November 28, 2018

On Nov. 22, 1718, 300 years ago last week, the notorious English pirate  Blackbeard was killed off the coast of what is now the state of North Carolina. Blackbeard was one of the most famous villains in the history of the sea. He received his name from his distinctive long, black beard, which he often braided and tied with ribbons. Few pirates have looked and acted as fierce as Blackbeard.

Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies. Credit: © Photo Researchers/Alamy Images

Blackbeard carried three braces (pairs) of pistols. He made himself look devilish in the thick of fighting by sticking long, lighted matches under his hat, framing his face in fire and smoke. If action was slow, Blackbeard stirred things up by lighting pots of sulfur in his own ship, or shooting pistols beneath the table while entertaining friends in his darkened cabin. His journal states that confusion and plotting developed if his men were sober, but all went well when they had enough rum.

Blackbeard terrorized the Carolina and Virginia coasts during 1717 and 1718 in his ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge. In 1717, he blockaded Charleston, South Carolina. He captured ships in the harbor and seized citizens for ransom. Blackbeard left after he received a chest of medicine as ransom. After this raid, he ran his ship aground near Cape Fear, North Carolina. Blackbeard then received a general pardon from Governor Charles Eden of North Carolina, whom he probably bribed. Life on land was not for Blackbeard, and he quickly returned to sea aboard his new ship, Adventure.

Blackbeard took such a toll on shipping and created so much terror along the American coast that Virginia and Carolina planters organized against him. The Virginia governor dispatched the British warship HMS Pearl to take him alive or dead. Blackbeard was caught on Nov. 21, 1718, near Ocracoke Inlet, off the North Carolina coast. On November 22, after fighting desperately with sword and pistol, the pirate fell dead with 25 wounds in his body. His head was taken back to Virginia and displayed on a pole.

Blackbeard was born Edward Teach, either in Bristol, England, or in Jamaica. He is said to have had 14 wives. In 1996, researchers found the remains of Blackbeard’s ship Queen Anne’s Revenge near the coast of North Carolina. Blackbeard’s villainous life and legend have inspired numerous books, motion pictures, and television shows.

October 10, 2018

On Friday, October 5, gynecologist Denis Mukwege and human rights activist Nadia Murad were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts “to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.” On Monday, October 8, the Nobel Prize for economic sciences went to United States economists William Nordhaus and Paul Romer for integrating technological innovation and climate change with economic growth.

Nobel Prize medal (Credit: Nobel Foundation)

Denis Mukwege has spent much of his life helping the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Working from the Panzi Hospital in the far-eastern city of Bukavu, Mukwege and his staff have treated thousands of sexual assault victims. Most of the abuses were committed during a civil war that killed millions of people in the late 1990′s and 2000′s. Nadia Murad is a member of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq. In 2014, Islamic State terrorists attacked Murad’s village, killed hundreds of people, and abducted Murad and other young Yazidi women and held them as sex slaves. Murad was repeatedly raped and abused before she managed to escape. Murad then began raising awareness of the horrors and traumas that she had experienced. Sexual violence in war and armed conflict is a grave violation of international law.

William Nordhaus is an economics professor at Yale University. He created an “integrated assessment model” that shows how economy and climate change together over time. Paul Romer teaches at the New York University Stern School of Business. He has demonstrated how economic forces govern the willingness of firms to produce new ideas and innovations.

May 24, 2018

Last month, on April 26, the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened along with the new Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. The sobering memorial and museum—separate places built to complement each other—are dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people, people terrorized by lynching, and the injustice of dealing with racial segregation and discriminatory laws. They also detail the current burdens of African Americans facing unfair presumptions of guilt and excessive police violence.

The hanging memorials within the National Memorial for Peace and Justice detail the chilling history of the lynching of African Americans in the United States. Credit: Sonia Kapadia (licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

The memorial and museum were created by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), an organization committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. Work on the memorial began in 2010 as EJI staff began investigating the history of lynchings in the American South. The numbers they came up with were staggering: more than 4,400 black people were lynched in the United States between 1877 and 1950.

Covering 6 acres (2.4 hectares), the Memorial for Peace and Justice details America’s history of racial inequality with unflinching glimpses of racial terror. The site includes sculptures and a central square with 800 hanging monuments that symbolize the brutal deaths of lynching victims. Each monument is peculiar to a county and state where lynchings took place, and each lists the names (when available) of victims and the dates when they were killed.

The memorial includes exhibits on the civil rights movement in the United States, with special attention paid to the local Montgomery bus boycotts of the 1950′s. Other exhibits deal with the contemporary issues of police violence and racial bias in the criminal justice system. The memorial displays writing from author Toni Morrison, words from civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr., and a reflection space in honor of journalist and reformer Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

A short walk away in Montgomery, the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is built on the site of a former warehouse where enslaved black people were held before being bought and sold at a nearby auction site. Montgomery was once an important center of the slave trade in the American South, and many sites in the city chronicle this unfortunate history. Like the memorial, the 11,000-square-foot (1,022-square meter) museum details the chilling history of racism in the United States. First-person accounts tell the reality of living through the slave trade, and research materials and multimedia provide sobering details. The Legacy Museum also has exhibits on lynching, segregation, and the mass incarceration of African Americans.

April 4, 2018

Fifty years ago today, on April 4, 1968, American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The killing shocked the world and dealt a major blow to the civil rights movement in the United States. Numerous events are being held to remember King’s life and legacy, including a solemn 50th anniversary commemoration at the National Civil Rights Museum, which is built around the Lorraine Motel where King was killed. The commemoration is part of a yearlong program of events at the museum called MLK 50.

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated 50 years ago today on April 4, 1968. Credit: © Flip Schulke, Corbis

Martin Luther King, Jr., was the most prominent leader of the civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimination against African Americans. While organizing a campaign against poverty, King went to Memphis to support a strike of black garbage workers. At about 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, King stood on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. A bullet struck King in the neck, killing him. James Earl Ray, a white drifter and escaped convict, pleaded guilty to the crime in 1969.

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, is built around the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in 1968. The wreath on the balcony outside room 306 marks the spot where King was shot. Credit: © F11 Photo/Shutterstock

People throughout the world mourned King’s death. The assassination produced immediate shock, grief, and anger. African Americans rioted in more than 100 cities. A few months later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibited racial discrimination in the sale and rental of most housing in the nation.

In March 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to killing King. Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later tried to withdraw his plea, but his conviction was upheld. Ray died in 1998. Although Ray confessed to King’s killing, many people doubted that Ray had acted alone.

Following the shooting, the owner of the Lorraine Motel kept King’s room, 306, as a memorial. In 1991, the motel became the centerpiece of the National Civil Rights Museum. The Memphis museum preserves King’s room in period detail. Events at the museum marking King’s death began at 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 2017, and will continue through the end of April 2018.

March 27, 2018

On Saturday, March 24, more than a million people around the world participated in March For Our Lives protests against gun violence, mass shootings, and school shootings in the United States. The U.S. protests centered on Washington, D.C., where people called on lawmakers to pass gun control legislation. The protests were planned and led by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in the Miami, Florida, suburb of Parkland, where a mass shooting killed 17 students and faculty on February 14.

Hundreds of thousands of people crowd Washington, D.C., streets during the March For Our Lives protest against gun violence on March 24, 2018. Credit: © Nicole S. Glass, Shutterstock

MSD students and other gun crime survivors from across the country spoke to hundreds of thousands of people along Pennsylvania Avenue, with the White House and the U.S. Capitol looming in the background. The emotional speeches were punctuated with cheers, tears, and chants of “no more guns” and “no more NRA,” a reference to the powerful pro-gun group, the National Rifle Association. The NRA has been effective at persuading members of Congress to block the passage of gun control bills, arguing that such bills violate the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. “Vote them out!” was another protesters’ chant aimed squarely at those NRA-influenced members of Congress. Many hand-painted signs carried among the crowds read “Graduations, not funerals,” “Protect kids not guns,” and “Am I next?”

Credit: © March For Our Lives

The most stirring moment came when 18-year old MSD student Emma González named her dead classmates and teachers and then paused in silence until she had used up 6 minutes and 20 seconds—the amount of time it took for the gunman to take 17 lives at her high school. Naomi Wadler, an 11-year-old speaker from Virginia, declared “Never again!” on behalf of black women and girl victims of gun violence. Never Again is the name of another student-led movement pushing for tighter gun regulations. Singers Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, and Lin-Manuel Miranda performed at the Washington rally, which was also attended and supported by thousands of parents and teachers as well as numerous Democratic politicians and entertainment celebrities.

“Sibling” March For Our Lives protests took place throughout the United States, with large events in such cities as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City. The nationwide rallies also encouraged voter registration, particularly for students about to turn 18 and vote for the fist time. Former president Barack Obama voiced his support for the protesters and the voting drive, saying “You’re leading us forward. Nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change.” Solidarity events also took place in such world cities as Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, Sydney, and Tokyo.

Saturday’s March For Our Lives followed a 17-minute school walkout (one minute for each MSD shooting victim) that took nearly a million U.S. high school students briefly out of classes on March 14. The massacre at MSD High School was the most recent in a long line of school shootings in the United States. The worst came at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut in 2012, when 26 people were killed. Another national school walkout is planned for April 20 to commemorate the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in which 13 people died.

February 21, 2018

On Feb. 21, 1965, 53 years ago today, influential African American leader Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City. Malcolm X, an important defender of black rights, was once a prominent voice of the Nation of Islam (also called Black Muslims). The Nation of Islam is a religious group in the United States that preaches black nationalism. Malcolm X left the group, however, and was killed by Black Muslims who felt he had betrayed the group and its leader at the time, Elijah Muhammad.

Malcolm X, an influential African American leader, died 53 years ago today on Feb. 21, 1965. Credit: © Frank Castoral, Photo Researchers

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska. His father was a follower of Marcus Garvey, a black leader who worked to establish close political and economic ties to Africa. In 1931, Malcolm’s father was found dead after being run over by a streetcar. Malcolm believed white racists were responsible for his father’s death. When Malcolm was 12 years old, his mother was committed to a mental hospital. Malcolm spent the rest of his childhood in foster homes, and he was discouraged by the prevalence of racial prejudice around him.

In 1946, Malcolm was arrested for burglary and joined the Nation of Islam while in prison. The Nation of Islam taught that white people were “devils.” After Malcolm was released from prison in 1952, he adopted X as his last name. The letter stood for the unknown African name of Malcolm’s slave ancestors.

Malcolm X quickly became the Nation of Islam’s most effective minister. He was a fiery orator, urging blacks to live separately from whites and to gain equality “by any means necessary.” But he became dissatisfied with the Nation of Islam, in part because the group avoided political activity.

Credit: © African American History Month

In 1964, Malcolm X broke with the Nation of Islam. Soon afterward, he traveled to the Muslim holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. He met Muslims of many ethnic backgrounds and rejected the view that all white people are devils. Malcolm X adopted the Muslim name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. After returning to the United States, he formed his own group, the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

Malcolm X rejected nonviolence as a principle, but he sought cooperation with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights activists who favored militant (aggressive) nonviolent protests. But by this time, some Black Muslims had condemned Malcolm X as a hypocrite and traitor because of his criticisms of Elijah Muhammad. On Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm X was fatally shot while giving a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. Three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of the crime. Malcolm’s views reached many people after his death through his Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965).

The Audubon Ballroom closed after Malcom X’s death. It was renovated and reopened as the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center in 2005.

January 18, 2018

In October 2017, claims of sexual harassment and misconduct among certain Hollywood personalities led to the explosion of a global social media movement known as Me Too. Also known by its internet hashtag #MeToo, the movement is a forum for victims of sexual assault to tell their personal experiences. The recent Me Too movement joined a similar movement of the same name that began years earlier. The vast numbers associated with #MeToo—the hashtag has been used millions of times on social media—have revealed the widespread problem of sexual harassment around the world. Through Me Too, millions of women—and men—have come forward to help ease the pain and guilt often felt by victims of sexual assault.

The Me Too movement began in 2006 and exploded on the social media scene in 2017. Credit: © Mihai Surdu, Shutterstock

Me Too was originally begun in 2006 by civil rights activist Tarana Burke to organize women of color against sexual abuse. Burke was inspired to use the phrase after being unable to respond to a young girl who confided to her that she had been sexually assaulted. Burke later wished she had simply told the girl, “me too.” Burke worked quietly on the issue for years, and is now senior director for Brooklyn’s Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), a nonprofit organization committed to the physical, psychological, social, and economic development of girls and women.

In 2017, as news broke of widespread sexual abuse in Hollywood, actress Alyssa Milano (unaware of Burke’s existing movement) wrote on Twitter, “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” The combined Me Too forces created a worldwide forum for victims of sexual abuse. Numerous Hollywood celebrities have been accused of inappropriate sexual behavior through Me Too, as have many people in government, the media and music industries, and other highly visible occupations.

Time magazine named the “silence breakers” of the #MeToo movement as the magazine’s collective Person of the Year for 2017. Sexual assault victims who speak out are silence breakers because many people keep quiet about the experience which caused them psychological and perhaps physical harm. The negative consequences of speaking out can be daunting, and often the perpetrators of sexual assault go unpunished.

Beyond the Me Too movement, sexual abuse scandals in churches, schools, and athletic organizations have emerged in numerous places, most recently in Australia, Chile, India, and the United States. The World Health Organization estimates that one in three women in the world has experienced sexual violence.

December 7, 2017

On Nov. 22, 2017, the United Nations (UN) International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted former Bosnian Serb army leader Ratko Mladić of genocide and other crimes committed during the Bosnian War (1992-1995). The focal point of Mladić’s trial was the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre of thousands of Bosniaks (sometimes called Bosnian Muslims) by Bosnian Serb forces. Mladić was sentenced to life in prison.

Supporters of Ratko Mladić wave flags and a banner with his likeness during a rally in Belgrade, Serbia, where many consider him a hero. Mladić was sentenced to life in prison for genocide and other war crimes on Nov. 22, 2017. Credit: © Darko Vojinovic, AP Photo

The Bosnian War was a conflict between ethnic groups mainly in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Through most of the 1900’s, Bosnia-Herzegovina (often simply called Bosnia) had been part of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia began to break into smaller countries in the early 1990’s, and Bosnia became independent in March 1992. Following independence, Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian forces fought for control of the new country. The war, which often saw violence inflicted upon opposing civilian populations, ended in December 1995.

In July 1995, Serb troops captured the disputed city of Srebrenica. A group of about 15,000 Bosniaks attempted to flee the area, but the Serbs captured most of them. The Serbs claimed that the Bosniak civilians under their control would be transferred to safe areas. The Serbs sent the Bosniak women and children away on buses and trucks. But most of the Bosniak men were executed.

In 2015, Bosniak women weep over the remains of men killed in the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre during the Bosnian War (1992-1995). Many years after the massacre, bodies were exhumed from mass graves for identification. Credit: © Amel Emric, AP Photo

Investigators later found evidence that the Serbs killed over 7,000 Bosniaks at Srebrenica. The UN convicted several Bosnian Serb military leaders for their roles in the massacre. The UN also charged Mladić, then head of the Bosnian Serb army, and Radovan Karadžić, then leader of the Bosnian Serbs, with war crimes. Karadžić was captured in 2008. His trial began in 2009 at a UN criminal court in The Hague, the Netherlands. Mladić was arrested in 2011. His trial began in 2012. In 2016, Karadžić was found guilty of genocide and other war crimes and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

In 2017, a Serbian court dealt with the issue for the first time as eight former Bosnian Serb police officers accused of participating in the massacre went on trial in Belgrade. On November 22, the UN convicted Mladić on two charges of genocide, five charges of crimes against humanity, and four counts of war crimes. A week later, on November 29, Slobodan Praljak, a Bosnian Croat military commander during the Bosnian War, died after drinking poison in a UN courtroom upon the confirmation of his 20-year prison sentence for war crimes.

October 2, 2017

Last night, on October 1, in Las Vegas, Nevada, a gunman killed at least 58 people at an open-air concert near the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. The gunman fired from the window of his hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay, shooting into a crowd of 22,000 people attending a music festival across the street. Armed with numerous automatic weapons, the gunman poured hundreds of bullets into the crowd until police reached his hotel room. The gunman then committed suicide. The attack—which has also resulted in over 500 injuries—is the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. The death toll from the domestic terror attack will most likely rise.

People run for cover as a gunman fires into a crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Oct. 1, 2017. Fifty-eight people died in the domestic terror attack. Credit: © David Becker, Getty Images

The attack began just after 10 p.m. local time, not long after country music star Jason Aldean had taken the stage at the Route 91 Harvest music festival, a three-day event held in an open-air venue across the Las Vegas Strip from the Mandalay Bay. The Las Vegas Strip, a portion of Las Vegas Boulevard, is famous for its large resort hotels and casinos. Many people in the concert crowd did not react immediately to the attack, as the popping of gunshots was confused with the sound of firecrackers and drowned out by the music being played on stage.

People soon realized the horror of what was taking place, however, and began running for cover and searching for loved ones in the chaos. The shooting paused occasionally as the gunman reloaded his automatic weapons, but the rapid fire then resumed as bullets ricocheted around the concrete concert ground and inflicted further injuries. Police responding to the attack saw gun flashes coming from the Mandalay Bay, and soon zeroed in on the gunman’s locked hotel room. As police used explosives to burst into the room, the gunman shot and killed himself.

Thus far, the shooter, identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, has not been tied with any militant or terrorist groups, and his motive remains unclear. Paddock lived in Mesquite, a small city northeast of Las Vegas. His dead body was found with 23 guns, many of which are readily available in Nevada, a state with some of the least stringent gun laws in the United States. Police found another 19 guns at Paddock’s home in Mesquite.

The previous worst U.S. mass shooting occurred just last year, in June 2016, when a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. That shooter, who was killed by police, had professed his allegiance to an Islamic terrorist group.

September 7, 2017

The pangolin, a reclusive, unusual insect-eating animal, is the world’s most trafficked (illegally traded) mammal. These armored but endangered animals live in tree hollows or dense thickets in remote forests and scrublands of Africa and Southeast Asia. Shy and largely nocturnal, the cat-sized animals are hard to find—which is a lucky thing. The pangolin is prized for its meat and the medicinal properties of its scaly armor. Were pangolins easier to find, they would have disappeared from the Earth long ago. As people continue to hunt them, however, and as deforestation shrinks their natural habitats, the pangolin’s days may still be numbered.

Pangolins are famous for their scaly armor and the habit of rolling up in a ball when threatened. Credit: © Shutterstock

Pangolins are slow-moving mammals that resemble anteaters and armadillos. However, they are not closely related to either, and, instead of the coarse hair of anteaters, pangolins have coats of overlapping brown scales. Like rhino horn, pangolin scales are largely composed of keratin, the same protein found in human hair and fingernails. Like anteaters, pangolins are toothless and have long, narrow snouts, long tails, and sticky, ropelike tongues that they thrust far out to catch ants, termites, and other tasty insects. Their large, strong foreclaws are used for ripping into tough ant and termite mounds and nests.

Pangolins are perhaps best known in popular culture for their unique defense mechanism. When threatened, they roll themselves into a tight, armored ball. With the exception of humans, few animals can harm pangolins. They are harmless animals, but they can also lash out with their scaly tails or emit a foul-odored scent like a skunk.

Pangolins and other illegally trapped wildlife suffer in cages in a market in Mong La, Myanmar, on the Chinese border. Credit: Dan Bennett (licensed under CC BY 2.0)

All eight pangolin species are threatened, and international laws and treaties protect their populations on paper. But the lucrative illegal trade powers on, and pangolins are being smuggled in record numbers. Poachers capture or kill hundreds of thousands of pangolins every year. And most of the animals—alive, maimed, or dead—are destined for China, where the meat is considered a delicacy and the scales are used in traditional medicine. Customs officials seize thousands of pangolins—often cruelly packed in tiny cages or boxes—and hundreds of pounds of pangolin scales each year. Despite its illegal nature, pangolin trafficking is often out in the open, even advertised. In June 2017, an Internet search revealed numerous traders on several websites selling pangolin scales, pangolin meat, and live pangolins. There is also an illegal trade in pangolin blood, and stuffed pangolins are unlawfully sold as souvenirs. Pangolins—like many wild animals—are also threatened by deforestation. They live in an ever-shrinking environment, leaving them with fewer places to hide from poachers.

And there is still more bad news for pangolins: they do not take well to captivity. Some animal populations can be saved or even restored in refuges, reserves, or zoos, but captured pangolins often simply die. They also do not reproduce in captivity, which prevents commercial breeding to supply China’s legal domestic medicinal trade. The only way to save these animals is to stop pangolin trafficking and preserve their natural homes.

Later this year, pangolins will be one of the topics at the Conference for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in Geneva, Switzerland. The goal is to list all pangolin species in Appendix I of CITES, which includes only species threatened with extinction. (Currently, two pangolin species are listed as critically endangered, and the others rank as vulnerable.) CITES is a treaty that aims to control trade in wild animals and plants, their parts, and products derived from them. Such a listing will draw more attention to the plight of pangolins, and it may encourage more people to help protect these humble creatures.