16 5 / 2013
At a council in Constance between 1414 and 1417, the man who called himself Pope John XXIII and is now known as Antipope John XXIII (1410–1415; not to be confused with Pope John XXIII, pope from 1958–1963) was convicted of piracy, murder, rape, and incest — and only received three years in prison.
(Source: allfunandgames.ca)
11 5 / 2013
China Danxia is a UNSECO World Heritage Site and the name given in China to landscapes developed on continental red terrigenous sedimentary beds influenced by endogenous forces (including uplift) and exogenous forces (including weathering and erosion). The inscribed site comprises six areas found in the sub-tropical zone of south-west China.
They are characterized by spectacular red cliffs and a range of erosional landforms, including dramatic natural pillars, towers, ravines, valleys and waterfalls. These rugged landscapes have helped to conserve sub-tropical broad-leaved evergreen forests, and host many species of flora and fauna, about 400 of which are considered rare or threatened.
Below you will find an incredible gallery of these painted landscapes in Southern China along with additional information from UNESCO about China Danxia. Enjoy!
[via UNESCO, The Telegraph]
Oh God
(via crookedindifference)
22 10 / 2012
30 5 / 2012
Obit of the Day: Survivor’s Tale
Otis Clark died just ten days before the 91st anniversary of one of the worst episodes of racial hatred in American history. An event he not only witnessed but managed to escape with his life. On May 30, 1921, a nineteen-year-old black man named Dick Rowland entered a Tulsa elevator to ride to the 3rd floor bathroom - segregated for black use only. Operating the elevator was Sarah Page a white seventeen-year-old. No one knows what happened but not long afterwards, Sarah Page was in tears and Dick Rowland was nowhere to be found. He was later arrested for assault; most presumed rape.
Dick Rowland’s arrest would then ignite a conflagration both literal and figurative. The African American neighborhood Greenwood, located within Tulsa, was called “Black Wall Street” for its affluence - relative to other segregated neighborhoods in the South. But the arrest of Dick Rowland gave Tulsa’s Ku Klux Klan an opportunity to teach the residents of Greenwood a “lesson.” Beginning on May 31 and ending on June 1 Greenwood was razed to the ground. As you can see in the image above a fire set by the KKK leveled the neighborhood, leaving most of the residents homeless. When it was over 300 people were dead, approximately 270 of those were black. Greenwood was in ruins. And Tulsa would remain silent about it for 8- years.*
One of those who survived was Otis Clark. He spent the two days running through Greenwood, ducking down alleys, jumping into cars, racing through buildings to avoid the armed, white mobs. Eventually Mr. Clark jumped onto a freight train and ended up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Mr. Clark would head west not long after and was hired as the butler of Ms. Joan Crawford, the Oscar-winning actress. Through his connection with Ms. Crawford, Mr. Clark met stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age including Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin. He also developed a personal friendship with Stepin Fetchit - the first African American actor to become a millionaire.
Mr. Clark’s life changed after an arrest for selling liquor during Prohibition. Converting to Christianity while in jail, he would spend the rest of his life as an evangelist. “The rest of his life” ended up being 80 more years. He was able to travel as a missionary to Africa in 2006 - when he was 103. He made his final trip abroad in 2010 to Jamaica at the age of 107.
Otis Clark - riot survivor, butler to the stars, and “world’s oldest evangelist” - died at the age of 109.
(Image of a devastated Greenwood section of Tulsa following the riots is courtesy of sfbayview.com)
* It was not until 2001 that the city of Tulsa undertook a complete investigation of the riots. Following the report issued by the investigating commission, the Oklahoma State Legislature passed a bill offering scholarships to 300 descendants of Greenwood residents, a memorial, and additional economic development for the neighborhood. It was recommended that survivors of the riots and their descendants be given reparations but the legislature did not agree. For more information on the riots, here is the Wikipedia entry.
30 5 / 2012
May 29, 1453: Constantinople (and the Byzantine Empire) falls to the Ottoman Empire.
The Byzantine Empire outlasted its Western counterpart by nearly a millennium, and it was taken only thrice between its founding and fall - twice in the 13th century, and for the third and last time in 1453 to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II.
The Ottomans lay siege to the city for over fifty days with a force of probably 80,000 soldiers (to Constantinople’s 7,000-strong army). The final assault began on May 26, and Constantinople’s famous walls - walls that had repelled attacks by the Rus’, the Persians, the Arabs, and even the Ottomans themselves decades earlier - were finally breached by Mehmed’s cannons. Emperor Constantine XI, who fought with his defenders to the last, is said to have either died in combat or hanged himself as Mehmed’s men approached.
The capture of Constantinople was not only important strategically but symbolically as well. Justinian and Theodora’s great Orthodox basilica the Hagia Sofia was thereafter transformed into a mosque, though locals were allowed to keep their own religions. Although some attempts were made by Christian leaders like Pope Pius II, who lamented that with the capture of Constantinople “Homer and Plato have died a second death”, to take the city back, most were backed by nothing more than words. The Pope might have been pleased to know, however, that the scholars who subsequently fled the city with their ancient Greek texts may have helped nourish the fledgling Renaissance.
