Benjamin Banneker: an Important Black American
February is Black History Month, and Benjamin Banneker is one of this country's most important Black Americans. His accomplishments in writing, science, and architecture are unparalleled. His story is also very inspirational. He was born a free man in 1731. At that time, it was rare for a Black man to be born free. But his mother was a free woman, and so Benjamin was born free. He was a very curious child. He liked numbers, and he liked to know how things worked. One of his first significant projects was building his own clock. One day, a friend showed him a pocket watch. Benjamin was so fascinated that he decided to make his own. He worked for two years and built a clock totally out of wood. Even the gears were wood! The clock was so accurate that it kept time for more than 40 years! This was far longer than most clocks of that time.
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Banneker
was also very good at astronomy. He loved looking at the
stars and figuring out the behavior of the planets and
moons. He was also interested in eclipses. An eclipse is
when the Sun is partially covered by the Moon. These can be
very difficult to predict. But Banneker did the math and
predicted an eclipse for April 14, 1789. Other famous
scientists of the day (all of them white) didn't believe
Banneker's prediction. They had their own dates, based on
their own calculations. But when the Sun was partially
covered up on April 14, 1789, Benjamin Banneker became
famous.
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