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Black History Portal
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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...

Ruler of the Mali Empire in the 14th century

Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.

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BHP gathered finds from its connected research sources. Showing the 4 strongest Black History matches.
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Wikipedia

Perl Data Language

Perl Data Language (abbreviated PDL) is a set of free software array programming extensions to the Perl programming language. PDL extends the data structures built into Perl, to include large multidimensional arrays, and adds functionality to manipulate those arrays as vector objects. It also provides tools for image processing, machine learning, computer modeling of physical systems, and graphical plotting and presentation. Simple operations are automatically vectorized across complete arrays, and higher-dimensional operations (such as matrix multiplication) are supported.

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Wikipedia

GNU Data Language

The GNU Data Language (GDL) is a free alternative to IDL (Interactive Data Language), achieving full compatibility with IDL 7 and partial compatibility with IDL 8. Together with its library routines, GDL is developed to serve as a tool for data analysis and visualization in such disciplines as astronomy, geosciences, and medical imaging. GDL is licensed under the GPL. Other open-source numerical data analysis tools similar to GDL include Julia, Jupyter Notebook, GNU Octave, NCAR Command Language (NCL), Perl Data Language (PDL), R, Scilab, SciPy, and Yorick. GDL as a language is dynamically-typed, vectorized, and has object-oriented programming capabilities. GDL library routines handle numerical calculations (e.g. FFT), data visualisation, signal/image processing, interaction with host OS, and data input/output. GDL supports several data formats, such as NetCDF, HDF (v4 & v5), GRIB, PNG, TIFF, and DICOM. Graphical output is handled by X11, PostScript, SVG, or z-buffer terminals, the last one allowing output graphics (plots) to be saved in raster graphics formats. GDL features integrated debugging facilities, such as breakpoints. GDL has a Python bridge (Python code can be called from GDL; GDL can be compiled as a Python module). GDL uses the Eigen numerical library (similar to Intel MKL) to offer high computing performance on multi-core processors. Packaged versions of GDL are available for several Linux and BSD flavours as well as macOS. The source code compiles on Microsoft Windows and other UNIX systems, including Solaris. GDL is not an official GNU package.

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Wikipedia

Array programming

In computer science, array programming refers to solutions that allow the application of operations to an entire set of values at once. Such solutions are commonly used in scientific and engineering settings. Modern programming languages that support array programming (also known as vector or multidimensional languages) have been engineered specifically to generalize operations on scalars to apply transparently to vectors, matrices, and higher-dimensional arrays. These include APL, J, Fortran, MATLAB, Analytica, Octave, PL/I, R, Cilk Plus, Julia, Perl Data Language (PDL) and Raku. In these languages, an operation that operates on entire arrays can be called a vectorized operation, regardless of whether it is executed on a vector processor, which implements vector instructions. Array programming primitives concisely express broad ideas about data manipulation. The level of concision can be dramatic in certain cases: it is not uncommon to find array programming language one-liners that require several pages of object-oriented code.

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Wikipedia

Karl Glazebrook

Karl Glazebrook (born 1965) is a British astronomer, known for his work on galaxy formation, for playing a key role in developing the "nod and shuffle" technique for doing redshift surveys with large telescopes, and for originating the Perl Data Language (PDL). Glazebrook was born in 1965 in the United Kingdom, and educated at the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh (PhD 1992). He held post-doctoral appointments at the University of Durham and University of Cambridge before moving to the Anglo-Australian Observatory, where he played a central role in supporting the 2dF galaxy survey as its instrument scientist. He moved to Johns Hopkins University in 2000 where he was Professor of Astronomy until 2006, at which time he became Professor of Astronomy at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. His work has been cited over 40,000 times in the literature of astronomy. Glazebrook also developed the open-source Perl Data Language, a perl-based alternative to the commercial IDL. Glazebrook was one of the leaders of the Gemini Deep Deep Survey (GDDS) which measured the evolution of galaxies using Gemini Observatory and the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. The project, along with a number of other studies, determined in 2004 that massive galaxies formed surprisingly early in the distant Universe, explaining why a lot of them appear so remarkably old. As a whimsical side-project Glazebrook also determined that the bulk-averaged color of the Universe is cosmic latte. Both pieces of work received wide publicity in the international press. The bulk-averaged color earned some additional international publicity because a software bug had initially suggested a pale turquoise instead of the bland beige. He is also well known in the astronomical community for his pioneering work in developing the baryon oscillation technique to use the distribution of galaxies as a probe of dark energy. After his move to Australia he played a leading role in the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey between 2006 and 2011.

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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

Who was the first African-American woman millionaire in the United States?

Madam C.J. Walker