Today is Earth Day. The first official Earth Day was celebrated across the United States in 1970. The day came out of a desire to raise awareness and respect for the environment following the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill which killed over 10,000 birds and sea fauna. The April date was specifically chosen to fall during the school year in the hopes it would lead to increased education in schools. And on that first Earth Day in 1970, the majority of participants who stepped outside into the sunshine were children, teens, and young adults from elementary school to college.
And on this day in 1876 the Philadelphia Athletics faced off against the Boston Red Stockings in the first game of the National League. It ended up being the only game that day as the other 3 scheduled games were rained out in their cities. At the time, the National League was changing up the way teams operated. Player contracts were altered, and the team or ‘club’ was give some much needed oversight that would help them maintain core groups of players for full season(s), whereas in other leagues, players would often jump to a better paying team mid-season. The National League still exists today as part of the MLB, though many of the ‘clubs’ have changed names and locations. As such, that first National League game in 1876 is often said to be the first MLB game in history.
Today is the birthday of German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. Kant who said “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”, is one of the fundamental philosophers to know in any 101 Philosophy course. Kantian Ethics theorizes that to determine if an action is moral or not, you have to look at the intention of the action, not solely the outcome of the action. His advice for how to live a moral life, goes more or less like this: “Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.”
Today is also the birthday of Ruth A. M. Schmidt, American geologist and paleontologist. A lesser known pioneer for women in science, she received her doctorate in geology from Columbia University in 1948. During WWII, she became the first woman graduate student to teach a class of all-male students at Columbia, as most of the male graduate students had been drafted into military service.
Ruth worked for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for 20 years. She resigned when a request to change departments was denied. Her superior said they were looking for “hearty new male PhDs” to fill the position instead.
Ruth soldiered on in Anchorage, Alaska, where she had already founded the Alaska Geological Society and was keen to continue research in the area.
She was in the field with a group of research students from the University of Alaska, Anchorage during the Great Alaska Earthquake. She, three students, and a US Forest Service scientist were on a glacial lake when the 9.2 earthquake rocked Alaska on down to California for a solid 5 minutes. Fortunately, none of the party fell into the freezing water as the iced cover on the lake was 3-feet thick.
During the rebuilding of the earthquake she and her team of researchers studied the aftermath and worked to identify possible future risks, so as to avoid them during the rebuilding process. She was inducted into the Alaska Women’s hall of Fame in 2015, just one year after her death in 2014.
The Violet
Jane Taylor
Down in a green and shady bed
A modest violet grew;
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head,
As if to hide from view.
And yet it was a lovely flower,
Its colors bright and fair;
It might have graced a rosy bower,
Instead of hiding there.
Yet there it was content to bloom,
In modest tints arrayed;
And there diffused a sweet perfume,
Within the silent shade.
Then let me to the valley go,
This pretty flower to see;
That I may also learn to grow
In sweet humility.