1. Neil Armstrong takes “one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind” on the moon, in 1969 when Michelle Obama was 5 years old. 

2. That same year, Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) becomes the first black woman elected to Congress. 

3. Mark Spitz wins seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics Games in Munich, Germany – a record number of medals won during a single Olympiad that has never been equaled by another athlete - when she was 8 years old.

4. That same year, Rep. Chisholm ran for president, accumulating 151 delegates at the Democratic National Convention. As columnist and former Dan Quayle press secretary Rich Galen points out, that’s “way more than John Edwards, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich will receive at the 2008 Democratic National Convention - COMBINED.”

5. Sandra Day O’Connor is appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan - the first woman to serve on the high court - in 1981, when Mrs. Obama was 17 years old. 

6. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center researchers Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein share the 1985 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discoveries on cholesterol manufacture and metabolism in the body - which paved the way for the development of statin drugs that have saved tens of millions of people worldwide from premature death and disability from cardiovascular disease - when she was 21 years old. 

7. The Berlin Wall comes down in 1989 when she was 25 years old, two years after President Ronald Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” 

8. As firefighters lay down their lives running up the stairs of the World Trade Center, ordinary workaday New Yorkers are helping colleagues and strangers down flight after flight of stairs to safety in 2001, when she was 37 years old. 

9. That same year, the U.S. launches Operation Enduring Freedom to free Afghanistan from the grip of the Taliban. 

10. American citizens and corporations donated $515 million to Indonesian tsunami victims – a rate of $100,000 per hour - in 2004, when she was 40 years old. 

Addendum:  One of The Stiletto’s friends whose son plays on a Little League team reminded her of something else Michelle Obama can be proud of – and it happened just last year! After they won The Little League Baseball World Series Championship, the team from Warner Robins, GA, noticed that many of the boys on the Japanese team were so disappointed at their loss they were crying. Instead of whooping it up and rubbing the defeat in their faces, each American boy went over to a player on the other team and gave him a hug and a pep talk (video). Recalling the very moving moment, The Stiletto and her friend agreed that we had never been prouder of our country. Too bad Michelle’s not feelin’ it , too.

Note: The Stiletto writes about politics and other stuff at The Stiletto Blog.