Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. – Theodore Roosevelt
1858 – Theodore Roosevelt, American colonel and politician, 26th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate is born.
Theodore Roosevelt, often referred to as Teddy or TR, was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and reformer who served as the 26th President of the United States, from 1901 to 1909. A leader of the Republican Party, he was a leading force of the Progressive Era. Born a sickly child with debilitating asthma, Roosevelt embraced a strenuous lifestyle and successfully regained his health. He integrated his exuberant personality, vast range of interests, and world-famous achievements into a “cowboy” persona defined by robust masculinity. Home-schooled, he became a lifelong naturalist before attending Harvard College. His first of many books, The Naval War of 1812 (1882), established his reputation as both a learned historian and a popular writer. He entered politics, becoming the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in New York’s state legislature. Following the deaths of his wife and mother, he escaped to the wilderness and operated a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. He returned to run unsuccessfully for Mayor of New York City in 1886. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under William McKinley, resigning after one year to serve with the Rough Riders, gaining national fame for courage during the War in Cuba. Returning a war hero, he was elected governor of New York in 1898. A frustrated party establishment made him McKinley’s running mate in the election of 1900. He campaigned vigorously across the country, helping McKinley win reelection by a landslide on a platform of peace, prosperity, and conservatism.
The assassination of President McKinley in September 1901 meant that at age 42, Roosevelt had become President of the United States, the youngest in history. Leading his party and country into the Progressive Era, he championed his “Square Deal” domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. Making conservation a top priority, he established myriad new national parks, forests, and monuments in order to preserve the nation’s natural resources. In foreign policy, he concentrated on Central America, where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He also greatly expanded the United States Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project the United States’ naval power. His successful efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.
1904 – The first underground New York City Subway line opens; the system becomes the biggest in United States, and one of the biggest in world.
The Great Blizzard of 1888 helped demonstrate the benefits of an underground transportation system. The first underground line of the subway opened on October 27, 1904, almost 35 years after the opening of the first elevated line in New York City, which became the IRT Ninth Avenue Line. Opening prices for a rides cost riders $0.05 and in the first day alone carried over 150,000 passengers. The oldest structure still in use opened in 1885 as part of the BMT Lexington Avenue Line in Brooklyn and is now part of the BMT Jamaica Line. The oldest right-of-way, that of the BMT West End Line, was in use in 1863 as a steam railroad called the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Rail Road.
1954 – Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. becomes the first African-American general in the United States Air Force.
Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr. was an American United States Air Force general and commander of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen.
He was the first African-American general officer in the United States Air Force. On December 9, 1998, he was advanced to four-star general by President Bill Clinton. During World War II, Davis was commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron and the 332nd Fighter Group, which escorted bombers on air combat missions over Europe. Davis himself flew sixty missions in P-39, Curtiss P-40, P-47 and P-51 Mustang fighters. Davis followed in his father’s footsteps in breaking racial barriers, as Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. was the first African-American general in the United States Army.
1994 – Gliese 229B is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified.
Gliese 229 (also written as Gl 229 or GJ 229) is a red dwarf about 19 light years away in the constellation Lepus. It has 58% of the mass of the Sun, 69% of the Sun’s radius, and a very low projected rotation velocity of 1 km/s at the stellar equator.
2014 – Adafruit’s YouTube Channel Reaches 12 Million Views!
Last year, Adafruit’s YouTube channel hit 12 million views – this year we are at over 19 million!
