In April 1985, Danuta Danielsson was 38 years old when her famous reaction to a neo-nazi demonstration by the Nordic Reich Party was captured by Hans Runesson. She had moved to Sweden a few years earlier, having married a Swedish man. Her mother had been at the Majdanek concentration camp, not Auschwitz. Danuta regretted the incident and all that followed. She was battling psychological problems and three years later, at 41, she committed suicide. (https://www.expressen.se/kvallsposten/danuta-fran-polen-var-tanten-med-vaskan/) The statue was not without controversy. (https://mckitterick.tumblr.com/post/184320596645)

What a woman!

I remember reading about him. An amazing and Very modest man. I think there is a show somewhere where they put him in an audience and he didn’t know they had surrounded him with all the hundreds of descendants of the children he had saved.

This is probably in Grenada, the country in the West Indies. Not Granada, the land-locked city in Spain. Though there is a New Granada too, which seems to be a catch-all for the Spanish colonies in the americas.

It was quite interesting reading about the famine. Initially, there was a huge response by the British government to help the famine victims and very large charity drives throughout the British isles. However, after the first year of the famine public sympathy had dried up. Papers were blaming mismanagement in Ireland, underestimating the number of people affected by on going starvation. Politicians were concerned ongoing intervention in the food markets was having more a detrimental then beneficial effect. Public sympathy had turned to hostility as waves of Irish migrants arrived in Britain. So the remaining years of famine the Irish peasants were on their own. It reminded me of the way the EU responded to the migrant crisis in modern times, initially with a huge out pouring of empathy and accepting many millions in, then cold disinterest and rejection.

Beautiful

That's how a true leader should be, not some idiot who can wage a war by typing gibberish on Twitter.

He helped the allies win the war by breaking the Enigma code, but after the war him being gay was the only thing that mattered. Nowadays he is praised for what he has achieved, but his contemporaries condemned him for whom he loved.

The US sent a whole shipload back to Nazi Germany

Member of a royal family sold into slavery. It's sad, but it's interesting, makes you think...

People talk all the time about how Americans saved everyone in WWII. It was women. If women hadn’t stepped up to do all the work while the men went off to war, entire countries would have collapsed.

Powerful and sad at same time

I've read her diary when I was 14 and I couldn't do it again. Reading it with the knowledge of what happened was emotionally too stressful for me at that age.

That’s odd.... I know Virginia like the back of my hand and no one has ever told me that this beautiful and meaningful statue existed!

For those who are confused about Spanish and Portuguese mentioned above: Magellan was indeed Portuguese, but he sailed under the Spanish flag.

Thanks for sharing this, I didn't know. So powerful ...

I wasn't familiar with Miss Davison, so I did research. She was an English suffragette. During one of her protests, she threw herself in front of the King's horse at Epsom Derby. She died four days later.

While Riel did sentence Thomas Scott to execution by firing squad, he himself never carried weapons and never personally killed anyone. He was a leader who led a rebellion, who was then executed for treason.

I like the idea of this but making them naked feels a bit debasing.

Boy is this information wrong! Bartholdi designed it to stand at the entrance of the Suez Canal in Egypt. They turned it down because of cost.

Reminds me painfully of Marikana South Africa. Imperialism and Capitalism at their best

F**k Franco! :P

Yes! We need more of these.

I thought he had four arms for a minute.

I will always be confused by the stone they used for this incredible monument.

Where is this statue?

Who chose the proportions for that statue?!

I did research since I wasn't familiar with Mary Barbour. She was closely associated with the Red Clydeside movement in the early 20th century and especially for her role as the main organiser of the women of Govan who took part in the rent strikes of 1915

Its natural that this woman's story makes people feel uncomfortable. During the 19th century everyone in Britain was told colonialism and missionary work was an unmitigated good, because it allowed people like Slessor to do the things she did. After decolonisation in the 1970s we were told it was a terribly corrupt practice which led to widespread, abuse, exploitation and destruction of native cultures through arrogance. I sought out some opinions from the people who were evangelised and guess what? There was no consensus even among them. One man said "Westernisation was wonderful. No body kills anyone anymore, we can trade for food and clothes" and another said "westernisation was terrible. Everybody has become an alcoholic, no one does proper work. We don't know who we are anymore"