Feb. 12 was the birthdate of two extraordinary men: Abraham Lincoln, who helped America recognize the humanity of slaves, and Charles Darwin, who enslaved us to a dehumanizing theory.

President Barack Obama was fond of locating himself “on the right side of history.” He also liked to quote this saying from Martin Luther King Jr.: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That’s the perfect tagline for a speech—hopeful, virtuous, and stirring—and King used it more than once. 

Sixth in a series on war veterans

Staff Sgt. Halvorsen yelled for his men to take two shots and keep running, following orders to get downhill in the dark past German snipers and into the Belgium village of Mageret. As Halvorsen knelt to fire his own shots, his M1 rifle jammed. He jiggled the bolt to unjam it, when—phsht!—a German bullet hit him in the chest. He crumpled to the ground, and the Battle of the Bulge went on without him.

In 2002 the Harvard Club on 44th Street in Manhattan planned to erect a glass-walled addition to the classic building. Many alums were angry. At one meeting, Lawrence Lader, 82, got so worked up the governing board shut off his mic. He was still a frenzied orator, just as he’d been as a student in the 1930s and a self-described “street fighter” who led the movement to abolish America’s abortion laws in the 1960s.

The move toward swallowing abortion pills at home takes us back to an earlier era when abortion-seekers avoided surgical abortion, a risky proposition for women not only morally but physically, due to the great risk of infection. Abortifacients—potions designed to produce abortion—included oil of savin, ergot, rue, tansy oil, and wormwood, all of which caused a horrible shock to the entire body of the maternal user. Dosage was key, and effects could range all the way from a slightly upset stomach to death of child or death of mother and child.

Back in the days of the late Roman Empire, a monk journeyed from his home in rural Asia Minor (now Turkey) to visit the great city of Rome. Out of curiosity, he joined a crowd headed into the Coliseum. After finding a seat, he was horrified to see men fighting each other to the death for spectators’ amusement.

In one sense, Daniel Chirot learned about international politics as a baby: Born in Vichy France during World War II, he (with his family) evaded German roundups of Jews. Chirot made it to the United States when he was 6. This month he retires from his professorship at the University of Washington after 45 years of teaching and research.