Adding our own contributions to the river of time
Ah, March. The herald of spring. But what else is this month known for throughout history. Quite a lot.
President Kennedy brought the Peace Corps to life in 1961— opening the opportunity for volunteers to work for human good in countries trying to get on their feet.
Sam Houston was born in Virginia in 1793. He was a teen runaway to the Cherokee tribe — later becoming governor of Tennessee, and then Texas. Lost the Texas governorship for following his sense of right, and refusing to swear allegiance to the confederacy.
Hostility toward giving the vote to women erupted during a suffrage march down Pennsylvania Avenue the day before Woodrow Wilson's 1913 presidential inauguration. Thousands of women were heckled by an angry crowd — causing the military cavalry to be called in.
How things changed in 20 years when on March 4, 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Frances Perkins as the first woman to hold a Cabinet post, Secretary of Labor.
The first to invent and patent the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, was born in 1847. His father developed a system called “visible speech” to help deaf people learn to speak — Alexander's mother and wife were deaf. From this work, Alexander became interested in sound waves and electricity. He thought his own invention an intrusion in his scientific pursuits and would not have one in his study.
Paper money printed by the U.S. Government made its way into the peoples' hands in 1862. The first bills were $5 bills, $10 bills, and $20 bills.
The Spanish influenza appeared in America in 1918 among soldiers in Fort Riley, Kansas. Worldwide it eventually killed twenty million. Thirty years earlier the Great Blizzard ravaged New York City with forty inches of snow falling in thirty-six hours. Over 400 people lost their lives in the unexpected storm.
After much protest by Quakers — and others — who viewed slavery as a “blight upon humanity,” the British Parliament abolished the slave trade in 1807.
Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 in Holland. He painted over 800 oils in only ten years of work, yet sold just one. By contrast in 1987 one of his paintings went for $53.9 million. He was plagued by depression and mental illness and died by suicide at age 37.
A fired-up Patrick Henry triggered the American Revolution with his famous 1775 speech in Richmond, Virginia, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”
This brief March historical tour teaches there have been personal, professional, and political struggles in every era. Exciting moments, brave moments, tragic moments. Great stuff — and grievous stuff.
History is a river made up of countless feeder streams. It is meaningful to travel strong — if I am able — in my tributary of time, to contribute to the well-being and courage of the river — because it affects us all.