Kilo
For decades the work of Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger was shrouded in obscurity. In the 1950s he published numerous homoerotic photographs under the pseudonym "Jim" in Der Kreis, the legendary international gay magazine that featured highly sophisticated photographs by, among others, George Platt Lynes and Herbert List. Weinberger was one of the first queer photographers to show his often working-class models posing in their everyday surroundings.
Kuru is a very rare, incurable neurodegenerative disorder that was formerly common among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. Kuru is also known as the "laughing sickness" due to the pathologic bursts of laughter which are a symptom of the disease. It is now widely accepted that kuru was transmitted among members of the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea via funerary cannibalism. Deceased family members were traditionally cooked and eaten, which was thought to help free the spirit of the dead. Women and children usually consumed the brain, the organ in which infectious prions were most concentrated, thus allowing for transmission of kuru. The disease was therefore more prevalent among women and children.
The Kakapo is a species of flightless nocturnal parrot endemic to New Zealand. Kakapo are critically endangered; as of April 2009, only 125.
The Kray twins were English gangsters who were foremost perpetrators of organized crime in London's East End during the 1950s and '60s. Ronald, commonly referred to as Ron or Ronnie, most likely suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. With their gang, The Firm, the Krays were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, assaults, and the murders of Jack "The Hat" McVitie and George Cornell. As West End nightclub owners, they mixed with prominent entertainers including Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and with politicians. The Krays were much feared within their milieu, and in the '60s became celebrities in their own right, even being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.
Konrad Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist and founder of modern ethology, the study of animal behaviour by means of comparative zoological methods.
Mitsuo Katsui is a Japanese graphic designer.
Klaus Kinski was an ill-tempered German actor who famously walked out of a Cannes press conference.
Athanasius Kircher was a Jesuit priest and scholar, sometimes called the last Renaissance man, important for his prodigious activity in disseminating knowledge. To illustrate his belief in the magnetic relationship between the sun and the vegetable kingdom, Kircher designed this heliotropic sunflower clock by attaching a sunflower to a cork and floating it in a reservoir of water. As the blossom rotated to face the sun, a pointer through its center indicated the time on the inner side of a suspended ring.
Kalyazin appeared in the 12th century as a sloboda, or the settlement for people relieved from paying taxes. The town's importance grew significantly with the foundation of the Makaryevsky monastery on the opposite bank of the Volga in the 15th century. This abbey used to be the most conspicuous landmark of Kalyazin and comprised numerous buildings of historic interest, including a refectory from 1525. In 1940 the monastery and most of the old town were flooded during the construction of the Uglich Reservoir. After that, the town was effectively relocated to a new, higher spot.
Seth Kinman was an early settler of Humboldt County, California, a hunter based in Fort Humboldt, a famous chair maker, and a nationally recognized entertainer. He stood over six feet tall and was known for his hunting prowess and his brutality toward bears and Indians. Kinman claimed to have shot a total of over 800 grizzly bears, and, in a single month, over 50 elk. He was also a hotel keeper, barkeeper, and a musician who performed for President Lincoln on a fiddle made from the skull of a mule.