March 3 - Peace Corps Day

(First Tuesday of March)


March 1, 1961: President John F. Kennedy wrote an executive order establishing a volunteer program with the goal of providing technical assistance in order to help peoples all around the world better develop their economies and societies. Of course, the other goal is, by having people from the U.S. work with people in other countries, to develop more mutual understanding and respect. 


The eventual goal was to promote world peace and friendship.

The executive order was authorized by Congress later that year. 

More than 235,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps since that date. They have served in more than 141 different countries. 


Having a peaceful "army" of young people - mostly college graduates - volunteering all over the world wasn't just Kennedy's idea. Several other politicians floated similar ideas after World War II. Senator Brien McMahon said that such a group of young people would act as "missionaries of democracy." Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr., actually  introduced a bill to create a government-funded volunteer organization in 1957 - but that bill stalled somewhere along the line.


I believe it was Kennedy who came up with the name Peace Corps. And of course, he managed to get the organization off the ground.

For sure, the Peace Corps hasn't been without its problems. It's a human endeavor! - there are going to be problems! - but the goals are wonderful, and many observers credit the organization with changing for the better the way people in other nations view the U.S., how people in the U.S. view other nations, and even how people in the U.S. view their own country.



Also on this date:













Martyrs Day in Malawi








Unique Names Day

(Tuesday of the first full week of March)






















Town Meeting Day in Vermont

(First Tuesday of March)









Plan ahead:



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March 2 - Battle of Adwa Day in Ethiopia

Posted on March 2, 2020

Did you know that there was once a war fought between Italy and Ethiopia?

In the late 1800s, European powers had grabbed "ownership" of the lands and peoples of Africa in what we often call "colonization" but sometimes call "the scramble for Africa"!

Only a couple of chunks of Africa were still independent: Liberia, which was a nation made up of formerly enslaved people from the United States, and which was therefore under the protective eye of the U.S.; and Ethiopia, which was then often called Abyssinia. 


The Kingdom of Italy was a relatively new nation, and it hadn't snatched up as many swaths of Africa as other European nations. It had obtained Italian Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, two territories that flanked Ethiopia. It is perhaps not too surprising that Italian leaders decided to conquer Ethiopia and unite it with Italy's other territories. 


(Italy also controlled Libya, by the way.)

On the night of February 29, 1896, and the morning of March 1, three Italian brigades advanced toward Adwa, each brigade come from a different direction. A fourth Italian brigade stayed encamped, ready to pitch in where needed. 



The Ethiopian army, under Emperor Menelik II, engaged with the Italians, and it was a bit of a blood bath: more than 6,000 Italian soldiers were killed, 1,500 were wounded, and 3,000 were taken prisoner; almost 4,000 Ethiopian soldiers were killed and a staggering 8,000 wounded! But since the Ethiopians vastly outnumbered the Italians - and they were fighting for their own homeland, of course! - Ethiopia won the battle. Part of their winnings were all of the Italian army's artillery (cannons, guns), around 11,000 rifles, and transport equipment - all of which had been left behind as Italians fled from Adwa. 

Ethiopia was able to remain free for about 40 years before World War II brought a better-equipped Italian army back to - that time - conquer and occupy the nation.

Today's holiday means that schools, public buildings, post offices, and banks are closed; most shops and restaurants are open, but fewer hours than normal. 


People dress up, carry about patriotic banners and placards and flags, and enjoy patriotic songs. 



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March 1 – Beginning of Women's History Month

Posted on March 1, 2020

It's weird to even have the concept of "Women's History Month." I mean, about half of the world's population are women/girls! So shouldn't all of history include major amounts of information (like, about half of all historical information) about women?

You'd think!

But for the human animal, men-as-a-group tend to be bigger than women-as-a-group, and men-as-a-group tend to be stronger (at least in some ways) than women-as-a-group. So 
men have dominated leadership in many societies. They tended to make the rules, and for a while there, lots of the rules looked like this:

 Rule 1 - Listen to and obey your king. (By the way, only men can rule as kings.)
Rule 2 - Listen to and obey your priest. (By the way, only men can be priests.)
Rule 3 - Listen to and obey your lord. (By the way, only men can be lords.)

 Even when people created societies ruled by democratically elected leaders, rather than kings and priests and lords, for a while there only men could run for office, and only men could vote.

 In the past, men not only dominated government and power, they also dominated education, art, invention, and science. Women who fought through all the hurdles placed in their way and somehow managed to get an education and create an invention - or make a discovery - or do valuable science - or paint or write something notable - often had their work attributed to a man! 

Anyway, with all this men-dominating-everything, men also dominated the writing of history. And those written histories tended to talk about kings, rather than everyday women; about male emperors and pharaohs and generals leading armies of male soldiers, with all the invasions and wars and battles and conquering-other-peoples that armies tend to get involved with, rather than everyday life. Women who were there - wherever and whenever "there" was - tended to have their contributions and work and lives ignored by historians, with the occasional token exception demanded by historical reality. More women led their people than merely Cleopatra and Queen Elizabeth I, and more women achieved "firsts" than merely Amelia Earhart, and more women helped start social movements than merely Rosa Parks. 

 Women's History Month is a good time to learn about the everyday lives of women throughout history, and it's a great time to learn more about the timeline to women having voting rights and other human rights, and it's a super-duper time to learn about a wide variety of women - from all over the world and from all over our historical timeline - who have made a difference through art and science and every other possible field!

 To help you explore "women's history," here and here are some starter sources.

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