Thirty years ago, on 25 December 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev made public his resignation as Soviet President, marking the dissolution of the Soviet Union, together with the emergence of fifteen new independent states. Appointed General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, Gorbachev had tried to transform the Soviet Union through economic and social reforms (perestroika), together with greater transparency (glasnost). However, the soviet economic system proved unable t

On a cold, snowy night in December 1859, Charles Frederick Worth and his wife, Marie, chanced to stroll near the imperial Tuileries Palace. Approaching the rue de Rivoli, they paused to watch a procession of elegant carriages make its way to the palace courtyard. They discovered that Princess de Metternich, the wife of the newly appointed Austrian Ambassador to Paris, was to be presented that evening at court. Worth only got a glimpse of the Princess, regal and blazing with d

On November 30th, Franco-American entertainer, Josephine Baker, was inducted into France’s Pantheon, making her the first Black woman to join other French literary, scientific, and political luminaries honored for their achievements, Victor Hugo, Marie Curie, Simone Veil… French President, Emmanuel Macron, paid a vibrant homage to “a war hero, fighter, dancer, singer; a Black woman defending Black people but first of all, a woman defending humankind, American and French. Jose