“The Red Baron” is not on the list! By Michelle Darrisaw. If you look it up, you will find that he is one of the first people to show up on the list. It’s okay if you need to take a moment to catch your breath after reading that list, we certainly had to after writing it. Fifty years ago the United States Congress passed the historic Voting Rights Act, which formally ended racial discrimination in voting. Had it fallen to the rebels, it would have seriously compromised General Meade’s position on Cemetery Ridge and probably forced him to withdraw to less defendable ground. Both men were working on the telephone at the same time, but Bell was the one with the patent and Gray was the one with the attorney who shouldn’t have stopped for lunch on his way to the patent office. SHARES. Here are the top ten most interesting Little Known Black History Facts we've discovered. Unable to compete with his much larger rival, he remained a prodigious yet obscure inventor up to the time of his death in 1971. Check out our list of influential Black women who may have missed the mainstream recognition, but nevertheless played a pivotal role in our history. Robert Smalls (April 5, 1839 – Feb. 23, 1915) Robert Smalls was an African-American born into slavery in Beaufort, S.C., but during and after the American A list of inspirational black people who played a key role in the world and American history. So as Black History Month gets ready to come to a close, we would like to acknowledge seven of the least recognized women in Black history. Fame is a curious thing. When you think “Civil War” you think of names like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, but how many have ever heard the name Joshua Chamberlain?

Black History: 10 Lesser Known Facts that will Shock you 1. Good PR is often a part of it, of course. Getty Images. He also had a pedestrian career after the war, flying passengers and mail between Berlin and Hamburg, which was hardly the sort of death-defying, pulse-pounding profession you’d expect from flying ace. Most people assume that Adolf Hitler created the Nazi party back in the 1920s, but that wasn’t the case. Unlike most inventors, he didn’t concentrate on a single invention but proved to have a wide range of interests that would lead him to develop groundbreaking inventions in the areas of optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and even aeronautics. Two people will devote their lives to working toward the same world changing goal, with one gaining global recognition while the other slides into obscurity. Lothar didn’t outlive his brother by much, perishing in 1922 when the engine on his plane failed. He rejoined the Nazis in 1933 after Hitler came to power, but remained little more than a propaganda tool until his death from natural causes in 1942. February is Black History Month. Aside from the most ardent civil war buffs, it’s a fair bet that most haven’t heard of the chivalrous professor from a tiny college in Maine who may have been more responsible for saving the Union cause at Gettysburg than any other man. Dorothy Height. Ella Baker is one of those people. Their paths were just as difficult and their fights just as courageous. Advertisement. Drexler stayed on as honorary president until 1923, when he left the party for other pursuits. Walker, who was the … Other times people suffer from bad timing, and some are just overlooked by historians and the media … Jeff Danelek is a Denver, Colorado author who writes on many subjects having to do with history, politics, the paranormal, spirituality and religion. The moral of the story here is that when one creates a monster, they must beware lest that monster turn on them. These people were great. These women paved the way for other women and blacks in general. The reason Darwin is so much better known is because he had the good sense to write an entire book about the subject, while Wallace was content to simply publish his ideas as a series of articles in scientific journals. Black women An active civil rights leader in the 1930s, Ms. Baker fought for civil rights for five decades, working alongside W.E.B Dubois, Thurgood Marshall, and Martin Luther King, Jr. She even mentored well-known civil rights activist, Rosa Parks. Privacy Policy | TopTenz T-Shirts | Sponsors. Landing in the frigid Thames River, she apparently succumbed to hypothermia and was presumably washed out to sea. Such a limited view ignores the countless historical achievements of many Black men and women who faced enslavement, violence, and […] He doesn’t even have a gravesite anymore, as the cemetery he was buried in was leveled after the territory was transferred to Poland after the war. Though lacking any formal military training, Chamberlain was eager to serve and enlisted in 1862. The reason for this is two-fold: first, Alcock and Brown were not performing their feat as part of a contest, but as more of a test flight for the Vickers Aircraft company. In a footnote as tragic as Earhart’s, she also lost her life while flying, this time as ferry pilot for the RAF in World War II. Black History Month is the time to honor the role and achievements of African-Americans in the United States. Written by Julia Austin Dec 24, 2013. Join us in recognizing these Great Black Heroes. Perhaps one reason is that he survived the war, and fighter pilots who die in battle strike a far more romantic image than those who live through the carnage. Sleek and birdlike, the frail little machine may have actually achieved several minutes of sustained flight on the morning of August 14, 1901 with Whitehead at the controls, according to a handful of witnesses. Others you will be introduced to for the first time. In any case, Hitler’s power of persuasion and oratorical skills so impressed Drexler that he recruited him to be his propaganda chief, a move he would come to regret when within two years his protégé would rise so quickly through the party hierarchy that in July of 1921, Hitler actually displaced Drexler as head of the party and pushed Drexler into the background. While the acts of these unsung heroes of black history may not have caught national media attention, they still made an impact on the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people. The flight, which covered just under 1,900 miles, took 16 hours and ended in a crash landing in a bog, but it demonstrated that Transatlantic flight was possible. That first image was just a straight line, but by 1929 he had improved his basic design enough that he was able to transmit a very blurry image of his wife onto a three inch surface.

Among prominent figures are Madam C.J. Unfortunately, no photograph exists of the flight and there was only a single account of the flight recorded in a local Connecticut newspaper. Darwin used a much larger audience and platform to popularize his controversial ideas, while Wallace seemed to have been more interested in continuing his travels and studies on biogeography. Other times people suffer from bad timing, and some are just overlooked by historians and the media for whatever reason, rendering their accomplishments and deeds largely ignored by the general public.

Most people can tell you who invented the telephone or the light bulb or the steam engine, but how many people can name the inventor of television? Liked it? While schools feature Black history this month, most students will only hear about the same handful of prominent figures: Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and perhaps a few others. I agree with yellow cube. Alexander Graham Bell is credited with the invention of the telephone, but you probably didn’t realize it all came down to his attorney’s punctuality. Mary Ellen Pleasant: Entrepreneur and Activist. MadameNoire is a sophisticated lifestyle publication that gives African-American women the latest in fashion trends, Had he arrived at the U.S. Patent Office just two hours later, we would be talking about Elisha Gray being the man behind the squawk box, and Bell would have been just another of a long line of men who missed their chance at fame and fortune. George Washington Carver (1864-1943) Carver is a well-known African American. Sure, none of his inventions have been as flashy as Edison’s, but all of them have been essential in creating the high tech revolution we all depend on today, making him perhaps the most obscure influential person in the world. So who are these historical “coulda-beens”? It seems remarkable that one of the paramount features in most people’s lives has such a murky history, but that’s the case with what might be described as one of the most influential and impactful inventions of all-time.