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315,000 Years Ago
The earliest known humans emerge and live on the African continent.
All human beings today belong to the Homo sapiens species, and it is widely accepted amongst researchers, historians, and scientists, that all of human history began on the continent of Africa. The exact location in Africa is a topic of constant debate as remains have been found in various locations throughout the continent, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, and Morocco, though researchers suggest it was most likely in the Horn of Africa. The oldest known remains of our species to date has been found in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and dated about 315,000 years ago.
250,000 Years Ago
Modern humans begin to disperse and migrate out of Africa.
Early modern humans expanded to Western Eurasia and Central, Western and Southern Africa from the time of their emergence. Evidence of migration out of Africa, via a partial skull, was discovered in the Apidima Cave in southern Greece and is dated more than 210,000 years old. There were several waves of migrations, many via northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula about 130,000 YA (Years Ago), though most of these early waves appear to have mostly died out or retreated by 80,000 YA.
c. 200,000 - 130,000 Years Ago
Mitochondrial Eve, the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend, lives in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Mitochondrial Eve (the name alludes to the biblical Eve) is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor of all living humans. In other words, she is defined as the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman. In 1987, geneticists compared the mitochondrial DNA (genetic information passed from mothers to their offspring) of people from different populations around the world and find that they all link in an unbroken line to Mitochondrial Eve. This does not mean that she was the first woman, nor the only living female of her time, nor the first member of a "new species." It only means that she is the most recent female ancestor to which all living humans are linked. She was believed to have lived in either East Africa or Botswana.
c. 10,000 BC - 6,000 BC
Due to a tilt in the Earth’s axis, the Sahara transforms from a humid region rich with grasslands and water, to an arid desert, prompting Saharan Africans to migrate to the Nile Valley.
The earliest Egyptians were indigenous Africans who were drawn to the Sahara when it was a humid region rich in grasslands and with plentiful water. There was a widespread Saharan Neolithic culture. However, during this same period (c. 10,000 - c. 6,000 BC), the Earth's axis tilted, causing the Saharan climate to slowly transform from humid to arid, prompting Saharan Africans to migrate to the Nile Valley to take advantage of its fertile floodplains.
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Home / Full timeline / Political, civil rights, and religious leaders throughout the nation lead commemorations of the third national holiday in honor of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Political, civil rights, and religious leaders throughout the nation lead commemorations of the third national holiday in honor of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; ?> Political, civil rights, and religious leaders throughout the nation lead commemorations of the third national holiday in honor of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

1988 (Jan 18)

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Political, civil rights, and religious leaders throughout the nation led commemorations of the third national holiday in honor of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They generally urged Americans to renew King's struggle against injustice and intolerance of any kind. In Phoenix, Arizona, thousands marched through the downtown area demanding that the King holiday be restored. In 1987, Governor Evan Meacham had repealed the state's observance of the holiday. This action was the first of many that led to an effort to remove him from office. During the demonstration, Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard observed that "it is time to stop having the rest of the country think of us as the site of a three-ring circus." In Los Angeles, California, celebrities and politicians led a group of singers, marching bands, and floats down a boulevard named for King to Exposition Park. In Boston, Massachusetts, Senator Edward Kennedy,commented that it was a "national disgrace that social justice [was] in retreat.” He added, “bankrupt national policies have spawned a national environment that encourages discrimination and repudiates opportunity.” In Gretna, Florida, Governor Bob Martinez led 250 marchers in a driving rain through the streets of a poverty-ridden Black neighborhood. The Republican governor told the crowd that he had felt the efforts of King's work himself. Martinez recalled that he had been told years ago that he could never become mayor of Tampa because he was both Roman Catholic and Hispanic. At Yokota Air Base in Japan, 150 Black airmen and civilians gathered on a baseball field to re-enact King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Jackie Chambers, a secretary at the base, recited the oration. During the ceremony Chambers stated that King “gave me the opportunity to get an education, and he's always given me the opportunity to progress.” Sergeant Earl Richard, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, commented, “I think he made a difference in everybody's life, no matter who you are, if you are an American." In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Rosa Parks, whom King once called "the great fuse" of the civil rights movement for her role in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955, was given a replica of the Liberty Bell during ceremonies honoring King in that city. Finally, in Memphis, Tennessee, a wreath was laid at the steps of the Lorraine Motel where King was mortally wounded in 1968. Blues musicians played “When the Saints Go Marching In," and Jacqueline Smith, a motel resident who refused to leave to make way for the construction of a civil rights museum on the site, was generously applauded when she simply said “Happy birthday, Dr. King."

References:

  •  • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.
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