Lincoln, and the Birth of the National Academy - 299
We often think of President Lincoln only in the context of the Civil War. We sometimes remember, or too often forget, his address at the Gettysburg Battlefield. In the 150-year remembrance of his 272-word masterpiece, scholars were challenged to write a 272-word letter in Lincoln’s Honor to the best of their talent. Here, the United States Science Communicator, Niel deGrasse Tyson, tells us what Lincoln meant to science: “One and a half centuries ago, Civil War divided these United States of America. Yet in its wake, we would anneal as one Nation, indivisible. During the bloody year of his Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln chartered the National Academy of Sciences—comprised of fifty distinguished American researchers whose task was then, as now, to advise Congress and the Executive Branch of all ways the frontier of science may contribute to the health, wealth, and security of its residents. As a young nation, just four score and seven years old, we had plucked the enginee...