Presidents Day & Black History Month
February is Black History Month in the United States of America and today, with the first Aftrican-American President in office, we celebrate Presidents Day.
Is it the President’s or the Presidents’ day? "As innocuous as President’s Day seems, it actually has quite a sordid history," as told today on the West Law Insider, the original date for the holiday being February 22, George Washington's birthday, before it was later fixed as a Monday to create a holiday weekend.
The date for observance was set as the third Monday in February, which always falls between February 15 and 21, never on Washington’s actual birthday. This positioned the day of observance between Lincoln’s birthday (February 12) and Washington’s birthday.
What started out as a President's Day (Washington's) it has become over the years, Presidents Day.
It's interesting from an historic perspective, coincidentally in Black History Month, to think about the impact of Washington, Lincoln, and Obama -- slave owner, emancipator, and the first Black President.
Last week, President Obama met with some of the most innovative business leaders in the country, over what was billed as a tech dinner. Interesting how far we've come from the time of the first Patent Act in 1790, when African-Americans couldn't own intellectual property, but were property.
The contributions of African-Americans to innovation is not a story often told. It seems this might be as good a day as any to share this part of American history.
Visit the Black Inventor Online Museum ™ a look at the great and often unrecognized leaders in the field of invention and innovation.
For more than 300 years, black inventors have served as pioneers in the field of science and have made enormous impacts on society. As African Americans sought freedom and equality, many among them, scientists, educators and even slaves, developed the tools and processes that helped to shape the modern agricultural, industrial and technological landscape. While some are famous, many remain unknown, but their contributions have assured that their stories are not only about black history, but about world history.
One more interesting bit of patent history, for Presidents Day, according to Wikipedia, the only President of the United States to hold a patent was Abraham Lincoln for a "device to buoy vessels over shoals"; it consisted of a set of retractable floats mounted on the sides of riverboats. Buoyah!
