CHAPTER TWO: The Education of Mary Todd

CHAPTER TWO

The Education of Mary Todd

Morning did not enter the Todd house so much as haunt it.

It seeped through the shutters in thin, spectral ribbons, pale as breath on a tombstone, brushing the floorboards with a hesitant, trembling hand. It found Mary already awake, sitting upright in her narrow bed, her small frame rigid with the discipline the house demanded. Here, warmth was conditional. Here, silence was survival.

Below her room, she heard the muted clatter of the kitchen — the soft, steady movements of the enslaved women who rose long before the family, tending fires and preparing the day in silence. Their footsteps were the first sounds the house ever made, yet no one spoke their names at breakfast. The house depended on them, but pretended not to.

Sometimes, in that half-light, she imagined she could still smell her mother’s lavender soap — faint, impossible, a memory clinging to the air like a ghost that refused to leave. But when she blinked, the scent was gone, swallowed by the cold.

At nine, she stepped into Reverend Ward’s schoolroom — a long, narrow chamber smelling of chalk, damp wool, and the faint iron tang of winter. The tall windows trembled beneath the wind, their panes quivering like fragile bones. Mary sat straight-backed, eyes bright, listening the way some children pray — with hunger, with reverence, with a yearning so sharp it felt like a wound.

Words became her refuge.

French curled on her tongue like a spell whispered after dark.

Stories opened doors no one else could see.

But each afternoon, she returned to a house that grew colder as it grew grander.

When her father purchased the new home in 1832, the family called it an improvement. More rooms. More space. More children. Yet Mary felt the distance immediately — the echoing halls, the polished quiet, the way her stepmother’s presence filled every doorway like a draft that refused to warm. The house was handsome, but it had no heart. Or if it did, it beat somewhere far from Mary.

Sometimes, passing the parlor, she caught her reflection in the tall mirror — a small girl with solemn eyes, framed by a room too large for her. For a heartbeat, she imagined her mother standing behind her, a soft hand on her shoulder. But the mirror showed only Mary, alone in the vastness.

She learned to move like a shadow.

To observe.

To vanish.

To sharpen her wit like a needle hidden in her sleeve.

And then, unexpectedly, a door opened.

Charlotte Mentelle’s school stood at the edge of Lexington, half‑veiled behind winter trees that clawed at the sky. The first time Mary stepped inside, she felt warmth — not from the hearth, but from the voices. French, lilting and alive. Laughter. Books stacked in precarious towers like monuments to forbidden knowledge. A world where girls were not ornaments but minds.

Here, Mary was not overlooked.

She was seen.

Madame Mentelle corrected her French with a gentle hand on her shoulder. She placed novels in Mary’s palms as though gifting her pieces of the world. She taught her that a woman’s thoughts could be sharp, elegant, and dangerous all at once.

Mary breathed differently in that place.

Freer.

Fuller.

As though the fog on the window of her childhood had finally begun to clear.

A New Friendship

One afternoon, as the girls practiced their reading, a soft‑voiced classmate named Clara Banks slid her chair closer.

“You read as though the words belong to you,” Clara whispered.

Mary blinked. “Do they?”

Clara smiled — a small, conspiratorial curve of the lips. “They do when you speak them.”

It was the first time another girl had spoken to her without pity or curiosity. Clara became a quiet companion — someone who shared her ink, her laughter, her whispered observations. With Clara, Mary felt something she rarely felt at home.

Ease.

Belonging.

A sense that wanting more was not a sin but a birthright.

A Moment of Wit

During a lesson on French idioms, Madame Mentelle asked the class to translate a phrase about stubbornness. One girl offered a timid guess. Another stumbled through a literal translation.

Mary raised her hand.

“It means,” she said, “that a person is so stubborn they would argue with a stone wall.”

Madame Mentelle laughed softly. “Très bien, Mary.”

Clara leaned over. “You should teach the class.”

Mary allowed herself a small, dangerous smile. “I already do. They simply haven’t realized it.”

The room rippled with quiet amusement.

It was rebellion in miniature — and it thrilled her like a secret flame.

The Missing Scene

That evening, as Mary crossed the threshold of the grand new house, the familiar chill wrapped around her like an unwelcome shawl. The air felt heavier here, as though the walls themselves remembered every silence she had ever swallowed. She paused in the dim hallway, her hand resting on the banister polished by hands that were not her mother’s.

A murmur of voices drifted from the parlor. She stepped closer, unseen.

“She’s clever, yes,” her father said, his tone almost indulgent. For a heartbeat, Mary’s chest lifted — foolishly, hopefully.

“But cleverness in a girl is a passing amusement,” he added with a soft chuckle. “She’ll settle soon enough.”

Her stepmother laughed lightly, smoothing the hair of the child in her lap — her own daughter, warm and cherished. “Girls must learn their place early,” she said. “It spares them disappointment later.”

Mary felt the words strike her like cold water. She stood very still, hidden in the shadowed hallway, watching the warmth in that room — warmth she had once known, warmth that now flowed only toward children who were not her mother’s.

A realization settled over her, heavy and sharp:

this house was not shaping her for a life she wanted.

It was shaping her for a life she feared.

And then — as if the world wished to underline the truth — she saw one of the enslaved women pass silently through the doorway, carrying a tray with practiced grace. Their eyes met for the briefest moment. In that glance Mary saw exhaustion, resignation, and a quiet dignity no one in the room seemed to notice.

Injustice, layered and unspoken, pressed against her ribs.

Her mind — her quick, hungry, restless mind — was the only part of her the house could not reach. The only part that felt like hers. The only part that felt alive.

She stepped back from the doorway, unseen, unheard, her heart pounding with a new and dangerous certainty.

She would not settle.

She would not shrink.

She would not become what this house expected.

Her mind was her escape — and her weapon.

The Confrontation

“Mary Todd, where have you been?”

Her stepmother’s voice cut through the hallway like a blade.

“At school,” Mary answered.

“School ended an hour ago.”

“I stayed to finish my work.”

“You stayed to avoid your duties here.”

Mary’s pulse quickened, but she kept her chin lifted. “My duties include my education.”

A dangerous silence settled between them, thick as smoke.

“You are a child,” Betsy said sharply. “Your place is in this house.”

Something inside Mary steadied — not anger, but certainty, cold and clear as winter glass.

“My place,” she said softly, “is wherever I am becoming myself.”

Her stepmother’s face tightened. “Mind your tone.”

Mary bowed her head, but the words had already taken flight.

And she did not regret them.

The Symbolic Scene

That night, unable to sleep, Mary crept to the window at the end of the hallway — the one overlooking the dark yard and the distant, flickering lights of Lexington. The glass was cold beneath her fingertips, colder than the air, colder than the house. She leaned forward, letting her breath fog the pane.

A faint heart formed, just as it had in the parlor years before.

But this time, she did not wipe it away.

Instead, she traced a single French word inside it:

Je suis.  

I am.

The fog shimmered, then slowly faded, but the certainty remained — a quiet flame settling in her chest, small but unextinguishable.

Mary Todd was becoming someone her stepmother could not contain.

Someone her father could not overlook forever.

Someone her mother would have recognized instantly.

And somewhere between the cold house and the warm schoolroom, she understood:

She was meant for a life larger than the one she had been given.

And though she could not name it yet, something in the night seemed to stir in answer — as if the world, vast and unseen, had begun to turn its face toward her.

Chapter One Darkmatter: Chapter One: Where Her Ghost Story Begins

Chapter One: Where Her Ghost Story Begins

Mary Todd: The House of Music and Shadows

A Novel of Grief, Ghosts, and Becoming

PROLOGUE — The Candle and the Veil

The candle burned low in the Red Room, its flame trembling as though afraid of the dark gathering around it. Mary Todd Lincoln sat motionless before it, her hands hovering above the table, her breath shallow, her eyes fixed on the wavering light.

Outside, the winter wind clawed at the windows.

Inside, the silence pressed close, thick as velvet.

“Willie…” she whispered.

The flame bent toward her, as if listening.

In that moment, Mary felt the veil thin — felt the world she knew stretch, tremble, and open like a seam. She felt the presence of her son, the echo of his laughter, the warmth of his small hand in hers.

But the dead do not come from nowhere.

They come from memory.

From longing.

From the shadows of a life shaped by loss.

And Mary’s shadows began long before the White House — long before the war — long before the séances and the whispers and the grief that hollowed her.

Her ghost story began in a house of music and shadows, in a childhood gilded with privilege and haunted by silence.

It began in Lexington.

It began with a mother’s hands.

It began with a death.

EPIGRAPH I

“Some houses remember.

Some houses grieve.

And some houses keep their ghosts.”  

— Kentucky proverb

EPIGRAPH II

“A child’s first haunting is often the loss of a mother.”  

— Anonymous, 19th‑century diary fragment

CHAPTER ONE — Where Her Ghost Story Begins

The Todd mansion stood on Main Street like a grand, brooding sentinel — three stories of red brick and white trim, its tall windows gleaming in the morning sun like watchful eyes. The house was elegant, yes, but beneath its polish lay a stillness, a depth, a sense that the walls themselves were listening.

Inside, the air carried the scent of beeswax polish, coal smoke, and lavender water. The floors gleamed with such care that the reflections of passing figures shimmered like ghosts. Servants moved through the halls with practiced quiet, their footsteps softened by thick carpets imported from the East. Portraits of stern ancestors lined the walls, their painted eyes following the children as they ran past.

And the children did run.

The Todd household was a small universe of motion and noise: laughter echoing down staircases, the thud of hurried footsteps, the rustle of skirts, the clatter of dropped toys. The mansion, for all its grandeur, felt alive.

But even in its liveliness, the house held shadows — long, reaching shadows that pooled in corners and stretched across hallways as though waiting for someone to notice them.

Mary noticed them.

Even as a child, she felt the house watching her.

The Mother of Light

At the center of this world was Mary’s mother, Eliza Parker Todd.

Eliza moved through the home with a softness that warmed every room she entered. She had a way of smoothing a collar, brushing a curl from a forehead, or adjusting a ribbon that made the world feel safe. Her presence softened the edges of the house, turning its grandeur into something gentle.

In the evenings, she played the piano in the parlor — a room of pale blue walls, tall windows draped in silk, and a chandelier that caught the lamplight like a cluster of stars. Eliza’s fingers drifted across the keys with a quiet tenderness that made the entire house pause.

Mary would sit cross‑legged on the rug, tracing patterns in the carpet while the notes drifted around her like warm light.

“Again, Mama,” she would whisper.

Eliza smiled — always with her eyes first — and played the melody once more. Mary leaned her head against her mother’s knee, feeling the vibration of each note through the floorboards. She didn’t know she was storing the sound away like a keepsake — something she would cling to long after the music itself had vanished.

To Mary, her mother was not just a parent.

She was the sun.

The center.

The warmth that made everything else make sense.

Mirrors and Shadows

There was a tall mirror in the upstairs hallway — a gilt‑framed thing imported from France, its surface so polished it reflected the world with unsettling clarity.

Mary avoided it.

Sometimes, when she passed it at dusk, she thought she saw movement in the reflection — a flicker of shadow, a shift of light, something that didn’t match the world behind her.

Once, she paused before it, her small hand reaching toward the glass. Her reflection stared back — wide‑eyed, solemn, too still.

Behind her, the hallway stretched long and dim.

In the mirror, it seemed even longer.

“Mama says mirrors remember,” she whispered.

And the mirror seemed to listen.

The Children of the House

The Todd children were a constellation — each bright, each different, each orbiting around their mother’s warmth.

Elizabeth, Frances, and Ann, the older sisters, hovered protectively around Mary. They braided her hair, read to her from their schoolbooks, taught her French phrases, and let her tag along even when she was too young.

The younger children were whirlwinds of energy. They raced down hallways, hid behind velvet drapes, giggled during lessons, and whispered secrets long after bedtime. Their laughter echoed through the house like bells — bright, chaotic, alive.

Mary was right in the middle — old enough to help, young enough to play, sensitive enough to feel every shift in the air.

The house was noisy, chaotic, joyful.

But beneath the laughter, there was always a faint tremor — a sense that the harmony of the household depended entirely on one woman’s presence.

And Mary, even as a child, sensed it.

The Storm

The night the storm rolled in, the sky turned the color of bruised violets. Thunder rumbled across the horizon like distant cannon fire. The wind pressed against the windows, making the glass tremble.

Mary stood at the parlor window, watching the trees bend and sway. The piano sat silent behind her, its keys gleaming faintly in the lamplight.

Her mother had been in bed for two days.

The storm felt like an omen.

A warning.

A breath held too long.

When lightning flashed, Mary saw her reflection in the window — pale, wide‑eyed, ghostlike. For a moment, she didn’t recognize herself.

The Day the Music Stopped

Eliza had just given birth to her fourteenth child — a tiny baby boy named George. The house buzzed with excitement, servants rushing about, siblings whispering eagerly. But Mary felt something else. A heaviness. A stillness. A wrongness that settled in her stomach like a stone.

That night, she stood in the dim hallway clutching her doll. The gas lamps flickered, casting amber pools of light that made the shadows seem to breathe. A door creaked open. Elizabeth stepped out, wiping her eyes quickly.

“Is Mama sleeping?” Mary whispered.

Elizabeth knelt, forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “She’s… resting, darling.”

But Mary saw the fear in her sister’s trembling hands.

Her mother lay pale and trembling in her bed, fever burning through her body. Mary wasn’t allowed inside, but she stood in the hallway, gripping the banister so tightly her knuckles turned white. Doctors whispered behind closed doors. Her older sisters cried quietly in corners. 

Her father paced the hallway, boots striking the floor with sharp, anxious echoes.

Hours passed.

Then a day.

Then another.

The fever worsened.

The newborn cried in the next room — a thin, desperate sound that cut through the silence like a blade.

And then… silence.

The doctor stepped into the hallway, face pale, spectacles fogged. Robert Todd stood rigid, hands clasped behind his back.

“It’s over,” the doctor whispered.

Robert’s jaw tightened. His eyes closed for a single, fragile second — the only moment he allowed himself to break. Then he straightened, spine stiffening, grief swallowed whole.

Mary watched from the staircase.

Later, she slipped into her mother’s room. The curtains were drawn. The air was still. Her mother’s hand — once warm and soft — was cold.

Mary touched it anyway.

“Mama… please wake up.”

But Eliza Parker Todd would never wake again.

And the warmth of the Todd home vanished with her.

A House Hollowed by Grief

After Eliza’s death, the mansion didn’t simply grow quiet — it grew hollow. The rooms felt larger, emptier, as though the walls themselves had pulled back in mourning. The piano sat untouched, its keys gathering dust. The air felt colder, even in summer.

Shadows lengthened.

Floorboards creaked at odd hours.

Mirrors seemed to darken around the edges.

Mary began waking in the night, certain she heard footsteps in the hallway — soft, slow, hesitant. When she opened her door, the corridor was empty, the lamps flickering as though someone had just passed.

Robert moved through the house like a figure carved from stone: shoulders rigid, jaw clenched, eyes fixed straight ahead. He mourned the only way he knew how — silently, rigidly, alone.

One night, Mary wandered past his study. The door was cracked open. Inside, Robert sat at his desk, head bowed over a letter he wasn’t writing. His shoulders shook once — a single, silent tremor. By the time he opened the door, his face was stone again.

Mary hid behind the corner, watching him walk past without seeing her.

Within months, he remarried.

To Mary, it felt like betrayal.

The Winter That Moved In

Elizabeth “Betsey” Humphreys Todd arrived at the mansion like a winter wind — sharp, brisk, impossible to ignore. She carried herself with rigid posture, chin lifted, eyes sharp as glass. Her footsteps echoed with purpose. Her voice cut through the air like a blade.

She was everything Eliza was not: strict, formal, emotionally distant, obsessed with propriety.

On her first day, she stepped into the foyer and surveyed the house with a critical eye. Mary clutched her sister’s hand. Betsey’s gaze landed on her.

“You must learn to stand straighter,” she said, adjusting Mary’s posture with two firm fingers.

Mary flinched. No one had ever touched her like that.

Betsey brought several children of her own. They entered the Todd mansion quietly, almost cautiously, like guests unsure if they were welcome. They were reserved, watchful, disciplined, unfamiliar with laughter.

At dinner, they sat stiffly, hands folded neatly in their laps. The Todd children shifted uncomfortably. Mary reached for a biscuit.

“Use your left hand,” Betsey said sharply.

Mary froze. The silence was suffocating.

A House Divided

The mansion grew colder. The piano sat silent. The laughter faded. The hallways felt longer, darker, emptier.

One evening, Mary slipped into the parlor and pressed a single piano key. A soft, trembling note.

“That is not appropriate at this hour,” Betsey said from the doorway.

Mary’s hand fell away from the keys.

She learned to navigate the new household like a battlefield: watching, listening, anticipating, adapting. She learned to hide her feelings behind a practiced smile. She learned to swallow her grief before anyone could see it. She learned to sharpen her wit like a blade.

In her bedroom, she stood before the mirror, smoothing her dress. She practiced a smile — small, polite, unbreakable.

“Be strong,” she whispered.

And the girl in the mirror obeyed.

Storms at the Dinner Table

At dinner, political arguments erupted like summer storms — slavery, states’ rights, the future of the country. Voices rose. Tempers flared. Lines were drawn.

Mary sat quietly, absorbing every word. Politics became her second language. She learned how to read a room, how to sense tension before it broke, how to speak with precision — or stay silent with purpose.

She was a girl born into privilege… but shaped by grief.

A girl surrounded by luxury… but haunted by loneliness.

A girl raised in a mansion… but living in the shadows of her own home.

She once wrote that she was taught to appear strong, “even when my heart was breaking.”

And that mask — polished, practiced, unyielding — would follow her for the rest of her life.

 The Breath on the Glass

One winter night, long after the lamps had been extinguished, Mary crept to the parlor. The moonlight spilled through the tall windows, silvering the piano, the chairs, the silent room.

She approached the window and pressed her palm to the cold glass.

Her breath fogged the pane.

For a moment, she imagined another breath meeting hers from the other side — warm, familiar, comforting.

Her mother’s breath.

She closed her eyes.

When she opened them, the fog on the glass had formed the faintest shape — a curve, a line, something that could have been nothing…

…or could have been a handprint.

Mary stepped back, heart pounding.

The house was silent.

The shadows were long.

The air felt heavy with memory.

She whispered into the darkness:

“Mama… are you still here.”

The silence did not answer.

But it did not feel empty.

Not anymore.

The Foreshadowing

Outside, far beyond the quiet streets of Lexington, a young lawyer in Illinois was rising before dawn, straightening his worn coat, and stepping into a life he did not yet know would collide with hers. He was tall, awkward, brilliant, restless — a man shaped by his own shadows, his own griefs, his own ghosts.

Mary did not know his name.

Not yet.

But the world was already shifting toward him, drawing two distant lives onto the same path.

And in the silent parlor of the Todd mansion, with her breath fading from the glass, Mary Ann Todd took her first step toward the future that waited for her — a future that would bind her to that man forever.

Albert Einstein: Love, Espionage, and Lessons Beyond the Grave.

Albert Einstein was born on the 14th of March 1879 in Germany to a Jewish family. His father Hermann was a salesman and engineer. Along with his brother Jakob, he founded a company in Munich that was involved in the mass production of electrical equipment, which was quite innovative at the time.

Albert Einstein is famous for his Theory of Relativity, which fundamentally changed our understanding of physics. E = mc2 comes from his theory, expresses the idea that energy (E) and mass (m) are interchangeable; they are different forms of the same thing. This equation shows that a small amount of mass can be converted into a large amount of energy, which is the principle behind nuclear energy.

Einstein had a fat head at the time he was born, which initially worried his mother and grandmother. However, his head size normalized as he grew.

He did not speak until the age of three. Despite this, he went on to become one of the most influential scientists in history. Now this phenomenon is sometimes referred to as “Einstein Syndrome,” where children exhibit delayed speech but later show exceptional abilities in various areas.

The parietal lobe in Einstein’s brain was 15% larger than that of an average brain. This region of the brain is associated with mathematical thought, visuospatial cognition, and movement. Additionally, Einstein’s brain lacked a groove known as the Sylvian fissure, which may have allowed for more connections between neurons in this area.

It’s fascinating how these unique features might have contributed to his extraordinary cognitive abilities.

He never wore socks. He found them unnecessary and even wrote about it in letters to friends and family. He mentioned that his big toe would always end up making a hole in his socks, so he decided to stop wearing them altogether. He even managed to avoid wearing socks on formal occasions by wearing high boots to cover up the lack of socks.

He never learned to swim; nevertheless, he loved sailing. He enjoyed spending time on the water and often took a boat out onto a lake to relax and think, but he always stayed on the boat.

He had a poor memory. He often forgot dates, names, and even his own phone number. Despite his incredible intellect and groundbreaking contributions to science, he struggled with everyday details. One of his teachers even remarked that he had a "memory like a sieve".

Although some of Einstein's teachers found him challenging because of his independent thinking and inquisitive nature, he excelled in subjects he was passionate about, especially mathematics and physics.

His academic path was not without challenges though, particularly in subjects such as languages and biology where he did not perform as well. Nonetheless, his grades were mostly above average, and he demonstrated remarkable aptitude in areas that captured his interest.

He was an exceptional musician, skilled as a violinist and pianist. Einstein started playing the violin at six and maintained this passion throughout his life. He harbored a profound appreciation for classical music, especially the compositions of Mozart and Bach.

Einstein often said that music helped him think and relax. He even mentioned that if he hadn’t been a physicist, he would have been a musician. His passion for music was so strong that he once said, "Life without playing music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music".

His first wife was Mileva Marić, a Serbian mathematician whom he met while they were both students at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich. They married in 1903 and had two sons, Hans Albert and Eduard.

Some say Maric might have co-authored his 1905 Relativity Paper. In the 1980's, American physicist Evan Walker Harris published an article in Physics Today claiming that Einstein first wife, Mileva Maric, was one of many coauthors of his 1905 paper on special relativity.

Most physicists and historians of science have rejected it.

After Einstein’s death in 1955, Soviet physicist Abram Fedorovich Joffe described some correspondence he had with Einstein early in their careers in a article published in Russian.

He had asked Einstein for a prints of some of his papers and wrote: “The author of these articles Einstein-Marity” 

A popular Russian science writer called Daniil Semenvich Danin, interpreted Joffe’s account to mean that Einstein and Maric collaborated on the work. 

Einstein’s letters are full of his ideas about physics.

Maric’s contain none and she was not a talented physicist or mathematician. She failed her final examinations and was never granted a diploma.

Maric and Einstein divorced in 1919, but as part of the divorce settlement, Einstein agreed to pay his ex-wife all of any future Nobel Prize he might be awarded. That is another reason why people think she might have been a co-author.

His second wife Elsa Löwenthal was his cousin. Elsa was his first cousin on his mother’s side and his second cousin on his father’s side. They began their relationship in 1912 while he was still married to Marić. They married in 1919 after Einstein’s divorce from Mileva. Elsa was a significant support to Einstein, especially during his health issues, and they remained married until her death in 1936.

Hitler considered him public enemy number one. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime considered Albert Einstein a significant threat. Einstein was a prominent Jewish intellectual and a vocal critic of the Nazis. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Einstein was in the United States and decided not to return to Germany due to the rising anti-Semitism and the dangerous political climate.

The Nazis targeted Einstein’s work and reputation, labeling his theories as “Jewish physics” and attempting to discredit him. They even placed a bounty on his head, making him a public enemy. Despite these threats, Einstein continued to speak out against the regime and supported efforts to help Jewish refugees escape from Europe.

In 1921 Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. However, he actually received the award in 1922. The Nobel Prize was awarded to him "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". This discovery was crucial in the development of quantum theory and had significant implications for the understanding of light and energy.

He became a strong advocate for nuclear disarmament after witnessing the devastating effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was deeply concerned about the potential for future nuclear wars and the annihilation of humanity.

In the last decade of his life, Einstein dedicated himself to promoting peace and international cooperation. He frequently spoke out against the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He believed that the only way to ensure global security was through the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Supporter of civil rights. After moving to the United States in 1933, he became increasingly aware of the racial segregation and discrimination faced by African Americans. He actively spoke out against racism and worked with several civil rights organizations.

Einstein was a member of the NAACP and developed a close friendship with civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois. He also supported the campaign to defend the Scottsboro Boys, nine African American teenagers falsely accused of rape in Alabama. In 1946, he gave a speech at Lincoln University, a historically black university, where he called racism "a disease of white people".

The FBI spied on Albert Einstein. They kept him under surveillance from the moment he entered the United States in 1933 until his death in 1955. The FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover was suspicious of Einstein’s political views and his advocacy for peace, civil rights, and Zionism. They amassed a file of over 1,400 pages on him, which included wiretaps, mail interceptions, and even searches of his trash23.

Einstein’s outspoken nature and his connections with various political and social movements made him a target during a time of heightened paranoia about communism and espionage.

Einstein was a genius when it came to science, but love was a different matter. Unbeknownst to Einstein the woman he had an affair with was a Russian spy.  

Margarita Ivanovna (Vorontsova) Konenkova was born in 1895, in the remote Russian town of Sarapul. As a young woman she moved to Moscow and enrolled in law courses. She was associated with Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff and famous opera singer Feodor Chaliapin. In Moscow she met her husband, Sergei Konenkov “the Russian Rodin". Sergei was already a famous sculptor. In 1923 the couple traveled together to the United States, where Margarita became socialite, attending numerous balls and social events, while Konenkov continued creating art.

In 1935, Sergei was commissioned to make a bust of Albert Einstein for Princeton University. The couple met Einstein just before the work begun. Sergei visited Princeton only a few times to talk over the plans for the project, while Margarita became a frequent visitor. After Einstein's second wife Elsa died in 1936, Einstein and Margarita's relationship became more friendly. Einstein even persuaded Sergei to send Margarita over to his cottage at Saranac Lake by writing a letter stating that she was ill and needed to spend time in a good climate to get well. He even attached a fake doctor’s certificate. Each year she spent several months living with Einstein next to Saranac while her husband Sergei worked in Chicago. The scientist even came up with the name “Almar” (Albert-Margarita).

According to Pavel Sudoplatov, an intelligence general for Joseph Stalin, Margarita was indispensable in terms of spying on America’s nuclear program. Margarita's mission was to find out about the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan project's goal was to produce the first nuclear weapons. She successfully infiltrated the Princeton science circle where besides becoming close to Einstein, Magarita also befriends Robert Oppenheimer, one of the "fathers" of the atomic bomb. She talked Oppenheimer into hiring people known for their leftist views,

Einstein met with Pavel Mikhailov , the USSR consul who worked for the Soviet army intelligence, a few times as a favor for Margarita. He knew that her future in the USSR depended on this meeting. 

Konenkovs came back to Moscow in 1946 they were provided for by the government.

The relationship between Einstein and Margarita was revealed through a series of letters he wrote to her. These letters, which surfaced many years later, are now preserved by the Library of Congress and demonstrate the profound affection and bond they shared.

Einstein presented Margarita with a gold watch as a parting gift when she and her husband departed the United States following World War II.

Einstein was offered and declined the opportunity to become president of Israel after the death of its first president in 1952. Einstein declined the presidency citing his inexperience in politics and his advanced age as reasons. He believed he was not fit for the role, expressing that he lacked the inherent skill and experience required to engage politically with people.

Einstein died on April 18th, 1955, in Princeton, New Jersey at the age of 76 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Despite his declining health, he continued to work on his scientific theories until his final days.

After his death his eyes were removed during an autopsy conducted by pathologist Thomas Harvey. They were given to Einstein’s eye doctor, Henry Abrams. They are now kept in a safety deposit box in New York City

His brain was stolen after his death. The pathologist who performed his autopsy, Dr. Thomas Harvey, removed Einstein’s brain without permission. Harvey took the brain for scientific study, hoping to uncover the secrets behind Einstein’s genius.

Harvey preserved the brain in celloidin and kept it for many years, even cutting it into 240 pieces and distributing some of these pieces to other researchers.

Einstein’s legacy continues to influence and inspire scientists and thinkers around the world and even after his death Einstein is teaching us new things.

Einstein's theory of relativity has enabled scientists to discover a planet three times the size of Jupiter. The planet, KELT-9b, is hotter than most stars. Techniques based on Einstein’s theory, such as gravitational microlensing and relativistic beaming, made this discovery possible.

The General Theory of Relativity describes how the gravity of stars can bend light waves, an effect that can expose otherwise hidden planets.

This theory has aided in the discovery of a massive exoplanet named MOA-2016-BLG-227Lb.

MOA-2016-BLG-227Lb is a super-Jupiter mass planet orbiting a star in the Galactic bulge, located 21,000 light years from Earth.

International researchers, including teams from the U.S., Israel, and Japan, employed gravitational microlensing to detect the way light bends around the planet.

Was Stephen Hawking Albert Einstein?

Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein having such striking similarities in their lives. This makes some people think that Albert was reincarnated as Stephen Hawking. You be the judge.

They both had neurological disorders. Hawking was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). ALS is a neuro-degenerative disease that slowly erodes nerves that control voluntary movement.

So he really couldn't move as the disease progressed and that is why he was wheelchair-bound for most of his life. 

Einstein suffered from a mild case of Asperger’s syndrome, a developmental disorder characterized by difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, as well as attention deficit disorder (ADD). This means he had he didn't know what to do or how to act towards others sometimes and he had a hard time concentrating.

They both were married twice. Einstein divorced his first wife Mileva Maric to marry Elsa Lowenthal. They were together until she passed away. Hawking divorced his wife of 30 years, Jane Wilde, to marry Elaine Mason. He eventually divorced her too.

They both were fascinated by the universe and time travel. Einstein looked at things from a relativistic point of view while Hawking focused more on quantum physics.

They both thought that their own ideas were stupid. Einstein thought that one of his biggest mistakes was the cosmological constant he introduced into equations for general relativity. Hawking thought his was the “information loss” in black holes.

Both of them became famous.

They both had a good sense of humor. Einstein claimed that humor powered his brilliant intellect. On his 72nd birthday a photographer asked him to smile, so he stuck out his tongue. He was known for his childlike sense of humor. Hawking was known for his amazing one liner's that had intelligence to them.

Both Einstein and Hawking passed away when they were 76 years old. 

Was Einstein part of the Illuminati?

Some believe Einstein was a member of the Illuminati. While there is no clear connection to the Illuminati, it has been reported that Einstein visited Bohemian Grove.

Breaking Barriers: The Inspiring Journey of Helen Keller.

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow." ~Helen Keller

Helen Adams Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. She was also blind and deaf. 

Born on June 27th, 1880, in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, Helen started speaking when she was just 6 months old and started walking at the age of 1. Sadly, Helen lost her sight and her hearing after contracting "brain fever" when she was only 19 months old. 

By the time Helen was seven years old, she and Martha Washington, the family cook's daughter, had developed a type of sign language. During this time Helen was very frustrated and became unruly. She tormented Martha and inflicted raging tantrums on her parents leaving many relatives to feel that she should be institutionalized. 

Desperate to help her, her parents sought the advice of Alexander Grahm Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell suggested the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. While at the institute, it was suggested that the family work with one of the institute's most recent graduates at the time, Joanna Mansfield Sullivan. Sullivan had graduated head of her class, was an experienced teacher and was partially visually impaired. 

On March 3, 1887, Sullivan arrived at Helen's home in Alabama and began teaching with love and patience. She spelled the world "Doll" in Helen's hand in attempts to associate it with the doll she had brought the child as a present.

Initially, Helen was curious but soon became defiant and uncooperative. Sullivan noticed Helen failed to associate the objects with the letters spelled in her hand. Despite this, Sullivan persisted, and continued to guide Helen.

As Helen's frustration escalated and her tantrums became more frequent, Sullivan insisted that she and Helen be separated from the family for a period to ensure that Helen could focus solely on her teachings. Consequently, they relocated to a cottage on the plantation.

Sullivan introduced the word "water" to Helen by guiding her to a water pump and placing her hand under the spout. As Sullivan pumped the cool water over Helen's hand, she spelled out the letters w-a-t-e-r on Helen's other hand. This helped Helen make the connection between the object and the word. Helen grasped the concept and mirrored the word in Sullivan's hand. By the end of the day, she had mastered 30 words.

With Sullivan's extraordinary teachings Helen's mood improved and she learned to understand and communicate with the world around her. Helen learned to read and write in Braille and to use the hand signals, which she could understand only by touch. She also learned to use a typewriter.

Helen learned to speak with the help of Sarah Fuller using her fingers to feel Sarah's lips and throat when she spoke. Helen dedicated a significant portion of her life to delivering speeches and lectures about her experiences.

Helen studied at schools for the deaf in Boston and New York City with Sullivan repeating the lectures into her hand. At twelve she published an autobiographical sketch in the Youth’s Companion.

As Helen's story gained public attention, she started meeting notable and influential figures. Among them was the writer Mark Twain, who found her remarkable and befriended her. Twain then introduced her to his acquaintance, Henry H. Rogers, an executive at Standard Oil. Struck by Helen's abilities, ambition, and resolve, Rogers decided to finance her education at Radcliffe College which she was accepted to at just 16. 

During her junior year at Radcliffe, Helen authored her first book, "The Story of My Life," which remains available in over fifty languages. Persevering in her academic endeavors, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in 1904 at the age of 24, becoming the first individual with deaf blindness to attain such a degree.

Shortly after her college graduation, Helen joined the Socialist Party and spoke out for women's suffrage and demanded better access to birth control. She also penned numerous articles on socialism and endorsed Eugene Debs, the Socialist Party's candidate for president. Helen emerged as a powerful advocate for the rights of individuals with disabilities and for women's rights. This also resulted in her being monitored by the FBI.

It was during this period that Helen first encountered public bias regarding her disabilities. Throughout most of her life, she had received overwhelming support from the press but once she revealed her socialist beliefs, some began to criticize her by highlighting her disabilities. The Brooklyn Eagle newspaper commented that her ""mistakes sprung out of the manifest limitations of her development."

Following her college education, she embarked on a journey to expand her understanding of the world and to explore ways she could contribute to enhancing the lives of others. Helen conveyed her experiences to various audiences and provided testimony before Congress, fervently championing the betterment of the blind community's welfare.

In 1905 Sullivan married Harvard instructor and social critic John Macy and Keller lived with them in Forest Hills, Queens.

Just before World War I, Helen Keller discovered that she could experience music through the vibrations by placing her fingertips on a resonant surface, with the help of the Zoellner Quartet.

In 1914 a young woman named Polly Thomson began working as a secretary for Helen and Sullivan.

In 1915, Helen co-founded Helen Keller International, an organization dedicated to fighting the causes and consequences of blindness and malnutrition.

In 1916 Sullivan became ill and Boston reporter Peter Fagan served as a replacement secretary. He and Hellen fell in love and wished to marry. However, it was the interference from Hellen's family, who believed that the deafblind Helen could fulfill the roles of a wife and mother, that ultimately ended the relationship.

In 1918, Helen made a silent movie in Hollywood, Deliverance, to dramatize the plight of the blind. For two year she also performed on the vaudeville stage much to Sullivan's dismay.

Helen helped found the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920.

In 1924 Helen became a member of the American Federation for the Blind and participated in many campaigns to raise awareness, money and support. She garnered significant donations from Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and key figures in the motion picture industry. When a branch for the overseas blind, it was named Helen Keller International.

Helen also became involved with other organizations committed to aiding the underprivileged, such as the Permanent Blind War Relief Fund.

Sullivan experienced health problems and in 1932 lost her eyesight completely. In 1936 she fell into a coma as a result of coronary thrombosis and passed away with Hellen holding her hand. This is when Polly Thomson, became Helen's constant companion. Helen and Thomson moved to Connecticut. They traveled worldwide and raised funds for the blind.

Also, in 1936 Helen received the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal.

Helen offered her support to soldiers blinded during World War II.

In 1946, Helen Keller was appointed as a counselor for international relations by the American Foundation for the Overseas Blind, and she visited 35 countries across five continents.

In 1953, Helen received a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1955, Helen, at the age of 75, undertook a challenging journey. She covered 40,000 miles in five months, traversing Asia. Her numerous speeches and appearances provided inspiration and encouragement to millions.

In 1957, Thomson suffered a stroke from which she never fully recovered, passing away in 1960. Winnie Corbally, a nurse who was initially employed to look after Thomson, continued to stay on after her death and became Helen's companion for the remainder of her life.

Also in 1957 Helen's autobiography, "The Story of My Life," served as the inspiration for the television drama "The Miracle Worker." Later, in 1959, it was adapted into a Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play with the same name, featuring Patty Duke as Helen Keller and Anne Bancroft as her teacher, Anne Sullivan. Duke and Bancroft reprised their roles in the critically acclaimed 1962 film adaptation of the play.

In 1964 Helen received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 1965 was elected to the Women's Hall of Fame.

Helen was also awarded honorary doctoral degrees from Temple University, Harvard University, and the universities of Glasgow in Scotland, Berlin in Germany, Delhi in India, and Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Additionally, she received the title of Honorary Fellow from the Educational Institute of Scotland.

In 1961 Helen suffered a series of strokes and spent the remaining years of her life at her home in Connecticut.

On June 1st, 1968, just a few weeks before her 88th birthday Helen died in her sleep. Her ashes are interred at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.