History

On this day, March 9

1776 – Scottish political economist Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations, the first modern work in economics, was published.

1891 – Kaʻiulani was appointed the heir apparent to the throne of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

1925 – The Royal Air Force began a bombardment and strafing campaign against the mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South Waziristan, present-day Pakistan.

1956 – In Tbilisi, Georgia, soldiers suppressed mass demonstrations against Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's policy of de-Stalinization.

1957 – The Andreanof Islands earthquake struck Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands, causing more than $5 million in damage from ground movement and a destructive tsunami.

The kinaidos (cinaedus in Latin) was the homosexual “bogeyman” of Greco-Roman literature: a man so willing to be sexually penetrated by other men that scholars think he was perhaps just an imaginary figure. Reading more broadly, however, we can see that men bearing this identity marker did exist in antiquity. Financial records, letters, and even a dedicatory message on a temple wall complicate our understanding of this ancient sexual and social deviant.

In fourth-century BCE Athens, the orator Demosthenes is labelled a kinaidos in the courtroom by his opponent in order to besmirch his masculinity and accuse him of shameless conduct. In the Gorgias, Plato cites the “life of the kinadoi” as being the prime example of hedonistic living. Roman authors are more detailed as to what exactly makes the cinaedus’ behaviour so wretched: Catullus, Martial, and Juvenal all portray cinaedi as desiring sexual penetration by other men and often as displaying extreme effeminacy.

The word “cinaedus” also occurs frequently in insulting graffiti on the walls of Pompeii. Appearing more than 30 times, it is often accompanied by the name of the specific individual it mocks. On occasion a little more information is provided. For instance, a graffito uncovered recently reads: NICIA CINAEDE CACATOR. Nicia, or Nicias, is a personal name, that it is Greek suggests it may have belonged to an enslaved person who had subsequently been manumitted. A cacator is a person who defecates. Therefore, this slur, “Nicias, a cinaedus and a crapper,” bluntly attacks an individual as being filthy in his social, sexual, and digestive behaviour.

delivered on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

A baby tower, also known as an abandoned infant tower or baby girl tower, is an architectural structure found in various places in ancient China.[1] They would typically take the form of a small stone or brick tower with an opening on the top. Dead, disabled, female, and unwanted infants could be thrown inside and abandoned. The baby tower is described as a donation from wealthy people in the countryside, as a more humane alternative to drowning babies in a river, common at the time.[citation needed] The pagoda architectural style is intended to suppress the spirit of the children, to prevent them from being reincarnated.[2]

Just a little bit of text left at the original article.

Lawyer who shot himself (by accident) while trying to proof someones innocence

AMONG the other officials of the Tibetan government, he stood out somewhat. No silk robes; no long plait; no five-inch earrings. Instead, short back’n’sides, and a business suit in which it was difficult to bow, sit cross-legged, or mount a horse. In the street people stared at his fair hair, and Tibetan friends refused to use his shampoo in case they, too, came to look like that.

Robert Ford was hired by the Tibetans in 1948 to create a modern communications network: more modern, that is, than treks by mule over the highest mountains in the world. His brief, bestowed with the Dalai Lama’s blessing, was to put the eastern stronghold of Chamdo in touch with the capital, Lhasa—and Tibet in touch with the outside world. Incidentally, he would help Tibet survive as a free country in the face of Chinese incursions. To Tibetans he was “Phodo Kusho” (Ford Esquire). The Chinese, when they caught him, called him an imperialist spy.

His life in Chamdo was fascinating, but hard. He learned to tolerate countless cups of butter-tea, as well as the lethal chang beer. A letter home would take five weeks to arrive, and even a message to Lhasa 15 days. But ham radio gave him friends round the world—including, by happy chance, a tailor in his home town of Burton-on-Trent. Conditions permitting, he could talk to his parents every Wednesday. Training Tibetans to understand radio was harder. Ordinary folk would search for the man in the box; high officials would bow to the microphone and present it with white scarves. There were very few clocks in Chamdo with which to fix two-way conversations. Instead, he had to time his broadcasts by the position of the sun.

As the Chinese army advanced in 1950, he was asked to put prayer flags on his aerial masts. Against Chinese machineguns and artillery, the Tibetans relied almost entirely on the gods. Aeroplanes were feared, because they might disturb the spirits of the upper air. Mr Ford took part in what ceremonies he could, but never felt he fitted into that religious scene. He was not only the loneliest Briton in the world but also, he wrote, the loneliest Christian.

In October 1950, Chamdo fell. Phodo Kusho could have escaped the country, but adventure was what he had gone to Tibet to find—not having found it with motorbikes, or in his job as a radio instructor for the RAF, or even in his 1943 posting to India. Besides, he felt unable to abandon his Tibetan staff and friends. At least the outside world should know that Tibet had not meekly surrendered. He made for Lhasa by riding over a precipitous 15,000-feet pass, mostly in the dark; only to find that, on the other side, the Chinese were waiting for him. He was imprisoned, enduring countless interrogations, for five years.

His captors were convinced he had poisoned the Geda Lama, a Tibetan priest with close ties to the Chinese. Mr Ford had in fact refused to treat him, though he was the best doctor in Chamdo, having learned first aid in the Boy Scouts; by contrast, the best the medical monks could do was recommend use of the Dalai Lama’s urine.

As well as that, his radio activities convinced the Chinese he was a spy; which he was not. How would Britain react, they demanded, if the Chinese sent someone to foment separatism in Wales? And what was the meaning of cryptic messages in his logs such as SRI OM CONDK PR? “Sorry old man, conditions poor,” he tried to explain. “Nonsense! How do you spell ‘sorry’?” snapped his interrogator.

The Chinese did not kill him. Instead, they tried to make him a Communist true believer by relentless psychological torture. His imprisonment grew harsher, until it was solitary confinement in a room under a staircase, overrun with rats. Threats of violence accelerated, until every morning he woke wondering whether this was the day on which he would be shot. Gradually, he resolved that only a confession (albeit phoney and partial) would save his life and sanity. He schooled himself in Maoist jargon, glibly denouncing imperialism, practising self-criticism and confessing to thought-crimes—all while displaying “truthfulness, dogmatic conformity and, above all, sincerity”. After four years he was allowed to write to his parents, who had feared he was dead. A year later he was considered reformed, and was deported to Hong Kong. Everest, he learned then, had been climbed—but “by a handful of brave individuals, not because a Party was glorious or a Chairman great”. Slowly, he began to decontaminate his mind all over again.

After retiring from Britain’s foreign service, he became an outspoken advocate for Tibet. As the years went by, his status grew: as the only surviving Westerner with first-hand knowledge of the country before the Chinese invasion, he was well placed to rebut the occupiers’ propaganda. Yes, China had probably raised living standards. Yes, progress in the old Tibet had been slow. But “a healthy well-fed robot is a poor substitute for a human being.”

His friend, the present Dalai Lama, led the mourning for his death. A few months earlier, one of the only foreigners the Tibetan government had ever employed received the country’s highest honour, the Light of Truth award—and also the last of his salary, a 100-srang note, still owing to him from before his arrest.

Five years ago, Donald J Harris, father of Kamala Harris, revealed his belief that he is descended from Hamilton Brown, born in Ballymoney around 1776. Brown emigrated to Jamaica and ran sugar plantations. He owned scores of slaves, some treated harshly.

In an essay by Harris, published by the Jamaica Global Online website, the Stanford University professor wrote: "My roots go back, within my lifetime, to my paternal grandmother Miss Chrishy (nee Christiana Brown, descendant of Hamilton Brown who is on record as plantation and slave owner and founder of Brown’s Town)." Donald J Harris emigrated to the US from Jamaica in 1961.

That story has been given fresh impetus since Joe Biden paved the way for Kamala Harris to become the Democratic presidential candidate. In recent weeks, a County Antrim historian said he had found documentation shedding further light on Hamilton Brown.

Stephen McCracken told the local newspaper, the Ballymoney Chronicle, that he had discovered letters connecting Brown to his birthplace in Bracough, a townland just outside Ballymoney. He told the newspaper that Brown was "a seriously bad man, who travelled to London a few times to campaign against the abolition of slavery".

The Irish Times picked up on the story, as did the Belfast Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

"I've been getting a wee bit of abuse over it," McCracken told the Irish Times. "People have been asking me why I've publicised it."

When I asked him for an interview, he declined, citing an abusive backlash via social media, including Kamala Harris supporters accusing him of trying to wreck her campaign.

Right-wing and pro-Trump memes have circulated since 2019, painting the Harris family as "descended from slave owners", without any context. These tropes deliberately ignore the ugly explanation that slave owners commonly raped their female slaves, explaining why many black Jamaicans have European genes.

In the ultra-polarised world of American politics, Kamala supporters were allegedly hitting out at those publicising her heritage, seeing it as ammunition for further MAGA propaganda.

Meanwhile, the Ballymoney Chronicle carried a follow-up piece practically debunking the original claim of lineage. A qualified genealogist told the paper that the links were "unproven", and said Hamilton Brown was not recorded as getting married or having children.

When I asked that genealogist for an interview - they agreed. The next day they abruptly cancelled, calling the story "a pile of nonsense".

I asked McCracken for further details of his research. He stopped replying.

A third historian told me he didn't think existing documentation would ever prove the link. "You'd need DNA testing," he said.

I felt like I was encountering a wall of silence from others in Ballymoney. Multiple phone calls, messages and emails to a high-profile local DUP councillor went unanswered. A Sinn Fein colleague seemed unaware of the story and not overly interested in an interview. Ballymoney business owners declined to arrange interviews, or were not returning calls.

Repeated attempts to visit Ballymoney were abandoned due to rioting in Belfast. Another journey was aborted after the Sky News satellite van suffered a blow-out on a particularly inhospitable stretch of road.

The story was starting to feel a bit cursed.

...

You can’t visit the "Barack Obama Plaza" motorway service station outside Moneygall, Co Offaly, without a sense of the faintly ridiculous Irish enthusiasm for presidential heritage. Petrol and a chicken fillet roll downstairs, Obama visitor centre upstairs.

Yet, half a decade on from Donald J Harris’s revelation, there isn’t a solitary sign of the transatlantic connection in Ballymoney. Not a mural, a sign, a US flag or an enterprising cafe with a Kamala-themed name.

But some locals were happy to talk.

In the W & J Walker hardware shop, paint brushes from both the "Hamilton" and "Harris" brands hung serendipitously side-by-side.

"People around here like family trees," said worker Joanne Donnell. "They like to go back to the original people."

"It’ll bring a bit of excitement to the town," her sister Rhonda Lafferty said. "We get a lot of visitors here from America, this summer especially."

Neither woman seemed concerned that Hamilton Brown was a slave owner. "People take these things with a pinch of salt," said Joanne. "It was a long time ago."

Winifred Mellot owns the bustling The Winsome Lady clothes shop. A popular figure, she is also the long-serving president of the Ballymoney Chamber of Commerce. She doesn't think Brown's slave-owning past should sour any future celebrations.

The world’s oldest known picture story is a cave painting almost 6,000 years older than the previous record holder, found about 10km away on the same island in Indonesia, an international team of archaeologists has said.

The painting, believed to be at least 51,200 years old, was found at Leang Karampuang cave on the east Indonesian island of Sulawesi, researchers from Griffith University, Southern Cross University and the Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency wrote in the journal Nature.

Samples were collected in 2017, but weren’t dated until earlier this year.

The previous record holder was a lifesize picture of a wild pig believed to be created at least 45,500 years ago in a cave at Leang Tedongnge.

The recently discovered painting is of three therianthropes – or human-animal hybrids – and a wild pig.

This topic arose more than once in the communication of the Archbishop with the Nazis. In 1943, he stood up against the planned genocide of the Athenian Jewish community and was threatened with a shooting. The Primate replied, “The Greek hierarchs are not shot. They are hanged. Please respect this tradition.”

The Archbishop continued to harshly denounce the invaders in his sermons. Once the head of the collaborationist government Georgios Tsolakoglou told him, “Be careful, or the Germans will shoot you.” Again, His Eminence Damaskinos said, “It is the military who are shot. The hierarchs are hanged, and I am ready for it.”