Toni Morrison (1931 - 2019) - American writer and poet, born in Lorain, Ohio,  She received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.

Ulysses S. Grant - (1822 – 1885) A war hero but a reluctant politician. Served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. Before his presidency, Grant led the Union Army in winning the American Civil War. As president, Grant was an effective civil rights executive who worked during Reconstruction to protect recently freed African Americans and  reestablish the public credit. He was focused on rebuilding the U.S. Navy, which at the time lagged behind other world-power navies. 

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (1809 -1892) - British poet who become the most popular poet of the Victorian era and remains one of the most popular British poets. 

“Things have roots and branches… If the root be in confusion, nothing will be well governed.”.... Read the full article on Brain Pickings

Image: "Confucius and his students" - Work is public domain in both the source country and the United States

Euripides (480 - 406 BC) Born in the Salamis Island, Greece. He was one of the great Athenian playwrights and poets. Of his 90 plays,18 have survived the centuries since he wrote them.

Martin Luther King Jr. - (1929 - 1968) American Christian minister, activist and leader in the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

"In the Blue Hour, French illustrator and author Isabelle Simler offers a stunning joint celebration of these uncommon blue creatures and the common blue world they inhabit, the Pale Blue Dot we share." ........ Read the full article on Brain Pickings

Photo credit: Calob Photography

If you’re like most Americans, there’s a good chance you’re going to wear a cloth mask today. Doing so makes sense...... Continue reading 

”Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children"

Address given by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower on April 16, 1953, speaking only three months into his presidency. The Cold War deepened during his administration and political pressures for increased military spending mounted. By the time he left office in 1961, he felt it necessary to warn of the military-industrial complex.

"A symbolic moment of peace, grace, and humility amidst one of humanity’s most violent and disgraceful events".
"In December of 1914, a series of grassroots, unofficial ceasefires took hold of the Western Front in the heat of WWI. On Christmas, soldiers from an estimated 100,000 British and German troops began to exchange seasonal greetings and sing songs across the trenches",........ Continue Reading

"I am not and have never been a reviewer of books — a person who surveys the landscape of literature with the goal of evaluating its features. I am and have always been a solitary sojourner who relishes curious excursions hither and dither, guided by a thoroughly subjective inner compass, wandering the wilderness of words by pleasant deviations from the common trail."

These are my footsteps.

The plane traveled 120 ft (36.6 m) in 12 seconds at 10:35 a.m. at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville Wright was at the controls, lying prone on the lower wing with his hips in the cradle which operated the wing-warping mechanism. Wilbur Wright ran alongside to balance the plane, and just released his hold on the forward upright of the right wing in the photo. The starting rail, the wing-rest, a coil box, and other items needed for flight preparation are visible behind the machine. This was considered "the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air, powered flight"