In 1973, the nation was captivated by a televised hearing taking place in the US Senate. On 17 May the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities opened its hearings on the Watergate Break-In and …
American History
Rose Schneiderman – This Week’s “Profile in Jewish American Heritage”
Rose Schneiderman was a legendary organizer of women workers, once saying, What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has …
A Voice in the Wilderness
John Brown was the embodiment of the most radical wing of the abolitionist movement during the pre-civil war period in American history. in 1837, after a mob of pro-slavery vigilantes murdered abolitionist publisher Elijah P. Lovejoy in …
Jonas Salk – This Week’s “Profile in Jewish American Heritage
In 1955, Polio was affecting more children than any other communicable disease. In 1956, a vaccine was declared to be safe and effective. It’s developer was a 40 year old medical researcher and virologist named …
An Activist Shaped by War and Study
It sounds like something out of a war comics adventure story, but it is all true. UW-Madison grad John Gilman earned some the highest military honors for bravery in WWII through several heroic exploits. These …
The Month of May Begins
The 1st of May, or “May Day” and sometimes called “International Workers Day,” has the unusual distinction of being a holiday that was born in the United States, but rarely receiving any official recognition here …
A Man is Silenced, but not the Message…
It was on this day, 4 April , in 1968, that Martin Luther King Jr., was struck down by an assassin’s bullet. He was visiting the city of Memphis, Tennessee in support of striking sanitation …
Si Se Puede
March marks the birthday of Cesar Chavez. This day is a State holiday in California, Colorado and Texas. In 1927, Mr. Chavez was born into a family of Mexican-American migrant workers. In 1962, he founded (along …
This Week’s Women in History Profile: Maya Lin
Maya Lin (born 1959) the daughter of Chinese immigrants, rose to fame in 1981 when as a 21 year old architectural student at Yale University, Lin won a contest to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial …
This Week’s Women in History Profile – Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) worked as nurse among poor women on New York City’s Lower East Side and became an advocate for women’s health. In 1912, she gave up nursing and dedicated herself to the distribution of …