Filipa Martins of Portugal fails to grab the bar as she performs the uneven bars during the Women's All-Around Final at the 50th FIG Artis​tic Gymnastics World Championships in​ Kitakyushu, Japan, 21 October 2021. (Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA/EFE)

Tali Spira of Baltimore, Maryland lets the wind aid in her Flow Art style dance moves (using silk material and fans) at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. on March 25, 2022. She danced amid the backdrop of the cherry blossom trees that were still at their peak. (Photo by Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

“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)

It's that time of year again when dogs with unusually large heads, hairless bodies and other oddities compete to be the World's Ugliest Dog. This year's winner? A 2-year-old mutt named Peanut, whose wild white and brown hair, bulging eyes and protruding teeth belie his sweet, energetic personality. Peanut's owner, Holly Chandler of Greenville, North Carolina, says he was seriously burned as a puppy and she wants to use her pet to raise awareness about animal abuse. She plans to use the $1,500 prize to pay for other animals' veterinary bills. The contest, held at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds in Petaluma, California, is in its 26 year. The dogs are scored by a three-judge panel in several categories, including special or unusual attributes, personality and natural ugliness.

A woman poses as she has her picture taken amid 1600 panda bear sculptures in Berlin August 5, 2013. Marking the 50th anniversary of its existence, on Monday the German branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) environmental conservation organisation placed 1600 panda bear sculptures on front of Berlin's main train station to draw attention to the plight of the endangered species that serves as the NGO's mascot. There are currently 1600 panda bears alive in the wild, the organisation said in a press release. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

A girl shows a fish she has caught in a bare- hand fish catching contest held in Housangyuan Village of Lyutan Township Wuyi County, east China' s Zhejiang Province, September 23, 2018. People across China hold various activities to celebrate the country' s first Farmers' Harvest Festival, which falls on Sept. 23 this year. (Photo by Zhang Jiancheng/Xinhua News Agency/Barcroft Images)

A Kurdish girl wears her relative's assault rifle and ammunition belt as she waits at the Iraqi Kurdish Shaqouli checkpoint, some 35 kilometres east of Mosul, on November 10, 2016. Since the start of the Mosul offensive the Kurds have moved their border some 10 kms closer to Iraq's second city, marking it out with a line in the sand. (Photo by Odd Andersen/AFP Photo)

A woman reacts after she was hit with pepper spray deployed by police as they cleared a street with protesters rallying against a new national security law in Hong Kong on July 1, 2020, on the 23rd anniversary of the city's handover from Britain to China. A man found in possession of a Hong Kong independence flag became the first person to be arrested under Beijing's new national security law for the city, police said on July 1. (Photo by Dale De La Rey/AFP Photo)