On this day in 1924, Novelist, playwright, poet and social critic, the late James Baldwin was born.
“To be African American is to be African without any memory and American without any privilege.” —James Baldwin
Two Benin artifacts out of Thousands have been returned to the Benin Kingdom in Nigeria by the University of Cambridge, UK.
They were stolen by British troops during the 1897 invasion of the Benin Empire.
Happy Birthday to Emmett Till. He would've been 83 years old today.
At just 14, two white men kidnapped and brutally murdered him through mutilation for 'whistling' at a white woman.
decades later, Carolyn Bryant admitted to lying that Emmett Till made a pass at her.
Every age has its celebrities. In early modern England, they were actors on the stages of London’s theatres. In Belle Époque France, it was the dancers of the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergére.
Forty years after that, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Greta Garbo became the first stars of Hollywood. But before any of these, the ancient world had celebrities of a much more violent kind. These were the gladiators of the Roman Empire.
Roman gladiators lived difficult life, but one in which they could earn great renown. They were fighters who entertained Roman society in the roughly 400 amphitheaters in almost every city and town across the empire.
Now the gladiators often did not do so of their own free will. A significant proportion of them were slaves who were forced into fighting in this way by their owners, though some free men also took up the life of a gladiator on account of the fame that could be won in the amphitheaters.
The name gladiator comes from the ‘gladius,’ a short Roman sword that was the standard weapon carried by the gladiators.
“Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.” —John Henriek Clarke
Mary Shelley was not just the mother of science fiction–she was also a loving wife, and later, a grieving widow.
The author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s life was shaken when her husband Percy Shelley drowned at sea.
During his cremation, rumor has it that Mary snatched what she believed was Percy’s heart from the flames.
The macabre writer would wrap the heart in Percy’s poetry and silk, keeping it in her desk for the rest of her life.
In July of 1518, something started in Strasbourg–modern-day France–that we still lack an explanation for to this day.
It all started when Frau Troffea made her way out into the middle of the street. After she reached her destination, she began to dance uncontrollably. Her dancing was furious and jerky, but no matter how many people tried to interrupt her, she just couldn’t stop.
Slowly, others began to join in the manic dance, a crowd growing in the center of the town. At the height of it, in August, an estimated 400 people were being forced to dance. A few of these desperate dancers would even perish, either from heat exhaustion, starvation, dehydration, and even stroke.
Finally, in September, the terrible dancing plague began to subside, and the surviving dancers were sent away to pray. At the time, it was thought the dancers may have been possessed by demons, but now it’s believed they were suffering from some kind of food poisoning, or that they had succumbed to a form of mass hysteria.
In 1996, Stanley Meyer created a water-powered car! He was poisoned 2 years later...
Stanley went to the media in 1997, showing them proof that the car worked. When the Oil giants saw this, they allegedly tried to pay him millions to be quiet!
He refused...
In 1998, Stanley was meeting with investors to discuss his invention when he took a sip of his drink and immediately ran outside...
His last words were
"They poisoned me"
THIS ENTIRE CASE WAS QUICKLY SWEPT UNDER THE RUG ⚠️