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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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The U.S. Constitution: Explained in Less Than an Hour

The United States Constitution is one of the most influential political documents of all time, and it is the cornerstone that supports our liberty.

Whether you’re a parent, a teacher, or an interested citizen, what if you could explain the Constitution and the disagreements that led to its crafting in about an hour?

Round Table Companies, a publishing company, has done just that by assigning to a writer and an artist the challenge of creating a graphic adaptation to explain the writing of the United States Constitution and the effort the founding fathers exerted to ratify it.

“The comic includes 100 percent of the original Constitution text as well as an illustrated storyline that depicts how the founding fathers created the document,” notes David Cohen, vice president and chief strategist at Round Table. “We believe in the power of story to engage, so narratives of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Thomas Paine and James Madison bring in a human component, vital to understanding the development of each article in The Constitution.”

While there were no founding mothers who actually took part in the convention in Philadelphia, Round Table and the comic’s creators have included women as part of the process that looks to the future. A female in period clothes is used to depict several of the explanations concerning the power of the Constitution, and women are represented in the sections that address Congress and its responsibilities. There’s no changing the all-male past but it’s good to see both genders represented going forward.

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Paul R. Williams (1894-1980), Los Angeles-based Architect

One of Southern California’s signature architects.

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Dorie Miller (1919-1943), Hero of World War II

Serving in a noncombat role in the Navy, Dorie Miller responded heroically when the battleship West Virginia was attacked at Pearl Harbor

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The Inventor of the Three-Light Traffic Signal: Garrett Morgan

Despite the number of traffic lights you have stopped for in the last week, chances are good that you never thought about who invented it. We tend to take for granted these everyday items.

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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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