DID YOU KNOW? for February 1 - 13, 2022:  

Did You Know...Dr. Charles E. Anderson was the first black man to receive a PhD in Meteorology (MIT, 1960) and first black man to earn tenure at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was a Dean at UW-Madison (in the 1970’s and 1980’s), pioneered research and work that involved minimizing contrails of high-altitude aircrafts, worked extensively as a leading expert on severe storms and tornadoes, and made discoveries in the meteorology of other planets.

Dr. Anderson was not only a distinguished scientist and meteorologist, but also an African American Studies scholar and teacher, serving a Professor of Afro-American Studies for several years at UW-Madison.

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After leaving UW-Madison in 1987, Dr. Anderson was a professor in the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC until he retired in 1990. He was a major contributor at NC State to a program focused on the forecasting of severe storms that received national recognition. Anderson's exemplary career as a scientist, leader, and mentor inspired the American Meteorological Society to establish an award named in his honor in 2000.

For further reading about Charles E. Anderson:

https://spectrumnews1.com/wi/milwaukee/weather/2021/02/24/life-of-charles-e-anderson

DID YOU KNOW? for January 18 - 31, 2022:  

Did You Know…Zaila Avant-Garde, 14 years old, spelled “m-u-r-r-a-y-a”, a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees, to clinch a victory at last year’s (2021) Scripps National Spelling Bee.  Avant-Garde is the first Black American champion in the competition’s 96 year history.  Spelling is not Avant-Garde’s only talent...

Zaila also holds 3 Guinness World Records for basketball.  Her 2021 spelling  triumph marks the return of the annual Scripps National Spelling competition, which did not happen in 2020 due to the covid pandemic.

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DID YOU KNOW? for January 4 - 17, 2022:  

Did You Know…The inventor of the first home security system was Marie Van Brittan Brown, a black woman from New York.  She is also credited with the invention of the first closed circuit television.  The patent for the invention was filed in 1966 and it later influenced modern home security systems that are still used today. 

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Marie Van Brittan Brown's invention was inspired by the security risk that her home faced in the neighborhood where she lived.  Marie Brown worked as a nurse and her husband, Albert Brown, worked as an electronics technician.  Her original invention was comprised of peepholes, a camera, monitors, and a two-way microphone.  The final element was an alarm button that could be pressed to contact the police immediately.  (Black Past, April 11, 2016)

DID YOU KNOW? for December 13 - 27, 2021:  

Did You Know…Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink of Hawaii, was the first woman of color and the first Asian-American woman to serve in the U.S. Congress.  She was also the first Asian-American to run for President.

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Mink is known for writing bills like Title IX (later named the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act), the Early Childhood Education Act, and Women’s Educational Equity Act.   Prior to her legislative experience, she faced discrimination in college, while applying to medical school and attempting to find employment after graduation from law school.  Starting her own firm, Mink became the first Japanese-American woman to practice law in Hawaii.  She successfully served on many committees while in Congress, including the Committee on Education and Labor, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, and the Budget Committee.

For further reading about Patsy Mink:

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/patsy-mink and https://www.biography.com/political-figure/patsy-mink

DID YOU KNOW? for November 30 - December 13, 2021:  

DID YOU KNOW... An enslaved African man, Onesimus taught Cotton Mather how to inoculate against smallpox. The concept of immunization came to the American colonies via Africa. In the early 1700s, Puritan minister Cotton Mather learned from Onesimus, a man he enslaved, about a method long used in West Africa, where a weakened form of the disease would be intentionally applied to a cut.

Learn more…
https://www.history.com/news/smallpox-vaccine-onesimus-slave-cotton-mather

DID YOU KNOW? for November 16-29, 2021:  

DID YOU KNOW... We’wha (a Zuni Two Spirit), a pottery and textile artist, was a Zuni cultural ambassador who took on both male and female tasks.  We'wha was also a spiritual leader who endeavored to preserve the history, traditions, and knowledge of the Zuni people.

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Though born a male-bodied person, community members recognized that We’wha demonstrated traits associated with the Ihamana as early as age three or four.  In Zuni culture, Ihamana (now more often described with the pan-Indian term “Two Spirit”) were male-bodied individuals who took on social and ceremonial roles generally performed by women.  They usually, though not exclusively, wore women’s clothing and mostly took up labors associated with women.  Ihamana constituted a socially-recognized third gender role within the tribe and often held positions of honor in the community.  https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/wewha

DID YOU KNOW? for November 2-15, 2021:  

DID YOU KNOW... U.S. Patent # 473,653, issued on April 26,1892 to Sarah Boone, for the design of a tapered ironing board on a stand is still used today!

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Sarah Boone was born into slavery and married a freedman at age 15.  When her family relocated to New Haven, Connecticut, she took up dressmaking as a profession.  In the course of her work, she noticed the difficulty of flattening out creases in the sleeves and bodies of women’s dresses. Ironing at the time was done on a wooden plank propped between chairs or on the kitchen table.

Sarah developed a design of a tapered board on a stand.  By rotating the fabric around the board, one could completely smooth any portion of a dress. Read more about Sarah:  https://www.biography.com/inventor/sarah-boone and her design: https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/boone-sarah-1832-1904/

DID YOU KNOW? for October 19 - November 1, 2021:  

Did You Know...The winner of the 1980 Law and Economics Center Prize was a black man, Thomas Sowell, an economist and social theorist.  His  book, Knowledge and Decisions, was heralded as a "landmark work," selected for this prize "because of its cogent contribution to our understanding of the differences between the market process and the process of government."

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In announcing the award, the Center acclaimed Sowell, whose "contribution to our understanding of the process of regulation alone would make the book important, but in reemphasizing the diversity and efficiency that the market makes possible, [his] work goes deeper and becomes even more significant."^[44] Friedrich Hayek wrote: "In a wholly original manner [Sowell] succeeds in translating abstract and theoretical argument into highly concrete and realistic discussion of the central problems of contemporary economic policy."  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell) 

DID YOU KNOW? for October 5 - 19, 2021:  

Did You Know...Maria Tallchief was the first Native American woman to break into ballet.  Elizabeth Marie Tallchief was born in 1925 in Oklahoma; her father was a member of the Osage Nation.  At 17, she moved to New York City to pursue her dreams of becoming a dancer.

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Maria Tallchief went from dance company to dance company looking for work.  Many discriminated against her because of her Native American ancestry.  She was eventually selected as an understudy in the Ballet Russe, the premier Russian ballet company in the USA.  In 1942, when one of the lead ballerinas abruptly stepped down, Tallchief was called to stand in.  Her performance received positive reviews from top critics.  As her career began to take off, many tried to persuade her to change her last name so that dance companies would not discriminate against her.  She refused and continued to perform as Maria Tallchief.  In 1947, after marrying choreographer George Balanchine, she became the first prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet - a title that she would hold for the next 13 years.  She became the first American to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet and perform at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.

Prior to her death in 2013 Maria Tallchief received a Kennedy Center Honors, was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

For further reading: https://www.biography.com/performer/maria-tallchief

DID YOU KNOW? for September 21 - October 4, 2021:  

Did You Know... Special Olympics athlete Chris Nikic crossed the finish line to become the first person with Down Syndrome to complete an Ironman triathlon.  Guinness World Records recognized Nikic's achievement after he finished a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-marathon run at the Ironman Florida competition in Panama City Beach in November 2020.

Learn more…

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/09/health/first-person-with-down-syndrome-completes-ironman-scn-trnd/index.html