May 19 · This Day in America
In a house on Pinkney Street in Omaha, Nebraska, a fourth child is born to Earl and Louise Little and named Malcolm. His father, a Baptist preacher and follower of Marcus Garvey, will be dead within six years; his mother will be institutionalized; the family will be scattered. The boy will pass through foster homes, a Boston ghetto, and a Massachusetts prison. He will come out the other side as Malcolm X — one of the most electrifying voices America has ever produced, demanding dignity "by any means necessary," then returning from Mecca with his certainties broken open and his vision widened. He will be murdered at thirty-nine, before he can finish the argument. But the autobiography he leaves behind becomes one of the essential American books, read by people who were not yet born when he died. A nation still measures itself against the questions he refused to stop asking.
Source: www.nps.gov
Also on this day · 1780
By mid-morning the sky over New England goes wrong. By noon, men light candles to eat dinner; chickens roost; some believe the world is ending. The Connecticut legislature considers adjourning, and councilman Abraham Davenport refuses, saying that if it is the Day of Judgment he wishes to be found doing his duty. The cause, found centuries later in tree rings: enormous wildfires in Canada, their smoke riding the wind south.
Source: www.masshist.org