Happy Birthday, Abe and Charlie!
Feb. 12th, 2009 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capri0mniBoth Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on February 12, 1809, within hours of each other.
Both contributed to changing our way of speaking and thinking about the world. Abraham Lincoln helped change the way we (Americans) few our nation, and our individual relationship within it. Charles Darwin changed the way all of us think about our relationship to the natural world, and our relationship within it.
They never met in their mortal lives, but if I had a TARDIS, I'd scoop each of them up for a mutual birthday party, because I think they'd probably enjoy conversing.
"The Official Family Story" is that my father, Lincoln, was named for a great uncle who was named for the president. But on a visit to the American Museum of Natural History, my mother noticed that the name of one of the people associated with Admiral Byrd's 1926 North Pole flight was named Lincoln (something) [I'd check, if I were within walking distance of that exhibit diarama], and she was always tickled that Dad was born shortly after, and went into aeronautics. She always suspected that that other Lincoln was the inspiration for Father's name, and that Josaphine sort of guided my dad into the profession.
But in any case, I kind of feel a certain closeness to President Lincoln in part because my dad shared his name, and had a very close birthday, too.
For the record, I think of Abraham Lincoln as among the greatest presidents not because he was the Great White Emancipator, but because he started as a typical, 19th Century white racist, but within the few years of the Civil War, his views came to change, and in his last public speach, he said that black people should not only be freed from slavery, but also be given the rights to vote and citizenship. And it was that public statement that blacks should be equal to whites that finally provoked Booth to change his kidnapping plot into a murder plot.
He was a great president because he had the courage to learn from the history he was a part of. And that, finally, cost him his life.
Both contributed to changing our way of speaking and thinking about the world. Abraham Lincoln helped change the way we (Americans) few our nation, and our individual relationship within it. Charles Darwin changed the way all of us think about our relationship to the natural world, and our relationship within it.
They never met in their mortal lives, but if I had a TARDIS, I'd scoop each of them up for a mutual birthday party, because I think they'd probably enjoy conversing.
"The Official Family Story" is that my father, Lincoln, was named for a great uncle who was named for the president. But on a visit to the American Museum of Natural History, my mother noticed that the name of one of the people associated with Admiral Byrd's 1926 North Pole flight was named Lincoln (something) [I'd check, if I were within walking distance of that exhibit diarama], and she was always tickled that Dad was born shortly after, and went into aeronautics. She always suspected that that other Lincoln was the inspiration for Father's name, and that Josaphine sort of guided my dad into the profession.
But in any case, I kind of feel a certain closeness to President Lincoln in part because my dad shared his name, and had a very close birthday, too.
For the record, I think of Abraham Lincoln as among the greatest presidents not because he was the Great White Emancipator, but because he started as a typical, 19th Century white racist, but within the few years of the Civil War, his views came to change, and in his last public speach, he said that black people should not only be freed from slavery, but also be given the rights to vote and citizenship. And it was that public statement that blacks should be equal to whites that finally provoked Booth to change his kidnapping plot into a murder plot.
He was a great president because he had the courage to learn from the history he was a part of. And that, finally, cost him his life.
