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Tag: History

  • American Scandal: Alexander Hamilton's Great Grandson Falls Prey to a Courtesan Con Artist | Entrepreneur

    American Scandal: Alexander Hamilton's Great Grandson Falls Prey to a Courtesan Con Artist | Entrepreneur

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    You’ve heard of Alexander Hamilton, the infamous American Founding Father whose face graces the $10 bill. More recently, he was the subject of a hit Broadway musical, thanks to actor/producer Lin Manuel-Miranda.

    But you may not be familiar with Alexander’s great-grandson, Robert Ray Hamilton, who was involved in a tabloid scandal that shocked the world during the Gilded Age.

    On the latest episode of Dirty Money, hosts Dan Bova and Jon Small talk to writer Bill Shaffer about his book “The Scandalous Hamiltons,” which tells the mostly forgotten tale of how Ray was tricked by a sex worker named Evangeline Steele into thinking he got her pregnant.

    Related: From Rags to Riches to Ruin: Inside the Twisted World of Con Man “Clark Rockefeller”

    The two met in a Manhattan brothel in 1885 and had a relationship for a few years. The conniving Steele purchased a baby at a so-called “Baby Farm,” where unwanted kids were brought to be adopted. Then she convinced Hamilton that the kid was his.

    Reluctantly, he agreed to marry her, bringing her into his wealthy family. It would seem that Steele had achieved the ultimate fairy tale. But this story is no real-life Pretty Woman.

    Listen to the podcast to find out what happened.

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    Entrepreneur Staff

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  • How FDR emasculated the black press in World War II

    How FDR emasculated the black press in World War II

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    With the notable exception of the internment of Japanese Americans, World War II still has a reputation as a “good war” for civil liberties. In 2019, for example, the authors of a leading history survey text declared that “Franklin Roosevelt had been a government official during World War I. Now presiding over a bigger world war, he was determined to avoid many of the patriotic excesses.”

    But President Roosevelt’s civil liberties abuses extended far beyond the internment camps. There are few better examples of this than the government’s campaign against the black press. Historian Patrick Washburn, the leading authority on that topic, concluded in A Question of Sedition: The Federal Government’s Investigation of the Black Press During World War II that “the black press was in extreme danger of being suppressed until June 1942.”

    The government’s motive was no mystery. The black press had tirelessly documented Jim Crow conditions in the military, federal medical facilities, and defense industries, as well as acts of violence against black troops. These were stories their readers wanted. When William Hastie, the law school dean at Howard University, asked 56 black leaders soon after Pearl Harbor to summarize the general attitudes of African Americans, a stunning 36 said that most did not completely support the war effort.

    A leading outlet for this criticism was the Pittsburgh Courier, best known for publicizing the Double V campaign (fighting for democracy simultaneously at home and abroad). A vigorous supporter of this effort was the libertarian writer Rose Wilder Lane, who contributed a regular column for the paper. The Courier was not an outlier in its willingness to question government policy. During this period, the New Deal loyalist Archibald MacLeish, who served as both Librarian of Congress and director of the War Department’s Office of Facts and Figures, forwarded to Attorney General Francis Biddle “seditious” articles from the Washington, D.C., Afro-American and suggested “a very useful preventive effect, if your department could somehow call attention to the fact that the Negro press enjoys no immunity.” A month later, the president urged both Biddle and Postmaster General Frank C. Walker to personally admonish black editors to cease “their subversive language.”

    Matters came to a head in June 1942, when Biddle summoned John H. Sengstacke—the publisher of The Chicago Defender and the president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), an African American group—to his office. Placed on the table before Sengstacke were copies of several leading black papers, including the Defender, the Courier, and the Baltimore Afro-American. Biddle declared them seditious, and warned that the government was “going to shut them all up.” Sengstacke suggested a compromise: The newspapers might be willing to tone it down if the government agreed not to issue indictments—and agreed to give black journalists more access.

    Biddle verbally assented, and thereafter black publishers muted their willingness to question wartime abuses. A federal study of content in the Pittsburgh Courier, for example, showed that the paper devoted considerably less space to the Double V campaign in April 1943 than in August 1942. Moreover, the main targets of negative coverage over that period shifted away from the federal government and to local governments and private businesses. A postal inspector identified a noticeable weakening in “the vigorness [sic] of its complaints” about discrimination.

    But despite Biddle’s promise, the authorities did not become more cooperative in sharing information with black journalists. This bureaucratic stonewalling led a frustrated Sengstacke to question if “the government really wants sincere cooperation or whether there are clandestine forces working against the interest of a section of the Negro Press.”

    While federal authorities did not bring legal charges against the black press for the balance of the war, that doesn’t mean they shifted to a hands-off approach. Instead, they ratcheted up both intense monitoring and informal pressure. In the first half of 1942, FBI agents visited leading black newspapers that had carried critical stories about the federal government. Moreover, postal inspectors admonished two leading papers that the “benefits of citizenship” carried an obligation not to “‘play up’ isolated and rare instances in such a fashion as to obstruct recruiting and in other ways hamper the war effort.”

    Federal officials seemed particularly upset about the articles of George S. Schuyler, an editor and columnist at the Courier. Rated as particularly offensive were his arguments that the status quo offered no hope for “liberty, equality, and fraternity” and that the “Negrophobic philosophy, originating in the South, had become the official policy of the government.” An official at the Department of Justice reacted to these statements by urging the Office of War Information to take “action” against the paper.

    Schuyler was especially forceful in challenging the internment of Japanese Americans: “This country probably has as many of its citizens in concentration camps as has Germany.” He rejected accusations that those interned, whom he described as industrious and thrifty, presented any sort of genuine national security threat. Schuyler admonished African Americans to look beyond their own grievances, because “if the Government can do this to American citizens of Japanese ancestry, then it can do this to American citizens of ANY ancestry….Their fight is our fight.”

    Schuyler was exceptional in depicting the plights of African Americans, Japanese Americans, and right-wing sedition defendants as analogous and interdependent. The Roosevelt administration, he concluded, was persecuting the latter for what they “said and wrote,” and had presented no evidence of collusion or participation in a conspiracy. If these individuals could be put on trial for opposing the administration’s policies, he asked, “then who is safe? I may be nabbed for speaking harshly about Brother [Secretary of War Henry L.] Stimson’s treatment of Negro lads in the Army.”

    In the end, informal pressure suited the government’s purposes far better than direct legal punishment. As a Department of Justice analysis pointed out, the likely result of taking legal action against “a paper as prominent and as respected by the Negro population as the Pittsburgh Courier” would be “further unrest and possibly [arousing] a spirit of defeatism among the Negro population.” It also would have almost certainly alienated many black voters from Roosevelt in key Northern states: The Courier had the highest circulation of all black newspapers and had provided past support for Roosevelt. So instead of indulging in politically risky sedition prosecutions of the black press, the government relied on more indirect methods of behind-the-scenes manipulation and intimidation to quiet criticism. 

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    David T. Beito

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  • Poptential™ by Certell Offers Free Lessons on the Importance and History of Global Trade

    Poptential™ by Certell Offers Free Lessons on the Importance and History of Global Trade

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    INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), growing inflation and tighter monetary policy in the United States and abroad, along with unrest in Ukraine and the Middle East, have led to a broad-based trade slowdown in 2023. Poptential™, a family of free social studies course packages, explores the historical significance of global trade in its World History curriculum, equipping high school educators with media-rich content to help students gain a deeper understanding of the importance of free trade.

    “High school students rely on robust global trade for many of the products they use every day, so it’s important for them to understand how free trade impacts our economy,” said Julie Smitherman, a former social studies teacher and director of content at Certell, Inc., the nonprofit behind Poptential. “Poptential’s global trade lessons help teachers engage students in discussions about how events, such as economic swings, geopolitical upheaval, and the Covid-19 pandemic, have disrupted the flow of trade, and the importance of trade in the effort to eradicate poverty and enhance the economies of countries big and small.”

    Poptential course packages boost student engagement by using a variety of pop culture media to illustrate concepts, including those taken from sitcoms, movies, animations, cartoons, late-night shows, and other sources. Lessons on the history of global trade in Poptential World History Volumes 1 & 2 e-books, include:

    The Silk Road: A video featured in a mini-lesson in Volume 1 provides an overview of China’s incredibly lucrative silk trading business along the Silk Road. Silk was used as currency to exchange for other valuable goods across many continents. This trade model was a precursor to today’s globalization of trade and is not to be confused with the online black market entity titled Silk Road, which was shut down by the FBI in 2013.

    Mongol Empire Accelerates Trade: With the start of the Mongol Empire in 1206, trade began to flourish. Mongol control of the Silk Road made it a safer route, allowing European merchants and craftsmen to journey to China for the first time in history. The December 4 bell ringer features a video that looks at Genghis Khan’s legacy, the rise of the Mongol Empire, and its influence on trade between East and West.

    Encouraging Trade Relations: Founded in October 1945, the United Nations deals with many foreign policy issues. Featured in the same bell ringer, this video outlines the establishment of the U.N. and the role it plays in encouraging good relations among its members to promote social and economic cooperation, such as trading among nations.  

    Exploiting Resources and Trade Routes: Areas of the world that are rich in natural resources, such as oil, precious metals, and minerals, or those that have important trade routes, have throughout history been exploited by outsiders who want to gain control of the flow of their resources. This video in Volume 2 offers a look at how Europeans took control of Africa in the late 1800s to reap the financial benefits of its many natural resources.

    Poptential course packages include everything instructors need to teach a subject, including lessons, e-books, bell ringers, quizzes, and tests. The curriculum is standards-based and developed by teachers. 

    Poptential is available via a digital platform that allows students to access lessons even in poor bandwidth environments. Course packages in American History, World History, U.S. Government/Civics, and Economics are available free at www.poptential.org.

    About Certell, Inc.

    Certell is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to fostering a generation of independent thinkers. With over 100,000 users across the United States, Certell’s Poptential™ family of free social studies courses has garnered numerous awards, including recognition from EdTech Digest Awards, Tech&Learning, Tech Edvocate Awards, the National Association of Economics Educators, and Civvys Awards. For more information about Poptential™ and Certell’s mission, please visit www.poptential.org.

    eSchool News Staff
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    ESchool News Staff

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  • Long live the Conch Republic

    Long live the Conch Republic

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    The United States acquired the island of Key West through neither military conquest nor diplomatic treaty. In good American fashion, it was purchased with private funds.

    The island was uninhabited except by foliage and flamingos when John Whitehead spotted it while sailing from Nassau in 1819. It had little to recommend it—not even a source of fresh water—except a deep harbor, fortuitously placed between America’s Eastern Seaboard and the busy gulf port of Mobile, Alabama.

    Sensing the potential in that location, Whitehead and a business partner, John Simonton, tracked down the island’s owner, a Spanish citizen named Juan Pablo Salas, and made him a $2,000 offer. “Salas accepted, no doubt believing he’d gotten the better part of the deal,” writes Maureen Ogle in Key West: History of an Island of Dreams.

    The island began to fill with settlers and just as soon acquired a reputation as a “deadly nest” of pirates and disease. “In another time and place, such a reputation may have killed the settlement,” Ogle explains. “But in early-nineteenth-century America—alive with the pioneering spirit—that reputation only added to Key West’s allure.” As Simonton himself put it, “Capital and capitalists will always go where profit is to be found.”

    Wrecking, or salvaging the cargo of distressed sea vessels, was the town’s chief industry. Wreckers provided an invaluable service, venturing out during violent storms at grave risk to themselves to prevent the loss of both life and goods when ships foundered on the hazardous coral reefs. “It was a vocation regulated by few laws,” writes Victoria Shearer in It Happened in the Florida Keys, “but governed by firm rules of honor: The first wrecking vessel to arrive at a distressed ship became the wrecking master of record, directing the salvage and earning a larger share of the proceeds. Other wreckers received shares in proportion to the amount of tonnage they saved.”

    On shore, commission agents waited to receive the cargo and arranged to have it auctioned off—for a cut of the reward, of course.

    The construction of public lighthouses (and the introduction of steam-powered ships, less likely to be blown aground) eventually put the wreckers out of business. Sea-sponge harvesting, cigar manufacturing, and tourism took over as engines of the local economy. The second of those was a product of government intervention: In the 1850s, Congress imposed stiff tariffs on Cuban cigars but failed to apply the duty to raw tobacco leaf. Predictably, entrepreneurs took to making bulk ingredient purchases in Havana and then set up factories in Key West, a mere 90 miles away. The workers were largely imported from Cuba as well.

    During the 19th century, “a decidedly cosmopolitan city slowly emerged from the mangrove thickets,” Ogle writes. “Because Key West sat at the crossroads of the Caribbean, everyone crossed paths with throngs of what one islander called ‘world wanderers,’” from Bahamians to Irishmen to “Hindoos” to Swedes.

    Key West naturally selected for a certain anti-authoritarian disposition. When state health officials responded to an 1896 smallpox outbreak by establishing a quarantine camp and closing the harbor, residents “balked,” Ogle recounts. “At a town meeting, seven hundred people listened as one speaker after another denounced government interference. Key Westers paid taxes and got nothing but grief” from the state capital, they said. Eventually, “the crowd voted to inform the state legislature of their desire to secede.”

    It wouldn’t be the last time.

    ***

    By the early 20th century, Key West was gaining fame as a haven of vice. Saloons lined Duval Street. Gambling and prostitution were major attractions.

    The situation intensified with the passage of the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol. Suddenly, rumrunning became the biggest business of all. “Liquor washed over Key West during Prohibition like high tide under a full moon,” Shearer writes. “Given its proximity to Cuba and the Bahamas, both of which were swimming in booze, the Florida Keys became a wide-open distribution point….Locals considered smuggling liquor a public service.”

    In Key West, even the Prohibition agents often left the islanders well enough alone—and for good reason. One story, recounted in both books, involves a 1926 speakeasy raid by a group of federal “revenooers” down from Miami. For whatever reason, this time the townspeople weren’t having it. “Proprietors of the raided properties swore out warrants against the agents,” Ogle writes, “charging them with assault and battery, destruction of private property, and larceny.”

    The justice of the peace for the Keys, Rogelio Gomez, “sided with the locals and granted the warrants,” Shearer explains, making him “the only county magistrate in the United States ever to issue an arrest warrant against a Prohibition agent.” The Miami agents, apparently seeing the writing on the wall, snuck out through the back door of the courthouse and escaped aboard a Navy ship. “The mess was finally cleaned up when the two sides—locals and feds—reached a compromise and dropped both cases,” Shearer writes.

    Around this time, Key Westers (also known as “Conchs”) rejoiced when the U.S. Coast Guard relocated its headquarters away from the island. “And why shouldn’t they have?” asks Ogle. “From the point of view of Key West rumrunners, the Coast Guard represented unfair competition. As soon as the Guard’s servicemen seized a cargo of contraband booze, they turned right around and sold it….Who wouldn’t be resentful?”

    The onset of the Great Depression a few years later hit the island city hard. It’s an exaggeration to say Ernest Hemingway’s personal expenditures single-handedly kept the economy going, but only just. The celebrity writer ate and drank at the city’s taverns; took out-of-town friends on deep-sea fishing expeditions; bought and renovated his now-famous residence on Whitehead Street; and lured in other literary types with disposable income, including the poet Robert Frost, the philosopher John Dewey, and the playwright Tennessee Williams.

    But even Hemingway’s largesse wasn’t enough for the struggling town. In 1934, Julius Stone Jr., head of the Florida division at the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, arrived with an ambitious plan: to “turn Key West into a first-class tourist destination” by rehabilitating the historic downtown with a combination of federal dollars and local volunteer labor. Hoping to cultivate the arts scene, Stone also tasked a cadre of writers, painters, thespians, and musicians employed by the Works Progress Administration and the Federal Writers’ Project with beautifying the island.

    Perhaps the least libertarian aspect of Key West history, then, is that its fame as a hub of arts and culture was purchased in sizable part with tax money. But that story’s epilogue is worth bearing in mind: After the New Deal programs dried up, locals created an arts league in an effort to maintain their new reputation. Stone himself, “back in town as a practicing attorney and mover-and-shaker, served as one of the organization’s first presidents,” Ogle writes. “Later, he would flee the island when one of his many shady deals turned sour.”

    Leading lights such as Hemingway and Frost, lamenting the touristification of the island, decamped. But those who remained bet on the allure of “bohemianism,” producing glossy brochures that, in Ogle’s words, “played up the island’s live-and-let-live attitude and portrayed the community as a hotbed of eccentricity.” Later, the same spirit would make Key West into a gay enclave famous for its drag shows.

    There does seem to be something to the notion that Conchs are just different from other folks. In 1962, Americans held their collective breath as the country tottered on the edge of war. News broke that the Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in communist Cuba, putting attack capabilities in the United States’ backyard. But despite being on the literal frontlines of that showdown, Shearer reports, “Life in Key West remained curiously, quintessentially laid back. After all, October in the Florida Keys, the height of hurricane season, had always been fraught with a degree of danger.”

    In the 1970s, the Keys emerged as a way station in the international drug trade. The same personal and geographic characteristics that had allowed Key West denizens to flourish during Prohibition (including a high tolerance for risk and hundreds of miles of marshy coastline) made it tough for federal law enforcement officials to keep up with traffickers half a century later—especially when local law enforcement officials were sometimes in on the game.

    ***

    By 1982, the feds had come up with a new tactic for catching drug runners and illegal immigrants entering the country through the Keys. Their move sparked an uprising that, in a sense, continues to this day.

    On April 18, without warning, the U.S. Border Patrol set up a checkpoint on U.S. Highway 1 at the top of the Keys—the only road out of town—and began searching all vehicles attempting to pass north onto the mainland. By some reports, the roadblock caused traffic to back up for 19 miles. Motorists, most of whom were vacationers headed home at the end of the weekend, sat for hours in the heat waiting for their chance to pass.

    The tourism industry felt an immediate impact in the form of canceled reservations. Proprietors didn’t take that lightly.

    Mayor Dennis Wardlow and the island’s Chamber of Commerce initially tried the legal route: They flew to Miami and filed for an injunction in federal court. It was to no avail. So the outraged Key Westers opted for a more dramatic response.

    On April 23, Wardlow announced that Key West was seceding from the Union. “They’re treating us like a foreign country,” he said, “so we might as well become one.” Assuming the title of prime minister, he lowered the stars and stripes and raised the light blue flag of the fledgling Conch Republic. “We serve notice on the government in Washington,” he declared, “to remove the roadblock or get ready to put up a permanent border to a new foreign land. We as a people may have suffered in the past, but we have no intention of suffering in the future at the hands of fools and bureaucrats….We’re Conchs and we’ve had enough.”

    Wardlow’s cheeky intention was to declare war on America, fire one shot, surrender, and then ask for $1 billion in aid for rebuilding. His countrymen carried out the plan of attack as only Key Westers would. “Using the Conch Republic’s weapon of choice—hard, stale Cuban bread,” Shearer writes, a member of Wardlow’s war cabinet “hit a cooperative young uniformed naval officer over the head, then immediately handed over the loaf.”

    The rebellion was part publicity stunt, part genuine protest. (“We’re happy to secede today with some humor,” Wardlow said. “But there’s some anger, too.”) It was effective on both counts: The roadblock was speedily removed, and the gag became a tourism bonanza.

    Today, Conch Republic apparel is available at pretty much all of Key West’s many, many T-shirt shops. A 10-day “independence” celebration happens every April, drawing thousands to the island. (The festivities include a mock battle in which combatants pelt naval vessels with water balloons and conch fritters.) Community leaders boast that Conchs are a people with a “sovereign state of mind.” The micronation even sells novelty passports—and there are documented cases of holders successfully using them to travel abroad and reenter the United States. Sovereign, indeed!

    In 1994, the Conchs sent an “official” delegation to the Summit of the Americas in Miami. In 1995, when a government shutdown in Washington caused the closure of Dry Tortugas National Park, just off the Florida coast, the Republic “threatened to use three antique biplanes loaded with stale Cuban bread to bomb the park’s Fort Jefferson” unless the popular tourist destination was reopened, Shearer writes.

    More recently, in 2006, the fake country “annexed” a stretch of an abandoned overseas bridge after the Coast Guard told a group of Cuban refugees that landing there did not trigger “wet foot, dry foot”—the policy at the time of granting legal status to any Cuban who landed on American soil.

    Peter Anderson, who held the title of Conch Republic ​​secretary general, “led a landing party of Conchs who staked miniature flags along the bridge,” wrote Darien Cavanaugh in a 2015 article for the War Is Boring website. “Since the federal government decided in its infinite wisdom that the old Seven Mile Bridge is not territory of the United States, the Conch Republic is very interested,” Anderson told reporters; Washington “chose not to defend” the bridge against the invasion.

    And there you have the colorful history behind the Key West motto, emblazoned on everything from sweatshirts to souvenir passports: “We seceded where others failed.”

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    Stephanie Slade

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  • “There Is No Limit”: The Oral History of the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Minions

    “There Is No Limit”: The Oral History of the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Minions

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    P.J. Byrne never liked making cold calls. While majoring in finance at Boston College in the early 1990s, he took a summer internship selling AAA-rated municipal bonds over the phone. At the time, he’d planned to be an investment banker on Wall Street, but after two weeks on the job, he realized dialing numbers wasn’t the path for him. “I was like, this just feels car salesman–y to me,” he says. “I wanted nothing to do with that.”

    About 15 years later, after pivoting to drama school and pursuing an acting career, Byrne gave cold-calling a second chance. In a taped audition for The Wolf of Wall Street, the actor leaned into his brief boiler room experience, took a gamble, and improvised an outrageous sales call monologue in which he pretended to scam a former client’s widow out of $100,000. In a devastated voice, he built a sob story around her husband’s financial intentions. “I started pilfering information from this woman,” Byrne says. “But on the other side of the phone, she can’t see that I’m humping the desk and having a blast.” Without realizing it, Byrne had channeled Jordan Belfort—the movie’s craven, money-hungry, criminal protagonist—to a T.

    It wasn’t long before he got a callback to go to New York—along with several other green actors, including Brian Sacca, Henry Zebrowski, and Kenneth Choi—to convene inside a suite at Le Meridien Hotel, where they would perform the same monologues in front of Martin Scorsese and casting director Ellen Lewis. The group was, understandably, nervous as hell. “I thought it was going to be a serious audition,” Byrne says. After a few minutes, however, everyone quickly realized the director wanted them to channel the absurdity of their original auditions, use prop desks and phones, and take advantage of the unusual group setting. “And then,” Byrne adds, “you heard him cackling.”

    “We were doing it almost like a scene,” Sacca says. “At one point, I said something on the phone: ‘If you buy these stocks, I will let you snort coke off of my tits.’ That got a big laugh from Marty and the other guys.”

    Though The Wolf of Wall Street mostly chronicles Jordan Belfort’s real-life rise and fall as a corrupt CEO (dynamically portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio), the movie’s hedonistic heart belongs to his unquestioning, cultlike worshippers, tracing their evolution from blue-collar schemers to suit-and-tie heathens eager to debase themselves in the name of money and power. The “merry band of brokers,” as Forbes nicknamed them—Nicky, Robbie, Chester, Alden, and Toby (Ethan Suplee)—might not be in charge, but they double down on their penny-stock-peddling debauchery. “Those are the types of people you’re looking to recruit,” Wolf writer Terence Winter says. “A guy who is morally malleable and hungry and has half a brain.”

    The three-hour comedy, released 10 years ago this week, ultimately becomes an American tragedy of unchecked testosterone, spiraling greed, and blind idolization. To pull off the corporate circus, everyone in the group—much like the characters they played—embraced excess and chased their id. Guided by Scorsese’s kinetic camera and Winter’s loyal adaptation of Belfort’s autobiography, the cast practiced slimy sales techniques, improvised office high jinks, snorted fake cocaine, simulated orgies, and lost their voices screaming at clients over the phone. Making it was a marathon of endurance, frat-like behavior, and pinch-me moments.

    “I was astutely aware,” Sacca says, “that the things that were happening were the stories I was going to be telling forever.”

    In 2007, when Winter first pored through Belfort’s The Wolf of Wall Street, he couldn’t wait to turn it into a Hollywood script. Belfort’s first-person account had plenty of cinematic moments—office sex parties, a quaalude trip, a sunken yacht—and followed a classic rise-and-fall narrative, but Winter mostly related to its ambitious protagonist. The pair were around the same age, had grown up in New York’s outer boroughs, and both dreamed of moving to Manhattan and becoming rich. In 1987, around the same time Belfort began his financial career at L.F. Rothschild, Winter had started as a legal assistant at Merrill Lynch. “I was literally working a quarter of a mile away from where Jordan was working on Wall Street,” Winter says.

    In other words, he knew this guy. He knew what drove him. But perhaps more importantly, he knew exactly how Belfort built and scammed his way to the top with a bunch of low-level nobodies. “They reminded me of my own friends,” Winter laughs. “These are guys who don’t have the strongest moral compass. They’re not necessarily college educated. These aren’t guys who would go the more traditional route to work for a legitimate Wall Street firm.” Effectively, they were door-to-door salesmen ready to make a quick buck who would pledge loyalty to anyone who could make them money. “As long as Jordan looked like the pillar of success, that’s all he really needed,” Winter says. “If you’re rich, they don’t care how you got there.”

    After securing an initial option deal and commitments from Scorsese and DiCaprio, Winter began investigating more about Belfort’s life. He met with Belfort’s parents, his ex-wife, and his financial victims. He drove to Long Island, toured Belfort’s home, and visited his country club. Most shrewdly, Winter convinced Belfort to reenact one of his daily pump-up speeches at CAA’s headquarters, where Winter taped his old sales presentation for reference. Soon after, Winter structured his screenplay with voiceover narration, changing key names and crafting composite characters—like Jonah Hill’s Donnie Azoff, Stratton’s second-in-command—for legal reasons. But he never strayed from the real-life insanity of Belfort’s cult creation. “I wrote the whole script in 17 days,” Winter says. “It was maybe the most fun I’ve ever had writing a script.”

    About five years later, the movie went into production, and the recently cast Belfort boys began their preparation with a sales crash course from the wolf himself, which clarified and informed the entire shoot. “It gave you a little glimpse,” Choi says. “When you have that killer shark energy, everybody else around you has to become a killer shark, or you get swallowed up and eaten.”

    Henry Zebrowski (Alden “Sea Otter” Kupferberg): When we first came together, we went to Leo’s apartment. He had Jordan come in and give an example of his ramp-up training speech.

    Kenneth Choi (Chester Ming): Sort of a mini sales pitch tutorial.

    Zebrowski: We were talking with [Belfort], and he said, “Have you guys ever seen $25,000?” And he pulled out a bunch of money and threw it on the table, which he probably had to scoop up and put back into his pockets. Then they popped a bunch of bottles.

    Terence Winter (writer): It’s really fascinating when you see somebody who understands the psychology behind how to set you up. It’s a whole series of questions and answers to the customer. It’s like a good cross-examination. I am going to move you into a corner where your only response can be the one I want.

    Choi: He would say, “If you ever get lost, follow the script. The script is your bible. The script is gold. Memorize the script.” Even in that little training session, you could kind of see him step back in time. He got swept up in it.

    Zebrowski: Jordan would say, “I just had this piece of paper come across my desk.” He was like, “You wave your hand across. I know it’s dumb, but this is how I talked to the dumb shits I worked with back in the day.”

    P.J. Byrne (Nicky “Rugrat” Koskoff): I was like, this guy is a fucking con artist. Holy shit. This scared the fuck out of me.

    Choi: I think it was valuable not just to hear how he would do it, but to see his energy and really feel it right in front of you. He was constantly teaching you how to divide and conquer.

    Winter: He basically applied high-level skills to a low-level sales force, taking the skills of a Jedi and bringing them into a shitty boxing gym. The idea that this is a legitimate, Wall Street–trained broker and using the spiel you would get from L.F. Rothschild or Goldman Sachs on a mailman. … It was like taking candy from a baby.

    Ethan Suplee (Toby Welch): We are playing blue-collar guys who couldn’t cut it as blue-collar guys. We suck at this. You’re not going to find a whole lot of legitimate guys who are willing to do that because there’s risk. You’re doing something completely immoral and unethical, but also illegal.

    Zebrowski: The direction for my character was like, this is kind of a revenge against society. Because everybody always told me I was fat and dumb and I was never going to be a millionaire and I was never going to make it. Now, here I am. Jordan believes in me. He saw something in me. I’m just like him.

    Suplee: Jordan was like the pied piper. He is the messiah of this industry of ripping people off.

    Zebrowski: Intelligent, self-conscious people get pulled into cults all the time. It’s because there’s extreme comfort in letting someone else take the wheel.

    Byrne: You’ve got to remember, these guys are all narcissists. And they all ruin the people closest to them. No one has a long-term relationship. If you get sucked into their orbit, you’re going to get chewed on and shit out. But while you’re there, it’s a fucking insane ride.

    In an early, seminal montage, DiCaprio mimics Belfort’s presentation, teaching his friends how to reel in customers and shake them down with nefarious tactics. Throughout the scene—which functions as a shared monologue—they follow their scripts and reap the rewards, helping turn Stratton Oakmont from a garage facility into a full-blown office. Using variations of their monologue auditions, the group of actors leaned into their comedic roots to make every office call sizzle.

    Zebrowski: It was like two weeks of rehearsal. Scorsese loved improv, but you better be very, very good. He doesn’t want time wasted.

    Brian Sacca (Robbie “Pinhead” Feinberg): They hired us because we were guys who could improvise, who could be in the moment and come up with some shit. Some of my favorite moments were: “We need you to do something.”

    Choi: We sit around a table, we have the script, and you would just throw everything against the wall. You’d react off someone’s bit, and then Leo and Jonah would react off it. I’d improvise one thing and you’d get the script back a couple days later and your stuff would be in there word for word.

    Winter: Anything beyond the dialogue is great. And sometimes, that’s where the gold is, especially when you get an actor who’s really good at it.

    Sacca: There were like six of us, including Ted Griffin, the on-set writer, finding how the Tetris of this sales monologue through that long montage is going to work up until an hour before we shot that.

    Byrne: Marty knew it would get boring. And he’s like, “How do we keep it interesting?”

    Sacca: There was one day of rehearsal where we’re all in a room around a table reading that monologue. And a debate happened between Scorsese and Leo: “Do we let the guys go free-form and improvise, or do we keep it contained and to the script? Finally, I just raised my hand: “Guys, you’re going to shoot this on a circle track, right?” And immediately, I’m like, “What the fuck am I saying? Am I going to get fired off this movie?”

    Byrne: [Scorcese’s] like, “I was thinking you’re next to Kenny, and I was going to put a [circle] track around both of you, let’s just say this little part of the monologue.” We were only supposed to do a paragraph, and the monologue is like three pages. We kept passing it and passing it. The room’s quiet now and filled with hundreds of extras, but everyone’s now listening. You can feel the energy. I’m in the zone of zones. Kenny’s in the zone. We’re just making this magic.

    Zebrowski: Everybody kind of got to just throw in on their character. And it allowed me to feel comfortable with these people. As we became masters of the universe, it was really important to kind of go from our dumb Queens clothes to the suits. You kind of see how that changes everything.

    Choi: I specifically was asked to gain 20 pounds. This guy is about excess. He eats everything, he consumes as much cocaine and women and booze as he can. And that’s where some of my little moments like the doughnut scene came from. He’s just a slovenly pig.

    Sacca: We all had our specific traits that we liked to play with. But we all had different levels of aggression. That kind of yes-men, doofus quality was a through line between a bunch of us.

    Once Stratton Oakmont grew into a Wall Street middleweight, the office became littered with shocking and vulgar HR violations. As chronicled by Belfort, almost anything related to sex, drugs, and alcohol happened within the walls of the brokerage firm, which more often looked like a bacchanalian madhouse. But Winter wasn’t too surprised by the colorful revelations. During his own brief stint in Merrill Lynch’s law department, he’d seen firsthand the kinds of unholy shenanigans taking place at Stratton. “Somebody had a marching band and brought a monkey onto the trading floor,” Winter says. “When the market closed at 4 p.m., everybody went out and just partied all night. And you’d get guys coming in the next morning hungover and just coked out of their minds.”

    Of course, the bigger firms couldn’t compete with Stratton’s no-holds-bar approach, something Scorsese and Winter became devoted to portraying and sometimes embellishing. Spitting in the face of discretion, the filmmaking team leaned into the company’s voracious and lustful appetite, depicting everything from stampeding strippers, to thrown-around little people, to impromptu animal stunts. Not to mention Belfort’s motivational speeches, which turned the office into a pep rally every afternoon. “The whole thing is about excess, and when is too much too much?” Winter says. “It just got crazier and bigger and out of control.”

    In some ways, showing it all became a sort of PSA, especially when things come crashing down in the third hour. “That’s the power of comedy,” Byrne says. “You’re able to turn the mirror on yourself with society and go, this is wrong.” In order to capture the chaos, the production moved from Manhattan into a massive office stage in Westchester, where, for nearly two months, the Belfort boys—alongside hundreds of extras—lived inside an unethical bubble catering to their leader’s absurdist ideas.

    Sacca: My voice was gone for a good six weeks because we were screaming so much.

    Choi: I wasn’t very talkative because I had to gain so much weight that I always felt like taking a nap.

    Sacca: I’ll shout out the AD and second AD, who had to wrangle 500 extras to get all of us to be screaming and then shut the fuck up in between takes. That was hard.

    Choi: There’s so much importance put on AI in our SAG contract. There’s a reason for that. When you’re in a real space with 300 human beings who are in the background, the energy just swells and you can feel it. Everybody is going apeshit trying to “sell, sell, sell,” and that informs your performance because you feel that surge of energy come through you as an actor.

    Suplee: There’s a lot of shit happening in the background of that movie that’s just as crazy as what’s happening in the foreground.

    Zebrowski: It was just us bullshitting for 12 hours being animals. Scorsese used to come by and go, “Yeah, you pigs, you ready to get going, you pigs?” We’re like, “Yeah!”

    Choi: There’s a scene where Leo walks through with a chimpanzee for no reason, which scared the shit out of me. The whole time I’m thinking, “This ape is going to fucking pounce on me.” I think I just bent down and did some fake lines of cocaine.

    Sacca: We had to snort a lot of cocaine in this movie. At the beginning, it was very finely powdered vitamin B12. And man, did it fucking feel good. It was so nice.

    Zebrowski: We could snort B12 forever. And we did. And we took every single opportunity we could because we were in a Scorsese movie, and we were animals.

    Sacca: About three months into production, they switched it up—they put some dog shit in there. And we were like, “No, no, no, no. Where’s our B12? Bring back the good shit!” We had to sit down with the props master and be like, “Come on, man, we have to snort this shit all day long.”

    Suplee: The other brokers and I were in our cast chairs reading books and playing chess, and they came and dragged me to this private set. Leo helped me get sober many years ago, and he was like, “Do you know how to [blow cocaine up someone’s butt]? I was like, “Yeah, I do know how to do this. Unfortunately, I am your technical drug adviser.” But I was happy to help. It was so funny to see them sitting on this closed set discussing amongst themselves, “How do we do this?”

    Choi: The head-shaving scene was a huge fucking deal. I think it was a woman who was somehow friends with Leo, and she offered to do it.

    Byrne: When we started shaving her head, it was shocking. I practiced with a razor on a fake scalp a lot because I was like, “I don’t want to ruin this moment for her.”

    Choi: You have 350 people yelling at P.J. to shave her head. It was so overwhelming.

    Byrne: You’re simultaneously going, “Holy fuck, this is crazy, I can’t believe this.” And then: “There’s the camera. Make sure you’re doing it perfectly for the camera.”

    Choi: [P.J.’s] hairpiece should have got its own credit, that’s for sure.

    Byrne: I still have the hairpiece. It was a thing having that on.

    Sacca: One of the little people we threw was an employee of Stratton Oakmont, and he told stories that were fucked up. These weren’t stories like, “I can’t believe what they did to me.” These were stories of: “Let me tell you what I did.” We were like, “Oh man, don’t share those.”

    Suplee: First of all, we couldn’t actually do it. It’s not like throwing a 50-pound weight. The guy weighed 150 pounds. That’s a lot to pick up and throw.

    Byrne: [Our characters] are not nice people. When you watch that and you know they’re throwing little people, that’s fucking disturbing. And that’s what these fucking guys did.

    Suplee: Terrifically uncomfortable. This is all the behavior of really abhorrent people. But sometimes as actors we have to lean into that discomfort. I also think that it’s important to show that.

    Sacca: I think I would have been more uncomfortable if the two guys who were a part of it weren’t as excited. They were both thrilled to be part of it. And they were really cool dudes.

    Zebrowski: My guesstimation is that 80 percent of it happened. And then the rest of it was mostly just having money and getting hammered with the same five guys and getting rejected at the club and going home to your wife.

    Suplee: If I had gotten rewarded for being at my worst, what would that do to me? It probably wouldn’t have been good for my life. I probably wouldn’t be alive. At my worst, I would be dead for sure, and that was what I was thinking about: Turn the bad behavior up. It’s kind of like frat boy culture. Bad behavior just seems to breed more bad behavior. And I don’t know if it’s that business that attracts and breeds that personality. How much sushi can you stuff down your face? How much can you drink? How much coke can you do? How much money can you make? How many girls can you sleep with? It’s just all part of it.

    Arguably the most obscene imagery of the movie comes from Belfort’s bachelor party, when the camera pans down the aisle of a plane that has been turned into a giant orgy. The scene, filmed on a soundstage in Queens for a day, lasts just a few seconds, but it became an instant memory for everyone involved.

    Sacca: We’re in a metal tube, there’s some hot-ass lights, and there are 60 naked people at 8:30 in the morning.

    Choi: It’s so fucking cramped. Everyone’s sweaty because everyone’s kind of in a rambunctious state. And you’re doing it over and over and over for this poor Steadicam guy who’s trying to get everything.

    Zebrowski: It was a long day.

    Suplee: This was my first experience with an intimacy coordinator. I suspect they invented that job for Wolf of Wall Street.

    Sacca: We had a rehearsal where we met with the choreographer, and we were partnered with people who we were going to be interacting with. It never doesn’t get weird. I couldn’t help but think: My parents are going to see this.

    Zebrowski: I was with a couple of Rockettes and a couple of professional dancers. You have a super awkward moment where you’re having fake sex with someone for an entire take and then you realize the camera wasn’t on you.

    Byrne: The camera’s tracking. We’re going, boom, boom, boom. Where do I want to be? I know I have one second. What can we do in that one “boom” that no one else is doing?

    Choi: In between takes everyone’s real respect, respect, respect. Robes come off. I just kept looking up in the air because you don’t want to be leering. Then you get in the mode of: “This is just about excess.”

    Zebrowski: I remember having to psych myself up. I was sitting there in my chair, saying to myself, “You love strippers! You love cocaine! You love going nuts!” And I was like, “This is your favorite day. So you go in there and have your favorite day you’ve ever had.”

    Byrne: I had a bachelor party, which was G-rated. But I remember my friends made me walk around in a meat bathing suit with a banana hammock. I’m like, if I’m doing that at mine, what are these despicable, wealthy 10-year-olds doing? At the time, I was walking past the Museum of Sex—like, there’s got to be something that’s going to trigger something disgusting for me. Remember those Pez bracelets that you could eat as a kid? They had that in an underwear version. I was like, that’s what I’m going to wear.

    Choi: P.J.’s attitude was, they’re illicit stockbrokers, they do a bunch of drugs, consume all this booze. There is no limit. There is no top. Anything fucking goes.

    Byrne: I went to Sandy Powell, the Oscar award–winning costume designer with jet-red hair. I’m like, “This is candy underwear that just covers my dingle-dangle junk.” She looked at me like I was a despicable, disgusting man. She paused for 10 seconds, but it felt like two days. She looks at me. She looks at that. She just goes, “OK.”

    Suplee: I’ve lost a lot of weight, I’ve got loose skin. I’ve never once felt proud of my body. I have a lot of body issues. I don’t really ever want to do a sex scene. I have four daughters. And then you’ve got Henry Zebrowski, who has got no body shame and is willing to put himself out there.

    Zebrowski: I have done naked improv for a long time. Nudity just becomes the scenery. You’re kind of like, “When’s this going to get over with?”

    Suplee: I wound up pitching stuff that allowed me to keep my clothes on. What if we’re playing cards? What if I’m asleep? What if I’m playing solitaire?

    Sacca: He’s my favorite moment because he’s just sitting there having a conversation with somebody. It made it better.

    Suplee: I have not been to an orgy, but I imagine that’s what an orgy smells like. Like every private part coming into contact with a private part.

    Zebrowski: It got very human in that room.

    Sacca: That day was Scorsese’s 70th birthday. We had cake.

    In the midst of shooting, actor and character began to blur. Every day that DiCaprio arrived to set, he greeted hundreds of screaming women and paparazzi, affirming his A-list stature, before going to work, where he’d receive even more admiration on the fake trading floor. It was an eye-opener for Zebrowski and the other young actors, who couldn’t believe the way their leader had to operate—and how that might affect someone’s identity. “It was weird how many mountains had to move for him to move,” Zebrowski says. “I will never say he’s trapped, but he can’t go anywhere.”

    Leo’s celebrity—and his connections around the city—further accented Zebrowski’s similarities to his own character. “I’m from a working-class family. This is my first time seeing any of this shit,” he says. “I went to the back door of 1 Oak, and you could see the models register. I’m not supposed to be there.” There was a similar vibe once the cameras began rolling. “All these friends and stockbrokers wanted to do was please Jordan,” Choi says. “Everyone on set, all they wanted to do was please Leo and Marty and Jonah. You would have given everything in the scene to make sure that they got what they needed.”

    Unlike Belfort, however, who wanted his employees leveraged and desperate, DiCaprio came to set open-minded and generous, wanting to nail every scene with his collaborators. Ahead of speeches and group scenes, his dedication to preparation became an infectious trait and inspired the cast to deliver unblemished, gonzo performances. “When you have 500 people worshipping this guy, you can feel how energizing and exciting that would be,” Sacca says.

    Suplee: When Leo’s giving those speeches, you almost feel like a fistfight could break out. He’s sending people off to war. He’s the general, and we’re going to go die for him.

    Zebrowski: Chills still go up my spine when I think about it sometimes.

    Sacca: He would come in with these 15-minute monologues, word perfect, accent perfect, still being able to improvise on top of it, coming up with ideas in the moment.

    Zebrowski: He could do it one way, they’d give him a note, he’d do it a completely different way. They’d give him a note, he’d go back to the old way, mixed with the second way.

    Sacca: I was enthralled with it, but it wasn’t necessarily the personality of Leonardo DiCaprio or Jordan Belfort’s words, it was this fucking performance that was like, “Holy shit, I don’t think I can do that.” I can’t crank out these monologues and do a gazillion takes of them and then be like, “All right, let’s do another one.”

    Suplee: I’ve never seen a crack in Leo’s professionalism. They knock on his door to tell him they’re ready on set, and he is exploding from his chair. He is always prepared.

    Zebrowski: For a bunch of green dudes who weren’t movie stars, he was extremely generous. That’s where the Belfort comparison doesn’t work, because that dude would have never shown up and done the dirty work himself.

    Choi: It’s Hurricane Sandy. Everybody got sick over a three-week period. At some point, Leo got so sick that they shut down shooting for a day. We come back, and it’s the “I’m not leaving” scene.

    Winter: I was writing it with Leo in mind. I had taped some of what Jordan said and then added my own embellishment to make it flow a little clearer or better if it needed it. A lot of times, it didn’t. Some of his stuff was just pure gold.

    Byrne: We stayed up all night because the days moved. And I was like, “How the fuck is he going to do this?”

    Choi: I happened to be outside smoking a cigarette, and I watched him in front of his trailer. I was like, “Oh, this guy’s rehearsing.” He would go through his motions. You’d see him kind of shake his head, turn around, go back to his starting mark in the parking lot, and do it again and again and again. He’s a craftsman. He’s pumped up with meds, he comes in, he does one rehearsal, and I’ll never forget, I could see in his head he missed a line. So he took one step back, remembered the line, and carried through with it. After that, he didn’t flub once, and he did it over and over with so much energy.

    Sacca: It’s like a preacher, like Jim Jones speaking into a microphone to his disciples.

    Choi: He was walking down the aisle bashing this microphone on his head. The prop guy came and showed us. It was caved in because he was smashing it on his skull.

    Byrne: He’s a baller, dude. And honestly, that’s the world that I like to work in and live in. All day we’re here to kill. When we’re on set, we’re not coming back here again. Let’s make sure we fucking get it.

    Zebrowski: [In that moment], Jordan’s not a bad guy. He’s not a fucking criminal. He’s helping all of us. You just don’t understand that what he’s doing is including you in his crime.

    Byrne: When you see me get crazy at the end, it’s like, I don’t want my “god” to leave. I don’t want this meal ticket to end.

    Choi: In the wedding scene where we’re all dancing and stuff, [Leo] had this huge case of 5-Hour Energy drinks. He came in right before like, “Everyone take one! Everyone take one!” And then we slammed it, and then we went into the scene.

    Zebrowski: They’re putting us all in a circle, and they just have the music going.

    Choi: We actually were talking about the “kid-and-play” dance. I go out there and do my dance move, and I knew to throw it right to him so he’d come out pop-locking. I was shocked that he was so fucking good with the pop-locking.

    Zebrowski: I guess he’d been doing it for forever on his own.

    Byrne: How fucking insane a dancer is Kenny? And then Leo saw that. He’s like, let’s fucking go. And then everybody had their moment to be who they were.

    Choi: He looked at me and went, “Come here, come here, come here,” so that we could do the kid-and-play dance. That’s why he’s amazing. There’s some actors out there who don’t want you to steal the light.

    When The Wolf of Wall Street premiered on Christmas Day, many critics lauded Scorsese’s return to bombastic filmmaking and comedic storytelling. But a vocal contingent couldn’t get past the movie’s inflated running time and excessive antics, believing they celebrated Belfort’s unethical behavior. As David Edelstein argued in his Vulture review, the movie is “three hours of horrible people doing horrible things and admitting to being horrible,” later calling it “thumpingly insipid.” Later, in an open letter to LA Weekly, a woman connected to Belfort accused the movie’s characters of “exacerbating our national obsession with wealth and status and glorifying greed and psychopathic behavior.”

    The critique resembled the conversations surrounding Goodfellas, despite the fact that both movies highlight their protagonists’ calamitous, unglamorous falls. “When you see Ray Liotta getting chased by helicopters and he’s fucking high out of his mind on cocaine, at no point do you look at that and say, ‘God, being a gangster is pretty cool,’” Suplee says. Wolf’s length and its punishing scenes of depravity, he adds, only helped illustrate the fatiguing and ruinous state that Belfort inspired and embodied. “It was the same experience I had with drugs, which is: You get high, and then you’re just chasing that experience over and over again and you never get it. You always get some muted version of it.”

    Ten years removed, it’s perhaps easier to see the movie as a warning signal, an example of how scammy, magnanimous figures can organize a cultlike following and engender loyal defenders based on flashy facades and mostly empty promises. The examples of the last decade—the fanaticism around Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and so many more—feel akin to Belfort’s own crew hyping up their public con man. “It’s all about selling dreams,” Byrne says. “They are so good at selling you to make you buy in on believing it. And they create this world around them that you’ve now been absorbed into.”

    Byrne, of course, might as well have been referencing the movie’s own world. For each of the Belfort boys, The Wolf of Wall Street remains the most memorable experience of their careers, a testament to the camaraderie they found together and Scorsese’s commitment to capturing everything as it looked. “Not just because it’s Martin, not just because it’s Leo,” Choi says. “It was the scope of it. You have everything there for you. And the more stuff you have that’s real, the more it informs the performance.” It made them itch to go deeper and wilder.

    As Sacca notes, “I couldn’t wait to get off set and call my wife and say, ‘Let me tell you what fucking happened today.’”

    Jake Kring-Schreifels is a sports and entertainment writer based in New York. His work has also appeared in Esquire.com, GQ.com, and The New York Times.

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  • 11 Helpful Note-Taking Strategies Your Students Should Know

    11 Helpful Note-Taking Strategies Your Students Should Know

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    We’ve all been there: You’re delivering a lecture full of insight, but students haven’t even picked up a pencil. Yes, today’s students expect printouts, class web pages, and graphic organizers, but good old-fashioned note-taking is still a skill they should master. Here’s why, along with some note-taking strategies they should try.

    Why is it important for students to have good note-taking skills?

    When it comes to learning and remembering information, study after study has shown the importance of actively taking notes rather than passively reading a handout later on. The act of writing engages different parts of the brain, forging new pathways that help students retain information in long-term memory.

    What’s more, the studies show that the more detailed the notes, the better. And using different note-taking strategies helps too. In some cases, a general outline can be effective. But when you want students to analyze the content, encouraging charting or mapping can be more helpful.

    One more good reason to learn to take notes? It’s a skill we use throughout our entire lives. Most jobs require you to be able to take notes during meetings or other activities so you can refer back to them later on. Adults use note-taking strategies on a regular basis, so teaching kids the skill early on will help them succeed later in life.

    Digital vs. Handwritten Notes

    There’s a lot of discussion these days about whether handwriting notes is better than typing them on a computer. Some worry that the digital devices themselves serve as too much of a distraction. When kids aren’t taking notes, they might be browsing the web, playing games, or sending each other messages instead of participating in the lesson. Others wonder if typing is less effective than handwriting when it comes to retaining information.

    The research is still out on whether handwritten notes are better than digital. Some studies say that handwriting is better for learning, while others note that many people type faster than they write, enabling them to take more complete notes that way. And those who have dysgraphia or other learning disabilities should be able to take notes in the way that suits them best. Read more arguments from both sides here.

    Graphic Organizers

    Many teachers use what’s called “structured note-taking” in their classrooms. They provide easy-to-read graphic organizers that only require students to write in specific information. Learn more about graphic organizers here.

    This is an excellent beginning strategy that enables students to grasp difficult concepts and focus on content and connections. But students should also learn to take notes from scratch. After all, in real life, the most they’re likely to get is a printed agenda for a meeting. They’ll need to know how to capture the important points themselves.

    General Tips for Taking Good Notes

    Ultimately, what’s most important is that students learn to take notes, period. Whatever method or strategies they choose, the key is having information in their own words they can return to later when they need to review and study. Here are some general tips to share with your students.

    • Focus on recording the main points of the lesson. Listen for key words and phrases, but don’t try to frantically write everything you hear.
    • Try to summarize the information in your own words rather than writing down the teacher’s words verbatim. Write your notes in a way that will make sense to you later on.
    • Jot down words you’re unfamiliar with or confused about and look them up later. Consider circling these words so they’re easy to spot when you’re reviewing your notes later.
    • Add color, either while you’re taking notes or later on, with a highlighter. Color helps show relationships between concepts, and it engages the brain better too.
    • Don’t be afraid to ask your teacher to repeat something if you feel like you missed it. If you feel like you can’t interrupt, put a star by that section to remind you to ask about it after class.
    • If your handwriting is hard to read, or you think you can organize the information in a better way, go ahead and re-copy your notes after class. It’s a good way to reinforce the information too.

    Symbols and Abbreviations

    College Compass/symbols and abbreviations via collegecompass.co

    Using standard note-taking symbols and abbreviations can be really helpful. There’s no need to memorize all of them at once; choose a few that seem the most useful and give them a try. You can add more as you get better at taking notes. Refer to the chart above for a good list.

    Helpful Note-Taking Strategies

    The most important thing about learning how to take notes is finding a strategy that works. Each student will have a different favorite strategy, so it’s helpful to expose students to different strategies. These are note-taking strategies that can be used across grade levels and subjects.

    Boxing Method

    Colorful math notes on exponential models and kinematics using boxing note taking strategies
    Society 19/box method via society19.com

    For students who have trouble keeping things organized (including their thoughts), the boxing strategy can be very helpful. Each box contains a complete concept, idea, or category. Adding extra colors with pens or highlighters makes things even better. Boxing is a fairly new note-taking strategy, one that’s gained popularity among college students who take notes on digital devices. But it also works well with handwritten notes.

    How it works: Start a box on the page, but don’t draw the fourth line on the bottom. Take your notes inside that box, keeping everything relating to one idea or concept together. When you’re finished with that section, draw the final line to close the box, and begin a new one. (If you’re using a tablet or laptop instead, you can draw a text box instead. It will automatically resize as you work.)

    Charting Method

    Diagram of the charting method of note taking with instructions in how to use it
    Learning Essentials/charting via learningessentials.auckland.ac.nz

    When students need to organize, compare and contrast, or categorize, the charting method comes in handy. It’s simple and easy and works well digitally or when taking notes by hand.

    How it works: Draw lines to divide the page into columns and rows. Write headers on the columns (and rows, if necessary). As you take notes, put the information into the appropriate place on the chart. It’s that simple.

    Cornell Note-Taking Method

    Page demonstrating the Cornell method of note taking (Note Taking Strategies)
    Think Insights/Cornell via thinkinsights.net

    The Cornell method is more than just a note-taking strategy. It offers tips on how to use notes after class for studying too. Cornell University professor Walter Pauk created this method in the 1950s. Others quickly adopted it, since it’s easy to learn and has been proven to help students learn.

    How it works: Divide a page into two columns. The wider column on the right is the Notes column. Here, take concise notes during class, capturing keywords and other important information. Leave space across the bottom of the page or section for the summary, which you’ll complete after class. This is the space for a brief overview of what was covered.

    The left-hand column is known as the Cue column. Use it after class to write review questions that relate to the information in your notes. Then, cover up the Notes section and try to answer the questions in the Cue column. Take some time to reflect on the information, making connections and evaluating what you’ve learned. At the end of each week, review all of the notes you’ve taken to reinforce the learning.

    Mapping Method

    Mindmapping Guide showing the mapping method of taking notes (Note Taking Strategies)
    Chloe Burroughs/mapping via chloeburroughs.com

    The mapping method is terrific for visual learners, as it helps show the connections between main points and supporting details. It’s also helpful for analyzing and evaluating content, rather than just writing it down. Fun fact: Leonardo da Vinci used this method!

    How it works: Start by writing a main topic in the middle of the page. If you like, you can use the same color for all your main topics, then switch to different colors as you add and connect subtopics. Continue to add supporting details where they fit, drawing lines and arrows to note connections. Switch to a new page to begin a new main topic.

    Outline Method

    Handwritten pages showing the outline method of note taking
    A Day to Study/outline method via adaytostudy.tumblr.com

    This is one of the oldest methods of note-taking, and one most kids learn somewhere along the way. You can teach them to use the standard Roman numeral and lettering/numbering system. Or just use bullet points and dashes to simplify things. This logical strategy works well in nearly any subject.

    How it works: Start a main topic to the farthest left on the page. Add subtopics and supporting details on the lines beneath, indenting them slightly:

    Main Topic

    1. Subtopic
      • Supporting Detail
      • Supporting Detail
    2. Subtopic
      • Supporting Detail
      • Supporting Detail

    Start the next main topic all the way to the left, and continue your notes. Rather than writing long sections, try to keep your notes to just key words and phrases, enough to jog your memory later on.

    Sentence Method

    Page describing The Sentence Method of note taking (note taking strategies)
    College Compass/sentence method via collegecompass.co

    The sentence method looks similar to the outline method, but it includes much more information. As the name implies, students write full sentences for each line. This requires the ability to write (or type) quickly and is best for students who have mastered both these skills. One benefit to the sentence method is that you’re likely to have more-complete notes to refer to after class.

    How it works: Start a topic by writing the main point on one line. On the lines beneath it, add bullet points and a full sentence describing the supporting information. Be sure to use your own words rather than the teacher’s. This ensures you’re fully understanding the information rather than just recording what you hear.

    Sketchnotes

    Sketchnotes are fairly new but have a real appeal for those who learn best visually. They combine elements of mapping or boxing with meaningful doodles. The colorful result is fun to look at, and some students may retain images better than words.

    How it works: There aren’t a lot of rules with sketchnotes. Basically, students should try to capture keywords and important phrases, then add images that help them connect with the topic. Block lettering and other doodles are fun to add too.

    Check out: 8 Creative Ways To Use Sketchnotes in Your Classroom

    Q/E/C Method

    Q E C method of note taking question explain conclusion
    Medium/Q.E.C. method via medium.com

    The Question/Evidence/Conclusion method of note-taking is a way to organize and record information from lectures. The Q/E/C note-taking method is ideal for subjects in the humanities, such as history, philosophy, and literature. It helps students keep track of how information is being presented, while focusing on the bigger picture.

    How it works: Students organize their notes by listening first for the question being addressed. Then, they write the evidence that answers the question. Finally, they draw a conclusion. At the end of a lecture, students can review their notes and have concise summaries of each main topic.

    Flow Method

    diagram of flow note taking
    iblog/flow notes via iblog.iup.edu

    Flow note-taking is a nonlinear way to take notes. Nonlinear note-taking methods ask students to actively engage with the topic that they’re learning about as they listen. Flow note-taking looks similar to mapping, but the idea here is to connect higher-level ideas and how they relate to each other. Students write the topics and draw arrows to indicate how they connect with each other.

    The flow note-taking method is active and requires students to think about what they are learning as they learn it. It’s also flexible, and useful in most subjects. It is best when students have some background knowledge, however.

    How it works: Students start by writing one main topic. Then, they jot down the next topic and connect the two to show how they are connected. They write the next topic and continue until they have a web.

    REAP Method

    The REAP method (Read, Encode, Annotate, Ponder) is an active reading note-taking strategy. The idea is that students are engaging with text by reflecting and thinking about their content. Using REAP helps students improve reading comprehension and recall of information. It also builds students’ ability to engage with text and learn how to engage with complex texts.

    How it works: Students complete four stages:

    • Reading the text
    • Encoding or writing the main ideas of the text in their own words
    • Annotating of ideas and quotes in the text
    • Pondering or thinking about the text and writing their reflections or discussing with others.

    Watch how to use the REAP method with historical texts:

    Paragraph Shrinking

    paragraph shrinking example of a graphic organizer
    Read Relevant/paragraph shrinking via readrelevant.com

    Similar to REAP, paragraph shrinking is a way to condense and take notes on what students read. This strategy is a good way for students to focus in on the main idea of a text as they read through. It is useful for both fiction and nonfiction texts, but can be particularly helpful when students are working with nonfiction.

    How it works: Students read a paragraph or section of text. Then, write the main topic or event in that section in the margin or on a separate page. Then, they shrink the paragraph further by stating the main idea in 10 words or less.

    What note-taking strategies help your students succeed in the classroom? Come share your ideas and ask for advice in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

    Plus, These Are the Executive Functioning Skills Kids Should Learn, Grade by Grade.

    Use these note-taking strategies, including boxing, charting, mapping, outlining, and the Cornell method, to retain what you've learned.

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    Jill Staake

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  • Migration is derailing leaders from Biden to Macron. Who’s next?

    Migration is derailing leaders from Biden to Macron. Who’s next?

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    BRUSSELS — Western leaders are grappling with how to handle two era-defining wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine. But there’s another issue, one far closer to home, that’s derailing governments in Europe and America: migration. 

    In recent days, U.S. President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak all hit trouble amid intense domestic pressure to tackle immigration; all three emerged weakened as a result. The stakes are high as American, British and European voters head to the polls in 2024. 

    “There is a temptation to hunt for quick fixes,” said Rashmin Sagoo, director of the international law program at the Chatham House think tank in London. “But irregular migration is a hugely challenging issue. And solving it requires long-term policy thinking beyond national boundaries.”

    With election campaigning already under way, long-term plans may be hard to find. Far-right, anti-migrant populists promising sharp answers are gaining support in many Western democracies, leaving mainstream parties to count the costs. Less than a month ago in the Netherlands, pragmatic Dutch centrists lost to an anti-migrant radical. 

    Who will be next? 

    Rishi Sunak, United Kingdom 

    In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure from members of his own ruling Conservative party who fear voters will punish them over the government’s failure to get a grip on migration. 

    U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in Dover on June 5, 2023 in Dover, England | Pool photo by Yui Mok/WPA via Getty Images

    Seven years ago, voters backed Brexit because euroskeptic campaigners promised to “Take Back Control” of the U.K.’s borders. Instead, the picture is now more chaotic than ever. The U.K. chalked up record net migration figures last month, and the government has failed so far to stop small boats packed with asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.

    Sunak is now in the firing line. He made a pledge to “Stop the Boats” central to his premiership. In the process, he ignited a war in his already divided party about just how far Britain should go. 

    Under Sunak’s deal with Rwanda, the central African nation agreed to resettle asylum seekers who arrived on British shores in small boats. The PM says the policy will deter migrants from making sea crossings to the U.K. in the first place. But the plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in London, and Sunak’s Tories now can’t agree on what to do next. 

    Having survived what threatened to be a catastrophic rebellion in parliament on Tuesday, the British premier still faces a brutal battle in the legislature over his proposed Rwanda law early next year.

    Time is running out for Sunak to find a fix. An election is expected next fall.

    Emmanuel Macron, France

    The French president suffered an unexpected body blow when the lower house of parliament rejected his flagship immigration bill this week. 

    French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on June 21, 2023 | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

    After losing parliamentary elections last year, getting legislation through the National Assembly has been a fraught process for Macron. He has been forced to rely on votes from the right-wing Les Républicains party on more than one occasion. 

    Macron’s draft law on immigration was meant to please both the conservatives and the center-left with a carefully designed mix of repressive and liberal measures. But in a dramatic upset, the National Assembly, which is split between centrists, the left and the far right, voted against the legislation on day one of debates.

    Now Macron is searching for a compromise. The government has tasked a joint committee of senators and MPs with seeking a deal. But it’s likely their text will be harsher than the initial draft, given that the Senate is dominated by the centre right — and this will be a problem for Macron’s left-leaning lawmakers. 

    If a compromise is not found, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally will be able to capitalize on Macron’s failure ahead of the European Parliament elections next June. 

    But even if the French president does manage to muddle through, the episode is likely to mark the end of his “neither left nor right” political offer. It also raises serious doubts about his ability to legislate on controversial topics.

    Joe Biden, United States   

    The immigration crisis is one of the most vexing and longest-running domestic challenges for President Joe Biden. He came into office vowing to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and build a “fair and humane” system, only to see Congress sit on his plan for comprehensive immigration reform. 

    U.S. President Joe Biden pauses as he gives a speech in Des Moines, Iowa on July 15, 2019 | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    The White House has seen a deluge of migrants at the nation’s southern border, strained by a decades-old system unable to handle modern migration patterns. 

    Ahead of next year’s presidential election, Republicans have seized on the issue. GOP state leaders have filed lawsuits against the administration and sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-led cities, while in Washington, Republicans in Congress have tied foreign aid to sweeping changes to border policy, putting the White House in a tight spot as Biden officials now consider a slate of policies they once forcefully rejected. 

    The political pressure has spilled into the other aisle. States and cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, are pressuring Washington leaders to do more in terms of providing additional federal aid and revamping southern border policies to limit the flow of asylum seekers into the United States.

    New York City has had more than 150,000 new arrivals over the past year and a half — forcing cuts to new police recruits, cutting library hours and limiting sanitation duties. Similar problems are playing out in cities like Chicago, which had migrants sleeping in buses or police stations.

    The pressure from Democrats is straining their relationship with the White House. New York City Mayor Eric Adams runs the largest city in the nation, but hasn’t spoken with Biden in nearly a year. “We just need help, and we’re not getting that help,” Adams told reporters Tuesday. 

    Olaf Scholz, Germany

    Migration has been at the top of the political agenda in Germany for months, with asylum applications rising to their highest levels since the 2015 refugee crisis triggered by Syria’s civil war.

    The latest influx has posed a daunting challenge to national and local governments alike, which have struggled to find housing and other services for the migrants, not to mention the necessary funds. 

    The inability to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images

    The inability — in a country that ranks among the most coveted destinations for asylum seekers — to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure. In the hope of stemming the flow, Germany recently reinstated border checks with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, hoping to turn back the refugees before they hit German soil.

    Even with border controls, refugee numbers remain high, which has been a boon to the far right. Germany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has reached record support in national polls. 

    Since overtaking Scholz’s Social Democrats in June, the AfD has widened its lead further, recording 22 percent in recent polls, second only to the center-right Christian Democrats. 

    The AfD is expected to sweep three state elections next September in eastern Germany, where support for the party and its reactionary anti-foreigner policies is particularly strong.

    The center-right, meanwhile, is hardening its position on migration and turning its back on the open-border policies championed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the new priorities is a plan to follow the U.K.’s Rwanda model for processing refugees in third countries.

    Karl Nehammer, Austria 

    Like Scholz, the Austrian leader’s approval ratings have taken a nosedive thanks to concerns over migration. Austria has taken steps to tighten controls at its southern and eastern borders. 

    Though the tactic has led to a drop in arrivals by asylum seekers, it also means Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades. 

    Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades | Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images

    The far-right Freedom Party has had a commanding lead for more than a year, topping the ruling center-right in polls by 10 points. That puts the party in a position to win national elections scheduled for next fall, which would mark an unprecedented rightward tilt in a country whose politics have been dominated by the center since World War II. 

    Giorgia Meloni, Italy 

    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her name in opposition, campaigning on a radical far-right agenda. Since winning power in last year’s election, she has shifted to more moderate positions on Ukraine and Europe.

    Meloni now needs to appease her base on migration, a topic that has dominated Italian debate for years. Instead, however, she has been forced to grant visas to hundreds of thousands of legal migrants to cover labor shortages. Complicating matters, boat landings in Italy are up by about 50 per cent year-on-year despite some headline-grabbling policies and deals to stop arrivals. 

    While Meloni has ordered the construction of detention centers where migrants will be held pending repatriation, in reality local conditions in African countries and a lack of repatriation agreements present serious impediments.    

    Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni at a press conference on March 9, 2023 | Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images

    Although she won the support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her cause, a potential EU naval mission to block departures from Africa would risk breaching international law. 

    Meloni has tried other options, including a deal with Tunisia to help stop migrant smuggling, but the plan fell apart before it began. A deal with Albania to offshore some migrant detention centers also ran into trouble. 

    Now Meloni is in a bind. The migration issue has brought her into conflict with France and Germany as she attempts to create a reputation as a moderate conservative. 

    If she fails to get to grips with the issue, she is likely to lose political ground. Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini is known as a hardliner on migration, and while they’re officially allies for now, they will be rivals again later. 

    Geert Wilders, the Netherlands

    The government of long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was toppled over migration talks in July, after which he announced his exit from politics. In subsequent elections, in which different parties vied to fill Rutte’s void, far-right firebrand Geert Wilders secured a shock win. On election night he promised to curb the “asylum tsunami.” 

    Wilders is now seeking to prop up a center-right coalition with three other parties that have urged getting migration under control. One of them is Rutte’s old group, now led by Dilan Yeşilgöz. 

    Geert Wilders attends a meeting in the Dutch parliament with party leaders to discuss the formation of a coalition government, on November 24, 2023 | Carl Court/Getty Images

    A former refugee, Yeşilgöz turned migration into one of the main topics of her campaign. She was criticized after the elections for paving the way for Wilders to win — not only by focusing on migration, but also by opening the door to potentially governing with Wilders. 

    Now, though, coalition talks are stuck, and it could take months to form a new cabinet. If Wilders, who clearly has a mandate from voters, can stitch a coalition together, the political trajectory of the Netherlands — generally known as a pragmatic nation — will shift significantly to the right. A crackdown on migration is as certain as anything can be. 

    Leo Varadkar, Ireland

    Even in Ireland, an economically open country long used to exporting its own people worldwide, an immigration-friendly and pro-business government has been forced by rising anti-foreigner sentiment to introduce new migration deterrence measures that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.

    Ireland’s hardening policies reflect both a chronic housing crisis and the growing reluctance of some property owners to keep providing state-funded emergency shelter in the wake of November riots in Dublin triggered by a North African immigrant’s stabbing of young schoolchildren.

    A nation already housing more than 100,000 newcomers, mostly from Ukraine, Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia, according to the most recent Department of Integration statistics. 

    Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia | Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images

    Even newly arrived families face an increasing risk of being kept in military-style tents despite winter temperatures.

    Ukrainians, who since Russia’s 2022 invasion of their country have received much stronger welfare support than other refugees, will see that welcome mat partially retracted in draft legislation approved this week by the three-party coalition government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. 

    Once enacted by parliament next month, the law will limit new Ukrainian arrivals to three months of state-paid housing, while welfare payments – currently among the most generous in Europe for people fleeing Russia’s war – will be slashed for all those in state-paid housing.

    Justin Trudeau, Canada  

    A pessimistic public mood dragged down by cost-of-living woes has made immigration a multidimensional challenge for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

    A housing crunch felt across the country has cooled support for immigration, with people looking for scapegoats for affordability pains. The situation has fueled antipathy for Trudeau and his re-election campaign.

    Trudeau has treated immigration as a multipurpose solution for Canada’s aging population and slowing economy. And while today’s record-high population growth reflects well on Canada’s reputation as a desirable place to relocate, political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals.

    Political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals | Andrej Ivanov/AFP

    Since Trudeau came to power eight years ago, at least 1.3 million people have immigrated to Canada, mostly from India, the Philippines, China and Syria. Handling diaspora politics — and foreign interference — has become more consequential, as seen by Trudeau’s clash with India and Canada’s recent break with Israel.

    Canada will double its 40 million population in 25 years if the current growth rate holds, enlarging the political challenges of leading what Trudeau calls the world’s “first postnational state”.

    Pedro Sánchez, Spain

    Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe from the south: Once they make it across the land border, the Continent can easily be accessed by ferry. 

    Transit via the land border that separates the European territory from Morocco is normally kept in check with security measures like high, razor-topped fences, with border control officers from both countries working together to keep undocumented migrants out. 

    Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe | Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP

    But in recent years authorities in Morocco have expressed displeasure with their Spanish counterparts by standing down their officers and allowing hundreds of migrants to pass, overwhelming border stations and forcing Spanish officers to repel the migrants, with scores dying in the process. 

    The headaches caused by these incidents are believed to be a major factor in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to change the Spanish government’s position on the disputed Western Sahara territory and express support for Rabat’s plan to formalize its nearly 50-year occupation of the area. 

    The pivot angered Sánchez’s leftist allies and worsened Spain’s relationship with Algeria, a long-standing champion of Western Saharan independence. But the measures have stopped the flow of migrants — for now.

    Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece

    Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s migration crisis since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people entered Europe via the Aegean islands. Migration and border security have been key issues in the country’s political debate.

    Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants who have made it to Greek territory — and of deporting migrants without due process. Greece’s government denies those accusations, arguing that independent investigations haven’t found any proof.

    Mitsotakis insists that Greece follows a “tough but fair” policy, but the numerous in-depth investigations belie the moderate profile the conservative leader wants to maintain.

    Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek government of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

    In June, a migrant boat sank in what some called “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds lost their lives, refocusing Europe’s attention on the issue. Official investigations have yet to discover whether failures by Greek authorities contributed to the shipwreck, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

    In the meantime, Greece is in desperate need of thousands of workers to buttress the country’s understaffed agriculture, tourism and construction sectors. Despite pledges by the migration and agriculture ministers of imminent legislation bringing migrants to tackle the labor shortage, the government was forced to retreat amid pressure from within its own ranks.

    Nikos Christodoulides, Cyprus

    Cyprus is braced for an increase in migrant arrivals on its shores amid renewed conflict in the Middle East. Earlier in December, Greece sent humanitarian aid to the island to deal with an anticipated increase in flows.

    Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management, and is contending with a surge in violence against migrants in Cyprus. Analysts blame xenophobia, which has become mainstream in Cypriot politics and media, as well as state mismanagement of migration flows. Last year the country recorded the EU’s highest proportion of first-time asylum seekers relative to its population.

    Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

    Legal and staffing challenges have delayed efforts to create a deputy ministry for migration, deemed an important step in helping Cyprus to deal with the surge in arrivals. 

    The island’s geography — it’s close to both Lebanon and Turkey — makes it a prime target for migrants wanting to enter EU territory from the Middle East. Its complex history as a divided country also makes it harder to regulate migrant inflows.

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    Tim Ross, Annabelle Dickson, Clea Caulcutt, Myah Ward, Matthew Karnitschnig, Hannah Roberts, Pieter Haeck, Shawn Pogatchnik, Zi-Ann Lum, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Nektaria Stamouli

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  • Batang Kali: A British massacre in colonial Malaya and a fight for justice

    Batang Kali: A British massacre in colonial Malaya and a fight for justice

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    Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – In the smart offices of a law firm located among the skyscrapers of the Malaysian capital, 85-year-old Lim Kok’s thoughts turn back to a crime perpetrated by British forces three-quarters of a century ago.

    The decades in between have not faded Lim’s memories of the period when then-Malaya was a colony in the waning days of the British Empire.

    Attempting to slow the sun setting on its colony in Southeast Asia, London sent thousands of British and Commonwealth troops to suppress a local movement fighting for independence in the aftermath of World War II.

    Lim was just nine years old when his father, a hardworking ethnic Chinese supervisor at a rubber plantation, was gunned down in a hail of bullets along with 23 other innocent workers in what is still known to this day as the Batang Kali massacre.

    He lost more than his father that day, Lim said.

    He lost a family.

    With her husband and the family’s breadwinner dead, Lim’s mother was left alone to raise six children – an impossible task for a poor rural household in the late 1940s.

    Lim’s mother was forced to give her youngest child, a newly-born baby girl, up for adoption. Lim was later sent to live with a granduncle in Kuala Lumpur.

    Not only was Lim’s family torn apart, but the British troops who carried out the massacre tried to cover up the atrocity by accusing their victims of being involved with the Communists fighting for independence.

    The truth would surface years later as journalists, researchers and court hearings attested to the innocence of those killed by British soldiers in Batang Kali.

    To this day, however, there has been no redress or official apology from British authorities, who have resisted calls to open an enquiry into the massacre that took place 75 years ago this week.

    An ethnic Chinese protester leaving a white flower at the main entrance of the British High Commission building in Kuala Lumpur during a commemoration in 2008 for those massacred by British soldiers in Batang Kali in 1948. Britain has refused requests to hold an inquiry into the massacre by 14 members of the Scots Guards [File: Saeed Khan/AFP]

    “I knew my dad was a genuine rubber tapper,” Lim told Al Jazeera, when asked about the colonial state’s attempt to frame the victims of the massacre as rebels.

    The false accusations never made him “feel bad” as he was growing up, he said.

    “The only thing bad is that they were massacred by the British soldiers.”

    Though he is in his mid-80s, Lim is spry and energetic and has not given up the fight to hold the British government to account for “the suffering which we and the other relatives of the murdered persons experienced”.

    “Being the offspring, we suffered a lot. Even my brothers and sisters… They have to go out in search of work at a very early age just to earn a living,” he said in an interview earlier this year. “They suffered a lot.”

    The most recent fight to hold British authorities to account began in 2008 when the father of Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer Quek Ngee Meng launched a campaign for justice after researching the incident in his retirement.

    When his father passed away in 2010, Quek took up the torch for the victims of Batang Kali.

    The campaign for an official inquiry has taken advocates from London’s High Court to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, and onto the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

    Quek said the massacre has had a multigenerational impact on the families of the slain men, who were consigned to economic hardship and poverty on top of suffering the trauma of the violent deaths of their loved ones.

    Many families of the victims could not afford to educate their children well. Some gave up children for adoption. Others married young or agreed to arranged marriages just to keep their families afloat following the loss of their breadwinner.

    “The families were actually broken down,” Quek told Al Jazeera, explaining that it took generations for the families of victims to improve their economic and social circumstances.

    “It actually wasn’t just the 24 or whoever who were killed. Many, many people are victims of this,” he said.

    Quek recalls that legal action was not their first choice. An apology and a settlement would have sufficed for relatives, but a letter sent to British authorities seeking to negotiate was ignored.

    “There was no middle ground that we can reach…. No offer for any talks. We just have to go on this legal journey and, yes, we lost on technical grounds,” he said.

    TO GO WITH AFP STORY
    Quek Ngee Meng, centre, presents a memorandum condemning the massacre of 24 civilians at Batang Kali to British High Commissioner to Malaysia Boyd McCleary outside the British High Commission building in Kuala Lumpur on December 12, 2008 [File: Saeed Khan/AFP]

    “I felt sorry for Lim Kok and all those I couldn’t get compensation for,” said Quek, who has worked for years on the campaign on a pro bono basis.

    “But, what I can get is this: All judges all agree that an atrocity at that time was committed by the British soldiers. And, the fact, the true fact, is these villagers, they were not guilty of any crime.”

    “They were not Communists. There is no proof that they were sympathisers,” he said.

    The details of the Batang Kali massacre are chilling.

    According to court documents, in the early evening of December 11, 1948, a patrol of Scots Guards numbering 14 soldiers entered the remote settlement in Batang Kali, located among heavily jungled hills some 60km (around 40 miles) north of Kuala Lumpur. The settlement was inhabited by around 50 adults and some children who worked on the surrounding rubber plantation, which was owned by a Scottish man.

    The British soldiers separated the men from the women and children and confined them overnight in a wooden long hut where they were interrogated. The soldiers carried out mock executions to terrify the unarmed male villagers in the hope of obtaining information about rebels that might have been nearby.

    Waist deep in muddy water men of
    Troops of ‘G’ Company, Second Battalion The Scots Guards, wade through a swamp during an operation in Pahang, Malaya, in 1950 [File: AP Photo]

    That night, the first victim was shot.

    The following morning, the women and children, and one traumatised man, were put on a truck and driven away from the plantation. The hut in which the 23 men had been detained was opened and, in the next few minutes, all were shot dead.

    With bodies strewn all around, the soldiers torched the workers’ huts and the patrol moved on, returning to their base later.

    The first newspaper report in the days following the massacre described the slain men as “bandits” who were shot while trying to escape and claimed that a quantity of ammunition had been uncovered.

    Shortly after, Britain’s War Office officially declared the killings as a “very successful action”.

    As the truth began to emerge of what actually took place, a rudimentary enquiry headed by British legal officials in the colony was conducted and concluded within a matter of days.

    Based on statements from the soldiers, and not the villagers, the conclusion was that nothing had occurred in Batang Kali that “justified criminal proceeding”.

    TO GO WITH AFP STORY
    A protester representing a British soldier portrays the Batang Kali massacre scene during a protest in front of the British High Commission building in Kuala Lumpur in December 2008. British troops during the ‘Malayan Emergency’ said they severed the heads of suspected rebels for identification purposes [Saeed Khan/AFP]

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  • Shakespearean insults to make you feel superior to your enemies (30 GIFs)

    Shakespearean insults to make you feel superior to your enemies (30 GIFs)

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    Say what you want about William Shakespeare, but the guy could throw insults like a champ. Sure he was long-winded, invented his own words, and according to BBC he couldn’t even spell his own name properly. But the prolific Playwright sure knew how to put someone down.

    We’ve collected some of the most iconic and stinging insults straight from William’s pen.

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    Zach Nading

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  • Russia warns US that Ukraine will be its ‘second Vietnam’

    Russia warns US that Ukraine will be its ‘second Vietnam’

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    The Kremlin’s spy chief Sergei Naryshkin warned the U.S. that Ukraine will turn into its “second Vietnam,” amid disagreement in Congress over funding for Kyiv.

    “Ukraine will turn into a ‘black hole’ absorbing more and more resources and people,” Russian foreign intelligence chief Naryshkin said Thursday in a written statement published by his agency’s house journal, the Intelligence Operative.

    “Ultimately, the U.S. risks creating a ‘second Vietnam’ for itself, and every new American administration will have to deal with it,” he added.

    The warning comes after U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday urged Congress to further support Ukraine with funding. “We can’t let Putin win,” Biden said.

    Biden is trying to push through a $61.4 billion emergency funding request for Kyiv, but opposition against further aid to Ukraine has grown among Republicans in the House of Representatives.

    The U.S. was engaged in the Vietnam War — fought between South Vietnam and the U.S. on one side and communist North Vietnam backed by the Soviet Union and China on the other — for nearly two decades. The conflict claimed more than a million lives, including tens of thousands from the U.S., and ended with a comprehensive victory for the North Vietnamese forces.

    According to a recent poll, 59 percent of Americans still support sending military aid to Ukraine.

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    Laura Hülsemann

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  • Macron faces backlash after Jewish ceremony at presidential palace

    Macron faces backlash after Jewish ceremony at presidential palace

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    Emmanuel Macron is facing widespread pushback, even from within his own ranks, from critics who say the president breached France’s long-standing history of secularism after he attended a Jewish ceremony in the Élysée Palace on Thursday.

    Macron had been invited to receive an award for fighting antisemitism and safeguarding religious freedoms at an annual event from the Conference of European Rabbis.

    During the event, France’s chief rabbi Haïm Korsia lit a ceremonial candle as members of the audience sang traditional Hanukkah songs in Hebrew. Lighting candles on a multi-branched candelabra, called a menorah, is a Jewish ritual that is part of the Hanukkah celebrations, which this year began on Thursday and will last until next Friday.

    Macron said Friday, during a visit to the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, that he didn’t regret what happened “at all.”

    “I think that on this point we need to keep our heads cool,” the French president told reporters. “Secularism isn’t about erasing religions. It’s about the fact that everyone has the right and freedom to believe and not to believe.”

    Because of the French state’s sacrosanct principle of being strictly secular, Macron’s presence at a religious ritual in an official building had sparked criticism from all sides — including from some Jewish groups.

    Yonathan Arfi, president of the French Jewish federation CRIF who also attended the event, told radio broadcaster Sud Radio on Friday that the lighting of the candle was “a mistake” and “should not have happened.”

    “The Élysée is not the place to light a Hanukkah candle because the Republican DNA is to stay away from anything religious,” Arfi added.

    Pierre Henriet, an MP from Macron’s own centrist Renaissance party, “strongly condemn[ed] this attempt at religious preferences,” adding, “By this act, Emmanuel Macron breaks with his role as guarantor of the neutrality of the State.”

    Manuel Bompard, a lawmaker from the far-left opposition France Unbowed (LFI) party, said Macron had made “an unforgivable political mistake.”

    Laurence Rossignol, a socialist lawmaker who is vice president of the French Senate, compared Macron to “a 10-year-old kid [playing] with a little chemist’s kit, but [with] real nitroglycerine and real matches.”

    The far-right National Rally, meanwhile, claimed that Macron’s attendance at the Élysée event was meant to make up for his absence at a march against antisemitism in November, which sparked criticism for the French president.

    “By lighting a candle for the religious holiday of Hanukkah at the Elysée … Macron has scorned our Jewish compatriots and at the same time our secularism,” National Rally spokesperson Julien Odoul said. “This president will never have understood France.”

    The display of religious signs in public spaces and by state officials is a particularly sensitive issue in France, where church and state have been strictly separated by law since 1905, which often ignites fiery political debates. The 118th anniversary of the law’s implementation will coincidentally be celebrated on Saturday.

    In September, Macron was criticized for attending a mass given by Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church, at a football stadium in Marseille.

    The French president has also been under increasing pressure to show his support to French Jews following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, which triggered massive Israeli retaliation in the Gaza Strip. A sharp rise in antisemitism has followed the escalation of war in the Middle East.

    Faced with the mounting criticism, Macron’s lieutenants went to bat for him Friday morning.

    The French president “is a defender of religions … he respects them all as head of state, and there is no violation of secularism,” Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin — in charge of religious affairs through his Cabinet role — told public broadcaster Franceinfo.

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    Nicolas Camut

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  • After 24 days, officials declare Tustin hangar fire 'fully extinguished'

    After 24 days, officials declare Tustin hangar fire 'fully extinguished'

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    Officials in Orange County declared Friday that the Tustin hangar fire is “fully extinguished” after 24 days, calling the blaze “one of the most challenging structure fires in the county’s history.”

    “I am pleased to inform the public that the final hotspot at the Navy Hangar Fire has been extinguished,” Steve Dohman, Orange County’s All-Hazards Incident Management Team incident commander, said in a statement. “With all hotspots now declared out, the work to safely lower the hangar doors can begin, and the Navy can start removing debris from its site.”

    The cause of the fire, which began in the early morning hours of Nov. 7 at the now-defunct Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, remains under investigation.

    An 80-year-old relic of Orange County’s military history, the massive 17-story wooden hangar became an environmental nightmare as the fire reignited several times, forcing the closure of nearby schools and shuttering residents inside their homes as the blaze released asbestos, lead and other toxins into the air.

    Fire officials at one point determined the safest option was to allow the blaze to burn itself out, afraid that dropping thousands of gallons of water onto the structure would farther spread the debris and toxic particles.

    As of Friday, officials estimated that cleanup of nearby schools, parks, open space and public rights of way was 90% complete and that more than 50% of residential properties have been inspected with 35% cleared.

    Local officials advised residents who are concerned about debris to contact a certified asbestos contractor and their homeowners insurance company.

    “The residents and businesses in the area who have been impacted by this fire now need the full accountability of the Navy and the support of the Governor’s Office and FEMA to help our City and our community financially recover,” Tustin Mayor Austin Lumbard said in a statement.

    The north hangar was one of two massive wooden structures used by the military during World War II and later served as sets for the TV show “Star Trek” and the film “Pearl Harbor.” The hangars once housed military helicopters and blimps armed with machine guns and bombs.

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    Taryn Luna

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  • PolitiFact – Kevin McCarthy’s Pants on Fire claim that U.S. never asked for land after wars

    PolitiFact – Kevin McCarthy’s Pants on Fire claim that U.S. never asked for land after wars

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    Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., recently shared footage of himself dressed in formal attire, telling an audience that the United States has never sought land after winning wars.

    McCarthy uploaded his posts on X and YouTube on Nov. 26, about a month after he made his remarks at the Oxford Union, the 200-year-old debating society at the University of Oxford in England. The debate, which addressed the value of U.S. intervention around the world, also featured Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., and Republican pollster Frank Luntz.

    McCarthy said at the Oct. 28 event, “In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterwards, except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for that freedom we went in for.”

    His post on X, formerly Twitter, drew criticism from commenters, who said McCarthy was ignoring multiple examples in which the United States had taken control of new territory following warfare. The post drew a community note that concurred with the critics’ argument. (Community notes, written by X users, are designed to provide additional context to claims made on the platform.)

    Multiple historians told PolitiFact that McCarthy’s comment was historically inaccurate.

    “You could quibble in some cases over whether we ‘asked’ for land and whether ‘ceding’ or ‘annexing’ is the same as taking,” said Lance Janda, a military historian at Cameron University. “But if the question is whether McCarthy was incorrect, it’s easy: He is.”

    An email inquiry to McCarthy’s press staff was not returned.

    Examples of U.S. land gains

    The community note on X cited three examples, and historians told PolitiFact that each offered a valid counterpoint to McCarthy’s assertion:

    • United States-Mexico war, 1848: Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico ceded 55% of its territory, including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming.

    • Spanish-American War, 1898: Under the Treaty of Paris, Spain relinquished claims on Cuba and ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States. Guam and Puerto Rico remain U.S. territories; the Philippines won independence in 1946.

    • Second Samoan Civil War, 1899: Under the Tripartite Convention of 1899, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States divided up the Samoan island chain in the Pacific Ocean. The portion the U.S. took is now a U.S. territory, American Samoa.

    Historians offered other examples. 

    • Wars against Native Americans: Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the U.S. government continually pushed Native Americans off their land and allowed settlement by white people in the newly vacated territory. This push included many military conflicts, including the Seminole wars, the Sand Creek Massacre, the Battle of Little Bighorn and the Wounded Knee Massacre.

    The Battle of Paceo, Manila, during the Philippine War, Feb, 4-5, 1899. (Library of Congress; public domain)

    • The Philippines: The fighting did not end after the U.S. defeated Spain in 1898. After that war, members of a Filipino independence movement shifted from fighting Spain to fighting the United States.

    “It was a brutal affair that the United States won,” said Joseph McCallus, an English professor at Columbus State University who has authored several books on the Philippines, including “Forgotten Under a Tropical Sun: War Stories by American Veterans in the Philippines, 1898-1913.”

    Officially, this second war lasted from 1899 to 1902, he said, but Filipino guerrillas fought on for several years afterward. “With the Filipino independence forces defeated, the United States took control of the entire Philippine archipelago,” McCallus said. “In no uncertain terms, it was an unadulterated land grab. Its purpose was to position the United States in the Pacific.”

    • Panama Canal Zone: In 1903, following years of failed attempts to secure a path for a canal across Central America, President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched U.S. warships to secure independence for Panama from Colombia.

    The newly declared nation negotiated the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, providing the United States with a 10-mile wide strip for the canal. In exchange, Panama received a U.S. guarantee of its independence, a $10 million payment and a $250,000 annuity.

    The U.S. ceded control of the Canal Zone in 1979, which ceased to exist in October of that year, according to the State Department. Control of the Panama Canal itself was given to Panama in 1999.

    U.S. Marines stationed on Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, after World War II (National Archives; public domain)

    • Trust Territory of the Pacific. Hundreds of islands controlled by Japan passed to the U.S. following World War II as a U.S. trusteeship. After increasing sentiment in the islands for greater independence, the United Nations dissolved the arrangement in 1990.

    Today, the former trust territory consists of one U.S. territory (the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) and three entities that are self-governing but that have granted the U.S. authority over defense (the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau).

    Since World War II, the U.S. “hasn’t been as acquisitive,” said David Silbey, a Cornell University historian and co-author of “The Other Face of Battle: America’s Forgotten Wars and the Experience of Combat.” “But that comes after a long history of land conquests.”

    Our ruling

    McCarthy said, “In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterwards, except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for that freedom we went in for.”

    This claim is undercut by two centuries of U.S. history, including the land gains following U.S. wars against Mexico, Spain, Filipino rebels, Japan and Native American tribes. 

    We rate the statement Pants on Fire!

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  • Inside the Heartbreaking Turning Point of ‘Fellow Travelers’

    Inside the Heartbreaking Turning Point of ‘Fellow Travelers’

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    Spoiler warning for Fellow Travelers’ fifth episode, “Promise You Won’t Write.”

    The epic love story of Fellow Travelers reaches a wrenching turning point in its fifth episode, now streaming on Paramount+ With Showtime. Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) and Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey), closeted political staffers working in McCarthy-Era Washington, find their passionate, at times fraught romantic affair suddenly untenable as the cultural circumstances surrounding them intensify. Hawk is compelled to commit to a romance he doesn’t believe in with Lucy Smith (Allison Williams), daughter of the senator to whom Hawk has dedicated his career, after tragedy strikes and the family breaks apart. Tim’s allegiance to Senator Joseph McCarthy (Chris Bauer) finally, firmly cracks as he sees the demagogue’s methods for what they are, just as the Lavender Scare reaches its apex.

    The episode’s title, “Promise You Won’t Write,” comes from one of the episode’s last lines, and is drawn straight from the novel by Thomas Mallon, the loose basis for the show. It captures the longing our lovelorn heroes are left with. Tim joins the military. Hawk gets engaged to a woman. Their story ends here, for now—a choice creator Ron Nyswaner made by situating their separation in a juicy political context, against the backdrop of the downfall of McCarthy at his Senate censure hearing and a similar moment of reckoning for Roy Cohn (Will Brill), both stories of which were pulled from the public historical record. Nyswaner puts down his artistic stamp by unifying all of these tales—plus that of fictional Black journalist Marcus Hooks (Jelani Alladin) as he embarks on his own new path—under the harrowingly wide cloud of homophobia. In Fellow Travelers, as in the U.S. circa 1954, no one could escape it; its impact could be life-or-death.

    In an exclusive breakdown of the end of Fellow Travelers’ time in the ‘50s, Nyswaner discusses his various storylines coming to a head at his series’s midpoint—as he gets ready to hurtle the action decades into the future.

    **Vanity Fair: **This is a real narrative turning point and marks the end of the McCarthy era for the show. Why now?

    Ron Nyswaner: The Army-McCarthy hearings are a very important part of the story, because it is where Joe McCarthy’s career comes to a crashing end. It just naturally seemed to fall here. I could develop the McCarthy/Cohn/Schine story through the first four episodes to this climactic point. Then it seemed, if that’s going to be that climax, it felt natural that this is where Tim sees who his hero really is—well, but not just one hero, but who both of his heroes really are. Hawk reveals himself to Tim in a way that is disturbing to him; McCarthy reveals himself to Tim in a way that is really disturbing to him. That leaves Tim, as he says—he’s lost. Then he joins the Army.

    In all of the episode’s stories, this mere threat of outing informs seismic character changes, from Hawk to McCarthy to Cohn. It’s obviously a statement for the show as a whole and this era you’re working in. Can you just talk a little bit about understanding the sheer significance of that kind of threat coming to a head for characters here?

    The Army-McCarthy hearings took place over weeks and weeks and weeks. The amount of transcripts are huge, but going into the research I really saw the very thing that you mentioned. You can look at the end of Joseph McCarthy’s career in those hearings as caused by homophobia. I actually think we make a good case for it.

    A lot of people think of it as a moment we didn’t include, when Joseph Welch pounds his fist on the table and says, “Have you no decency, sir?” Like, at long last tapping into decency, and boom, that was it, McCarthy was over. I’m not alone, as there is a McCarthy biographer who agrees with me, but to me the moment was when the words “pixie and fairy” are introduced into the dialogue and are pointed right at McCarthy and Cohn. From the story that we’re telling, that was the natural climax of our show, because this demagogue who was the second most powerful person in the United States is brought down in flames, so to speak, by being painted with the gay brush. It destroyed his career. What I loved, and I twist it from the book, is that it was homosexuals in the show—Hawk and Tim; Tim unwittingly, Hawk wittingly—who bring down McCarthy and Cohn with homophobia. That great irony.

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    David Canfield

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  • Rough draft of Darwin’s Origin of species goes online

    Rough draft of Darwin’s Origin of species goes online

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    Newswise — On the 164th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s Origin of species, the Darwin Online project at the National University of Singapore (NUS) will launch all the surviving draft pages of one of the most influential scientific books in history. After his book was published, the unsentimental Darwin discarded the hundreds of pages of the original handwritten draft of his epoch-making book into the Darwin family’s scrap paper pile. His children used some sheets for drawings and others were torn in half by one of Darwin’s son who used the blank back sides for mathematical exercises.

    In the end, almost all of the draft pages were destroyed. Towards the end of Darwin’s life, his theory of evolution was more widely accepted and there was intense interest in the original draft of Origin of Species. Some were rescued from the piles of scrap paper and old notes and, over decades, many were given away as gifts especially by his children after his death. These draft pages are now dispersed around the world and some have probably been lost forever.

    Discovering Darwin’s manuscripts

    Today, the rough drafts of Darwin’s Origin of species are some of the most precious and valuable pieces of paper in the history of science worth almost a million dollars each. The last one to sell at auction, in 2018, went for £490,000 (approximately USD$ 600,000). The United Kingdom’s Minister for Arts, Heritage and Tourism placed an export bar on Darwin’s manuscript, due to its cultural and national significance, in hopes of keeping it in the country.

    So far, about 50 sheets were known to survive. This launch of the drafts by Darwin scholar, Dr John van Wyhe from the NUS Department of Biological Sciences, includes seven draft pages not found in previous lists with three draft pages recently rediscovered – bringing the total to 59. This collection of draft pages includes unprecedented details about each sheet and its history. For example, one was donated by Darwin’s daughter Henrietta Litchfield to a Red Cross auction during WWI for the war wounded. It was purchased anonymously by cotton merchant and aviation pioneer Sir Alfred Paton who donated it to his old school, Clifton College. It was later sold at auction in 1999 for £39,500 to an anonymous buyer “in the Americas” and has never been seen again. Fortunately, it was photocopied by Clifton College and a photograph was printed in the auction catalogue.

    Uncovering the mysteries behind Darwin’s drafts

    Darwin’s handwriting is notoriously difficult to read. All of the drafts have been transcribed and edited showing where the text appears in the published book so they may be compared. The drafts make it possible to see in detail how Darwin originally composed and revised many of his arguments. The drafts total 11,700 words (7.7% of Origin of species) and contain many sentences that were never published, offering fascinating insights into Darwin’s thinking as he composed the book that changed the world. What would have happened if he had published the original version of some of his arguments? In one crossed out sentence, Darwin wrote that “An instinct may almost be called an empty trick.”

    In a famous passage of the Origin of species, Darwin argued that natural selection could gradually transform an animal like a bear into something like a whale. He was mocked and criticised by reviewers so severely that he deleted the passage from all later editions. What would have happened if he had published the passage as originally written?

    In one of the drafts, this never-printed paragraph was revealed as follows:

    “In N. America a bear has been seen swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching the minute crustaceans swimming on the surface. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of minute crustaceans were constant, & there did not in the region exist better adapted competitors, I can see no difficulty in a race of Bears being rendered by natural selection more & more aquatic in habits & structure, with larger & larger mouth, till a creature was produced as monstrous in size & structure as a whale though feeding on prey so minute.”

    Darwin later made very extensive corrections to the first and second proofs which makes the text of the first draft differ even more from the published book. His son Francis recalled that “my mother looked over the proofs of the ‘Origin.'”

    The drafts can be viewed for free via a detailed illustrated introduction here. The link will be made live after the embargo is lifted.

    The drafts join the world’s largest collection of Darwin’s writings, both publications and handwritten manuscripts, Darwin Online.

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    National University of Singapore (NUS)

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  • Research shows that grandparents are great personal finance teachers. Here’s what my poppa who became an accountant during the Great Depression tried to teach me about money

    Research shows that grandparents are great personal finance teachers. Here’s what my poppa who became an accountant during the Great Depression tried to teach me about money

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    Poppa once took me to a deli for dinner. I was a boy of about 10. We went to the cash register to pay, only for him to find he lacked exact change.

    “I’ll owe you the nickel,” he told the cashier, who refused the offer. My grandfather fished out a dollar bill and collected 95 cents in change. “I’ll remember this,” he warned the cashier with a menacing scowl.    

    Benjamin Sheft never took anything in life for granted, least of all money. Any time we ate in a restaurant, he studied the check as if it were a sacred text. Paying cash, he peeled currency off his billfold as if stripping away a sheet of his own skin.

    As I grew up, no one tried harder to teach me about money–earning it, saving it, and losing it–than my poppa. Nor with less success.

    This year, the British financial services company Legal & General conducted a wide-ranging survey of 2,000 grandparents and 2,000 grandchildren. Among the questions it asked grandchildren was, “What are the most important life lessons your grandparents have taught you? As it turned out, almost a third of grandchildren (30%) cited grandparents for passing down “financial and money-saving advice.” 

    Similarly, Charles Schwab last year issued a guide to grandparents about teaching financial literacy to grandchildren The Role of a Grandparent | Over 50s | Legal and General.  It counseled “talking about money in everyday situations” with grandchildren and even learning to prepare a budget. “Starting these conversations at a young age,” it said, “can help ensure your grandchildren grow up to become responsible money managers.” 

    My poppa came to the United States from a village in Russia at age two in 1909, his father a tailor who barely spoke English. He married at 20 and became a father at 21, his daughter – later my mother – stricken profoundly deaf in infancy. He graduated from the City University of New York with a degree in accounting, the first member of his family to go to college.

    In his search for clients during the Great Depression, the newly minted CPA went door to door, on foot, to businesses around his neighborhood–dry cleaners, auto-repair shops, anything–offering to do the books for a pittance. 

    But by the late 1940s, in the first flush of the postwar boom, Poppa started to hit his stride. He opened an accounting firm with a partner, renting an upper-floor office right across East 42nd Street from Grand Central Terminal. There, he prepared taxes, bank records, payrolls, you name it. In my visits to the premises, I always gawked at his view of the Empire State Building.

    In the early 1950s, he moved his family from the Grand Concourse in the Bronx to a neighborhood on Manhattan’s Upper East Side suddenly swanky with the Second Avenue El recently torn down. He sent his son through New York University and Yale Law School. He bought my parents a split-level, three-bedroom house in suburban northern New Jersey and himself a Cadillac, then the standard American symbol for financial success. In due course, my grandparents joined a country club, where Poppa played golf, smoked cigars, and savored his Scotch on the rocks. They attended Broadway shows, acquired season tickets to the opera and the ballet, and vacationed in Europe and Asia.

    Even so, Poppa always believed he was chronically a day late and a dollar short. His son, my Uncle Leonard, once told me so. One day Poppa verified that claim. He told me how he and some partners once invested in a garden-apartment complex.  

    “I sold my stake in it too soon,” he admitted, his voice hoarse with regret. “I wanted to turn a fast buck.” He shook his head in shame and disbelief. “If I had held onto it longer, I would be a millionaire now.”

    You could never have enough, he seemed to be saying. Likely he never recovered, all those decades later, from the psychic wounds of the Great Depression.

    He meant to teach me about money–to count it, watch it, grow it–but I could never see money as he did. I grew up spoiled, certain that money magically materialized. The $5,000 in gifts for my bar mitzvah in 1965? I blew it 10 years later. Adjusted for inflation, that cash would today be worth north of $47,000. The $17,000 in presents at our wedding in 1979? These were squandered by the late 1980s. Today, that sum would amount to at least $74,000.

    Before I could learn anything from Poppa, I had to make my own mistakes. It took me until age 35 to develop a serviceable work ethic (having two kids will do that) and then until 45 to get out of debt. Some of us never learn, while others learn late. Eventually, I pulled myself together.

    “Everything is addition and subtraction,” says a character in a film noir the title of which I’ve forgotten. “The rest is just conversation.”

    Our parents and grandparents can teach us only so much. As I found out–and as Poppa showed me–certain lessons we just have to learn on our own.

    Bob Brody, a consultant and essayist based in Italy, is the author of the memoir Playing Catch with Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age.

    More must-read commentary published by Fortune:

    The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

    Subscribe to the new Fortune CEO Weekly Europe newsletter to get corner office insights on the biggest business stories in Europe. Sign up before it launches Nov. 29.

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  • Anti-green backlash hovers over COP climate talks

    Anti-green backlash hovers over COP climate talks

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    This article is part of the Road to COP special report, presented by SQM.

    LONDON — World leaders will touch down in Dubai next week for a climate change conference they’re billing yet again as the final off-ramp before catastrophe. But war, money squabbles and political headaches back home are already crowding the fate of the planet from the agenda.

    The breakdown of the Earth’s climate has for decades been the most important yet somehow least urgent of global crises, shoved to one side the moment politicians face a seemingly more acute problem. Even in 2023 — almost certainly the most scorching year in recorded history, with temperatures spawning catastrophic floods, wildfires and heat waves across the globe — the climate effort faces a bewildering array of distractions, headwinds and dismal prospects.

    “The plans to achieve net zero are increasingly under attack,” former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who set her country’s goal of reaching climate neutrality into law, told POLITICO.

    The best outcome for the climate from the 13-day meeting, which is known as COP28 and opens Nov. 30, would be an unambiguous statement from almost 200 countries on how they intend to hasten their plans to cut fossil fuels, alongside new commitments from the richest nations on the planet to assist the poorest.

    But the odds against that happening are rising. Instead, the U.S. and its European allies are still struggling to cement a fragile deal with developing countries about an international climate-aid fund that had been hailed as the historic accomplishment of last year’s summit. Meanwhile, a populist backlash against the costs of green policies has governments across Europe pulling back — a reverse wave that would become an American-led tsunami if Donald Trump recaptures the White House next year.

    And across the developing world, the rise of energy and food prices stoked by the pandemic and the Ukraine war has caused inflation and debt to spiral, heightening the domestic pressure on climate-minded governments to spend their money on their most acute needs first.

    Even U.S. President Joe Biden, whose 2022 climate law kicked off a boom of clean-energy projects in the U.S., has endorsed fossil fuel drilling and pipeline projects under pressure to ease voter unease about rising fuel costs.

    Add to all that the newest Mideast war that began with Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

    On the upside, investment in much of the green economy is also surging. Analysts are cautiously opining that China’s emissions may have begun to decline, several years ahead of Beijing’s schedule. And the Paris-based International Energy Agency projects that global fossil fuel demand could peak this decade, with coal use plummeting and oil and gas plateauing afterward. Spurring these trends is a competition among powers such as China, the United States, India and the European Union to build out and dominate clean-energy industries.

    But the fossil fuel industry is betting against a global shift to green, instead investing its profits from the energy crisis into plans for long-term expansion of its core business.

    The air of gloom among many supporters of global climate action is hard to miss, as is the sense that global warming will not be the sole topic on leaders’ minds when they huddle in back rooms.

    “It’s getting away from us,” Tim Benton, director of the Chatham House environment and society center, said during a markedly downbeat discussion among climate experts at the think tank’s lodgings on St James’ Square in London earlier this month. “Where is the political space to drive the ambition that we need?”

    Fog of war

    The most acute distraction from global climate work is the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The conflagration is among many considerations the White House is weighing in Biden’s likely decision not to attend the summit, one senior administration official told POLITICO this month. Other leaders are also reconsidering their schedules, said one senior government official from a European country, who was granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive diplomacy of the conference.

    The war is also likely to push its way onto the climate summit’s unofficial agenda: Leaders of big Western powers who are attending will spend at least some of their diplomatically precious face-time with Middle East leaders discussing — not climate — but the regional security situation, said two people familiar with the planning for COP28 who could not be named for similar reasons. According to a preliminary list circulated by the United Arab Emirates, Israeli President Isaac Herzog or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attend the talks.

    A threat even exists that the conference could be canceled or relocated, should a wider regional conflict develop, Benton said. 

    The UAE’s COP28 presidency isn’t talking about that, at least publicly. “We look forward to hosting a safe, inclusive COP beginning at the end of November,” said a spokesperson in an emailed statement. But the strained global relations have already thrown the location of next years’ COP29 talks into doubt because Russia has blocked any EU country from hosting the conference, which is due to be held in eastern or central Europe.

    The upshot is that the bubble of global cooperation that landed the Paris climate agreement in 2015 has burst. “We have a lot of more divisive narratives now,” Laurence Tubiana, the European Climate Foundation CEO who was one of the drafters of the Paris deal, said at the same meeting at Chatham House.

    The Ukraine war and tensions between the U.S. and China in particular have widened the gap between developed and developing countries, Benton told POLITICO in an email. 

    Now, “the Hamas-Israel war potentially creates significant new fault lines between the Arab world and many Western countries that are perceived to be more pro-Israeli,” he said. “The geopolitical tensions arising from the war could create leverage that enables petrostates (many of which are Muslim) to shore up the status quo.”

    Add to that the as yet unknown impact on already high fossil fuel commodity prices, said Kalee Kreider, president of the Ridgely Walsh public affairs consultancy and a former adviser to U.S. Vice President Al Gore. “Volatility doesn’t usually help raise ambition.”

    The Biden administration’s decisions to approve a tranche of new fossil fuel production and export projects will undermine U.S. diplomacy at COP28, said Ed Markey, a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

    “You can’t preach temperance from a barstool, and the United States is running a long tab,” he said.

    U.N. climate talks veterans have seen this program before. “No year over the past three decades has been free of political, economic or health challenges,” said former U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa, who now heads the consulting firm onepoint5. “We simply can’t wait for the perfect conditions to address climate change. Time is a luxury we no longer have — if we ever did.”

    The EU backlash

    Before the Mideast’s newest shock to the global energy system, the war in Ukraine exposed Europe’s energy dependence on Russia — and initially galvanized the EU to accelerate efforts to roll out cleaner alternatives.

    But in the past year, persistent inflation has worn away that zeal. Businesses and citizens worry about anything that might add to the financial strain, and this has frayed a consensus on climate change that had held for the past four years among left, center and center right parties across much of the 27-country bloc.

    In recent months, conservative members of the European Parliament have attacked several EU green proposals as excessive, framing themselves as pragmatic environmentalists ahead of Europe-wide elections next year.  Reinvigorated far-right parties across the bloc are also using the green agenda to attack more mainstream parties, a trend that is spooking the center. 

    Germany’s government was almost brought down this year by a law that sought to ban gas boilers — with the Greens-led economy ministry retreating to a compromise. In France, President Emmanuel Macron has joined a growing chorus agitating for a “regulatory pause” on green legislation.

    If Europe’s struggles emerge at COP28, the ripple effect could be global, said Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank. 

    The “EU has established itself as the global laboratory for climate neutrality,” he said. “But now it needs to deliver on the experiment, or the world (which is closely watching) will assume this just does not work. And that would be a disaster for all of us.”

    U.K. retreats

    The world is also watching the former EU member that stakes a claim to be the climate leader of the G7: the U.K.

    London has prided itself on its green credentials ever since former Prime Minister May enacted a 2019 law calling for net zero by 2050 — making her the first leader of a major economy to do so.

    According to May’s successor Boris Johnson, net zero was good for the planet, good for voters, good for the economy. But under current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the messaging has transformed. Net zero remains the target — but it comes with a “burden” on working people.

    In a major speech this fall, Sunak rolled back plans to ban new petrol and diesel car sales by 2030, bringing the U.K. into line with the EU’s 2035 date. With half an eye on Germany’s travails, he said millions of households would be exempted from the gas boiler ban expected in 2035.

    In making his arguments for a “pragmatic” approach to net zero, Sunak frequently draws on the talking points of net zero-skeptics. Why should the citizens of the U.K., which within its own borders produces just 1 percent of global emissions, “sacrifice even more than others?” 

    The danger, said one EU climate diplomat — granted anonymity to discuss domestic policy of an allied country — was that other countries around the COP28 negotiating table would hear that kind of rhetoric from a capital that had led the world — and repurpose it to make their own excuses.

    Sunak’s predecessor May sees similar risks.

    “Nearly a third of all global emissions originate from countries with territorial emissions of 1 per cent or less,” May said. “If we all slammed on the brakes, it would make our net zero aspirations impossible to achieve.”

    Trump’s back

    The U.S., the largest producer of industrial carbon pollution in modern history, has been a weathervane on climate depending on who controls its governing branches.

    When Republicans regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, it created a major drag on Biden’s promise to provide $11.4 billion in annual global climate finance by 2024.

    Securing this money and much more, developing countries say, is vital to any progress on global climate goals at COP28. Last year, on the back of the pandemic and the energy price spike, global debt soared to a record $92 trillion. This cripples developing countries’ ability to build clean energy and defend themselves against — or recover from — hurricanes, floods, droughts and fires.

    Even when the money is there, the politics can be challenging. Multibillion-dollar clean energy partnerships that the G7 has pursued to shift South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and India off coal power are struggling to gain acceptance from the recipients.

    Yet even more dire consequences await if Trump wins back the presidency next year. 

    A Trump victory would put the world’s largest economy a pen stroke away from quitting the Paris Agreement all over again — or, even more drastically, abandoning the entire international regime of climate pacts and summits. The thought is already sending a chill: Negotiations over a fund for poorer countries’ climate losses and damage, which Republicans oppose, include talks on how to make its language “change-of-government-proof” in light of a potential Trump victory, said Michai Robertson, lead finance negotiator for a bloc of island states.

    More concretely for reining in planet-heating gases, Trump would be in position to approve legislation eliminating all or part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Biden’s signature climate law included $370 billion in incentives for clean energy, electric vehicles and other carbon-cutting efforts – though the actual spending is likely to soar even higher due to widespread interest in its programs and subsidies – and accounts for a bulk of projected U.S. emissions cuts this decade.

    Trump’s views on this kind of spending are no mystery: His first White House budget director dismissed climate programs as “a waste of your money,” and Trump himself promised last summer to “terminate these Green New Deal atrocities on Day One.”

    House Republicans have attempted to claw back parts of Biden’s climate law several times. That’s merely a political messaging effort for now, thanks to a Democrat-held Senate and a sure veto from Biden, but the prospects flip if the GOP gains full control of Congress and White House.

    Under a plan hatched by Tubiana and backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, countries would in the future log their state and local government climate plans with the U.N., in an attempt to undergird the entire system against a second Republican blitzkrieg.

    The U.S. isn’t the only place where climate action is on the ballot, Benton told the conference at Chatham House on Nov. 1.

    News on Sunday that Argentina had elected as president right-wing populist Javier Milei — a Trump-like libertarian — raised the prospect of a major Latin American economy walking away from the Paris Agreement, either by formally withdrawing or by reneging on its promises.

    Elections are also scheduled in 2024 for the EU, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Russia, and possibly the U.K. 

    “A quarter of the world’s population is facing elections in the next nine months,” he said. “If everyone goes to the right and populism becomes the order of the day … then I won’t hold out high hopes for Paris.”

    Zack Colman reported from Washington, D.C. Suzanne Lynch also contributed reporting from Brussels.

    This article is part of the Road to COP special report, presented by SQM. The article is produced with full editorial independence by POLITICO reporters and editors. Learn more about editorial content presented by outside advertisers.

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    Karl Mathiesen, Charlie Cooper and Zack Colman

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  • PolitiFact – Did Abraham Lincoln challenge a rival to a sword fight?

    PolitiFact – Did Abraham Lincoln challenge a rival to a sword fight?

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    With an unruly House speaker election and sharp words in the Senate over blocked military promotions, the current Congress has hardly been sedate. But tempers flared to a notable level Nov. 14.

    One Republican House member accused another of kidney-punching him in a Capitol hallway. A Republican House committee chairman called a Democrat a “smurf.” And Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., got into a heated exchange with International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien at a committee hearing. 

    Mullin read aloud a series of O’Brien’s social media posts, including one in which he appeared to challenge Mullin to a fight. Mullin then asked O’Brien, who was testifying at the hearing, if he wanted to fight there and then.

    “I’d love to do it right now,” O’Brien said.

    “Well, stand your butt up then,” Mullin replied.

    “You stand your butt up,” O’Brien responded.

    Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tried to gavel them down.

    Sanders yelled at Mullin to sit down, banged his gavel several times and told both of them to stop talking. But the argument lasted for several minutes.

    The following day, Mullin defended himself in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, arguing that Washington has a long history of political figures fighting each other, including President Andrew Jackson and an incident in the Capitol in which a reporter shot and killed a former congressman with whom he’d feuded. 

    At one point, Mullin invoked President Abraham Lincoln. “Abraham Lincoln challenged a guy to a sword fight,” Mullin told Bash.

    Almost two decades before he became president, Lincoln did engage in a duel. But it was the other way around; Lincoln was the one who was challenged.

    Mullin’s office did not respond to an inquiry for this article.

    An account by the American Battlefield Trust, a non-profit organization that helps conserve historic battlefields, says the 1842 duel occurred early in Lincoln’s career as a lawyer and politician. It stemmed from a feud he had with Illinois State Auditor James Shields over a decision to close the Illinois State Bank.

    The editor of the Sangamo Journal, a friend of Lincoln, let Lincoln write a letter critical of Shields under the pen name “Rebecca.” When Shields demanded to know who had written the letter, the editor revealed that it was Lincoln. Shields demanded a retraction, and when Lincoln refused, Shields challenged him to a duel on a river island in Missouri, where dueling was legal.

    According to the American Battlefield Trust:

    “Since Lincoln was challenged by Shields he had the privilege of choosing the weapon of the duel. He chose cavalry broadswords ‘of the largest size.’ ‘I didn’t want the damned fellow to kill me, which I think he would have done if we had selected pistols,’ he later explained. For his own part, he did not want to kill Shields, but “felt sure (he) could disarm him” with a blade. At six feet, four inches tall, Lincoln planned to use his height to his advantage against Shields, who stood at a mere five feet, nine inches tall.

    “The day of the duel, September 22, arrived and the combatants met at Bloody Island, Missouri, to face death or victory. As the two men faced each other, with a plank between them that neither was allowed to cross, Lincoln swung his sword high above Shields to cut through a nearby tree branch. This act demonstrated the immensity of Lincoln’s reach and strength and was enough to show Shields that he was at a fatal disadvantage. With the encouragement of bystanders, the two men called a truce.”

    Michael Burlingame, a University of Illinois, Springfield historian and author of “Lincoln: A Life” and “An American Marriage: The Untold Story of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd,” told PolitiFact that the American Battlefield Trust account is accurate and that Lincoln was not the party who made the challenge to duel.

    Our ruling

    Mullin said, “Abraham Lincoln challenged a guy to a sword fight.”

    Lincoln did agree to a duel involving swords, but he was not the one to make the challenge; his rival did. The two men met on a river island in Missouri but called off the duel before it started.

    We rate the statement Half True.

    PolitiFact staff writer Samantha Putterman contributed to this report.

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  • The Remarkable True Story Behind “Lawmen: Bass Reeves”

    The Remarkable True Story Behind “Lawmen: Bass Reeves”

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    Writer and showrunner Taylor Sheridan is known for creatively exploring and highlighting aspects of American history and culture in his many acclaimed works, ranging from TV series like “Yellowstone” to movies like “Sicario.” His most recent project, “Lawmen: Bass Reeves,” tells the story of Bass Reeves, a great American legend and Western frontier figure who was the first Black deputy US marshal west of the Mississippi River. In the series, “Selma” actor David Oyelowo plays the role of Reeves alongside a stacked ensemble that includes Dennis Quaid and Donald Sutherland.

    The story of Bass Reeves is remarkable: the real figure behind the dramatized series was born into slavery and, according to some reports, managed to capture more than 3,000 outlaws throughout his career as a deputy US marshal, all while enduring the hardships of racism and prejudice in a post-Civil War America. “I think that audiences today need to see stories of triumph, and he is a man that embodies that triumph of spirit perfectly,” series creator Chad Feehan told Country Living in October. “I think, hopefully audiences are craving that, I know that I certainly am. As well as this idea that we’re all connected by this universal experience of being a human being, and hopefully that will start to break down some of the perceived divisions that exist amongst us.”

    Before you watch the series, which is now streaming on Paramount+, read the astonishing true story of Bass Reeves.

    Who Was Bass Reeves?

    Bass Reeves was born into slavery in July 1838. At the time of his birth, Reeves and his family were owned by William S. Reeves, an Arkansas state legislator, and lived in Arkansas until William relocated to Grayson County, TX, when Bass was 8 years old in 1846, per History. Following the move to Texas, Bass was made to join the Confederate Army with Williams’s son George Reeves and fight in the Civil War. Sometime during his military service, Bass escaped, with some accounts alleging that Bass managed to escape after getting into an altercation with George. His escape led him to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, where Reeves lived among the Seminole and Creek tribes, gaining knowledge of their landscape and customs and learning multiple languages, as reported by The Washington Post. In 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, which made Reeves a free man. He moved back to Arkansas with his wife Nellie Jennie and went on to have 11 children. But that is hardly the end to Bass’s story.

    How Bass Reeves Became an American Legend

    Due to his remarkable skills, Bass worked as a scout and guide, according to Collider. After nearly 10 years of being a free man, Bass was chosen by Marshal James Fagan as one of 200 deputy marshals to police Indian Territory in 1875 following a rise in murders in the area. Due to his ambidextrous weaponry skills from his military experience, his familiarity of the Indian Territory landscape, and his knowledge of Indigenous languages, Bass was one of the best candidates to catch criminals like thieves and murderers across the 75,000-square-mile area. He was known for using a variety of disguises, ranging from a cowboy to a farmer, to conceal his identity and capture criminals, which proved to be highly effective. Throughout his career as a deputy marshal, Bass is said to have arrested more than 3,000 people and killed 14 outlaws, per History.

    Bass served as a deputy marshal for 32 years, and after Oklahoma became a state in 1907, he joined the Muskogee Police Department, as reported by The Norman Transcript. He worked in the police department for two years before retiring in 1909. One year later, Bass died on Jan. 12, 1910, from Bright’s disease (a kidney disease) at the age of 71. Though the rumors are unconfirmed, some have claimed that Bass served as the original inspiration for the Lone Ranger, an enduring fictional character in American film and TV. Although Bass surely has not gotten the recognition he deserves over the years, “Lawmen: Bass Reeves” attempts to revitalize his legacy and bring attention to his remarkable story. Don’t miss the series, which is streaming now on Paramount+, and watch the trailer below!

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    Alicia Geigel

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  • Scientists Find Weed Traces in 17th Century Italian Skeletons | High Times

    Scientists Find Weed Traces in 17th Century Italian Skeletons | High Times

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    Researchers in Italy have found evidence that cannabis was used by residents of Milan hundreds of years ago by studying bones from a 17th-century cemetery. In a report on the research, the scientists surmise that weed was likely used recreationally, noting that hospital records from the time do not include cannabis in an inventory of medicinal plants used in Milan in the 1600s.

    Medical records from the Middle Ages show that cannabis was used in Europe as an anesthetic and as a treatment for gout, urinary infections and other medical conditions. But in 1484, cannabis was banned in what is now Italy by a decree issued by Pope Innocent VIII. In it, the pope referred to cannabis as an “unholy sacrament” and banned the use of the herb by all Catholics. 

    Marco Peruca, a former Italian senator and founder of Science for Democracy, led a referendum to legalize cannabis in Italy in 2021. He told reporters that the papal decree and other bans on cannabis throughout history have led to a stigma against the plant.

    “This was a plant belonging to another culture and tradition that was intertwined with religion,” said Perduca, who says it traveled centuries ago to Italy from the eastern Mediterranean.

    “So anything and everything that had to do with a non-purely Christian set of rules…was supposed to be linked with paganism and movements not only against the Church, but against the [Holy Roman] Empire.”

    Definitive evidence of the use of cannabis in what is now Italy had not been found in the centuries that followed the papal ban. That changed, however, when researchers studied the femur bones from skeletons of people who lived in 1600s Milan. The remains had been buried in the Ca’ Granda Crypt, under a church annexed to the Ospedale Maggiore, the city’s most important hospital for the poor at the time, according to a report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

    “We know that cannabis has been used in the past, but this is the first study ever to find traces of it in human bones,” said biologist and doctoral student Gaia Giordano at the University of Milan’s Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology (LABANOF) and Laboratory of Toxicological Investigation. “This is an important finding, because there are very few laboratories that can examine bones to find traces of drugs.”

    Study Investigates Historical Use of Recreational and Medicinal Plants

    The research, which was published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Archaeological Science, attempted to discover traces of plants used for medical or recreational purposes by residents of 17th-century Milan. The results of the research can help fill in the gaps in the historical records of plants used for medicinal or recreational purposes.

    “Toxicological investigations on historical and archaeological remains are rare in literature but constitute a different and potent tool for reconstructing the past, and in particular for better understanding remedies and habits of past populations,” the researchers wrote in the introduction to the study. “Archeotoxicological analyses have been performed on hair samples collected from pre-Columbian Peruvian mummies revealing the presence of cocaine or nicotine.”

    To conduct the research, scientists studied nine femur bones from the cemetery in Milan. Two of the bones, one from a woman in her 50s and another from a teenage boy, contained traces of the cannabinoids tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), direct evidence that the two people had used cannabis.

    “The results obtained on bone samples showed the presence of two molecules, Delta-9-THC and CBD, highlighting the administration of cannabis,” the researchers wrote. “These results, to the best of our knowledge, constitute the first report on the detection of cannabis in historical and archaeological human osteological remains. Indeed, according to the literature, this plant has never been detected in ancient bone samples.”

    The researchers note that the findings suggest that people of all ages and genders used cannabis at the time. An analysis of the medical records of the Ospedale Maggiore did not include cannabis among its records of healing plants used at the time, leading the researchers to conclude that cannabis was used recreationally. The researchers believe that cannabis may have been added to foods as a way to relax and escape the realities of the time.

    “Life was especially tough in Milan in the 17th century,” archaeotoxicologist Domenico di Candia, who led the study, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera. “Famine, disease, poverty and almost nonexistent hygiene were widespread.”

    Italy was a major producer of hemp for use in rope, textiles and paper for centuries. Peruca notes that the popularity of hemp in Italy throughout history makes it likely the plant was also used for its psychoactive effects.

    “People used to smoke and make ‘decotta,’ or boiled water, with all kinds of leaves, so it is very difficult to identify what was the habit back then,” Peruca said. “But because hemp was used for so many industries, it’s possible that people knew those plants could also be smoked or drunk.”

    This is not the first time the researchers have studied human remains to find evidence of historical drug use. In an earlier study, Giordano found traces of opium in cranial bones and well-preserved brain tissue.

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    A.J. Herrington

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