Welcome to the History Tricks where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

And here's your 30-second summary.

What did Julia Child, John Qsack and Frank Jackie Kennedy, Taylor Swift, Yo-Yo Ma, Beckett Graham, and the founders of Google all have in common?

Each of them went to a Montessori school, a child-centered educational system that was founded by Maria Montessori, the first woman doctor in Italy who hoped her efforts with children would one day lead to world peace.

The End

Let's talk about Maria Montessori.

But first, let's drop her into history.

In 1870, construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began and the first section of Atlantic Seas Boardwalk opened.

The modern soda fountain and asphalt were both patented.

The donkey was first used as a symbol of the US Democratic Party, the US Army, established National Weather Service, the US government established the Department of Justice, and the final Confederate states were added back into the union.

The education was first introduced into legislation in England, Charles Dickens, Robert E. Lee, and Alexandra Dumas died, and in 1870, future doctor and education pioneer Maria Montessori began her own early childhood education.

Maria Montessori was born on August 31st, 1870, in Chiara, Valet, Italy, the only child of Alessandra Montessori and Renilda Stopani Montessori.

Maria Montessori was born the year before modern Italy was.

You know what Italy shaped like? It's a boot. Kickin' a thing. Probably the easiest country to pick out on a map of Europe.

But it was not always that way. Not always the Italy that we think of.

It was a whole bunch of little states. Sicily, Sardinia, Tuscany, the people states, etc., etc.

They just kept going on and on.

Well, the grand struggle to unify Italy into one country was called the resorgemento. And over decades of struggle, they were wriggling out from the Austrian boot on their neck, ironically, due to the country's shape.

That had resulted in the new kingdom of Italy with Rome as the capital.

Maria's father, Alessandra, had been born into a middle-class family just north of Bologna.

His father, Nicola, had been middle-management at a tobacco company. So he was able to get Alessandra educated.

It wasn't rare at the time, especially for men, but it also wasn't mandatory while Alessandra was growing up.

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