The last issue of the Washington Evening Star graced the doorsteps of Washingtonians on August 7, 1981. The newspaper, which operated from 1852 to 1981, captured the highs and lows of Washington D.C. https://t.co/GK9sQXMErQ The last issue of the Washington Evening Star grace…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 23, 2022
Dr. Anna J Cooper was a legendary educator in Washington D.C. She encouraged Black students to pursue education, paying particular attention to young Black women, who she encouraged to pursue whatever they set their minds to. https://t.co/4vNiS5nXVD Dr. Anna J Cooper was a l…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 23, 2022
Julia Child, a woman who many look up to for her cooking expertise, actually got her start in Washington D.C. where she was part of intelligence during World War II. https://t.co/34wu2MPkK8 Julia Child, a woman who many look up to for her cooking expertise, actually got her …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 23, 2022
On July 23, 1942, a friendly music battle between jazz musicians Louis Armstrong and Charlie Barnet at Griffith Stadium ended after crowds continuously surged onto the baseball diamond, resulting in minor injuries. https://t.co/34wu2MPkK8 On July 23, 1942, a friendly music b…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 23, 2022
A magnificent statue to Ulysses S. Grant stands in front of Union Square, memorializing not just the general but also the sculpture artist who gave his life to making sure the monument was perfect: Henry Shrady. https://t.co/aw6bJLbGf5 A magnificent statue to Ulysses S. Gran…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 23, 2022
Today in History - July 23 https://t.co/D5NBbWirXc On July 23, 1904, according to some accounts, Charles E. Menches conceived the idea of filling a pastry cone with two scoops of ice cream and thereby invented the ice cream cone. Continue reading. Roman Catholic Cardinal J…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 23, 2022
Pierre L'Enfant, known for designing the city we know as Washington D.C., was actually a nightmare to work with. His unwillingness to compromise led him to eventually getting fired. https://t.co/j7AjG4S8YE Pierre L'Enfant, known for designing the city we know as Washington D…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 22, 2022
Have you ever wondered what life was like during the WWII rationing period in the U.S.? This well-researched historical fiction piece follows the life of a middle-aged white mother and her two children as they face the realities of a wartime economy. https://t.co/7lWKJ5R609 …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 22, 2022
Founded in 1976, GALA Hispanic Theatre is the National Center of Hispanic Performing Arts and has presented the diverse cultures of Latin America and Spain on the stage for decades. https://t.co/5yLcLWbayy Founded in 1976, GALA Hispanic Theatre is the National Center of Hisp…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 22, 2022
Have a look at this early map of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, published in Paris in the late 18th century. The area was dominated by the French at the time, as Louisiana did not join the United States until the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Check it out: https://t.co/9IlxKl4nR1 …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 22, 2022
50 Years of Landsat via NASA https://t.co/OqcEjricxP https://t.co/6j8Hjk729y
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 22, 2022
Phones are an important part of everyday life, yet they may have developed very differently without the work of Alexander Graham Bell and his lab assistant Charles Sumner Tainter on the photophone in D.C. https://t.co/2icDRbjNx3 Phones are an important part of everyday life,…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 22, 2022
Today in History - July 22 https://t.co/bPAXjaU3oA On July 22, 1796, a party of surveyors commissioned by General Moses Cleaveland arrived at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, believing it to be an ideal location for a new town—Cleaveland, Ohio. Continue reading. Sculptor Al…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 22, 2022
Here are five standout pieces we read this week. You can always visit our editors’ picks or our Twitter feed to see what other recommendations you may have missed.
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Benjamin Wofford | WIRED | July 14th, 2022 | 5,000 words
A business feature that doubles as a horror story, Benjamin Wofford’s chilling piece could be the premise for a Black Mirror episode. Wofford profiles Urban Legend, a tech startup that has built “the Exchange,” an interface connecting advertisers looking to promote political ideologies with influencers ready to peddle for a price. Urban Legend’s CEO, Ory Rinat, who previously worked in the Trump White House, and his colleagues like to talk about trust, authenticity, and empowerment, but as Wofford skillfully shows, there’s no heart to their business model — there’s only a black hole, a moral vacuum. The dread of it all crept up on me as I read, which is a testament to the writing. Now excuse me while I go scream into the abyss. —SD
Josh Dzieza | The Verge | July 20th, 2022 | 5,091 words
Could artificial intelligence help you write your next novel? Josh Dzieza dives into the world of AI-assisted genre fiction, and how independent authors are experimenting with tools powered by GPT-3 to write stories faster. Dzieza recounts Kindle novelist Jennifer Lepp’s experience with one such tool, Sudowrite, which, at first, generates strange and hilarious output. Eventually, as Lepp learns how to control the software’s quirks, she gets results that are more promising. But they are unsettling, too: When Lepp gives a finished chapter to her husband to read, he isn’t able to distinguish between her voice and the machine’s. Dzieza also talks with authors who view AI as a welcome disruption to the field, such as Joanna Penn, who envisions a future where writers will be left behind if they don’t embrace the technology. This is a fascinating read that explores ethics, creativity, and authorship, and is a complement to the stories in our reading list on the future of machine-written prose. I love the playful article design, too. —CLR
Evan Osnos | The New Yorker | July 18th, 2022 | 10,000 words
Inflation. Pandemic. Recession. Yet, since 2020, 573 more people have become billionaires — and the tres-comas club has seen its aggregate worth balloon by nearly $4 trillion. What do you do with all that money? Easy. You spend it on reminding people, as one interviewee memorably relates in this piece, that “I am in a different fucking category than you.” In this case, that means multi-hundred-foot, multi-hundred-million-dollar superyachts, the world of which Evan Osnos excavates over (exactly) 10,000 deliciously arch words. These aren’t just phallic manifestations of mind-boggling wealth. With their onboard IMAX theaters and 50-person staffs, they’re manifestations of the one thing their owners want desperately but can’t quite attain on land: absolute sovereignty. But while you and I and the rest of the hoi polloi might be seen as “ineligible visitors” to this ionosphere of luxury, that doesn’t mean that you’re not in for one hell of a read. —PR
Alice Wong and Ed Yong | Orion Magazine | July 12th, 2022 | 3,948 words
Are you as excited as I am to see these names side by side? Here, Wong and Yong engage in a wonderful conversation that celebrates the strange and unpredictable in nature and fosters empathy for all creatures. They discuss Yong’s books, the incredible senses of other organisms, and, in turn, the limits of our understanding for how rich and diverse the natural world really is. (I love the bit where Yong compares his dog going on a walk to sniff and pee on things as the pup’s version of checking his social media for the day.) As you’d expect, their dialogue is delightful and accessible, thanks to Wong’s ability to open people’s eyes to experiences that are not their own and Yong’s knack for explaining scientific and biological concepts in plain language. What a treat to read. —CLR
Dan Kois (and Other Contributors) | Slate | July 20th, 2022 | 8,250 words
This list is so damn fun. Starting in 431 B.C. and progressing chronologically, it levels the cultural playing field, quoting passages from Beowulf and Macbeth while also reveling in the transgressive lyrics of “Goodbye Earl.” It reminded me of at least one brilliant cinematic death that I’d somehow forgotten — before using an inhaler, make sure it’s not a gun! — and made me tear up at its description of a groundbreaking storyline in Doonesbury. Like all the best GOAT lists, it also made me consider what I would include: one of the gruesome deaths in The Omen, Mr. Jingles’ demise and resurrection in The Green Mile, Alec’s murder in Tess of the D’Urbervilles (ooooh — or the raising of the black flag at the end!?). “We’ve made this list during a pandemic, as real-life death has stalked us all, more tangible than ever,” Dan Kois writes. “One of the many things art can do is to help us navigate the pitfalls of life, and there’s no deeper pitfall than the final one.” —SD
Happy birthday to the late Robin Williams! Did you know that Williams once surprised audience and performers at DC Improv by showing up to give a surprise set the day before he was supposed to perform at a Democratic party fundraiser? https://t.co/Ym2mScWMnv Happy birthday t…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 21, 2022
A vintage 1918 streetcar, now in the collection of the National Capital Trolley Museum, turns the corner at 36th and P Streets NW in Georgetown on a fan trip in the 1950s. https://t.co/68gKTrnDIN A vintage 1918 streetcar, now in the collection of the National Capital Trolley M…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 21, 2022
#TBT to the 1973 Chinese American Summer Festival celebrating the community in DC. This banner hung above H and 7th Streets NW, just a few blocks away from the DC History Center. 📷 Banner announcing the Chinese American Summer Festival. Pete Copeland, CHN 049. …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 21, 2022
Rose O'Neal Greenhow, a Confederate sympathizer, operated a moderate spy ring from her house in Washington D.C. during the Civil War, only to get caught and have her home turned into a Union Prison for other alleged Confederate spies. https://t.co/WQKR9hhJ2k Rose O'Neal Gree…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 21, 2022
It's CERTAIN via NASA https://t.co/p3xFZL5aBp https://t.co/0ITUjBFO14
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 21, 2022
Take a look at this map of the Russian Empire from 1890 featuring the location of precious metals. The map indicates regions that produced gold, silver, and platinum. Zoom in here: https://t.co/a8QMppf6Cg https://t.co/SdH6e8Dzkd Take a look at this map of the Russian Empire f…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 21, 2022
During the Civil War, two photographers had their own internal conflict. Matthew Brady and Alexander competed for the top spot in the Washington D.C. photography scene. https://t.co/OHLyNURXKj During the Civil War, two photographers had their own internal conflict. Matthew B…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 21, 2022
Today in History - July 21 https://t.co/00UfweskLC On July 21, 1861, a dry summer Sunday, Union and Confederate troops clashed outside Manassas, Virginia, in the first major engagement of the Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run. Continue reading. On July 21, 1899, Dr. C…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 21, 2022
As host of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, Brendan O’Meara is no stranger to talking about the art and craft of storytelling. In this craft-focused excerpt, we’re digging into Episode 323, in which he interviewed Atavist editor Jonah Ogles and writers Leigh Baldwin and Sean Williams about their work on the latest issue of The Atavist.
Leigh Baldwin lives in London. Sean Williams lives in Berlin. Together, they co-wrote the latest issue of The Atavist with “Follow the Leader,” a piece about Rainer Sonntag, who helped fuel a neo-Nazi movement that still plagues Germany to this day. Sonntag also was a Communist spy, and you may be familiar with the young KGB upstart he reported to: a man named Vladimir Putin.
It would be a challenging story to tackle for a single reporter, but two reporters come with their own challenges. Did there ever come a point when there were too many cooks in the kitchen? How did they keep it all straight?
“Did we keep things straight and easy, Leigh?” asked Sean. “I’m not sure we managed to do it so well. But we tried.”
“You’re moving pieces of information around, trying to contract them into a coherent narrative — and then it’s really hard to keep track of footnotes, references, cross-references,” Leigh replied. “However well you try to keep track of it as you go along, there’s always a fairly horrible process at the end, where you’re racking your brains thinking, I know I read this somewhere. But where did I get this from? Or which interview did this fact come from?”
Jonah Ogles, the lead editor for this piece, spoke about fact-checking — that “fairly horrible process at the end” — and how writers can make that process far more seamless for the editor and researcher who are ensuring the piece is airtight and ready for publication. The key, he said in no uncertain terms, is annotation. Not only does it make the writer’s work more organized during the writing process, but it gives the fact-checker the best possible resources to work from.
For those looking to do ambitious reporting and collaborative journalism, Jonah, Leigh, and Sean give you tremendous insights into what it takes — and how they pulled off this heavyweight of a feature. Please enjoy this excerpt below, and listen to the full episode for more.
These interviews have been edited for clarity and concision.
* * *
Brendan O’Meara: There’s a lot going on in this story, Jonah.
Jonah Ogles: This was one of those pitches that checked every box: It had twists and turns, and a sadly timely hook to it, which is rare for us. Leigh and Sean had the goods when it came to source material — this unbelievable story that almost no one has heard of.
There were two timely elements to it. There’s the craven ambition of Putin, but also this idea of how far-right extremism, as much as you want to believe that it’s gone, is very much prevalent. Even though this takes place in Germany, we’re seeing it here in the United States, and I felt that pulse throughout this whole piece.
You could set this in various places in history, various points in time, where, yeah, all of these factors sort of come together to create the right conditions for, you know, for people with this really hateful ideology to basically exploit the conditions for their own personal gratification and, you know, glory — it’s a dark piece.
What becomes the challenge on your end when you’re working with two reporters?
It’s a different thing. This isn’t the first dual byline piece that I’ve worked on. It’s a little bit harder, I think, because they’re each bringing a different thing to the story; one person may be better versed in the documents and the other person might have a little more experience writing deep scenery of the type that we like. It requires more patience, and more back-and-forth between all parties to make sure everything is coming together. It also means that there’s another person with their own schedule, their own timing. So, in my experience, these pieces tend to move along a little bit more slowly than other pieces. But the benefit is that you have three sets of eyes looking at it — finding weaknesses, trying to push it forward.
What’s the process by which you really started to hammer it home? “Okay, this is how we’re gonna start tying these threads together in a better way so we can stick the landing.”
When I was at Outside, I was a fact-checker on a handful of stories that had two writers. And, we would reach a point where the easy thing to slip into as a writer can be like, “Oh, well, that’s Jonah’s thing to deal with over there, and so what do I care if he’s not doing it on time?” But somebody has to care that it’s getting done on time. I would guess that stories with two bylines end up being stories where the editor has to take a larger role in getting things done, and making sure that the writers aren’t just waiting for the other one to do something. To Sean and Leigh’s credit, they were always really responsive, and communication was about as seamless as it can be with two writers working on something. I assumed they were buddies, but it turns out they were in different countries — and I never would have known because they were really on top of answering emails and hitting deadlines.
What can reporters do on a story of this nature to make the fact-checking easier if they’re not well-versed in helping that side of the table?
This is a great question, and the answer is actually really easy: It’s just annotation. As thorough an annotation as you can give them. If you have a transcript, and there’s a quote, just go ahead and put the minute and second timestamp in there. If you’re quoting from a book, put the page number in there. You’re less likely to make mistakes as a writer when you do that. I’ve had stories that have just fallen apart in fact-check, but then I’ve had stories that just sailed through — and the ones that sailed through was because it’s annotated. As the writer was annotating, they just kept double-checking themselves: Oops, I got this quote a little bit wrong; or oh, hey, that’s not what this says. It just makes a fact-checker’s life so much easier. [Sean and Leigh] did a pretty good job of that, because they had a lot of source material — hundreds of pages of historical documents.
If you don’t have an annotated draft, a fact-checker is sitting there reading hundreds of pages of documents. When I was a fact-checker, I would have to read through everything just to get familiar with it, and then read it all again in order to find the actual material that I was looking for. So when you annotate, you remove that from the equation — you give that checker the ability to make sure that you got the right facts from the source material. But it also gives them time to step back and look into other stuff, look into sources that maybe the writer didn’t refer to in their reporting, and say, “Hey, are we characterizing the rise of neo-Nazism in West Germany properly?” When you have a fact-checker who has the time and energy to do that extra legwork for a piece, that will only make a piece better.
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And at the very end, when you’re ready to send it to the press, as it were, that’s when you can remove all the annotation, so it becomes reader-friendly.
Exactly. From a reader standpoint, this isn’t an academic journal, though it’s sort of sourced like one. This is a true story, but we want it to be immersive and to suck readers in, and 200 footnotes probably get in the way of that.
Years ago, I used to admire the footnotes of David Foster Wallace or Chuck Klosterman. Over the years, though, if I see a footnote, I’m like, “Oh, God, if it’s not good enough to be in the main body of text, I don’t care what funny aside you think is happening, it takes me totally out of the piece.” I hate them now.
Chris Keyes at Outside once gave me a note on a story I was editing. He was like, “Parentheses are a signal to me that the writer and editor haven’t figured out where to put this piece of information yet.” I don’t think it’s a hard and fast truth; sometimes it’s impossible to avoid. But it’s a really good practice for me as an editor to identify a footnote or a parenthetical and say, “Okay, here’s the thing that isn’t contained within the flow of the story. How do I get it in the flow of the story?”
Why don’t we start off by you both giving me a sense of how you arrived at this story?
Leigh Baldwin: I run a small nonprofit newsroom in London called Source Material. And well, just rooting around looking at things, I came across an old story from 2015 by a German outlet about Putin’s early years when he was a KGB officer in Dresden in East Germany. There were a couple of lines in the piece buried a long way down, about the fact that one of the agents he recruited — or was recruited on his behalf — was a neo-Nazi called Rainer Sonntag. No one else seemed to have really noticed because it was a long piece, focusing mostly on other aspects of Putin’s life, which were also very interesting.
When I mentioned it to people, no one seemed to know. So I became slightly obsessed, [but] didn’t have the opportunity to do anything until I got to go to Dresden and spend a few days in the city archives, digging through all the court records from the case surrounding Sonntag’s eventual shooting in 1991. And what I stumbled upon was a mine of massive forensic detail. So we could reconstruct, second by second almost, the moments of his death. There were forensic photos of his body, there were witness statements from all angles of the scene. And there was a wealth of background material. So the next step was to get the Stasi archives; that whole process took six months. By that time, we were deep into the pandemic and other things were getting in the way, and I put the story on the back burner. And then Source Material did a story for a news organization called Tortoise in London, and it happened that Sean did a story for them about East German neo-Nazis. I thought, wow, this could be the perfect person to help this story finally make it.
Sean Williams: I’d also done a story for GQ the summer before about [Germany’s COVID] protests, and it was kind of a crazy situation. I was thinking, “Maybe I could do something a little nicer about Germany for once.” But then Leigh called me in and I thought, “Why not? Let’s just jump into neo-Nazism again, that can be a beat for a while.”
For journalists like you who have covered extremism and hate groups, how is it that you don’t get pulled into the mud?
Williams: You have to kind of see the progress that’s been made, in some ways. The story that we did for The Atavist shows that this was something that was being manipulated by different forces all through the Cold War. But now it’s a different matter. There is a far right [in Germany], of course — we’ve spoken to many members of its scene — but it’s small. And I think we’re making progress. That’s why I’d like to believe we’re on an upward trajectory. I mean, we can’t get any worse than back in those days. Some very general sense of things getting better; that’ll keep me going.
Baldwin: For me, there was a sense that the characters were so fascinating. You have Rainer Sonntag; when you see footage or photos of him, he’s always got this slight smirk on his face. Even when he’s trying to give a really serious Nazi propaganda speech, he can’t stop breaking out into laughter. And so all these characters are a massive contradiction. The main Nazi leader in West Germany to whom Sonntag attached himself, Michael Kühnen, came out as gay in 1986. That split the neo-Nazi movement in West Germany down the middle, and suddenly it was divided into — well, almost the gay Nazis and the straight Nazis, the ones who supported Kühnen and still and the ones who didn’t. All these microcosms of strange politics were really, really fascinating. And I think those storylines keep you focused rather than being dragged down into a swamp of misery and pessimism.
Leigh, you said something earlier about stumbling on a few lines buried in a piece; so often, these longform stories come from people who notice a cast-off line in something else and realize there’s more there. Where do you go about panning for gold and finding ideas?
Williams: A lot of buried ledes. There’s loads of stories like the one that kicked this one off, with mad little details buried in the middle. You’re gonna pick up tons and tons of information just by reading random snippets on any kind of topic. There’s another story that I’m doing for Outside right now, and it came from just watching a 10-minute YouTube video of a guy [being interviewed], and noticing that this was an interesting character.
Baldwin: When you stumble across one of these little nuggets, you sort of go through an informal testing process of bouncing it off people and seeing what they think. For me, the key test was telling colleagues in London, saying, “Did you know Putin recruited a neo-Nazi agent?” and they say, “Wow.” But the real test that we passed, I think, was when I told German journalists — people who are really steeped in German history and politics — and it still was jaw-dropping to them. Most people in Germany had no idea about this. And the fact that it had shock value and was so fascinating not just to people outside Germany, but to Germans, too, really gave me the idea that this was something worth pursuing.
When your reporting hits dead ends and there’s a lot to comb through, how do you keep persevering to find more of those things that are going to nourish the piece?
Williams: It’s keeping things clear at all times. Not just in the sense that you have a clear direction of what you want a story to be, but literally physically keeping all of your notes as clear and as well-ordered as possible. We were counting up the number of Stasi files that we went through in this piece, and it’s in the high hundreds, including all the court docs — and they’re all in very officious German. We spent a whole week together in Berlin sitting in an Airbnb and going over them.
When you have that much information, and there are all these dozens and dozens of potential witnesses and contacts, if you’ve got a bunch of garbled notes, or don’t have everything streamlined as much as you can, you’re dead in the water. It was tough enough as it was, because there were a few people that led nowhere. I went down to Langen, which is one of the main places that the Nazis tried to establish themselves in the ’80s, and knocked on a bunch of doors before I found someone who was a former leader of the movement there — and got told in no uncertain terms to go away.
That was just one of a few trips that led nowhere, but it all builds a clearer picture of where you want to focus your attention. In the end, we realized that there are a few protagonists that we really wanted to zero in on — Klaus [Zuchold, who worked with Putin to recruit agents] being the main example. Obviously, the story was always going to be about Sonntag and Putin and Kühnen, the other leader of the Nazi movement at the time. But there are a few other guys that sort of cropped up that I didn’t expect to speak to. And they turned out to be pretty amazing sources.
In the piece, you mentioned how, even in the ’80s, Putin was working to add upheaval in the West — and then even today in France and elsewhere, including the cybertactics that certainly affected elections in the United States. Where did he develop this playbook of disruption?
Baldwin: I think it’s extreme pragmatism. If you go back to the ’60s, the Communist spy agencies — the KGB and the Stasi in East Germany — had a history of stoking far-right movements and Nazism. Spraying graffiti on Jewish gravestones, for example. By the time it gets to the ’80s, the East Germans are more worried about Western neo-Nazism spreading east because it was a protest movement against the Communist regime. So they were probably less trying to stir up trouble in the East with Sonntag than using him to keep an eye on that. But the interesting thing is that they have no moral compunction about dealing with and instrumentalizing neo-Nazis. It has to be said, too, that West German intelligence services also had a lot of agents that were Nazis, and right up to the modern day had a very complicated and controversial history. So there’s pragmatism on both sides, but I think you can see that that’s the common thread that really links the Putin policy of then to the Putin policy today.
Williams: I was speaking to Anton Shekhovtsov today, an academic who’s written about Russia on the far right. He said that Putin wasn’t really an ideological Communist at all, but he was a statist. Everything was done in service to the Soviet empire, later the Russian state. And now he runs the country like a king. His sowing of chaos all over the West is to destabilize them, because Russia is not a very strong force economically, in many respects. You have to use this asymmetrical warfare to get over on your enemies — and if that means employing neo-Nazis and fascists to cause trouble wherever you want them to do so, then that’s what you’re going to do.
Given the state of journalism, and reporters often being often maligned — in the States, we hear people calling them “enemy of the people” — where is the juice for the two of you in keeping that flame alive with hard investigative work?
Baldwin: To go back to the earlier question about how to write about Nazis without being sucked in and getting miserable: One of the things about Putin’s policy now is that he very much enjoys playing the extremes in the democratic West against each other. Writing about Nazis and understanding them as an actor — not taking a side in the culture war, which has Putin laughing all the way to the Kremlin, but as journalism — is part of the democratic role. We don’t try and condemn people who voted for Trump or neo-Nazis or Brexiteers, but we try to understand them and see what makes them tick.
Williams: There’s so much disinformation pouring into people’s ears and eyes at the moment with regards to Ukraine. And I think that Russia has done a pretty decent job of muddying the waters. In Germany right now, the conversation is not about Russia pounding shopping malls and killing civilians, but about whether [Ukrainian nationalist] Stepan Bendera is a historical far-right fascist figure, and if that should make us think twice about supporting Ukrainians today. I hope that good journalism can sift through. If we can add to the conversation, and you can see straight-up that Putin has been funding the far right as far back as when he was a KGB officer, then that’s really all we can do.
How can consumers of news be more literate when it comes to credible information versus what isn’t?
Williams: Good question. Maybe switching off the TV and reading stuff will be a good start. If you read a few good sources of newspapers and magazines, if not just for the fact that you have to interact with it. Whereas with TV, you can sit back with your mouth open and take in the information. And you can certainly just scroll until you’re half-dead on Twitter.
Baldwin: Journalism is a loser’s game; we’re never going to win the battle. It’s almost like catching drug cheats in sport — the cheats are always a couple of years ahead of the enforcement authorities. All we can do is keep banging away. I don’t think the traditional model of journalism is broken. I think we need to just stick to that plodding, sometimes prosaic pursuit of the facts.
Williams: Stories have always engaged people more than anything else. And that’s why so much fake news has been effective at bypassing people’s credulity. I hope that stories like this, something longer, something a bit narrative with a protagonist that people can identify with or understand a little better, can help people connect.
When I was talking with Jonah yesterday, we got to talking about the nature of fact-checking and how to just keep track of everything and make sure that everything’s well annotated — for yourselves and for the fact-checker as well. When you’re collaborating on a piece of this nature, how are you keeping things straight and making sure that everything is attributable?
Williams: Did we keep things straight and easy, Leigh? I’m not sure we managed to do it so well. But we tried.
Baldwin: The honest answer is I’ve been doing investigations for a very long time now. You’re moving pieces of information around, trying to contract them into a coherent narrative — and then it’s really hard to keep track of footnotes, references, cross-references. However well you try to keep track of it as you go along, there’s always a fairly horrible process at the end, where you’re racking your brains thinking, I know I read this somewhere. But where did I get this from? Or which interview did this fact come from? For example, we have the Stasi files. They’re all scans; you can’t find the words in them with Ctrl-F, because they’re not easily machine-readable. So you just have to hunt through these hundreds of pages until you find the obscure fact that you’re looking for. And the fact process was extremely time-consuming. But I found over the years that there aren’t really any shortcuts for that type of thing.
Williams: It’s sort of a double-edged sword when you’re working as a pair, right? Because in one way you can divvy up the work; you can take your own turf, and trust the other guy that they’re going to know what they’re doing. But when it comes to the fact-check, and you’re cross-referencing things that one of you or the other might have found, it can tie you in knots. In some cases, certainly, there were certainly parts of the story that I sort of took over. And there were parts of the story that Leigh had complete control over. And when it came to putting everything together, it worked really well in pretty much every way. But when it comes to that back end, and putting all the notes into the coherent spots, and making sure everything’s clear, that can become an extra challenge.
That segues beautifully into one of the last things I want to talk about with you: the nature of collaboration on a story of this nature, which is so, so big. It’s undoubtedly a challenge when you’re composing because everyone has their own writing style, but in the end, you need something cohesive. How did you riff off of each other, and how did you create a common vision?
Baldwin: What was apparent from the outset is that Sean and I had a very similar vision of what we wanted to do. We saw a story that was full of wonderful narratives, wonderful drama, and incredible forensic detail of Sonntag’s death. We also had years and years of Stasi documents where the secret police were invading every aspect of his life: sending agents to hang around in the corridor outside his house, spying on him when he’s drinking in the pub, getting his school reports and his teachers, talking to his colleagues.
Incidentally, I found that harder than writing about the Nazis. When you first get your hands on these Stasi documents, you sort of feel like Howard Carter blowing the dust off the sarcophagus and you dive in. But very quickly, you become aware of how banal it is and how invasive it is. I found it quite uncomfortable having this voyeuristic position, into all the private, most private banal details of someone’s life. But what we had from those documents was this very compelling narrative. And I think we both very quickly had the same vision of how we wanted it to go.
Williams: Another thing about working as a pair: It made interviews with some of these ex-officials and spies a human experience. Double-team interviewing a former Stasi agent in a Greek restaurant outside of a German city while drinking beer and Schnapps? That’s a good, fun journalistic experience. I guess we were lucky because we hadn’t worked on a piece before, and it came together really nicely. I think that we were able to really find our own individual place within this pairing that we had.
I always like to ask for a recommendation of some kind, and the bonus of this one is that we get to get two from each of you guys. Sean, we can start with you — what might you recommend out there for the listeners, professional or personal or whatever?
Williams: Through doing this reporting on Cold War Germany, I got obsessed for quite a while with Len Deighton novels, and was pressing to stick these really cheesy Len Deighton-ish lines into the story as if we were writing Berlin Game or one of his other novels. So I would say anyone wanting to have fun with an incredibly witty spy novel, you should read Len Deighton.
And secondly, with this and other recent projects that I’ve done, I’ve found that I’m increasingly relying on listening to my stories — getting a friend or my long-suffering partner to record herself reading the story, so I can take the dog for a walk and listen to that. I find that that’s a lot easier for picking apart structure. I don’t know how good those text-to-speech programs are, but they certainly aren’t as good as a friend of yours. So, yeah, that’s my recommendation.
Baldwin: A lot of my research was punctuated by the soundtrack of Germany in the 1980s. There was also a wonderful book that I read quite late in the reporting process, but we quoted in the piece: Stasiland by Anna Funder, an Australian journalist who spent a lot of time in the former East Germany after the fall of the [Berlin] Wall. It’s a book about the Stasi, but through the eyes of ordinary people, and about their experience of living under the most oppressive surveillance regime that ever existed.
Williams: If we can get people listening to German New Wave stuff from the ’80s after this project, then that’s a win, because that stuff is awesome.
Read “Follow the Leader” at The Atavist now
Tragedy struck Washington in 1919 when a white woman falsely accused two Black men of attacking her. Though there was no proof to her claim, her words incited a devastating riot, one of the many that took place across the United States during "Red Summer." …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 20, 2022
This day in history, astronaut Neil Armstrong spoke into reality the words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Read all about what was going on in the White House on this day in 1969. https://t.co/JQCFHyCK7C This day in history, astronaut Neil Armst…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 20, 2022
There’s a lot of action taking place on the Thames in this 1740 map of London, England. The map includes a bird’s eye glimpse of the city with various buildings labeled. Explore this map: https://t.co/Z0jvmVg9Kg https://t.co/FjnySEq6Uk There’s a lot of action taking place on …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 20, 2022
The Old Stone House, at 3051 M Street, NW, in Georgetown, was never George Washington's headquarters, although that bit of misinformation probably saved it from destruction. A brief history of the NPS site is at https://t.co/s1E6lR0pcy https://t.co/X1ntODbaNw The Old Stone Ho…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 20, 2022
Apollo 11 Crew Trains for Excursion on the Sea of Tranquility via NASA https://t.co/eb0hSSDh5K https://t.co/LNZC1Z22Vh
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 20, 2022
Apollo 11 is arguably one of the most memorable space missions of all time. But did you know that work at the Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Maryland was crucial to the missions success? https://t.co/49n1cZRBiU Apollo 11 is arguably one of the most memorable space missio…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 20, 2022
Today in History - July 20 https://t.co/eyIRvhaC3i On July 20, 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention convened for a second day. Continue reading. On July 20, 1970, the six story tin-clad novelty building known as Lucy the Elephant was moved two blocks down the street to its cur…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 20, 2022
Quote of the Day: "We all have ability. The difference is how we use it." - Charlotte Whitton
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 20, 2022
Enjoy this colorful and detailed map of Nova Scotia and surrounding islands from 1768! St. John's Island, shown here with parish boundaries, would be renamed Prince Edward Island in 1798. Explore the map here: https://t.co/ZsPn8EmNdQ https://t.co/KKt8iOsYse Enjoy this colorful…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 19, 2022
A Supernova's Shockwaves via NASA https://t.co/EvETRsF2TI https://t.co/5TcuayeMjM
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 19, 2022
This map from around 1920 features Central America and an inset of Panama. If you look closely you’ll find the Panama Canal Zone which was under complete US jurisdiction until 1979. Take a look: https://t.co/c920bkfXrr https://t.co/LkOVr8C4hP This map from around 1920 feature…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 19, 2022
Did you know that for a short period of time, the Tidal Basin was open as a beach during the 1920s? Though the beach was not accessible to all Washingtonians, it certainly is a fun fact to keep in mind the next time you stroll along the Tidal Basin. https://t.co/gsjzlyqNfv D…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 19, 2022
Preservationists say Library of Congress makeover plan is ‘vandalism’ https://t.co/2RzsbKea1t Preservationists say Library of Congress makeover plan is ‘vandalism’ https://t.co/2RzsbKea1t — Streets of Washington (@StreetsOfDC) Jul 19, 2022
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 19, 2022
Today in History - July 19 https://t.co/aIWmTm7Wbl On July 19, 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention convened. Heralded as the first American women’s rights convention, the two-day event was held in the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York. Continue reading. On July 19, 18…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 19, 2022
Keshia Naurana Badalge | Longreads | July 2022 | 10 minutes (3, 285words)
For each year that I move around the sun, my sister ages seven times as much. The odds are in my favor that even though we grew up together, I will experience her tail end before mine ever comes.
It was a Saturday in June, one year ago, when I got the news. My partner and I were living in Bakoven, a spot in Cape Town at the confluence of mountains and ocean. In the mornings, sunlight would sift in through our front windows, mirroring the milky gold of the Atlantic, while fog from Table Mountain foamed against our back doors. Our home stood so steadfast amid the dramas of the surrounding landscape, so unassuming, it occurred to me it looked like a storybook portal between worlds — wrapped in bliss, buffered from trouble.
Stepping out of my morning shower and into a cloud of hot condensation that day, I was struck by how Florian stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, regarding me with pause. He pressed me into a chair like I was porcelain, and I watched the movement of his lips as he relayed a message from my family in Singapore: Shandi has cancer. Hemangiosarcoma. She has one or two months more.
I remember only how he held his breath, waiting for me to say something. I told him I had to go.
***
The story of my sister and I began in Singapore, in September, 14 years ago. My father had left home for a lady he’d been secretly keeping, and my mother was single-minded about finding a pet to plug the hole he’d left. Let’s call him Albert, or Swarna, she had said, planning for a male dog to take one of my father’s names.
We went to a dilapidated white shack on the outskirts of town to look for my father’s replacement. It was overrun with animals: creatures trampling over each other, tossing and tumbling, making sounds like feral pigs. To the side, a single golden ball of fur sat up and looked at us, quiet and alone, bright and sweet as a sunflower.
She was the runt of the litter, separated from her siblings because they had stepped on her, bitten her, and eaten all her food, we were told by the farm owner. Moved by her circumstance — perhaps because we likened it to our own sense of being downtrodden at that time — we decided to take her home. We named her Shandi in the end, after a Jolly Shandy advertisement on a bus that passed us on the way. We changed the “y” to an “i” for cuteness.
Shandi and I belonged to each other from then on. My years in Singapore coalesced around her. She was the one safe thing I knew. We slept on the same bed, ate the same food, and lived with the same stomping, screaming, tired woman who made rules for how we were to behave and punished us when we broke them. Around us, a carousel of maids flitted in and out, like moths to a flame. The woman who regarded herself as our mother is my biological mother. My sister’s true heritage is more of a mystery: All I knew was that she hailed from Australia. Later, a DNA test let me know that she’s a quarter Labrador, three quarters golden retriever.
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When I received her prognosis that day in South Africa, it would take me 19 hours on a plane, and a three-week quarantine in a hotel before I would be able to see her again. I worried I would not make it in time, and when I imagined a world where she was no longer, I wet Florian’s lap with tears.
Let’s write her a message in a bottle, he said, as he stroked my hair. Tell her you’ll be there for her.
Florian shepherded me out of the house and into his car so he could drive us down Chapman’s Peak, a classic scenic route in Cape Town. We stopped to pick up one glass bottle, one pink card, and one set of colorful markers. In the car, we took turns writing letters to Shandi and pressing the notes through the narrow glass neck. Then, with a running start and a determined leap, Florian threw the bottle of wishes over the precipice.
I held him by the waist as we watched the waves beat one, two, three, four. Let’s get married, I said. I always wanted my sister to be at my wedding, walking me down the aisle.
Sisters have the greatest of loves, the closest of relationships: They give each other self-esteem and keep family ties alive. With who else do you share a mother, a home, an upbringing, secrets? The sister relationship is supposed to be the longest-lasting, longer than the time with our parents, the years with our spouses.
There’s some dogs who become good at truffle hunting, guarding property, guiding the blind, or easing the ill. And then there’s Shandi, who was naturally, simply, good at the thing I needed most: being my sister.
It was impossible to think of how I could face a world without the only family member that was really there, unwavering, no matter the circumstance. Ever present for me to hold, to play with, to breathe into. Both of us were girls with a penchant for Teresa Teng songs, tuna and bread, and the smell of wet grass. We were eager to please, so quick to acquiesce. She grew up fast and we entered our teenage years at the same time. We went on adventures to the mall and to the park, chasing boys and soccer balls. When I was with her, the world — which had previously been impervious to me, like a clenched fist — opened up to us. People waved and smiled, and I would wave and smile back, and Shandi would greet them with a nuzzle and dance circles around their feet. Days were gentler with her by my side, filled with sunshine and snacks and song.
She loved outings, new places, and open spaces. In these moments her ears would hike up, her feet would tippy-tap, and her whole presence would lift as if she had swallowed the moon. She would make the most joyous puppy sound, ringing from the insides: hnnng, hnnng, hnnng.
At our childhood house, she often retreated under furniture and stayed there, quiet. Ours was a family prone to loud noises, overturned tables, a phone thrown against the wall, people being hit. Here I devised an addition to the three instinctual reactions when in crisis (fight, freeze and flight): go to sister and hold her tight. She was the one I would look for, to lean my ear against her beating heart, or press my face into her butter-soft belly — an ostrich hiding in fur. We were good at playing dead together, two girly lumps in a corner, pretending to sleep, counting the moments, waiting for time to pass. How many times I’ve listened to her heartbeat to drown out painful sounds, to tide through tense times. One, two, three, four.
We slept on the same bed, ate the same food, and lived with the same stomping, screaming, tired woman who made rules for how we were to behave and punished us when we broke them.
Her capacity for love was endless, and she was a refuge for others, too. In a house of few reprieves, small moments of humanity happened with Shandi. Every fifth household in Singapore employs a live-in foreign domestic worker. It’s common to have help, and maids are allowed a day off a week, but my mother’s maids worked round-the-clock. Accused of doing their tasks poorly, they were continually made to labor harder, longer, and without rest. With errands teeming to be completed day after day there was no time for them to leave the house, my mother insisted.
These women quickly learned my sister offered one of the scarce chances they had to be free from my mother’s watchful eye. In Shandi’s routine walks, our maids got to walk on grass, talk to fellow dog walkers, wave to babies, laugh, make jokes, and look at the sky. They got to be human. Walking with Shandi gave them a small semblance of normality, a narrow view of the world outside of our cramped apartment. I’d like to think it emboldened some of them to seek work with more peaceful homes.
When I was awarded a scholarship to study in America — the only way I could put myself through school — it was my chance to leave, too. It was an opportunity for a new start, away from the harshness of the home I knew, and it came with a cruel condition: I had to leave Shandi behind.
There is no easy way to express how much it pained me to leave my sister — a sister who I had previously spent every night dreaming with, holding her paw; a sister who can’t video call, send letters, or visit. The last photo I have before leaving for the airport that year, 10 years ago, is of me draped over my sister’s chest, kneeling on the grass, eyes red with tears. I left her a well-worn hoodie of mine, hoping she would at least have my smell. I didn’t know how to leave enough of my love to withstand the rest of the years.
During my time living abroad, I made a Tumblr account named after my sister, to serve as her proxy. I blogged in secret, writing private letters addressed to her. I made an email account with her name. When I missed her, when I longed for her softness, her warmth, her smell, I wrote. I described snow, heartbreak, and American slang. I told her how much I wished she could be here; how much I wanted to take her roaming around the forests of New Hampshire. I missed her breath, her wet nose, her ears like velour.
I told her my dreams, dreams that were so out of reach that I was too embarrassed to tell anyone else. I imagined her receiving them, listening calmly, extending her paw.
Tapped as the stand-in for my father from the time she joined the family, I always knew that when the time came, she would be the one to walk me down the aisle. On Sunday, the day after we received the news, Florian proposed to me on a beach in Scarborough. He had the ring the whole time, he told me, preparing for the right romantic moment. What was a matter of timing became a matter of prudence. I put the ring on, packed my side of our Cape Town apartment, and departed for Singapore four days later.
Let’s get married, I said. I always wanted my sister to be at my wedding, walking me down the aisle.
When I think of Shandi in Singapore all those years, I imagine a sad and lonely existence, of how the people around her failed to pay attention. From the time Shandi came to our family, she was beleaguered with troubles. Early on in her life, my mother — a first-time dog owner — clipped my sister’s nails to half of their length. (She didn’t know to look for the quick.) Frustrated with the bloody mess on her floor, she relegated Shandi to the back kitchen and went to bed. I remember wrapping my sister’s toe with flour and kitchen napkins, and when the bleeding continued, I called an emergency vet, who instructed me to take her in.
“I’m 14,” I told them, “I can’t drive.”
“What about your parents?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I mumbled something about it being fine — to assure them, or myself, I can’t tell the difference. I stayed with Shandi on the kitchen floor, clutching her crumpled toe. Blood ran from her paw to mine.
This time, when I made it out of South Africa, out of quarantine and to her side, she reminded me of that small hurt puppy from before, all ribs and skin and bleeding sores. In 10 years, she had aged 70, yet she still had the affect of a baby. Her innocence never wore thin. Haloes of white had formed on her face and lower body, and she looked ethereal. My hands sunk into the cloud that was her fur and I pulled her close. I inhaled deeply, taking in her shimmery eyes, her broken teeth, the wetness of her lips, the cool roughness of her nose.
The first night back by her side, I called Florian and pressed my phone’s receiver against her beating heart. “Listen,” I said, laying on the floor and holding her paw. Together we listened to Shandi’s heart beating, one, two, three, four. We promised to get her out this time.
I was utterly in love with my sister, delirious over being reunited, resuming our sleepovers, our shared meals, our sisterhood. I watched her blonde eyelashes as she slept, whispering, “I love you!” Sitting down to draw her in the park, “I love you!” Cleaning her buttocks, her wounds, “I love you!” Sneaking into the veterinarian’s office after she was shaved for an ultrasound, I crawl on the floor, I collect her fur, “I love you!”
Singapore finally relaxed its COVID-19 rules enough to grant an exception for relatives of Singaporeans to enter in late July, 2021. In two short weeks, Florian sold most of what he owned, packed his life into two neat suitcases, and boarded a plane from South Africa to meet us. It was his first time in Asia.
Here was a man uprooting himself in order to uphold a promise: to love my sister, and to take care of her, ʼtil the end of her days.
We wed in our new apartment two days after Florian completed quarantine, my sister between us; our ring-bearer. In my vows, I thanked her for walking me down the proverbial aisle and passing the beacon — and literally, the ring — onto the next person who will continue what she has done for me all her life.
In that apartment, Florian, Shandi, and I would go on to create our world — a home with padded alphabet foam floors and carpets to keep Shandi from slipping, a dog bed in every room. We made a choice to withhold chemotherapy and instead focus on managing her pain. Each day, we tune into the rise and fall of her chest in the morning, the consistency of her stools at first pass. We concern ourselves with the shape of her stride, the wobble of her hips, the state of the grass, and whether it would be a good time for a walk. Acts of attention — toward Shandi, toward the fundamental nature of the world in which we live. It is a grounding in what matters.
I stayed with Shandi on the kitchen floor, clutching her crumpled toe. Blood ran from her paw to mine.
As a child, when I wanted a dog — years before we had Shandi — the adults around me warned of the level of care a puppy needs:“Puppies are a lot of work, they poo everywhere, chew stuff, need to be trained, are you sure you want to take care of it?” No one mentioned I was getting a companion that would likely die before me, or the ache and grief of watching illness and old age befall that once-small furball. In The Last Walk, Jessica Pierce writes, “When we commit to owning an animal, we must commit all the way to the bitter end, as in a marriage.” To take care of a young being is a feat of creation, a celebration of continuity. To take care of a senescing being is a slow, sweet grief, a leaf turning inward into itself, a kind ouroboros. It is an honor.
So it is my honor to be with Shandi at the start and end of life, when we are the most intimate, the most helpless, wholly dependent. One day, as I was bathing Shandi and singing to her, I thought about my own baths as a child and my grandmother singing to me. I lived with my grandmother until I was 10. Ah ma would go into the bathroom with me and bathe me, then set me at the edge of her bed, my feet toward the center, my long hair toppling over to the side. Sitting on the floor, she would comb my hair slowly, separating each tangle with her long, bony fingers. Next, she would dab my hair with a towel, pressing down gently around my temples, the back of my neck, soaking up moisture. Finally, the hair dryer would appear, to take care of the remaining dampness. It was care, sustained mindfully, without speed, without concern for efficiency. It was attention given through touch, from feeling and cleaning another being, paying notice to what is needed: whether the bathwater is too hot, whether you are combing too hard. The questions I ask myself for Shandi are the same questions my grandma used to ask for me. I am reminded of the physicality of love.
I want to experience as much of Singapore as I can, with Shandi. Our travels are short. At 14, she tires easily. Still, we’ve soaked her paws in the mineral waters of the Sembawang springs, watched the light show with her at the Gardens by the Bay, and pushed her in a wagon (the Shandimobile) up the Enlightenment trail at Haw Par Villa to the Goddess of Mercy at the top. During the mid-autumn festival, when children run around the streets with brightly lit lanterns that make festive sounds; we made Shandi into ours. We wrapped Christmas lights around her collar and walked her — our lantern of joy, illuminated — surrounded by a sea of children and musical dragons and orbs and golden suns.
We have seen more of Singapore in the past months than when I lived here for the first 19 years of my life, tourist attractions and hawker centers and all. I don’t always know how much these actions make Shandi’s life better, or help to forestall the cancer from taking her, but two things I know to be true:
Firstly: She has outlived her prognosis. Veterinarians tell me she is a statistical anomaly, an aberration. A specialist even wondered if the cancer was misdiagnosed after all. None of the vets have seen a dog survive for over a year with hemangiosarcoma. And still, she persists.
Secondly: When she’s outside, her ears tip upwards, her feet tippy tap dance, and she makes my favorite sound, that sweet puppy-like chest hum from 14 years ago: hnnng, hnnng, hnnng.
When I walk with Shandi down the grassy patch of my apartment block, I notice dogs of all ages peer out from between steel balustrades on the balconies above us: there’s a bulldog with an Elizabethan collar, a dachshund just born, two collies sleeping under curtains, an old terrier on a table. I am reminded that each of these dogs leaves part of a human to the mercy of timelines far shorter than a human lifetime. They are a testament to time’s hand ticking at a speed seven times greater than we know it to be, the heady scent of puppy love that ripens to solid notes of care and joy and grief and heartbreak at old age. Gazing upon the sky, at all those balconies with dogs above, I imagine each of them walking down the proverbial aisle that is Life with their companions, each of them aware of that star-crossed covenant with time, and unhindered, they say, “ʼTil death do us part, I do. I will.”
My sister likes to walk ahead. I will keep her in my gaze, I will hold my end, I will keep the pace — until the time comes for the one thing I have to let her do alone. Til then, I do. I will.
***
On July 18, 1949, legendary baseball Jackie Robinson appeared before the HUAC committee to testify against civil rights activist Paul Robeson, a decision which Robinson later regretted. https://t.co/mnDB5kvuzt On July 18, 1949, legendary baseball Jackie Robinson appeared bef…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 18, 2022
Happy birthday to the late Nelson Mandela. Mandela visited D.C. for the first time after being locked in prison for 27 years. He was staunch anti-apartheid activist and would become the first president of South Africa once it was dismantled. https://t.co/DzjSdm0q9w Happy bir…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 18, 2022
The phrase: 'a walk in the park' did not apply to Theodore Roosevelt and his friend Jean Jules Jusserand, who traipsed through Rock Creek Park, carving out their own paths. https://t.co/xSuR5KUWzK The phrase: 'a walk in the park' did not apply to Theodore Roosevelt and his f…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 18, 2022
A View from Above: Zero Gravity Facility Circa 1966 via NASA https://t.co/v9GppCKNRC https://t.co/EK028Se2rF
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 18, 2022
Have a look at this lovely depiction of Pensacola, FL from 1885. The map includes inset images of the Navy Yards and two local hotels. Check it out: https://t.co/EzDaw3fdxc https://t.co/HjgXZIcsHk Have a look at this lovely depiction of Pensacola, FL from 1885. The map includ…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 18, 2022
Today in History - July 18 https://t.co/cPlUnuKwS2 John Paul Jones, naval hero of the American Revolution, died in Paris on July 18, 1792. Continue reading. On July 18, 1927, Ty Cobb recorded his 4,000th career hit. Continue reading. Click here to search Today in History f…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 18, 2022
In the 1930s, the Alley Dwelling Authority set out on a mission of slum clearance and improved living conditions for DC’s poor. But due to Jim Crow segregation, the majority of those who most needed the ADAs help rarely benefited because they were black. https://t.co/804oMQR3IU…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 17, 2022
Leave Rock Creek Park’s upper Beach Drive closed to cars https://t.co/OnFsCJBOZ0 Leave Rock Creek Park’s upper Beach Drive closed to cars https://t.co/OnFsCJBOZ0 — Streets of Washington (@StreetsOfDC) Jul 17, 2022
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 17, 2022
Do you know who played host at the White House’s 1923 Easter Egg Roll? Here’s a hint, it wasn’t President Harding or the First Lady. Instead, it was the first dog, Laddie Boy! https://t.co/yVePqG4Zeo Do you know who played host at the White House’s 1923 Easter Egg Roll? Here…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 17, 2022
The First Church of Christ Scientist at 1770 Euclid St NW in Adams Morgan was constructed in 1912. This is an early postcard view, complete with horse-drawn delivery wagon. The church is now The Line DC hotel. https://t.co/g4HfxSmi0c The First Church of Christ Scientist at 177…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 17, 2022
🍦 Happy National #IceCreamDay! In 1868, you could celebrate the day at J.R. Wright’s Ice Cream & Oyster Saloon. While this may sound like an odd combo, these DC-favorites were seasonal offerings at this local eatery. 📷 Printed Materials Collection: John F. Ellis, F198.E472. …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 17, 2022
How did an entire Victorian era room, known as the Peacock Room, make its way from London to DC? This was the result of a donation from a wealthy Detroit manufacturer and persuasion by then President Teddy Roosevelt of course! https://t.co/cPYBmhfNlj How did an entire Victor…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 17, 2022
Today in History - July 17 https://t.co/hfbcvKs5Bi On July 17, 1754, King’s College opened in New York City. The Anglican academy would later grow into the venerable Columbia University. Continue reading. The Spanish Civil War began on July 17, 1936 as a series of right-win…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 17, 2022
Quote of the Day: "Patience is the companion of wisdom." - Saint Augustine
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Jul 17, 2022