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This Day in History

May 17, 2004
First Gay Marriage in U.S.

Last week President Barack Obama came out in favor of gay marriage so it is important to note that only eight years ago this week the first same-sex marriage in the United States took place in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

May 18, 1896
Ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson

In 1896 the Supreme Court struck a major blow against integration, ruling that the Louisiana law that provided “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races” on railroad cars was constitutional. The ruling provided that long as equal accommodations were provided, segregation was not discrimination. The case was eventually used to justify segregating all public facilities, including railroad cars, restaurants, hospitals, and schools. Not until 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was Plessy v. Ferguson struck down.

 

Election Day: An American Holiday, An American History

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Take a behind-the-scenes look at American creativity and amazing inventions that began right here in the United States.


George Washington Carver (ca. 1865-1943), Internationally Known Scientist and Educator

  • Developed crop-rotation methods which changed the nature of agriculture;
  • Discovered multiple different uses for crops such as the peanut; the peanut plant enriches the soil but then farmers needed ways to sell the additional peanut crops they were producing.
  • Internationally known educator who also worked for racial equality

 George Washington Carver was born into a slave family in Diamond Grove, Missouri. His father died in an accident shortly before his birth, and when he was still an infant, Carver and his mother were kidnapped by slave raiders who hoped to sell them for money.  George was rescued by a neighbor and returned to Moses and Susan Carver, the owners of the farm where his family had lived. His mother was never seen again.

Carver’s older brother worked in the fields with Moses but George was a frail child so he helped Susan with household chores and gardening. He became quite knowledgeable about plants, and local people would consult him on what to do when a particular plant or crop was not doing well.

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When Gasoline-Powered Cars Were First Used, Where Did They Get Gasoline?

This fall I taught a class at the Osher Institute at UCLA; the class was called American Moments and one day I was talking about early automobiles and why gas-powered engines became the norm instead of electric-powered, which were also being made in the early 1900s.

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When Point-and-Shoot Began: The Brownie Camera

Today we don’t even need to remember to take our cameras. We simply pull out our phones and take pictures of anything from a tourist site we’re visiting to an item in a store where we’d like to send it to someone for an opinion. Point-shoot-and-send… picture-taking has become so easy.

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Then and Now: International Harvester Trucks

The other day at The Autry National Center of the American West in Los Angeles, I came upon this wonderful International Harvester truck, and I thought it would be fun to post a “then” and “now.”

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Mae West Life Preserver: Countless Owe Lives to It

Most of the time, it’s the little things that count.

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America As It Once Was: A Daily Gift

Author and historian David C. McCullough has said, “History is who we are and why we are the way we are.”

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