This Week in History, Dec. 8th – 14th

This week we celebrate the birthdays of two “Graces”.

“Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, “We’ve always done it this way.” I try to fight that. That’s why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.”

—Grace Hopper

American computer scientist and US Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper was born this week in 1906. She was the inventor of the computer language COBOL. The first language to use actual words in it’s programming rather than numbers.

Learn more about admiral Hopper and other women who contributed to the creation of the internet by reading, Broadband : the untold story of the women who made the Internet. It can be found in the Clark Library at QA76.2.A2 E93 2018

“Everyone, real or invented, deserves the open destiny of life.”

Grace Paley

Born this week in 1922, Grace Paley was an author, poet, teacher and political activist. “in 1969 she came to national prominence as an activist when she accompanied a peace mission to Hanoi to negotiate the release of prisoners of war.”²

Paley’s book, The little disturbances of man, a collection of short stories, can be found at PS3566.A46 L5 1973

“Some 60 million years ago, a penguin as tall as Kanye West walked the shores of New Zealand.”

It was this week in 2017 that the journal Nature Communications published the discovery of  Kumimanu biceae, a human size penguin that could rival Clark College’s mascot, Oswald, in size.

Besides being Clark College’s beloved mascot, penguins provide an important and useful study in climate change. Check out, The Adélie penguin: bellwether of climate change,  online through the Clark Library.

¹https://www.flickr.com/photos/misbehave/2782902040
²https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Paley
³https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/books/23cnd-paley.html
⁴https://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonstateuniversity/4093180590