SANDY KOZEL

On March 18, 1889, Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte (1865-1915) 
became the first Native American woman to graduate from
medical school.

Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital

    
A bronze sculpture of trailblazing Nebraska Native American 
physician.

Susan once wrote, “It has always been a desire of mine to study medicine ever since I was a small girl,” for even then I saw the
need of my people for a good physician.”

On November 4, 1990, Dances with Wolves, a film about an
American Civil War-era soldier and a group of Sioux Native
Americans that stars Kevin Costner and also marks his
directorial debut, premiered in Los Angeles.

Dances with Wolves took home seven Oscars, including Best
Picture and Best Director, and solidified Costner’s place on
Hollywood’s A-list.

Thirteen years after American settlers founded the city
named for him, Chief Seattle died in a nearby village of
his people.

Born sometime around 1790, Seattle (Seathl) was a chief
of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes who lived around
the Pacific Coast bay that is today called Puget Sound.

Jesuit missionaries introduced Chief Seattle to Catholicism,
and he became a devout believer. He died in 1866 at the
approximate age of 77.

James Wehn’s Chief Sealth statue near the Space Needle.

James Francis Thorpe (1887 – 1953) was an American athlete
who won Olympic gold medals and played professional football, baseball, and basketball.

A citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation, Thorpe was the first Native
American to win a gold medal for the United States in the
Olympics.

Considered one of the most versatile athletes of modern sports,
he won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics
(one in classic pentathlon and the other in decathlon).