Calendar Project: September 2015

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September BAH Short List

September, 26, 1900, Jesse Lazear dies of yellow fever after allowing himself to be bite by a mosquito.

September, Hull House started in Chicago, Jane Addams and Starr established Hull House as a settlement house on September 18, 1889

The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community. Its main object was the establishment of “settlement houses” in poor urban areas, in which volunteer middle-class “settlement workers” would live, hoping to share knowledge and culture with, and alleviate the poverty of their low-income neighbors. The “settlement houses” provided services such as daycare, education, and healthcare to improve the lives of the poor in these areas.[1] In the US, by 1913 there were 413 settlements in 32 states.[2]  (From wikipedia)

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September

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Racheal Carson Silent Spring is an environmental science book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on September 27, 1962
Jane Addams Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was a pioneer settlement social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader inwomen’s suffrage and world peace. In an era when presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers and social activists, Addams was one of the most prominent[1] reformers of the Progressive Era. She helped turn the US to issues of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, public health, and world peace. She said that if women were to be responsible for cleaning up their communities and making them better places to live, they needed the vote to be effective in doing so. Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities. She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the American pragmatist school of philosophy.[2] In 1931 she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is recognized as the founder of the social work profession in the United States   Addams followed the example of Toynbee Hall, which was founded in 1885 in the East End of London as a center for social reform. She described Toynbee Hall as “a community of university men” who, while living there, held their recreational clubs and social gatherings at the settlement house…among the poor people and in the same style they would in their own circle.[10] September, Hull House started in Chicago Addams and Starr established Hull House as a settlement house on September 18, 1889.[11]   Nobel Peace Prize 1931; December  
Yellow fever and mosquitos Walter Reed, Jesse Lazear, Carlos Finlay   After a few months in Quemados, Lazear, together with Walter Reed (1851–1902), James Carroll (1854–1907) and Aristides Agramonte (1869–1931), participated in a commission studying the transmission of yellow fever, the Yellow Fever Board. During his research at Camp Colombia, he confirmed the 1881 hypothesis of Carlos Finlay that mosquitos transmitted this disease. A portion of his study, though, had been conducted on himself: without telling his colleagues, he had allowed himself to be bitten by yellow fever-infected mosquitoes, and died of the disease at age 34. A dormitory at Johns Hopkins University was named after him in honor of his sacrifice, as was a former chemistry building at Washington & Jefferson College, Lazear’s alma mater. September, 26, 1900, Lazear dies of yellow fever after allowing himself to be bite by a mosquito.

Calendar Project: August 2015

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August 2015 BAH Short List

US Cavalry takes charge of Yellowstone Park protecting it for two generations from commercialization.

In August 1886, after the downfall of Superintendent Carpenter from his criminal attempt to profit off of park lands, Sheridan ordered a company of the First Cavalry to take charge of the park.  They had the means to enforce the rules and regulations of the park, and they ably administered Yellowstone for the next thirty-two years.

Martin Luther King Jr. gave the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in 1963.

“I Have a Dream” is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. on August 28, 1963, in which he calls for an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, the speech was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.[1] (from wikipedia)

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream

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August

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Sheridan protecting Yellowstone. Yellowstone[edit] The protection of the Yellowstone area was Sheridan’s personal crusade. He authorized Lieutenant Gustavus Doane to escort the Washburn Expedition in 1870 and for Captain John W. Barlow to escort the Hayden Expedition in 1871. Barlow named Mount Sheridan, a peak overlooking Heart Lake in Yellowstone, for the general in 1871.[50] As early as 1875, Sheridan promoted military control of the area to prevent the destruction of natural formations and wildlife.[51]   In 1882, the Department of the Interior granted rights to the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company to develop 4,000 acres (1620 hectares) in the park. Their plan was to build a railroad into the park and sell the land to developers. Sheridan personally organized opposition to the plan and lobbied Congress for protection of the park; including expansion, military control, reducing the development to 10 acres (4 hectares), and prohibiting leases near park attractions. In addition, he arranged an expedition to the park for President Chester A. Arthur and other influential men.[52] His lobbying soon paid off. A rider was added to the Sundry Civil Bill of 1883, giving Sheridan and his supporters almost everything for which they had asked. In 1886, after a string of ineffectual and sometimes criminal superintendents, Sheridan ordered the 1st U.S. Cavalry into the park. The military operated the park until the National Park Service took it over in 1916.[51]   President Ulysses S. Grant, on March 1, 1872, signed into law a bill making an area mostly in the Northwest corner of Wyoming Territory larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined into this nation’s first national park.   Sheridan is mentioned favorably in The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, Episode I, for his work saving Yellowstone National Park:[53]   Grinnell’s fight against the railroad interests was soon joined by an unlikely ally—General Philip Sheridan, a cavalry hero of the Civil War and celebrated Indian fighter, who was now commander of the U.S. Army for much of the West. Sheridan even suggested that Yellowstone should be expanded to provide greater protection for the elk and buffalo. The idea was immediately opposed by Western politicians who believed that Yellowstone was already too big.   In Washington, Grinnell, Sheridan and Missouri Senator George Vest took on the railroad lobby directly, calling for an investigation into the park contracts, proposing the expansion of Yellowstone, and trying to write park regulations concerning hunting into law. While the bill to expand Yellowstone failed, Congress did appropriate $40,000 for its maintenance; however, funds to maintain the park were stripped away in August 1886. It seemed Yellowstone would have to fend for itself.   Sheridan’s headstone at Arlington National Cemetery. The inscription faces Washington, D.C. Coming to the rescue, Sheridan dispatched Troop M of the First United States Cavalry to take control of Yellowstone. —Ken Burns, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea August, Cavalry take over park management   Sheridan’s plan generally succeeded, and Yellowstone became a national park in fact.  After one failed attempt to pass Sheridan’s plan, Vest pushed the bill through as a rider on the Sundry Civil Appropriations Bill signed March 3, 1883 64 (see  Sundry Civil Bill for 1883 ).  The final version of the act added no more land to Yellowstone, but it called for everything else that Sheridan wanted.  Furthermore, Chester A. Arthur became the first President to visit the park in the summer of 1883.  Arthur and his party of dignitaries–cabinet members, senators, governors, and others–left Yellowstone impressed enough that they did not stand in the way of the execution of the law. 65 In August 1886, after the downfall of Superintendent Carpenter from his criminal attempt to profit off of park lands, Sheridan ordered a company of the First Cavalry to take charge of the park.  They had the means to enforce the rules and regulations of the park, and they ably administered Yellowstone for the next thirty-two years. 66 Sheridan’s ironic mission to save Yellowstone’s wildlife and protect it from the dominating interests of private enterprise succeeded.
Coast Guard Day Coast Guard Day (Established in 1790) August 4, 1790
  Thomas Edison received a patent for the mimeograph machine in 1876. August 8, 1876
  Transcontinental Railroad completed, 1869. August 15, 1869
Mosquito Day   August 20
  National Park Service Established 1916. 25 August 1916
American Civil Rights Movement Dream DayMartin Luther King Jr. gave the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in 1963. 28 August, 1963
  Thurgood Marshall took a seat on the Supreme Court, 1967. 30 August 1967

Calendar Project: July 2015

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July 2015 BAH Short List

The Delcaration of Sentiments, The Seneca Falls Convention, July 19–20, 1848 and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

While an abolitionist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton  was an outspoken advocate for women’s rights.  Beyond the right to vote, she advocated for a broad range of issues which included women’s parental and custody rights, property rights, employment and income rights, divorce, the economic health of the family, and birth control. Stanton was the primary author of The Declaration of Rights and Sentiments.  Modelled after the Declaration of Independence, it challenged the normative cultural treatment of women as property.

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Falls_Convention
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Sentiments
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cady_Stanton

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July

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
-Seneca Falls Convention and Elizabeth Cady Stanton The Seneca Falls Convention, which advertised itself as a “Womens Right Convention”.—A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman”,[1] was the first women’s rights convention.[2] Held in Seneca Falls,New York, it spanned two days over July 19–20, 1848. Attracting widespread attention, it was soon followed by other women’s rights conventions, including one in Rochester, New York two weeks later. In 1850 the first in a series of annualNational Women’s Rights Conventions met in Worcester, Massachusetts. Female Quakers local to the area organized the meeting along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was not a Quaker. They planned the event during a visit to the area by Philadelphia-based Lucretia Mott. Mott, a Quaker, was famous for her oratorical ability, which was rare during an era which women were often not allowed to speak in public.   July 19–20, 1848

Calendar Project: June 2015

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Short List for June 2015

On June 3,1895, Auguste Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais, on a high pedestal and enclosed by an iron fence, was unveiled in the Richelieu Garden in Calais.

Auguste Rodin’s sculptures are noted for his realism, especially with his focus on emotion and character. The sculpture The Burghers of Calais is a memorial to the heroism and costs of sacrifice by ordinary people and the often forgotten costs of war.

  •  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burghers_of_Calais
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Rodin

June, 1966: Project Washoe Begins at the University of Reno, in Reno, Nevada

Allen and Beatrix Gardner begin raising the chimp Washoe as they would a human child and communicate with Washoe using American Sign Language.  Washoe successfully learned to communicate and express herself with humans. Work with Washoe lead to the bioethical position that the great apes are the moral equivalent to humans.

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washoe_(chimpanzee)

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Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 06 June Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar 06 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 06 June

June BAH Details

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Washoe and Allen and Beatrix Gardner Self-awareness and emotion[edit] One of Washoe’s caretakers was pregnant and missed work for many weeks after she miscarried. Roger Fouts recounts the following situation: “People who should be there for her and aren’t are often given the cold shoulder–her way of informing them that she’s miffed at them. Washoe greeted Kat [the caretaker] in just this way when she finally returned to work with the chimps. Kat made her apologies to Washoe, then decided to tell her the truth, signing “MY BABY DIED.” Washoe stared at her, then looked down. She finally peered into Kat’s eyes again and carefully signed “CRY”, touching her cheek and drawing her finger down the path a tear would make on a human (Chimpanzees don’t shed tears). Kat later remarked that one sign told her more about Washoe and her mental capabilities than all her longer, grammatically perfect sentences.” [23] Washoe herself lost two children; one baby died shortly after birth of a heart defect, the other baby, Sequoyah, died of a staph infection at two months of age. When Washoe was shown an image of herself in the mirror, and asked what she was seeing, she replied: “Me, Washoe.”[24][25] Primate expert Jane Goodall, who has studied and lived with chimpanzees for decades, believes that this might indicate some level of self awareness.[25][26] Washoe appeared to experience an identity crisis when she was first introduced to other chimpanzees, seeming shocked to learn that she was not human. She gradually came to enjoy associating with other chimps.[27] Washoe also enjoyed playing pretend with her dolls, which she would bathe and talk to and would act out imaginary scenarios.[28][29] When new students came to work with Washoe, she would slow down her rate of signing for novice speakers of sign language, which had a humbling effect on many of them.[30] Impact on bioethics[edit] Some believe that the fact that Washoe not only communicated, but also formed close and personal relationships with humans indicates that she is emotionally sensitive and is deserving of moral status.[31] Work with Washoe and other signing primates motivated the foundation of the Great Ape Project, which hopes to “include the non-human great apes [chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas] within the community of equals by granting them the basic moral and legal protections that only humans currently enjoy”, in order to place them in the moral category of “persons” rather than private property.[32]   June, 1966: Project Washoe Begins at the University of Reno, in Reno, Nevada  
Aguste Rodin & The Burghers of Calais England’s Edward III, after a victory in the Battle of Crécy, laid siege to Calais, while Philip VI of France ordered the city to hold out at all costs. Philip failed to lift the siege, and starvation eventually forced the city to parley for surrender.     Edward offered to spare the people of the city if any six of its top leaders would surrender themselves to him, presumably to be executed. Edward demanded that they walk out wearing nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first, and five other burghers joined with him.[2] Saint Pierre led this envoy of volunteers to the city gates. It was this moment, and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice, and willingness to face imminent death that Rodin captured in his sculpture, scaled somewhat larger than life.   Although the burghers expected to be executed, their lives were spared by the intervention of England’s queen, Philippa of Hainault, who persuaded her husband to exercise mercy by claiming that their deaths would be a bad omen for her unborn child.   http://bit.ly/RPNFhX   On June 3,1895, Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais, on a high pedestal and enclosed by an iron fence, was unveiled in the Richelieu Garden in Calais

Calendar Project: May 2015

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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.

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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

Calendar Project April 2015

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April 2015

Short list for April

Publication of the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award[2] and Pulitzer Prize[3] for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962.[4] Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other “Okies”, they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future. (From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath )

Katharine Hepburn – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (awarded 2nd of 4 academy awards), received the American Humanist Association’s Arts Award in 1985.

“I’m an Atheist and that’s it,” said Katharine to Ladies Home Journal in 1991. “I believe there’s nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other, and do what we can for other people.”

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April

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
John Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath    The Grapes of Wrath   First edition cover Author  John Steinbeck Cover artist       Elmer Hader Country            United States Language          English Genre   Novel Publisher           The Viking Press-James Lloyd Publication dateApril 14, 1939[1] Media type        Print (hardcover andpaperback) Pages    619 OCLC 289946 Publishes in April

Calendar Project: March 2015

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March 2015

Audrey Hepburn’s work with UNICEF, First field trip to Ethopia, March 1988

“Somebody said to me the other day, ‘You know, it’s really senseless, what you’re doing. There’s always been suffering, there will always be suffering, and you’re just prolonging the suffering of these children [by rescuing them].’ My answer is, ‘Okay, then, let’s start with your grandchild. Don’t buy antibiotics if it gets pneumonia. Don’t take it to the hospital if it has an accident.’ It’s against life-against humanity-to think that way.

Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie, March 1944 recording of “This Land is Your Land” is the first known with the private property verse.

As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing, That side was made for you and me.

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Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 03 March Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar 03 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 03 March

Full BAH Listing Research for March 2015

 

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Audrey Hepburn’s UNICEF Field Missions   http://www.audrey1.org/biography/22/audrey-hepburns-unicef-field-missions   “Somebody said to me the other day, ‘You know, it’s really senseless, what you’re doing. There’s always been suffering, there will always be suffering, and you’re just prolonging the suffering of these children [by rescuing them].’ My answer is, ‘Okay, then, let’s start with your grandchild. Don’t buy antibiotics if it gets pneumonia. Don’t take it to the hospital if it has an accident.’ It’s against life-against humanity-to think that way. March   Ethiopia: March 1988 First trip for UNICEF
Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing, That side was made for you and me.   Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children’s songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is “This Land Is Your Land.” Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress.[1] Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Andy Irvine, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg, Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, Bob Childers and Tom Paxton have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression when Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned their traditional folk and blues songs, earning him the nickname the “Dust Bowl Troubadour.”[2] Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States Communist groups, though he was seemingly not a member of any.[3] Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of Huntington’s disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder. During his later years, in spite of his illness, Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.   March   A March 1944 recording in the possession of the Smithsonian, the earliest known recording of the song, has the “private property” verse included. This version was recorded the same day as 75 other songs. This was confirmed by several archivists for Smithsonian who were interviewed as part of the History Channel program Save Our History – Save our Sounds. The 1944 recording with this fourth verse can be found on Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land: The Asch Recordings Volume 1, where it is track 14.

Calendar Project: February 2015

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Here are the suggestions for January.  We are trying to avoid birthdays and focus an important event.

February 2015 – BAH Suggestions

Publication of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right.” ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony completed in February 1824.

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (sometimes known simply as “the Choral”), is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best-known works of the repertoire of classical music.[1] Among critics, it is almost universally considered to be among Beethoven’s greatest works, and is considered by some to be the greatest piece of music ever written.

  • Publication of article identifying DNA as the hereditary material of biology. Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty

In their paper “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types: Induction of Transformation by a Deoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III”, published in the February 1944 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Avery and his colleagues suggest that DNA, rather than protein as widely believed at the time, may be the hereditary material of bacteria, and could be analogous to genes and/or viruses in higher organisms.[1][2] Please comment below if you prefer one of these or suggest someone or an event for January.  Below are some places to look. Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 02 February Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar 02 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 02 February3

February Full BAH Research Listing

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Samuel Clements “Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right.” ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it” ― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer   The main premise behind Huckleberry Finn is the young boy’s belief in the right thing to do though most believed that it was wrong. Hemingway also wrote in the same essay: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.”[64]   February Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885
Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty The Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment was an experimental demonstration, reported in 1944 by Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty, that DNA is the substance that causes bacterial transformation, in an era when it had been widely believed that it was proteins that served the function of carrying genetic information (with the very word protein itself coined to indicate a belief that its function was primary). It was the culmination of research in the 1930s and early 1940s at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research to purify and characterize the “transforming principle” responsible for the transformation phenomenon first described in Griffith’s experiment of 1928: killed Streptococcus pneumoniae of the virulent strain type III-S, when injected along with living but non-virulent type II-R pneumococci, resulted in a deadly infection of type III-S pneumococci.   In their paper “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types: Induction of Transformation by a Deoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III“, published in the February 1944 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine, Avery and his colleagues suggest that DNA, rather than protein as widely believed at the time, may be the hereditary material of bacteria, and could be analogous to genes and/or viruses in higher organisms.[1][2] February 1944   Publication date
Beethoven Composition of Ninth Symphony completed [edit] The Philharmonic Society of London originally commissioned the symphony in 1817.[5] The main composition work was done between autumn 1822 and the completion of the autograph in February 1824.[6] The symphony emerged from other pieces by Beethoven that, while completed works in their own right, are also in some sense sketches for the future symphony. The Choral Fantasy Opus. 80 (1808), basically a piano concerto movement, brings in a chorus and vocal soloists near the end to form the climax. As in the Ninth Symphony, the vocal forces sing a theme first played instrumentally, and this theme is highly reminiscent of the corresponding theme in the Ninth Symphony (for a detailed comparison, see Choral Fantasy). Going further back, an earlier version of the Choral Fantasy theme is found in the song “Gegenliebe” (“Returned Love”), for piano and high voice, which dates from before 1795.[7] According to Robert W. Gutman, Mozart’s K. 222 Offertory in D minor, “Misericordias Domini”, written in 1775, contains a melody that foreshadows “Ode to Joy”.[8] Premiere[edit] Although his major works had primarily been premiered in Vienna, Beethoven was eager to have his latest composition performed in Berlin as soon as possible after finishing it, since he thought that musical taste in Vienna had become dominated by Italian composers such as Rossini.[9] When his friends and financiers heard this, they urged him to premiere the symphony in Vienna in the form of a petition signed by a number of prominent Viennese music patrons and performers.[9] Beethoven was flattered by the adoration of Vienna, so the Ninth Symphony was premiered on 7 May 1824 in the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna, along with the overture The Consecration of the House (Die Weihe des Hauses) and three parts of the Missa solemnis (the Kyrie, Credo, and the Agnus Dei).   February 1824 finished   Premiered in May    
Upton Sinclair The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelistUpton Sinclair (1878–1968).[1] Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the lives ofimmigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. Many readers were most concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, based on an investigation he did for a socialist newspaper. The book depicts working class poverty, the absence of social programs, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it, “the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of wage slavery.”[2] Sinclair was considered a muckraker, or journalist who exposed corruption in government and business.[3] He first published the novel in serial form in 1905 in the socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, between February 25, 1905, and November 4, 1905. In 1904, Sinclair had spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards for the newspaper. It was published as a book on 26 February 1906 by Doubleday and in a subscribers’ edition.[4] A film version of the novel was made in 1914, but it has since become lost.   February   Publication of the Jungle was in the socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, between February 25, 1905, and November 4, 1905.

 

Calendar Project: Overview

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Some general reminders about the project. First, we decided to limit the nominees this time to people who have passed on.  This was for two reasons, one is to limit the scope.  The other was to limit our likelihood of copyright issues over images used.  I would add, that by delving into history, we show the depth and breathe of the movement and how critical humanists have been to getting us to where we are today. Second, what you are seeing are names and people nominated by other BAH members.  These are the names or events in the actual post. Third, I have focused on events and achievements for picking the months.  There are a lot of ways we can go and a lot of different calendars we can do.  I just personally think that it is what you do that counts and by focusing on events and not something random like a birthday. Finally, there are a lot of calendars we can do as we move this project forward.  The focus right now is to be able to tell a story for each month.  I am willing to listen to other nominees for any month, but we need a story with the nominees at this point.  So if you have a nominee, please provide information about the nominee or event or achievement and why it is relevant to the month.  

UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 02 February3

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