Calendar Project: May 2015

May Short List

Kenneth and Mamie Clark & Thurgood Marshall, Publication of Brown versus the Board of Education, The doll experiments

Kenneth and Mamie Clark did the research that lead to Thurgood Marshall winning the Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that ended separate but equal segregation.

May 1847, Ignaz Simmelwiz institutes hand washing with cloronated lime at Vienna General Hospital’s First Obstetrical Clinic.

Early advocate for empiricism in medicine.

Other Calendars

Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 May Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar May 2015 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 05 May

May

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
John Dewey “What Humanism means to me is an expansion, not a contraction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good.” — John Dewey, “What Humanism Means to Me”[36]   A Humanist Manifesto, also known as Humanist Manifesto I to distinguish it from later Humanist Manifestos in the series, was written in 1933 primarily by Raymond Bragg and published with 34 signers. Unlike the later manifestos, this first talks of a new religion and refers to humanism as a religious movement meant to transcend and replace previous, deity-based systems. Nevertheless, it is careful not to express a creed or dogma. The document outlines fifteen affirmations on cosmology, biological and cultural evolution, human nature, epistemology, ethics, religion, self-fulfillment, and the quest for freedom and social justice. This latter, stated in article fourteen, proved to be the most controversial, even among humanists, in its opposition to “acquisitive and profit-motivated society” and its demand for an egalitarian world community based on voluntary mutual cooperation. The document’s release was reported by the mainstream media on May 1, simultaneous with its publication in the May/June 1933 issue of the New Humanist. May 1 1933 Publication of the humanists manifesto
Kenneth and Mamie Clark & Thurgood Marshall   Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S.483 (1954), was a landmarkUnited States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court‘s unanimous (9–0) decision stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” As a result, de jureracial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement.[1] May 17, 1954 Publication of Brown v Board of Education  
Ignaz Semmelweis   Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis[Note 1] (July 1, 1818 – August 13, 1865) (born Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis) was a Hungarian physician of German extraction[1][2] now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the “savior of mothers”, Semmelweis discovered that the incidenceof puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal, with mortality at 10%–35%. Semmelweis proposed the practice of washing with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital‘s First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors’ wards had three times the mortality of midwives’ wards.[3] He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever. Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and Semmelweis could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings. Semmelweis’s practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and Joseph Lister, acting on the Frenchmicrobiologist‘s research, practiced and operated, using hygienic methods, with great success. In 1865, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum, where he died at age 47 after being beaten by the guards, only 14 days after he was committed.     Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever is a medical book by Ignaz Semmelweis. It includes studies in hospitals conducted in Vienna in 1847, dealing largely with the field of obstretics. It was translated into English by Kay Codell Carter in 1983.   http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/the%20etiology,%20concept%20and%20prophylaxis%20of%20childbed%20fever.pdf May 1847, Simmelwiz institutes hand washing with cloronated lime

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