DID YOU KNOW? for September 7 - 20, 2021:  

Did You Know...Yang See, who worked as the main liaison between the CIA and the Lao Royal Army during the secret Hmong Guerrilla war against North Vietnam, was the person most responsible for the US Government finally accepting the Hmong resettlement in the US.

Initially, the US took the position that the Hmong were “too uneducated/primitive” to be successfully assimilated into US culture, even though this belief was without merit.  This made it very difficult for the Hmong to “escape” the refugee camps they had fled to in Thailand.  Yang Lee, who was fluent in many languages, was successful in getting the State Department to change its misguided policy.

Learn more…

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/25/how-a-former-cia-worker-helped-bring-the-hmong-to-america

DID YOU KNOW? for August 24 - September 6, 2021:  

Did You Know - Hamdi Ulukaya, born in Ilic, Turkey, is a businessman, activist and philanthropist who founded and owns the company Chobani, the #1 selling strained yogurt in the US. He was born to a dairy farming Kurdish family and immigrated to the US in 1994 to study English and take business courses.

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Mr. Ulukaya is very serious about Kurdish rights and left Turkey due to the oppression of the Turkish state’s oppression of its Kurdish minority.

In addition to founding Chobani, heis also the chairman and CEO. His net worth was almost $2.0 billion (2019). On 26 April 2016, Ulukaya announced to his employees that he would be giving them 10% of the shares in Chobani

Visit Hamdi Ulukaya - Wikipedia for further reading

DID YOU KNOW? for August 10 - 23, 2021:  

Did You Know ANNETTE FRANQUI, the new Board Chair of the AARP Board of Directors, is the first Hispanic to fill that role.

Annette Franqui joined the AARP Board in 2014. As Board Chair she also Chairs the AARP Board Governance Committee and Compensation Committee

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Annette Franqui is a founding partner of Forrestal Capital, a company that provides wealth management and direct equity investment advice to a select number of families in Latin America. A native of Puerto Rico, she is a senior financial services executive with prior CFO experience as well as 15 years on Wall Street with JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

For more about Annette Franqui, see:  https://www.aarp.org/about-aarp/board-of-directors/info-2016/annette-franqui.html

DID YOU KNOW? for July 27 - August 9, 2021:  

Mario Jose Molina-Pasquel Henriquez (known as Mario Molina), Mexican chemist, was the first Mexican-born scientist to receive a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for his role in discovering the threat to the Earth’s ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbon gases.

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Dr. Molina held research and teaching positions at various renowned universities in the US and at the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom on August 8, 2013.  https://en.wikipedia.org (search for Mario Molina)

DID YOU KNOW? for July 13 - 26, 2021:  

Effie Waller Smith, a black woman with Wisconsin ties, was an early twentieth-century poet known for her books of poetry, Songs of the Months (1904), Rhymes from the Cumberland (1909), and Rosemary and Pansies (1909).

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Effie has only recently been recognized as a poet who, not only revered her Appalachian home and its landscapes, but “pushed readers to reconsider and perhaps reject hierarchies of race, class, gender and place.” She expressed both feminist and environmental awareness and addresses both racism and classism as well.  

DID YOU KNOW? for June 29 - July 12, 2021:  

Marcellus Gilmore Edson, who patented peanut butter, (US Patent #306727) was an African-American chemist from Canada.  Edson developed the idea of peanut paste as a delicious and nutritious food for people who had difficulty chewing solid food, a common issue in those days.

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Edson was awarded his patent in 1884.  His cooled product had "a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment" according to his patent application.  He included the mixing of sugar into the paste to harden its consistency.  The patent described a process of milling roasted peanuts until the peanuts reached "a fluid or semi-fluid state."

Interested in more?
Marcus Gilmore Edson (Wikipedia bio):  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_Gilmore_Edson and 
Who invented peanut butter: https://www.nationalpeanutboard.org/peanut-info/who-invented-peanut-butter.htm

DID YOU KNOW? for June 15 - 28, 2021:  

The inventor of laser cataract surgery was Dr. Patricia Era Bath, a black American ophthalmologist and inventor. She holds patents in Japan, Canada and Europe.

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Dr. Bath's invention was called the Laserphaco Probe (1986). “Harnessing laser technology, the device created a less painful and more precise treatment of cataracts.” Bath received a patent for the device in 1988, becoming the first African American female doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose. In 1976, Bath co-founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness, which established that "eyesight is a basic human right." She was also the first African-American woman to serve on staff as a surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center.

Interested in more?   https://www.biography.com/scientist/patricia-bath