HISTORY MAKERS

African American History Makers

His accomplishments include synthesizing the glaucoma drug physostigmine, discovering a substance used in Navy fire extinguishers in World War II, and perfecting a soybean oil derivative that lowered the cost of cortisone used to treat arthritis. (Source: DuSable Museum)

Dr. Mae C. Jemison (1956-)
The first black woman astronaut was born in Decatur, Alabama and moved to Chicago at an early age. She earned a B.S. Degree from Stanford and an M.D. from Cornell University Medical School. She joined the Peace Corps and was Area Peace Corp Medical Officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa.

As a mission specialist for NASA, Dr. Jemison helped prepare space shuttles for launch. On Sept. 12, 1992, she orbited Earth aboard the space shuttle Endeavor. The mission studied the effects of zero gravity on people and animals. She is the only African-American woman to have travelled in space. (Source: DuSable Museum)

African American History Dates

Asian Pacific American History Makers

Manuel Quezon (1876-1944)
Political leader. An attorney who became majority leader of the first Philippine Assembly under U.S. rule in 1907, Quezon later served as resident commissioner in Washington, D.C. In this capacity, he advocated independence for his country. As president of the Philippine Senate from 1916 to 1935, he helped to craft the 1934 laws that granted commonwealth status to the Philippines and promised full political independence in ten years. In 1935 he was elected president of the commonwealth. (Source: Multicultural Resource Calendar)

European American History Makers

Ernestine Potowski-Rose (1810-1892)
Orator and political activist. After emigrating to the United States in 1836, she gave her energies to the economic emancipation of women, the abolition of slavery, and the improvement of conditions for working people. Her first political success was her leadership of the 12-year campaign to secure property rights for married women in New York State. Her efforts led to the state legislature's passage in 1848 of the Married Women's Property Act, the first law in the United States to give married women the right to control their own property and share legal guardianship of their children. (Source: Multicultural Resource Calendar)

Hispanic American History Makers

Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)
Labor leader and activist. A migrant farm worker who became a nationally respected voice for social justice, Chavez spent his life combating the poverty and discrimination suffered by Mexicans and Mexican Americans, particularly agricultural laborers. In 1962 he began organizing farm workers into a union that three years later joined with a Filipino union in a strike against California grape growers for better wages and more humane working conditions. (The two groups later merged as the United Farm Workers.) Table grape producers held out for five years while Chavez focused national attention on the plight of farm workers. A national consumer boycott helped bring the strike to a successful conclusion in 1970. (Source: Multicultural Resource Calendar)

Native American History Makers

William Apess (1798-1840?)
Writer and civil rights activist. A traveling Methodist preacher, Apess published in 1829 his autobiography, A Son of the Forest, the first book written and published by a Native American. In this and subsequent writings, and in his public life as a spokesman for the Pequots, Apess challenged the racial assumptions of European Americans and asserted the rights of all people of color to be considered the equals of whites. (Source: Multicultural Resource Calendar)

History Notes

National Unity Day (Nepal)
This celebration pays homage to King Prithvinarayan Shah (1723-1775), founder of the present house of rulers of Nepal and creator of today's unified Nepal. (Source: Multicultural Resource Calendar)

Candlemas (Christian)
This religious holiday originated with the ancient Jewish custom that required mothers to present their first male child in the temple. As a Jewish mother, Mary would have presented Jesus on February 2. The day is associated with light and purification. The holiday takes its name from the custom of blessing the church's supply of candles for the year on this date. (Source: Multicultural Resource Calendar)

Beginning of Japanese Interment (February 19,1942)
On this date President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order requiring the removal of most persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast to internment camps in rural Arizona, Colorado, Arkansas, California, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. This act, a response to anti-Japanese feeling in the country after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, uprooted 112,000 people, including 71,000 U.S. citizens. (Source: Multicultural Resource Calendar)