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c35ed15cc48893c98363226caa137e22 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/JPMorgan-Chase-and-Co | JPMorgan Chase & Co. | JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPMorgan Chase & Co., formerly J.P. Morgan and Company, Inc., American banking and financial services company formed through the December 2000 merger of J.P. Morgan & Co. and The Chase Manhattan Corporation. It is headquartered in New York City.
The Morgan branch of the corporation traces its history to J.P. Morgan and Company, Inc. (established 1895), and Guaranty Trust Company of New York (1864), which merged in 1959. The bank was renamed Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. in 1969. In 1989 Morgan became a leading U.S. underwriter of corporate debt, and by the end of the 20th century it had become one of the world’s most-respected investment banking houses. See also J.P. Morgan; J.P. Morgan, Jr.
In the early 21st century the new firm combined Chase Manhattan’s experience in personal and small-business banking with J.P. Morgan’s background in investment banking, government securities, and commercial banking. Bank One of Chicago merged with JPMorgan Chase in 2004. Most of Bank One’s operations assumed the Chase brand name. In 2008 JPMorgan Chase suffered billions of dollars in losses during the subprime mortgage crisis, a severe contraction of liquidity in credit markets worldwide brought about by the steep devaluation of mortgage-backed securities. In late 2008 the U.S. government invested $25 billion in JPMorgan Chase under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, a law designed to prevent the crisis from causing further damage to the U.S. financial system (the money was repaid in June 2009). In September 2008 the federal government seized the bank holding company Washington Mutual, Inc., and sold its banking assets to JPMorgan Chase. In May 2012 JPMorgan Chase announced that an investment unit of the bank had lost some $2 billion through a complex series of trades in derivatives, including credit-default swaps (CDSs).
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2438e05dcc6d8cd4d776f845946e86e2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jubilee-Diamond | Jubilee diamond | Jubilee diamond
Jubilee diamond, flawless, clear white diamond weighing almost 651 carats in rough form, as it was found in the Jaegersfontein mine in South Africa in 1895. It was faceted into a cushion brilliant of about 245 carats in 1897, the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, from which it takes its name.
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0ef3549fd06eba3733b8d935f8e92adc | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Juchen | Juchen | Juchen
…destroyed in 1125 by the Juchen (Chinese: Nüzhen, or Ruzhen) tribes, who had formerly been subjects of the Khitan and who rose in rebellion against them with the aid of the Song. The Juchen went on to defeat the Song and, as the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), establish rule over North…
…1626), chieftain of the Jianzhou Juchen, a Manchurian tribe, and one of the founders of the Manchu, or Qing, dynasty. His first attack on China (1618) presaged his son Dorgon’s conquest of the Chinese empire.
…formed an alliance with the Juchen (Chinese: Nüzhen, or Ruzhen) tribes of Manchuria (now the Northeast region of China). The resulting victory over the Liao was wholly illusory, since it was the Juchen who turned out to be the real menace. In mounting crisis, Huizong abdicated in 1125/26 in favour…
…the 10th century ad as Juchen (Nüzhen in Pinyin). These Juchen established a kingdom of some extent and importance in Manchuria, and by ad 1115 their dynasty (called Jin in Chinese records) had secured control over northeastern China. The kingdom was annihilated by the Mongols in 1234, and the surviving…
…of an invasion by the Juchen tribes. The invasion was halted when the Chinese agreed to a large cession of territory and a huge indemnity, but the Juchen renewed their attack two years later, capturing the capital and taking the Qinzong emperor and his father prisoner. Qinzong’s brother, Zhao Gou,…
The Liao were eventually overthrown by the Juchen (Pinyin: Nüchen), another seminomadic and semipastoral people who originated in Manchuria, swept across northern China, ended the Bei Song, and established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234). This new and much larger empire in northern China followed the…
…the mid-12th century, when the Juchen, a Tungus people from eastern Manchuria, defeated the Liao and established the state of Jin, the Liao capital was rebuilt as the new Jin capital and renamed Zhongdu (“Central Capital”). Zhongdu under the rule of the Juchen was constructed on a larger scale, with…
…among these rebels were the Juchen tribes, a group of Tungus peoples who lived beyond the Liao frontier but were in a tributary relationship to the Liao court.
…1911/12, were descendants of the Juchen (Nüzhen) tribes who had ruled northern China as the Jin dynasty in the 12th century. From the 15th century they had paid tribute to the Ming and were organized under the commandery system, so they had long had extensive and regular contact with the…
…South China when the nomadic Juchen tribesmen overran North China and captured Gaozong’s father, the abdicated Bei (Northern) Song emperor Huizong (reigned 1100–1125/26), and Gaozong’s brother, the emperor Qinzong (1125/26–27). Gaozong reestablished the dynasty in the South with greatly reduced territory in 1127. The Juchen had pursued him, but the…
…allied itself with the expanding Juchen from Manchuria, and made a concerted attack on the Liao. The Song commander, contrary to long-held prohibition, was a favoured eunuch; under him and other unworthy generals, military expenditures ran high, but army morale was low. The fall of Liao was cause for court…
When in 1114 the Juchen Tatars in the far northwest revolted against the Khitan, the Chinese army helped the rebels destroy their old enemy. The Juchen then turned on the Song: they invaded China, besieged the capital in 1126, and took as prisoner the emperor Qinzong, the emperor emeritus…
…the Jin state of the Juchen in northern China. At that time the situation of Jin was precarious. The Juchen were exhausted by a costly war (1206–08) against their hereditary enemies, the Nan (Southern) Song. Discontent among the non-Juchen elements of the Jin population (Chinese and Khitan) had increased, and…
…they were ousted by the Juchen, also originating in Manchuria, who founded the Jin (Juchen) dynasty (1115–1234) of northern China, which was in turn replaced by that of yet another Altaic people, the Mongols. Cathay, an early Western denomination of China, derives from the name Khitan (Khitai). The spread of…
…successors in northern China, the Juchen, set up a command structure on bureaucratic principles. The Juchen rulers divided their army into tens, hundreds, and thousands and put appointed officers over each unit. Consequently, among the Juchen, hereditary tribal standing did not necessarily coincide with ascribed military rank. For a brave…
…over and extended by the Juchen (Jürched), a Tungus people based farther north in northeastern China. They took the Chinese name of Jin (“Golden”). In their tribal policy they switched their favour from “All the Mongols” to the Tatars (known in the West as Tartars, from a medieval pun on…
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d151abd7bad7467ee90ceecf0b826219 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Judaism/Basic-beliefs-and-doctrines | Basic beliefs and doctrines | Basic beliefs and doctrines
Judaism is more than an abstract intellectual system, though there have been many efforts to view it systematically. It affirms divine sovereignty disclosed in creation (nature) and in history, without necessarily insisting upon—but at the same time not rejecting—metaphysical speculation about the divine. It insists that the community has been confronted by the divine not as an abstraction but as a person with whom the community and its members have entered into a relationship. It is, as the concept of Torah indicates, a program of human action, rooted in this personal confrontation. Further, the response of this particular people to its encounter with God is viewed as significant for all humankind. The community is called upon to express its loyalty to God and the covenant by exhibiting solidarity within its corporate life on every level, including every aspect of human behaviour, from the most public to the most private. Thus, even Jewish worship is a communal celebration of the meetings with God in history and in nature. Yet the particular existence of the covenant people is thought of not as contradicting but rather as enhancing human solidarity. This people, together with all humanity, is called upon to institute political, economic, and social forms that will affirm divine sovereignty. This task is carried out in the belief not that humans will succeed in these endeavours solely by their own efforts but that these sought-after human relationships have their source and their goal in God, who assures their actualization. Within the community, each Jew is called upon to realize the covenant in his or her personal intention and behaviour.
In considering the basic affirmations of Judaism from this point of view, it is best to allow indigenous formulations rather than systematic statements borrowed from other traditions to govern the presentation.
An early statement of basic beliefs and doctrines about God emerged in the liturgy of the synagogue some time during the last pre-Christian and first Christian centuries; there is some evidence to suggest that such formulations were not absent from the Temple cult that came to an end in the year 70 ce. A section of the siddur that focuses on the recitation of a series of biblical passages (Deuteronomy 6:4–9; Deuteronomy 11:13–21; Numbers 15:37–41) is named for the first of these, Shema (“Hear”): “Hear, O Israel! the Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (or “…the Lord our God, the Lord is one”). In the Shema—often regarded as the Jewish confession of faith, or creed—the biblical material and accompanying benedictions are arranged to provide a statement about God’s relationship with the world and Israel (the Jewish people), as well as about Israel’s obligations toward and response to God. In this statement, God—the creator of the universe who has chosen Israel in love (“Blessed art thou, O Lord, who has chosen thy people Israel in love”) and showed this love by the giving of Torah—is declared to be “one.” His love is to be reciprocated by those who lovingly obey Torah and whose obedience is rewarded and rebellion punished. The goal of this obedience is God’s “redemption” of Israel, a role foreshadowed by his action in bringing Israel out of Egypt.
At the centre of this liturgical formulation of belief is the concept of divine singularity and uniqueness. In its original setting, it may have served as the theological statement of the reform under Josiah, king of Judah, in the 7th century bce, when worship was centred exclusively in Jerusalem and all other cultic centres were rejected, so that the existence of one shrine only was understood as affirming one deity. The idea acquired further meaning, however. It was understood toward the end of the pre-Christian era to proclaim the unity of divine love and divine justice, as expressed in the divine names YHWH and Elohim, respectively. A further expansion of this affirmation is found in the first two benedictions of this liturgical section, which together proclaim that the God who is the creator of the universe and the God who is Israel’s ruler and lawgiver are one and the same—as opposed to the dualistic religious positions of the Greco-Roman world, which insisted that the creator God and the lawgiver God are separate and even inimical. This affirmation was developed in philosophical and mystical terms by both medieval and modern thinkers.
This “creed,” or “confession of faith,” underscores in the first benediction the relation of God to the world as that of creator to creation. “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who forms light and creates darkness, who makes peace and creates all things.” It adds the assertion that his activity is not in the past but is ongoing and continuous, for “he makes new continually, each day, the work of creation”; thus, unlike the deity of the Stoic worldview, he remains actively present in nature (see Stoicism). This creed also addresses the ever-present problem of theodicy (see also evil, problem of). Paraphrasing Isaiah 45:7, “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil,” it changes the last word to “all” (or “all things”). The change was clearly made to avoid the implication that God is the source of moral evil. Judaism, however, did not ignore the problem of pain and suffering in the world; it affirmed the paradox of suffering and divine sovereignty, of pain and divine providence, refusing to accept the concept of a God that is Lord over only the harmonious and pleasant aspects of reality.
The second and the third benedictions deal with divine activity within the realm of history and human life. God is the teacher of all humanity; he has chosen the people of Israel in love to witness to his presence and his desire for a perfected society; he will, as redeemer, enable humanity to experience that perfection. These activities, together with creation itself, are understood to express divine compassion and kindness as well as justice (judgment), recognizing the sometimes paradoxical relation between them. Taken together, they disclose Divine Providence—God’s continual activity in the world. The constant renewal of creation (nature) is itself an act of compassion overriding strict justice and affording humankind further opportunity to fulfill the divinely appointed obligation.
The basically moral nature of God is asserted in the second of the biblical passages that form the core of this liturgical statement (Deuteronomy 11:13–21). Here, in the language of its agricultural setting, the community is promised reward for obedience and punishment for disobedience. The intention of the passage is clear: obedience is rewarded by the preservation of order, so that the community and its members find wholeness in life; while disobedience—rebellion against divine sovereignty—shatters order, so that the community is overwhelmed by adversity. The passage of time has made the original language unsatisfactory (promising rain, crops, and fat cattle), but the basic principle remains, affirming that, however difficult it is to recognize the fact, there is a divine law and judge. Support for this affirmation is drawn from the third biblical passage (Numbers 15:37–41), which explains that the fringes the Israelites are commanded to wear on the corners of their garments are reminders to observe the commandments of God, who brought forth Israel from Egyptian bondage. The theme of divine redemption is elaborated in the concluding benediction to point toward a future in which the as-yet-fragmentary rule of God will be brought to completion: “Blessed is his name whose glorious kingdom is for ever and ever.”
Within this complex of ideas, other themes are interwoven. In the concept of the divine creator there is a somewhat impersonal or remote quality—of a power above and apart from the world—which is emphasized by expressions such as the trifold declaration of God’s holiness, or divine otherness, in Isaiah 6:3: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts….” The development of surrogate divine names for biblical usage, as well as the substitution of Adonai (“my Lord”) for the tetragrammaton (YHWH) in the reading of the Bible itself, suggests an acute awareness of the otherness of God. Yet the belief in the transcendence of God is mirrored by the affirmation of God’s immanence. In the biblical narrative it is God himself who is the directly active participant in events, an idea that is emphasized in the liturgical narrative (Haggada; “Storytelling”) recited during the Passover meal (seder): “and the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt—not by an angel, and not by a seraph, and not by a messenger….” The surrogate divine name Shekhina, “Presence” (i.e., the presence of God in the world), is derived from a Hebrew root meaning “to dwell,” again calling attention to divine nearness. The relationship between these two affirmations, otherness and nearness, is expressed in a Midrashic statement, “in every place that divine awesome majesty is mentioned in Scripture, divine abasement is spoken of, too.”
Closely connected with these ideas is the concept of divine personhood, most particularly illustrated in the use of the pronoun “thou” in direct address to God. The community and the individual, confronted by the creator, teacher, and redeemer, address the divine as a living person, not as a theological abstraction. The basic liturgical form, the berakha (“blessing”), is usually couched in the second person singular: “Blessed art thou….” This relationship, through which remoteness is overcome and presentness is established, illuminates creation, Torah, and redemption, for it reveals the meaning of love. From it flow the various possibilities of expressing the divine-human relationship in personal, intimate language. Sometimes, especially in mystical thought, such language becomes extravagant, foreshadowed by vivid biblical metaphors such as the husband-wife relation in Hosea, the “adoption” motif in Ezekiel 16, and the firstborn-son relation in Exodus 4:22. Nonetheless, although terms of personal intimacy are used widely to express Israel’s relationship with God, such usage is restrained by the accompanying sense of divine otherness. This is evident in the liturgical “blessings,” where, following the direct address to God in which the second person singular pronoun is used, the verbs are with great regularity in the third person singular, thus providing the requisite tension between nearness and otherness, between the personal and the impersonal.
The Judaic affirmations about God have not always been given the same emphasis, nor have they been understood in the same way. This was true in the Middle Ages, among both philosophers and mystics, as well as in modern times. In the 19th century, western European Jewish thinkers attempted to express and transform these affirmations in terms of German philosophical idealism. Later thinkers turned to philosophical naturalism, supplemented with the traditional God language, as the suitable expression of Judaism. In the first half of the 20th century the meaningfulness of the whole body of such affirmations was called into question by the philosophical school of logical positivism. The destruction of six million Jews in the Holocaust raised the issue of the validity of concepts such as God’s presence in history, divine redemption, the covenant, and the chosen people.
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da226243b6f3c4ea3df797478cb599b9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Judaism/Myth-and-legend-in-the-medieval-period | Myth and legend in the medieval period | Myth and legend in the medieval period
The Middle Ages was a singularly productive period in the history of Jewish myth and legend. Medieval Jews played a prominent role in the transmission of Middle Eastern and Asian tales to the West and enhanced their own repertoire with a goodly amount of secular material. Especially in Spain and Italy, Arabic versions of standard collections of folktales were translated into Hebrew and then into Latin, thus enabling the stories to spread to the Christian world. The Indian collection of animal tales known as The Fables of Bidpai (Sanskrit: Panca-tantra), for example, was rendered into Hebrew from the 8th-century Arabic version of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Muqaffaʿ; and, in the 12th century, John of Capua’s Directorium humanae vitae (“Guide for Human Life”), one of the most celebrated repositories of moralistic tales (exempla) used by Christian preachers, was developed from this Hebrew translation. So too the famous Senbād-nāmeh (“Fables of Sinbad”)—one of the sources, incidentally, of Boccaccio’s Decameron—was rendered from Arabic into Hebrew and then into Latin. The renowned romance of Barlaam and Josaphat—a Christian adaptation of tales about the Buddha—found its Jewish counterpart in a compilation titled The Prince and the Dervish, adapted from an Arabic text by Abraham ben Samuel ibn Ḥisdai, a leader of Spanish Jewry in the 13th century.
Hebrew translations were also made from Latin and other European languages. There are several Hebrew adaptations of the Alexander Romance, based mainly (though not exclusively) on a Latin rendering of the Greek original by Callisthenes (c. 360–327 bce). The central theme is the exploits of Alexander the Great, and the narrative includes fanciful accounts of his adventures in foreign lands and of the outlandish peoples he encounters. There is a Hebrew reworking of the Arthurian legend, in the form of a secular sermon in which Arthurian and biblical scenes are blithely mixed together. Finally, there is a Hebrew Ysopet (the common title for a medieval version of Aesop) that shares several of its fables with the famous collection made by Marie de France in the late 12th century.
Apart from these Hebrew translations of Arabic and European works, a good deal of earlier Haggadic material is embodied in the Disciplina clericalis of Peter Alfonsi (died after 1122), a baptized Jew of Aragon originally known as Moses Sephardi. This book is the oldest European collection of novellas; it served as a primary source for the celebrated Gesta Romanorum (“Deeds of the Romans”) of the same period—itself a major source for European storytellers, poets, and dramatists for many centuries.
Haggadic material was also absorbed by Arabic writers during this period. Not only does the Qurʾān incorporate such material, but the Egyptian recension of The Thousand and One Nights seems to have drawn extensively on Jewish sources. Its tales of The Sultan and His Three Sons, The Angel of Death, Alexander and the Pious Man, and the legend of Baliqiyah most likely come from a Jewish source.
From the 11th to the 13th century, comprehensive collections of tales and fables were compiled in Europe, both for entertainment and edification; standard examples are the Spanish El novellino and the aforementioned Disciplina clericalis and Gesta Romanorum. Jews, especially in Morocco and in Islamic Spain, produced similar collections. Two of the most important were The Book of Comfort by Nissim ben Jacob ben Nissim of Al-Qayrawān (11th century) and The Book of Delight by Joseph ben Meir ibn Zabara of Spain (end of the 12th century). The former, composed in Judeo-Arabic, is a collection of some 60 moralizing tales designed to comfort the author’s father-in-law on the loss of a son. Belonging to a well-known genre of Arabic literature and derived mainly from Arabic sources, it is permeated by a preoccupation with divine justice, which was typical of the Muʿtazilite school of Islamic theology. It was later translated into Hebrew. The Book of Delight consists of 15 tales, largely about the wiles of women, exchanged between two travelling companions—a form of cadre, or “enclosing tale,” later adopted on a more extensive scale in the 14th century in the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer (c. 1342–1400). Typical is the tale of The Silversmith and His Wife, which relates how a craftsman, persuaded by his greedy wife to make a statue of a princess, gets his hands cut off by the king for violating the Islamic law against making images, while his wife reaps rich rewards from the flattered princess. Although most of the stories are taken from Arabic sources, some have parallels in rabbinic literature—including the famous tale of the matron of Ephesus, who, while keeping vigil over her husband’s tomb, makes love with a guard posted nearby to watch over the corpses of certain crucified robbers. When, during one of their trysts, one of the corpses is stolen and her lover therefore faces punishment, the shrewd woman exhumes the body of her husband and substitutes it. This tale is found already in the Satyricon of Petronius (died 66 ce) and was later used by Voltaire (1694–1778) in his Zadig and by the 20th-century English playwright Christopher Fry in his A Phoenix Too Frequent.
Of the same genre but deriving mainly from west European rather than Arabic sources are the Mishle shuʿalim (“Fox Fables”) of Berechiah ha-Nakdan (“the Punctuator”), who may have lived in England near the end of the 12th century. About half of these tales recur in Marie de France’s Ysopet, and only one of them is of specifically Jewish origin. Berechiah’s work was translated into Latin and thereafter became a favourite of European storytellers.
Among anonymous compendiums of this type is The Alphabet of Ben Sira, extant in two recensions, probably of the 11th century. This is basically a collection of proverbs attributed to the famous sage of the apocryphal book Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach). In one of the recensions the proverbs are illustrated by appropriate tales. The author is represented as an infant prodigy who performs much the same feats of sapience as are attributed to Jesus in some of the Infancy Gospels.
Two other developments mark the history of Jewish myth and legend during the Middle Ages. The first was a revival of the Hellenistic predilection for large-scale compendiums in which the history of the Jews was “integrated,” in legendary fashion, with that of the world in general and especially with Classical traditions. Two major works of this kind, both composed (apparently) in Italy during the 9th century, are Josippon, by a certain Ben Gorion, which presents a fanciful record from the Creation onward and contains numerous references to foreign nations; and the Book of Jashar, a colourful account from Adam to Joshua, named for the ancient book of heroic songs and sagas mentioned in the Bible (Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18). There is also the voluminous Chronicles of Jerahmeel, written in the Rhineland in the 14th century, which draws largely on Pseudo-Philo’s earlier compilation and includes Hebrew and Aramaic versions of certain books of the Apocrypha.
The other development was the gathering of Haggadic legends and tales into comprehensive, systematic compendiums. Works of this kind are Yalquṭ Shimʿoni (“The Collection of Simeon”), attributed to Rabbi Simeon of Frankfurt am Main; Midrash ha-gadol (“The Great Midrash”), composed after the death in 1204 of Moses Maimonides, whom it quotes; and the Midrash of David ha-Nagid, named after the grandson of Maimonides. About 100 years later a similar work on the Prophets and holy writings, Yalquṭ ha-Makiri (“The Collection of Makhir”), was compiled by Makhir ben Abba Mari in Spain. It has been suggested that the production of such works was spurred by the necessity of providing “ammunition” for the public disputations with Christian ecclesiastics that the church forced upon Jewish scholars during this period.
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662db20d83736d3fc332547b6fab7df4 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Judgment-at-Nuremberg | Judgment at Nuremberg | Judgment at Nuremberg
Judgment at Nuremberg, American dramatic film, released in 1961, that was based on the post-World War II Nuremberg trials of former Nazi leaders. The film explores the complicity of the German people in the crimes committed by the state, including the atrocities of the Holocaust.
The plot centres on the military trial of four German judges accused of crimes against humanity for having carried out Nazi law. American prosecutor Col. Tad Lawson (played by Richard Widmark) argues that the defendants should be held fully responsible for their actions and offers as a witness a man (Montgomery Clift) who was castrated for mental deficiency. Defense attorney Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) counters that the judges were merely obedient to Adolf Hitler’s orders and therefore no different from any other law-abiding German. Meanwhile, to gain perspective on the postwar German mood, the trial’s presiding judge, Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy), meets with Madame Bertholt (Marlene Dietrich), the widow of a German general, outside the courtroom. The trial reaches a dramatic climax during an investigation into the role of defendant Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster) in a case he had presided over in which a Jewish man was executed for allegedly having an affair with a non-Jewish woman. After Rolfe aggressively interrogates the woman (Judy Garland), Janning takes the stand and admits his culpability. Although Haywood is advised to be lenient so as not to flare tempers in the wake of the recently enacted Berlin blockade, he ultimately sentences the defendants to life imprisonment.
The big-budget production was shot in Germany, and, in a bold move for a Hollywood feature of its era, original footage of the death camps as encountered by Allied troops at the end of the war was interjected into the film. Despite a highly publicized premiere in Berlin, Judgment at Nuremberg proved controversial in Germany, as many took offense at having their still-recent past dissected on the big screen. In the United States, however, the film received critical acclaim and became a major hit. It garnered 11 Academy Award nominations, including four among its star-studded cast (and a win for Schell). Though not nominated, Lancaster earned additional praise for his portrayal of an educated aristocrat seduced by Hitler’s plan and rhetoric, a role that served as a metaphorical stand-in for the German populace at large.
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cafa93b1866d5551d1d2682cefa26263 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Judiciary-Act-of-1789 | Judiciary Act of 1789 | Judiciary Act of 1789
Judiciary Act of 1789, in full 1789 Judiciary Act, act establishing the organization of the U.S. federal court system, which had been sketched only in general terms in the U.S. Constitution. The act established a three-part judiciary—made up of district courts, circuit courts, and the Supreme Court—and outlined the structure and jurisdiction of each branch.
The Judiciary Act of 1789, officially titled “An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the United States,” was principally authored by Senators Oliver Ellsworth and William Paterson and signed into law by Pres. George Washington on September 24, 1789. The act’s creators, by essentially all accounts, viewed it as a work in progress. Although indeed amended throughout the years, the basic outline it provided has remained largely intact.
The act divided the country into districts with one court and one judge in each, along with attorneys responsible for civil and criminal actions in their districts. The act also created the office of attorney general of the United States; the attorney general, a member of the cabinet, is appointed by the president and is head of the Department of Justice.
Circuit courts—which make up the middle tier of the federal court system—were created to serve as principal trial courts. They also exercise limited appellate jurisdiction. A local district judge and two Supreme Court justices preside over the circuit courts.
The act established that the Supreme Court would be composed of one chief justice and five associate justices and that all decisions of the Supreme Court would be final. The act also vested in the Supreme Court the power to settle disputes between states and provided for mandatory Supreme Court review of the final judgments of the highest court of any state in cases “where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States and the decision is against its validity” or “where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of any state on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of its validity.” In Cohens v. Virginia (1821) the Supreme Court reaffirmed its right under the Judiciary Act to review all state court judgments in cases arising under the federal Constitution or a law of the United States.
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2f294681bdbac32ab820ba5a612b551c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/juge-dinstruction | Juge d'instruction | Juge d'instruction
Juge d’instruction, (French: judge of inquiry) in France, magistrate responsible for conducting the investigative hearing that precedes a criminal trial. In this hearing the major evidence is gathered and presented, and witnesses are heard and depositions taken. If the juge d’instruction is not convinced that there is sufficient evidence of guilt to warrant a trial at the end of the proceedings, no trial will occur. This process differs somewhat from the grand jury hearing in the Anglo-American system, under which the grand jury need find only probable cause in order to return an indictment for trial.
The preliminary investigative procedure was developed in France as early as the 17th century, but the position of juge d’instruction was not instituted until the mid-19th century. Juges are appointed by the president for three-year terms (which are renewable) upon the recommendation of the Ministry of Justice. The juge d’instruction handles a case only if ordered to do so by the procureur (public prosecutor) or when requested to do so by a private citizen. Once the juge d’instruction’s investigation has begun, the accused must be supplied with counsel, who must be given access to all documents and evidence. The hearing is structured to ensure the protection of the accused. Although he has a right to be heard, he may choose to remain silent.
In conducting the hearing, the juge d’instruction has a wide range of powers available. He may issue warrants allowing the authorities to search the accused’s residence and seize necessary evidence. He also may issue warrants requiring other people to appear as witnesses, or he may request experts to testify. If there is conflicting testimony, witnesses are confronted with each other and often with the accused. At the end of the hearing, the procureur may, if he chooses, present his opinion, in the form of a plea.
The evidence collected and the testimony of witnesses make up a case’s dossier, which serves as a guide for the juge in the subsequent plenary hearing in open court, particularly to verify testimony. It is available to the defense in its entirety so that the element of surprise, so prevalent in common-law trials, is eliminated from the main hearing. However, the dossier is not available to the jury, which must base its decision on the facts presented in open court. It is on the strength of this file that the juge d’instruction bases his decision as to whether to commit a case to trial. He may issue an order of non-lieu (French: “no case”), or, if he decides there is enough evidence for a trial, he will commit a case involving a serious misdemeanour or a lesser felony to the criminal court, whereas a major felony must first go to the chamber of accusation of the Court of Appeal (Cour d’Appel) for the pretrial hearing. If the Court of Appeal supports the juge’s recommendation, it will turn the case over to the Assize Court (Cour d’Assise), the only court in France with a jury.
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c5ff45f17c21e8312cfb0a6fa9dc88f9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/juice | Juice | Juice
Raw juice (containing 10 to 14 percent sucrose) is purified in a series of liming and carbonatation steps, often with filtration or thickening being conducted between the first and second carbonatation. One popular multistage system involves cold pre-liming followed by cold main liming, hot main liming,…
Streams of juice extracted from the cane, mixed with maceration water from all mills, are combined into a mixed juice called dilute juice. Juice from the last mill in the series (which does not receive a current of maceration water) is called residual juice.
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713387482d65fe813861278320735611 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Juilliard-School | Juilliard School | Juilliard School
Juilliard School, formerly Juilliard School of Music, internationally renowned school of the performing arts in New York, New York, U.S. It is now the professional educational arm of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The Juilliard School offers bachelor’s degrees in music, dance, and drama and postgraduate degrees in music.
The school’s history began with the foundation of the Institute of Musical Art in 1905. Upon the death of textile merchant Augustus D. Juilliard in 1919, a large bequest was made to the Juilliard Musical Foundation, which was incorporated the following year. The foundation, which was directed to advance musical education in the United States, founded the Juilliard Graduate School in 1924. In 1926 the Institute of Musical Art and the Juilliard Graduate School came under the same board of directors and were combined under the name Juilliard School of Music in 1946. In the 1950s dance was added to the curriculum, and in 1968 the name was changed to the Juilliard School, reflecting its broadened activities, which included instruction in acting at the school’s drama division. The school is also noted for the Juilliard String Quartet, founded in 1946 and important to the development of chamber music in the United States. Total enrollment is approximately 1,400.
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c2e618503bc9d9e91308a0f8ab7eb107 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Julia-Misbehaves | Julia Misbehaves | Julia Misbehaves
Finally, there was Julia Misbehaves (1948), a playful comedy with Pidgeon and Greer Garson as the bickering parents of a bride-to-be (Elizabeth Taylor). Conway, who suffered from illness in the last years of his life, subsequently retired from directing.
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be527f44f77ae385519f524f2a7a4715 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Juliet-fictional-character-Romeo-and-Juliet | Juliet | Juliet
Juliet, daughter of the Capulets who is one of the two “star-crossed” lovers in Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet. Juliet’s musing on the balcony—
—is overheard by Romeo and sets in motion one of the most famous love stories in Western literature.
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56474033b5403582570380063a8947f7 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Julio-Claudian-dynasty | Julio-Claudian dynasty | Julio-Claudian dynasty
Julio-Claudian dynasty, (ad 14–68), the four successors of Augustus, the first Roman emperor: Tiberius (reigned 14–37), Caligula (37–41), Claudius I (41–54), and Nero (54–68). It was not a direct bloodline. Augustus had been the great-nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar (of the Julia gens), whereas Tiberius, the adopted son of Augustus, came from the aristocratic Claudia gens. Caligula was a great-grandson of Augustus; Claudius was a nephew of Tiberius; and Nero was the great-nephew and adopted son of Claudius.
The ablest of the line was Tiberius. He was undoubtedly a capable and vigorous ruler, who enforced justice in the government of the provinces, maintained the integrity of the frontiers, and husbanded the finances of the empire; but he became intensely unpopular in Roman society and in his last years became a cruel tyrant. His successor, Gaius, generally known as Caligula, became known for his wild caprices and uncontrolled passions, which issued in manifest insanity. Upon his assassination he was followed by his uncle, Claudius, whose personal disabilities made him an object of derision to his contemporaries but who had many statesmanlike faculties. His reign left an abiding mark on the history of the empire, for he carried forward its development on the lines intended by Augustus. Client-states were absorbed, southern Britain was conquered, the Romanization of the West received a powerful impulse, public works were executed in Rome and Italy, and the organization of the imperial bureaucracy made rapid strides. Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian line, has been handed down to posterity as the incarnation of monstrous vice and fantastic luxury. But his wild excesses scarcely affected the prosperity of the empire at large; the provinces were well governed, and the war with Parthia led to a compromise in the matter of Armenia, which secured peace for half a century. The dynasty ended amid rebellion and civil war. Nero died, probably by suicide, and was succeeded by the general Galba, who had been a leader of one of the revolts.
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dc9a1138016561521ef1c2b8ef9ae32e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Juno-Roman-goddess | Juno | Juno
Juno, in Roman religion, chief goddess and female counterpart of Jupiter, closely resembling the Greek Hera, with whom she was identified. With Jupiter and Minerva, she was a member of the Capitoline triad of deities traditionally introduced by the Etruscan kings. Juno was connected with all aspects of the life of women, most particularly married life. Ovid (Fasti, Book V) relates that Juno was jealous of Jupiter for giving birth to Minerva from his own head. After Flora gave her an herb, Juno gave birth to Mars.
As Juno Lucina, goddess of childbirth, she had a temple on the Esquiline from the 4th century bc. In her role as female comforter she assumed various descriptive names. Individualized, she became a female guardian angel; as every man had his genius, so every woman had her juno. Thus, she represented, in a sense, the female principle of life.
As her cult expanded she assumed wider functions and became, like Hera, the principal female divinity of the state. For example, as Sospita, portrayed as an armed deity, she was invoked all over Latium and particularly at Lanuvium, originally as a saviour of women but eventually as saviour of the state. As Juno Moneta (“the Warner”), she had a temple on the Arx (the northern summit of the Capitoline Hill) from 344 bc; it later housed the Roman mint, and the words “mint” and “money” derive from the name. According to Plutarch, the cackling of her sacred geese saved the Arx from the Gauls in 390 bc. Her significant festivals were the Matronalia on March 1 and the Nonae Caprotinae, which was celebrated under a wild fig tree in the Campus Martius on July 7. Juno is represented in various guises. Most frequently, however, she is portrayed as a standing matron of statuesque proportions and severe beauty, occasionally exhibiting military characteristics.
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1a6e32e7caf9aa9c2d0455267f407e21 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Jurassic-Park-novel-by-Crichton | Jurassic Park | Jurassic Park
…the massively successful science-fiction thriller Jurassic Park, which grimly envisions the human resurrection of the dinosaurs through genetic engineering. He wrote the screenplay for the 1993 film adaptation, which was a box-office hit, and for such other works as The Lost World (1995; film 1997), a sequel to Jurassic Park.…
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d71afdd9233c9eaef9b4d3ec374049d6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/justice-social-concept | Justice | Justice
Justice, In philosophy, the concept of a proper proportion between a person’s deserts (what is merited) and the good and bad things that befall or are allotted to him or her. Aristotle’s discussion of the virtue of justice has been the starting point for almost all Western accounts. For him, the key element of justice is treating like cases alike, an idea that has set later thinkers the task of working out which similarities (need, desert, talent) are relevant. Aristotle distinguishes between justice in the distribution of wealth or other goods (distributive justice) and justice in reparation, as, for example, in punishing someone for a wrong he has done (retributive justice). The notion of justice is also essential in that of the just state, a central concept in political philosophy. See also law.
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1d8c5e8e3c12f4df8f2ffeb64369f9ef | https://www.britannica.com/topic/justiciar | Justiciar | Justiciar
Justiciar, early English judicial official of the king who, unlike all other officers of the central administration, was not a member of the king’s official household. The justiciarship originated in the king’s need for a responsible subordinate who could take a wide view of the affairs of the kingdom, act as regent when the king was abroad, and on other occasions take charge of those matters with which the king had no time to deal. From the very nature of his office his position was superior to that of any household officer.
Although William I (1066–87) was known to have appointed men to hold such authority while he was in Normandy, their offices had always ended on his return to England. During the reign of Henry I (1100–35) an increase in administrative specialization is thought to have lent his Justiciarius some authoritative position among royal judges. Henry I also appointed local justiciars to attend Crown business in particular local areas. After 1162, when Thomas Becket was appointed archbishop of Canterbury and resigned as chancellor and chief minister to Henry II (1154–89), the justiciar became the most important man in the kingdom after the king and played a central role in the centralization of justice in English legal history.
As the volume of judicial work grew each year owing to the popularity of Henry II’s reforms, the justiciar presided over the bench of judges at Westminster, organized the judicial circuits, heard difficult pleas, gave advice to judges on innumerable points of law, and toured the country to see that the administration was properly conducted. When the king was abroad, the justiciar also raised money for the king’s needs and saw that peace was maintained. After the loss of Normandy in 1204, however, the king spent more time in England, and the office began to lose some of its strength. Although it regained appreciable power during the reign of Henry III (1234–58), the office ceased to exist after 1261.
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86b586633f8c0bec011eca32b5d8da1b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/juvenile-delinquent | Juvenile delinquent | Juvenile delinquent
Juvenile delinquent, any young person whose conduct is characterized by antisocial behaviour that is beyond parental control and subject to legal action. See delinquency.
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b458b6cb0a0f5281f6d9e2891f6495d6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kaas | Kaas | Kaas
He published Kaas (“Cheese”) in 1933 and followed it with the novel Tsjip (“Cheep”) in 1934. Laarmans, who is the protagonist in Kaas, had been introduced in Lijmen, and he reappears in Pensioen (1937; “Pension”), De leeuwentemmer (1940; “The Lion Tamer”), and Elsschot’s masterpiece, Het dwaallicht (1946;…
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aa90c5f79f90daebf7351476c005ecdd | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kabardian-language | Kabardian language | Kabardian language
Kabardian language, also called East Circassian, or Upper Circassian, language spoken in Kabardino-Balkaria republic, in southwestern Russia, in the northern Caucasus. It is related to the Abkhaz, Abaza, Adyghian, and Ubykh languages, which constitute the Abkhazo-Adyghian, or Northwest Caucasian, language group. These languages are noted for the great number of consonant distinctions and the small number of vowel distinctions in their sound systems. Since the October Revolution of 1917, Kabardian has been a written language. The Roman alphabet was the first system used, but from 1936 the language was written in Cyrillic.
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85ec0bea27d44a96d10d9ea8fade1b7d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kabwe-cranium | Kabwe cranium | Kabwe cranium
Kabwe cranium, also called Broken Hill cranium, fossilized skull of an extinct human species (genus Homo) found near the town of Kabwe, Zambia (formerly Broken Hill, Northern Rhodesia), in 1921. It was the first discovered remains of premodern Homo in Africa and until the early 1970s was considered to be 30,000 to 40,000 years old—only one-tenth its true age. The nearly complete cranium was found in association with a jaw fragment, a sacrum, and portions of pelvis and limb bones. The fossils, popularly known as Rhodesian man and at first given the taxonomic name H. rhodesiensis, convinced some scholars that African Homo lagged behind Eurasian Homo in acquiring modern anatomy. Despite past disagreement about the classification of these specimens, they are now usually attributed to the archaic human species H. heidelbergensis, along with other specimens such as those from Bodo (Ethiopia), Ndutu (Tanzania), Heidelberg (Germany), and Petralona (Greece).
The Kabwe skull has archaic features, being massive and flattened in profile with browridges that are very large and continuous across the nasal bridge. There are a large ridge across the rear of the skull and a very large palate. Even so, the cranial capacity of 1,280 cc (78 cubic inches) is nearly as large as that of modern humans. The limb bones are robust but otherwise indistinguishable from those of modern humans. The pelvis is also modern, though it has a buttress on the blade similar to those seen on H. erectus. The age of the remains is difficult to establish, but animal fossils also found at the site imply a date of 500,000 to 300,000 years ago. Unlike sites of comparable age in this region, the tool collection lacks Acheulean hand axes, although some were found in an excavation 280 km (170 miles) away.
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58130d157826754c0cf14c99b0cf74b2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kach-Party | Kach Party | Kach Party
There Kahane formed the Kach Party and stirred nationalist fervor against Arabs, whom he campaigned to remove (violently, if necessary) from Israel and all Israeli-occupied areas. He won a seat in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) in 1984, but his term ended when Israel banned the Kach Party for its…
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878825f49e297a41a8a9a2f8a6d6d910 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kadambari | Kadambari | Kadambari
…great work, the prose romance Kadambari, is named for the heroine of the novel. The book describes the affairs of two sets of lovers through a series of incarnations. Both works were left unfinished; the second was completed by the author’s son, Bhusanabhatta.
…culture and society; and the Kādambarī (the name of the heroine), which describes the affairs of two sets of lovers through a series of incarnations, in which they are constantly harassed by a cruel fate.
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48b6c21c313c7154cc097c74dda8c343 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kaifeng-Jews | Kaifeng Jew | Kaifeng Jew
Kaifeng Jew, Wade-Giles romanization K’ai-feng Jew, member of a former religious community in Henan province, China, whose careful observance of Jewish precepts over many centuries has long intrigued scholars. Matteo Ricci, the famous Jesuit missionary, was apparently the first Westerner to learn of the existence of Chinese Jews. In 1605 he was visited by a young Chinese man who claimed to be one of many monotheists living in the city of Kaifeng. Three years later a Chinese Jesuit visited the community, confirmed the existence of a large synagogue (with a Holy of Holies accessible only to the chief rabbi), and testified to the authenticity of Jewish observances. The Jewish character of the community was unmistakable, for the Chinese observed the Sabbath and major religious festivals, practiced circumcision, read the Torah, had Hebrew manuscripts, used name tablets rather than pictures in their synagogue, and abstained from eating pork. Their Chinese name, Tiaojinjiao (literally, “pick out the tendons”), refers to practices prescribed by Jewish dietary laws.
An extant stone tablet dated 1512 and found in Kaifeng claims that Judaism entered China during the latter half of the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce), but it is more likely that Jews entered Kaifeng sometime prior to 1127 from India or Persia (Iran). The oldest known synagogue in Kaifeng was built in 1163.
The religious life of the Jewish community in Kaifeng was permanently disrupted by the protracted period of war and social upheaval that accompanied the establishment of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty in 1644. The flooding of the city in 1642 by rebels to prevent its capture destroyed the synagogue as well as Jewish records, books, and burial grounds. Jewish religious education was also severely disrupted at that time, and these factors, combined with the increased tendency of the Kaifeng Jews to intermarry with Han Chinese or to convert to other religions, resulted in a rapid decline in religious fervour that was never rekindled. The strong ties with past traditions were irreparably severed with the passing of the older generation. Though the synagogue was rebuilt in 1653, few members of the community were left who could read Hebrew by 1700. When the last Chinese rabbi died in 1800, the spirit of Judaism in Kaifeng was so enfeebled that Christian missionaries were able to purchase Torah scrolls, Hebrew manuscripts, and records, which eventually were placed in libraries and museums in Europe and the United States.
Efforts by the Portuguese Jews of London in 1760 to contact the Chinese Jews were unsuccessful, as were similar efforts by the Jews of London in 1815. Two Chinese Christian converts, however, dispatched to Kaifeng in 1850 by the Anglican Mission in Hong Kong, visited the synagogue, obtained scrolls and Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament, and brought back copies of Hebrew inscriptions. Though few traces of active Judaism remained, the information thus obtained (which was published in Shanghai in 1851) made it possible to reconstruct history. A Protestant missionary visiting Kaifeng in 1866 was told that poverty had forced the Chinese Jews to dismantle their synagogue and sell the stones to Muslims who wished to build a mosque.
In 1870 a letter from Kaifeng arrived in Hong Kong. It was in reply to a letter sent 26 years earlier by a British officer. The reply described the plight of the Kaifeng Jews in pitiful terms. When several attempts by European Jews in China to raise money for the Kaifeng community met with little response, the Chinese Jews were invited to move to Shanghai. An old gentleman and his son arrived in the early 1900s to announce that they were among the last members of the once-flourishing community. There is indisputable evidence that other Jewish communities existed in China for much more than 1,000 years, but only the history of the Kaifeng Jews has been well documented.
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27beafa34f4cff4ede4f1e9965720e54 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kaishinto | Kaishintō | Kaishintō
Kaishintō, in full Rikken Kaishintō, English Constitutional Reform Party, a leading Japanese political party from its founding in 1882 by the democratic leader Ōkuma Shigenobu until its merger with several smaller parties in 1896. It generally represented the urban elite of intellectuals, industrialists, and merchants. Its platform, like that of its main opponent, the Jiyūtō (“Liberal”) Party, called for the adoption of parliamentary democracy, with a constitutional monarchy functioning along British lines. In the first elections to the Diet (national parliament) in 1890, the Kaishintō emerged as the second largest party after the Jiyūtō. The Kaishintō called for strengthening a parliament elected by the richer classes in order to check the patronage powers of the central government.
The party adopted an increasingly nationalistic tone in the 1890s, advocating Japanese intervention in Korea and confrontation with China on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). In 1896 it merged with several smaller nationalistic parties to form the Shimpotō (“Progressive”) Party).
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55659f57b95ab4f32ef7cb7589a9979e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kakori-Conspiracy | Kakori Conspiracy | Kakori Conspiracy
Kakori Conspiracy, also called Kakori Conspiracy Case or Kakori Train Robbery, armed robbery on August 9, 1925, of a train in what is now central Uttar Pradesh state, north-central India, and the subsequent court trial instituted by the government of British India against more than two dozen men accused of involvement, directly or otherwise, in the crime.
The robbery took place at the town of Kakori, about 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Lucknow, the train’s final destination. On board the train was money that had been collected from various railway stations enroute and that was to be deposited at Lucknow. In a well-planned operation, Ramprasad Bismil led a band of 10 revolutionary activists who stopped the train, subdued the train’s guard and passengers, and forced open the safe in the guard’s quarters before fleeing with the cash found within it. The raiders were members of the newly established Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), a militant organization dedicated to freeing India from British rule through revolution, including armed rebellion. To fund their activities, the HRA carried out raids such as the train robbery.
Within a month of the attack, more than two dozen HRA members had been arrested for conspiracy and for having perpetrated the act. More arrests followed, and in all, some 40 people were rounded up. Eventually, 29 individuals were put on trial before the special magistrate at Lucknow. Of those, three—including Chandrasekhar Azad, a leader of the HRA—remained at large, and two others became witnesses for the prosecution in return for lighter sentences. The trial continued for nearly 18 months, with many leading nationalist lawyers providing defense counsel for the accused.
The final judgments were pronounced on April 6, 1927. Three (later four) men were sentenced to death, and one was given life imprisonment. Most of the remaining defendants were given prison sentences of up to 14 years, although two were acquitted, and two more were pardoned. Azad remained unapprehended and was killed in an encounter with police in February 1931. The severity of the sentences—particularly of capital punishment—provoked considerable outcry among the general Indian populace. Several attempts were made to save the four who were sentenced to die, including passage of a motion in the legislative council of the United Provinces (the colonial precursor to Uttar Pradesh) and a petition to the British viceroy, but they were rejected. The four men were executed in December 1927.
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79e77866e14dcde7e8c39aa402d4d1b8 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kalender-Geschichten | Kalender-Geschichten | Kalender-Geschichten
…Bavarian peasant life, such as Kalender-Geschichten, 2 vol. (1929, rev. 1957; “Calendar Stories”). Graf’s writing is marked by frank realism and by his own socialist and pacifist beliefs, but these are tempered by humorous affection for his subjects.
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e92fee849e4f809070bfed92c6623054 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kalevala | Kalevala | Kalevala
Kalevala, Finnish national epic compiled from old Finnish ballads, lyrical songs, and incantations that were a part of Finnish oral tradition.
The Kalevala was compiled by Elias Lönnrot, who published the folk material in two editions (32 cantos, 1835; enlarged into 50 cantos, 1849). Kalevala, the dwelling place of the poem’s chief characters, is a poetic name for Finland, meaning “land of heroes.” The leader of the “sons of Kaleva” is the old and wise Väinämöinen, a powerful seer with supernatural origins, who is a master of the kantele, the Finnish harplike stringed instrument. Other characters include the skilled smith Ilmarinen, one of those who forged the “lids of heaven” when the world was created; Lemminkäinen, the carefree adventurer-warrior and charmer of women; Louhi, the female ruler of Pohjola, a powerful land in the north; and the tragic hero Kullervo, who is forced by fate to be a slave from childhood.
Among the main dramas of the poem are the creation of the world and the adventurous journeys of Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkäinen to Pohjola to woo the beautiful daughter of Louhi, during which the miraculous sampo, a mill that produces salt, meal, and gold and is a talisman of happiness and prosperity, is forged and recovered for the people of Kalevala. Although the Kalevala depicts the conditions and ideas of the pre-Christian period, the last canto seems to predict the decline of paganism: the maid Marjatta gives birth to a son who is baptized king of Karelia, and the pagan Väinämöinen makes way for him, departing from Finland without his kantele and songs.
The Kalevala is written in unrhymed octosyllabic trochees and dactyls (the Kalevala metre) and its style is characterized by alliteration, parallelism, and repetition. Besides fostering the Finnish national spirit, the poem has been translated into at least 20 languages; it has inspired many outstanding works of art, e.g., the paintings of Akseli Gallen-Kallela and the musical compositions of Jean Sibelius. The epic style and metre of the poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow also reflect the influence of the Kalevala.
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f41e60957403c6837a2809a1f56549e2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kalkin | Kalkin | Kalkin
Kalkin, also called Kalki, final avatar (incarnation) of the Hindu god Vishnu, who is yet to appear. At the end of the present Kali yuga (age), when virtue and dharma have disappeared and the world is ruled by the unjust, Kalkin will appear to destroy the wicked and to usher in a new age. He will be seated on a white horse with a naked sword in his hand, blazing like a comet. He is less commonly represented in painting and sculpture than the other avatars of Vishnu and is shown either on horseback or accompanied by his horse. According to some legends of the end of the world, Kalkin’s horse will stamp the earth with its right foot, causing the tortoise which supports the world to drop into the deep. Then the gods will restore the earth once again to its former purity.
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01d598ea994f8098e88ba48e0ed72774 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kalmyk-language | Kalmyk language | Kalmyk language
Buryat and Kalmyk are also literary languages written in Cyrillic script. As the result of divergent spelling conventions and differences in vocabulary, written Khalkha and Buryat differ from one another much more than do the closely related spoken dialects on which they are based. That condition also…
and Western Mongolian (Oirat and Kalmyk) occurred at a later stage than that between the peripheral, archaizing languages and the central group. So many features—the loss of initial /h/, reduction of vowel sequences to long vowels, development of rounded vowels in noninitial syllables, assimilation of /i/ to the vowel of…
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5ca9878f68a16e0740b39a8e56996729 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kalpa-Indian-chronology | Kalpa | Kalpa
…time, which is called a kalpa. These kalpas repeat themselves without beginning or end.
…cycles, known to Buddhists as kalpas, were called yuan by Shao and reduced from an astronomical length to a comprehensible duration of 129,600 years. Shao’s theory was later accepted by all branches of Neo-Confucianism and made part of the official state ideology by the 12th-century Song scholar Zhu Xi.
…characterized by great cycles (kalpas) of rise and decline, creation and destruction. The kalpa comprises 2,000 mahayugas, which in turn are each made up of four ages, or yugas, of diminishing length. The current age is the fourth yuga, the kaliyuga, of a mahayuga and is to last 1,200…
…of the recurrent eons (kalpas), the Hindus arrived, intuitively, at figures of the magnitude of those reached by modern astronomers through meticulous observations and calculations. Similarly, the Aztecs of Mesoamerica rivaled modern Westerners and the Hindus in the scale on which they envisaged the flow of time, and they…
One thousand mahayugas form one kalpa (eon), which is itself but one day in the life of Brahma, whose life lasts 100 years; the present is the midpoint of his life. Each kalpa is followed by an equally long period of abeyance (pralaya), in which the universe is asleep. Seemingly,…
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39eadf98b4d9b92e931ac5070649cf50 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kamas-language | Kamas language | Kamas language
…Selkup and the practically extinct Kamas language. None of these languages was written before 1930, and they are currently used only occasionally for educational purposes in some elementary schools.
A fifth Samoyedic language, Kamas (Sayan), spoken in the vicinity of the Sayan Mountains, survived into the 20th century but is now extinct. Yukaghir is represented by two small language groups (designated Tundra and Kolyma) in far northeastern Siberia, between the tundra east of the Alazeya River and the…
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dae8b1e7f9c320c36871197453beb0d0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kanaka | Kanaka | Kanaka
Kanaka, (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 formed the cheap-labour base on which the sugar industry was built. By 1900 more than 60,000 islanders had been recruited in a manner that often amounted to kidnapping.
The labourers were generally abused and reduced to near-slave status (see blackbirding). Although this treatment called forth a strong humanitarian protest, it was rather the charge that the use of Kanakas lowered the standard of living, along with demands for the promotion of European labourers and for small European landholdings, that prompted the Queensland government to prohibit further recruitment in 1890. Already, plantation owners had reacted by calling for the formation of a new colony, which they presumably would dominate, in northern Queensland; now their hostility was effectual in having the prohibition suspended (1892). The replacement of the hoe by the plow and the greater productivity of Australian farmers lessened the importance of Kanaka labour in the following years, however. The new Commonwealth of Australia called for the abolition of recruitment after 1904 and for the deportation of most South Pacific labourers after 1906. More recent commentary has paid regard to the islanders’ historical agency and their continuing legacy.
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96e66d2e8eedfbf5fc4453cb17608d99 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kanon | Kanōn | Kanōn
Kanōn, (Greek: “canon”) one of the main forms of Byzantine liturgical office; it consists of nine odes, based on the nine biblical canticles of the Eastern Christian Church. (Compare canonical hours.) The kanōn is thought to have originated in Jerusalem in the 7th or 8th century to replace the biblical canticles in the morning office.
Each ode is made up of a model stanza (heirmos) and subsequent stanzas (troparia), usually three, that follow the rhythm and accentuation of the model stanza. The last troparion in an ode usually contains praises to the Virgin Mary and is therefore designated theotokion (from Theotokos, Mother of God). Some kanōns contain an acrostic consisting of the first letters of each stanza and revealing either the name of the poet, a dedication for a feast, or both.
There are several kanōns for each feast and saint of the ecclesiastical calendar. On weekdays during Lent only three odes were sung, hence the Triōdion, the liturgical book containing the Lent kanōns. The melody of an ode is first stated by the heirmos; the accompanying troparia are supposed to be chanted to the same tune. In practice, however, except on important feasts, only the heirmoi are chanted, the troparia being recited. The heirmoi are often assembled in the Heirmologion, a special book for singers.
Among the most famous authors of kanōns are St. John of Damascus, author of the famous Easter kanōn (Eng. trans. by John Mason Neale, “ ’Tis the Day of Resurrection”), and Cosmas the Melodian, who wrote kanōns of great poetical beauty for the major feasts. Hymnography also flourished in Syria and Asia Minor in this period. In 798, however, the centre of hymn writing shifted to Constantinople, where St. Theodore Studites (died 826) inaugurated a liturgical revival and St. Theophanes Graptos (died 845) and St. Joseph the Hymnographer (died 883) were the principal hymn writers.
The writing of new kanōns continued in subsequent centuries in Greek and Slavic Orthodox lands.
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75262a8f710fbf36f092df824c12cafe | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kanphata-Yogi | Kanphata Yogi | Kanphata Yogi
Kanphata Yogi, also called Gorakhnathiand Nathapanthi, member of an order of religious ascetics in India that venerates the Hindu deity Shiva. Kanphata Yogis are distinguished by the large earrings they wear in the hollows of their ears (kanphata, “ear split”). They are sometimes referred to as Tantric (esoteric) sannyasis (ascetics), because of their emphasis on the acquiring of supernatural powers in contrast to more-common practices of devotion (bhakti) and meditation. They are followers of Gorakhnath, who is said to have lived in the 12th century or even earlier. The ideology of the Kanphata Yogis incorporates elements of mysticism, magic, and alchemy absorbed from both Shaivite (devotees of Shiva) and Buddhist esoteric systems, as well as from Hatha Yoga.
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6863aa73eea3c3782f1e65df4432d49b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kansas-City-Monarchs | Kansas City Monarchs | Kansas City Monarchs
…Bell signed him to the Kansas City Monarchs. Soon after, Banks spent two years in the U.S. Army, after which he returned to the Monarchs. His stay there was short-lived, however, as the major leagues, recently integrated, were eager to take advantage of the wealth of talent in the Negro…
…was also player-manager of the Kansas City Monarchs (1948–50). In addition, Bell competed in the Mexican and California Winter leagues and in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. A right-handed batter who later became a switch hitter, he maintained an average that ranged from .308 to .480. He reputedly stole 175…
…won two championships and the Kansas City Monarchs won one, as did the Hilldale Club, representing the ECL. The ECL succumbed to financial weakness in the spring of 1928. The NNL, bereft of the management acumen and foresight of Foster, who was hospitalized for mental illness in 1926, stumbled on…
…Stone was traded to the Kansas City Monarchs, where she retired at the end of the 1954 season.
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53125f704949abdb26fda64a041b0e3b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kansas-City-Royals | Kansas City Royals | Kansas City Royals
Kansas City Royals, American professional baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals have won four American League (AL) pennants and two World Series championships (1985 and 2015).
The Royals were founded in 1969 as an expansion franchise that was granted by Major League Baseball after the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland the previous year. The Royals did not take long to overcome the usual trials of an expansion club; they finished in second place in the AL Western Division three times in their first seven seasons. In an effort to cultivate prospects other franchises had missed, team owner Ewing Kauffman founded the Royals Baseball Academy in Sarasota, Florida, in 1970. The academy aimed to use technological innovations and advanced training techniques to develop baseball skills in overlooked prospects with raw athletic ability, and it produced 14 major leaguers from the 77 prospects that attended the academy in its four years of existence. In 1973 three key members of the Royals during the team’s most successful era made their debut: second baseman Frank White (a member of the first Royals Academy class), outfielder and designated hitter Hal McRae, and future Hall of Fame third baseman George Brett. The trio anchored Royals squads that won three consecutive division titles between 1976 and 1978 but that were defeated by the New York Yankees in each of the AL Championship Series (ALCS) of those seasons. After another second-place finish in 1979, Kansas City won a fourth division crown in 1980, as well as its first AL pennant, which was followed by a loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series.
The Royals made the postseason the following year despite having an overall losing record, owing to a midseason player’s strike that led to an idiosyncratic split-season play-off format. The team was quickly eliminated, and the next two years saw it finish second in its division. In 1984 the Royals once more advanced to the ALCS, where they were swept by a powerhouse Detroit Tigers squad. The team’s postseason disappointment finally ended in 1985 when the Royals—with Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Brett Saberhagen and all-star closer Dan Quisenberry complementing an offense led by Brett—went to their second World Series, where they faced the cross-state rival St. Louis Cardinals. After trailing in the Series three games to one, the Royals won Game Five on the road to set up a Game Six that became notorious for a controversial ninth-inning decision by umpire Don Denkinger. In that game the Cardinals led 1–0 in the bottom of the ninth when pinch-hitter Jorge Orta was called safe on an infield single that was shown to be an out on television replays. The Royals took advantage of the break and rallied to score two runs in the inning and force a deciding Game Seven, which they won handily to claim their first World Series title.
Kansas City’s remarkable stretch of seven play-off appearances in 10 years proved to be short-lived, as the team entered into a long postseason drought beginning in 1986. The Royals added two-sport star Bo Jackson that year, bringing hope that the franchise would continue its winning ways, but a severe hip injury he sustained while playing football for the Los Angeles Raiders in 1991 effectively ended his promising career and began a trend of the team’s failing to capitalize on its promising young players. While the team did boast all-star first baseman and designated hitter Mike Sweeney through the late 1990s and the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, the Royals of that time were notable for their propensity to acquire young talented players—such as outfielders Carlos Beltrán, Johnny Damon, and Jermaine Dye—only to trade them away before they reached their prime. That practice, combined with the financial difficulties of fielding a competitive “small-market” team in that period, resulted in the Royals’ finishing with losing records for the vast majority of those two decades, including four 100-loss seasons between 2002 and 2006.
In 2013 a young Royals roster finally broke through after years of frustration and posted the franchise’s best record (86–76) since the strike-shortened 1994 season, finishing five games out of a berth in the postseason. Kansas City built on that momentum the following year and captured an AL wild-card position. The team then won a dramatic extra-inning wild-card contest and swept its Division Series to earn a spot in the AL Championship Series. There the Royals swept the Baltimore Orioles to advance to the World Series, becoming the first team in major league history to open a postseason with eight consecutive victories. The team’s magnificent run ended in a loss to the San Francisco Giants in the seven-game series. The Royals continued their strong play in the following season, winning an AL-high 95 games and advancing to a second consecutive World Series. There the Royals staged a series of timely rallies to beat the New York Mets in five games and capture the second world championship in franchise history. The team’s resurgence was short-lived, however, and the Royals failed to qualify for the play-offs in the following season. Kansas City’s fall from baseball’s elite was rapid, and the team lost 104 games in 2018.
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0aa032fee5b72ebbf5aca81e532c6690 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kanuri-language | Kanuri language | Kanuri language
Kanuri language, language within the Saharan branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Kanuri consists of two main dialects, Manga Kanuri and Yerwa Kanuri (also called Beriberi, which its speakers consider pejorative), spoken in central Africa by more than 5,700,000 individuals at the turn of the 21st century. Manga Kanuri is a trade language spoken by about 450,000 people in Niger and more than 250,000 in neighbouring Nigeria. Yerwa Kanuri, the more widespread of the two dialects, is used for both oral and written communication in Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan. More than 5,000,000 people, most of whom live in Nigeria (where Kanuri is a national language), claim Yerwa Kanuri as a first or second language. The Ajami (Mozarabic) script, based on the Arabic alphabet, is used for written communication.
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5dcc26a318721d3582576a7c2087b666 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kanva-dynasty | Kanva dynasty | Kanva dynasty
Kanva dynasty, also called Kanvayanas, the successors of the Shungas in the North Indian kingdom of Magadha, who ruled about 72–28 bce; like their predecessors, they were Brahmans in origin. That they originally served the Shunga line is attested by the appellation Shungabhrityas (i.e., servants of the Shungas) given to them in the Puranas. The Brahman minister Vasudeva, the founder of the line, is stated to have served Shunga Devabhumi (Devabhuti). Bana, the 7th-century Sanskrit author, gives details of an assassination plot that cost Devabhumi his life and brought Vasudeva to power in about 72 bce.
The brief spell of Kanva rule is otherwise known entirely on the strength of Puranic evidence, according to which Vasudeva’s successors, in the following genealogical order, were Bhumimitra, Narayana, and Susarman. Kanva rule, which, according to the Puranas, came to a close as a result of the rise to power of Andhra Simuka (an early ruler of the Satavahana dynasty), seems to have lasted until about 28 bce.
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2c072dca8c1c57d99a4b77b03c7cf0fa | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kaonde | Kaonde | Kaonde
Kaonde, also spelled Kahonde, also called Bakahonde, a Bantu-speaking people the vast majority of whom inhabit the northwestern region of Zambia. A numerically much smaller group lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The Zambian wooded highlands average 4,000 feet (1,220 metres) in elevation; to the southeast begin open plains noted for their abundant wild animals.
Three groups with different histories are known as Kaonde; all are probably descended from the Luba people residing in what is now the DRC. When they settled their present territory in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Kaonde recognized the paramount chief of the Lunda empire to the north as their overlord. Several autonomous Kaonde chiefships arose in the 18th century, however, and came to prominence in the 19th century, a period marked by battles with the Lozi and by Kaonde slave raids against the Ila to the south.
Kaonde observe matrilineal descent and reside virilocally (with or near the kin of the husband) in large villages. Corn (maize), cassava, millet, sorghum, yams, squash, and beans are grown. Traditionally, the Kaonde piled and burned felled trees and underbrush and then planted crops in a square area of ash-enriched soil. Many wild fruits are gathered. Men hunt small highland game (cane rats, duiker, bushbuck) when it is available and fish during the arid months of June and July.
The Kaonde share many cultural traits with other Central Bantu speakers. For example, the Kaonde entreat the mediation of ancestral spirits, as do many peoples throughout northern Zambia and the southern DRC. The Kaonde also observe a traditional first-harvest ceremony called Juba ja Nsomo. During that annual festival, usually held on or about July 6, the chief is presented with and blesses the first harvest. Many Kaonde men work in mining centres of the Copperbelt. The Kaonde language is one of the seven official vernacular, or “local,” languages of Zambia, and it is used in Radio Zambia broadcasts.
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51a480b7966f466232134d4cb18ee21e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kapampangan-language | Kapampangan language | Kapampangan language
Bicol, Waray-Waray, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan of the Philippines; Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, Minangkabau, the Batak languages, Acehnese, Balinese, and Buginese of western Indonesia; and Malagasy of Madagascar. Each of these languages
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93a2529b643e0bb1f495f7a328ee5ebc | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kaqchikel | Kaqchikel | Kaqchikel
Kaqchikel, formerly spelled Cakchiquel, Mayan people of the midwestern highlands of Guatemala, closely related linguistically and culturally to the neighbouring K’iche’ and Tz’utujil. They are agriculturalists, and their culture is syncretic, a fusion of Spanish and Mayan elements. Their sharing of a common language does not provide a basis for ethnic identification among the Kaqchikel; the Indians themselves, like other Mayan peoples of the region, are organized into municipios (“municipalities”), and the people identify themselves with their own municipio. Each community usually speaks its own dialect of Kaqchikel, which is mutually intelligible with other dialects of Kaqchikel and is partly intelligible with K’iche’ and Tz’utujil. Each community also has its own political and religious hierarchy, local costume, patron saints, and economic specialty. Often, marriage to someone outside the municipio is considered improper.
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3a32fac88c66720e54ae3d958d82cbc3 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kaqchikel-language | Kaqchikel language | Kaqchikel language
Kaqchikel language, Kaqchikel formerly spelled Cakchiquel, member of the K’ichean (Quichean) subgroup of the Mayan family of languages, spoken in central Guatemala by some 450,000 people. It has numerous dialects. Its closest relative is Tz’utujil. K’iche’ is also closely related. The Annals of the Cakchiquels (also called Anales de los Cakchiqueles, Memorial de Tecpán-Atitlán, or Memorial de Sololá), written in Kaqchikel between 1571 and 1604, is considered an important example of Native American literature. It contains both mythology and historical information pertaining especially to the Kaqchikel ruling lineages.
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96659fc54823491e7b1f474bf6fe0819 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Karachay | Karachay | Karachay
Karachay, Karakalpaks, Kazakhs, Khakass, Kipchak, Kumyk, Kyrgyz, Nogay, Shor, Tatars, Tofalar, Turkmen
…Caucasus region, includes the Balkar, Karachay, Kumyk, and Nogay. There also are numerous Turkic-speaking groups in southern Siberia between the Urals and Lake Baikal: the Altai, Khakass, Shor, Tofalar, and Tyvans
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58cc6b8c83c176bdbca38f525802efac | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kare-sansui | Kare sansui | Kare sansui
…is a special variation, the kare-sansui (dried-up landscape) style, in which rocks are composed to suggest a waterfall and its basin and, for a winding stream or a pond, gravel or sand is used to symbolize water or to suggest seasonally dried-up terrain.
…Kyōto, an outstanding example of kare sansui, a dry landscape technique in which combinations of stones and sand are used to suggest mountains and water; and the Daisei-in garden, a miniature reproduction of a natural landscape, also in the kare sansui style. It is believed that he also planned the…
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4672b5af3ae31277d7ca77fee0052eb9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Karimojong | Karimojong | Karimojong
Karimojong, also spelled Karamojong, eastern Nilotic pastoral people of northeastern Uganda. The Karimojong are the largest of a cluster of culturally and historically related peoples, including the Jie, Teso, Dodoth (or Dodos), and Labwor of Uganda and the Turkana of neighbouring Kenya. They speak an Eastern Nilotic language of the Nilo-Saharan language family.
The recent history of the seminomadic, pastoral Karimojong is marked by misfortune: epizootic diseases have decimated cattle herds, locust plagues and drought have caused crop failures and famine, and epidemics have been common. Ivory attracted 19th-century Swahili and European traders, some of whom controlled and plundered the Karimojong.
Cattle are the most valuable and valued assets of the Karimojong, and the possession of cattle is regarded as necessary for both social esteem and personal satisfaction. Herds are divided so that some animals are kept around permanent homesteads for milking while most are sent off to distant pastures, where young men tend them and live off their milk, sometimes supplementing a meagre and monotonous diet with blood obtained by bleeding the cattle. Intertribal cattle raiding has historically been endemic among the Karimojong and neighbouring pastoral peoples. Settled agriculture is increasingly practiced by them, however; fields for sorghum, corn (maize), millet, peanuts (groundnuts), and squash may be plowed by men but are generally tended by women.
Most of the population remains in homesteads protected by heavy, circular fences of stakes. A husband and his wife or wives, their sons, and their wives or a set of brothers inhabit each homestead. Clans are reckoned by patrilineal descent, wives join their husbands’ clans, and cattle are given distinctive clan brands. Hamlets are groups of homesteads whose residents are of mixed clan affiliation; economic and religious cooperation exists within these hamlets. A named generation of 25 to 30 years has a recognized leader, and each generation is divided into three age sets that cut across kin and residence affiliations. Wives and daughters join the age sets of their husbands and fathers and wear the distinctive ornaments of each set.
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57b781d5d2a87e73c57dc9e81cff51fd | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Karolinska-Institute | Karolinska Institute | Karolinska Institute
Karolinska Institute,, in full The Royal Caroline Medico-chirurgical Institute, Swedish Karolinska Mediko-kirurgiska Institutet, a Swedish institute for medical education and research, founded in 1810. The primary interest of the institute is research; it has achieved international renown for its biomedical research in particular. As a centre of medical education, the Karolinska Institute trains one-third of all the physicians, dentists, and psychotherapists who receive their professional training in Sweden. Since 1901 the institute has also been responsible for selecting the annual winners of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, as instructed by Alfred Nobel in his will.
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fa304de57cba4a84f96013b8e6a206c1 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kart | Kart | Kart
Kart, in Finno-Ugric religion, the sacrificial priest of the Mari people of the middle Volga River valley. The term kart was derived from a Tatar word meaning “elder.” The kart was either a lifetime representative of a clan or a temporary official chosen by lot to oversee common sacrificial feasts of an entire village or several villages. The kart was chosen on the basis of respect and for his knowledge of ritual, and his position afforded great honour. His functions included saying prayers, lighting ceremonial fires for sacrificial meals, choosing and determining the suitability of sacrificial animals, auguring, and blessing the offerings. In family matters he gave names to infants and officiated at weddings and funerals.
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fa6162497474617192532c475f8b0d03 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kartvelian-languages | Kartvelian languages | Kartvelian languages
Kartvelian languages, also called South Caucasian languages, or Iberian languages, family of languages including Georgian, Svan, Mingrelian, and Laz that are spoken south of the chief range of the Caucasus. A brief treatment of Kartvelian languages follows. For full treatment, see Caucasian languages.
Of the Kartvelian language family, only Georgian, the official language of Georgia, has an ancient literary tradition. Georgian dates to the 5th century ad. The Georgian written form is also used by speakers of the other languages, which are nonliterate. Some scholars consider Mingrelian and Laz to be dialects of a single language rather than independent languages.
The linguistic characteristics of South Caucasian languages indicate descent from a common protolanguage. The phonology of Kartvelian languages is fairly uniform, though Svan has several distinctive vowels. Other grammatical characteristics—including the systems of word inflection, derivation, and syntax, as well as a common vocabulary—also exhibit a great correspondence. From these common features, linguists have postulated a Proto-Kartvelian language with certain features that are strikingly parallel to Indo-European. They have further concluded that Svan, which retains a number of archaic structural features, was separated from the other three languages at a fairly early stage in their development. See also Georgian language; Svan language; Mingrelian language; Laz language.
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2e5d48ac458aec5d027653070386d293 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kate-Vaiden | Kate Vaiden | Kate Vaiden
…The Source of Light (1981); Kate Vaiden (1986), the orphaned heroine of which was based on the author’s own mother; and The Tongues of Angels (1990). He also wrote poetry, plays, translations from the Bible, and essays.
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f4295ab81d7f4b5aa9ec686f85fc04a6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kayah | Kayah | Kayah
…them into White Karen and Red Karen. The former consist of two groups, the Sgaw and the Pwo; the Red Karen include the Bre, the Padaung, the Yinbaw, and the Zayein. They occupy areas in southeastern Myanmar on both sides of the lower Salween River, in contiguous parts of Thailand,…
The Kayah, who live on the southern edge of the Shan Plateau, were once known as the Red Karen, or Karenni, apparently for their red robes. Although ethnically and linguistically Karen, they tend to maintain their own identity and hereditary leadership.
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6206b225edfe4c900abc6419382c1a28 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kazakhstania | Kazakhstania | Kazakhstania
Similarly, Kazakhstania was a neighbouring continent to the east in the same northern middle latitudes. North China (including Manchuria and Korea) and South China (the Yangtze platform) were two separate continents situated in a more equatorial position. In contrast to Siberia and Kazakhstania, most of North…
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b3721d580f037a276c11f72066331a6b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kazan-Tatar-language | Kazan Tatar language | Kazan Tatar language
The major Tatar dialects are Kazan Tatar (spoken in Tatarstan) and Western or Misher Tatar. Other varieties include the minor eastern or Siberian dialects, Kasimov, Tepter (Teptyar), and Astrakhan and Ural Tatar. Kazan Tatar is the literary language.
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2cdd53ddc241a046dd64cae9c33e9224 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kazoku-shinema | Kazoku shinema | Kazoku shinema
…new author, and her novel Kazoku shinema (1997; “Family Cinema”) established her reputation and won her public recognition. Kazoku shinema tells the story of a young woman’s reunion with long-estranged relatives to film a semifictional documentary. Written in clear and simple language, the novel alternates briskly between real-life scenes and…
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13d739f7e5b8019927a55f195ce4d6e0 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kean-University | Kean University | Kean University
Kean University, public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Union, New Jersey, U.S. It comprises schools of Business, Government and Technology; Education; Liberal Arts; and Natural Sciences, Nursing and Mathematics. Master’s degree programs are available in education, psychology, business, liberal studies, speech pathology, nursing, and public administration. Campus facilities include the Clinic in Learning Disabilities and a meteorological station. Total enrollment is approximately 12,000.
Kean University was founded in 1855 as Newark Normal School (later renamed Newark State College). It moved to its present location in Union township in 1958. It became Kean College in 1973 and acquired university status in 1997. The campus is on the site of the former estate of Hamilton Fish Kean, a U.S. senator from New Jersey. The Institute of Child Study is a group of clinics that conducts research and training in several areas in addition to providing service to the community. The Holocaust Resource Center, established in 1982, collects and disseminates information regarding the Holocaust.
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09cdbe1e8198f8174290b51a5d41a57e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Keep-the-Change | Keep the Change | Keep the Change
…Something to Be Desired (1984), Keep the Change (1989), and Nothing but Blue Skies (1992). After a hiatus from writing novels, McGuane returned with The Cadence of Grass (2002), which depicts a Montana clan’s colourfully tangled lives. It was followed by Driving on the Rim (2010), a freewheeling tale of…
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ba5c0b801f5e3a23591c3c0f3f767535 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Keeping-the-Faith-film-by-Norton | Keeping the Faith | Keeping the Faith
…made his directorial debut with Keeping the Faith, a romantic comedy in which two longtime friends, one a priest (played by Norton) and the other a rabbi (Ben Stiller), fall in love with the same woman. Norton later appeared alongside Anthony Hopkins in Red Dragon (2002), a prequel to the…
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3a16f686382948eca6e095525687c7c9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Keidanren | Keidanren | Keidanren
Keidanren, abbreviation of Keizai Dantai Rengōkai, English Federation of Economic Organizations, Japanese association of business organizations that was established in 1946 for the purpose of mediating differences between member industries and advising the government on economic policy and related matters. It is considered one of the most powerful organizations in Japan.
Created as part of a postwar effort to reorganize the business sector of Japanese society, Keidanren initially had little influence. It subsumed the functions of the Japanese Industrial Council in 1952, a measure that both expanded its ranks and increased its influence. Keidanren was an important force in the creation of Japan’s Liberal-Democratic Party in 1955, and it has effected a number of other changes in Japanese society. Since 1975, however, the association’s influence has suffered from the stricter regulation of political contributions, as well as from the increasingly multinational character of many Japanese businesses.
The association represents some 800 corporations and includes among its membership a diversified group of industries such as mining, finance, and transportation. It has a complex internal structure composed of several consulting agencies and permanent committees that advise the government on such matters as trade policies and space exploration. The organization also conducts unofficial international economic conferences.
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090ac9a4e0a570650e0af188459e5e1c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Keluarga-gerilja | Keluarga gerilja | Keluarga gerilja
The novel Keluarga gerilja (1950; “Guerrilla Family”) chronicles the tragic consequences of divided political sympathies in a Javanese family during the Indonesian Revolution against Dutch rule, while Mereka jang dilumpuhkan (1951; “The Paralyzed”) depicts the odd assortment of inmates Pramoedya became acquainted with in the Dutch prison…
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ca7ad2a3ebf60540b13d59c67d4e0c5e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kennewick-Man | Kennewick Man | Kennewick Man
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 competing claims to the remains. Their…
…is known to scientists as Kennewick Man and to Native Americans as the Ancient One. The relationship of Kennewick Man to existing Native American groups is a source of controversy.
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c396d1592962b8767528f99c7984a866 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kentauromachia | Kentauromachia | Kentauromachia
…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 cella, which is Parian marble. Fragments of the polychromatic decoration are housed in the British Museum in…
…known for their fight (centauromachy) with the Lapiths, which resulted from their attempt to carry off the bride of Pirithous, son and successor of Ixion. They lost the battle and were driven from Mount Pelion. In later Greek times they were often represented drawing the chariot of the wine…
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ebb0fb4bef8f2b0abaa86633b00b50bf | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kenya-Wildlife-Services | Kenya Wildlife Services | Kenya Wildlife Services
…in the mid-1990s by the Kenya Wildlife Service. The plan has attempted to draw local communities into the management and distribution of the income derived from wild animals in the vicinity, thus making people more tolerant of the animals’ presence. The program has been somewhat successful, and, with community involvement,…
…Department (the precursor to the Kenya Wildlife Service [KWS]). Devoted to the preservation of Kenya’s wildlife and sanctuaries, he embarked on a campaign to reduce corruption within the KWS, crack down (often using force) on ivory poachers, and restore the security of Kenya’s national parks. In doing so he made…
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1998405cbedd09d3e3a30ea6b047debc | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kepler-fictional-biography-by-Banville | Kepler | Kepler
Doctor Copernicus (1976), Kepler (1981), and The Newton Letter: An Interlude (1982) are fictional biographies based on the lives of noted scientists. These three works use scientific exploration as a metaphor to question perceptions of fiction and reality. Mefisto (1986) is written from the point of view of…
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c22956ecc8ac29cbef41683ed7a03740 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kermes | Kermes | Kermes
Kermes, (Kermes ilicis), a species of scale insect in the family Kermesidae (order Homoptera), the common name of which also represents the red dye that is obtained from the dried bodies of these insects. The dye was often part of the tribute paid to conquering Roman armies, and, in the Middle Ages, landlords accepted it as payment for rent. The oldest known red dyestuff, resembling but inferior in colour to cochineal, it was used by the early Egyptians.
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880e0ba95e6a6483e9a08273abe5792d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/key-cipher | Key | Key
…marks and spaces (a running key) were mingled with the message during encryption to produce what is known as a stream or streaming cipher.
…believed that a short random key could safely be reused many times, thus justifying the effort to deliver such a large key, but reuse of the key turned out to be vulnerable to attack by methods of the type devised by Friedrich W. Kasiski, a 19th-century German army officer and…
A personal encryption key, or name, known only to the transmitter of the message and its intended receiver, is used to control the algorithm’s encryption of the data, thus yielding unique ciphertext that can be decrypted only by using the key.
…the legitimate users is the key, and the transformation of the plaintext under the control of the key into a cipher (also called ciphertext) is referred to as encryption. The inverse operation, by which a legitimate receiver recovers the concealed information from the cipher using the key, is known as…
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83cbbb665875a99aa619024c91e1463f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khalkha-people | Khalkha | Khalkha
Khalkha, largest group of the Mongol peoples, constituting more than 80 percent of the population of Mongolia. The Khalkha dialect is the official language of Mongolia. It is understood by 90 percent of the country’s population as well as by many Mongols elsewhere.
Traditionally, the Khalkha were a nomadic, pastoral people. Under Genghis Khan and his successors, they became a warlike imperial nation. In later centuries they were squeezed between the expanding empires of the Russians and the Manchu. The eastern Khalkha submitted to the Manchu, became part of China, and today inhabit the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. Beginning in the 1920s, the western Khalkha came increasingly under the influence of the Soviet Union.
The old Khalkha society was based on kinship traced through the paternal line and was organized in clans and tribes. Leadership was determined on the basis of ability. Married sons often lived near their fathers and other male relatives. A class of nobility was set apart from the commoners. Under Manchu dominance the importance of kin groups declined, giving way to Chinese methods of civil administration.
Traditionally, most Khalkha lived in mobile herding camps that were moved four or five times a year from one pasturage to another. Communist attempts to collectivize the nomads and to increase the production of livestock met with considerable resistance. In the 1990s more than half of the population lived in urban areas, notably in Ulaanbaatar.
The traditional Khalkha dwelling was the circular felt tent erected on a collapsible lattice frame. This structure—called a ger or (in Turkic languages) a yurt, or yurta—is readily disassembled and transported. In the late 20th century it was still a common form of housing in Ulaanbaatar, where population growth outpaced the construction of apartment buildings. Food consists almost entirely of meat, milk, and other animal products. The most popular drink is fermented mare’s milk, or airag, called kumys in Russian (koumiss).
Shamanism was the basis of indigenous belief among the Khalkha until the 17th century, when Tibetan Buddhism was introduced. In the early 20th century the Buddhist monasteries of Mongolia had great power and wealth, but by the 1960s most of them had been closed or converted to other uses. Since 1990 interest in Buddhism has grown once again.
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2f5245263a40d935140c8299baec0f55 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khalsa | Khalsa | Khalsa
Khalsa, (Punjabi: “the Pure”) the purified and reconstituted Sikh community instituted by Guru Gobind Singh on March 30, 1699 (Baisakhi Day; Khalsa Sikhs celebrate the birth of the order on April 13 of each year). His declaration had three dimensions: it redefined the concept of authority within the Sikh community; it introduced a new initiation ceremony and code of conduct; and it provided the community with a new religious and political vision. Khalsa is used to denote both the body of initiated Sikhs and the community of all Sikhs.
The early Sikh community had been shaped by three levels of authority: the masands (“Guru’s deputies”) were responsible for local congregations; the Guru was the active central authority; and the revealed word as recorded in Sikh scriptural text served as the symbolic base. With the establishment of the Khalsa, the authority of the masands was eliminated. They were expected either to become members of the community on a par with all others or to leave the fold.
Gobind Singh also introduced a new initation rite. More commonly called amrit pahul (“the nectar ceremony”) but also known as khande ki pahul (literally, “ceremony of the double-edged sword”), it was centred on a belief in the transformative power of the revealed word. The word was recited while water for initiation was stirred with a double-edged sword. Every Sikh who underwent the ceremony became a member of the Khalsa, was assigned the name Singh (“Lion”), and was expected to observe a rigorous code of conduct (rahit) symbolized by the wearing of five items: kes (long hair), kangha (a comb), kachha (a pair of shorts), karha (a steel bracelet), and kirpan (a sword). The names of these items begin with the Punjabi letter k and thus came to be known as the five Ks. The Singhs were also expected to forswear tobacco, alcohol, and certain types of meat.
In its third aspect the Khalsa embodied a concrete political agenda: the pledge to realize the rule of the Sikh community (Khalsa Raj, “kingdom of God”) in the Punjab. These three interlocking dimensions have made the institution of the Khalsa perhaps the most powerful force in shaping Sikh identity during the past three centuries. Initially a male institution, it is now open to women (who take the name Kaur [“Princess]) as well, though Khalsa authority remains firmly in male hands.
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902227f03b38baecd558a35e5b5cd98c | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khazar | Khazar | Khazar
Khazar, member of a confederation of Turkic-speaking tribes that in the late 6th century ce established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia. Although the origin of the term Khazar and the early history of the Khazar people are obscure, it is fairly certain that the Khazars were originally located in the northern Caucasus region and were part of the western Turkic empire (in Turkistan). The Khazars were in contact with the Persians in the mid-6th century ce, and they aided the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (reigned 610–641) in his campaign against the Persians.
By the beginning of the 7th century, the Khazars had become independent of the Turkic empire to the east. But by the middle of that century, the expanding empire of the Arabs had penetrated as far northward as the northern Caucasus, and from then on until the mid-8th century the Khazars engaged in a series of wars with the Arab empire. The Arabs initially forced the Khazars to abandon Derbent (661), but around 685 the Khazars counterattacked, penetrating southward of the Caucasus into present-day Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Khazars and Arabs fought each other directly in Armenia in the 720s, and, though victory passed repeatedly from one side to the other, Arab counterattacks eventually compelled the Khazars to permanently withdraw north of the Caucasus. The Khazars’ initial victories were important, though, since they had the effect of permanently blocking Arab expansion northward into eastern Europe. Having been compelled to shift the centre of their empire northward, the Khazars after 737 established their capital at Itil (located near the mouth of the Volga River) and accepted the Caucasus Mountains as their southern boundary.
During the same period, however, they expanded westward. By the second half of the 8th century, their empire had reached the peak of its power—it extended along the northern shore of the Black Sea from the lower Volga and the Caspian Sea in the east to the Dnieper River in the west. The Khazars controlled and exacted tribute from the Alani and other northern Caucasian peoples (dwelling between the mountains and the Kuban River); from the Magyars (Hungarians) inhabiting the area around the Donets River; from the Goths; and from the Greek colonies on the Crimean Peninsula. The Volga Bulgars and numerous Slavic tribes also recognized the Khazars as their overlords.
Although basically Turkic, the Khazar state bore little resemblance to the other Turkic empires of central Eurasia. It was headed by a secluded supreme ruler of semireligious character called a khagan—who wielded little real power—and by tribal chieftains, each known as a beg. The state’s military organization also seems to have lacked the forcefulness of those of the greater Turkic-Mongol empires. The Khazars seem to have been more inclined to a sedentary way of life, building towns and fortresses, tilling the soil, and planting gardens and vineyards. Trade and the collection of tribute were major sources of income. But the most striking characteristic of the Khazars was the apparent adoption of Judaism by the khagan and the greater part of the ruling class in about 740. The circumstances of the conversion remain obscure, the depth of their adoption of Judaism difficult to assess; but the fact itself is undisputed and unparalleled in central Eurasian history. A few scholars have even asserted that the Judaized Khazars were the remote ancestors of many eastern European and Russian Jews. Whatever the case may be, religious tolerance was practiced in the Khazar empire, and paganism continued to flourish among the population.
The prominence and influence of the Khazar state was reflected in its close relations with the Byzantine emperors: Justinian II (704) and Constantine V (732) each had a Khazar wife. The main source of revenue for the empire stemmed from commerce and particularly from Khazar control of the east-west trade route that linked the Far East with Byzantium and the north-south route linking the Arab empire with northern Slavic lands. Income that was derived from duties on goods passing through Khazar territory, in addition to tribute paid by subordinate tribes, maintained the wealth and the strength of the empire throughout the 9th century. But by the 10th century the empire, faced with the growing might of the Pechenegs to their north and west and of the Russians around Kiev, suffered a decline. When Svyatoslav, the ruler of Kiev, launched a campaign against the Khazars (965), Khazar power was crushed. Although the Khazars continued to be mentioned in historical documents as late as the 12th century, by 1030 their political role in the lands north of the Black Sea had greatly diminished. Despite the relatively high level of Khazar civilization and the wealth of data about the Khazars that is preserved in Byzantine and Arab sources, not a single line of the Khazar language has survived.
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da1c8b0ca588d1e99a3c4c257bf2e497 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khepri | Khepri | Khepri
…god, the most important were Khepri (the morning form), Re-Harakhty (a form of Re associated with Horus), and Atum (the old, evening form). There were three principal “social” categories of deity: gods, goddesses, and youthful deities, mostly male.
…the night, to appear as Khepri at dawn and as Re at the sun’s zenith.
…of the early morning sun, Khepri, whose name was written with the scarab hieroglyph and who was believed to roll the disk of the morning sun over the eastern horizon at daybreak. Since the scarab hieroglyph, Kheper, refers variously to the ideas of existence, manifestation, development, growth, and effectiveness, the…
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f549a59a3f763bced78787ab72835439 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khnum | Khnum | Khnum
Khnum, also spelled Khnemu, ancient Egyptian god of fertility, associated with water and with procreation. Khnum was worshipped from the 1st dynasty (c. 2925–2775 bce) into the early centuries ce. He was represented as a ram with horizontal twisting horns or as a man with a ram’s head. Khnum was believed to have created humankind from clay like a potter; this scene, with him using a potter’s wheel, was depicted in later times. The god’s first main cult centre was Herwer, near Al-Ashmūnayn in Middle Egypt. From the New Kingdom (1539–1075 bce) on, however, he was the god of the island of Elephantine, near present-day Aswān, and was known as the lord of the surrounding First Cataract of the Nile River. At Elephantine he formed a triad of deities with the goddesses Satis and Anukis. Khnum also had an important cult at Esna, south of Thebes.
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1147ec3f363effa816b61fca94e9fc6e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khoisan | Khoisan | Khoisan
In the long run these new groups of herders and farmers transformed the hunter-gatherer way of life. Initially, however, distinctions between early pastoralists, farmers, and hunter-gatherers were not overwhelming, and in many areas the various groups coexisted. The first evidence of pastoralism in the…
Small scattered groups of Khoisan people inhabit the southwestern districts of Botswana, as well as being incorporated with other ethnic groups. They include communities with their own headmen and livestock, as well as poorer groups employed by Tswana and white cattle farmers.
…Hills has evidence of continuous Khoisan occupation from about 17,000 bce to about 1650 ce. During the final centuries of the last millennium before the Common Era, some of the Khoi (Tshu-khwe) people of northern Botswana converted to pastoralism, herding their cattle and sheep on the rich pastures revealed by…
…joined by an uprising of Khoisan servants, who deserted their white masters, taking guns and horses—was particularly serious. British troops, occupying the Cape during the Napoleonic Wars, appeared on the eastern frontier in 1811, in the fourth war, and drove the Xhosa from the Zuurveld.
…of mtDNA sequences of modern Khoisan peoples, who are indigenous to South Africa, indicated that this group split from other H. sapiens sometime between 150,000 and 90,000 years ago, suggesting that maternal lineages were well established early in human history. In a study of Y-chromosome diversity, researchers found that two…
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84e0b32cd219446fd9e03ebdd7cd74ee | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kia-Motors-Corporation | Kia Motors Corporation | Kia Motors Corporation
Kia, South Korea’s second largest automaker, was acquired by Hyundai in 1999. Daewoo, owned by the Daewoo Group conglomerate, entered the automobile field on a large scale in the 1980s and had won nearly a fifth of the market before entering into financial receivership and…
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77b9d6ae3edbaf8f2c0fe2fa3780ed8d | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kibbutz | Kibbutz | Kibbutz
Kibbutz, (Hebrew: “gathering” or “collective”) plural kibbutzim, also spelled qibbutz, Israeli collective settlement, usually agricultural and often also industrial, in which all wealth is held in common. Profits are reinvested in the settlement after members have been provided with food, clothing, and shelter and with social and medical services. Adults have private quarters, but children are generally housed and cared for as a group. Cooking and dining are in common. The settlements have edged toward greater privacy with regard to person and property since the formation of Israel in 1948. The kibbutzim, which are generally established on land leased from the Jewish National Fund, convene weekly general meetings at which the kibbutz members determine policy and elect their administrative members.
The first kibbutz was founded at Deganya in Palestine in 1909. Others were created in the following years, and by the early 21st century there were more than 250 kibbutzim in Israel, their total population numbering more than 100,000. The early kibbutzim in Palestine were actually kevuẓot; these were relatively small collectives that gradually evolved into the larger and more extended collective community known as the kibbutz. The kibbutzim played an important role in the pioneering of new Jewish settlements in Palestine, and their democratic and egalitarian character had a strong influence on early Israeli society as a whole. The kibbutzim still make contributions to Israel’s economy and leadership that are disproportionately large when compared with the kibbutzim’s relatively small share of the country’s population.
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7958faec7ecec151e232d9e661a78955 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kickstarter | Kickstarter | Kickstarter
…entrepreneur who created and cofounded Kickstarter, an Internet company that specialized in providing financial support for philanthropic and artistic endeavours by linking project leaders with a vast online community of investors.
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341a1e766c442a93b79ff370a5f2a270 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kid-leather | Kid leather | Kid leather
Kid leather, made from goatskin, is used for women’s dress shoes and men’s slippers. Sheepskin is used in linings and slippers. Reptile leathers (alligator, lizard, and snake) are used in women’s and some men’s shoes. Cordovan (a small muscle layer obtained from horsehide) is a…
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f2392c8274050d954adc81f6a42e3054 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kikongo-Kituba | Kikongo-Kituba | Kikongo-Kituba
Kikongo-Kituba, also called Kikongo ya Leta orKileta (“the state’s Kikongo”), Kikongo ya bula-matari or Kibula-matari (“the stone-breaker’s speech”), Ikele ve (“be not,” in the infinitive), Mono kutuba (“I say”), or (by linguists) Kituba, according to some linguists, a creole language of Central Africa that evolved out of the contact between Kikongo-Kimanyanga and other Bantu languages in western Democratic Republic of the Congo and southern Republic of the Congo. Kimanyanga is the Kikongo dialect of Manyanga, which was a centre for precolonial trade routes that extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the interior, past Kinshasa, the present-day capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The dialect was used as the trade language.
The initial syllable ki- in the various names for the language is the Bantu prefix that denotes instruments and languages. Two of Kikongo-Kituba’s alternative names, Kileta and Kibula-matari, allude to the circumstances of the creole’s development in the late 19th century. At that time, it became associated with the colonial administration and the builders of the railroad extending from the coast to Kinshasa, whose work involved blasting rocks. The colonial administrators hired workers from all over Central Africa for this project. While appropriating Kimanyanga as their lingua franca, the workers unwittingly modified it into a new language variety. During the same period, as they expanded their rule, the colonial administrators took Kimanyanga-speaking auxiliaries with them to other parts of the interior. The dialect quickly evolved into the vernacular of new colonial posts and trade centres, the precursors of towns where the restructured variety, Kituba, would function as a vernacular.
In contrast, the name variants Ikele ve and Mono kutuba allude to the fact that Kituba’s verbal forms are less agglutinating and invariant, lacking subject-agreement prefixes, than they are in the ethnic Kikongo vernaculars, especially Kikongo-Kimanyanga. For instance, Ngé/Béto kéle dia ‘You/We are eating’ (literally, ‘You/We be eat’) in Kituba corresponds to U-/Tu-t á-dí-á ‘You/We [progressive]-eat-[final vowel]’ in Kimanyanga.
Having developed primarily from contacts among Bantu-speaking peoples, Kituba raises interesting questions about the extent of structural homogeneity in the Bantu language family. Kituba is now one of the four major indigenous lingua francas, known also as “national languages,” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Like the others, it is also spoken as a vernacular in urban centres. As with other African lingua francas, it is part of a stratified repertoire of languages in which it enjoys more prestige than the indigenous ethnic vernaculars but less than the colonial official language (in this case French).
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05602111ef770e95c4fd6ba694a18408 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kill-Uncle | Kill Uncle | Kill Uncle
…however, on subsequent singles and Kill Uncle (1991), Morrissey, backed by an undistinguished rockabilly band, dwindled into tuneless self-parody. His muse rallied with the glam-rock-influenced Your Arsenal (1992) and the delicate Vauxhall and I (1994). These albums, and the less impressive Southpaw Grammar (1995) and Maladjusted (1997), testified to a…
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d75441a8a9734c94b1fe964095ec127f | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Killers-Head | Killer’s Head | Killer’s Head
In Killer’s Head (produced 1975), for example, the rambling monologue, a Shepard stock-in-trade, blends horror and banality in a murderer’s last thoughts before electrocution; Angel City (produced 1976) depicts the destructive machinery of the Hollywood entertainment industry; and Suicide in B-flat (produced 1976) exploits the potentials…
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d2e1471fc04204334134c2e2d774eb24 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kimkhwab | Kimkhwāb | Kimkhwāb
Kimkhwāb, Indian brocade woven of silk and gold or silver thread. The word kimkhwāb, derived from the Persian, means “a little dream,” a reference perhaps to the intricate patterns employed; kimkhwāb also means “woven flower,” an interpretation that appears more applicable to the brocade, in view of the floral patterns common to the material. Kimkhwāb, known in India from ancient times, was called hiraṇya, or cloth of gold, in Vedic literature (c. 1500 bc). In the Gupta period (4th–6th century ad) it was known as puṣpapaṭa, or cloth with woven flowers. During the Mughal period (1556–1707), when kimkhwāb was extremely popular with the rich, the great centres of brocade weaving were Benares (Vārānasi), Ahmādābād, Surat, and Aurangābād. Benares is now the most important centre of kimkhwāb production.
Kimkhwābs are classified according to the amount of gold and silver thread used: some are woven entirely from the two precious metals; in some, coloured silk thread is used sparingly to accent the design; and in others most of the work is done in silk thread, the gold and silver being sparingly used. The patterns favoured for brocades are floral meanders and sprays, pinecones, rosettes, arabesques (patterns of interlaced lines), and stylized plants such as the poppy.
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d9ef43e32bb83be8e03eed41abe45aed | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kincsem | Kincsem | Kincsem
Kincsem, (foaled 1874), European racehorse whose total of 54 victories (1876–79) without defeat was into the 1980s the best unbeaten record in the history of flat (Thoroughbred) racing. A mare sired by Cambuscan out of Water Nymph (both English-bred horses), she was foaled in Hungary and raced in Austria, England, France, and Germany, as well as in her native country.
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fbc62b51174464579fc29077385e061e | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kindly-Light | Kindly Light | Kindly Light
…novels, Unguarded Hours (1978) and Kindly Light (1979), chronicle the misadventures of a man who begins a career in organized religion.
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b79f0177f18e8c5eb9a9e9ebb261dc3b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/King-Crimson | King Crimson | King Crimson
…such British bands as Genesis, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, and Yes. The term art rock is best used to describe either classically influenced rock by such British groups as the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP), Gentle Giant, the
…bassist and lead singer for King Crimson (1968–69); and Palmer had cofounded Atomic Rooster (1969–70). ELP made synthesizer keyboards rather than guitars the centrepiece of its sound and developed an eclectic and innovative style blending classical music, jazz, blues,
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45aee849a068677159a7e7b415ae3868 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/King-Kong-film-1933 | King Kong | King Kong
King Kong, landmark American monster film, released in 1933, that was noted for its pioneering special effects by Willis O’Brien. It was the first significant feature film to star an animated character and also made actress Fay Wray an international star.
Director Carl Denham (played by Robert Armstrong) leads a film crew to a remote, uncharted Pacific island in search of the legendary Kong, a gigantic ape. After the island’s inhabitants abandon actress Ann Darrow (Wray) to Kong, Denham and his crew pursue the beast through the dinosaur-infested jungle. They eventually capture Kong and take him to New York as a sideshow attraction, with disastrous results. The climax of the film, when Kong climbs the Empire State Building while clutching a terrified Ann, is one of the most famous in film history. Kong safely places Ann aside and then battles machine-gun fire from swarming planes, which mortally wound him and cause him to plunge to his death. Denham then utters the film’s signature lines: “Oh, no. It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.”
Despite the perception of Kong as a giant ferocious beast, the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” as he was billed in the script and in publicity material for the film, he was in fact an 18-inch (45-cm) puppet designed by O’Brien. For close-up shots, the special-effects team built giant arms, hands, and feet for Kong, and men inside a giant model head of the ape operated cables and levers to simulate facial features. O’Brien’s pioneering use of models and miniatures, stop-motion animation, miniature rear projection, and traveling mattes (which combined images of foreground action with a separately filmed background) became the basic techniques of movie special effects.
Until her death in 2004, Wray enjoyed an iconic status in Hollywood based solely upon her role in this film. Max Steiner’s triumphant musical score inspired a generation of film composers. King Kong was remade in 1976 with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange and in 2005 by director Peter Jackson.
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a2ce40d13f4ceaddfcd5d3714db7bad8 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/King-of-Kings-film-by-Ray | King of Kings | King of Kings
With King of Kings (1961) Ray took a deliberately nonepic approach to the life of Jesus (whose naturalistic portrayal by Hunter was generally praised). 55 Days at Peking (1963), with a cast that included Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and David Niven, was an epic portrayal of…
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88a6116ff267755bbd0fdb9f9b296611 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/King-Ranch | King Ranch | King Ranch
King Ranch, largest ranch in the United States, composed of a group of four tracts of land in southeastern Texas, totaling approximately 825,000 acres (333,800 hectares).
The King Ranch was established by Richard King, a steamboat captain born in 1825 in Orange county, New York. Drawn to Texas by the Mexican War (1846–48), King piloted a steamer on the Rio Grande. After the war he bought his own steamer and went into partnership with Captain Mifflin Kenedy, who had been his commander. King purchased a part of the 75,000-acre (30,350-hectare) Spanish land grant known as Rincon de Santa Gertrudis. The King-Kenedy partnership dissolved in 1868. King and his heirs eventually accumulated more than 1,250,000 acres (505,850 hectares) of land, building an empire (supporting chiefly cattle, sheep, and horses) that spread over Kleberg, Nueces, Kenedy, and Willacy counties in Texas. Headquarters for the ranch are in Kingsville.
After King’s death in 1885, the King Ranch continued to deal in cattle and horses, as well as in sorghum and wheat. Beginning in about 1910, the ranch began to develop the breed of beef cattle known as Santa Gertrudis, which is part Brahman and part Shorthorn. Oil and gas leases, first contracted in the 1940s, provided additional income. By the mid-1970s, the ranch owned millions of acres of land in countries such as Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and Morocco; falling market prices caused them to sell off much of this land in the 1980s. Now a National Historic Landmark, the ranch—which provided the model for Edna Ferber’s novel Giant (1952)—remains an important working centre of agricultural production; its museum and visitor centre draw tens of thousands of guests each year.
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14a7073b276f78202d5d4407a3fa75cc | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kingdom-Come | Kingdom Come | Kingdom Come
(2000), Millennium People (2003), and Kingdom Come (2006), effectively exposing the foibles of his middle-class characters by documenting their reactions to the violence against a stark backdrop of shopping malls and office parks.
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b4bb2834a87226101b8631ef149570bb | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kingdom-of-Lombardy-Venetia | Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia | Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia
…proclaimed the formation of the kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. The new state was a fiction, however, because the two regions remained separate, each subject to the central ministries in Vienna. Milan lost its role as a capital, most of the Napoleonic administration was dismantled, and the centralizing authority of Vienna became…
…there was no revolution in Lombardy-Venetia, a complex network of opponents of the regime was discovered and suppressed. In October 1820 the Carbonari in Milan were attacked, and some were deported. In March 1821 the police penetrated another secret organization, I Federati (“The Confederates”), led by the Milanese nobleman Federico…
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2154b38b76da53a7773c98ccd56bae20 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kings-Highway | King's Highway | King's Highway
King’s Highway, also called Via Nova Traiana, ancient thoroughfare that connected Syria and the Gulf of Aqaba by way of what is now Jordan. Mentioned in the Old Testament, it is one of the world’s oldest continuously used communication routes.
The King’s Highway was an important thoroughfare for north-south trade from ancient times. The Roman emperor Trajan (reigned 98–117 ce) renovated the road in order to improve transportation and communications between the regional capital, Bostra, and Al-ʿAqabah. The renovated road was known specifically as the “Via Nova Traiana” to distinguish it from another road that Trajan constructed, the Via Traiana in Italy. The King’s Highway was also an important thoroughfare during the Crusades, and numerous fortified castles remain along its route.
The development of similar routes—including the Pilgrimage Route, and, later, the Hejaz Railway and the Desert Highway—largely eclipsed the King’s Highway. Nevertheless, it is promoted as a tourist attraction and is a picturesque means of exploring parts of the Jordanian countryside. The road links some of Jordan’s most important historical sites, including those at Mādabā, Al-Karak, Al-Ṭafīlah, Al-Shawbak, and Petra, and also traverses important natural sites, including Wadi Al-Mawjib, wherein lies the 124-square-mile (320-square-km) Ḍānā Biosphere Reserve.
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48aa7f1d5372ad14d7224cb1665efac6 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kings-Men | King's Men | King's Men
King’s Men, English theatre company known by that name after it came under royal patronage in 1603. Its previous name was the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Considered the premier acting company in Jacobean England, the troupe included William Shakespeare as its leading dramatist and Richard Burbage as it principal actor. The King’s Men often performed at the Blackfriars and Globe theatres. See Chamberlain’s Men.
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6b98dc7419faa05de4b9c6586d892916 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kings-Peace | King’s Peace | King’s Peace
…request, and dictate the so-called King’s Peace of 387–386 bc. Once again the Greeks gave up any claim to Asia Minor and further agreed to maintain the status quo in Greece itself.
The Peace of Antalcidas (387), which ended the war, included a clause guaranteeing the Greek cities their independence. Agesilaus used this clause as an excuse to force the dissolution of Thebes’s Boeotian League. In two sieges (378 and 377) he reduced Thebes to near starvation. By…
…the settlement known as the King’s Peace, or the Peace of Antalcidas, by which Artaxerxes decreed that all the Asiatic mainland and Cyprus were his, that Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros were to remain Athenian dependencies, and that all the other Greek states were to receive autonomy.
The ensuing Peace of Antalcidas, or King’s Peace, of 386 specified that Asia, including Cyprus and Clazomenae, was to belong to the king of Persia. (Ionian Clazomenae was included because Athens had interfered there and also because its status—whether it was an island…
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1466640881fc90196d174e78ef12defa | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kingsblood-Royal | Kingsblood Royal | Kingsblood Royal
…and the racially prejudiced (Kingsblood Royal [1947]) were satirically sharp and thoroughly documented, though Babbitt is his only book that still stands up brilliantly at the beginning of the 21st century. Similar careful documentation, though little satire, characterized James T. Farrell’s naturalistic Studs Lonigan trilogy (1932–35), which described the
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d6a8f8c21d3d60b8d39546cf21625fe5 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kinship/Descent-theory | Descent theory | Descent theory
Kinship was regarded as the theoretical and methodological core of social anthropology in the early and middle part of the 20th century. Although comparative studies gradually abandoned an explicit evolutionist agenda, there remained an implicit evolutionary cast to the way in which kinship studies were framed. Indeed, scholarly interest in the cross-cultural comparison of kinship institutions could be traced back to a set of questions deriving from the cultural evolutionists.
The central problem addressed by anthropologists of the early 20th century was directly related to the colonial enterprise and focused on understanding the mechanisms for maintaining political order in stateless societies. Given that such societies lacked centralized administrative and judicial institutions—the bureaucratic machinery of the state—how were rights, duties, status, and property transmitted from one generation to the next? Traditional societies accomplished this task by organizing around kinship relations rather than property. This distinction arose out of the models that had been developed by Maine and Morgan, in which cultural evolution was driven by the transition from status to contract forms of organization and from corporate to individual forms of property ownership.
Prominent British social anthropologists of this period, such as Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Evans-Pritchard, and Fortes, generally advocated a functionalist approach to these questions. The major premises of functionalism were that every aspect of a culture, no matter how seemingly disparate (e.g., kinship terms, technology, food, mythology, artistic motifs), had a substantive purpose and that within a given culture these diverse structures worked together to maintain the group’s viability. For instance, these scholars saw the family as a universal social institution that functioned primarily to rear children. From their perspective this function was to a large degree self-evident and cross-culturally constant. The wider groupings recruited through kinship, which were the basis of political and economic organization, were much more culturally variable and hence of greater interest.
Fortes distinguished between the “private” or “domestic” domain of kinship and what he called the “politico-jural” domain. It was nevertheless true that Fortes in particular gave considerable explanatory weight to the emotional power of kinship. According to Fortes, what gave kinship its moral force was the “axiom of amity”—the idea that in the last analysis it is kin who can always be relied upon to help you out and who are the people you turn to when other help fails. Yet if this emotional content was the source of the power of kinship, it was also an area that lay beyond the province of anthropology. Fortes had been influenced by Freudian psychology, but his approach placed analyses of emotion and the unconscious mind in the domain of psychologists rather than anthropologists. Thus, British social anthropologists explored the ways in which kinship provided a basis for forming the kinds of groups—discrete, bounded, and linked to a particular territory—that were seen as necessary for a stable political order. Their explanations of these mechanisms became known as the descent theory of kinship.
Kinship is always “bilateral”; that is, it consists of relatives on both the mother’s and the father’s sides. Of course the relatives on both sides of any individual overlap with those of others, creating a web of interconnectedness rather than a discrete group. However, the recognition of one line of descent and the exclusion of the other provides the basis of a “unilineal” kinship system. In such systems descent defines bounded groups. The principle operates similarly whether the rule of descent is matrilineal (traced through the mother in the female line) or patrilineal (traced through the father in the male line).
Unilineal kinship systems were seen by British anthropologists of this period as providing a basis for the stable functioning of societies in the absence of state institutions. Generally, unilineal descent groups were exogamous. They also acted as corporations: their members held land in common, acted as a single unit with regard to substantive property, and behaved as one “person” in relation to other similarly constituted groups in legal and political matters such as warfare, feuds, and litigation. That is, the members of a lineage did not act as individuals in the politico-jural domain, instead conceiving themselves to a considerable extent as undifferentiated and continuous with each other. This corporateness was the basis of the stability and structure of a society formed out of unilineal descent groups.
The distinction between matrilineal and patrilineal systems did not have any obvious implications in terms of women’s political status, although it is sometimes assumed that a matrilineal kinship system must imply women’s greater political power. Anthropologists make a clear distinction between matriliny and matriarchy, however: the former denotes a method of reckoning kinship, while the latter denotes a system in which women have overall political control to the exclusion of men. Similarly, patriarchy denotes political control by men to the exclusion of women.
Although women may be more highly valued in matrilineal than patrilineal cultures, the anthropological data clearly indicate that hierarchical political systems (whether matrilineal or patrilineal) tend to be dominated by men and that no period of absolute matriarchy has ever existed. Despite plentiful evidence to the contrary, a notional era of “pure” matriarchy has been invoked as a theme in some very diverse contexts, including not only 19th-century cultural evolutionism but also the more recent discourses of environmentalism (especially ecofeminism), Neo-Paganism, and the so-called Goddess movement.
The differences between matrilineal and patrilineal systems nonetheless drew the nature of personhood to the attention of descent theorists. Studies of matrilineal systems suggested that a particular nexus of problems might arise regarding political continuity in a context where the holders of office (men) did not pass their status to their sons. If a man’s right to inherit an office was determined by who his mother was, then the political cohesion that seemed to be dependent on the father-son bond was potentially jeopardized. A number of solutions to what became known as the “matrilineal puzzle” were described, focusing variously on rules for marriage, residence, and succession. Perhaps the best-known of these is the avunculate, a custom in which men have an unusually close relationship with their sisters’ sons, often including coresidence.
The issues that underlay the so-called matrilineal puzzle were directly related to culturally specific notions about what constitutes a person. It was very clear that, in spite of wielding political authority, men in matrilineal systems occupied a marginal position as lineage members: they belonged by birth to the group of their mother, but on marriage they might be to some extent incorporated into their wife’s group in order to ensure the succession of her children. Because a man’s position as a member of a matrilineage was always to some degree compromised between affiliation to his mother’s group and to that of his wife, the extent to which he achieved full social personhood—that is, an identity altogether within either lineage—was limited. Fortes’s own work among the Tallensi of West Africa demonstrated very clearly that exactly the same argument could be made about women in a patrilineal system: women were always caught between being members of their father’s lineage and that of their husband. Not fully members of either group, they were not considered full social persons. However, the significance of men’s liminality vis-à-vis lineage membership seemed far greater and occupied more analytical space than that of women in mid-century studies, a view that reflected the androcentrism of the era’s researchers.
Although descent theory dominated early to mid-20th-century British kinship studies, a number of problems soon emerged. It became apparent that the depiction of societies as neatly ordered by unilineal descent into clearly bounded, nested units of different scale was quite far from everyday political reality. Personal experiences of kinship could vary considerably from the normative models described by some anthropologists; Evans-Pritchard, for instance, demonstrated that individuals could not always unequivocally identify the lineage to which they belonged. Furthermore, as scholars from Britain, France, and the United States increasingly undertook fieldwork outside Africa—for example, in Polynesia, Southeast Asia, or New Guinea—it became clear that kinship was not always organized through unilineal descent. Despite Radcliffe-Brown’s assertions to the contrary, bilateral (sometimes called “cognatic”) kinship as well as bilateral descent groups (reckoned in both the mother’s and the father’s lines) were found to be statistically common, even though they did not provide the same kind of clearly demarcated groupings as unilineal versions of kinship.
A further issue of contention was the extent to which descent theory minimized the importance of marriage in the structuring of kinship. Both Evans-Pritchard and Fortes asserted the importance of various links between descent groups. Such links assured the wider integration of kinship groups over a particular territory and could include links formed through marital connections as well as the recognition of kinship ties in the line that was complementary to the principal line of descent (i.e., matrilateral ties in a patrilineal kinship system or patrilateral ones in a matrilineal system). In their opinion, however, the principle of descent remained paramount in assuring the stable functioning of societies without states. Many prominent British anthropologists of this era were soon locked in forceful debate with their colleagues elsewhere over the significance of descent relative to that of marriage.
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2fb9d887f6d305e7265863d46e2e9e5a | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kiowa | Kiowa | Kiowa
Kiowa, North American Indians of Kiowa-Tanoan linguistic stock who are believed to have migrated from what is now southwestern Montana into the southern Great Plains in the 18th century. Numbering some 3,000 at the time, they were accompanied on the migration by Kiowa Apache, a small southern Apache band that became closely associated with the Kiowa. Guided by the Crow, the Kiowa learned the technologies and customs of the Plains Indians and eventually formed a lasting peace with the Comanche, Arapaho, and Southern Cheyenne. The name Kiowa may be a variant of their name for themselves, Kai-i-gwu, meaning “principal people.”
The Kiowa and their confederates were among the last of the Plains tribes to capitulate to the U.S. Cavalry. Since 1868 they have shared a reservation with the Comanche between the Washita and Red rivers, centring on Anadarko, Oklahoma. Before their surrender, Kiowa culture was typical of nomadic Plains Indians. After they acquired horses from the Spanish, their economy focused on equestrian bison hunting. They lived in large tepees and moved camp frequently in pursuit of game. Kiowa warriors attained rank according to their exploits in war, including killing an enemy or touching his body during combat.
Traditional Kiowa religion included the belief that dreams and visions gave individuals supernatural power in war, hunting, and healing. Ten medicine bundles, believed to protect the tribe, became central in the Kiowan Sun Dance. The Kiowa and the Comanche were instrumental in spreading peyotism (see Native American church).
The Kiowa were also notable for their pictographic histories of tribal events, recorded twice each year. Each summer and winter from 1832 to 1939, one or more Kiowa artists created a sketch or drawing that depicted the events of the past six months; in the early years of this practice, the drawings were made on dressed skins, while artists working later in the period drew on ledger paper. The National Anthropological Archives of the Smithsonian Institution contain a number of these extraordinary drawings.
Early 21st-century population estimates indicated more than 12,000 individuals of Kiowa descent.
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ea36d9da8c867efe70aa24cad3313dac | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kiss-of-Death | Kiss of Death | Kiss of Death
Kiss of Death, American film noir, released in 1947, that is especially noted for the chilling performance by Richard Widmark in his screen debut.
Nick Bianco (played by Victor Mature) decides to testify against his former mob cronies in order to win release from prison and be reunited with his family. The caveat is that he must reintegrate himself into the mob and risk his life to bring the top criminals to justice. He provides evidence against sadistic killer Tommy Udo (Widmark), but Udo is ultimately acquitted, which sets up a showdown between the two men.
Widmark earned high praise for his portrayal of a vicious thug incapable of distinguishing rival gangsters from helpless victims. His Academy Award-nominated performance is defined by the famous scene in which he laughs hysterically after throwing an elderly wheelchair-bound woman down a staircase to her death. A scene originally filmed depicted Bianco’s wife committing suicide after being raped by a gangster assigned to guard her, but the studio later removed it owing to its controversial nature. A 1995 remake of Kiss of Death featured David Caruso and Nicolas Cage.
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f7c4fa6e4aa19193bfaab3a6ba72b894 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kisses-for-My-President | Kisses for My President | Kisses for My President
Kisses for My President (1964) was his last film, an overlong but occasionally funny yarn about a woman (Polly Bergen) who is the first to become a U.S. president and her struggles with the office and her family, especially her husband (Fred MacMurray). Although not…
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b45fe0b8e38e1dbbff75256e2912fbf9 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/kittel | Kittel | Kittel
Kittel, plural Kittel, in Judaism, a white robe worn in the synagogue on such major festivals as Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. The rabbi wears it, as does the cantor, the blower of the shofar (ritual ram’s horn), and male members of Ashkenazi (German-rite) congregations. Before a Seder dinner, the leader of the Passover (Pesaḥ) service dons a kittel, and in Orthodox communities the bridegroom wears it at his wedding. Pious Jews use the kittel as a burial shroud.
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db6f9857c1a3e9e7f62b469d42361be2 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/knez | Knez | Knez
Led by the Serb knez, or prince, Lazar Hrebeljanović (he did not claim Dušan’s imperial title), a combined army of Serbs, Albanians, and Hungarians met Murad’s forces in battle. On St. Vitus’s Day (Vidovdan), June 28 (June 15, Old Style), 1389, at Kosovo Polje, the Serbs and their allies…
…would later rule through local knezes, who were Christian “princes” or “headmen.” A knez might act as a negotiator for taxation with the authorities, as a kind of justice of the peace, as an intermediary in the organization of labour obligations, or as a spokesman for the Christian population in…
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75b0419c799e710f0e2b1e3499f29bae | https://www.britannica.com/topic/Knight-Rider | Knight Rider | Knight Rider
…A-Team (1983–87), Riptide (1984–86), and Knight Rider (1982–86), the latter of which featured a talking car that fought crime, helped ease NBC out of third place in the first half of the decade. Then a pair of very traditional nuclear family sitcoms—The Cosby Show and Family Ties—achieved the top two…
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fa9e2417ac01c672d0d799fcd785e55b | https://www.britannica.com/topic/knout | Knout | Knout
The Russian knout, consisting of a number of dried and hardened thongs of rawhide interwoven with wire—the wires often being hooked and sharpened so that they tore the flesh—was even more painful and deadly. A particularly painful, though not so deadly, type of flogging was the bastinado,…
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726a8f61f9135156866fec10099a5607 | https://www.britannica.com/topic/knucklebone | Knucklebone | Knucklebone
…immediate forerunners of dice were knucklebones (astragals: the anklebones of sheep, buffalo, or other animals), sometimes with markings on the four faces. Such objects are still used in some parts of the world.
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