Freedom, resilience, and empowerment on Juneteenth
Juneteenth is a wonderful monument to the African American community's indomitable spirit and its continuous quest for freedom. On this day in Galveston, Texas, in the year 1865, Major General Gordon Granger announced the historic news that slavery had ended and all enslaved Black people were now Read More...
Revealing the history of the earliest transoceanic seafarers
A study carried out by geneticists at Harvard University, in collaboration with Indigenous communities, has revealed five previously undocumented migrations around remote Pacific islands. These people were the world’s earliest transoceanic seafarers, being able to navigate long journeys across Read More...
Treasures discovered beneath Notre Dame during reconstruction
The 2019 Notre Dame fire was felt by many around the world. The medieval cathedral was an iconic Parisian landmark that visitors came from many countries to see, and its loss was taken to heart by the French people. President Emmanuel Macron pledged to return Notre Dame to the world and have it Read More...
Some tips to spot false posts about the Russia-Ukraine conflict
It’s hard to discern what to believe and what to question, what with fake news and improved deep fake videos. Misinformation has been commonly used as a propagandistic tactic to distract, confuse, and redirect public opinion by many countries throughout history. In World War Two, the Germans Read More...
Once a French coal-mining zone, now a green tourism hub
Once upon a time, Nord-Pas-de-Calais supplied half of France’s coal. This region in the north of the country is distinguished by the giant pyramid-like black cones of slag which are a result of three centuries of environmental and economic hardship. Now, when you get close to the slag cones, Read More...
History provides context: A modern timeline of Ukraine-Russia relations
Part of what happens when a dramatic event shocks the world is that the headline news cycle moves fast in one direction, and we can lose sight of the context within which these events are occurring. The answer to that cycle is to seek out historical context. An excellent overview of the key events Read More...
Richmond, VA unveils Emancipation and Freedom Monument
Last week we shared how a controversial Robert E. Lee statue was finally removed from Virginia’s capital. In an acknowledgment of the history of slavery and the fight for equality in the US, Richmond has unveiled a new monument—a statue of a man and a woman holding an infant after they were Read More...
New giant database lets people learn about the lives of millions of slaves
While we know the dark history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the number of Africans forcibly taken from their homes, we hardly know anything about the lives of individual slaves. Only a few historical enslaved people are known by name, and most are lost to history. In a colossal effort to Read More...
Diving program teaches kids to document sunken slave ships
In the quest to create a more complete picture of African-American genealogy, an underwater archaeology group called Diving With a Purpose (DWP) focuses on documenting old slave ships that have sunk to the bottom of the sea. Documenting these ships and other artifacts of the transatlantic slave Read More...
The pandemic led to biggest drop in emissions in human history
When the coronavirus first started putting nations into lockdown-mode, many publications including our own shared stories about the environmental impact of these lockdowns. Emissions plummeted, skies cleared, and native animals started to appear in streets and waterways usually occupied by humans. Read More...