)
    in Greek mythology, a race of creatures, part horse and part man, dwelling in the mountains of Thessaly and Arcadia. Traditionally they were the offspring of Ixion, king of the neighbouring Lapiths, and were best known for their fight (centauromachy) with the Lapiths, which resulted from their attempt to carry off the bride of Pirithous, son...
  • Kente, Gibson (South African playwright)
    South African playwright (b. July 23, 1932, East London, S.Af.—d. Nov. 7, 2004, Soweto, S.Af.), introduced musical theatre to the impoverished townships of South Africa. Considered the founding father of black township theatre, he was responsible for helping to launch the careers of other South African entertainers such as Brenda Fassie (q.v.). Through his plays Ke...
  • Kentia (plant)
    Because of their majestic beauty and distinctive decorative appeal many palms are grown indoors. Best known of the feather palms is the paradise palm (Howea, or Kentia), which combines grace with sturdiness; its thick, leathery leaves can stand much abuse. The parlour palms and bamboo palms of the genus Chamaedorea have dainty fronds on slender stalks; they keep well even......
  • Kentigern, Saint (Christian missionary)
    abbot and early Christian missionary, traditionally the first bishop of Glasgow and the evangelist of the ancient Celtic kingdom of Cumbria in southwestern Scotland. Little else is known about him except from late, dubious hagiographies....
  • K’enting National Park (park, Taiwan)
    ...and has one of the largest experimental forests in Southeast Asia. A 126-square-mile (326-square-kilometre) area in the Heng-ch’un Peninsula was designated in 1982 as Taiwan’s first national park (K’enting National Park) and includes the largest forest vacation area in southern Taiwan. The Haucha model aborigine village is at Wu-t’ai. The San-ti-men Bridge on the Wu-...

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