This Week in History

November 9, 1731, Benjamin Banneker was born in Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland. Banneker was a self-taught Astronomer and Mathematician. He was one of the first African Americans to gain distinction in the sciences. Most of his life was on his family’s farm outside Baltimore. He taught himself by using borrowed textbooks.

In 1789, Banneker made astronomical calculations that enabled him to successfully forecast a solar eclipse. His mechanical and mathematical abilities brought him acclaim by building a clock out of wood.

In a letter to then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson in 1791, Banneker questioned the slaveholder’s sincerity as a “friend of liberty.” He urged Jefferson to fight for the abolition of slavery.

Source(s): Library of Congress

Compiled by Bob Valen