History Lesson

MARTIANS: Look - here we are on Mars!

Well, at least in name.

In the photo above, an arrow points to two tiny microchips contain the names of more than 2.4 million people who signed up to fly on InSight.

An even more important fact about the photo above is that it demonstrates that an arm on InSight is working! That's important, because the arm is going to be used to pick up and lower science instruments onto Mars' surface. 

"Today we can see the first glimpses of our workspace," Bruce Banerdt, the mission's principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a press release. "By early next week, we'll be imaging it in finer detail and creating a full mosaic."

We're looking forward to the photos!


SOME SALMON: Yesterday, an email from the Library of Congress helped us learn about Salmon P. Chase.

[Portrait of Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, officer of the United States government]. Brady’s National Photographic Portrait Galleries, photographer. [Between 1860 and 1865]. Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints. Prints & Photographs Division

The remarkable American is someone who should be more widely known, as it turns out. Annabelle can tell you a bit about him. ... 

Salmon P. Chase was elected to the supreme court in 1864 by none other than Abraham Lincoln, whom shared Chase's passion for abolishing slavery. 

He was the a leader for the abolitionist movement in the 1840s and was a major part of the creation of the Free Soil party, which was against bringing slaves into the territories.

At the 1860 Republican convention, Salmon Chase convinced those supporting him to cast decisive votes for Abraham Lincoln, which caused Chase to have to leave his job in the current senate... so he could become Secretary of State for Lincoln.

He drafted the first two clauses of the 14th Amendment, which gave citizenship to the recently freed slaves and granted them the benefits that came with it.

Finally, Salmon Chase was part of the Supreme Court during the impeachment trial and acquittal of Andrew Johnson, where he served until he died.

And following are a few factoids from CJ. ...

1. Salmon P. Chase defended multiple slaves on trial in court cases in Ohio during the 1840s. An example of Chase defending a slave in court was when Chase defended escaped slave Samuel Watson in court in 1845.
2. Chase served as Governor of Ohio from 1855 to 1859, becoming the first Republican to hold the office. In addition, Chase founded Ohio's Republican Party.
3. Chase was the Secretary of the Treasury during Abraham Lincoln's presidency.
4. Chase was the drafter of the two clauses at the beginning of the Fourteenth Amendment, which extended citizenship to everybody naturalized or born in the United States.

In a letter to the Colored People’s Educational Monument Association, Chase asserted:

Our national experience has demonstrated that public order reposes most securely on the broad basis of universal suffrage. It has proved, also, that universal suffrage is the surest broad basis of universal guarantee and most powerful stimulus of individual, social, and political progress. May it not prove, moreover, in that work of re-organization which now engages the thoughts of all patriotic men, that universal suffrage is the best reconciler of the most comprehensive lenity with the most perfect public security and the most speedy and certain revival of general prosperity?

Letter from Hon. Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the United States. Wakefield, R.I., August 16, 1865. [To Williams Syphax and J. F. Cook, Committee]. In Celebration by the Colored People’s Educational Monument Association in Memory of Abraham Lincoln on the Fourth of July, 1865…. Washington, D.C.: McGill & Witherow, printers 1865. African American Perspectives: Materials Selected from the Rare Book Collection. Rare Book and Special Collections Division

Salmon was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Lincoln, and went on to serve as Chief Justice of the court before his death in 1873.

The Library of Congress has an extensive collection of documents and images related to Chase, including this Letter from Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase to Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, March 4. March 4, 1865. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/pin2204/

The letter references the fact that Chief Justice Chase was sending Mrs. Lincoln the Bible kissed by President Lincoln on taking the oath of office during his second inauguration.

MR GRINCH: Random fun with Wal-Mart merchandise ...