On this day in ...... 1998 (10 years ago today), Haiti became 1 of the world's 1st countries to commemorate what is now known, by UNESCO resolution, the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. According to that U.N. body, commemoration "is intended to inscribe the tragedy of the transatlantic slave trade in the memory of all peoples." This date was chosen in recognition of a 1791 slave insurrection on the island of Saint-Domingue -- today, Haiti.
... 1944, Antonia Coello was born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Her own illness and her father's early death made hers a difficult childhood. Nonetheless, she earned a medical degree in
1970, married, and, as Dr. Antonia C. Novello (left), made a career in public health that culminated with her appointment in 1990 as U.S. Surgeon-General. She was the 1st woman and 1st Hispanic in that post; after she left it in 1993, Novello worked several years at UNICEF.
