DID YOU KNOW? for August 16 - 29, 2022:  

Diana Trujillo Pomerantz is a Colombian-born (January 1980) aerospace engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She leads the engineering team at JPL Rover. On February 18, 2021 Trujillo hosted the first ever Spanish-language NASA transmission of a planetary landing for the Perseverance rover landing on Mars.

Trujillo moved to the US when she was just 17 years old, with only $300 in her pocket. In order to improve her language skills she started English lessons at the Miami-Dade College while working as a maid, among other jobs. She eventually enrolled at the University of Florida to pursue studies in Aerospace Engineering. While at the University, Trujillo decided to apply for the NASA Academy, being the first Hispanic immigrant woman admitted to the program.

Learn more…
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/diana-trujillo-from-colombia-to-mars

DID YOU KNOW? for August 2 - 15, 2022:  

Marshall “Major” Taylor (1878-1932) was an African-American bicycling legend at the turn of the 20^th century. He established numerous world records from a quarter mile to 1 and 2-mile races in 1898-99. He excelled on velodrome tracks—the once-popular arenas built for bicycle racing. Hailed as the “Black Cyclone” Taylor traveled the world in the early 1900’s defeating champions from Canada, Germany, England, France, Australia, and New Zealand.

Even though Taylor’s accomplishments grew and his name became widely known, he was still subjected to racial segregation. Some promoters in the US, Canada, and abroad would not permit Taylor to compete against white cyclists.  He reported in his autobiography that some racers even cooperated with each other to intimidate and physically harm him, citing as an example the 1899 1-mile world championship in Montreal where he was “bumped, jostled, and elbowed until I was sorely tried” and that his manager was so angered, he publicly criticized other riders for their “rough treatment” of Taylor.

Today there are bicycle racing courses, events, and clubs named in Taylor’s honor.

Learn more...
https://cascade.org/learn-major-taylor-project/history-marshall-major-taylor-fastest-man-world

DID YOU KNOW? for July 19 - August 1, 2022:  

Did You Know…Matthew Henson was an African American explorer best known as the co-discoverer of the North Pole in 1909 with Robert Edwin Peary. While Peary received much recognition for the accomplishment, Henson, as a black man, was largely ignored in press reports at the time. It took almost 30 years for him to receive the proper recognition.

Born to Maryland sharecroppers in1866, Matthew Henson was orphaned early and had to make his own way. He became a cabin boy on a ship where the captain mentored him in seamanship. Henson was working on land in a hat shop in Washington D.C. in 1887 when he met naval engineer and global explorer Robert Peary. Peary was impressed by Henson’s seafaring credentials and hired him as his valet for upcoming expeditions to Nicaragua, Greenland, and eventually the North Pole.

Over several years, Peary and Henson would make multiple attempts to reach the North Pole. Peary knew that the mission's success depended on his companion, stating "Henson must go all the way. I can't make it there without him."

On April 6, 1909, Peary, Matthew Henson and four Eskimo crew members finally reached the geographic North Pole — or at least they claimed to have (some controversy remains).

Learn More…

https://www.biography.com/explorer/matthew-henson

DID YOU KNOW? for July 5 - 18, 2022:  

Did You Know…Ann Cole Lowe was the first African American to become a well-known fashion designer. Her designs were favored by high-society women, including members of the DuPont, Post, and Rockefeller families, well-known department stores like Henri Bendel, Nieman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue, and ‘fashionistas’ of the time from debutants to Oscar winners.

Ann was born in Alabama in 1898 and grew up sewing like her grandmother and mother who were dressmakers. Ann’s fashion designs became recognized nationally in the 1920’s and stayed popular for over 4 decades.  Some of her most famous work was for the bride and bridesmaids in the 1953 wedding of Jacqueline Bouvier to then Senator John F. Kennedy. In 1968 Ann opened her Ann Lowe Originals boutique on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, becoming the first African American owned business in the center of American fashion.

Ann earned many prestigious design commissions and international fashion honors in her lifetime, and told a 1966 interviewer, “All the pleasure I have had, I owe to my sewing.”

Learn more…..

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/lowe-ann-cole-1898-1981/

DID YOU KNOW? for June 21 - July 4, 2022:  

Did You Know…The 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Abdulrazak Gurnah who was born in Zanzibar, Tanzania and now teaches and writes in Canterbury, England.  The Swedish Academy cited Gurnah for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.

Gurnah is the first Black writer to receive the Literature Nobel since Toni Morrison in 1993. Gurnah has written 10 novels, including 1994’s Paradise, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and 2001’s By the Sea, longlisted for the Booker.

Gurnah’s writing is noted for pushing back against previous Western takes on the African continent.  He has said that "the exclusion of non-European people from certain kinds of recognitions, or the exclusion of women from certain kinds of recognitions, is only just now beginning to become an issue or a thing people are concerned to put right", and added that the world was changing.

Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Novels

·       Memory of Departure (1987)

·       Pilgrims Way (1988)

·       Dottie (1990)

·       Paradise (1994) (shortlisted for the Booker Prizeand the Whitbread Prize)

·       Admiring Silence (1996)

·       By the Sea (2001) (longlisted for the Booker Prize and
                           shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize)

·       Desertion (2005)

·       The Last Gift (2011)

·       Gravel Heart (2017)

·       Afterlives (2020)

Learn more…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulrazak_Gurnah

DID YOU KNOW? for June 7 - 20, 2022:  

Did You Know…Professor George W. McLaurin (1887- 1968) was the first African-American to attend the University of Oklahoma, and the plaintiff in the precedent-setting McLaurin vs. Oklahoma State Regents 1950 Supreme Court decision. In the McLaurin case the Court ruled unanimously (9-0) that racial segregation within colleges and universities is inconsistent with the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, therefore African American students must receive the same treatment as all other students in higher education.

George McLaurin held a Master’s Degree from the University of Kansas and was a retired professor living in Oklahoma City.  He applied to the University of Oklahoma doctoral program in education but was denied admission solely based on his race. At that time, Oklahoma state law made it a misdemeanor to teach at or attend an educational institution that admitted both white and black students. In their decision the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that because American society was changing, discrimination based on race had no place in education.

Learn more….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._McLaurin

DID YOU KNOW? for May 24 - June 6, 2022:  

Did You Know…Scott Joplin (1868-1917) was an African-American composer and pianist. He was considered the “King of Ragtime”, though he also composed music for ballet, opera, and broadway. Ragtime is a syncopated (i.e. off-beat) music style with roots in the African-American community. It was especially popular in America from about 1895 to 1919, and is considered one forerunner of jazz.  Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” (1899) was a major hit and is often referred to as the model for all ragtime works.

Joplin's father had been a slave, later working for the railroad after emancipation.  Scott briefly worked for the railroad, then taught piano, and played piano at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.  Scott hoped for a career as a classical pianist and composer, and had difficulty escaping his ragtime associations.

Learn more……

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Joplin

Listen to Scott Joplin play “Maple Leaf Rag” (recording from 1916)…..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maple_leaf_rag_-_played_by_Scott_Joplin_1916_V2.ogg

DID YOU KNOW? for May 10 - 23, 2022:  

Did You Know…Victor Jerome Glover (b: April 30, 1976) is a NASA astronaut from the class of 2013 and Pilot on the first operational flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon to the International Space Station (ISS). Glover is a commander in the U.S. Navy where he pilots an F/A-18, and is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School. 

He was a crew member of Expedition64 (ISS November 16, 2020 - May 2, 2021), serving as a station systems flight engineer and completing 3 space walks.

Glover has been selected to be part of NASA's Artemis program to fly to the lunar south pole, which is set to begin flights with un-crewed launches in 2022.

Learn more….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_J._Glover

DID YOU KNOW? for April 26 - May 9, 2022:  

Did You Know…Mae Carol Jemison is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. In 1992 she became the first Black woman to travel into space when she served as a Mission Specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, spending more than a week orbiting the earth and fulfilling dreams that began when she watched Star Trek on television as a youngster.

In October 1986, Jemison was 1 of 15 accepted from some 2,000 applicants to be an astronaut. Jemison completed her training as a Mission Specialist with NASA in 1988. She became an Astronaut Office Representative with the Kennedy Space Center, working to process space shuttles for launching and to verify shuttle software.

Next, she was assigned to support a cooperative mission between the United States and Japan designed to conduct experiments in materials processing and the life sciences. In September 1992, STS-47 Spacelab J became the first successful joint U.S.-Japan space mission.

After completing her NASA mission, she formed the Jemison Group to develop and market advanced technologies. (Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Mae Jemison". Encyclopedia Britannica)

Learn more…

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mae-Jemison

DID YOU KNOW? for April 12 - 25, 2022:  

Did You Know…Gladys Mae West is a “Hidden Figure behind your phone’s GPS.” West is an American mathematician known for her contributions to the mathematical modeling of the shape of the earth, and her work on the development of satellite geodesy models that were eventually incorporated into global positioning systems (GPS).

As a studious Black girl in rural Virginia, West earned a scholarship to Virginia State College where she completed her first degree in math in 1952. She was eventually hired by the U.S. Naval Proving Ground where she combined information from Seasat and other satellites to refine an increasingly detailed and accurate mathematical model of the actual shape of the earth – called a “geoid.” This computational modeling would prove essential to modern GPS.

GPS technology relies on mathematical models to accurately calculate the position of the receiver, a technology now embedded in a wide range of tracking and guidance devices.

Gladys Mae West was inducted into the U.S. Air Force Hall of Fame in 2018 to honor her many contributions to science and technology.

Learn more…

Meet Dr. Gladys West by Lauren Mackenzie Reynolds in Massive Science, December 25, 2019

and

"Gladys West, American Mathematician" in Britannica.com:  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gladys-West