A very happy birthday to entertainer Josephine Baker, born on this day in 1906. Baker had a huge list of achievements including being a French Resistance agent, a civil rights activist and the first black woman to star in a major movie. She also might have dated Frida Kahlo. 
Although she was born in the USA, much of Baker's career took place in Europe due to racism in the country of her birth. In France, she was the most successful American entertainer.
Among her achievements in her career in Europe, she starred in silent movie Siren Of The Tropics, the first black woman lead in a major film; was often accompanied on stage by a cheetah; and was seen as an icon of the Jazz Age.
During the Second World War, she used her position as a famous entertainer to pass on vital information about the Nazis. She had privileged access at parties and overheard things, and was also in a position to travel around Europe, passing on information.
In 1951, a club in Miami invited this iconic performer for an engagement. Baker publicly refused, saying she would not play to a segregated audience. She won that battle, and played to a mixed audience at a sold-out run.
She went on to provide support to the US civil rights movement, and spoke alongside Martin Luther King at the March on Washington as the only official woman speaker.
In her personal life, Baker had four marriages to men, and several sexual relationships with women, including jazz artist Ada "Bricktop" Smith, novelist Colette, and quite possibly Frida Kahlo, who she met in 1939.
Honestly, a twitter thread can't even do justice to the phenomenal achievements of Josephine Baker. She was a trailblazer. Even in death she broke another record, being the only American-born woman to receive full French military honours at her funeral.
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