K. Eric Drexler (born 1955) has done more to raise public consciousness about molecular nanotechnology than any other scientist. He is chairman of the Foresight Institute, has lectured extensively, and has written three books on nanotechno...

Kenneth Colin Irving (1899-1992) was an industrialist who built a cluster of interrelated regional businesses into a massive empire that straddled virtually every aspect of his native New Brunswick's economy. He became the "Paul Bunyan of ...

Tanaka Kakuei (1918-1993) was the most controversial of the post-World War II prime ministers of Japan. As the leader of the largest faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) he dominated Japanese politics for many years. Althou...

Natalie Kalmus (1883-1965) played a key role in the development and promotion of the Technicolor film process. Kalmus was born Natalie Mabelle Dunfee in 1883 (some sources say 1878 or 1892) in Norfolk, Virginia, the daughter of George Kays...

Kamehameha I (ca. 1758-1819), first king of the Hawaiian Islands, conquered and united the islands. He became a statesman who knew how to keep the best of the old ways while adopting the best of the new. Born in Kohala, Hawaii, of a family...

Behzad or Bihzad (died ca. 1530) is considered the most important painter of Persia in a period when the country produced many great painters. Unfortunately, important as Behzad was, there is no record of his birth or death and very little...

K'ang Yu-wei (1858-1927) was one of the most prominent scholars of modern China, particularly famous for his radical reinterpretations of Confucianism and for his role as the Emperor's adviser during the abortive Hundred Days Reform moveme...

Kushan ruler Kanishka (flourished ca. 78-ca. 103 A.D.) controlled an empire covering most of India, Iran, and central Asia in the first and second centuries. With his conversion to and official support of Mahayana Buddhism, the religion un...

Kareem Abdul Jabbar (born 1947), formerly Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr. was one of the greatest basketball players to play the game at the high school, college, and professional ranks. Kareem Abdul Jabbar was born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor,...

Isak Dinesen was the pseudonym used by the Danish author Karen Dinesen Blixen-Finecke (1885-1962). Her stories place her among Denmark's greatest authors. Isak Dinesen was born on April 17, 1885, the daughter of a wealthy landowner, advent...

Karen Silkwood (1946-1974), a nuclear plant laborer who died while investigating safety violations made by her employer, is viewed as a martyr by anti-nuclear activists. Her story was made into a film, Silkwood, in 1983. On the night of No...

The Swiss-born solid-state physicist Karl Alexander Müller (born 1927) spent years at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory studying the properties of a class of compounds called perovskites. In collaboration with J. Georg Bednorz, he be...

The Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968), a giant in the history of Christian thought, initiated what became the dominant movement in Protestant theology up to the present day. Karl Barth was born on May 10, 1886, in Basel, t...

The American political scientist Karl Wolfgang Deutsch (1912-1992) was ranked among the foremost social scientists of the post-World War II era. Few, if any, other thinkers in this field attained his level of intellectual originality, prof...

The Estonian anatomist and embryologist Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876) was the first to describe the mammalian ovum. He also developed the germ-layer theory, which became the basis for modern embryology. Karl Ernst von Baer was born in Pi...

The German architect, painter, and designer Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) was one of the most important and influential architects of his time. He was equally at home with the medieval and the classical tradition. Karl Friedrich Schi...

Karl Haushofer (1869-1946) was a German professional soldier who, on his retirement at the age of 50, became a geopolitician whose views were influential in Germany especially under the Hitler regime, from 1933 to 1945. Born in Munich on A...

The German-Austrian Socialist Karl Johann Kautsky (1854-1938) was the major theoretician of German Social Democracy before World War I and one of the principal figures in the history of the international Socialist movement. Born in Prague,...

Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943), the Austrian-born American immunologist and Nobel Prize winner, discovered blood groups and helped establish the science of immunochemistry. Karl Landsteiner was born in Vienna on June 14, 1868. In 1891 he was...

The Hungarian-born sociologist and educator Karl Mannheim (1893-1947) explored the role of the intellectual in political and social reconstruction. He also wrote on the sociology of knowledge. Karl Mannheim was born on March 27, 1893, in B...

The Russian diplomat Count Karl Robert Nesselrode (1780-1862) served as minister of foreign affairs from 1814 to 1856. Karl Robert Nesselrode was born on Dec. 14, 1780, in Lisbon, Portugal, where his father was Russian ambassador. Young Ka...

The Austrian philosopher Sir Karl Raimund Popper (1902-1994) offered an original analysis of scientific research that he also applied to research in history and philosophy. Karl Popper was born in Vienna on July 28, 1902, the son of a barr...

The German theologian Karl Rahner (1904-1984) was a major influence on 20th-century Roman Catholic thought. His work is characterized by the attempt to reinterpret traditional Roman Catholic theology in the light of modern philosophical th...

The Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch (1886-1982) is noted for his studies of insect behavior and sensory physiology. His most famous discovery was that honeybees communicate by waggle dancing. Karl von Frisch was born on November 20, 188...

By applying electron and X-ray diffraction to molecular structure problems, Isabella Karle (born 1921) was able to develop procedures for gathering information about the structure of molecules. Isabella Karle is a renowned chemist and phys...