History will long remember 2021 for many reasons, not the least is the sound of the glass ceiling starting to shatter. With the swearing-in of Kamala Harris as vice president of the United States, the role of women in politics, as in other fields, is bigger than ever.

Additionally, women make up just over a quarter of all members of the 117th Congress -- the highest percentage in U.S. history and a considerable increase from where things stood even a decade ago, according to Pew Research. Counting both the House of Representatives and the Senate, 144 of 539 seats -- or 27% -- are held by women. That represents a 50% increase from the 96 women who were serving in the 112th Congress a decade ago, though it remains far below the female portion of the overall U.S. population.

March is Women’s History Month, which originated as a national celebration in 1981, when Congress requested that the president proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982, as Women’s History Week. These proclamations celebrate the contributions women have made to the United States and recognize the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields.

Women have played a pivotal role in our national development, and it’s amazing to me, as a student of history, that we haven’t heard more of their stories.

In the 19th century, Elizabeth Blackwell was rejected by 29 medical schools. When she went to visit the schools in person, she was told she should pretend to be a man, because women weren’t fit to receive medical schooling. She refused.

The dean and faculty of Hobart College (then Geneva Medical College) put her candidacy up for a vote with the 150 men currently enrolled. The school decided that if even one person objected, Blackwell would be denied admission. The 150 men thought the vote was a joke and unanimously voted to accept her.

The joke was on them. Blackwell was accepted, and she matriculated. Many doctors refused to work with her, but she persevered and graduated.

Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States in 1849. She then built a medical practice, created a place where women could have medical internships (since many health care facilities didn’t welcome women), served impoverished families, and established the first medical college for women.

How much do you know about women in history? Take this quiz and learn something about the role of five extraordinary women:

Question: Which mother led a 125-mile march of child workers from the mills of Pennsylvania to President Theodore Roosevelt’s vacation home on Long Island?

Answer: Mary Harris Jones, who became known as “Mother Jones” and led the march in 1903 to call attention to the evils of child labor.

Question: What did Dolores Huerta do for farm workers in the United States?

Answer: Dolores Huerta, a labor activist, co-founded the United Farm Workers Union in 1962 and served for more than 20 years as its vice president, chief lobbyist, spokeswoman and labor contract negotiator.

Question: Which Asian-American physicist disproved a fundamental scientific law?

Answer: Chien-Shiung Wu came to the United States to study science and became the world’s foremost female experimental physicist. Her most famous experiment showed that the principle of conservation of parity could be violated in nature.

Question: Who led the movement to improve conditions for poor immigrants?

Answer: Jane Addams co-founded Hull House in Chicago in 1889, which sought to improve the lives of immigrants by providing English classes, childcare, health education and recreation. Addams won the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize for her dedication to the cause of international peace.

Question: Her 1939 Easter Sunday concert drew a crowd of 75,000 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Who was she?

Answer: Marian Anderson had earlier been barred from singing in Washington’s Constitution Hall because she was Black. Her open-air concert was a triumph over bigotry.

Women entrepreneurs today are multiplying two, three, four times faster than men, depending on which part of the country that you study. Women now represent 40% of all business travelers.

These are just a few examples of women’s achievements. Let’s hope history can keep up!

Mackay’s Moral: Borrowed from Juliette Gordon Low -- “The work of today is the history of tomorrow, and we are its makers.”

A bird was searching for a home to lay her eggs so they’d be safe during the coming rainy season. In her search, she saw two trees, so she went to ask them for shelter.

When she asked the first tree, it refused to give her shelter. Disappointed, she went to the second tree.

The second tree agreed, so she built a nest and laid her eggs.

Then the rainy season arrived. The rain was so heavy that the first tree toppled over and was carried away by the flood.

The bird saw this and laughed. “This is your punishment for not offering me shelter.”

The tree smiled. “I knew I wasn’t going to survive this rainy season. That’s why I refused you. I didn’t want to risk your and your children’s lives.” And it drifted away.

The bird got tears in her eyes. Now that she knew the reason, she felt gratitude and respect for the tree.

How many times have we perceived the wrong scenario, or perhaps the wrong reason for a no? A rush to judgment can lead to disaster, or at the very least, regrets. It’s so important to give your brain time to consider all the available facts before taking action that is difficult to reverse.

A variety of factors affect your perception: what you can actually see, hear or feel, previous experiences, opinions of others, even concerns about how you might be perceived. How you perceive a thing determines how you receive a thing. If you perceive something as negative, that’s exactly how you will receive that message. In other words, your outlook often determines your outcome.

“We must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world,” wrote Stephen R. Covey in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.”

That’s why it matters whether you have enough good information to make a judgment about a particular situation. If you are operating on faulty premises or preconceived notions, your response may be completely unreasonable. Look at what you complain about and see if a change in perception can help you.

Therefore, it is critical that you develop your perceptive abilities so that you won’t reach the wrong conclusion. The power of perception can change your life.

There are several strategies you can practice that could help you develop more precise perceptions.

Look at yourself as others might see you. Past experiences can evoke powerful memories that guide your perceptions. For example, a particular negotiation with a difficult customer has made you dread doing business with them again. But move to the other side of the table: maybe that customer has had some bad experiences with quality, delivery or price that affect their perception. A little empathy can go a long way.

Know what triggers your responses. Certain smells or songs can remind you of good times or unhappy memories. Remind yourself that you are in the present situation and try to ignore some of the factors that color your judgment.

Ask for others’ opinions. We all see things through our own lenses, and different perspectives can help you shape your perceptions incorporating things you may not have noticed. You may not agree with their observations, but you will have a broader range of possibilities.

And finally, don’t overlook the obvious. Quite often, the truth is right in front of you. When the facts all add up, it’s reasonably safe to conclude that your perception is accurate. You can trust your intuition when you have good information. Second-guessing yourself when you have good information is an exercise in futility.

An old story tells of two cowpokes who came upon a man lying on his stomach with his ear to the ground. One cowpoke said to the other, “You see that guy? He’s listening to the ground. He can hear things for miles in any direction.”

“Really?” The other cowpoke got down off his horse and approached the prone man. “Is anything nearby?”

The man looked up. “One covered wagon,” he said, “about two miles away. Two horses, one brown, one white. A man, a woman, one child and a piano in wagon.”

“That’s incredible! How can you know all that?”

“Simple,” the man replied. “It ran over me about a half-hour ago.”

Mackay’s Moral: What you see may not be what you get -- but maybe it is.

Someone once asked a great philosopher what he would rather have -- a gift of money or a gift of friendship.

“Friendship,” replied the philosopher, “because money is spent, but friendship can last forever.”

Maybe this is why our greatest wealth is not measured in terms of riches but in our relationships. Friendship is the cement that holds the world together.

Friendship is so important we celebrate it several times during the year. February is International Friendship Month, and Old Friends, New Friends Week is the third week of May.

The first Sunday of August was declared as a U.S. holiday in honor of friends by Congress in 1935. Since then, World Friendship Day is celebrated every year on the first Sunday in August.

As novelist George Eliot describes it: “Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.”

That’s a fancy definition for what we all know is central to our happiness. I can’t imagine a life without friends.

I cherish the friends I’ve known since childhood. Along the way I’ve met friends through business, travel, sports and the community. They enrich my life and, perhaps just as important, know they can count on me to be there for them.

One of the best books I’ve ever read and learned valuable lessons from is Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” Carnegie wrote: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

To drive home the point, Carnegie tells how dogs have learned the fine art of making friends. When you get within 10 feet of a friendly dog, it will begin to wag its tail. If you take the time to pet the dog, it will become excited and lick and jump all over you to show how much it appreciates you. The dog became man’s best friend by being genuinely interested in people.

Last September, we lost an NFL legend in Chicago Bears running back Gayle Sayers. I’m old enough to have followed his short but brilliant career. Yet what I remember most about Sayers is the memorable friendship he had with a teammate named Brian Piccolo, memorialized in the movie “Brian’s Song.” Sayers was black, and Piccolo was white. They were roommates when the team traveled, which was a first for race relations in professional football.

The two became very close friends and challenged each other. When Sayers hurt his knee, Piccolo helped his friend through a grueling rehabilitation. During the 1969 season, Piccolo was diagnosed with cancer and was in the hospital more than on the playing field. Sayers was often at his bedside.

After that season, Sayers was awarded the prestigious George S. Halas Courage Award as “the most courageous player in professional football.” Sayers, Piccolo and their wives had made plans to go together to the annual Professional Football Writers’ Banquet in New York, but Piccolo was too sick to attend.

At the banquet, Sayers struggled to speak and said: “You flatter me by giving me this award, but I tell you here and now that I accept this award not for me, but for Brian Piccolo. However, Brian cannot be here tonight. He is too ill. But Brian is a man who has more courage than any of us here tonight. I love Brian Piccolo, and I’d like you to love him too. When you hit your knees tonight, please ask God to love him too.”

Shortly after that memorable night, Brian Piccolo died. These two tough football players had developed an unforgettable friendship.

Mackay’s Moral: Good friends are like toothpaste. They come through in a tight squeeze.