This month we will commemorate the birthday of Benjamin Banneker (Born 1731 - Died 1806). Without Benjamin Banneker, our nation's capital would not exist as we know it. After a year of work, the Frenchman hired by George Washington to design the capital, L'Enfant, stormed off the job, taking all the plans. Banneker placed it on the planning committee at Thomas Jefferson's request, saved the project by reproducing from memory, in two days, a complete layout of the streets, parks, and major buildings. Thus Washington, D.C. itself can be considered a monument to the genius of this great man. Banneker created his own clock, made entirely of wood (1753). Famous as the first clock built in the New World, it kept perfect time for forty years. From 1792 to 1802, Banneker published an annual Farmer's Almanac, for which he did all the calculations himself. The Almanac won Banneker fame as far away as England and France. He used his reputation to promote social change: namely, to eliminate racism and war. But Banneker's reputation was never in doubt. He spent his last years as an internationally known polymath: farmer, engineer, surveyor, city planner, astronomer, mathematician, inventor, author, and social critic.