You might be surprised at the historical figures you didn't know were black.

BEETHOVEN
The famous classical composer’s mother was a moor. It’s a fact that became popular again after this cast of his African facial features contradicted the “idealized” paintings of the man history likes to re-imagine.

KING TUT
The Boy Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt is often depicted as fair skinned. But these images recovered from his tomb (in addition to several other artifacts) have identified him as a black African.

SANTA CLAUS

Or at least Saint Nicholas (270 – 343 AD), the saint that the legend is based on. Old Saint Nick was born in what’s now considered Turkey (at the time a metropolis for people of African descent).

HANNIBAL

Hannibal of Carthage — one of the greatest military strategists in history is often depicted with much… narrower features. But these coins depicting Hannibal and his famous army of elephants leave little doubt in the minds of many historians of his African ancestry

SAINT AUGUSTINE
No course covering Philosophy 101 is complete without referencing Christian theologian Saint Augustine. What’s less commonly covered is his African origins and birth place of (modern-day) Souk Ahras, Algeria;

THE AUTHOR OF THE THREE MUSKETEERS AND THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

Alexandre Dumas was the son of the General Dumas born in 1762 to a white father and an enslaved mother. General Dumas was such a good general that he made his rival — Napoleon Bonaparte — nervous. Thanks to Napoleon’s machinations, the General ended up imprisoned in a dungeon for years — the story that inspired Alexandre to write The Count of Monte Cristo about his father.

THE MAN ON THE $10 BILL
For black history buffs, it’s really all about the Hamiltons. Alexander Hamilton isn’t just the man on the $10 bill, he was the United States’ first Secretary of the Treasury.
His mother, Rachel Fawcett Lavain, was said to be of “mixed blood” and his father was the son of a Scottish Duke. Alexander’s older brother was dark-skinned and treated as black. But Alexander was light enough to pass and went on to establish the first national bank in the American colonies, founded the U.S. mint and wrote most of the Federalist Papers.

CLARK GABLE
The original “tall, dark and handsome” actor didn’t hide his Black and Native American heritage. And when he saw “colored” and “white” bathrooms on the set of Gone With The Wind, he refused to continue working until all of the cast members were treated equally.