Has anything actually useful been invented this decade?

They did NOT invent bamboo shacks. And of course they invented tons of stuff, aren't countries like Haiti and Zimbabwe known for groundbreaking inventions? Oh wait, that's right, the majority of black inventors benefited from an environment that supported invention.

Gotcha.

(Source: Van Sertima, Ivan. , ed. 1984.

Blacks in Science Ancient and Modern. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.): Metallurgy/Mining -- Around 1,500 to 2,000 years ago, Africans living on the western shores of Lake Victoria, in Tanzania, had produced carbon steel that later gave life to the Industrial Revolution. The Africans created preheated forced-draft furnaces, a method that was more sophisticated than any developed in Europe until the mid-19th century.

It has been discovered that near Lake Victoria were 13 Iron Age furnaces that proved a technologically superior culture developed in Africa more than 1, 500 years ago and overturns popular and scholarly ideas that technological sophistication developed in Europe but not in Africa. The secret to the African’s success was due to the fact that they preheated the air blast by inserting blowpipes into the base of the furnace. From their efforts, greater fuel economy was achieved and extraordinarily high temperatures. Africans in the southern part of the continent had dug the most ancient mines found in the world.

One of several discoveries was reported early in 1970, which was of an ancient mine in an iron-ore mountain in Swaziland, in southeast Africa. Stone as mining tools were found, and samples of charcoal remaining from old fires were tested by the radiocarbon dating technique. The mine turned out to be 43,000 years old! Writing/Scripting -- There is evidence of half a dozen scripts that obviously illustrates Africans developed a complex and unique writing system which were used from ancient times, all the way up to the present.

The variety of writing material used in some parts of the continent, historically, reflects the complex history of Africa's writing systems which in the past were in scribed on materials such as parchment, papyrus, leather, skin, fabric, sand, clay, and metal more extensively in some parts of the continent than others. Throughout the continent of Africa that has been discoveries and reports of evidence of the earliest writing systems. For example, it was recently announced on March 1, 1979, in the New York Times, that the origin of the Egyptian hieroglyphic system itself lies among the black people in Sudan.

Dr. Bruce Williams, a research associate of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, announced the discovery of a black kingdom, known as Ta-Seti, at a place called Qustul, which preceded the first Dynasty in Egypt by twelve generations. A dozen black kings reigned at Ta-Seti and all the major religious and political symbols of a later Egypt were found in this Kingdom. Besides that these royal blacks had carvings and valuable possessions that dated back to 3,300 B.

C, it was also discovered there was inscriptions in the tombs of Qustul. The writings were the earliest in the hieroglyphic system that had a influential effect upon some European writing systems. For example, archaeological evidence further indicates that African literacy began in the Sahara over 5000 years ago.

This earliest form of writing was a syllabic system that included hundreds of phonetic signs, which over time was shorten to between 22 and 30 key signs, and used as an alphabet by the Egyptians, Meroites, Phonesians and Ethiopians. Mathematics -- It may be true that not all Africans had mathematics, but neither did all Europeans. The earliest evidence of the use of numbers is a find in Africa in the Congo (Zaire).

On a 8,000 year old bone, markings of a notation count was found. It is known as the Ishango bone since it was found near an ancient fishing site of that name. The engraved marks on the Ishango bone had “close tally between the groups of marks and the astronomical lunar periods.

A number of extensive tests gave even closer lunar approximations.” It was concluded that the notches on the bone, was used as a lunar calendar, comprising a period of almost six months. Definitely, the evidence was of one of man’s earliest intellectual activities.

Depending on the need for mathematics, systems of numeration may range in Africa from a few number words to the extensive numerical vocabulary of African nations having a history of centuries of commerce. In Yoruba and the related people of the city of Benin in Nigeria, who have urbanized farmers and traders for centuries, is one nation where they developed and used a complex number system. Yoruba numerals demonstrated how the people in Western Africa had the capacity for abstract reasoning to develop and learn such a system.

Scientific discoveries had been also made in Eastern Africa. Evidence of of the “protomathematics” in southeast Africa has been traced back to 25,000 years ago. The existence of mathematical papyri from 1800 B.C.E. are believed to be the first mathematical textbooks, containing formulas that allow for study in number theory, geometry, trigonometry and algebra.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.