Meet Lillian Wald (1867 – 1940). After growing up in Ohio and New York, Wald became a nurse. She briefly attended medical school and began to teach community health classes while attending classes. One day in 1892, she was approached by a young girl who kept repeating “mommy … baby … blood”. Wald gathered some sheets from her bed-making lesson and followed the child to her home, a cramped two-room tenement apartment. Inside, she found the child’s mother who had recently given birth and needed medical treatment. The doctor tending to her had left because she could not afford to pay him. This was Wald’s first experience with poverty; she called the episode her “baptism by fire” and dedicated herself to bringing nursing care, and eventually education and access to the arts, to the immigrant poor on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Lillian D. Wald started the Visiting Nurse Service in 1893, and two years later she opened the Henry Street Settlement. The Henry Street Settlement was initially named the Nurses’ Settlement. It was (and remains) not-for-profit social service agency in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It provided both medical care to those who could otherwise not afford it, and a social center with a gymnasium added in 1895. Wald also worked on behalf of women’s rights and the welfare of children, establishing the Women’s Trade Union League and spearheaded a federal organization to help children. After years lobbying for this idea, the Children’s Bureau was established in 1912.
THERE NEEDS TO BE A MOVIE ABOUT THE NIGHT WITCHES DAMNIT.
BADASS LADIES BOMBING THE SHIT OUTA NAZI’S. WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE??
OKAY WE”RE GONNA DO HISTORY KIDs, GET READY FOR THE MOST FACE-MELTINGLY AWESOME WAR STORY YOU’VE EVER HEARD about Irina Sebrova and the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, or Night Witches as the Nazi’s called them because they hated them so much. The Night Witches were a group of Russian Aviatrixes during WW2,
THESE ARE THEM, AND
THIS IS THEIR BADASS LEADER IRINA SEBROVA.
now Russia had absolute shit equipment during WW2, and since the Night Witches were all women they were given the shittest of the shit equipment, and by shit, I mean World War One era biplanes that would hardly fly.
Yeah, ^THIS^ is what they had to fly, their job was to fly stealth missions. STEALTH. MISSIONS. In a super loud bi-plane that was originally meant to be fucking crop-duster. Now, in this plane, the navigator sat in front and the pilot sat in back (fairly common for bi-planes). Now, since these planes were so deafeningly loud and they were supposed to be flying stealthy night missions, the Night Witches solved that problem, BY TURNING OFF THE GODDAMN PLANE AND GLIDING ON AIR CURRENTS OVER THEIR BOMBING SITE. That is hardcore as fuck. Now, in addition to basically being flying death-traps, these planes had a slight problem, and by slight problem, I mean sometimes the bombs wouldn’t release. Now how do you solve that problem? How can you complete your mission if the bombs don’t drop? Well, if you’re a Night Witch you do what the navigators would do, AND CLIMB ONTO THE FUCKING WING AND DETACH THE BOMB BY HAND! You thought turning off the plane was badass? The plane was off while they were climbing onto the wing of a plane made of cloth and wood! Now to make things more badass, the Night Witches weren’t given supplies that were deemed ‘extraneous’ like, oh, a goddamn PARACHUTE. Seriously, no parachutes, and Irina Sebrova survived being shot down, TWICE, each time having to dodge German patrols while surviving the Russian winter. Now, for an American bomber in World War 2, if he survived 25 missions he was given an honorable discharge and it was considered he had done his duty to the Allies. Want to know how many missions Irina Sebrova flew? It’s more than 25. Irina Sebrova, Wing Commander of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew 92, that’s almost four tours of duty for an American, and those were just day missions!! Guess how many night missions Sebrova flew? ONE THOUSAND EIGHT. That’s right, she flew 1,008 night missions and 92 day missions, if she was American this would have meant she completed forty-four tours of duty. The Night Witches weren’t just badasses, they were heroes with such incredible amounts of courage that they carried out the most insane acts of braveryto protect their homeland and their people.
It’s finally, finally here *___* After months of work, Here’s my first comic ever, “Ozymandias”, based on the poem by Percy Shelley. If you want to support me, you can buy a hi-res PDF of the comic, along with some sketches, a very small 1 page tutorial, and the full-res PSD on gumroad for 2 dollars here:
The real tragedy about the barricade is that we don’t know how much is true. Victor Hugo was there at the June Rebellion, so what is fact and what is fiction? That question gives me chills because we’ll never know.
Charles Jeanne (who I think is probably actual real life Enjolras) wrote an in-detail account of the ACTUAL barricades in a letter to his sister after the fact
I’m so glad somebody asked this, because the answer is: when they finally ran out of ammunition, Charles Jeanne rounded up everyone who was still standing, went, “look, if we’re going to die, we might as well die fighting,” and led a suicidal ten-man charge against an entire flippin’ infantry column, armed with nothing but bayonets. The first few ranks of soldiers were so unprepared for such a spectacularly insane attack that they were too surprised to shoot. They crossed bayonets and tried to hold the insurgents off in hand-to-hand combat, but Jeanne’s swordsmanship was apparently aces, because he held off a bunch of them at once and covered his friends as they tried to breach the ranks. And once they were in, nobody could shoot them for fear of taking out their own guys.
So the last stand that the insurgents had intended as a noble suicide ended in them breaking through the ranks entirely and winding up in the next street over, outside the combat zone, going “well shit, what do we do now?” (I’m guessing the infantry column wasn’t very deep; central Paris at that point was a rabbit warren of narrow twisty streets, and assembling troops en masse for an organized attack was a logistical nightmare.) Unlike the National Guard, the army weren’t total chumps and got themselves turned around to give chase and start shooting once they weren’t at risk of friendly fire any longer… and that’s when all the civilians holed up in their houses went “no way, you’re not getting your hands on these crazy bastards” and started hurling furniture and crockery down on the soldiers’ heads. Jeanne was understandably distracted at the time, but afterwards somebody informed him that the barrage of unlikely projectiles included a piano. A piano. That is some straight-up Looney Tunes slapstick right there. No wonder Hugo went for the heroic death scene instead; if he’d stuck to real life, he probably would’ve gotten complaints that he’d wrecked his readers’ suspension of disbelief.
Anyway, someone opened an alley gate for them to shelter in and take stock of the casualties—most of them survived(!!!), but a few were pretty nastily wounded. Their host then had to lock Charles Jeanne in to keep him from charging right back out and taking on the whole goddamn army singlehanded. He probably would’ve broken down the door if the poor man hadn’t pointed out that going back out would give away his wounded comrades’ hiding place and the identities of the people sheltering them. They sat there listening to the gunfire gradually slow and go silent, and then in the middle of the night the ones who could still walk were allowed to slip away one by one at long intervals from each other. Charles Jeanne went straight home, slept like the dead for a few hours, was woken up at five in the morning with a warning that he’d been denounced and the building was surrounded, and then slipped out in disguise and managed to evade the police for four months before a former comrade ratted him out and he was arrested.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Charles Jeanne’s letter is an absolute treasure that deserves to be available to anyone in Les Mis fandom who wants to read it. Incidentally, “how Actual Historical Enjolras survived the barricades by being too good at his suicide mission” is also one of the stories I tell when anyone asks me what the hell is so interesting about researching people nobody’s ever heard of from an obscure chapter of French history.
Earlier today I made a reference to “Backstroke of the West”, and when I looked it up I saw that the original post was made in 2005, which means that a good chunk of people on here might be too young to remember it. So consider this post a public service.
i saw revenge of the sith last weekend at a local theater with my friend joe who was in town on business. it was much better than the first two movies and a fitting end (err.. middle) to the star wars saga.
the next day i was walking past my friendly dvd salesperson and decided to check out revenge of the sith. i was assured the quality was good and for 7rmb why not give it a shot.
aside from the counters on the top of the screen and a distorted perspective it was ok- not high quality but watchable. the captions were a hilarious surprise- a direct english translation of the chinese interpretation of what the script was saying. it varied from being somewhat close to the script to being ‘far far away’….
amazingly enough, the beginning scroll is mistranslated even though the words are right there on the screen.
star war (just one)
‘the backstroke of the west’ is the english translation of the chinese title.
anakin: “this is where the fun begins”
obi wan: “let them pass between us”
anonymous doomed fighter pilot: “they’re all over me”
When the Nazi concentration camps were liberated by the Allies, it was a time of great jubilation for the tens of thousands of people incarcerated in them. But an often forgotten fact of this time is that prisoners who happened to be wearing the pink triangle (the Nazis’ way of marking and identifying homosexuals) were forced to serve out the rest of their sentence. This was due to a part of German law simply known as “Paragraph 175” which criminalized homosexuality. The law wasn’t repealed until 1969.
This should be required learning, internationally.
You need to know this. You need to remember this. This is not something to swept under the carpet nor be forgotten.
Never. Too many have died for the way they have loved. That needs stop now.
Make it stop?
I did a report on this in my World History class my sophomore year of high school. It was incredibly unsettling.
My teacher shown the class this. Mostly everyone in the class felt uncomfortable.
I have reblogged this in the past, but it is so ironic that it comes across my dash right now. I a currently working as a docent at my city’s Holocaust Education Center (( I say currently because I’ve also done research and translation for them )) and out current exhibit is one on loan from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ((USHMM)). This is a little known historical fact that Paragraph 175 was not repealed after the war and those convicted under Nazi laws as a danger to society because they were gay were not released because they had be convicted in a court of law. There was no liberation or justice for them as they weren’t considered criminals, or even victims for that matter. They were criminals who remained persecuted and ostracized and kept on the fringes of society for decades after the war had been won. Paragraph175 wasn’t actually repealed until 1994. And it was only in May 2002, that the German parliament completed legislation to pardon all homosexuals convicted under Paragraph175 during the Nazi era. History has forgotten about these men and women — please educate yourselves so this does not happen again. Remember this history. Remember them.
Willem Arondeus was a Dutch resistance fighter who gave his life trying to protect his Jewish countrymen from the Nazis.
Born in Amsterdam in 1895, Willem was one of six children. From a young age, he was a talented artist and his parents encouraged his creativity, until he came out as homosexual at age 17.
In a time when nearly all gay people were in the closet, Willem’s parents could not accept his choice to live openly. Their rejection led Willem to run away from home.
On his own, Willem took odd jobs and eventually became a successful visual artist and writer. He was commissioned to paint a mural for Rotterdam’s town hall, in a style that combined modern abstract painting with a traditional Dutch motif. Willem was a well-respected author who published a popular biography of Dutch painter and political activist Matthijs Maris.
In 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands. Willem immediately joined the resistance movement, and urged his fellow artists to fight against the Nazi occupation. WIllem published illegal anti-Nazi pamphlets calling for mass resistance against the Germans.
Willem was especially committed to saving Amsterdam’s Jewish community. Bringing in others to the cause, Willem arranged for Dutch Jews to be hidden in people’s homes. He used his artistic skills to create false identity papers.
In 1943, Willem hatched a brazen plan. Dressed as a German Army captain, and with 15 men behind him, Willem boldly marched into the Public Record Office, where lists identifying people as Jews were kept. Willem drugged the guards and planted a firebomb. The resulting blaze destroyed tens of thousands of documents, and delayed or prevented many Jews from being identified by the Nazis.
Unfortunately, Willem was captured by the Germans and sentenced to death. Willem’s last words before being executed in July, 1943 were, “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”
In 1986 Yad Vashem recognized Arondeus as Righteous Among the Nations.
Because of his sexual orientation, Willem’s story was omitted from Dutch history books. Only in the last 20 years has his courage become widely known.
so i was fact-checking this just to make double sure i was comfortable reblogging it and you guys it gets even better:
HE WAS PART OF A TEAM
A concerted operation was underway to hide Jews among the local population, with various underground organizations preparing forged documents for Jews. Arondeus was a member of one such group, Raad van Verzet (Resistance Council), which also included openly lesbian cellist and conductor Frieda Belinfante and typographer Willem Sandberg, then curator at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum. (x)
“openly lesbian cellist and conductor frieda belinfante”, huh wonder if she was as rad as that sounds
PLOT TWIST: SHE WAS
she actively forged documents, helped organize the bombing effort mentioned above, dodged arrest by disguising herself as a man for three months, and ultimately had to cross the alps on foot in order to escape across the swiss border.
after the war, she founded the orange county philharmonic orchestra (the second-ever orchestra ensemble in the world to be longterm conducted and managed by a woman) which funded itself through donations so it could give free public concerts. (x)
(not to take away from willem’s story, because that is also badass. but they were BADASSES WHO FOUGHT THE POWER TOGETHER, what is better than that.)
All 165 episodes of the Filipin@ epic, historical drama series is now completely subbed in English on Viki.
It is also currently being subbed in 11 other languages: Spanish, Thai, French, Korean, Bahasa Melayu, German, Greek, Turkish, Latvian, Slovak, and Khmer.
For those of you who have been wanting to watch Amaya and have been waiting (some for months already) for all the episodes to be finally be subbed in English, you may finally watch it in full. 🙂
For those who don’t know what series this is and what it’s about, here is the synopsis of the drama series.
Amaya is the first and only Philippine historical, epic drama series that premiered on May 30, 2011 and ended on January 13, 2012 on the GMA Network.
Synopsis
Set in the early 16th century prior to the Spanish occupation when the Philippines was still divided into several city-states and minor kingdoms, the primetime television series chronicles the life of Amaya, a daughter of a Datu and a slave, prophecized to be the one who would defeat the fierce Rajah Mangubat. Born as a princess, she was demoted to slave status as Rajah Mangubat slayed her father. Guided by her kambal-ahas, she embarks on a journey to avenge her father’s death and eventually to defeat the person that has been the root cause of her misery and the downfall of her beloved land. With these, she must climb the social ladder, from being a slave, to being an alabay, to become a tribe leader, then a warrior, and eventually fulfill her destiny to become the most powerful woman of her time.
NOTE: This is the original, one-and-only Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP). The historic one. The one founded in the U. S. in 1966 by Dr. Huey P. Newton, a university trained political scientist and community activist.
the BPP was NOT EVER “the black version of the kkk” in any way shape or form
anyone who compares the BPP to the kkk is displaying their TOTAL IGNORANCE of U.S. history
stop letting people who compare the BPP to the kkk go unchallenged!
the only thing that this BPP shares with the “New Black Panther Party” is the name, some of the visual stylings, and the promotion of the validity of armed SELF-DEFENSE for Black people that the founding members of the New Black Panther Party lifted as a result of them being “inspired by” the original. Their core missions are different. Their approaches are different. THEIR COMMUNITY WORK AND EVIDENCE THEREOF ARE DIFFERENT. And the list goes on. If you want to know what some of the original leadership of the BPP thinks about being compared to the New Black Panther Party… Google it.
stop letting people who confuse the BPP with the New Black Panther Party go unchallenged!
THE CHRISTIAN KNIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN EXIST SOLELY TO UPHOLD WHITE SUPREMACY AND TO BOOST THE FRAGILE EGOS OF IGNORANT, NON-COMPETITIVE POOR WHITE TRASH.
THE CHRISTIAN KNIGTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING REDEEMING FOR ANY MEMBER OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. INCLUDING THE POOR WHITE TRASH AND RACIST KKKOPS WHO COMPRISE MOST OF ITS ACTIVE MEMBERSHIP.
IN SPITE OF ALL THE TURMOIL SUFFERING AND DEATH WREAKED UPON BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA
AT THE HANDS OF WHITE PEOPLE, BLACK PEOPLE HAVE NEVER EVER STOOPED SO LOW AS TO FORM AN ORGANIZATION THAT EXISTS SOLELY TO TERRORIZE AND MURDER WHITE PEOPLE. WE SIMPLY ARE BETTER HUMAN BEINGS THAN THAT, SO WHITE PEOPLE STOP YOUR FUTILE SEARCH FOR BLACK PEOPLE WHO HAVE GOTTEN AS LOW DOWN ON THE LADDER OF HUMANITY AS YOU ALL HAVE: THEY DON’T EXIST. WE DON’T EXIST. WE’RE SIMPLY BETTER HUMAN BEINGS IN THAT REGARD.
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