On this day in 1953, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the top of Mount Everest. They were the first to conclusively reach the top and took plenty of pictures looking down to prove it. Hillary also took the now-iconic picture of Norgay on the summit, holding his ice axe overhead.  

Afterwards, Norgay, a Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer, decided to take May 29th as his birthday. He knew he was born in late May, but not the specific day. 

The two were a team to the end. In an earlier expedition, Norgay saved Hillary from a fatal fall with some quick thinking and an ice axe. Hillary the considered Norgay a necessary asset for any expeditions from that point on. Neither one ever revealed who took the first step onto the summit, only ever insisting that it was a joint effort.

Today is the birthday Alfonsina Storni. Born in 1892 in Switzerland to Italian-Swiss parents, Alfonsina grew up in Argentina and spent most of her adult life as a writer and poet in Buenos Aires. She became a single mother at the age of nineteen and although faced financial difficulty, was able to continuously produce poetry and prose, influencing the next generation of Argentinian writers.

Today is the birthday of John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States. Born and raised in the Boston area, JFK graduated from Harvard in 1940 and served in the US Navy during WWII. He beat Richard Nixon in the 1960 Presidential Election and served from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He is the second youngest person to be elected President of the United States, just behind Theodore Roosevelt. He remains the only Roman Catholic president. 

One of Kennedy’s first initiatives in office was establishing the Peace Corp. Well, technically Congress established it, but Kennedy spearheaded the effort. The Peace Corp today has over 200,000 members, volunteering in nearly 140 countries across the globe.  

Kennedy governed through a tricky time in our nation’s history. The Cold War was still going strong and the Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum. Kennedy stayed fairly quiet on Civil Rights at the beginning of his presidency, hoping not to isolate the Southern states. But as he intervened in more and more integration efforts, it became clear he could not help but make a strong statement to the nation. 

On June 11th, 1963, Kennedy delivered his Report to the American People on Civil Rights on national television and radio. In the speech he said: “This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”

Many of the proposals from the speech, including voting rights and equal access to public institutions, would become part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Kennedy, who said: “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” has his Presidential Library in Boston, MA and is buried in Arlington Cemetery. During his life he co-wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage. 

 

Today’s poem is “They’ve Come” by birthday poet Alfonsina Storni.

Alfonsina Storni

 

Today my mother and sisters

came to see me.

 

I had been alone a long time

with my poems, my pride . . . almost nothing.

 

My sister---the oldest---is grown up,

is blondish. An elemental dream

goes through her eyes: I told the youngest

"Life is sweet. Everything bad comes to an end."

 

My mother smiled as those who understand souls

tend to do;

She placed two hands on my shoulders.

She's staring at me . . .

and tears spring from my eyes.

 

We ate together in the warmest room

of the house.

Spring sky . . . to see it

all the windows were opened.

 

And while we talked together quietly

of so much that is old and forgotten,

My sister---the youngest---interrupts:

"The swallows are flying by us."