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Ahmad Baba al-Timbukti
A jurist exiled for fourteen years after a foreign invasion still produced work specialists treat as the best surviving source on his field, proof of how portable book-based scholarship could be.
Slavery
The institution the modern economy was partly built on.
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Absurdism 2Acting 1Adaptation 4Adolescence 1Age of exploration 1Agriculture 1Ambition 13Ancient Egypt 4Ancient Greece 11Ancient Rome 20Anthropology 1Apartheid 4Archives 4Art Deco 1Artificial intelligence 2Astronomy 2Avant-garde 4Aviation 4Banking 2Behavioural economics 1Berlin 2Britain 59Buddhism 5Byzantium 3California 2Capitalism 3Celebrity 1Censorship 1China 27Christianity 19Cinematography 5Cities 12Class 25Climate change 10Club culture 2Colonialism 52Comedy 6Community 1Computing 2Consciousness 3Corruption 1Cosmology 3Cover versions 1Craft 3Crate digging 1Crime 27Cuba 2Decision-making 2Decolonisation 17Deep time 1Democracy 13Detroit 1Directing 1Disasters 28Disease 10DJ culture 1Dreams 1Dystopia 11East Africa 6Ecology 1Economics 1Editing 2Egypt 6Empire 67Endurance 1Epidemics 1Ethics 2Evolution 2Existentialism 11Exploration 11Family 74Fascism 11Fear 16Feminism 5Film music 8France 40Free will 1Freedom 2French literature 4Friendship 1Gender 13Generations 1Genetics 2Germany 31Gothic 8Greece 2Grief 18Habits 1Hardware 1Hinduism 3Human history 3Human nature 2Identity 66Improvisation 17India 14Indonesia 5Internet culture 1Iran 4Islam 25Israel 6Italy 14Jamaica 3Japan 36Judaism 2Justice 20Korea 3Law 11Literary criticism 1London 10Loneliness 26Los Angeles 11Love 24Marxism 9Masculinity 14Mathematics 1Medicine 8Memory 28Mesopotamia 1Mexico 6Migration 19Minimalism 2Modernism 4Money 12Mortality 21Mythology 4Nationalism 22New York 20Nigeria 2Noise 1Nostalgia 13Nuclear 9Oceans 1Paris 5Partition 3Peru 5Philosophy 1Physics 6Poland 4Portraiture 1Portugal 8Power 61Prehistory 5Preservation 1Propaganda 8Protest 13Psychology 20Punishment 2Quantum mechanics 4Race 10Realism 2Record labels 3Recording 9Relativity 2Religion 36Restoration 1Revolution 45Risk 1Ritual 1Romance 2Russia 24Sampling 12Satire 7Scientific method 5Screenwriting 1Sexuality 8Ships 3Silence 6Slavery 13Social media 1Socialism 4Songwriting 11Sound design 1Sound systems 3South Africa 8Spain 12Special effects 10Startups 1Stoicism 2Storytelling 28Strategy 1Studio craft 23Subcultures 2Surrealism 9Surveillance 2Synthesis 12Thailand 1The American South 1The Balkans 5The Caribbean 3The civil rights movement 6The Cold War 28The eighties 3The Enlightenment 17The First World War 9The Gilded Age 1The Great Depression 2The Holocaust 5The Industrial Revolution 1The interwar years 2The Middle Ages 16The music business 7The Netherlands 1The nineties 4The Renaissance 9The Russian Revolution 1The Second World War 27The seventies 14The sixties 7The United States 9The Victorian era 2Tokyo 2Trade 29Tragedy 7Trauma 10Turkey 5Vietnam 2Virtual reality 2War 126West Africa 11Worldbuilding 9
history.briefs History
All 13 in history →video still
Bartolomé de las Casas
The priest who spent decades pleading against enslaving Native Americans initially told Spain to import Africans instead, then wrote in his own history that he had come to see that stance as equally unjust, a reversal historians rarely put beside his more famous advocacy.
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Benjamin Franklin
A runaway printer's apprentice became the one man to sign the Declaration, the peace treaty with Britain, and the Constitution, having spent decades as a slaveholder before turning into a public abolitionist.
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George Washington
A young officer's ambush of a French detachment helped start a world war, and the general it made famous later gave up power twice, on his own terms, which is rarer than the story usually admits.
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Gorée
UNESCO calls it the largest slave trading centre on the African coast; researchers who counted the actual numbers put its share at under five per cent.
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United States Declaration of Independence
The document most Americans picture being signed on the Fourth of July was mostly signed a month later, and the vote that mattered had already happened two days earlier.
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