DYK: Brig. Gen. Charles Young American Legion Post 398 in Harlem is named for the 3rd Black graduate of @WestPoint_USMA who was the highest-ranking Black officer ever at the time of his death in 1922 while defense attaché in Liberia. https://t.co/XNmwY6sANi #BlackHistoryMonth
Harvard Law enrolled 19 first-year Black students this fall, the lowest number since the 1960s, following last year's SCOTUS decision banning affirmative action https://t.co/59sQwNMeJe
Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro today presented Tom Cruise with the Distinguished Public Service Award for “outstanding contributions to the Navy and the Marine Corps.” Cruise was commended for several of his roles including TOP GUN and A FEW GOOD MEN. The Navy stated that TOP GUN: MAVERICK “brought nostalgia to older audiences and reinvigorated the minds of newer audience members, which effectively targeted a younger audience’s interest into the skill sets and opportunities the Navy can provide.”
We honored St. John de Matha with a schoolwide Mass today on this, the 811th anniversary of his death. St. John and St. Felix of Valois founded the Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives - the Trinitarians - in 1198. DeMatha has been educating young men since 1946.
Breaking: Las Vegas Aces' A'ja Wilson, a three-time WNBA MVP and two-time champion, is signing a six-year contract extension with Nike in one of the richest shoe deals for a women’s basketball player, sources told @ShamsCharania.
Road Trip:
🐃In North America both “bison” and “buffalo” refer to the American bison (Bison bison)
🐃The bison is the largest land mammal in North America
🐃Bison jam
🐃This land is my land
🐃No passing zone
🐃Rush hour takes on a new pace
🐃Large and in charge
#BullBison
On this day in 1663, Queen Nzinga Mbande, a warrior queen of the Nzinga and Matamba and one of the greatest female African rulers died. She led the stiffest opposition to European dominaion in Africa's interior, winning battle after battle against the Portuguese.
Nzingha, also known as Ana de Sousa Nzingha Mbande, was a 17th century Queen of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms of the Mbundu people in southwestern Africa (Ngola was both a name and a title in Ndongo).
Nzinga was a powerful monarch who successfully kept the Portuguese out of her land for 35 years. In order to fight off Portugal, (who wanted to conquer the area to further the slave trade) she conquered neighboring kingdoms to expand her territory and aligned herself with the Dutch.
During the late 16th Century, the French and the English threatened the Portuguese near monopoly on the sources of slaves along the West African coast, forcing it to seek new areas for exploitation. By 1580 they had already established a trading relationship with Afonso I in the nearby Kongo Kingdom. They then turned to Angola, south of the Kongo.
The Portuguese established a fort and settlement at Luanda in 1617, encroaching on Mbundu land. In 1622 they invited Ngola (King) Mbande to attend a peace conference there to end the hostilities with the Mbundu. Mbande sent his sister Nzinga to represent him in a meeting with Portuguese Governor Joao Corria de Sousa. Nzinga was aware of her diplomatically awkward position.
She knew of events in the Kongo which had led to Portuguese domination of the nominally independent nation. She also recognized, however, that to refuse to trade with the Portuguese would remove a potential ally and the major source of guns for her own state.
In the first of a series of meetings Nzinga sought to establish her equality with the representative of the Portugal crown. She converted to Christianity and adopted the name Dona Anna de Souza. Shortly afterwards Nzinga ordered the conversion of his people to Christianity.
In 1626 Nzinga became Queen of the Mbundu when her brother committed suicide in the face of rising Portuguese demands for slave trade concessions. Nzinga, however, refused to allow them to control her nation. In 1627, after forming alliances with former rival states, she led her army against the Portuguese, initiating a thirty-year war against them. She exploited European rivalry by forging an alliance with the Dutch who had conquered Luanda in 1641. With their help, Nzinga defeated a Portuguese army in 1647. When the Dutch were in turn defeated by the Portuguese the following year and withdrew from Central Africa, Nzinga continued her struggle against the Portuguese. Now in her 60s she still personally led troops in battle.
She also orchestrated guerilla attacks on the Portuguese which would continue long after her death and inspire the ultimately successful 20th Century armed resistance against the Portuguese that resulted in independent Angola in 1975.
Despite repeated attempts by the Portuguese and their allies to capture or kill Queen Nzinga, she died peacefully in her eighties on December 17, 1663.
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