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Speaker 1: Hey y'all, Eve's here. We're doubling up today with two

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Speaker 1: events in history, one from me and one from former

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Speaker 1: host Tracy V. Wilson. On with the show Welcome to

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Speaker 1: this Day in History Class from how Stuff Works dot

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Speaker 1: Com and from the desk of Stuff You Missed in

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Speaker 1: History Class. It's the show where we explore the past,

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Speaker 1: one day at a time with a quick look at

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Speaker 1: what happened today in history. Hi, I'm Holly Fry and

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Speaker 1: I am sitting in this week for Tracy V. Wilson.

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Speaker 1: It is December and on this day in nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: Quanza was celebrated for the first time. Just in case

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Speaker 1: you do not know, Quanza is a seven day Pan

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Speaker 1: African holiday and it's intended to celebrate African family, culture,

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Speaker 1: and community. But it grew out of a really tumultuous time.

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Speaker 1: In a six day stretch during August of nineteen sixty five,

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Speaker 1: the predominantly black Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts was devastated

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Speaker 1: by a series of riots, which started with the traffic

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Speaker 1: stop that quickly ske related into a massive conflict between

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Speaker 1: police and the neighborhood's residents. By the time the riots ended,

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Speaker 1: thirty four people had been killed and another one thousand,

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Speaker 1: thirty two injured. One thousand buildings were destroyed, and an

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Speaker 1: estimated forty million dollars in damages was done. Dr Malana Karenga,

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Speaker 1: a faculty member and former chair of Black Studies at

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Speaker 1: California State University at Long Beach, was an activist a

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Speaker 1: year into his doctoral work in African Affairs at u

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Speaker 1: c l A. At the time, in an effort to

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Speaker 1: rebuild a sense of community, Karenga founded the organization US

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Speaker 1: to encourage cultural unity among African Americans, and under the

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Speaker 1: auspices of US, Karenga organized Black Power rallies and also

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Speaker 1: created the idea of Quanza. The first week Long Kansas

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Speaker 1: Celebration began on December twenty six of nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: and Karenga is a controversial figure. He was born Ronald

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Speaker 1: McKinley Everett in nineteen forty one, and he took the

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Speaker 1: name mal Lana, which means master teach sure in Swahili,

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Speaker 1: and Karenga, which means keeper of tradition in the same language,

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Speaker 1: while he was working on his doctorate. He has come

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Speaker 1: under criticism from a variety of quarters. His past as

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Speaker 1: an activist has been characterized as extremist. His organization US

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Speaker 1: was in conflict with the Black Panthers in the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: which often led to violence, sometimes lethal. The FBI investigated

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Speaker 1: US and the Black Panthers, and in nineteen sixty eight,

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Speaker 1: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called both the Black Panther

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Speaker 1: Party and US black extremist groups. Hoover also felt that

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Speaker 1: the Panthers and US needed to be kept divided to

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Speaker 1: prevent a union between them which would consolidate power. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, Caarenga fell into conflict with his own

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Speaker 1: colleagues in the US organization. Also that year, he was

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Speaker 1: convicted and served time for felonious assault and imprisonment in

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Speaker 1: a case which involved the torture of two women who

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Speaker 1: witnesses said Karenga believed to be plotting against him. Karenga

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Speaker 1: has consistently denied any involvement with this incident. He was

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Speaker 1: released in nineteen In relation to Kwanza, Karenga has also

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Speaker 1: been criticized in that case for allowing it to become

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Speaker 1: a commercial holiday in conflict with the ideals of celebrating

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Speaker 1: and exploring African identity and community. But despite the criticisms

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Speaker 1: leveled against its creator, in the decades since its inception,

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Speaker 1: Quanza has become part of millions of people's holiday celebrations

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Speaker 1: around the world. It is at this point bigger than

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Speaker 1: its creator, and it has become associated with finding and

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Speaker 1: celebrating joy and pride in African heritage and traditions. Harvest

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Speaker 1: celebrations from a variety of African cultures, including Ashanti and Zulu,

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Speaker 1: have inspired and informed the practices of the holiday. The

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Speaker 1: name for Kuanza comes from the phrase matunda ya Kwanza,

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Speaker 1: which translates from the Swahili to first fruits. Words in

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Speaker 1: Swahili were specifically chosen for the holiday because it is

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Speaker 1: a language spoken by a large number of people, and

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Speaker 1: the language is not connected to any specific region or

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Speaker 1: tribe in Africa. Karenga has described it as a non

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Speaker 1: ethnic tongue. Each of Kwanzas seven days of celebration from

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Speaker 1: December twenty six to January one, is dedicated to one

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Speaker 1: of the seven principles of Quanza, called Gouzo Saba. Those

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Speaker 1: principles are unity, self determination, collective responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity,

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Speaker 1: and faith. As any holiday, there are variations in the

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Speaker 1: way Quanza is celebrated from home to home and community

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Speaker 1: to community, but for most a candle is lit each

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Speaker 1: night in a candle holder called a kinara, often by

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Speaker 1: a child, and then there is discussion focused on the

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Speaker 1: principle related to that day. On December thirty one to

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Speaker 1: the final night of Quanza, there is a feast called

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Speaker 1: a karamu, and the final day, January one, is one

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Speaker 1: of reflection. Thanks to Eve's Jeff Cote for research on

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Speaker 1: this episode, and for Casey Pegram and Chandler Mainze doing

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Speaker 1: their amazing sound work on it. You can always subscribe

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Speaker 1: to This Day in History class on Apple Podcasts, the

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Tomorrow we will have the story of sobriety and a

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Speaker 1: little bit of violence. Hey everyone, Eave's here. It's the

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Speaker 1: holiday season and I'm at home keeping really cozy. But

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Speaker 1: history must go on. So here we are. Let's get

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Speaker 1: into another episode. The day was December Scottish mathematician, scientist

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Speaker 1: and science writer Mary Somerville was born. Her works made

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Speaker 1: contemporary scientific ideas more accessible to a wider audience and

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Speaker 1: influenced how physical science developments were discussed. Mary was born

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Speaker 1: Mary Fairfax in Jetbrah, Scotland. She was the fifth of

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Speaker 1: seven children born to Vice Admiral Sir William George Fairfax

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Speaker 1: and Margaret Fairfax, both of whom came from well off families.

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Speaker 1: Because her father was in the Royal Navy, he was

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Speaker 1: often at sea, her mother home schooled her when she

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Speaker 1: was young. Mary learned to read, but she did not

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Speaker 1: learn to read very well, and she could not write.

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Speaker 1: Girls were expected to learn household and social skills, and

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Speaker 1: Mary did chores and learned from the Bible. Beyond that,

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Speaker 1: she often spent time by the seashore and moors. When

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Speaker 1: Mary was around ten years old and her father returned

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Speaker 1: home from a long absence, he was unhappy with the

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Speaker 1: fact that she could not read well or write, and

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Speaker 1: did not know math, so he sent her off to

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Speaker 1: a boarding school in the town of Muscleborough. But the

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Speaker 1: elites school was not a good fit for Mary. Though

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Speaker 1: she learned some handwriting, grammar, math and French at the school,

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Speaker 1: she only stayed there for a year. As a teenager,

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Speaker 1: Mary spent a lot of time in social activities like

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Speaker 1: going to concerts and parties, but she also began studying

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Speaker 1: on her own. After seeing algebraic symbols in a magazine,

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Speaker 1: she gained an interest in algebra, and she was an

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Speaker 1: avid reader. She took advantage of her family's library, studying navigation, Greek, Latin,

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Speaker 1: and geometry. Her parents tried to keep her from studying

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Speaker 1: math because they believe that studying such a complex academic

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Speaker 1: subject could cause girls physical and mental harm. They even

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Speaker 1: took her candles so she couldn't study at night, but

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Speaker 1: she did manage to educate herself in secret. Her brother's

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Speaker 1: tutor bought her books and she memorized some books, and

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Speaker 1: an uncle helped her with classical studies. In eighteen o four,

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Speaker 1: Mary was forced to marry her first cousin, Samuel Greek,

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Speaker 1: who was a captain in the Russian Navy. They moved

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Speaker 1: to London and had two sons, one of whom died

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Speaker 1: as a baby. She had a little more leeway to

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Speaker 1: study math and science now that she was married, but

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Speaker 1: Samuel did not support her intellectual proceeds. He died in

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Speaker 1: eighteen oh seven and she returned to Scotland with her son.

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Speaker 1: The death of Her husband brought her more financial freedom

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Speaker 1: and allowed her to pursue her studies openly. She studied

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Speaker 1: higher math and physical astronomy, and she read Isaac Newton's

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Speaker 1: book Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy on the Laws of

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Speaker 1: Motion and Universal Gravitation. Her studies were encouraged by some scholars,

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Speaker 1: like William Wallace, a professor of mathematics at Edinburgh University.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen twelve, she married Dr William Somerville, an army

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Speaker 1: doctor who was also her cousin, but unlike Samuel Greek,

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Speaker 1: he supported her studies. She began studying geology and botany.

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Speaker 1: The couple moved to London and have four children together,

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Speaker 1: though only to survive to adulthood. In London, they became

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Speaker 1: friends with other scientists like William Herschel and Caroline Herschel,

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Speaker 1: as well as Charles Babbage. In Mary published her first

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Speaker 1: scientific paper on the magnetizing power of the more refrangible

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Speaker 1: solar rays. Though the paper was praised and she continued

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Speaker 1: doing experiments with solar radiation, the idea that the Sun's

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Speaker 1: radiation could magnetize substances was proven incorrect. Her own research

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Speaker 1: got some attention, but her translations and works detailing other

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Speaker 1: scientific research and discoveries was more popular. Mary spent four

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Speaker 1: years translating and condensing mathematician Pierre Simone Laplace's celestial Mechanics,

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Speaker 1: and in eighteen thirty one, the more accessible Mechanism of

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Speaker 1: the Heavens was available to the public. Three years later,

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Speaker 1: her second book, The Connection of the Physical Sciences, was published.

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Speaker 1: The book summer rised what was known about the physical

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Speaker 1: sciences and showed how the science is connected with one another.

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Speaker 1: Mary and Caroline Herschel were the first woman who were

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Speaker 1: named honorary members of the Royal Astronomical Society. Somerville continued

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Speaker 1: her scientific work after her husband and son died in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty and eighteen sixty five, respectively. She wrote Physical Geography,

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Speaker 1: which was published in eighteen forty eight. Another notable work

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Speaker 1: of hers was One a Molecular in Microscopic Science, which

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Speaker 1: was basically outdated by the time it was published in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine. Mary died at her home in Italy

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy two. The next year, her autobiography was released.

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Speaker 1: I'm Eve Jeffcote and hopefully you know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. If you have

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Speaker 1: any burning questions, you can send them to us on Facebook, Twitter,

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Speaker 1: or Instagram at t d i h C Podcast, and

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Speaker 1: if you would prefer, you can send them to us

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Speaker 1: via email at this day at I heeart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you here again,

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Speaker 1: same time tomorrow. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows