This is National Nurses Day, the start of National Nurses Week. It’s an occasion established to honor the outstanding efforts of nurses in helping to keep Americans healthy. The observance ends next Tuesday, the birthday in 1820 of Florence Nightingale, who established the world’s first nursing school in England in the 19th century. In the U.S., there were some 12,000 registered nurses by 1900. Today, that figure is some 2.7 million, with median annual earnings of over $65,000. As their numbers have grown, so have nurses’ responsibilities, keeping up with increasingly complex medical technology. They not only work in the nation’s 6,500 hospitals but also are on duty in more than 80,000 nursing homes and residential care facilities across the country. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.