Phillis Wheatley became the first African American enslaved poet to have her work published in 1773 at nineteen years old.

Builders built “spite houses” quickly to take advantage of loopholes in local laws, as well as address flaws in urban planning until the early 20th century. Alexandria, Virginia, is unusual because it has four spite houses. Those who built them found that revenge is expensive. Today, building a fence or wall is more cost-effective.

Mary Dyer (1611-1660), a Quaker martyr, defied religious intolerance and paid the ultimate price for her convictions. 

Spite Houses are real-life examples of how far people will go to make a point by building homes to annoy, obstruct, or protest.

Orderic Vitalis, William of Malmesbury, Florence of Worcester, and Henry of Huntingdon condemned the New Forest project as cruel because of its destruction of thirty-six villages and churches to make a personal hunting preserve. 

Alice of Dunk’s Ferry was born in Philadelphia in 1686 to enslaved parents from Barbados. Some referred to her as Black Alice or Old Alice. This bold woman was a storyteller, oral historian, and toll taker whose life spanned three different centuries. 

William the Conqueror created a new feudal system. What made it new? It was far more centralized, militarized, and bureaucratic than the existing continental system.

Dublin-born Veronica Guerin took on Dublin’s crime gangs as an investigative journalist for the “Sunday Independent” in the 1990's. Her accounting expertise helped her trace financial transactions, revealing the involvement of influential drug lords.

By 1070, William began a significant Norman reform of the Church. He replaced Anglo-Saxon bishops and abbots with Normans. They became feudal lords over church property.