Milestones: January 23, 2024

January 23, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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VOTED IN AS A ‘PRACTICAL JOKE’ — THE FIRST WOMAN TO RECEIVE AN M.D. DEGREE IN THE UNITED STATES WAS ELIZABETH BLACKWELL WHO, ON JAN. 23, 1849, GRADUATED FIRST IN HER CLASS. Blackwell (1821-1910) had moved with her family to the U.S. from Bristol, England. Her acceptance to medical school was actually a practical joke from the men voting whether to admit her to Geneva Medical College in upstate New York. Her academic rank as top in her class rankled her male classmates. Yet, Blackwell, who hailed from a progressive, educated family, persevered in her goal to treat women and children and established a clinic in New York City. Despite the antagonism she met from society, she founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1857. One factor in Dr. Blackwell’s success was her adherence to clean sanitary conditions as an important aspect of health, particularly during wartime.

Blackwell helped establish the U.S. Sanitary Commission in 1861, during President Abraham Lincoln’s administration. Dr. Blackwell opened a medical school for women during the late 1860s.

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FOUNDING FATHERS SHARED A BIRTHDAY — TWO OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE’S SIGNERS WERE BORN ON THE SAME DAY, SEVEN YEARS APART. John Hancock, known for his flowing signature on the Declaration, was born on Jan. 23, 1737. at Braintree, Massachusetts. Hancock was president of the Continental Congress from 1775-77 and later served as governor of Massachusetts. Sharing a birthday with Hancock was Joseph Hewes, born in 1730 at Princeton, New Jersey, who later served as a Continental Congress delegate from North Carolina. Hewes prospered in the shipping business he established in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1760. Known for his diligent committee work, Hewes became an expert in maritime affairs. Upon signing the Declaration of Independence, he dispatched his own ships to the service of the Continental Armed Forces.

A scene in the 1972 movie, “1776,” has actor Charles Rule as Joseph Hewes exclaiming, during the reading of the Declaration draft, “Mr. Jefferson, nowhere do you mention deep sea fishing rights!” That quip carries more meaning to viewers who know he owned a fleet of ships.

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CHANGED INAUGURATION DATES — THE TWENTIETH AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION, WHICH WAS RATIFIED ON JANUARY 23, 1933, changed the date of the presidential inauguration, moving it earlier from March 4 to Jan. 20. The date change was in part because the speed of mail delivery and communications had changed significantly between the late 18th century when mail was delivered via horse and carriage, and the third decade of the 20th century when speedier means were available to announce election results. More importantly, moving the inauguration day six weeks and two days sooner reduced the lame-duck period and allowed the outgoing and incoming administrations to work more expeditiously and smoothly.

The 20th Amendment also set the Congressional Oath of Office day to Jan. 3 and marked that date as Congress’ opening day each new year. It specified that if a president-elect dies before taking office, the vice president-elect succeeds to the presidency.

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ENDED TAX ON THE RIGHT TO VOTE — JAN. 23 THIS YEAR MARKS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 24TH AMENDMENT BEING RATIFIED ON JAN. 23, 1964. A landmark action in civil and voting rights, the 24th Amendment eliminated poll and other taxes as prerequisites to voting in federal elections. The amendment says, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for president or vice president, for electors for president or vice president, or senator or representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state because of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.” The issue extended back to the post-Civil War Reconstruction era when 11 Southern states imposed the tax as a way to prevent Black impoverished persons from being able to vote. Congress viewed the qualification (the tax) as “an obstacle to the proper exercise of a citizen’s franchise” and expected its removal to “provide a more direct approach to participation by more of the people in their government.”

The 24th Amendment was ratified the same year as the Civil Rights Act, during President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s administration.

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PRAGMATIC CENTRIST — ASSOCIATE SUPREME COURT JUSTICE POTTER STEWART was born Jan. 23, 1915, in Michigan, but into a prominent Ohio Republican political family. He was the son of James Garfield Stewart, chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court. A graduate of New England schools Hotchkiss and Yale (where he earned his baccalaureate and law degrees), Stewart was President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s nominee for Supreme Court in 1959, with the Senate confirming him in May of that year. Justice Stewart, however, was a moderate rather than a conservative and gained a reputation as a pragmatic centrist who considered and weighed each case on its own merits. Stewart sat on the Supreme Court during the periods that Earl Warren and Warren Burger were Chief Justices.

Upon the retirement of Warren Burger, Potter Stewart declined to be considered for the chief justice. He later had a major role in the court’s unanimous opinion in Nixon v. United States (1974), which ordered President Richard M. Nixon to surrender the tape recordings to the special prosecutor; Nixon would resign from office later that year.

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FLYING SAUCER OR OLYMPIC GAME? — THE FIRST BATCH OF PLASTIC DISCS THAT WOULD COME TO BE KNOWN AS FRISBEES ROLLED OFF THE CONVEYER BELT at the Wham-O toy company on Jan. 23, 1957. These aerodynamic discs were an adaptation of a game in which pie plates were tossed and caught instead of balls. It originated in a Bridgeport, Connecticut bakery in 1871, when William Frisbie opened the Frisbie Pie Company. After enjoying the pies, local students would toss the tins to each other, yelling, “Frisbie!” Decades later, in 1948, the entrepreneurial team of Walter Frederick Morrison and Warren Franscioni designed a plastic version of the disc called the “Flying Saucer.” improving on the tin plates’ timing and distance. But somehow, the Wham-O company misspelled “Frisbie” and the toy was monikered “Frisbee.”

Wham-O marketed the Frisbee and the sport with the same name, selling 100 million before the end of the 1970s. The “Frisbee Sport” is now a contender for the 2028 Olympic games.

See previous milestones, here.