What Happened on December 5?

@irontoenail - The very sad thing about Dr Spock was that he loved children and was one of the first people to try and help people to make them happier and healthier. But he managed to get something seriously wrong in his writing, which led to a lot of deaths.

He was the one who told women to put babies on their stomachs, so that if they vomited when they were sleeping they wouldn't swallow it. But, putting babies on their stomachs has now been shown to contribute to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Tens of thousands of babies have died over the last few decades because his advice was considered to be the last word and no one questioned it.

It's one of the reasons that people need to make sure they understand the difference between someone's opinion and something that's been proved by science.

@MrsPramm - Likewise, Dr Benjamin Spock was a decent person and I didn't know he was arrested for protesting the Vietnam War on the 5th of December. I did know that his books encouraged people to try and be more permissive with their children, treating them like individuals rather than like items off an assembly line, and that people thought that had led to the rise of hippies and protesters to the war.

I just love Einstein. It seems like he was not only intelligent in science and mathematics but also in social ideas.

There aren't many back in those days who would have even even realized there was something wrong with being asked those questions, but he not only realized it, he had the courage to question it, even though he was potentially in a dangerous position. Such a great man.