A day to remember

 Last year, I marked dates that are important to me, such as the birthdays of literary heroes.

This year, I’ve been making an effort not to do that. I’m trying to move on to other experiments.

Today’s an exception. On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Ala., for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus. It was the most human of crimes: She refused to be defined by others.

Her action affected millions of lives, including my own. I wasn’t two months old, but the event happened in my lifetime. As I grew older, human beings landed on the moon, invented the Internet, unraveled the genome and experimented with artificial intelligence.

But if I were asked to name the most significant event in American history in my lifetime … well, I’m marking the day.