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The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 650,000, of which 450,000 still live in the regency of Tana Toraja. Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colorful wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for several days. Before the twentieth century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world. In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism developers and studied by anthropologists. By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had evolved significantly, from its agricultural beginnings into a largely Christian society.

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Batak warriors in 1870. The term "Batak" is used to collectively identify a number of ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia. It includes the Toba, Karo, Pakpak, Simalungun, Angkola and Mandailing, each of which are distinct but related groups with distinct, albeit related, languages and customs (adat).

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• ... that after the American Civil War ended, Ladies' Memorial Associations sprang up all over the South to bury Johnny Reb, build monuments (example pictured) in honor of Confederate soldiers, and propagate the Lost Cause?
• ... that Body of Proof episode "Society Hill" marked the first appearance of Megan Hunt's mother Joan, played by Six Feet Under star Joanna Cassidy?
• ... that Bernhard Kummer regarded the conversion of the Germanic peoples as a cultural catastrophe and thus titled his doctoral thesis Midgards Untergang?

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• 1 May 1776 - Foundation of the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society
• 1 May 1869 - New York Genealogical and Biographical Society elects its first woman member
• 7 May 1964 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson (pictured) first makes reference to the Great Society
• 10 May 1793 - Society of Revolutionary Republican Women officially registered at the Paris Commune

“ Every man is like the company he is wont to keep. ” — Euripides, Phœmissæ. Frag. 809.

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Sun Tzu was an ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher who is traditionally believed to be the author of The Art of War, an influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy. Sun Tzu has had a significant impact on Chinese and Asian history and culture, both as an author of The Art of War and through legend. Sun Tzu, also known as Sun Tze or Sun Wu in other translations, was a historical figure whose authenticity is questioned by historians. This is a Chinese name which would usually mean the family name comes first however "Zi" (子; "Tzu" in Wade–Giles transliteration) was used as a suffix for the family name of a respectable man in ancient Chinese culture. In this case, 子 "Tzu" is not the personal or family name. It is a rough equivalent to "Sir" and is commonly translated into English as "Master". Traditional accounts place him in the Spring and Autumn period of China (722–481 BC) as a military general serving under King Helü of Wu, who lived c. 544–496 BC. Modern scholars accepting his historicity place the completion of The Art of War in the Warring States period (476–221 BC), based on the descriptions of warfare in the text, and on the similarity of text's prose to other works completed in the early Warring States period. Traditional accounts state that his descendant, Sun Bin, also wrote a treatise on military tactics, titled Sun Bin's Art of War. Both Sun Wu and Sun Bin were referred to as Sun Tzu in classical Chinese writings, and some historians believed that Sun Wu was in fact Sun Bin until Sun Bin's own treatise was discovered in 1972. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Sun Tzu's The Art of War grew in popularity and saw practical use in Western society. His work continues to influence both Asian and Western culture and politics. (Full article...)

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