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40 Fascinating Facts About the Fabulous Josephine Baker

Khalid Elhassan July 2, 2019 24 min

Josephine Baker - Josephine Baker - Chanter L'amour

15. She Almost Died of a Miscarriage

Over the years, Baker had several miscarriages, and while conducting her clandestine work in North Africa and Spain, she had one that almost claimed her life. She developed an infection so severe, that she needed a complete hysterectomy. Then things got worse, when the infection spread, and she ended up with sepsis and peritonites. After recovering, she began touring to entertain Allied soldiers – who by then had landed in North Africa. Later in the war, she joined the French Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, in which she was commissioned as a lieutenant, and kept putting on shows for Allied troops.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.