the20sRBack

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

She walked into the arena knowing she would not walk out. Vibia Perpetua was just a young noblewoman in Roman Carthage—educated, privileged, and newly a mother—when she made a choice that would cost her everything. Around 203 CE, under the rule of Septimius Severus, converting to Christianity was seen not just as rebellion, but as a threat to the state itself. Perpetua was arrested alongside a small group of believers, including her pregnant servant, Felicity.

What followed is one of the most intimate—and unsettling—records to survive from the ancient world. While imprisoned, Perpetua kept a diary. Not a legend written centuries later. Not a story shaped by others. Her own words. She described the darkness of the cell, the fear, the pressure—and the visits from her father, who begged her to renounce her faith. He pleaded as a parent, as a citizen, as a man desperate to save his daughter. He even brought her infant son to her, hoping it would break her resolve.

It didn’t.

Perpetua refused—not coldly, but with a clarity that feels almost impossible to understand. She believed she could not deny what she had become. And in a world where women were expected to obey, yield, and survive quietly, that refusal was its own kind of rebellion.

The story grows even more striking. Felicity, heavily pregnant in prison, feared she would be spared execution—Roman law forbade the killing of pregnant women. According to the account, she prayed to give birth early so she could die alongside the others. She did. Days before the execution.

When the day came, the women were sent into the arena. The crowd expected fear, spectacle, submission. Instead, witnesses described something else entirely. Calm. Even defiance. Perpetua is said to have guided the trembling hand of the young gladiator sent to kill her—steadying him when he hesitated.

It’s a moment that has echoed for centuries—not because of violence, but because of control. In the final seconds of her life, she refused to be reduced to a victim.

Her diary, preserved in what became known as The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, is one of the earliest surviving texts written by a Christian woman. But beyond its religious significance, it reveals something raw and human: fear, love, conviction, and a will that would not bend—even under unimaginable pressure.

© Women In World History

#archaeohistories

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

Same water. Same tank.

But the one on the right has oysters.

A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day.

Oyster reefs in the Chesapeake Bay once filtered the entire Bay, 19 trillion gallons, in under a week.

Today, with less than 1% of the original oyster population remaining, it takes over a year.

We ate them. We dredged their reefs. We dumped nitrogen into their water until the algae blooms choked what was left.

And now we build billion dollar water treatment plants to do what oysters did for free.

The Billion Oyster Project is working to restore oyster reefs in New York Harbor.

Restored reefs in Maryland's Harris Creek can now filter the entire creek in under 10 days and remove nitrogen equivalent to 20,000 bags of fertilizer every year.

Nature had this figured out. We just have to restore the oysters and get out of the way.

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

These are the descendants of the original Christians --as well as the original Israelites. Some are Catholic, some are Orthodox, a few are Protestant.

[the20sRBack @the20sRBack]

@general_marcT @truesizeof I assume an invasion should be initiated by the USA. Perhaps the average American doesn't know how big Europe is. A comparison with the size of the US would serve better.

[the20sRBack @the20sRBack]

This was not the case in small communities where reputation was everything.

[the20sRBack @the20sRBack]

In a globalized world with a highly mobile population the importance of reputation and honor in the community have diminished. If one behaves badly with his neighbours and friends he can just go find another group in a city larger than 100k pop, or he can move to another city.

[VisionaryVoid @VisionaryVoid]

The POW Who Kept His Promise to the Kaiser.

In 1914, British Captain Robert Campbell of the East Surrey Regiment was severely wounded and captured by German forces just weeks into World War I. For two long years, he languished in the Magdeburg prisoner-of-war camp, completely cut off from his family.

In late 1916, Campbell received devastating news: his mother in England was dying of cancer. Desperate to see her one last time, he took a wildly improbable shot in the dark. He wrote a personal letter directly to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, begging for a brief compassionate leave.

Astonishingly, the Kaiser personally granted the request. The German leader offered Campbell two weeks of leave to visit his dying mother in Kent, on one single condition. Campbell had to give his "word as a British officer" that he would voluntarily return to the enemy prison camp when the fortnight was up.

Campbell traveled across war-torn Europe by boat and train, reached his family home in Gravesend, and spent a precious final week with his mother before she passed away. He then did the unthinkable: he kissed his remaining family goodbye, packed his bags, and traveled right back to Germany.

Honoring his word, Captain Campbell walked directly back into the Magdeburg POW camp and surrendered himself to his captors. He spent the next two years imprisoned until the war finally ended in 1918, proving that for some men, honor holds far more weight than freedom.

[Oliver Groß @minenergybiz]

Unreal numbers 👀⚡️
"JPMorgan estimates that, had Germany not phased out nuclear power, the country would have generated 50% less electricity from fossil fuels and 84% less electricity from natural gas in 2024. Electricity prices in Germany would have been around 25% lower, and the country would have imported half as much electricity.."

[the20sRBack @the20sRBack]

@Linahuaa Good point. Better get arrested like the billionaires in China than blown-up like the billionaires in Dubai.

[the20sRBack @the20sRBack]

@shanaka86 Incomplete picture of the situation in Romania. In '89 the Party itself turned against Ceausescu. He was replaced by party cadres from the lowers ranks who coordinated the revolution. The external situation also played a role. In '89 communism was in free fall everywhere.

[the20sRBack @the20sRBack]

@DJL4libertas @latinedisce The question is not "what language does God speak?", but "what language does His audience understand".

[PaulC @PaulConRO]

Dammit, I knew something is wrong. He has some Romanian friends in NL but he is not Romanian. Everytime I tried to talk to him in Romanian he replied in English. Even his facial features don't look Romanian. Thanks for the info Elon!

[the20sRBack @the20sRBack]

In communist countries when the economy broke down (periods of crisis), people always resorted to barter. Money became just pieces of paper, evebody had it.

Access to food, clothing, certain skills, spots in a queue to buy a car or a cinema ticket were the real items of value.

[the20sRBack @the20sRBack]

@WarMonitor3 It will stay right there ... safe ... under the earth ... unexploited ...

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

Funny, 6 months ago a guy looking exactly like him flew to Munich to lecture Europeans about free speech, saying 'you can't force people what to think' even if it's 'hateful content.'

Strange how some twins can have such diametrically opposed principles.

[the20sRBack @the20sRBack]

Chief executives generally earn more than doctors but compared to their families only 30% more. It shows that most of them come from families that are already rich/well-off, same for managers.

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

Artists generally had richer parents than doctors.

Doctors, dentists, and surgeons: generally upwardly mobile, doing better than their parents.

Designers, musicians, and artists: generally downwardly mobile, doing worse than their parents.

[Stefan Schubert @StefanFSchubert]

"French pensioners now have higher incomes than working-age adults" - extraordinary

By @jburnmurdoch

[Velina Tchakarova @vtchakarova]

Anticipate that one day, the cultural war - rooted in Cultural Marxism and Soviet-era psychological operations - would no longer need to be waged by external enemies. Instead, Americans would turn on Americans, and Westerners on Westerners, as well as on each other, driven by a broken moral compass and widespread ideological complacency.

[Velina Tchakarova @vtchakarova]

The dumbification en masse is a new trend - a dangerous one with gruesome consequences. In the hands of autocrats, the crowd becomes even more skillfully controlled.
In democracies, this trend means that people will be more easily manipulated and played off against each other.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

I renew my deep sorrow for the brutal terrorist attack that occurred during the night between 26 and 27 July in Komanda, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where over 40 Christians were killed in a church during a prayer vigil, and in their own homes. As I entrust the victims to God’s loving Mercy, I pray for the injured and for Christians around the world who continue to suffer violence and persecution, urging all those with local and international responsibility, to collaborate in order to prevent such tragedies.