From Kenya, robust, mobile ‘brick’ provides internet access when the internet is down
While slimline routers and ultra-thin batteries may be suitable for urban environments where mains electricity and wifi hotspots are in abundance, it’s not the same in rural Africa. We recently covered the rough-and-ready eChaja kit, providing solar-powered device charging for remote areas, and now the BRCK aims to keep Africans connected even when the power turns off and the internet drops out. READ MORE…
Was watching this documentary, did a quick search on Gannibal and realized that May 14th, today, is the anniversary of his death.
NOTABLE AFRICANS: Major-General Abram Petrovich Gannibal, also Hannibal or Ganibal or Ibrahim Hannibal or Abram Petrov
Much of his early life is unknown but historians speculate that the most famous black figure in Russian history, who was kidnapped at the age of seven and taken to the court of the Ottoman Sultan at Constantinople, could have been from either present-day Eritrea, or Cameroon. It is also speculated that he may have spoken Kotoko, an Afro-Asiatic language spoken in West Africa.
During the year of his kidnap, the Sultan of Constantinople was either Mustafa II (reigned 1695–1703) or Ahmed III (reigned 1703–1730), and in a German biography written anonymously and informed by Gannibal’s first-hand accounts it states that, “the children of the noble families were taken to the ruler of all the Muslims, the Turkish sultan, as hostages”. These children would either be killed or sold into slavery. It is also said that Gannibal’s sister Lahan was kidnapped at the same time but died during the voyage after being brutally raped.
The following year, 1704, Gannibal was ransomed and taken to Moscow where he was adopted by Emporer Peter the Great. In 1705, Gannibal was baptized in St. Paraskeva Church in Vilnius, with Peter the Great as his godfather.
Gannibal was sent to France where he received an education in the arts, sciences and warfare. By the completion of his education in 1722, he was fluent in several languages. Whilst in France, he fought with the forces of Louis XV of France against those of Louis’ uncle Philip V of Spain and rose to the rank of captain. During this time he adopted the surname that he is known by in honor of the Carthaginian general Hannibal (Gannibal being the traditional transliteration of the name in Russian). Whilst in Paris, his biographer Hugh Barnes claims that he met and befriended Enlightenment figures such as Denis Diderot, the Baron de Montesquieu and Voltaire.
Gannibal then returned to Russia in 1722. However, in following the death of Peter the Great in 1755, Gannibal was exiled to Siberia in 1727 but was pardoned in 1730 for his skills in military engineering. Peter’s daughter Elizabeth became the new monarch in 1741 and as a result, Gannibal became a prominent figure in her court, rising to the rank of major-general and became superintendent of Reval from 1742 to 1752.
Gannibal married twice. His first wife was Evdokia Dioper, a Greek woman. The couple married in 1731 and had one daughter. Unfortunately Dioper despised her husband, whom she was forced to marry. When Gannibal found out that she had been unfaithful to him, he had her arrested and thrown into prison, where she spent eleven years living in terrible conditions. Gannibal began living with another woman, Christina Regina Siöberg (1705–1781), daughter of Mattias Johan Siöberg and wife Christina Elisabeth d’Albedyll, and married her bigamously in Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia), in 1736, a year after the birth of their first child and while he was still lawfully married to his first wife. His divorce from Dioper did not become final until 1753, upon which a fine and a penance were imposed on Gannibal, and Dioper was sent to a convent for the rest of her life. Gannibal’s second marriage was nevertheless deemed lawful after his divorce.
On her paternal side, Gannibal’s second wife was descended from noble families in Scandinavia and Germany: Siöberg (Sweden), Galtung (Norway) and Grabow (Denmark and Brandenburg).Her paternal grandfather was Gustaf Siöberg, Rittmester til Estrup, who died in 1694, whose wife Clara Maria Lauritzdatter Galtung (ca. 1651–1698) was the daughter of Lauritz Lauritzson Galtung (ca. 1615–1661) and of Barbara Grabow til Pederstrup (1631–1696). Abram Gannibal and Christina Regina Siöberg had ten children, including a son, Osip. Osip in turn would have a daughter, Nadezhda, the mother of Aleksandr Pushkin. Gannibal’s oldest son, Ivan, became an accomplished naval officer who helped found the city of Kherson in 1779 and attained the rank of General-in-Chief, the second highest military rank in imperial Russia.
Some British aristocrats descend from Gannibal, including Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster and her sister, Alexandra Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn. George Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, is also a direct descendant, as the grandson of Nadejda Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven.
Harry Belafonte is photographed receiving an award along side baseball great Jackie Robinson. Congrats to The Jackie Robinson biopic ‘42’ beating all expectations at the box office. View the entire EBONY Collection at EBONY.com/store
We live in a society where romantic love is idealized: if we search long enough, we will find “the one,” the soulmate who is perfect for us, who will grow and change at the exact same rate we do, who loves us exactly as we are and never expects us to change, who always wants us sexually, never has bad breath or gets grouchy, and is perfectly desirable in every way. We expect our partner to fully meet us on an intellectual, physical, sexual, and spiritual basis; to be our lover, best friend, a companion, confidante, confessor, therapist, and family, all rolled into one. This sets up monumental expectations which all of us invariably fall short of.Laura Davis in Allies in Healing
Song: “Love Is Everything” by Jane Siberry
A Nubian queen or princess from Meroë. By contrast with Egyptian art, in which women are portrayed as stereotypically slender, Nubian royal women are given a bit of gravitas. :)
ملكة أو أميرة نوبية من مملكة مروا القديمة، بخلاف الفن المصري القديم الذي صور المرأة بشكل نمطي نحيل، الا ان هذه الاميرة مختلفة عن هذا النمط
Treehouse Community
Finca Bellavista (FBV) is a sustainable treehouse community situated on 600 acres of land in the mountainous South Pacific coastal region of Costa Rica. FBV is the brainchild of Mateo and Erica Hogan, a married couple from Colorado who fell in love with Costa Rica.
