History, Events And Facts

Artemisia Gentileschi Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the greatest female artists of the baroque age.  A brilliant follower of the Caravaggio, she utilized his technique of chiaroscuro in her works.  Modern critics have called her paintings the “real successors to  Caravaggio with a muscular personality all their own.”  However, as with most female artists she faced blatant sexism as well as other barriers despite her obvious talent. Born in Rome on July 8, 1593, Artemisia was the eldest child of Tuscan painter Orazio Gentileschi and his wife Prudentia Montone.  As a child, she was drawn to her father’s workshop and showed more artistic talent than her brothers, a fact that did not make traditionalists happy.  Many of her paintings were confused by patrons as being done by her father.  Her mother died when she was twelve, which left her mainly in the company of men.  Her father struck up a friendship with numerous artists in Rome including Michel...

Deluge Myths High water, gully washer, toad strangler, God willing and the creek don’t rise.  These are all terms for a universal weather phenomenon- floods. Even in ancient times, floods were a key part of life. The Nile floods were so important to ancient Egypt they had a god for it- Hapi. In that same vein, there are similar stories about a great flood in most known mythologies. There are enough similarities that researchers believe that these stories could come from a single root.  The field of geomythology is the intersection between mythology and geology, and scientists have begun drawing parallels to the multiple “deluge myths”. The most commonly known story is that of Noah, which appears in the Torah, the Christian Bible and the Quran. God became angry with the people of earth and sent a flood to destroy them.  He commanded Noah to build an ark, or boat, large enough for his family and two of each animal.  After forty days and forty nights, the ark landed on ...

Man Butchered Own Wife, Says He Thought He Was Killing A Goat A 63-year-old man, Oluwatubosun Dahunsi, told Magistrates’ Court sitting in Owo, Ondo State, that he hacked his wife, Funmilayo Dahunsi, to death thinking he was killing a goat. He said Funmilayo (38) cried for help “but at that point, her cry sounded like that of a goat”. Oluwatubosun allegedly used a machete to hack Funmilayo to death on October 5, 2019 in Owo, headquarters of Owo Local Area of Ondo State. The charge sheet reads: “That you, Dahunsi Oluwatubosun, ‘m’ on October 5, 2019, about 6.30a.m., at Ita-Ipele Camp via Owo in the Ondo Magisterial District, unlawfully (attacked with a machete) your wife, Funmilayo Dahunsi ‘f’ on her two hands, head, stomach, neck and her jaw with to death and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 316 and punishable under Section 319(1) of the Criminal Code Cap 37, Volume 1, Laws of Ondo State of Nigeria, 2006.” The defendant, who is facing a one-count charge of murder, p...

CONDEMNED TO DEATH  Story of innocent boy George Stinney, 14, executed by electric chair after being convicted of murder in South Carolina More than 70 years later, in December 2014, George’s murder conviction was overturned by a South Carolina judge. He was accused of the gruesome double murder of two white girls in the small town of Alcolu, South Carolina in March, 1944. The bodies of Betty June Binnicker, aged 11, and Mary Emma Thames, eight, were found with their skulls fractured on the “black side” of the deeply divided community. They had been bludgeoned to death with a railroad spike. Police arrested little George after it emerged that he had seen the pair the previous day. He was taken from his home by cops who then claimed he confessed to the double murder despite no written confession ever being produced. There was also no physical evidence linking him to the crime. His parents were never allowed to visit him following his arrest, his sister has claimed. The infamous thr...

The Execution of Marie Antoinette:- Today is the anniversary of the execution in Paris of Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France before the Revolution. She was then two weeks short of her thirty-eighth birthday. Some very brief background: Marie Antoinette or Marie Antonia Josepha Johanna was born in Vienna on 2nd November 1755, the fifteenth of the sixteen children of the Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. She was brought up with the sister closest to her in age, Maria Carolina (1752 – 1814), future Queen of Naples. As part of the rapprochement between France and the Habsburg Empire following the Seven Years War (1756-1763) a marriage was arranged between the dauphin, Louis-Auguste, the future Louis XVI,  grandson of Louis XV and Marie Antoinette.  Marie Antionette and Louis were married in Versailles on 16th May 1770, when he was fifteen and she fourteen. They became King and Queen of France on 10th May 1774 and went to have four children, Marie-Thérèse (1778 –...

Trans-Atlantic Slave trade 1 Over the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million captured men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa, and 10.7 million arrived in the Americas.  The Atlantic Slave Trade was likely the most costly in human life of all long-distance global migrations. The first Africans forced to work in the New World left from Europe after the fall of the Moors in Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century, not from Africa.  The first voyage carrying enslaved people direct from Africa to the Americas probably sailed in 1562. When John Hawkins encouraged the Africans to enter his boat “Jesus of Lubeck,” otherwise called “The Good Ship Jesus.” for salvation The people who entered soon found out they could not leave the ship. Jesus of Lubeck was a cruising ship built in the City of Lübeck in the mid-sixteenth century. By the year 1540 the ship was purchased by Henry VIII, King of England, to expand his fle...

  Audrey Munson, the Tragic Story of America’s First Supermodel  Audrey Munson had a rough start in life. Her parents were what the Victorians called a mésalliance. Her father was Edgar Munson, a young man from a well-to-do and socially prominent Protestant family in upstate New York. His bride was Katherine “Kittie” Mahonie, the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants. The social gulf between the couple was enormous. It would be interesting to know how they met and what sort of pressures they faced when they announced their intentions to marry, but about that, history is silent. They wed in 1885 and moved to Rochester, New York, where Edgar worked for a wealthy family as a driver, and Kittie worked as a domestic servant. The couple had one daughter, Audrey, born in 1891, but the marriage fell apart. History does not record what their problems were, but they must have been severe to even consider ending the marriage in that era. The couple divorced in 1899. Divorce wasn’t unhear...

The Notorious Sexual Practices of the Ancient World The ancient world sometimes indulged in some of the most immoral sexual practices ever created. Ancient sexuality has a notorious history of making people uncomfortable. From the Romans of the classical world to the Indians of the Kamasutra times, sexual norms were radically different and sometimes even revolting from what we see today. From erotic arts and sculptures of  Khajuraho temples  to the disgusting child porn indulged by the Romans, some of these practices were so immoral and controversial that it was even difficult to believe in their truth. And here are some practices from the perverted past with some of them even cringe-worthy now after 3000 years. Sex festivals The Greek historian Herodotus, writing about Cyprus in the 5th Century BC talks about some weird sex customs that need to be followed by the women of the land. "The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every...

Ghanaian man, 54, jailed for pouring acid on his 22-year-old ex-girlfriend and her mother A Koforidua Circuit Court in Ghana, has sentenced a 54-year-old man to 9 years and five months imprisonment for attacking his 22-year-old ex-girlfriend Deborah Osei, and her mother with acid at Awukugua in the Eastern Region.  The convict, Nana Yaw Mante launched the acid attack on the victims in December 2020 while they were in their room at Awukugua. Both women sustained severe injuries. The incident occurred few months after the convict was slapped with a fine of GHC1,200 and a compensation of GHC1000 by a magistrate Court in Koforidua for taking and circulating nude pictures of his 22-year-old ex-girlfriend. He was cautioned to stay away from her. Delivering the latest judgement on Wednesday, July 28, Her Honour Mercy Addei Kotei took into consideration the previous conviction to apply the maximum sentence. According to her, the sentence was set at 9 years and five months instead...

Woman allegedly bathes her husband with acid in Edo (graphic photos) A 29-year-old woman identified as Becky Odion is on the run after she allegedly bathed her husband with a substance suspected to be acid in Edo state. According to Standard Gazette, the incident happened around 9:pm on Sunday, November 14 at Idemudia Street, Off Omomon Road, St. Saviour road, Benin City. It was gathered that the couple who had been married for six years with one child were constantly having domestic squabbles until the latest incident. It was further gathered that the woman had previously reported her husband to the police but the police settled the matter between them. The publication learned that the extended families were also planning on resolving the undisclosed squabble before the woman attacked her husband with acid. Mr Odion is said to be currently unconscious and chances of his survival are slim, the report said. 

Jewish people chased and brutally murdered by men and youth armed with clubs, 1941 Chased by youth armed with clubs, this woman is fleeing from a “death dealer” whose left leg can be seen at the left-hand edge of the photograph. The Lviv pogroms were the consecutive massacres of Jews living in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), perpetrated by Ukrainian nationalists (specifically, the OUN), German death squads (Einsatzgruppen), and urban population from 30 June to 2 July, and from 25 to 29 July, during the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Ukrainian nationalists targeted Jews in the first pogrom on the pretext of their purported responsibility for the NKVD prisoner massacre in Lviv, which left behind thousands of corpses in three Lviv prisons. The subsequent massacres were directed by the Germans in the context of  the Holocaust  in Eastern Europe. At the time of the German attack on the Soviet Union, about 160,000 Jews lived in the city; the number had swel...