January 12: America's First Museum Opens, Caraway Makes History, and Cryonics Begins

January 12 marks three moments when institutions arose to preserve heritage, glass ceilings shattered, and science confronted mortality. On this day, Charleston created America's first museum to safeguard cultural memory, a widow won election proving women belonged in the Senate, and a dying professor had his body frozen in hope that future science might resurrect him. These stories remind us that societies need institutions to remember their past, that progress requires individuals brave enough to be first, and that humanity's relationship with death remains unsettled—some accepting it, others seeking to defeat it.