Every time your phone tells you where you are, it is using a mathematical model of the shape of the Earth.
A Black woman from rural Virginia spent decades building that model by hand, and almost nobody knew her name until she was in her eighties.
Gladys West. She grew up in a sharecropping family in Dinwiddie County and understood early that the alternatives were the tobacco fields or the factory. She finished top of her high school class, which came with a scholarship, and took it.
Her work was satellite geodesy: taking the raw data coming down from orbit and using it to compute, correction by correction, the true irregular shape of the Earth. Not a sphere. Not even a neat ellipsoid. A lumpy thing with gravitational highs and lows.
That model is the foundation the Global Positioning System sits on. You cannot locate a point on a surface until you know precisely what the surface is.
She did this for decades, largely unremarked, and retired in 1998.
She was recognised in 2018, when her sorority mentioned her biography at a function and someone realised what was in it.
The Air Force inducted her into its Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame. She earned a PhD in her seventies.
The roommate of Laken Riley's killer just testified during his trial that they went to the Roosevelt Hotel together in September 2023 and received a taxpayer funded flight to Georgia.
Your government flew an illegal gang member to Georgia with your money -- where he then proceeded to brutally murder an innocent girl.
January 20th can't come soon enough.
History is being made in real-time! #CaliforniaReparations bills that would create a state reparations agency and fund, along with land restitution, have passed out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee and are now headed to the Assembly floor for a full vote. #ReparationsNow
Tariq Nasheed’s new documentary Microphone Check tells the origin story of hip-hop and highlights lesser-known figures in its creation. https://t.co/3CRSyUWJY3
If we are being honest, this "Raygun" debacle at the Olympics has single-handedly tarnished the legitimacy of breakdance culture.
This is why it's important that Foundational Black Americans gate-keep our cultural creations
As a neutral, non-partisan citizen who is NOT committed to any political party, I am formally inviting @realDonaldTrump & @KamalaHarris to come have a sit-down discussion with us at the Hidden History Museum to discuss policies that would empower Black Americans.
Who do you think will take us up on this offer first?
https://t.co/4vvI4Ohocp
New Year's Campaign: Round 1!
Get fired up for 2023 in Bleach: Brave Souls with a campaign packed full of special New Year's content!
https://t.co/ZeQPMwe1SS
#BraveSouls
BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Tie-In Campaign!
Thousand-Year Blood War 2022 versions of Ichigo, Uryu, and Chad are available.
Watch the BLEACH TV Animation Series: Thousand-Year Blood War and jump into Brave Souls!
https://t.co/ruLFkJk0eu
#BraveSouls#ThousandYearBloodWar
The 7th anniversary of Brave Souls is coming on July 23!
7th anniv. versions of Ichigo and Uryu are joining the 7th Anniversary Step-Up Summons!
Be sure to take part in the many campaigns that Brave Souls has in store!
#BBS7th#BraveSouls
https://t.co/9jH5rpJb8E