#historic figures

[sonderpoison]

#Haitian Heritage Month 🇭🇹

[obsidianandblacksatin]

🗽✨ Robert Smalls: A Legacy of Bravery and Leadership ✨🗽

Born into slavery, Robert Smalls' daring escape aboard a Confederate ship during the Civil War was a pivotal moment in his journey to freedom. Not only did he secure his liberty and that of his crew, but he also went on to serve as a U.S. congressman, championing civil rights and education.

Discover more about his incredible story and lasting impact in my latest blog post. 🌟📚 https://tinyurl.com/2vuh6wjz

[sshbpodcast]

Four Score and Seven Lightyears Ago: Historic Figures in Star Trek

By Ames

Between escapades on the holodeck, visits to the past, and general sci-fi shenanigans, Star Trek has been able to present many historic figures to its crews, to varying effects. They’ve been doing it from the very beginning, though newer Trek series somehow haven’t seemed to have picked up on the game yet. Perhaps mentioning Elon Musk in an episode of Discovery soured them on the idea of bringing real people out into the universe: they’ll only find a way to let you down.

So what do the great minds of history have to offer to the weird and advanced worlds of the future? How frequently is the episode awkward, uncomfortable, or just plain annoying? Whose portrayal doesn’t stand up to the test of time? Check out all the ones we here at A Star to Steer Her By could think of below and listen to our chatter on this week’s podcast episode (discussion starts at 1:11:33). Watch out for falling apples!

[Images © CBS / Paramount]

Jack the Ripper - “Wolf in the Fold”

We forgot to bring this one up on the podcast, but here we remembered to include the alien lifeform that inhabited people throughout history to harvest fear from its victims, at one point using the body of Jack the Ripper. This is absolutely nothing new. The list of Jack the Ripper appearances in modern media is longer than my arm and it’s so overdone that I just gloss over this episode entirely. Redjac is an alien now? Meh. Add it to the Ripper fanfic list.

Wyatt, Morgan, and Virgil Earp and Doc Holliday - “Spectre of the Gun”

By season 3 The Original Series writers had a history book constantly open to look up a whole bunch of figures from the past, starting with an incredibly erroneous telling of the gunfight at the OK Corral. The whole ordeal is through the lens of an alien reading Kirk’s inaccurate memories, so perhaps any falsehoods are to be forgiven. Given the budget for season three, the sets were pretty much plywood, but the actors playing the Earps and Doc Holliday actually looked pretty good!

Flint - “Requiem for Methuselah”

This one’s kind of a strange one, since the character Flint purportedly lived long enough to live out the lives of many famous figures, some actual and some fictional for some reason. The list he gives includes Methuselah, King Solomon, Alexander the Great, Lazarus, Merlin, Leonardo da Vinci, and Johannes Brahms. You’re a strange dude, Flint. I really don’t know what to make of this guy since it’s almost an interesting idea to have such a long-lived character, but once you start throwing wizards into the mix, I’m taken entirely out of it.

Abraham Lincoln - “The Savage Curtain”

When Abe Lincoln appears floating in space, it’s laugh-out-loud funny. The Original Series could get away with campy hijinks the way no other Trek series can anymore, even including Lower Decks. The rest of “The Savage Curtain” is convoluted and pointless as hell (there’s a reason it’s on some of our Bottom Five lists from the whole series), but the parts featuring playing gladiator with Lincoln were a harmless enough romp.

Genghis Khan - “The Savage Curtain”

Also featured alongside Lincoln was Genghis Khan, and let’s just say it was a good thing the character had absolutely no lines or it might have gotten cringey. His inclusion in the first place was borderline as it was, but it wasn’t a good episode in the first place, so what were we really hoping for out of season three of TOS? Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure did all of this better, I’ll leave it at that.

Albert Einstein - “The Nth Degree”

Jump to TNG and a lot of our guest figures from the slate of history appear to us on the holodeck, which is probably a decent venue for them. Better than most, when you think about it, since our Starfleet friends are usually visiting them for a purpose that is substantive to the episode, and also everyone accepts that hologram depictions are going to be fairly superficial. So it goes that Barclay seeking out the program of Albert Einstein makes perfect sense in the episode. This isn’t the last we’ll see of the Einstein holo either, as we’ll see…

Jack London - “Time’s Arrow”

Oh boy, this is one of my least favorite TNG episodes and it’s mostly down to our two guest figures being so caricaturey and plot convenient. The first we come across in our time travel adventure is the young valet Jack, who just seems like a miscreant throughout the two-parter and who rubs your SSHB hosts particularly the wrong way immediately. Then the very very buttony “Remember the name Jack London” happens and everyone watching rolls their eyes so hard that we all topple over from the sheer inanity of it. Ugh!

Samuel Clemens - “Time’s Arrow”

In these two episodes, is Jack London better or worse than Sam Clemens? That may be a matter of how well you can stand the intense overacting and obnoxiousness of the portrayal. In my write up for season 6 of TNG, I screamed “What the hell is Mark Twain doing here” into the void for what felt like days because his character had no motivation for doing any of the things the writers needed him to do in order to stick around. And boy did he ever stick around! He stuck around so much while not contributing anything except someone to deliver exposition at, which could have been some fictional person! So what the hell was Mark Twain doing here!?!?

Stephen Hawking - “Descent”

As we move through TNG episodes, we go from one of my least favorite portrayals to one of my favorites. The late Stephen Hawking remains the only actual person to play themself on Star Trek, and if that ever changes, I’ll feel disappointed because I can’t think of anyone else who is anywhere as deserving. The little joke that Hawking added himself is quite cute, and it just sounds like it was a delightful day to have Einstein, Newton (whom we’ll see again in a second), and Hawking playing poker on the holodeck with Data.

Sigmund Freud - “Phantasms”

Having Data go to a recreation of Freud’s couch when he’s looking for someone to interpret his dreams is a bit of a goofy premise, but it seems in character enough. When holo-Freud starts spewing all the normal Oedipal psychosexual claptrap at him, it’s a bit humorous, if a bit on the nose, but we accept this one because Data’s innocence and naivete are such a good counterbalance. The scene plays a little on the obvious side, but what can you do? The cigar is a penis.

Amelia Earhart - “The 37s”

If you’ve been following along with our watch through Voyager, you’ll know this one struck a rather bad chord with us. Earhart is the only female figure on this list, which is saying enough in and of itself, but for the whole of “The 37s” it felt like her name was getting dragged around through history. It’s not as bad as the Jack the Ripper fanfic parade, but it just strikes me as bad taste to use Earhart’s legacy for a pretty cheap alien abduction gag and to have her navigator Fred Noonan canonically be in love with her. Vom.

Isaac Newton - “Death Wish”

Quinn claims that he’s the one that shook the apple tree that brought about Newton’s gravity epiphany. It’s another bit of an eye-rolling joke, made all the more groanworthy since it was already made clear in Newton’s appearance in “Descent” that the apple story was entirely apocryphal. Sigh. Other than that, Newton’s testimony is part of a very fascinating discussion of what will become of Quinn if he leaves the Q Continuum by killing himself, and who ever knows when the Qs are overembellishing stories for dramatic effect anyway (hint: it’s all the time)?

Socrates, Lord Byron, and Gandhi - “Darkling”

We had pretty mixed feelings of the Doctor going all Mr. Hyde during “Darking” but it does stand to reason that he’d look to various historic figures for personality traits to give himself. Byron and Gandhi’s shallow conversation about men cavorting with women was on the silly side, but this is the holodeck after all, where all the people are pretty much one-note.

The pièce de résistance of the holodeck scenes in this episode is when the characters are all glitching out randomly, Gandhi’s head is spinning, Byron is getting experimented upon, and Socrates is left a hollow hologram. Now that’s a new philosophy.

Leonardo da Vinci - “Concerning Flight” et al

We come to the end of our list with one of the most established minds in history… mostly taking up space. The most his character really gets to do on his number of appearances is allow Janeway to talk exposition at someone other than Seven for a change, and then make a lot of jokes about how the hologram doesn’t understand the real world. I was frankly tired by it. Later on, Lower Decks makes some references to the da Vinci hologram, because of course it does.

—

Computer, end program! Did you spot any other historical figures from our Trek watch? Well, put them in cryo and send them our way because we’re moving on to more blogtivities next week. Keep watching this spot for more, keep up with our voyage through Voyager on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts, say hi on Facebook and Twitter, and in the words of Honest Abe: be excellent to each other.

[disabledgenius2ereality]

It bothers me the way society

Have benefited from Disabled people, Nuerodivergent people, and Mentally ill people.Yet can constantly disrespect or erase parts of these peoples stories when it suits them

Let’s Use Van Gogh for an Example as I think about him a lot

Vincent Van Gogh

Was Schizophrenic ,Autistic, had Major depression, and had Addictive tendencies.

If we like Vincent Van Gogh as an artist

We should want the following things as we would’ve wanted it for him;

•Respect and Full Acceptance of Schizophrenic Folks

• Challenging the narrative that certain Nuerodivergences or Mental Illnesses “Make.” People violent. This is Beyond false.

•Only 10% of Murders are committed by Mentally ill people the other 90% well …. (Nuerotypical.)

^ this matters false narratives on mental illness lead to social exclusion and High suicide rates in our communities.

•We should want whatever can help folks with Addictive tendencies survive and not be shamed for a literal medical condition.

•Full Respect for Developmentally,Physically,Invisibly and Intellectually disabled minds and bodies.

• Meaning we trust Disabled folks and treat them like adults trusting their lived experiences

Etc.

So how can we benefit from the work of Nuerodivergent Individuals (Including Disabled BIPOC who make up 50% of all police killings?)And yet allow for the mistreatment of those in society in the same position as the people we consider “Beloved.” Or “Iconic.”

We disrespect Autistic/Disabled Individuals in three ways

•We assume that they are not equally as intelligent and undervalue their ideas, thoughts,feelings and existence.

•NT society assumes only The only way a person with a Disabillity, Nuerodivergence ,Mental illness is important is; if they contribute to Consumerism/mass Production, they can be used as an inspirational object or an object of Pity or we only value them if we can compare them to savants and geniuses

Folks who are just existing are valid no person needs to meet conform or colonize into Eurocentric social skills in order to meet your criteria for societal acceptance and the expectation that you need to “Understand.”/ “Make sense of” People is putting undo stress on folks.

Example

Look up life expectancy of folks with different Nuerodiversitys

It’s all too young to sentence a community to death by forcing them to meet unnecessary standards,

Lastly

you fetishize Disabled And Autisric Geniuses but over demand our productivity exhaust us.

Then you disrespect our requests regarding work we do

Example of this disrespect

Einstein told you NOT to use the atom bomb

Yet America used it anyway

Too many people died from work that wasn’t intended to be used and was specifically requested not to be used

If you want to fetishized disabled and autistic geniuses do not weaponize us for you’re eugenics based narrative.

All our disabled peers are equally as valuable as us and you disrespect All of us when you disrespect them you cannot pick and choose which members of our communities you deem of value

We are all Valuable.

If you treat our work as valuable then you must treat us and our communities/cultures that way as well

[gowriter]

Tamar the Great of Georgia (1160-1213)

Of that lion whom the use of lance, shield and sword adorns, of the king, the sun T’hamara, the ruby-cheeked, the jet-haired, of her I know not how I shall dare to sing the manifold praise; they who look upon her must offer her the sweets for which she hungers. By shedding tears of blood we praise King T’hamara, whose praises I, not ill-chosen, have told forth. For ink I have used a lake of jet, and for pen a pliant crystal. Whoever hears, a jagged spear will pierce his heart!

ვის ჰშვენის, - ლომსა, - ხმარება შუბისა, ფარ-შიმშერისა, - მეფისა მზის თამარისა, ღაწვ-ბადახშ, თმა-გიშერისა, - მას, არა ვიცი, შევჰკადრო შესხმა ხოტბისა, შე, რისა? მისთა მჭვრეტელთა ყანდისა მირთმა ხამს მართ, მი, შერისა. თამარს ვაქებდეთ მეფესა სისხლისა ცრემლ-დათხეული, ვთქვენი ქებანი ვისნი მე არ-ავად გამორჩეული. მელნად ვიხმარე გიშრის ტბა და კალმად მე ნა რხეული, ვინცა ისმინოს, დაესვას ლახვარი გულსა ხეული.

The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, Shota Rustaveli ვეფხისტყაოსანი, შოთა რუსთაველი

[kimludcom]

Henry VIII And His Six Wives As Never Seen Before

[littlebitellie]

I hope y’all will indulge me into a little personal piece

This is Anne Lister who, in short, was a badass bitch.

She was a landowner, explorer, hiker, writer and HUGE lesbian.  She was as out as someone could be in the 18th century and courted several women. She wore all black, masculine dresses and strutted about Halifax like an absolute icon. 

She inherited Shibden Hall from her family and ran coal mines on her property, kicking out a male rival who was previously mining there. She used her earnings to fund expeditions around Europe. She and her partner Ann Walker were also essentially married, and Anne used her lovers hefty inheritance to build herself a sick tower library - what an absolute legend.  

She was also the first person ever to ever hike  Vignemale - the highest peak of the French Pyrenees. And she did so in SILK STOCKINGS AND A SKIRT. And when a Prince tried to claim he was the first to climb it she was like “nah bitch” and forced him to admit she was the one to do it. 

She even created a coded language so she could document all her saucy lesbian activity in her journal and no one would be able to read it. 

I first researched Anne Lister in highschool for an art history project. At that point I was very in the closet since I attended an all girls religious boarding school. Anne was this amazing gay icon to me. So much so, I wrote papers on her at uni. There was only ever one painting of her in all of history so a lot of her appearance has been guessed through her writings. 

I wanted to do something special for Pride this year because it is my first since coming out, even though essentially I exclusively paint LGBTQ+ characters. Anne seemed liked the only appropriate subject. 

[adiscoveryofmoodboards]

Historic Figures Series: Bessie Coleman (1892-1926) 

The air is the only place free from prejudices. I knew we had no aviators, neither men nor women, and I knew the Race needed to be represented along this most important line, so I thought it my duty to risk my life to learn aviation...