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THE JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

Explore Black History

Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.

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Civil Rights

Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.

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Black Inventors

Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.

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Sports

Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.

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People

Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.

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Places

Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.

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Events

Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.

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MY'STORY

The MOVE Fire

This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985 Philadelphia police fired thousands of rounds at the MOVE house, city officials approved dropping an explosive device on the roof, the resulting fire was allowed to burn, 11 people—including five children—died, and 61 homes were destroyed. Philadelphia City Council later called it a “brutal attack carried out by the City of Philadelphia on its own citizens” and acknowledged that no individual faced criminal consequences for the bombing. One timeline correction worth preserving for the BHP record: the major previous MOVE-police confrontation was August 8, 1978, about seven years before the bombing, not a year or two earlier. Officer James Ramp was killed, other police and firefighters were wounded, nine MOVE members were later convicted, and television cameras recorded police beating Delbert Africa during his arrest. The 1985 MOVE Commission later specifically criticized city planners for failing to adequately use lessons from that 1978 confrontation. And that actually strengthens the point you’re making: 1985 did not happen without precedent or institutional memory. There had already been a deadly confrontation with MOVE, years of conflict, negotiations and police involvement before Osage Avenue.

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BLACK FACTS
The Truths They Never Taught You...

Wilmington 1898 — An American Coup

Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.

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Wikipedia

Great Ball Contraption

The design standard, invented by Steve Hassenplug

Great Ball Contraptions (GBCs) are a type of Lego design comprising a machine built with both regular and Technic bricks that continuously transports Lego balls through different modules using chain reactions. Robotic elements from products such as Lego Mindstorms can also be used.[1][2][3][4] They are sometimes compared to Rube Goldberg machines,[5][6][7][8] and have been featured multiple times by the Guinness World Records.[9][10][11][12]

Great Ball Contraptions are popular at Lego fan conventions, with a community of builders who design them. They are often collaborative, with different designers creating different modules. They can consist of several hundred modules and take nearly an hour to complete their circuit.[11][12]

Several precursors include the Ping Pong Ball Handoff challenge hosted by the Lafayette LEGO Robotics Club, as well as the SMART's Crate Contraption, both in 2004, which contained elements of GBCs. The term was coined by Steve Hassenplug on LUGNET in 2005. After this, many people began to create ball contraptions of their own, beginning the trend.[13]

Further reading

[edit]
  • Ruge, Christoph (2023). Das LEGO®-Kugelbahn-Handbuch: Ideen und Techniken für eigene GBC-Module. Heidelberg: dpunkt.verlag. ISBN 978-3-98890-003-6.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Watch a Giant Lego Contraption Endlessly Move Balls". Popular Mechanics. 2016-06-21. Retrieved 2026-01-12.
  2. ^ "Watch: The Most Epic Lego Contraption Of All Time". Fast Company. 2012-09-24. Archived from the original on 2022-08-18. Retrieved 2026-01-13.
  3. ^ Coumans, Remco. "Fascinatie voor 'ballet van bewegende balletjes'". limburger.nl.
  4. ^ MacManus, Christopher. "Is this the greatest Lego Mindstorm machine ever?". CNET. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  5. ^ "Amazingly Complex, yet Simple LEGO Contraptions in Rube Goldberg Fashion". Business Insider. Retrieved 2026-02-05.
  6. ^ Vreeburg, Naomi (2016-12-06). "Bizarre LEGO-machine vervoert balletjes". KIJK Magazine (in Netherlands Dutch). Retrieved 2026-02-06.
  7. ^ Liszewski, Andrew (2021-07-21). "12 Fantastically Complex and Mostly Pointless Lego Great Ball Contraptions". Gizmodo. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  8. ^ "WATCH: The Most Amazing Lego Contraption Ever?". HuffPost. 2012-09-30. Archived from the original on 2021-04-21. Retrieved 2026-02-06.
  9. ^ Guinness World Records 2016. Macmillan. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-910561-06-5.
  10. ^ Guinness World Records 2017. Guinness World Records. p. 146. ISBN 978-1-910561-66-9.
  11. ^ a b Holmes, Stephen (2018-08-09). "WATCH // Record breaking 'Great Ball Contraption' build". DEVELOP3D. Retrieved 2026-01-29.
  12. ^ a b "Watch: Guinness record-breaking 'great ball contraption' - UPI.com". UPI. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  13. ^ lange, Noah de (2025-10-18). "GBC Beginnings: The Birth of LEGO Great Ball Contraptions". BrickNerd - All things LEGO and the LEGO fan community. Retrieved 2026-01-12.
[edit]

Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.

Wikipedia

Great Ball Contraption

Great Ball Contraptions (GBCs) are a type of Lego design comprising a machine built with both regular and Technic bricks that continuously transports Lego balls through different modules using chain reactions. Robotic elements from products such as Lego Mindstorms can also be used. They are sometimes compared to Rube Goldberg machines, and have been featured multiple times by the Guinness World Records. Great Ball Contraptions are popular at Lego fan conventions, with a community of builders who design them. They are often collaborative, with different designers creating different modules. They can consist of several hundred modules and take nearly an hour to complete their circuit. Several precursors include the Ping Pong Ball Handoff challenge hosted by the Lafayette LEGO Robotics Club, as well as the SMART's Crate Contraption, both in 2004, which contained elements of GBCs. The term was coined by Steve Hassenplug on LUGNET in 2005. After this, many people began to create ball contraptions of their own, beginning the trend.

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Wikipedia

Great Pyramid of Giza

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest of the Egyptian pyramids and the most famous landmark of the Giza pyramid complex in Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only wonder that has remained largely intact. The Great Pyramid served as the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu ("Cheops"), who ruled during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. It was built c. 2600 BC over a period of about 26 years. Initially standing at 146.6 metres (481 feet), the Great Pyramid was the world's tallest human-made structure for more than 3,700 years. Over time, most of the smooth white limestone casing was removed, which lowered the pyramid's height to the current 138.5 metres (454.4 ft); what is seen today is the underlying core structure. Each side of the base was measured to be about 230.3 metres (755.6 ft) in length, giving a volume of roughly 2.6 million cubic metres (92 million cubic feet), which includes an internal hillock. The dimensions of the pyramid were 280 royal cubits (146.7 m; 481.4 ft) high, a base length of 440 cubits (230.6 m; 756.4 ft), with a seked of ⁠5+1/2⁠ palms (a slope of 51°50'40"). The Great Pyramid was built by quarrying an estimated 2.3 million large blocks, weighing 6 million tonnes in total. The majority of the stones are not uniform in size or shape, and are only roughly dressed. The outside layers were bound together by mortar, primarily local limestone from the Giza Plateau was used for its construction. Other blocks were imported by boat on the Nile: white limestone from Tura for the casing, and blocks of granite from Aswan, weighing up to 80 tonnes, for the "King's Chamber" structure. There are three known chambers inside of the Great Pyramid. The lowest was cut into the bedrock, upon which the pyramid was built, but remained unfinished. The so-called Queen's Chamber and King's Chamber, which contain a granite sarcophagus, are above ground within the pyramid structure. Hemiunu, Khufu's vizier, is believed by some to be the architect of the Great Pyramid. Many varying scientific and alternative hypotheses attempt to explain the exact construction techniques, but, as is the case for other such structures, there is no definite consensus. The funerary complex around the pyramid consisted of two mortuary temples connected by a causeway (one close to the pyramid and one near the Nile); tombs for the immediate family and court of Khufu, including three smaller pyramids for Khufu's wives; an even smaller "satellite pyramid"; and five buried solar barques. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Memphis and its Necropolis".

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Wikipedia

John Ball (golfer)

John Ball Jr (24 December 1861 – 2 December 1940) was an English amateur golfer of the late 19th and early 20th century. He was the first player from outside Scotland to win a major golf championship, winning the 1890 Open Championship.

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Wikipedia

The Monster Ball Tour

The Monster Ball Tour was the second worldwide concert tour by American singer-songwriter Lady Gaga. Staged in support of her first EP, The Fame Monster (2009), the concert largely comprised songs from that recording as well as Gaga's debut album, The Fame (2008). The tour visited various arenas and stadiums, performing over 200 shows between November 2009 and May 2011. With the tour separated into three respective North American and European legs, as well as visiting Australia, New Zealand and Japan, the Monster Ball is the highest-grossing tour for a debut headlining artist in history. Described as "the first-ever pop electro opera" by Gaga, the tour was announced in October 2009, after an originally planned joint concert tour with rapper Kanye West was abruptly cancelled; instead, the Monster Ball officially began just four days after the release of The Fame Monster, in November 2009. An updated version of the show was created after only a few months of touring due to the singer's concerns that the original had been rushed-through during its initial stages. The stage for the original show looked like a "frame", similar to a hollowed-out television set. As The Fame Monster dealt with topics of overexposure and toxic celebrity culture, including the paranoia Gaga herself had experienced, the main theme of the shows became personal growth and human evolution, while elements of the originally planned tour (with Kanye West) were retained in some parts. From 2010 on, the shows took on a "Big Apple" theme, telling a story in which Gaga and her friends are lost in New York City and must find their way to the "Monster Ball". Both versions of the show were divided into five acts, with an encore finale. Each section featured Gaga and her dancers in new outfits, performing music relating to the theme of each respective act; acts were separated by video interludes. The tour received positive reviews, with critics praising Gaga's live vocals, musicianship, and the theatrics of the show. The Monster Ball was also a commercial success, with high demand for tickets creating multiple-date extensions to the itinerary. The Monster Ball ultimately grossed an estimated US$227.4 million from 203 reported shows, attended by an audience of 2.5 million. At the 2010 Billboard Live Music Awards, Gaga won the Breakthrough Performer Award as well as the Concert Marketing & Promotion Award. HBO recorded a special of the Monster Ball during Gaga's February 2011 shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City; interspersed with backstage footage and interviews, Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden aired on HBO in May 2011 and was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 21 of that year.

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TOPIC OF THE DAY

Greenwood / Black Wall Street

Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.

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TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE DAY

Which Black woman became the first elected to the United States Congress?

Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.