Kru languages Branch of the Niger-Congo language family. It con¬ sists of some 24 languages (or language clusters) spoken by some three million Kru people living in the forest regions of southwestern Cote d’Ivoire and southern Liberia.
Kruger, Paul orig. Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (b.
Oct. 10, 1825, Cradock district. Cape Colony—d. July 14, 1904, Clarens, Switz.) South African soldier and statesman, noted as the builder of the Afrikaner nation. As a boy of 10, Kruger took part in the Great Trek and was impressed by the ability of the Boers to defend themselves against hostile African peoples and to establish an orderly government. When the British annexed the Transvaal in 1877, Kuger became the recognized champion of his people in the struggle to regain independence. After leading a series of armed attacks, he succeeded in obtaining limited inde¬ pendence and was elected president of the restored republic (1883-1902). In 1895 he fended off an attempt by Cecil Rhodes and Leander Starr Jame¬ son to end Boer control of the republic. His age prevented his participa¬ tion in the South African War and he retreated to the Netherlands; he died in Switzerland and was buried (December 1904) in Pretoria, S.Af.
Kruger National Park National park, South Africa. Located in the northeastern part of the country on the Mozambique border, it was cre¬ ated as a game sanctuary in 1898 and in 1926 became a national park named for Paul Kuger. It covers an area of 7,523 sq mi (19,485 sq km) and contains six rivers. It has a wide variety of wildlife, including elephants, lions, and cheetahs. In December 2002 it became part of Afri¬ ca’s largest game park when Kuger National Park was joined with Lim¬ popo National Park in Mozambique and Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe to form the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park.
Krupa, Gene (b. Jan. 15, 1909, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—d. Oct. 16, 1973, Yonkers, N.Y.) U.S. bandleader and the first great drum soloist in jazz. Krupa had worked with Eddie Condon (1905-73) in Chicago before mov¬ ing to New York City in 1929 and joining Benny Goodman’s big band in 1935. He quickly became the best-known drummer of his day, famous for the showmanship and technique displayed in extended drum solos such as that in “Sing, Sing, Sing.” He formed his own successful band in 1938, featuring trumpeter Roy Eldridge and singer Anita O’Day (b. 1919). Ku- pa’s energetic playing became the model for many drummers of the swing era.
Krupp Vkrup\ family German steel-manufacturing dynasty. Friedrich Kupp (1787-1826) founded a steel factory in Essen in 1811. On his death his son Alfred (1812-1887) took full charge of the faltering concern at age 14. He made a fortune supplying steel to the railways and manufac¬ turing cannons; the performance of Kupp guns in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 led to the firm’s being called “the Arsenal of the Reich.” At Alfred’s death he had armed 46 nations. The rise of the German navy and the need for armour plates further enriched the company under his son Friedrich Alfred (1854-1902). By the time Friedrich Alfred’s elder daughter, Bertha (1886-1957), inherited control of the firm, it employed more than 40,000 people. Her husband, Gustav von Bohlen (1870-1950), affixed Kupp to the beginning of his name; an ardent Nazi, he ran the Kupp empire until 1943, when he was succeeded by their son Alfried Kupp (1907-1967). The Kupp works used slave labour during World War II and were a major part of the Nazi war machine; Alfried was later convicted of war crimes at Niimberg. An Allied order to break up the company in 1953 languished for lack of a buyer, and Alfried eventually restored the Kupp fortune. See also Thyssen Krupp Stahl.
Krupp GmbH See ThyssenKrupp AG
Krupskaya Vkrup-sks-yoV Nadezhda (Konstantinovna) (b.
Feb. 26, 1869, St. Petersburg, Russia—d. Feb. 27, 1939, Moscow, Rus¬ sia, U.S.S.R.) Russian revolutionary, wife of Vladimir Ilich Lenin. A Marx¬ ist activist from the 1890s, she met Lenin c. 1894. Sentenced to three years in exile in 1898, she obtained permission to spend her term with Lenin in Siberia, where they were married. After 1901 she lived with Lenin in several European cities and helped found the Bolshevik party fac¬ tion. She returned to Russia in 1917 to spread Bolshevik propaganda after the revolution began, and later she served in several posts in the educa¬ tional bureaucracy. After Lenin’s death (1924), she remained aloof from intraparty struggles.
krypton \'krip-,tan\ Chemical element, chemical symbol K, atomic number 36. One of the noble GASes, it is colourless, odourless, tasteless, and almost totally inert, combining only with fluorine under very rigour- ous conditions. Krypton occurs in trace amounts in the atmosphere and in rocks and is obtained by fractional distillation of liquefied air. It is used in luminescent tubes, flash lamps, incandescent light bulbs, lasers, and tracer studies.
Kryvyy Rih Mcri-'vi-'rikN Russian Krivoy Rog \kri-'v6i-'r6k\ City (pop., 2001: 669,000), southeast-central Ukraine. Founded as a village by Cossacks in the 17th century, it grew slowly until a railway was con¬ structed to the Donets Basin in 1884; it soon became a significant iron¬ mining city. It was seized by Germany in 1941 and retaken by the Soviet Union in 1944. Temy, which was annexed to the city in 1969, has a major uranium mine. The city is now a centre of industry as well as mining, with metallurgical plants, foundries, mills, and chemical works.
Kshatriya or Ksatriya Vksho-tre-oV In Hindu India, the second- highest of the four varnas, or social classes, traditionally the military or ruling class. In ancient times before the caste system was completely defined, they were considered first in rank, placed higher than the Brah¬ mans, or priestly class. The legend that they were degraded by an incar¬ nation of Vishnu as a punishment for their tyranny may reflect a historical struggle for supremacy between priests and rulers. In modem times the Kshatriya varna includes members from a variety of castes, united by their status in government or the military or their land ownership.
Ksitigarbha Vkshi-ti-'gor-boV Buddhist bodhisattva widely revered in China and Japan. Known in India from the 4th century bc, he became popular in China as Dicang and in Japan as Jizo. He is the patron of the oppressed or dying, and he seeks to save the souls of the dead condemned to hell. In China he is the overlord of hell, and in Japan he is known for his kindness to the departed, particularly to dead children. Usually depicted as a monk with a nimbus around his shaved head, he carries a staff to force open the gates of hell and a flaming pearl to light up the darkness.
Ku Klux Klan (KKK) Either of two racist terrorist organizations in the U.S. The first was organized by veterans of the Confederate army, first as a social club and then as a secret means of resisting Reconstruction and restoring white domination over newly enfranchised blacks. Dressed in white robes and sheets, Klansmen whipped and killed freedmen and their white supporters in nighttime raids (see lynching). It had largely accom¬ plished its goals by the 1870s before gradually fading away. The second KKK arose in 1915, partly out of nostalgia for the Old South and partly out of fear of the rise of communism in Russia and the changing ethnic character of U.S. society. It counted Catholics, Jews, foreigners, and labour unions among its enemies. Its membership peaked in the 1920s at more than four million, but during the Great Depression the organization gradually declined. It became active again during the civil rights movement of the 1960s, attacking blacks and white civil rights workers with bomb¬ ings, whippings, and shootings. By the end of the 20th century, growing racial tolerance had reduced its numbers to a few thousand.
Kuala Lumpur \'kwa-lo-Tum- l pur\ City (pop., 2000 prelim.: 1,297,526), capital of Malaysia. Founded as a tin-mining camp in 1857, it was made capital of the Federated Malay States in 1895, of the inde¬ pendent Federation of Malaya in 1957, and of Malaysia in 1963. It was designated a municipality in 1972. The most important Malay city on the Malay Peninsula, it is a commercial centre and the site of the Petronas Twin Towers, the world’s tallest buildings when they were completed in 1998. Its educational institutions include the University of Malaya and a branch of the National University of Malaysia. In 1999 government offices began moving to the new administrative centre at Putrajaya just south of Kuala Lumpur.