Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
q2K BHP
Black History Portal
THE BHP WIRE —
HIDDEN TRUTHS
What's New!
Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
 | This article includes a list of general references but lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (September 2024) |
 Cover of the stand-alone edition (1991) | |
| Author | John Crowley |
|---|---|
| Genre |
|
| Publisher | Bantam Books |
| ISBN | 978-0-553-29319-7 |
"Great Work of Time" is a science fiction novella by American writer John Crowley, originally published in Crowley's 1989 book collection Novelty. A story involving time travel, it concerns a secret society whose aim is to avert World War I to preserve and expand the British Empire.
Caspar Last uses his newly created time machine to travel to 19th-century British Guiana to obtain the very rare British Guiana 1c magenta stamp. Last plans to sell the stamp, reap the profits, and never again use time travel or let it be used by others. A shadowy group called the Otherhood buys his stamp and takes control of the time machine, which it wishes to use to preserve the existence of the British Empire. In the new timeline, the British Empire survives as a dominant world power throughout the 20th century.
Denys Winterset, a promising young official in the Colonial Service in Africa in the 1950s, travels the Cape to Cairo Railway, where he meets a mysterious stranger, and is invited to join the Otherhood. Winterset is told that he must travel back to the beginning of the group in 1893 and assassinate its founder Cecil Rhodes. Otherwise, in the late 1890s, Rhodes will change his will and dissipate much of his fortune, the Otherhood will never come into being, and the original timeline will be restored.
In another timeline, a different manifestation of Winterset travels into the future, even though such travel had been forbidden by the Otherhood. There, he learns that excessive tinkering with the timelines has generated countless unintended changes. The citizens of this world ask Winterset to go back, prevent the previous Winterset from killing Rhodes, and restore the "true" timeline.
Meanwhile, the other Winterset has arrived in 1893 Cape Town and has no difficulty in gaining Rhodes's trust. At the moment of opportunity, a mysterious force, implied to be the future Winterset, prevents Winterset from pulling the trigger. The mission fails and traps Winterset in the past. Winterset enters the service of Rhodes and witnesses first-hand the ugly and brutal side of Rhodes's independent colony-building. Later on, Winterset can only watch helplessly as "The Original Situation" reasserts itself, the world is convulsed by two World Wars, and the second one is followed by the breakup of the British Empire.
In the final chapter, Winterset, a young man, now living in the "true" 20th-century history, enters the Colonial Service, now a doomed institution, with the Empire's colonies being ceded to new independent nations in Africa. He meets his older self in 1956 in Africa and learns of the truth of time travel. He helps his older self escape from Africa amid the chaos and returns to London, where the story ends with their last meeting many years later.
Winterset notes in The Times newspaper "the sale of the single known example of the 1856 magenta British Guiana" stamp, known to have been owned in 1956 by the Otherhood, and realises that time travel means that his story is still vulnerable to being rewritten.
As noted by the critic Susan Young:
Great Work of Time has the same basic outline as Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity - i.e. a secret society of well-meaning time travelers bent on remodeling history, and a young man recruited into the society in order to make a specific change that would bring this society itself into being. The details of what the time travelers do and where in time they operate are much different from those in Asimov's book. However, in both books, the society's operations come to a halt through the influence of people from the future, because the society's actions endanger the existence of the future.[1]
The story won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella in 1990.[2]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
"Great Work of Time" is a science fiction novella by American writer John Crowley, originally published in Crowley's 1989 book collection Novelty. A story involving time travel, it concerns a secret society whose aim is to avert World War I to preserve and expand the British Empire.
The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving is a 1995 direct-to-video animated adventure musical film directed by Roy Allen Smith. It is the second sequel to The Land Before Time and the third film in the film franchise. The film was produced by Universal Cartoon Studios and released by MCA/Universal Home Video on December 12, 1995.
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".
Great Work Mine was a Cornish mine between Godolphin hill and Tregonning Hill and is in the hamlet of Great Work on Bal Lane. Great Work is notable for its unusual chimney stack with the upper brick-work in two stages. The remaining ruin of the mine sits 400 ft above sea level, and is part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape. The site is owned by the National Trust and forms part of the Godolphin Estate along with Godolphin House.
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.
MORE →Madam C.J. Walker
