Friday!

Per a Papal Bull (decree) Pope Gregory XIII changed the reckoning of the world’s days from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar on this date in 1582. Not everyone adapted to the new calendar at once. One of the latest was Russia and that is why the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 is alternatively termed the October Revolution or the November Revolution, depending on which calendar you reference.

In 1803 by the Supreme Court ruling in Marbury v Madison, the principle of judicial review was established – meaning that the Court had the power to review the actions and laws of the US Congress and or the President and determine whether they were in conflict with the US Constitution, the supreme law of the land.

And in 1868 Andrew Johnson became the first President to be impeached by the US House of Representatives. He later avoided conviction in his Senate trial – and thus being removed from office -by one vote.

Birthdays on this date include Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner (1874), Admiral Chester Nimitz (1885), Senator and VP candidate in 2000 (1942), and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (1965).

Those passing off the page of history on this date include Henry Cavendish(1810) the French-English physicist and chemist who discovered hydrogen; American inventor Robert Fulton(1815), who came up with the steamboat for another means of transportation; and general Joshua Chamberlain (1914) who left his position as a college professor to join the Union army and received the Medal of Honor for his actions – bayonet charge and all – on Little Round Top at Gettysburg.

And who can forget Katherine Johnson who pushed aside barriers of both sex and race to aid in the conquest of space? Through her extensive calculations – back when computers were people – she enabled John Glenn and others to successfully go into space. If you have never seen the movie Hidden Figures, which highlights the actions of her and her coworkers you should rent it. It is a fascinating glimpse of American history which has for too long been forgotten. She passed in 2020 at the age of 101.