1001 People Who Made America - Alan Axelrod [70]
Key, Francis Scott (1779–1843) Baltimore attorney Key was detained by the British aboard a warship in Baltimore Harbor during the attack on that city in the War of 1812. He passed the night anxiously observing the naval bombardment of Fort McHenry, sentinel guarding the approach to Baltimore. When the dawn’s early light revealed that the star-spangled banner still waved—signifying the British failure to capture the fort—Key wrote the verses that were later set (by others) to an old English tavern tune (“To Anacreon in Heaven”) and became the words of the National Anthem. (“The Star-Spangled Banner” was officially proclaimed the anthem by President Herbert Hoover in 1931.)
Kieft, Willem (1597–1647) Kieft was director-general of New Netherland (modern New York) from 1638 to 1647. During the night of February 25–26, 1643, he perpetrated a horrific massacre of Wappinger Indians—men, women, and children—at Pavonia (modern Jersey City), New Jersey for the purpose of suppressing potential Indian warfare. Instead, the Pavonia Massacre provoked massive tribal retaliation, and New Amsterdam (modern New York City) was subjected to a state of semi-siege for more than a year. War between the Indians and Dutch did not end until 1645.
Kimmel, Husband E. (1882–1968) As navy CINCPAC (Commander in Charge of the Pacific) at the outbreak of World War II, Admiral Kimmel, with his army counterpart, General Walter C. Short, took most of the blame for America’s unpreparedness to resist the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Unlike Short, he was never officially blamed for Pearl Harbor, but the catastrophe ended his career. Retiring from the navy, he worked for an engineering firm, then published Admiral Kimmel’s Story, an attempt to clear his name.
King, Billie Jean (1943– ) King’s record, style, and character as a professional tennis player raised the status of women’s professional tennis to that of a major sport. Although she won 39 major titles in her career, she may be best remembered for defeating Bobby Riggs, a loudmouth “male chauvinist” tennis player, in what was advertised in 1973 as the “Battle of the Sexes.” At stake was largest tennis purse to that time.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1929–1968) An ordained Baptist minister, King rose to leadership of the national Civil Rights movement beginning in 1956 during the Montgomery (Alabama) Bus Boycott. He came into national prominence as founding leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which promoted nonviolent protest to end racial segregation and discrimination throughout the nation. His stirring “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the massive 1963 March on Washington galvanized the nonviolent Civil Rights movement and aided passage of the epochal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964, and while no Civil Rights leader was more respected or influential, King found his leadership under increasing challenge from more militant black leaders, especially after (in the mid 1960s) he merged the cause of racial equality with a general drive to end poverty—regardless of race. King fell victim to an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968, while in Memphis to aid striking sanitation workers. The night before, he had delivered his prophetic “Promised Land” speech, declaring, “I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”
King Philip (circa 1639–1676) The Wampanoag sachem Metacomet—known to the colonists of New England as King Philip—was the second son of Massasoit, the chief who