The Washington Post's Civil War blog published an interesting item about the home of Josiah Henson, whose life is generally believed to have been an inspiration for the abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

The house in Maryland where Henson lived and worked as a slave from the late 1700s to 1830 has been restored and added to the National Register of Historic Places. Now known as the Josiah Henson Special Park, the location, in North Bethesda, Maryland, will be the site of special programs to mark Black History Month.

When Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin she based characters on real people. And Henson, who had escaped to freedom in Canada in 1830, was likely the inspiration for the character of George Harris, a fugitive slave.

Henson wrote his own life story in the late 1840s, which he updated in the late 1850s, following the success of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Prior to the Civil War, Henson aided a number of fugitive slaves who arrived in Canada. He remained in Canada after the war, and died in 1883 at the age of 93.

Illustration: Josiah Henson/Getty Images

Seeing the first lady take her seat in the visitor's gallery of the House of Representatives for President Obama's State of the Union address was a reminder of the history of America and its people.

In 1850, presidents did not yet deliver their Constitutionally required message to Congress in person. And the Compromise of 1850, which was hammered out in the Capitol, gave America the Fugitive Slave Act, one of the most despised and controversial laws ever enacted.

And in that same year, 1850, a plantation owner in South Carolina wrote his will, and among his possessions he listed a 6-year-old girl known simply as Melvinia. She was a slave.

Melvinia would eventually live in freedom. And in the years after the Civil War, she would raise children.

We know something of Melvinia, who took the last name McGruder, thanks to research by a genealogist and researchers from the New York Times, which published an article about her family in 2009. When Melvinia died in 1938, in her 90s, her death certificate indicated that she may not have known the names of her parents.

Yet we all know one of Melvinia's descendants. And we saw her welcomed by members of Congress as she took her place of honor in the House gallery. Melvinia's great-great-great-granddaughter is Michelle Obama, the first lady of the United States.

Photograph: First Lady Michelle Obama at the State of the Union Address/Win McNamee/Getty Images

The new George Lucas action film "Red Tails" tells the story of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, a celebrated group of African-American fighter pilots in World War II.

The very existence of the squadron was a milestone. The U.S. Army was still segregated during the war, and it took the intercession of the Roosevelt administration to authorize the training of black pilots. As they were trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, they became known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

Under the command of Benjamin O. Davis, an Army Air Force officer who eventually was promoted to general, the pilots battled racism and countless obstacles when their first squadron began flying combat missions in 1943.

Eventually the top brass realized the value of the pilots, and more squadrons of Tuskegee Airmen were trained and began flying missions over Europe. The pilots compiled an impressive service record, winning many medals and distinguishing themselves as bomber escorts, bravely engaging in dogfights with German fighter pilots.

Illustration: Wartime poster depicting a Tuskegee Airman/Getty Images

As we pause to observe Martin Luther King Day, it's a good time to look back on his career.

Dr. King first came to prominence as a leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and his name became closely associated in the public mind with the Civil Rights Movement.

His "I have a dream" speech in August 1963 is often quoted, and it stands out as a classic American oration. And his "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" is also considered a major essay of the Civil Rights Movement.

Dr. King's colleague in the Civil Rights Movement, John Lewis, who is now a congressman from Georgia, remarked this morning on Twitter that today should be "a day on, not a day off," and urged Americans to get involved in a day of service in their communities. And Congressman Lewis also remembers his first meeting with Dr. King in a touching video at the Washington Post's tribute to the great leader of the Civil Rights Movement.

Photograph: Martin Luther King, Jr./Getty Images