Colette—Shocking and Irresistible

Colette in 1886 by Jacques Hubert. I admit it. The big reason I picked the birthday of French novelist, sexual adventuress, and outsized personality Colette to write about is so I could post the semi-

Paris Colette Gigi actress Bernard de Jouvenel Claudine novels courtesan French literature Goudeket Henri Gauthier-Villars Kira Knightly Mathilde de Morny

International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the75th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camps

The grim realityis that 75 years after the world got confirmation of the breadth of the Holocaust anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States and in Europe.   As the last survivors of the death

israel donald trump World War II Nazis Auschwitz Camp liberation International Holocaust Remembrance Day Red Army anti-Semitism Benjamin Netanyahu World Holocaust Forum Yad Vashem

Breaking Free—Bessie Coleman, Aviatrix Against the Odds

Bessie Coleman was both the first Black and first Native American woman to win pilot wings. Bessie Coleman seemed destined by birth to remain earthbound, poor, and obscure when she was born on January

France Bessie Coleman aviatrix plane crash Chicago Defender Curtis JN-4 "Jenny" First Black Woman pilot First Native American pilot Fédération Aéronautique Internationale pilot Robert S. Abbott

The Very Modest First Winter Olympics

This poster promoted winter games in the shadow of Mont Blanc as an extension of Olympic Games held in Paris that summer.  The competition was retroactively declared the official first Winter Olympic

Canada International Olympic Committee Sonja Henie Winter Olympics 1924 Chamonix Crurling Gillis Grafström Gold Medal Ice Hockey International Winter Sports Week

Ford to Trump—Presidential Mercy

Barack Obama was unusually active with clemency orders and pardons in his last days in office. In 2017 Barack Obama spent the last days of his Presidential term churning out sentence commutations.   H

Barack Obama donald trump Jimmy Carter Vietnam War Leonard Peltier draft resistance Chelsea Manning amnesty Gerald Ford Joe Aripio pardons Presidential clemency