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This Happened

This Happened - February 23: Raising The Flag

On this day in 1945, the American flag was raised at Iwo Jima to signal the capture of Mount Suribachi, the highest point on the island, by U.S. Marines during the Battle of Iwo Jima. The moment was captured in what is one of the most iconic war photographs ever taken.


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What was the Battle of Iwo Jima?

The Battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle fought during World War II in the Pacific between the United States and Japan. It took place on the island of Iwo Jima, located about 750 miles south of Tokyo. Iwo Jima was strategically important for the United States because it provided a critical location for airfields that could be used as a base for bombing raids on Japan.

How did the American victory at Iwo Jima impact the war?

The American victory at Iwo Jima was a major turning point in the war in the Pacific. The capture of the island gave the United States a critical base from which to launch bombing raids on the Japanese mainland, which helped bring the war to a close. The image of U.S. troops raising the flag on Mount Suribachi became an iconic symbol of American victory and military sacrifice.

Who took the photograph of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima?

The iconic photograph of the flag-raising was taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal. The photograph rapidly became iconic after it was published in newspapers and magazines all over the world, and came to be seen as a symbol of American patriotism and sacrifice. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in 1945.

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Society

How Brazil's Evangelical Surge Threatens Survival Of Native Afro-Brazilian Faith

Followers of the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda religion in four traditional communities in the country’s northeast are resisting pressure to convert to evangelical Christianity.

image of Abel José, an Umbanda priest

Abel José, an Umbanda priest

Agencia Publica
Géssica Amorim

Among a host of images of saints and Afro-Brazilian divinities known as orixás, Abel José, 42, an Umbanda priest, lights some candles, picks up his protective beads and adjusts the straw hat that sits atop his head. He is preparing to treat four people from neighboring villages who have come to his house in search of spiritual help and treatment for health ailments.

The meeting takes place discreetly, in a small room that has been built in the back of the garage of his house. Abel lives in the quilombo of Sítio Bredos, home to 135 families. The community, located in the municipality of Betânia of Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco, is one of the municipality’s four remaining communities that have been certified as quilombos, the word used to refer to communities formed in the colonial era by enslaved Africans and/or their descendents.

In these villages there are almost no residents who still follow traditional Afro-Brazilian religions. Abel, Seu Joaquim Firmo and Dona Maura Maria da Silva are the sole remaining followers of Umbanda in the communities in which they live. A wave of evangelical missionary activity has taken hold of Betânia’s quilombos ever since the first evangelical church belonging to the Assembleia de Deus group was built in the quilombo of Bredos around 20 years ago. Since then, other evangelical, pentecostal, and neo-pentecostal churches and congregations have established themselves in the area. Today there are now nine temples spread among the four communities, home to roughly 900 families.

The temples belong to the Assembleia de Deus, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the World Church of God's Power, the latter of which has over 6,000 temples spread across Brazil and was founded by the apostle and televangelist Valdemiro Santiago, who became infamous during the pandemic for trying to sell beans that he had blessed as a Covid-19 cure. Assembleia de Deus alone, who are the largest pentecostal denomination in the world, have built five churches in Betânia’s quilombos.


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