Famous+Marylanders

Famous Marylanders =Directions Reminder - How to Copy & Paste text into the Wiki=

Go to the VillaMariaSchool Yahoo Page and Click on the Class Wiki Minimize it. Go to Internet Explorer and Google your Famous Marylander When you find some content that you want to keep.... Now Maximize the Class Wiki and Go to the Famous Marylanders page Go to your person and **Place** the **Cursor** **after your last entry** - Click the mouse so that the Cursor is after your last entry Click on **Save** in the Upper Right Corner You will want to keep a record of where you got your content. So, Maximize the Web Page where you got the content Click on the URL Ctrl-C to Copy
 * Step 1 - To Save Content**
 * Highlight** the text you want to **Copy**, **Paste**, **Insert** into the Wiki
 * Ctrl-C** to Copy
 * Ctrl-V** to Paste
 * Step 2 - To Save Source**

=Test Audio File= This Test Audio File show how you can create an Audio File explaining or describing something - a picture, an event - in your own words.

=media type="file" key="Test Audacity File.mp3" width="240" height="20"= =Benjamin Banneker=

=Notes:= Benjamin Banneker was born in Maryland on November 9, 1731. His father and grandfather were former slaves. A farmer of modest means, Banneker nevertheless lived a life of unusual achievement. In 1753, the young man borrowed a pocket watch from a well-to-do neighbor; he took it apart and made a drawing of each component, then reassembled the watch and returned it, fully functioning, to its owner.

From his drawings Banneker then proceeded to carve, out of wood, enlarged replicas of each part. Calculating the proper number of teeth for each gear and the necessary relationships between the gears, he constructed a working wooden clock that kept accurate time and struck the hours for over 50 years.

At age 58, Banneker began the study of astronomy and was soon predicting future solar and lunar eclipses. He compiled the ephemeris, or information table, for annual almanacs that were published for the years 1792 through 1797. "Benjamin Banneker's Almanac" was a top seller from Pennsylvania to Virginia and even into Kentucky.

In 1791, Banneker was a technical assistant in the calculating and first-ever surveying of the Federal District, which is now Washington, D.C. The "Sable Astronomer" was often pointed to as proof that African Americans were not intellectually inferior to European Americans. Thomas Jefferson himself noted this in a letter to Banneker. Banneker died on Sunday, October 9, 1806 at the age of 74. A few small memorial traces still exist in the Ellicott City/Oella region of Maryland, where Banneker spent his entire life except for the Federal survey. It was not until the 1990s that the actual site of Banneker's home, which burned on the day of his burial, was determined. In 1980, the U.S. Postal Service issued a postage stamp in his honor.

=Eubie Blake= Pianist and composer. Born James Hubert Blake on February 7, 1883 in Baltimore, Maryland. The son of former slaves, Blake began playing his family’s pump organ at the age of four, launching a music career that would span eight decades. At 15, Blake was playing in local saloons and brothels, eventually teaming with songwriter Noble Sissle to produce the first Broadway musical ever to be written and directed by African Americans, //Shuffle Along//, in 1921. Blake’s ragtime hits like “Memories of You” and “I'm Just Wild about Harry” were not only popular with urban blacks but also with suburban whites across the country. After taking a 20-year break from show business, Blake returned in his nineties to launch his own music label, Eubie Blake Music. He gave his last public performance in 1982, dying a year later in Brooklyn, New York.

In 1915 he joined a [|vaudeville] team with [|Noble Sissle], and in 1917 he became assistant conductor to Jim Europe at the Clef Club, then he toured in a musical show organized by Europe from musicians of the US Army's 369th Infantry Regiment. During World War II he toured with the USO for five years.

He joined ASCAP in 1922, and his chief musical collaborators included Sissle and [|Andy Razaf]. His other song compositions include "Love Will Find a Way", "Shuffle Along", "Bandana Days", "Gypsy Blues", "Goodnight, Angeline", "Slave of Love", "Lowdown Blues", "You're Lucky to Me", "Lindy Hop", "Lovin' You the Way I Do", "Green Pastures" and "Handy Man".

=Frederick Douglass=

=Notes:= =Matthew Hanson= =Notes:= =Billie Holiday= =Notes:= Singer, jazz vocalist. Born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Some sources say Baltimore, Maryland. Her birth certificate reportedly reads "Elinore Harris.") One of the most influential jazz singers of all time, Billie Holiday had a thriving career for many years before her battles with substance abuse got the better of her. =Harriet Tubman=
 * Matthew Alexander Henson** (August 8, 1866 – March 9, 1955) was an [|African American] explorer and associate of [|Robert Peary] during various expeditions, the most famous being a 1909 expedition which claimed to be the first to reach the [|Geographic North Pole].

=Notes:=

=Thurgood Marshall=

/> =Notes:= (born July 2, 1908, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.—died January 24, 1993, Bethesda) lawyer, civil rights activist, and associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1967–91), the first African American member of the Supreme Court. As an attorney, he successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court the case of //Brown// v. //Board of Education of Topeka// (1954), which declared unconstitutional racial segregation in American public schools.