On This Day

I love the Writer's Almanac. While it can be heard daily on NPR, I usually miss that brief broadcast, so a while back, I signed up for daily emails. Now, I get a dose of poetry and a reminder of some noteworthy event or birthday each day.

Yesterday, for example, I learned that July 19, 1848 was the day that the first women's rights convention was convened in Seneca Falls, New York. While women in the U.S. at that time did not have the right to vote, could not serve on juries, were barred from most institutions of higher learning, generally could not work outside the home, and in most things were entirely bound by their husbands in any decision, the Seneca Falls convention is regarded as the beginning of the women's "liberation" movement.

On the same day, but centuries earlier, in 1692, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, Sarah Good, and Sarah Wildes were hanged for witchcraft. While the Salem witch trials have been much debated in history, one thing emerges with clarity--too many of the victims were women who had been marginalized in early colonial life in Salem.

See why I like the almanac? How else might I have known about the serendipitous confluence of the opening of the first women's right convention and the Salem witch trials? The shared date provides an occasion to contemplate an aspect of society: the role of women in society. True, there is no other link other than the date between these events. Yet, in content, there is a connection.

One of the assignments that I have used with my students in writing involves me telling them a story. I tell them that on February 13, 1945, Allied planes took off bound for Germany. Their mission was to bomb Dresden, which up to that point in the war had escaped being bombed. By the time the bombing raids were done, two days later, Dresden had been reduced to a pile of rubble. Some 1,300 bombers took part in the bombing, 3,900 tons of bombs were dropped, 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) lay in ruins destroyed by the fire storm caused by the bombing, and some 25,000 people were killed.

About this point in my retelling, I pause and ask students why I am telling them this story. I never get the actual answer. The reason, I tell them, is because that day--February 13, 1945--is also the exact day on which I was born.

Now, I tell them, your writing assignment is to do some research and find out what IMPORTANT historical event occurred on the day you were born. Hmmm--it's always an interesting assignment. Some students get into it completely; others root out some rock star event and ask if that is "important" enough. Um, no.

So, why on this day? Well, not of earth-shaking significance, I grant you, but 4 years ago, I wrote my first blog. I'll give it another whirl for a year.

Cheers, all!

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Painting of Witch Hill by Thomas Slatterwhite Noble, and photo of bombed Dresden from Wikipedia. Both are under the Creative Commons reproduction license.