American model Emily Ratajkowski walks on the grid during the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco on May 26, 2024 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Claudia Greco/Reuters)

American singer, actress, and television personality Kelly Rowland wears Gaurav Gupta Couture at the Kilian Paris “Sunkissed Goddess” party on May 22, 2024 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pierrick Rocher/BFA.com)

American media personality and YouTuber Emma Chamberlain poses for photographers upon arrival at the Vogue World event on Sunday, June 23, 2024 in Paris. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP Photo)

“Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress. Nicknamed the “Bronze Venus”, the “Black Pearl”, and even the “Créole Goddess” in anglophone nations.

Baker was the first African American female to star in a major motion picture and to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer. She is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States (she was offered the unofficial leadership of the movement by Coretta Scott King in 1968 following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, but turned it down), for assisting the French Resistance during World War II and for being the first American-born woman to receive the French military honor, the Croix de guerre”.

Photo: American entertainer Josephine Baker in costume for her famous “banana dance”. Baker was an overnight sensation when she arrived in Paris in the mid-1920s. (Photo by Walery/Getty Images)

Flash, a golden retriever, plays with a toy following a press event for the American Kennel Club to reveal the nations most popular dog breeds in the Manhattan borough of New York, February 22, 2016. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

Members of an American landing party assist troops whose landing craft was sunk by enemy fire off Omaha beach, near Colleville sur Mer, France, June 6, 1944. REUTERS/Weintraub/US National Archives

Super-cell thunderstorms, whirling tornados and lightning bolts illuminating the sky – these photos capture the terrifying brilliance of American storms. (Photo by Brandon Goforth/Solent News & Photo Agency)

A British Spitfire and an American P-51 Mustang from Ultimate Warbird Flights take to the Northamptonshire on August 14, 2020 skies to mark the 75th anniversary of VJ Day. (Photo by Richard Pohle/The Times)