Showing posts with label Marshall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marshall. Show all posts

January 24 - Gold Discovered in California!

    Posted on January 24, 2022


This is an update of my post published on January 24, 2011:





James Marshall was a pretty average guy—a carpenter and a sawmill operator. But on this date in 1848, he made a discovery that changed his life. Heck, it changed a whole lot of people's lives!

He was examining the channel below the sawmill he was constructing in partnership with John Sutter in California, which then belonged to Mexico.


He noticed some shiny flecks in the channel bed, and he picked up one or two pieces for closer study. He knew a little bit about minerals, and when he saw that the shiny stuff was very bright, brittle, yet malleable (which means it could be beaten into different shapes, without breaking)—and, of course, that it was gold-colored!—Marshall knew that he had discovered precious, valuable gold!



According to his later recounting, he went to one of the carpenters working on the mill and said, “I have found it.” And when he explained that “it” meant gold, the other carpenter protested that it couldn't be gold. But Marshall was sure of himself. And of course, he was right!

However, Marshall's discovery did not make him rich. Instead, his sawmill failed when everybody dropped everything to search for gold, and his later business ventures, a vineyard and a gold mine, eventually failed as well. Neither Marshall, the guy who actually discovered the gold, nor Sutter, the guy who owned the land on which the discovery was made, benefitted from the discovery!

You may already know that people came to California from all over the world to search for gold (or to sell things to miners searching for gold). It is estimated that some 300,000 people came during the Gold Rush!





Find out more!

For more on the discovery of gold, go to the History Net. 

Take a virtual tour of the Oakland Museum's Gold Rush exhibit. 

Check out the Women's Museum of California exhibit on the women of the Gold Rush. 

Did you know that today is Talk Like a Grizzled Prospector Day?







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June 13 - Great Days in the Supreme Court!



Posted on June 13, 2019

There were two momentous Supreme-Court events on back-to-back June 13ths:



June 13, 1966 - The Supreme Court ruled that police officers have to inform suspects of their rights BEFORE questioning them.

The case was Miranda v. Arizona, and that's why we call this the Miranda warning: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

We sometimes call these rights our Miranda rights.

June 13, 1967 - President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to become the first black jurist on the Supreme Court.

Marshall was already super important to the nation, because he had used the law to destroy some unfair laws, with his work as legal counsel for the NAACP taking apart Jim Crow laws that maintained racial segregation and racial discrimination. And while serving on the Supreme Court, Marshall used the power of dissent to promote equity for women and for racial minorities - he used the power of dissent to shine a bright light on the problem with the death penalty - he used the power of dissent to support women's right to make their own medical decisions for their own bodies.

For more about Marshall and about the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court, check out this earlier post.

For more about the U.S. Supreme Court, check out these earlier posts.








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July 2 – Happy Birthday, Thurgood Marshall

Posted on July 2, 2018

Today we honor the first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

The judicial branch is crucial to having a democracy. So many people seem to feel that other people's rights should be a matter of voting. For example, I've heard nice, smart people say things like, "Well, majority rules, so gay people can't marry!" 

That's like saying, "Well, there are more white people in the U.S. than there are black people, and we had a vote, and it turns out most of us don't think black people should be able to vote! Majority rules!"

It definitely shouldn't work that way. We have a Constitution and some very good amendments that say, "It doesn't work that way." And we have a judicial branch to say - "Yeah, this law, that statement, and this other action don't follow the Constitution."


That's because "majority rules" is only a good way of doing SOME sorts of things. When it comes to dealing with many issues, it's better to consider philosophical and ethical ideas such as the Golden Rule and the Bill of Rights. We cannot vote on human rights - people of every gender and racial / ethnic background have (and should have) human rights just because they are human. 

Thurgood Marshall knew that and argued well for civil rights as a lawyer, including his most famous case of Brown v. Board of Education (about school segregation). He knew how important it is to stand up for human rights for EVERYbody as a federal judge, and he worked for human rights as a Supreme Court justice, as well.


Presidents would do well to nominate people as ethical and fair as Marshall, and Senators would do well to approve only nominations of judges who have demonstrated such understanding.



Also on this date:
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