Today, people in Chile and Argentina will experience a Total Solar Eclipse – including me! A Total Solar Eclipse is when the moon passes directly in front of the sun, blocking it out completely. It essentially becomes nighttime for two minutes during the middle of the day, with stars visible during totality. 

You can look directly at a Total Solar Eclipse during totality. The corona, the ring of light around the sun, is visible and it is truly spectacular. Pictures and video cannot do a Total Solar Eclipse justice – it really is too incredible for words – just absolutely breathtaking. The next Total Solar Eclipse will occur in December 2020 also in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Today is the birthday of Thurgood Marshall, American lawyer and Supreme Court Justice. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1908. Originally named Thoroughgood Marshall, he shortened his name to Thurgood. 

Although he graduated high school a year early, he was a B-average student. He had a bit too much fun his first few years at Lincoln University and was suspended twice for playing disruptive pranks on his classmates. 

But once he met Vivian Burey, his future wife, he buckled down and got more serious about his studies. 

He put his mind to studying law, but he credits Howard University Dean Charles Houston for the inspiration to be the man we remember today. Marshall said, “When you are being challenged by a great human being, you know that you can't ship out.”

Before his nomination to the Supreme Court, Marshall spent 25 years as a lawyer, most of his time spent as the chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. While in that role, he won before the Supreme Court Brown vs Board of Education. In that case the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional. In total as a lawyer, Marshall argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court, winning 29 of those cases. 

In 1967, Marshall became the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court, nominated by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson

Marshall, in one of his more pensive moods said: “In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.”

 

Eugene Field

 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

   Sailed off in a wooden shoe,—

Sailed on a river of crystal light

   Into a sea of dew.

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"

   The old moon asked the three.

"We have come to fish for the herring-fish

   That live in this beautiful sea;

   Nets of silver and gold have we,"

            Said Wynken,

            Blynken,

            And Nod.

 

The old moon laughed and sang a song,

   As they rocked in the wooden shoe;

And the wind that sped them all night long

   Ruffled the waves of dew;

The little stars were the herring-fish

   That lived in the beautiful sea.

"Now cast your nets wherever you wish,—

   Never afraid are we!"

   So cried the stars to the fishermen three,

            Wynken,

            Blynken,

            And Nod.

 

All night long their nets they threw

   To the stars in the twinkling foam,—

Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,

   Bringing the fishermen home:

'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed

   As if it could not be;

And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed

   Of sailing that beautiful sea;

   But I shall name you the fishermen three:

            Wynken,

            Blynken,

            And Nod.

 

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,

   And Nod is a little head,

And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies

   Is a wee one's trundle-bed;

So shut your eyes while Mother sings

   Of wonderful sights that be,

And you shall see the beautiful things

   As you rock in the misty sea

   Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:—

            Wynken,

            Blynken,

            And Nod.