Happy birthday, actor Kurt Russell!

 

Kurt Russell, born March 17, 1951 in Springfield, Massachusetts, has had a stellar acting career and is still going strong.  He first appeared in an episode of Dennis the Menace in 1961. He starred in a number of television series such as Gilligan's Island and Daniel Boone.  In 1969, he landed one of his first starring roles in Disney's The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and went on to star in more Disney movies, such as The Barefoot Executive, Now You See Him, Now You Don't, and The Strongest Man in the World. 

He broke out of his squeaky-clean image by appearing as Snake Plissken in Escape from New York and edgier works such as The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and Tequila Sunrise. He appeared in Sky High and Guardian of the Galaxy 2.

He is currently working as Lee Shaw in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.

in 2003, he was awarded the Life Career Award at the Oscars,  He passed away

Trailer for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2

Happy birthday, astronaut Brian Duffy!

Brian Duffy, born June 20, 1953 in Boston, Massachusetts, has been in space four times. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1975 and was selected by NASA to become an astronaut in June 1985.

His first flight was aboard Atlantis (STS-45) as pilot in March-April 1992.  He spent almost 9 days in space before returning to Earth. 

His second mission was aboard Endeavour (STS-57) as pilot in June-July 1993. He spent 10 days in space before returning to Earth. 

Duffy's third mission was aboard Endeavour (STS-72) as commander January 11-20, 1996. He spent almost 9 days in space before returning to Earth.

His fourth and final mission was aboard Discovery (STS-92) as commander to the International Space Station October 11-24, 2000. He spent 13 days in space before returning to Earth.

Duffy was inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame May 14, 2016.

Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Theodor Seuss Geisel, born March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts, is best known by his pen name Dr. Seuss.  He began his career as an illustrator and cartoonist for various publications such as Vanity Fair and Life, an illustrator for advertising campaigns, and a political cartoonist.  

He published his first children's book, And to Think That I saw it on Mulberry Street in 1937. It was rejected 27 times before Vanguard Press published it.  He published over 60 books, some of which have been adapted into eleven television specials, five feature films, four television series, and a Broadway musical.

His commercially released film Design for Death in 1947 won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.  His original short story Gerald McBoing-Boing won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short film.

He has received two Primetime Emmy Awards.  One for Outstanding Children's Special for Halloween is Grinch Night in 1978, and Outstanding Animated Program for the Grinch Grinches the Cat In The Hat in 1982.

He won a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 1984, and his birthday has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day.  

Geisel passed away in September 1991.

Astronaut Bruce McCandless born 1937

Bruce McCandless II, born June 8, 1937 in Boston, Massachusetts, went into space twice. He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1958, and received flight training from the Naval Air Training Command in Pensacola, Florida and in Kingsville, Texas.

He was selected as an astronaut in the NASA Astronaut Group 5 at age 28, the youngest member of the group. He served as mission control capsule communicator (CAPCOM) during Apollo 11.  He served as CAPCOM for Apollo 14, as well as astronaut support crew.  He was reassigned to the Skylab program, serving as CAPCOM for Skylab 3 and Skylab 4.

His first mission was aboard Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-41-B) as mission specialist in February 1984. During the mission he performed the first untethered spacewalk, using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), traveling 322 ft away from the shuttle. He spent eight days in space.

His second mission was aboard Discovery (STS-31) as mission specialist in April 1990. He was planning to conduct an EVA with fellow astronaut Kathryn Sullivan to fix and array that could not be deployed through ground control, but the problem was fixed without the need of an EVA.  He returned to Earth after 5 days in space.

McCandless passed away in December 2017.

Celebrating Black History Month: Crispus Attucks, first casualty of the Revolutionary War

Crispus Attucks, born in 1723 in Framingham, Massachusetts, which was then still part of the British Empire, is considered to be the first American killed in the American Revolutionary War.  Although born a slave, he managed to escape, and his owner at the time Deacon William Brown advertised for a runaway slave Crispas.  Attucks spent time on the sea and working around the docks on the Atlantic seaboard. 

Colonial unrest had been growing since the Stamp Act imposed by Great Britain, which significantly raised taxes.  On March 5, 1770, a scuffle between the townspeople and the 29th Regiment of Foot, after a British officer was accused of theft.  The colonialists threw snowballs and debris at the soldiers.  A group of men including Attucks approached with clubs and sticks.  

The soldiers panicked and opened fire.  Attucks was the first to die.  Four other colonists were killed and six were wounded, in what was to become known as the Boston Massacre.  John Adams defended the soldiers and although two were found guilty of manslaughter, none of the soldiers were put to death.  Adams described the colonial mob as "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negros and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish Jack Tars". 

The colonists regarded Attucks and the others as heroes and buried as such in the Granary Burying Ground. Attucks' actions that night helped galvanize the colonists against the British.  It was the beginning of the Revolutionary War. 

Celebrating Black History Month: Thomas Elkins, African-American inventor

Thomas Elkins, born in 1818, was a dentist, surgeon, pharmacist and inventor.  He received an education in pharmacy and ran a small drugstore until economic difficulties forced him to close.  He focused on dentistry and minor surgery.  He studied dentistry under Dr. Charles Payne, and surgery under Dr. Marsh.  

He participated in the Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape to Canada.  The house where he and his wife operated the "best-run" Underground Railroad station in New York is now owned by the Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, Inc.

During the Civil War, Governor John Andrew of Massachusetts appointed him to be the medical examiner in the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantries. He improved the refrigerating apparatus, which prevented the decay of human corpses and food.  

He patented an chamber-commode, a predecessor to the toilet.  

Elkins died in August 1900.

Celebrating Black History Month: Harry Lew, first African-American professional basketball player

Harry Haskell Lew, born January 4, 1884 in what is now Lowell, Massachusetts, started out as a talented violinist and played a solo at his grammar school graduation. His great-great-grandfather, Barzillai Lew, served in the American Revolution and fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. His grandparents house was a station on the Underground Railroad.  His father William Lew was a delegate to the 1891 Equal Rights Convention in Boston.

He joined the YMCA basketball team in 1898 and the team was state champions for the four hears he was with them.  In 1902, he was recruited to join Lowell's Pawtucketville Athletic Club of the New England Professional Basketball League. The manager was reluctant to put Lew into the game but after pressure from local press and a series of injuries to other players, Lew was allowed on the court. 

The New England League disbanded after the 1905 season.  He organized teams around New England before he played his final game in St. John's Vermont in 1926.  In 1928, he moved his dry cleaning business to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he died in 1963.

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month: Christopher Loria, retired Hispanic astronaut

Christopher Loria, born July 9, 1960 in Newton, Massachusetts, is a retired NASA astronaut.  He was scheduled to pilot the Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-113) in November 2002, but a serious back injury grounded him. In the fall of 2004, his injuries were determined to be inoperable and this resulted in his being medically disqualified from future space flights. He requested to be re-assigned to the Marine Corps.  He retired as an astronaut in 2005.

Happy birthday, Space Shuttle astronaut Jay Apt!

Jerome "Jay" Apt III, born April 28, 1949 in Springfield, Massachusetts, is a veteran of four space shuttle flights.

HIs first mission was aboard Atlantis (STS-37) as mission specialist in April 1995.  He conducted two EVAs with fellow astronaut Jerry Ross for over 10 hours.

His second flight was aboard Endeavour (STS-47) as mission specialist in September 1992.  The mission included two experiments prepared by an all-girls school in Kent, UK.

Apt's third mission was aboard Endeavour (STS-59) as mission specialist in April 1994.  He exchanged greetings with the cosmonauts aboard the Mir space station.

His fourth and final flight was aboard Atlantis (STS-79) as mission specialist to Mir in September 1996.  It was the first shuttle mission to dock with a completed Mir space station.

 

Celebrating Black History Month: Onesimus, African-born slave who saved Boston from smallpox 1721

Onesimus, an African-born slave born in the late 1600s, was enslaved and, in 1706, given to Cotton Mather, a New England Puritan minister, who was instrumental in the Salem Witch trials and prosecuting pirates.  His real name is not known and Mather was the one who named him Onesimus, after a 1st century slave mentioned in the Bible.  The name means "useful, helpful, or profitable".

Around 1716, Onesimus told Mather of an inoculation performed on him and others in Africa that protected him from smallpox, where a thorn is inserted into a pus-filled spore of an infected person and injected into the skin of a healthy person, making them immune to the disease.

When smallpox broke out in Boston in 1721, Mather promoted the inoculation method as protection, citing Onesimus as the source.  Of course, Bostonians were having none of the African medicine, butr a physician Zabdiel Boylston performed the method on his 6-year-old son and two slaves.  Two hundred eighty people were inoculated in 1721-1722.  Only 6 of them died, a rate of 2.2%, compared to 14.3% of people who were not inoculated.

In 2016, Onesimus was declared one of the "Best Bostonians of All Time".

Celebrating Black History Month: 1st Rhode Island Regiment, first black military unit

The 1st Rhode Island Regiment was a regiment raised during the American Revolutionary War, which lasted from 1775 to 1783.  Although it is considered the first black military unit, it was not exclusively black.

It was organized on May 8, 1775 under Colonel James Varnum and became known as Varnum's Regiment.  He marched to Massachusetts in June 1775 where they took part in the siege of Boston.  The soldiers, who had signed up until the end of 1775 were discharged on New Year's Eve.

They were reorganized on January 1, 1776 as the 9th Continental Regiment.  When they were reorganized in 1777 they became known as the 1st Rhode Island Regiment.  It was one of the few units in the Continental Army to serve through the entire war, disbanding in November 1783.

Happy birthday, astronaut Chris Cassidy!

Christopher Cassidy, born January 4, 1970 in Salem, Massachusetts, has been in space three times. He was a Navy Seal for ten years before being selected as an astronaut by NASA in May 2004.  

His first trip into space was aboard Endeavour (STS-127) as mission specialist to the International Space Station in July 2009.  He conducted three EVAs with fellow astronauts David Wolf and Thomas Marshburn for a total of over 18 hours.

His second flight was aboard Soyuz TMA-08M to the International Space Station in March 2013.  He participated in Expeditions 35 and 36.  He stayed aboard for over 166 days before returning to Earth in September 2013.

His third flight was aboard Soyuz MS-16 to the International Space Station in April 2020.  He participated in Expeditions 62 and 63.  He stayed aboard for almost 196 days before returning to Earth in October 2020.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: Philip Bazaar, Civil War Hispanic Medal of Honor recipient

Philip Bazaar, a Chilean-born American, was a US Navy seaman in the Civil War and was awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration in the US. 

He joined the Union Navy in Massachusetts and was assigned to the USS Santiago de Cuba, a wooden, side-wheel steamship commanded by Rear Admiral David Porter.

In late 1864, General Grant ordered an assault on Fort Fisher, a Confederate stronghold, in North Carolina.  Rear Admiral Porter was in charge of the naval attack.  When that failed, a Grant ordered a second assault in January 1865.  Bazaar carried dispatches during the battle, experiencing heavy fire from the Confederates to Major General Terry, in charge of the ground assault.

According to his citation:  

"On board the U.S.S. Santiago de Cuba during the assault on Fort Fisher on 15 January 1865. As one of a boat crew detailed to one of the generals on shore, O.S. Bazaar bravely entered the fort in the assault and accompanied his party in carrying dispatches at the height of the battle. He was 1 of 6 men who entered the fort in the assault from the fleet."

Christa McAuliffe, Challenger astronaut, born 1948

Christa McAuliffe, born September 2, 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts, was the first teacher to be chosen to go into space.  She was selected to participate in the NASA Teacher in Space Project.

She was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-51-L) January 28, 1986.  Unfortunately, the shuttle exploded just seconds after launch, killing everyone on board.

Happy birthday, Space Shuttle astronaut Ed Lu!

Edward "Ed" Lu, born July 1, 1963 in Springfield, Massachusetts, is a veteran of three space flights.

His first mission was aboard Atlantis (STS-84) as mission specialist to Mir in May 1997.  While aboard, a fire broke out, but caused little damage. 

His second mission was again aboard Atlantis (STS-106) as mission specialist to the International Space Station in September 2000. During the mission he conducted an EVA with fellow astronaut Yuri Malenchenko for 6 hours, 14 minutes.

His third and final flight was aboard Soyuz TM-2 as flight engineer to the ISS in April 2003. He participated in Expedition 7 and returned to Earth in October after almost 185 days in space.

Celebrating Black History Month: Ruth Carter, first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Costume Design

Ruth Carter, born April 10, 1960 in Springfield, Massachusetts, is the first African-American to win an Academy Award for Best Costume Design.  She had been nominated twice before but her work on Black Panther is what got her the award in February 2019.  She won numerous awards for her work on Black Panther, and more recently for her work on Dolemite Is My Name, starring Eddie Murphy.

Celebrating Black History Month: Lewis Latimer, African-American inventor

Lewis Howard Latimer, born September 4, 1848 in Chelsea Massachusetts, was an African-American inventor.  On February 10, 1874, he was granted a patent with Charles Brown for an improved toilet system for railroad cars called the Water Closet for Railroad Cars.  (U.S. Patent 147,363).

In 1879, Latimer went on to draft drawings necessary for Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. In 1881, he invented a light bulb with a carbon filament to improve Thomas Edison's original work.  Latimer received a patent in 1882 for the process of manufacturing carbons.  He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his work on electric filament manufacturing techniques.

Happy birthday, Space Shuttle astronaut Stephanie Wilson!

Stephanie Wilson, born September 27, 1966 in Boston, Massachusetts, is a veteran of three space shuttle flights.  She is the second African-American woman in space (third if you count Nichelle Nichols) and has spent more time in space than any African-American, male or female.

Her first mission was aboard Discovery (STS-121) in July 2006 as a mission specialist to the International Space Station. She operated the Candarm2 to transfer equipment and inspect the shuttle for any signs of micro-meteroid damage.

Her second mission was aboard Discovery (STS-120) as mission specialist in October-November 2007 to the ISS.  She operated the Candarm2 again during the mission.

Her third flight was again aboard Discovery (STS-131) as a mission specialist in April 2010 to the ISS. 

Happy birthday, NASA astronaut Scott Tingle!

Scott Tingle, born July 19, 1965 in Attleboro, Massachusetts, went into space aboard Soyuz MS-07 in December 2017. He stayed on the International Space Station until June 2018 as part of Expeditions 54 and 55. He performed his first EVA in January 2018 with fellow astronaut Mark Vande Hei.

"Murder At The Green Lantern" by Alex Morgan re-released on Amazon!

My second Corey Shaw novel Murder at the Green Lantern is now available on Amazon!

Here is the link:

Blurb:

After a fetish party at a gay bar in Washington, DC, a young man is murdered and left nailed to a St. Andrew’s Cross.  Paranormal gay sleuth Corey Shaw thinks someone has passed a divine judgment on him, and may be a signal to other gays in the city.  The mystery leads him on a trail from Boston to the halls of the U.S. Capitol Building in DC.