David Prashker's Book Of Days: The Merely Mentioneds: K

Laurent-Désiré Kabila: transformed Zaire into the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997, ousting Mobutu Sese Seko in a coup [Africa]

Lila Kagedan: a woman rabbi, in the orthodox world? must be an error on June 3 – no, look here

Lydia Lili‘u Loloku Walania Wewehi Kamaka‘eha, remembered as “Lili’uokalani” (born September 2 1838; died November 11 1917): the very last ruler of independent Hawaii before the US illegally annexed it – among the Supra Idesses on April 17 - bio here

Haskell Karp: recipient of the first artificial heart transpalnt on April 4

Joseph Kasavubu: the first head of state when the Leopoldville part of the Congo gained independence from Belgium on June 30 1960 [Africa]

Kenneth David Kaunda: the first head of state when Zambia gained independence from Britain on October 24 1964 [Africa and see Oct 24]

Grégoire Kayibanda: the first head of state when Rwanda gained independence from Belgium on July 1 1962 [Africa]

Joseph Francis (“Buster”) Keaton: born on Oct 4; comparisoned on April 11 [the world as stage]

Thomas (Tom) Keats (1799-1818): younger brother of poet John Keats, who once wrote, in a letter to a friend, “Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?” - I wonder if he was thinking of Tom on Feb 23 [on the page of The Poets]

Christine Margaret Keeler (born February 22 1942; died December 4 2017): bringing down the government single-handed on June 5 - just needs a link to a tabloid, and I can’t resist going for the Daily Mail

Aoua Kéita: independence activist, politician and writer; born July 12 1912 in Bamako - Mali now, but then French Sudan [Africa and the Equal Sex page in Woman-Blindness]

Modibo Keïta: the first head of state when Mali became independent from France on June 20 1960 [Africa] - and no, the two are not related, even by spelling: one has an accent on the e, the other on the i

Fanny Kemble: with Anna Brownell Jameson on May 17

William Francis Kemmler: born May 9 1860; judicially electrocuted on August 6 1890 - and what kind of a human being would create a website such as this?

William Kempe, or sometimes Will Kemp (born circa 1560; died circa 1603): playing the fool on March 15; performing in Elsinore on Sept 2; and speaking of Hamlet, speaking more than what was set down for him here [the world as stage]

Jacqueline Kennedy: supporting Christiane Desroches Noblecourt on Oct 21

Yorgos Kentrotas: totally 'armless on April 8

John Frank Kermode: judging the Booker Prize on Dec 21

Francis Scott Key (born August 1 1779; died January 11 1843): “The Defense of Fort McHenry” on March 3

Seretse Goitsebeng Maphiri Khama (born July 1 1921; died July 13 1980): listed with the modern African greats on June 28; Botswana's first head of state when Bechuanaland gained independence from Britain on September 30 1966; see my page for Botswana at TheWorldHourglass [Africa page]

Arghūn Khan (born circa 1258; died March 10 1291): the Marco Polo connection and his own quite extraordinary bio are on March 5 [China page]

Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi: inventing al-Jabr (algebra), but then turning into an algorithm, on March 6; also see Abu Geber above; bio here [E,M&C2]

Franz Petr Kien (born January 1 1919; died 16 October 1944): among the artistic fellow-prisoners at Terezin on April 1 [illustrious illustrators]

William King: his “Useful Transactions in Philosophy” are on March 15 [lighter writers]

George Henry Kingsley (born February 14 1826; died February 5 1892): father of traveller-authoress Mary Kingsley on June 3 (and younger brother of author and clergyman Charles Kingsley, who is not on the blog but worth a listing, so I have added Charles among the reverend writers]

Amos Klausner (Oz was an adopted name, which is not the same thing as a Pseudonym; read “A Tale of Love and Darkness” to understand the difference): born May 4 1939; died December 28, 2018; touching the water and the wind on Aug 3 [serious scribes]

Carol Joan Klein (Carole King): jazzing up the clichés on June 20 [musical maestros]

Leo von Klenze: visited by Anna Brownell Jameson on May 17

Frederik Willem De Klerk (born March 18 1936; died November 11 2021): Freed Nelson Mandela on Feb 11. Why is he not on the GER page. He ran apartheid South Africa did he not? and would have gone on running it, if he had thought that was politically viable, would he not? and yet he did surrender it, bringing Nelson Mandela from Robben Island for secret negotiations that were so successful apartheid didn’t simply end, but turned (alas only while Mandela was still alive) into a “rainbow state” [Africa page has 1989: F.W. de Klerk replaces P.W. Botha as the President of South Africa. De Klerk immediately begins the dismantling of Apartheid. He also withdraws South African forces from Namibia, paving the way for the colony's independence.

[The Nobel he shared with Mandela is under 1994 on the Africa page]

Zoltán Kodály (born December 16 1882; died March 6 1967): a key figure in the career of Ernő Dohnányi on July 27 [musical maestros]

Emma Koechlin-Schwartz (born March 25 1838 in Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin, France; died May 29 1911 in Paris): founded the Union des Femmes de France on April 6

Rabbi Berek Kofman: father of Professor Sarah Kofman on Sept 14

Theodor “Teddy” Kolleck (born May 27 1911, died January 2 2007): Mayor of Jerusalem on August 29; his bio here

Mary Jo Kopechne (born July 26 1940; drowned off the Chappaquiddick Bridge in the early hours of July 19 1969): a nobody really, a secretary who Teddy Kennedy was shagging, probably met when she was doing campaign admin for Bobby’s 1968 Presidential campaign: the full story here

Arthur Lee Kopit (born May 10 1937; died April 2 2021): at least my xth ref to his Pulitzer Prizewinning play “Indians” - July 20 and Dec 6 in particular! For him, try here [the world as stage]

Sergei Vladimir Korschmin: expert on Abramtsevo, and performing Mussorgsky, on June 2; the link under his name on the blogpage is to his own website; and his Brisbane orchestra has stuff about him here [musical maestros]

August von Kotzebue: author of the play "Hate and Repentance", sometimes called "Misanthropy and Repentance", sometimes "The Stranger", on Nov 19

Jean de Koven: murdered by Eugène Weidmann on June 17

Karl Kraus (born April 28 1874; died June 12 1936): name-dropped by Peter Altenberg on Feb 21; compared with Jonathan Swift here, so he has to be worth reading [serious scribes]

Stephan Krehl (born July 5 1864; died April 9 1924): taught Erwin Schulhoff in Leipzig on April 1 [musical maestros]

Gidon Kremer: (born February 27 1947 in Riga, Latvia; still going strong in 2025): violinst; reviving Schulhoff on April 1; his own website here [musical maestros]

Krivtsov: gets an obscure mention on July 18, and unravelling it is proving difficult: sites by the dozen insist on the Ukrainian poet Maksym Krivtsov, but this cannot be the one that Yevtushenko means, because “Wild Berries” was published in 1984, and this Kryvstov was thirty-three when he was killed on the Ukraine-Russia front in January 2024 (and he spelled it Kryvtsov). There is also another possible joke in the Yevtushenko which I only came upon while hunting down Krivtsov on the Internet: a 1910 short film about “The Life and Death of Pushkin”, directed by Vasili Goncharov with Aleksandra Goncharova and Vladimir Markov in two of the main roles, and, playing Pushkin – the actor Vladimir Krivtsov – click here for the film, here for the actor. And then, to make the matter still more playful, Pushkin wrote a poem with the title “Krivtsovu” (read it here though the English translation has him as Krivtsov without the final u), which, as per this essay, was hugely influential on the writing of Osip Mandelstam... but you will have to read “Wild Berries” to see where this is going... and anyway this Krivtsov was not a poet, but rather one of the Decembrists

Pëtr, or sometimes Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (born December 9 1842; died February 8 1921): giving Victor Serge the title for his memoir on Aug 20. Biologist view here; Marxist view here [political ideologues]

John Kruesi the machinist, Thomas Mason the voice-over, on Nov 20, the date on which Edison claimed to have invented the phonograph [scientific achievements and E,M&C2]

Elisabeth (Elsa) Kunwald: first wife of Hans von Dohnányi on July 27 [musical maestros]

Vilém Kurz (born December 23 1872; died May 25 1945),and his wife Růžena Kurzová (née Höhmová - born June 16 1880; died December 20 1938 according to wikipedia, but this link rather questions both her birth and death dates): taught Gideon Klein piano on April 1 [musical maestros]