In the skies above the Somme River in France, The Red Baron is killed by Allied fire on April 21, 1918. The notorious ace-of-aces of the first world war had 80 air combat victories and was considered invincible. His name was Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen. Watch Real film footage of the Red Baron (Manfred…
April 20, 1980 – Fidel Castro Lets 125,000 Cubans Emigrate to the U.S.
On April 20, 1980, Fidel Castro Announced that anyone who wanted to leave Cuba and emigrate to the U.S. could do so. This resulted in the Mariel Boatlift, a mass migration with the use of boats from port Mariel in Cuba to the United State. By the time the U.S. and Cuban government reached an…
How a Harlem Hellfighter spread the ‘Jazz Germ’ throughout Europe after WWI
In the afterglow of the armistice in 1918 that ended World War I, Europe, and particularly the city of Paris, exhibited a wild exuberance. In mid-January 1919, future civil rights pioneer and American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) officer Charles Hamilton Houston encapsulated the mood and sounds of European joy: “Paris is taken away with [jazz] and…
Nikos Kazantzakis: The author who caused chaos three decades after his death courtesy of Martin Scorsese.
By James A. Haught In 1988, fundamentalist Christians in several nations vented rage and violence because a movie, “The Last Temptation of Christ,” portrayed Jesus as a wavering human, lusting for the prostitute Mary Magdalene. A Parisian theater showing the film was firebombed, sending 13 people to hospitals. Another at Besancon, France, suffered a similar…
James Baldwin: America’s Greatest Black Writer Was Once a Preacher Who Renounced Religion as a Sham
By James A. Haught James Baldwin, arguably America’s greatest black writer, was a popular Pentecostal preacher in Harlem at age 14 — but at 17 he renounced religion as a sham. Years later, he described his boyhood transformation in an essay titled “Down at the Cross,” first published in The New Yorker, then reprinted in…
Was Winston Churchill a Racist?
Was Winston Churchill a racist? British resource shows the dark side of Churchill’s legacy and exposes him as a genocidal racist. In 1943, Winston Churchill, then prime minister, was speaking to the British Cabinet about the famine that was raging through Bengal, India. Churchill told the secretary of state for India, Leo Amery, that the…
The Statement made to the FBI by activist John Lewis regarding Selma’s “Bloody Sunday”: March 8, 1965.
Between 1961 and 1964, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) held a voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, a town known to suppress African American voting.
74 Seconds After Liftoff, Challenger Explodes: January 28, 1986
The space shuttle Challenger exploded in a ball of fire shortly after it left the launching pad, and all seven astronauts on board were lost. The date was January 28, 1986 The worst accident in the history of the American space program was witnessed by thousands of spectators who watched in wonder, then horror, as…
The Day Malcolm X Died; Shot 4 Times at New York Rally
Malcolm X was murdered as he addressed his own organization on the edge of Harlem. He was 39 years old. The date was February 21, 1965. “Malcolm is a man who would give his life for you,” said one of his followers, introducing him to a weekly meeting of the Organization for Afro-American Unity…
Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan : The force behind the Unification of the United Arab Emirates
Sheikh Zayed, born Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan on the 6th of May, 1918 (or 1916 according to some), was born in Abu Dhabi and was the youngest son of Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi. Little is known of his mother, Sheikha Salama bint Butti Al Qubaisi, although…
The Incredible War Pigeons of WWI That Saved American Lives.
World War I was one of the first great wars during the industrial revolution. From the introduction of airplanes to the use of tanks and railway guns on the battlefield, soldiers had to contend not only with each other but with the productions of the factory floor. Even the recent invention of the telephone made…
The Women’s Suffrage Parade that Drowned Out Woodrow Wilson’s Inauguration in 1913
As Woodrow Wilson and his aides waited for the train to pull into the station, they braced themselves for crowds and chaos. The Democratic nominee had beaten both a sitting president—incumbent William Howard Taft—and a former one, Theodore Roosevelt, who ran as a third-party candidate. Now, he was on the verge of moving into the White House—and…
