But for now it is time for the way Black History fact. And today's way Black History fact comes from Women's History dot Org. We're gonna be talking about the first Black woman in space. Stick around, You're gonna love this. Born in nineteen fifty six, May Jemison received degrees in chemical engineering and African American studies and went on to become a medical doctor and officer in the Peace Corps. In nineteen eighty three, after watching Sally Ride, Jamison decided
to apply to the astronaut program at NASA. On September twelf nineteen ninety two, Jemison went into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor as the first African American woman in space. Jemison left NASA in ninety three, continuing to work for the benefit of others as an educator, entrepreneur, and author. May Carrol Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama, on October seventeenth, nineteen fifty six. She spent her first three and a
half years in the small Alabama town. Her mother, unhappy with job opportunities in the South, joined the Great Migration and moved to Chicago, Illinois. Her parents valued education. Charlie Jemison a maintenance supervisor, and Dorothy Jemison, a teacher, took their children to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry in the Yield Museum of Natural History to visit and learn.
As soon as she learned to read, May checked out science books from the library, reading about evolution, dinosaurs, stars, and planets. Once Jimison graduated high school, she left Chicago to attend Stanford University in California. She served as the president of the Black Student Union. A the next step in her well I did two, and so did you, and so we like that. The next step in her
educational journey would lead her to Cornell Medical School. While there, she traveled to Cuba and led a study for the American Medical Student Association. Jemison also became president of the Cornell chapter of the Student National Medical Association and helped coordinate regional health fairs. She also worked as a at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. Jemison graduated from Cornell
in nineteen eighty one with a doctorate in medicine. After her graduation from medical school, she interned at the Los Angeles County Medical Center and later practiced general medicine on June eighteen, nineteen eighty three, Sally Ryde became the first American women in space. This heroic event paired with Jemison's childhood fascination with space and inspired her to apply to
the astronaut program at NASA in nineteen eighty five. However, due to the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in nineteen eighty six, the program was paused. Jimmison reapplied and was accepted in nineteen eighty seven. She was one of fifteen people chosen for the program out of two thousand applications. She was selected at NASA Astronaut Group twelve. She received her first mission on the STS forty seven crew as
a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor. On September second, ninety two, Jimmison and six other astronauts rocketed into space for their mission. With this stressful launch made Jemison became the first African American woman in space. While in orbit, Jemminson conducted experiments that took advantage of the microgravity environment, where objects appeared to be weightless. The mission, known as
space Lab Jay, conducted over forty four different experiments. According to NASA quote Material Science Investigations covered such fields as biotechnology, electronic materials, fluid dynamics and transport phenomena, glasses and sore, metals and alloys, and acceleration measurements. Life sciences included experiments on human health, cell separation and biology, developmental biology, animal and human physiology and behavior, space radiation, and biological rhythms.
Test subjects included the crew Japanese coyfish, captured animal plant cells, chicken embryos, fruit flies, fungi and plant seeds, and frogs and frog eggs. The Endeavorment Crew made one hundred and twenty seven orbits around the Earth safely and returned to the Kentuck Kennedy Sorry Kennedy Space Center in Florida on
September twentieth, nineteen ninety two. And her book Jemison remembers strange, But I always knew I'd be here, looking down and all around me, seeing all the Earth, the moon, the stars. I just felt I belonged right there, in fact any place in the entire universe. And so we wanted to take a moment to shout her out, because that's a little ebony excellence women's history, and of course you're way black history fact. She's checking a lot of boxes this month, and yes, definitely when I needed