Millie Small

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Did you know, the song “My Boy Lollipop” sung by Millie Small, reached number 1 on the British Charts in March 1964? Small was the 1st Jamaican to appear on an international song chart 

April Douglas

Gene Miles

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

This is the story of how a statuesque beauty who stood up against political corruption in a relatively newly independent Trinidad and Tobago ended up a wandering drunk of Port of Spain, Trinidad.

Gene Miles who became known as “Gas Station Gene” when she blew the whistle on her boss, Senior Factory Inspector in the Petroleum Ministry, Kenneth Tam and the Minister of Petroleum and Mines, Johnny O’Halloran, with whom she was linked romantically.

Many labeled her “a jilted lover” instead of taking her evidence seriously. Not only did she end up losing her job, but her good name, and died of a heart attack at just 42 years old.

For six days in July 1966, Miles took the witness stand in a Commission of Enquiry, telling them that Tam, who was then slated to go to person for gas station licenses, was using his monopoly to turn down applicants for the licenses. He would then use inside information about the land for which the license was requested to buy and then sell it to the same gas station vendors at more profitable prices.

In the end, Miles was given a bad report by the supposedly independent Public Service Commission, and eventually fired.

A vicious slander campaign was mounted against her and while she never became a vagrant, she was often seen wandering Port of Spain, bedraggled and drunk until her death on December 9th 1972.

O’ Halloran was charged for taking bribes in a petroleum deal in 1983 and fled to Canada where he died a millionaire two years later.

Gene’s boldness may have been inspired by her father Ranny Miles, who busted the biggest scam of the 1940 colonial days; the Caura Dam racket.(Leah Skeete)

Automobiles Before Henry Ford?

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C.R Patterson, An Ex-Slave, And His Family Built Automobiles Before Henry Ford. They called...

The Pattersons of Greenfield, Ohio, were an African-American family who, beginning in 1915,...

BLACKTHEN.COM

Milk of human kindness evolved before our intelligence

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Milk of human kindness evolved long before our intelligence: Early humans' sense of compassion revealed

Three million years ago our ancestors displayed 'tenderness' by carrying around pebbles shaped like babies' faces, say experts. This was 2.5m years before language is thought to have emerged.

New book charts the history of deadly AIDS virus

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How the AIDS epidemic REALLY began: New book charts the history of deadly virus to its origins in rainforest in Cameroon in 1908 and NOT Paris and NYC in early 1980s

David Quammen traces the history of AIDS in his new book, The Chimp and the River. He says AIDS began in Cameroon around 1908 when a hunter in the rainforest was infected by a chimp he killed.

convent debauchery

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Lesbian sex, seduction and murder... by NUNS in a Catholic convent: Incredible tale of debauchery that was exposed by a princess whistleblower is unearthed in secret Vatican archive

Herbert Wolf (top left), a leading scholar of the Catholic Church, learned of the Sant'Ambrogio scandal when he became one of the first allowed into the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. What he uncovered was a shocking story of a beautiful young mistress, Maria Luisa, who, having convinced the other women she was experiencing visions and visits from heaven in the mid-19th century, made them engage in sexual activity at their convent in Rome. The naughty nun also entered into an erotic relationship with a theologian on the pretense he was possessed, and is thought to have murdered three other sisters. But when a German princess (centre) turned whistleblower fled the convent, a sex scandal hidden behind a habit for many years was unveiled. Wolf, a professor of ecclesiastical his­tory at University of Muenster, Germany, made the discovery and has retold it in his book The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio (right).

weird and wonderful history

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You might have missed this the first time around...

8 weird and wonderful historical pictures

Hitler playing with a deer, Ronald Reagan posing as a model for a sculpture class, and Ku Klux Klan members taking a spin on a ferris wheel, are among the unusual...

HISTORYEXTRA.COM

Rawhide 1966

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The classic CBS western "Rawhide," which starred Clint Eastwood and Eric Fleming, as cattle drivers Rowdy Yates and Gil Favor, ended its run on this date in 1966. Fleming had left the series in 1965. Photo of Eastwood and Fleming from the L.A. Times files.

April Douglas

GWTW

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Scarlett and Rhett....

The demolition of London's iconic Earl's Court

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It's the place where Queen Mum surprised a stranger in the bath and Margaret 'took cocaine' with Jagger - now Earls Court's for the wrecking ball

The demolition men will soon be moving in to London's Earl's Court exhibition centre as part of an £8bn project to build new homes, reducing its famous art deco facade (inset) to rubble. 

In 1986 the Queen Mother visited the iconic venue for the Ideal Home Exhibition, where she chatted to a bathing model, while her daughter Princess Margaret was allegedly invited backstage by Mick Jagger (pictured with the princess top right) at a Rolling Stones concert. 

Take That (lower right) performed at Earl's Court earlier this month for the BBC Music Awards - which could be one of the last events to be held there.

Mandy Rice-Davies and Lady Thatcher Secret Pals

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Maggie, Mandy and a most improbable friendship: Thought Profumo temptress Mandy Rice-Davies had no secrets left? Here's the most startling yet!

Following her death from cancer last week at the age of 70, it has emerged that Mandy Rice-Davies (right) and Lady Thatcher (left) would eventually become so well-acquainted as to spend time on holiday together in the Nineties. Though she never spoke publicly about their relationship, and succeeded in keeping it from being reported by the Press during Thatcher's lifetime, it appears that Rice-Davies counted photographs of those trips among her most valued possessions.

Vintage Jamaica

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Professor Trevor Munroe has stressed that the Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ), the communist organisation he led in the 1970s and early '80s, had no part in the bloody 1983 coup in Grenada, in which then Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, who led the New Jewel Movement, was among several government members killed: http://bit.ly/1wnZrQo

Photo: Dr Trevor Munroe leads his party at solidarity rally in this June 1985 file photograph. - Archives

April Douglas

Mona Lisa ... Da Vinci's mother?

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Was the Mona Lisa actually a portrait of Da Vinci's mother? Author says she was Chinese slave whose relationship with artist's father was frowned upon 

Italian historian Angelo Paratico said the fact Leonardo da Vinci, left, was left handed and the Mona Lisa, right, looks Chinese supports his theory the artist's mother was an Oriental slave.

Vintage Jamaica

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Recruits in World War I (and the dog)...from the album Jamaica & the Great War (author and dates unknown). ‪

April Douglas

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Vintage Jamaica

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Queen Victoria Jubilee Celebrations in Port Antonio July 1887....‪

April Douglas

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oldest solved cold case in America

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The murder that became the oldest solved cold case in America

On Sept. 11, 2008, Janet Tessier — tormented for 14 years by her mother’s...

NYP.ST

Vintage Jamaica

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Staff at Military School, Up Park Camp ...

April Douglas

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Ann "Goody" Glover

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

On November 16, 1688, Irish Catholic Ann "Goody" Glover was hanged as a witch by the Puritans in Boston. Goody was born in Ireland in the first half of the 17th century and came to Massachusetts colony when she, her husband and daughter, like many Irish men and women, were deported from Ireland by Oliver Cromwell. 

She went first to Barbados, where her husband died, then to Boston. She and her daughter found domestic work in Boston, but unlike most other Irish Catholic immigrants of the time, they refused to convert, in spite of the lack of priests or a church to attend. Holding to her religion would prove a fatal mistake for Ann. Soon, she was falsely accused of stealing from her employer, John Goodwin, and was dismissed from his employ.

The "stolen" items were found to have been misplaced, but the downward spiral of Ann Glover's life was set in motion. When Goodwin's four children began acting "strangely" after Ann departed, no one doubted the cause: witchcraft. 

Who then was the witch? 

Certainly an Irish Papist with a possible grudge against the Goodwins was first on the list. Glover spoke only Irish, no doubt another reason she was looked on with suspicion. She was interrogated by the Reverend Cotton Mather, of later Salem Witch Trial infamy, using translators whose actual knowledge of the language we can only speculate. It was no surprise that Mather claimed Annie Glover had confessed she was a witch. 

Though no other confessed-witch had ever been hanged at the time, Mather condemned Ann Glover to death. On November 16, 1688, Ann Glover was hanged in Boston, for, in all likelihood, the misfortune of being a resolute Irish-speaking Catholic in Puritan New England. 

On November 16, 1988, the Boston City Council took note of the injustice done to Ann Glover 300 years ago by proclaiming that day "Goody Glover Day" and condemning what had been done. 

Read more about this week in the history of the Irish here:
http://thewildgeese.com/…/this-week-in-the-history-of-the-i…

How Hollywood's most famous detectives were named

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How two of Hollywood's most famous detectives Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe were 'named after and inspired by black private eye'

Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe - portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep - were inspired and named after Samuel Marlowe, a historian says.

Queen Victoria and servant John Brown

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Queen Victoria slept in the same bed as her servant John Brown... but they didn't have sex, claims top historian 

Rumours that Queen Victoria and her devoted ghillie John Brown were lovers endure until this day, but her biographer, AN Wilson, claimed their relationship was never consummated.