Black History Corner

CANCER - June 22 - July 22 Cancer (The Protector) Moody and emotional. May be shy. Very loving and caring. Pretty/handsome. Excellent partners for life. Protective, inventive and imaginative. Cautious. Touchy-feely kind of person. Needs love from others. Easily hurt, but sympathetic.

- by Adelaide Abdur-Rahman [e-mail]

The ruby is the stone for July

In ancient legends, it was believed the person who wore a ruby was blessed with health, wisdom, wealth and outstanding success in affairs of the heart. Long ago it was said that rubbing your skin with a ruby would help maintain its youthful appearance. Un-flawed rubies in sizes larger than five carats are more valuable than diamonds of equal quality and size. The ruby mines of Myanmar (Burma), where Stone Age and Bronze Age mining tools have been found are older than history. Marco Polo wrote that Kublai Kahn, the Mongol Emperor of China, offered an entire city for a ruby the size of a man's finger. Eastern legends maintain that the ruby contains the spark of life and was "a deep drop of the heart's blood of Mother Earth."

July 18

You have a fastidious nature. You dress well and always appear at your best. You are original and studious, and you appreciate art. Your disposition was generally sweet. Although you sometimes lose your temper, you quickly recover it. You are affectionate and loving, and your home is very dear to you.

1753 Lemuel Haynes, a minuteman and the first African American minister of the Congregational Church of America was born in West Hartford, CT.

1753 Scipio Moorhead, an artist reported to have painted the portrait of Phyllis Wheatley, was born.

1863 Kelly Miller, a mathematician, sociologist, essayist, and newspaper columnist, was born in Winnsboro, SC.

1882 Elijah McCoy was awarded patent 261,166 for a lubricator.

1895 Jesse James 'Mountain' Hubbard, a Negro League Baseball player, was born in Bering, TX.

1899 Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus was awarded patent 629,315 for a hose leak stop.

1899 L. C. Bailey was awarded patent 629,286 for a folding bed used in an upper berth in a Pullman train compartment.

1905 Granville T. Woods was awarded his second patent for improvements to railway brakes.