This month — and some sources cite this date — is the anniversary of the 1766 birth of Thomas Malthus in Dorking, England. Given that birthplace, he perhaps naturally became an economist, demographer and statistician. He’s remembered for “The Principle of Population,” a 1798 essay foretelling widespread famine caused by population growth far outstripping the food supply. While the forecast remains unrealized, his theory of demand-supply mismatches was a precursor to later theories about the Great Depression. When Malthus wrote his essay, the world population was a little under 1 billion. Currently, the global population is well over 7.1 billion people. Profile America is in its17th year as a Public Service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Sunday, February 16th. The nation’s first college for deaf students traces its beginning to this date in 1857, when Congress incorporated the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf, Dumb and Blind. In 1864, the school was federally chartered to confer degrees, the first three of which were awarded in 1869. Those diplomas were signed by President Ulysses S.Grant, and all subsequent diplomas awarded by the school bear the U.S. President’s signature. In 1954, the name of the institution was changed to Gallaudet College in honor of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a pioneer is educating deaf students. Gallaudet University reckons there are some 11 million deaf people in America. About 1,800 of them are seeking a degree from Gallaudet, and are among the nation’s nearly 20 million students enrolled in universities. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at <www.census.gov>.
Saturday, February 15th. For many Americans nowadays, it’s hard to conceive of life without computers. But such a life is within the living memory of America’s seniors. The first electronic computer was publicly demonstrated on Valentine’s Day 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania, and America came to love its descendents. Inventors J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly developed the computer to help calculate the proper ballistic trajectory for artillery shells. It filled a large room with 18,000 vacuum tubes and the resulting heat. Eckert and Mauchly went on to develop the first commercial computer — Univac I — used to process the 1950 Census. Today, the U.S is one of the most computerized nations in the world. More than three quarters of households have a computer, and about 72 percent access the Internet. Profile America is in its 17th year as a Public Service of the U.S. Census Bureau.