text:
Timeline US Presidents Washington to JFK
Presidents of the US: http://www.potus.com
Election dates: http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/dates.php
Presidents #1-44 morphing : http://www.flixxy.com/presidents-morphing.htm
1906 John Sergeant Wise authored "Recollections of 13 Presidents."
1984 Paul F. Boller authored "Presidential Campaigns."
Washington to Kennedy
1841-1921 Of the 11 U.S. presidents serving between 1841 and 1921, seven of them were born in Ohio. The presidents and their places of birth were: Ulysses S. Grant, Point Pleasant; Rutherford B. Hayes, Delaware; James A. Garfield, Orange; Benjamin Harrison, North Bend; William McKinley, Niles; William H. Taft, Cincinnati; Warren G. Harding, Morrow County. These were the only Ohio-born presidents. Three of them, Garfield, McKinley and Harding died in office. Four of the seven presidents hailing from Ohio died while in office. They were William Henry Harrison, the 9th president, who died one month after his inauguration in 1841; the 20th president, James Garfield, who was assassinated in 1881; William McKinley, the 25th president, who was assassinated in 1901; and Warren G. Harding, who died suddenly in 1923.
(HNQ, 5/9/98)(HNQ, 6/7/99)
1721 Apr 13, John Hanson, first U.S. President under the Articles of Confederation, was born in Maryland.
1785 Nov 23, John Hancock was elected President of the Continental Congress for the second time.
#1 George Washington (1789-1797)
1731 Jun 2, Martha Dandridge, the first First Lady of the United States, was born. Widow of Daniel Park Custis, she married George Washington in 1759.
1732 Feb 22, George Washington (1732-1799), first U.S. President, was born in Westmoreland, Virginia. He is revered as the "Father of His Country" for the great services he rendered during America's birth and infancy--a period of nearly 20 years. He spent most of his boyhood at Ferry Farm, across from the village of Fredericksburg. He later married Martha Custis, a widow with 2 sons. They had no children together. Martha Washington is credited with originating the first US bandanna. He held 317 slaves and once said: "To set the slaves afloat at once would... be productive of much inconvenience and mischief?". Washington commanded the Continental Army that won American independence from Britain in 1783. In 1787, Washington was elected president of the Constitutional Convention that created the form of American democratic government that survives to this day. Washington was also elected in 1787 as the first president of the United States, serving two terms. One of his officers, "Light-horse Harry" Lee, summed up how Americans felt about George Washington: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." George Washington died at his Mount Vernon home on December 14, 1799, at the age of 67.
(A & IP, ESM, p.10)(AHD, p.1446)(SFC, 3/8/96, p.A21)(Hem., 3/97, p.101) (SFC,12/897, p.A27)(HN, 2/22/98)(HNPD, 2/22/99)
1751 Sep 28, George Washington (19), accompanied his sick older half-brother Lawrence to Barbados. Lawrence had been advised that the island's climate might help restore his ill health. The brothers left Virginia on September 28 and arrived at Bridgetown, Barbados, November 3. George, who survived the smallpox while in Barbados, left Lawrence on December 21 and arrived back in Virginia on January 28, 1752. It took George Washington and his older half-brother, Lawrence, six weeks to sail to Barbados in 1751. It was Washington's first and only trip away from the North American mainland. The brothers rented a house near Bridgetown for two months.
1753 Aug 4, George Washington became a master mason.
1753 Dec 12, George Washington, the adjutant of Virginia, delivered an ultimatum to the French forces at Fort Le Boeuf, south of Lake Erie, reiterating Britain's claim to the entire Ohio river valley. Washington (22) was sent by Gov. Robert Dinwiddie to warn the French soldiers that they were trespassing on English territory.
(HN, 12/12/98)(WSJ, 2/10/00, p.A16)
1753-1754 George Washington, at the request of Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, led a small expedition to warn the French against expanding into the Ohio Valley and to select potential sites for forts in case of war.
(A & IP, ESM, p.10)
1754 Jul 3, George Washington surrendered the small, circular Fort Necessity (later Pittsburgh) in southwestern Pennsylvania to the French, leaving them in control of the Ohio Valley. This marked the beginning of the French and Indian War also called the 7 Years' War.
(HN, 7/13/98)(Arch, 1/05, p.46)
1758 Jul 24, George Washington was admitted to Virginia House of Burgesses.
1758 Nov 25, In the French and Indian War British forces under General John Forbes captured Fort Duquesne (the site of present day Pittsburgh, est. 1754). George Washington participated in the campaign. Forbes renamed the site Fort Pitt after William Pitt the Elder, who directed British military policy in the Seven Years' War of 1756-'63. Before his arrival, the French had burned the fort and retreated.
(AP, 11/25/97)(ON, 9/05, p.5)(HNQ, 7/17/98)
1759 Jan 6, George Washington and Martha Dandridge Custis were married. George had 28 slaves and Martha had 109.
(AP, 1/6/98)(SFEC, 5/2/99, Z1 p.8)
1759 Oct 11, Mason Weems, preacher (Episcopalian clergyman), was born. He was a noted seller of books where he would fictionalize history in stories like the one he wrote of George Washington in the book, "Life of Washington". People loved his fictionalized stories and often believed that they were true. One famous story which is not true is the story of Washington chopping down the cherry tree and the famous quote on not telling a lie.
1775 May, George Washington went to the Philadelphia State House where the Second Continental Congress was meeting and John Adams moved to name him Commander-in-chief of the Continental army.
1775 Jun 15, The Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington head of the Continental Army.
1775 Jul 2, George Washington arrived in Boston and took over as commander-in-chief of the new Continental Army.
1775 Jul 3, Gen. George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Mass.
1775 Nov 17, George Washington was in Boston with his ragtag army facing 12,000 Redcoat regulars.
(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)
1775 Dec 31, George Washington ordered recruiting officers to accept free blacks into the army.
1775-1781 George Washington got his brother-in-law, Fielding Lewis, to take charge of provisioning his regiments for the 6 years of the Revolutionary War.
1776 Jan 14, George Washington commanded an army that consisted of some 9,000 men, up to half of whom were not fit for duty.
1776 Mar 25, The Continental Congress authorized a medal for General George Washington.
1776 Apr 3, George Washington received an honorary doctor of law degree from Harvard College.
1776 Aug 29, General George Washington retreated during the night from Long Island to New York City.
1776 Sep 10, George Washington asked for a spy volunteer and Nathan Hale volunteered.
1776 Sep 22, American Captain Nathan Hale was hanged as a spy with no trial by the British in New York City during the Revolutionary War. He was considered as one of the incendiaries of the burning of NYC. Hale was commissioned by General George Washington to cross behind British lines on Long Island and report on their activity. His last words are reputed to have been, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country."
(AP, 9/22/97)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)(HN, 9/22/98)(MC, 9/22/01)
1776 Oct 28, Battle of White Plains; Washington retreated to NJ.
1776 Nov 28, Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River.
(DTnet, 11/28/97)
1776 Dec 8, George Washington's retreating army in the American Revolution crossed the Delaware River from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.
1776 Dec 25, Gen. George Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River for a surprise attack against Hessian forces at Trenton, N.J.
1776 Dec 26, The British suffered a major defeat in the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War. After crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey, George Washington led an attack on Hessian mercenaries and took 900 men prisoner. Two Americans froze to death on the march but none died in battle. There were 30 German casualties, 1,000 prisoners and 6 cannon captured. Four Americans were wounded in the overwhelming American victory, while 22 Hessians were killed and 78 wounded. The surprise attack caught most of the 1,200 Hessian soldiers at Trenton sleeping after a day of Christmas celebration. The Americans captured 918 Hessians, who were taken as prisoners to Philadelphia. The victory was a huge morale booster for the American army and the country. The victory at Trenton was a huge success and morale booster for the American army and people. However, the enlistments of more than 4,500 of Washington's soldiers were set to end four days later and it was critical that the force remain intact. General George Washington offered a bounty of $10 to any of his soldiers who extended their enlistments six weeks beyond their December 31, 1776, expiration dates. The American Revolution Battle of Trenton saw the routing of 1,400 Hessian mercenaries, with 101 killed or wounded and about 900 taken prisoner, with no Americans killed in the combat. Four Americans were wounded and two had died of exhaustion en route to Trenton.
(AP, 12/26/97)(HN, 12/26/98)(SFC, 12/26/98, p.A3)(HNQ, 3/20/99)(HNQ, 4/11/99)(HNQ, 12/26/99)
1776 George Washington ordered his chief of artillery, Henry Knox, to establish an American arsenal to manufacture guns and ammunition for his army. Knox chose Springfield, Mass., on the Connecticut River. The Springfield Armory stayed open 173 years and was closed in 1967, but continues as a museum. Book Review.
1777 Jan 3, Gen. George Washington's army routed the British led by Cornwallis in the Battle of Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 1/3/98)(HN, 1/3/99)
1777 Sep 11, General George Washington and his troops were defeated by the British under General Sir William Howe at the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania. Posing as a gunsmith, British Sergeant John Howe served as General Gage's eyes in a restive Massachusetts colony.
1777 Sep 27, At the Battle of Germantown the British defeated Washington's army. English General William Howe occupied Philadelphia. [see Sep 25,26]
1777 Oct 4, George Washington's troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Penn., resulting in heavy American casualties.
1777 Dec 2, British Gen. Howe plotted his attack on Washington's army for Dec 4.
1777 Dec 19, Gen. George Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, Pa., to camp for the winter.
1777 George Washington wrote a letter offering Nathaniel Sackett $50 a month to set up an intelligence network.
1777 Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, arrived in the US in his own boat and offered his services to Gen'l. George Washington.
1778 Jun 19, General George Washington's troops finally left Valley Forge after a winter of training. Washington left to intercept the British force on its way to New York City.
1778 Jul 8, George Washington headquartered his Continental Army at West Point.
1779 There were 21 regiments of loyalists in the British army estimated at 6500-8000 men. Washington reported a field army of 3468 men.
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)
1780 Jan 2, A blizzard hit Washington's army at the Morristown, NJ, winter encampment.
1780 Sep 21-22, General Benedict Arnold, American commander of West Point, met with British spy Major John André to hand over plans of the important Hudson River fort to the enemy. Unhappy with how General George Washington treated him and in need of money, Arnold planned to "sell" West Point for 20,000 pounds--a move that would enable the British to cut New England off from the rest of the rebellious colonies. Arnold's treason was exposed when André was captured by American militiamen who found the incriminating plans in his stocking. Arnold received a timely warning and was able to escape to a British ship, but André was hanged as a spy on October 2, 1780. Condemned for his Revolutionary War actions by both Americans and British, Arnold lived until 1801.
1781 Mar 1, The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation.
1781 Aug 20, George Washington began to move his troops south to fight Cornwallis.
1781 Sep 5, The British fleet arrived off the Virginia Capes and found 26 French warships in three straggling lines. Rear Adm. Thomas Graves waited for the French to form their battle lines and then fought for 5 days. Outgunned and unnerved he withdrew to New York. The French had some 37 ships and 29,000 soldiers and sailors at Yorktown while Washington had some 11,000 men engaged. French warships defeated British fleet, trapping Cornwallis in Yorktown.
(NG, 6/1988, p.763)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)(MC, 9/5/01)
1781 Oct 9, General George Washington commenced a bombardment of the Lord Cornwallis's encircled British forces at Yorktown, Virginia (Battle of Yorktown Revolutionary War). For eight days Lord Cornwallis endured the Americans heavy bombardment and had no choice but to surrender his 9,000 troops. It was considered that Washington had achieved the inconceivable with victory at Yorktown and that the British were defeated.
1781 Oct 16, Gen. Washington took Yorktown.
1781 Oct 17, Cornwallis was defeated at Yorktown. [see Oct 16,19]
1781 Oct 19, Major General Lord Charles Cornwallis, surrounded at Yorktown, Va., by American and French regiments numbering 17,600 men, surrendered to George Washington and Count de Rochambeau at Yorktown, Va. Cornwallis surrendered 7,157 troops, including sick and wounded, and 840 sailors, along with 244 artillery pieces. Losses in this battle had been light on both sides. Cornwallis sent Brig. Gen. Charles O'Hara to surrender his sword. At Washington's behest, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln accepted it. Washington himself is seen in the right background of "The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown" by artist John Trumbull. After conducting an indecisive foray into Virginia, Lt. Gen. Charles Lord Cornwallis retired to Yorktown on August 2, 1781. On August 16, General Washington and Maj. Gen. Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, began marching their Continental and French armies from New York to Virginia. The arrival of a French fleet, and its victory over a British fleet in Chesapeake Bay, sealed the trap.
(NG, 6/1988, p.808)(AP, 10/19/97)(HNPD, 10/19/98)(HN, 10/19/98)
1782 Aug 2, George Washington created the Honorary Badge of Distinction. [see Aug 7]
1782 Aug 7, General George Washington created the Order of the Purple Heart, a decoration to recognize merit in enlisted men and noncommissioned officers. Washington authorized the award of the Purple Heart for soldiers wounded in combat.
1783 Nov 2, Gen. George Washington issued his "Farewell Address to the Army" near Princeton, N.J.
1783 Dec 4, Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York City.
(AP, 12/4/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.T4)
1783 Dec 23, George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Army and retired to his home at Mount Vernon, Va.
1784 George Washington met a 16-year-old slave named Venus, who later bore a mulatto son named West Ford who lived in special favor at Mt. Vernon. In 1998 descendants of Ford set out to prove that Washington was his father.
1786 Sep 9, George Washington called for the abolition of slavery.
1787 May 25, The Constitutional Convention was convened in Philadelphia after enough delegates showed up for a quorum. George Washington presided.
1787 Sep 17, The Constitution of the United States was completed and signed by a majority of delegates (12) attending the constitutional convention in Philadelphia. The US Constitution went into effect on Mar 4, 1789. Clause 3 of Article I, Section 8 empowered Congress to "regulate Commerce with foreign nations, among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes." Two of the signers went on to become presidents of the United States. George Washington, the president of the Constitutional Convention, and James Madison both signed the Constitution. The US Constitution is the world's oldest working Constitution.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/17/97)(HN, 9/17/98)(WUD, 1994, p.314)(WSJ, 4/9/99, p.W17)(HNQ, 5/19/99)(MC, 9/17/01)
1787 George Washington at this time owned some 30,000 acres in the West.
1787 Morocco became the first country to recognize the US as a sovereign nation. Pres. Washington acknowledged Morocco's recognition in 1789.
(SFC, 8/15/98, p.E4)(SFCM, 3/27/05, p.19)
1789 Jan 7, The first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president.
1789 Feb 4, Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States and John Adams as vice-president. The results of the balloting were not counted in the US Senate until two months later. Washington accepted office at the Federal Building of New York. His first cabinet included Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton as first secretary of the Treasury, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph.
(A & IP, ESM, p.10)(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A18)(AP, 2/4/07)
1789 Apr 16, George Washington left Mount Vernon, Va., for the first presidential inauguration in New York.
1789 Apr 21, John Adams was sworn in as the first vice president of the United States.
1789 Apr 23, President-elect Washington and his wife moved into the first executive mansion, the Franklin House, in New York. George Washington was inaugurated at Federal Hall and lived at 3 Cherry Street in New York City. In 1790, with construction on the new federal capital underway, the government was moved temporarily to Philadelphia, where Washington served out his two terms. He is the only president who never resided in the White House.
(AP, 4/23/97)(HNPD, 12/22/98)
1789 Apr 30, George Washington was inaugurated and took office in New York as the first president of the United States. He took his oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street and spoke the words "So help me God," which all future US presidents have repeated. The oath as prescribed by the Constitution makes no mention of God of the Bible.
(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.W4)(AH, 4/07, p.31)
1789 Jul 27, President Washington signed a measure establishing the Department of Foreign Affairs, forerunner of the Department of State.
1789 Sep 24, President George Washington appointed John Jay as the 1st Chief Justice.
1789 Oct 3, George Washington proclaimed the 1st national Thanksgiving Day to be Nov 26. He made it clear that the day should be one of prayer and giving thanks to God, to be celebrated by all the religious denominations. In 1863 Pres. Lincoln designated the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day.
(HFA, '96, p.42)(AP, 11/26/97)(HN, 11/26/98)(MC, 10/3/01)
1789 Oct 15, George Washington went to New England on the 1st presidential tour.
1789 Nov 26, George Washington proclaimed this a National Thanksgiving Day in honor of the new Constitution. He made it clear that the day should be one of prayer and giving thanks to God, to be celebrated by all the religious denominations. This date was later used to set the date for Thanksgiving.
(HFA, '96, p.42)(AP, 11/26/97)(HN, 11/26/98)
1789 Dentist John Greenwood (1760-1819) carved his first dentures for George Washington out of hippopotamus ivory.
(ON, 4/12, p.8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Greenwood_%28dentist%29)
1790 Jan 8, President Washington delivered the 1st "State of the Union" address in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_State_of_the_Union_Address)
1790 Mar 1, President Washington signed a measure authorizing the first US Census. The Connecticut Compromise was a proposal for two houses in the legislature-one based on equal representation for each state, the other for population-based representation-that resolved the dispute between large and small states at the Constitutional Convention. Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman's proposal led to the first nationwide census in 1790. The population was determined to be 3,929,625, which included 697,624 slaves and 59,557 free blacks. The most populous state was Virginia, with 747,610 people and the most populous city was Philadelphia with 42,444 inhabitants. The average cost of this year's census was 1.13 cents per person.
(HNQ, 7/13/01)(AP, 3/1/08)(http://www.genealogybranches.com/censuscosts.html)
1790 Mar 21, Thomas Jefferson reported to President Washington in New York as the new secretary of state.
1790 Apr 10, President George Washington signed into law the first United States Patent Act. The Patent Board was made up of the Secretary of State, Secretary of War and the Attorney General and was responsible for granting patents on "useful and important" inventions. In the first three years, 47 patents were granted. Until 1888 miniature models of the device to be patented were required. [see July 31] The US Patent and Trademark Office's subject grouping scheme includes a major component called a class and a minor one called a subclass. A class distinguishes one technology from another. Subclasses of the USPTO delineate processes, structural features and functional features of the technology in that particular class. By 2015 there were 474 classes and over 160,000 codes.
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 8/6/99)(AP, 4/10/07)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.73)
1790 Jul 31, The first US patent was issued to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for an improvement "in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process". This patent was signed by then President George Washington. The first 10,280 patents, issued between 1790 and 1836, were destroyed by a fire. The legal basis for the United States patent system (USPTO) is Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution wherein the powers of Congress are defined.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Patent_and_Trademark_Office)
1790 Dec 6, Congress moved from New York City to Philadelphia, where Washington served out his two terms. He is the only president who never resided in the White House.
(AP, 12/6/97)(HNPD, 12/22/98)
1791 Feb 25, President George Washington signed a bill creating the Bank of the United States.
1791 Mar 4, President Washington called the US Senate into its 1st special session.
1791 Mar 29, Pres. George Washington and French architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant examined the a site along the Potomac River that would become the US capital. Maryland and Virginia had ceded land to the federal government to form the District of Columbia. Chosen as the permanent site for the capital of the United States by Congress in 1790, President Washington was given the power by Congress to select the exact site—an area ten-miles square, made up of land given by Virginia and Maryland. Washington became the official federal capital in 1800. In 2008 Fergus Bordewich authored "Washington: The Making of the American Capital."
(HNQ, 8/13/00)(HN, 8/2/98)(WSJ, 8/8/08, p.A13)
1792 Jan 17, One of the first US Treasury bonds was issued to Pres. George Washington and bears the earliest use of the dollar sign.
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.W9)
1792 Feb 20, President Washington signed an act creating the U.S. Post Office.
1792 Feb 21, US Congress passed the Presidential Succession Act.
1792 Apr 5, George Washington cast the first presidential veto, rejecting a congressional measure for apportioning representatives among the states.
1792 Apr 14, Pres. George Washington appointed David Rittenhouse, the foremost scientist of America, the first director of the US Mint at a salary of $2000 per annum. Rittenhouse was then in feeble health and lived at the northwest corner of Seventh and Arch Streets, then one of the high places of Old Philadelphia, where he had an observatory and where he later died and was first buried.
(http://tinyurl.com/per3q6f)
1792 Apr 22, President Washington proclaimed American neutrality in the war in Europe.
1792 Dec 5, George Washington was re-elected president; John Adams was re-elected vice president.
1792 George Washington signed a law giving shipowners "allowances" (i.e. subsidies) to offset tariffs they had to pay on their inputs. This was part of an effort to rebuild new England's cod industry.
1793 Feb 25, The department heads of the U.S. government met with President Washington at his home for the first Cabinet meeting on record.
1793 Mar 4, George Washington was inaugurated as President for the second time. His 2nd inauguration was the shortest with just 133 words. Since George Washington's second term, Inauguration Day had been March 4 of the year following the election. That custom meant that defeated presidents and congressmen served four months after the election. In 1933, the so-called Lame Duck Amendment to the U.S. Constitution moved the inauguration of newly elected presidents and congressmen closer to Election Day. The 20th Amendment required the terms of the president and vice-president to begin at noon on January 20, while congressional terms begin on January 3.
(HN, 3/4/98)(HNPD, 3/4/99)(SC, 3/4/02)
1793 Apr 22, Pres. Washington attended the opening of Rickett's, the 1st circus in US.
1793 Sep 18, President George Washington laid the foundation stone for the U.S. Capitol on Jenkins Hill.
(AP, 9/18/97)(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A15)(HN, 9/18/98)
1794 Jan 13, President Washington approved a measure adding two stars and two stripes to the American flag, following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky to the union. The number of stripes was later reduced to the original 13.
1794 Aug 7, George Washington issued a proclamation telling a group of Western Pennsylvania farmers to stop their Whiskey Rebellion. In the US in western Pennsylvania, angry farmers protested a new federal tax on whiskey makers. The protest flared into the open warfare known as the Whiskey Rebellion between US marshals and whiskey farmers.
(http://www.ttb.gov/public_info/whisky_rebellion.shtml)(A&IP, ESM, p.16)(HNQ, 10/14/99)
1794 George Washington established the first national armory at Springfield, Mass. He also authorized the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Md., where the Shenandoah flows into the Potomac.
(WSJ, 9/12/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T7)
1796 Sep 17, President George Washington delivered his "Farewell Address" to Congress before concluding his second term in office. Washington counseled the republic in his farewell address to avoid "entangling alliances" and involvement in the "ordinary vicissitudes, combinations, and collision of European politics." Also "we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies."
(WSJ, 5/31/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A15)(HN, 9/17/98)
1796 Sep 19, President Washington's farewell address was published. In it, America's first chief executive advised, "Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all."
1796 The White House and Congress engaged in its 1st struggle over background documents. Pres. Washington denied a House request for documents on the Jay Treaty. The documents had already been shared with the Senate.
1797 May 12, George Washington addressed the Delaware chiefs and stated: "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and to humbly implore his protection and favor."
1797 John Anderson, a Scottish farm manager, convinced George Washington that distilling whiskey would make money. In a six-week season each spring, Washington's men netted about a million shad and herring from the Potomac River. The catch was then salted, packed in barrels, and exported. His diversified farming was less successful, largely because of his long absences from Mount Vernon.
(AM, 9/01, p.80)(HNQ, 8/30/02)
1799 Dec 14, George Washington (b.1732), the first president of the United States, died at his Mount Vernon, Va., home. Richard Brookhiser authored "Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington." The Washingtons at this time had 317 slaves. His 5 stills in Virginia turned out some 12,000 gallons of corn whiskey a year. In 1993 Richard Norton Smith authored "George Washington and the New American Nation." In 2010 Ron Chernow authored "Washington: A Life."
(A&IP, ESM, p.16)(AP, 12/14/97)(WSJ, 11/6/98, p.W15)(SFEC, 5/2/99, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 12/11/99, p.B6)(WSJ, 2/22/00, p.A40)(Econ, 10/23/10, p.102)
1799 Dec 26, The late George Washington was eulogized by Col. Henry Lee as "first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
1850 Feb 12, Washington's original Farewell Address manuscript sold for $2,300.
1884 Dec 6, The Washington Monument was completed by Army engineers 101 years after George Washington himself approved the location halfway between the proposed sites of the Capitol and the White House. Construction did not begin on the 555-foot Egyptian obelisk until July 4, 1848, when a private citizens' group, the Washington National Monument Society, raised enough money to begin the project. The original design called for the familiar obelisk surrounded by a large building with a statue of Washington driving a Roman chariot on top. Construction was halted in 1854 when the money ran out and for 22 years the monument stood embarrassingly unfinished, looking, as Mark Twain put it, like "a factory chimney with the top broken off." In 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant authorized the funds to complete the construction--but without the ornate building and classical statue. When the final capstone and 9-inch aluminum pyramid were set in place in 1884, the Washington Monument was the tallest structure in the world.
(AP, 12/6/97)(HNPD, 12/6/98)
1889 Apr 30, Washington's inauguration became the first U.S. national holiday.
1889 Apr 30, The George Washington Bridge, linking New York City and New Jersey, opened.
1931 Apr 30, The George Washington Bridge, linking New York City and New Jersey, opened. [see Apr 30, 1889 and Jan 13, Oct 24, 1931]
1932 Jul 31, The George Washington quarter went into circulation as a 200 year commemorative of G. Washington's birth. It has been in use ever since.
(WSJ, 7/12/96, p.B5B)(MC, 7/31/02)
2003 Henry Wiencek authored "An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves and the Creation of America."
2013 Sep 27, In Virginia George Washington's Mount Vernon estate formally opened the new $47 million Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington.
# 2 John Adams (1797-1801)
1735 Oct 30, John Adams, second president of the United States, was born in Braintree (Quincy), Mass.
(AP, 10/30/97)(HN, 10/30/98)(MC, 10/30/01)
1744 Nov 11, Abigail Smith Adams, 2nd 1st lady (1797-1801), was born.
1764 Oct 25, John Adams, future US president, wed Abigail Smith. He called her "a constant feast." Their marriage lasted 54 years.
1765 In his Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, John Adams wrote that power had been pursued throughout history for two very different ends: for tyranny on the one hand and for the freedom of the individual or the community on the other.
1765 Great Britain imposed the Stamp Act on the American colonies. The tax covered just about everything produced by the American colonists and began the decade of crisis that led to the American Revolution. The Stamp Act taxed the legal documents of the American colonists and infuriated John Adams.
(A & IP, ESM, p.13)(A&IP, Miers, p.18)
1770 March 5, British troops taunted by a crowd of colonists fired on an unruly mob in Boston and killed five citizens in what came to be known as the Boston Massacre. The fracas between a few angry Boston men and one British sentry ended with five men dead or dying in the icy street corner of King Street and Shrimton's Lane. Captain Thomas Preston did not order the eight British soldiers under his command to fire into the hostile crowd. The nervous soldiers claimed to be confused by shouts of "Why do you not fire?" coming from all sides. Versions of the event rapidly circulated through the colonies, bolstering public support for the Patriot cause. The British Captain Preston and seven soldiers were defended by John Adams. The captain and five of the soldiers were acquitted, the other two soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and were branded on the hand with a hot iron. The first colonist killed in the American Revolution was the former slave, Crispus Attucks, shot by the British at the Boston Massacre.
(HFA, '96, p.26)(A&IP, Miers, p.18)(SFC, 12/18/96, p.A25)(AP, 3/5/98)(HN, 3/5/98)(HNPD, 3/5/99)
1776 Jun 7, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Continental Congress the resolution calling for a Declaration of Independence: that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States..." Congress delayed the vote on the resolution until July 1. In the meantime, a committee consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin and Robert R. Livingston was created to prepare a declaration of independence.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.60)(AP, 6/7/97)(HNQ, 7/3/98)
1776 Jun 11, A committee to draft the document of Independence met. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman and Thomas Jefferson were the members. They immediately delegated the writing to Adams and Jefferson, and Adams gave it over to Jefferson. The events were later documented by Pauline Maier in her 1997 book: "American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence."
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.60)(AP, 6/11/97)(SFEC, 6/29/97, BR p.5)
1777 Jun 14, The Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Stars and Stripes as the national flag. America's Flag Day, commemorates the date when John Adams spoke the following words before the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. "Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation." Over the years, there have been 27 versions of the American flag. The present version was adopted on July 4, 1960, when Hawaii became the 50th state.
(AP, 6/14/97)(HNQ, 6/14/98)
1778-1788 John Adams began a series of numerous missions to Europe. He was the first American ambassador to the court of St. James. Adams was able to negotiate a treaty with the Dutch government and secured a loan of $2 million. He also arranged a secret treaty with Brittain that recognized American territorial rights in the Mississippi Valley.
(A&IP, Miers, p.20)(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A16)
1779 Sep 27, John Adams was named to negotiate the Revolutionary War's peace terms with Britain.
1779 John Adams drafted most of the Massachusetts state constitution.
1781 Jun 11, A Peace Commission created by Congress was composed of John Adams, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens and Thomas Jefferson. Congress decided to appoint a commission to negotiate terms for peace rather than entrust John Adams alone with the negotiations. On June 15 Congress modified the 1779 peace instructions to include only as essential U.S. independence and sovereignty.
1783 Sep 3, The Treaty of Paris between the United States and Great Britain officially ended the Revolutionary War. The Treaty of 1783, which formally ended the American Revolution, is also known as the Definitive Treaty of Peace, the Peace of Paris and the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty, Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. The treaty bears the signatures of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay.
(AP, 9/3/97) (HNQ, 7/19/98)(HN, 9/3/98)(MC, 9/3/01)
1785 John Adams, the new US ambassador to Britain, presented himself to King George.
1788 John Adams published "A Defense of the Constitutions."
1796 Nov 3, John Adams was elected president. [see Dec 7]
1796 Dec 7, Electors chose John Adams to be the second president of the United States. [see Nov 3]
1796 Supporters of John Adams in his victorious campaign against Thomas Jefferson, called Jefferson "an atheist, anarchist, demagogue, coward, mountebank, trickster, and Francomaniac."
1797 Feb 9, John Quincy Adams' (Sr.) emerged victorious from America's first contested presidential election.
1797 Mar 4, Vice-President John Adams, elected President on December 7, to replace George Washington, was sworn in. Adams soon selected Timothy Pickering as his secretary of state.
(HN, 3/4/99)(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.M6)
1797-1801 John Adams, 2nd president of the US was in office. It was during his term that France and Britain, engaged in war with each other, insisted on the right to seize American ships. When the US protested French diplomats demanded bribes and a loan of $10 mil to stop the acts of piracy. Adams published the letters of the diplomats with the letters X,Y,Z (hence the X,Y,Z Affair) for the names of the diplomats. This enraged the populace and the country braced for war and called Washington in from Mt. Vernon to lead the army against France. Captain Thomas Truxtom captured a French frigate and defeated another French frigate in a sea battle and the French backed down. It was under Adams that the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed. These acts allowed the President sole discretion to banish aliens from the country and jail editors for writing against the President or Congress. This was vehemently opposed by Jefferson who led the Southern Republicans to adopt a resolution declaring that a state had the right to nullify a law believed to be unconstitutional.
(AHD, 1971, p.14)(A&IP, Miers, p.21)
1798 Jan 8, The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was declared in effect by President John Adams nearly three years after its ratification by the states; it prohibited a citizen of one state from suing another state in federal court.
1798 Jun 25, US passed the Alien Act allowing president to deport dangerous aliens.
1798 Jul 11, The U.S. Marine Corps was created by an act of Congress. US Pres. John Adams signed act that officially established the U.S. Marine Corps and the US Marine Band, composed of 32 drummers and fifers. Continental marines had existed during the Revolutionary War, but had since been discontinued.
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-3)(AP, 7/11/97)(HNQ, 8/1/99)
1798 Jul 14, The Sedition Act, the last of four pieces of legislation known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, was passed by Congress, making it unlawful to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the U.S. president and the U.S. government, among other things. Violations were made punishable by up to 2 years in jail and a fine of $2,000.
(AP, 7/14/97)(HN, 7/14/98)(WSJ, 10/29/04, p.W10)
1798 Pres. John Adams stated: "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
1798 Matthew Lyon was convicted of sedition after he printed his honest opinion of Pres. John Adams. Kentucky re-elected Lyon to Congress while he served his jail time.
1799 Apr 27, In Saint-Domingue (later Haiti) Gen. Toussaint L'Ouverture signed a treaty of friendship with the US under Pres. John Adams. Certain elements were kept secret in order not to alienate France.
1800 Nov 1, John and Abigail Adams moved into "the President's House" in Washington DC. It became known as the White House during the Roosevelt administration.
1801 Jan 20, US Secretary of State John Marshall was nominated by President Adams to be chief justice. He was sworn in on Feb. 4, 1801. Marshall effectively created the legal framework within which free markets in goods and services could establish themselves.
1818 Oct 28, Abigail Adams, wife of former Pres. John Adams, died. In 1975 some 200 letters of Abigail Adams were published as "The Book of Abigail and John."
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P8)(www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=4)
1826 Jul 4, John Adams died at age 90 in Braintree [Quincy], Mass, just a few hours after Jefferson. Because communications was slow in those days, Adams and Jefferson, at their death, thought the other was still alive. Adams' last words were, "Thomas Jefferson still survives." It was 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Adams was the 2nd president of the US. A multi-generational biography of the Adams family was later written by Paul C. Nagel: "Descent from Glory." The Joseph Ellis book The Passionate Edge" helped restore Adams to his rightful place in the American pantheon. The 1972 musical film 1776 focused on Adams' efforts to get an independence resolution through Congress. In 1998 C. Bradley Thompson published "John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty." In 2001 David McCullough authored "John Adams." In 2005 James Grant authored "John Adams: Party of One."
(A&IP, p.29)(AP, 7/4/97)(SFC, 7/4/98, p.E4)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 5/30/01, p.A20)(WSJ, 3/24/05, p.D8)
#3 Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)
1743 Apr 13, Thomas Jefferson (d.1826), the third president of the United States (1801-1809), was born in present-day Albemarle County, Va. He called slavery cruel but included 25 slaves in his daughter's dowry, took enslaved children to market and had 10-year-old slaves working 12-hour days in his nail factory. He stated that blacks were "in reason inferior" and "in imagination they are dull, tasteless and anomalous." "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." "History, in general, only informs us what bad government is."
(AP, 4/13/97)(SFC,12/897, p.A27)(AP, 4/13/98)
1756 Feb 6, America's third vice president, Aaron Burr, was born in Newark, N.J.
1773 Thomas Jefferson planted Yellow Newtown Pippin apples at his home in Monticello.
(T&L, 10/1980, p.42)
1775 Jul 5, The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the Continental Congress and professed the attachment of the American people to George III. It expressed hope for the restoration of harmony and begged the king to prevent further hostile actions against the colonies. The following day, Congress passed a resolution written by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, a "Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms," which rejected independence but asserted that Americans were ready to die rather than be enslaved. King George refused to receive the Olive Branch Petition on August 23 and proclaimed the American colonies to be in open rebellion.
1776 Jun 11-Jul 4, The Continental Congress met and Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, based on the principals of John Locke. But where Locke had used the word "property," Jefferson used the term "the pursuit of happiness."
(V.D.-H.K.p.224-226)
1776 Jun 28, Jefferson's document was placed before the Congress after some minor changes by Adams and Franklin. This event was immortalized in the painting by John Trumball.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.61)
1776 July 2, Congress passed Lee's resolution that "these united Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States," and then spent two days over the wording of Jefferson's document.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.61)(AP, 7/2/97)(HN, 7/2/98)
1776 Jul 4, The Continental Congress approved adoption of the amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson and signed by John Hancock--President of the Continental Congress--and Charles Thomson, Congress secretary, without dissent. However, the New York delegation abstained as directed by the New York Provisional Congress. On July 9, the New York Congress voted to endorse the declaration. On July 19, Congress then resolved to have the "Unanimous Declaration" inscribed on parchment for the signature of the delegates. Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence, two went on to become presidents of the United States, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
(HNQ, 7/4/98)(AP, 7/4/97)(HN, 7/4/98)(HNQ, 5/15/99)
1776-1836 The correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison is documented in "The Republic of Letters" by James Morton Smith in 3 volumes published by Norton 1995. The two men are believed to have met in 1776 in the Virginia House of Delegates.
1779 Thomas Jefferson (36) was wartime governor of Virginia and James Madison (28) served in his cabinet.
1782 Martha Jefferson, wife of Thomas Jefferson, died.
1784 Thomas Jefferson excavated an Indian burial mound on his property in Virginia.
(TV Doc.)
1784-1789 Thomas Jefferson's years in Paris are depicted in a film titled "Jefferson in Paris." He served as an American minister and Sally Hemmings accompanied him as his daughter's servant.
(WSJ, 4/6/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 11/6/98, p.W15)
1785 Mar 10, Thomas Jefferson was appointed minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.
1785 Barbary pirates seized American ships and imprisoned their crew in Algiers for 11 years. Military and ransom operations raised issues of Congressional approval and appropriations that bedeviled Thomas Jefferson as both Sec. of State and as president. The issue is covered in the 1997 book: Separating Power: Essays on the Founding Period" by Gerhard Casper.
1786 Relations were formalized with the Moroccan–American Treaty of Friendship negotiated by Thomas Barclay, and signed by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Muhammad III.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan%E2%80%93American_Treaty_of_Friendship)
1789 Feb 4, Electors unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States. Washington was appointed President of the US by the Constitutional Convention and accepted office at the Federal Building of New York. His first cabinet included Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton as first secretary of the Treasury, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph.
(AP, 2/4/97)(A & IP, ESM, p.10)(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A18)
1789 Jul 22, Thomas Jefferson became the first head of the U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs.
1789 Sep 26, Thomas Jefferson was appointed America's first Secretary of State; John Jay the first chief justice of the United States; Samuel Osgood the first Postmaster-General; and Edmund Jennings Randolph the first Attorney General.
1790 Mar 22, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) became the first US Secretary of State. As Secretary of State, he served on the first Board of Arts, the body that reviewed patent applications and granted patents. Jefferson was one of a triumvirate that served as both America's first patent commissioner and first patent examiner.
(HN, 3/22/97)(www.archipelago.org/vol10-34/matsuura.htm)
1797 Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the third president of the United States (1801-1809), began serving as US Vice President. He was also elected president of the American Philosophical Society this year and continued to 1815. A philosopher-statesman of the Enlightenment, Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, was George Washington's first Secretary of State and vice-president under John Adams.
(www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/private-banks-quotation)
1798 In the Kentucky Resolutions Thomas Jefferson protested the Alien and Sedition Acts and maintained that "free government is founded in jealousy, not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power."
1800 May-Dec, US presidential elections were held over this period. On Dec 3 state electors met and cast their ballots and a tie resulted between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.
(http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/mtjtime3c.html)
1800 Dec 3, US state electors met and cast their ballots for the presidency. A tie resulted between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.
1800 In the US presidential elections Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in electoral votes. The selection was then moved to the House of Representatives where on the 36th ballot Vermont and Maryland switch their votes to Jefferson. [see Feb 17, 1801]
(A&IP, ESM, p.26)(WSJ, 10/27/99, p.A16)
1801 Feb 17, The House of Representatives broke an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, electing Jefferson president. Burr became vice president. When George Washington announced that he would retire from office, he set the stage for the nation's first two-party presidential campaign.
1801 Feb 17, Thomas Jefferson won the White House vowing to get rid of all federal taxes. He was supported by a new coalition of anti-Federalists that was the ancestor of the Democratic Party. In 2003 Jules Witcover authored "Party of the People: A History of the Democrats."
(WSJ, 10/10/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/10/98, p.A18)(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.M1)
1801 Mar 4, Thomas Jefferson became the first President to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C. James Madison became secretary of state. In his inaugural address Jefferson said: "Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; the minority possesses their equal right, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
(WSJ, 2/2/95, p.A-16)(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A26)(HN, 3/4/98)
1801 Thomas Jefferson began a set of proper rules for the Senate when he wrote: " No one is to disturb another in his speech by hissing, coughing, spitting, speaking, or whispering to another."
1801 Elder John Leland, a Baptist minister, helped commission a 1,235-pound wheel of Cheshire cheese as a gift of gratitude for Thomas Jefferson's steadfast support of religious liberties.
1802 Jan 26, Congress passed an act calling for a library to be established within the U.S. Capitol.
1802 Mar 16, The US Congress authorized the establishment of the US Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. President Jefferson signed a measure authorizing the establishment of the US Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
(www.usma.edu/history.asp)(AP, 3/16/08)
1802 May 3, Washington, D.C., was incorporated as a city, with the mayor appointed by the president and the council elected by property owners.
1802 Congress repealed all taxes except for a tax on salt and left the government dependent on import tariffs.
1802 James Callender, an English-born journalist, published a report in the Richmond, Va., Recorder about Thomas Jefferson and his relationship with the slave Sally Hemmings [Hemings]. In 1997 Annette Gordon-Reed published: "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, an American Controversy." DNA tests of descendants in 1998 indicated that Jefferson fathered at least one child with Hemmings, her youngest son Eston Hemmings in 1808. Dr. Eugene Foster, author of the DNA report, later said the DNA tests showed that any one of 8 Jefferson males could have fathered Eston. In 2008 Annette Gordon-Reed authored "The Hemmingses of Monticello: An American Family."
(WSJ, 9/23/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/29/98, p.A6)(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A1,7)(WSJ, 11/2/98, p.B11)(WSJ, 2/26/99, p.W15)(SFC, 1/27/00, p.A3)(SSFC, 10/19/08, Books p.4)
1803 Apr 30, The US under Thomas Jefferson signed a treaty that accepted the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon Bonaparte's government of France for 60 million francs or about $15 mil. The area included most of the thirteen states that lie between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. American envoys sent to France were originally instructed to buy only the port city of New Orleans and were astonished when Napoleon, abandoning plans for an American empire, offered them all of Louisiana. The United States doubled in size through the Louisiana Purchase. The federal government spent less than $8 million in operations and borrowed the money needed for the purchase.
(CO, Grolier's, 11/10/95)(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A18)(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98) (HNPD, 5/1/99)
1803 Aug 31, The government-sponsored transcontinental expedition under the leadership of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark set off down the Ohio River. The 40-member expedition wintered and trained near St. Louis before starting up the Missouri River in three boats on May 14, 1804. Lewis and Clark's three-year journey of exploration and discovery to the Pacific Coast and back stimulated western settlement and proved that an overland route to the West Coast was possible.
1804 Feb 25, Thomas Jefferson was nominated for president at the Democratic-Republican caucus.
1804 Jul 11, Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton (47), former first Treasury Secretary, in a pistol duel near Weehawken, N.J. In 1999 Richard Brookhiser wrote "Alexander Hamilton: American."
(TL-MB, 1988, 1988, p.80)(AP, 7/11/97)(HN, 7/11/98)(WSJ, 2/25/99, p.A16)
1804 Sep 25, The 12th Amendment was ratified. It required electors to vote separately for the president and vice-president.
(HN, 9/25/98)(WSJ, 10/27/99, p.A16)(WSJ, 12/11/00, p.A18)
1804 Nov 27, Pres. Jefferson issued a nationwide proclamation to military and public officials warning of a conspiracy to attack Spanish territory in Texas. He had opened negotiations with Spain to purchase Texas territory west of New Orleans. Jefferson had heard rumors that Aaron Burr had begun plotting an invasion of Texas. Jefferson ordered Gen. James Wilkinson to move federal troops into defensive positions between the Sabine River and New Orleans. Wilkinson, unbeknownst to Jefferson, was a close confidant of Burr and also worked as a spy in the employ of Spanish officials in Mexico.
(ON, 12/08, p6)
1804 Nov, Thomas Jefferson was re-elected US president. George Clinton, the seven-term governor of New York, was elected vice president under Jefferson and again under Madison in 1808. Clinton died in office on April 20, 1812.
(HNQ, 8/19/99)(www.sparknotes.com/biography/jefferson/timeline.html)
1805 Mar 4, Pres. Thomas Jefferson delivered his 2nd inaugural address.
(http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761570282_10/thomas_jefferson.html)
1805 Jul 25, Aaron Burr visited New Orleans with plans to establish a new country, with New Orleans as the capital city.
1805 The Massachusetts state Legislature staged a mock impeachment trial of Pres. Jefferson. His affair with Sally Hemmings was one of the charges.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, p.A1)
1806 Jan 17, James Madison Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's grandson, was the 1st to be born in White House. His mother was Martha Randolph one of President Thomas Jefferson's two daughters, this was her 8th child.
1806 Mar 29, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the National Road, the first federally financed interstate. Although it took decades to finish, the National Road helped open the land west of the Appalachians to settlers and commerce. It was later lengthened, paved and renamed U.S. 40, but was eclipsed in the 1960s by Interstate 70, a parallel superhighway.
1806 Aaron Burr, Vice-President under Thomas Jefferson, was implicated in a reputed plot among northeastern Federalists to break up the Union rather than to submit to four more years of Republican rule. One of the goals of the Burr Conspiracy was to separate Louisiana and other Western states from the Union and establish an empire with Burr at the head. Aaron Burr, formerly vice president under Thomas Jefferson, had recently slain Alexander Hamilton in a duel in July 1804 when he began plotting a movement to separate the Western states from the Union. Burr was later tried for treason in federal court and acquitted. Burr was captured in 1806 on the Ohio River and charged with recruiting forces to further plot the disunion.
(A&IP, ESM, p.28)(HNQ, 11/30/98)
1807 Jan 22, President Thomas Jefferson exposed a plot by Aaron Burr to form a new republic in the Southwest.
1807 Feb 19, Former Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama. He was subsequently tried for treason and acquitted. [see Sep 1]
1807 Mar 3, US Pres. Thomas Jefferson signed into law a bill passed by Congress a day earlier to shut down the foreign slavery trade. Congress gave all traders nine months to cease their operations in the United States.
(http://tinyurl.com/y8zvncj8)
1807 Aug 3, The trial of Aaron Burr began. He was accused of plotting the secession of New England.
1807 Sep 1, Former Vice President Aaron Burr was found innocent of treason. [see 1806] Aaron Burr had been arrested in Mississippi for complicity in a plot to establish a Southern empire in Louisiana and Mexico.
1807 Dec 22, Congress passed the Embargo Act, designed to force peace between Britain and France by cutting off all trade with Europe. It was hoped that the act would keep the United States out the European Wars.
1807-1809 A Jefferson imposed embargo kept American ships at home. [see Dec 22 1807]
1808 May 21, Eston Hemmings was born to slave Sally Hemmings, who was owned by Thomas Jefferson. Genetic tests in 1998 showed that DNA from Jefferson's descendants was consistent with DNA from descendants of Hemmings. Some argued that Randolph Jefferson, brother of Thomas, was Eston's father.
1819 Thomas Jefferson founded the Univ. of Virginia.
1820 Thomas Jefferson wrote of slavery: "We have a wolf by the ears and can neither hold him, nor safely let him go." Although a slaveholder himself, Jefferson had expressed hopes that in the wake of the American Revolution, slavery in the South would wither and die.
1821 Thomas Jefferson wrote his autobiography.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.62)
1823 Dec 2, President Monroe, replying to the 1816 pronouncements of the Holy Alliance, proclaimed the principles known as the Monroe Doctrine, "that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by European powers." His doctrine opposing European expansion in the Western Hemisphere insured that American influence in the Western hemisphere remain unquestioned. Former US Pres. Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) helped Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.
(V.D.-H.K.p.232)(AP, 12/2/97)(www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Monroe.html)
1826 Jul 4, Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president, died deeply in debt at age 83 at one o'clock in the afternoon and was buried near Charlottesville, Virginia. He was the founder of the Univ. of Virginia and wrote the state's statute of religious freedom. In 1997 Joseph J. Ellis won the National Book Award in nonfiction for "American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson." "Nothing gives one person so much of an advantage over another as to remain unruffled in all circumstances."
(A&IP, Miers, p.29)(SFEC, 6/29/97, BR p.5)(AP, 7/4/97) (SFC, 4/29/98, p.A6)(SFEC, 10/25/98, Z1 p.12)(IB, 12/7/98)(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.A9)
1943 Princeton Univ. decided to publish the complete papers of Thomas Jefferson and expected to finish the project in 15-20 years. In 2005 expectations for completion were pushed to 2026.
2003 Michael Knox Beran authored "Jefferson's Demons: Portrait of a Restless Mind."
2003 Garry Wills authored "Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power."
(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.A1)
2013 Apr 19, David Rubenstein, co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, announced his donation of $10 million to help visitors see the full plantation of Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello, Va.
#4 James Madison (1809-1817)
1751 Mar 16, James Madison (d.1836), Jefferson's successor as secretary of state and fourth president of the United States (1809-17), was born in Port Conway, Va. He invented the 1787 electoral college system "to break the tyranny of the majority." "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." Pierce Butler of South Carolina first proposed the electoral college system. [see 1787]
(V.D.-H.K.p.222)(SFEC, 11/24/96, Z1 p.2)(AP, 3/16/97)(AP, 10/27/97)(HN, 3/16/98)(SFC, 11/9/00, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A26)
1768 May 20, Dolley Madison, first lady of President James Madison, was born. She was famous as a Washington hostess while her husband was secretary of state and president.
1780-1792 The intellectual development over this period of American President James Madison is covered in a 1995 book by Lance Banning titled: The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic.
(WSJ, 12/20/95, p.A-12)
1785 James Madison wrote the petition "Memorial and Remonstrance" for circulation in Virginia to oppose the use of public funds for Christian education.
1787 Oct 27, The first of the Federalist Papers, a series of 77 essays calling for ratification of the U.S. Constitution, was published in a New York newspaper. The essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay were later published as "The Federalist Papers."
(AP, 10/27/97)(WSJ, 11/19/98, p.A1)(MC, 10/27/01)
1791 James Madison opposed the plans of Alexander Hamilton for a National Bank. [see 1780-1792, Banning book on Madison]
1792 James Madison published an essay in a newspaper on property and slaves. In this essay Madison extended the idea of property from material possessions to the property in his opinions, especially his religious beliefs.
1808 Dec 7, Electors chose James Madison to be the fourth president of the United States in succession to Thomas Jefferson.
(HN, 12/7/98)(AP, 12/7/08)
1809 Mar 4, Madison became 1st President inaugurated in American-made clothes.
1809 Oct 27, President James Madison ordered the annexation of the western part of West Florida. Settlers there had rebelled against Spanish authority.
1811 Jan 2, US Sen Thomas Pickering became the 1st senator to be censured. He revealed confidential documents communicated by the president of the US. [see Mar 3,12]
1811 Feb 11, Pres. Madison prohibited trade with Britain for 3rd time in 4 years.
1811 In the US politics killed the Bank of the United States established by Hamilton as a central bank and a mechanism for government borrowing.
1812 Apr 20, George Clinton (73), the 4th vice president of the United States, died in Washington, becoming the first vice president to die while in office.
1812 Jun 18, The War of 1812 began as the United States declared war against Great Britain. The term "war hawk" was first used by John Randolph in reference to those Republicans who were pro-war in the years leading up to the War of 1812. These new types of Republicans, who espoused nationalism and expansionism, included Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Most of them came from the agrarian areas of the South and West.
(HFA, '96, p.32)(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)(HNQ, 5/13/99)
1812 Jul 12, United States forces led by General William Hull entered Canada during the War of 1812 against Britain. However, Hull retreated shortly thereafter to Detroit. Madison had called for 50,000 volunteers to invade Canada but only 5,000 signed up.
(AP, 7/12/99)(ON, 9/02, p.2)
1812 Dec 2, James Madison was re-elected president of US; Elbridge Gerry was vice-pres.
(MC, 12/2/01)(www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/gerry.htm)
1812 Madison proposed to France and England that if one would stop attacking American commerce at sea, then the US would break off commercial relations with the other. Napoleon quickly accepted Madison's terms and under congressional pressure Madison declared war on England. He did not know that 24 hours prior to the declaration, England had voted to stop its abuses on American shipping.
(A&IP, ESM, p.33)
1813 The US federal government was almost broke from the war with Britain but was able to get Stephen Girard, wealthy ship owner and banker, to help finance the war effort. Congress quickly moved to charter the Second Bank of the US.
1814 Aug 24, 5,000 British troops under the command of General Robert Ross marched into Washington, D.C., after defeating an American force at Bladensburg, Maryland. It was in retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. Meeting no resistance from the disorganized American forces, the British burned the White House, the Capitol and almost every public building in the city before a downpour extinguished the fires. President James Madison and his wife fled from the advancing enemy, but not before Dolly Madison saved the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. This wood engraving of Washington in flames was printed in London weeks after the event to celebrate the British victory.
(AP, 8/24/97)(HNPD, 8/24/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bladensburg)
1814 Aug, After the British burned the White House in 1814, President James Madison lived in the nearby Octagon—so named because of its unique eight-sided shape—until the end of his term.
1814 Nov 23, Elbridge Gerry (b.1744), the 9th governor of Massachusetts (1810-1812), died in Washington, DC. As a Democratic-Republican he served as the fifth Vice President under President James Madison from March 1813 until his death. He is known best for being the namesake of gerrymandering.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbridge_Gerry)(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.W5)
1815 Mar 2, To put an end to robberies by the Barbary pirates, the United States declared war on Algiers.
1816 The US passed the first tariff to protect its industries.
1836 Jun 28, The fourth president of the United States, James Madison, died in Montpelier, Va. His writings included the 29 Federalist essays and in 1999 "James Madison: Writings," edited by Jack N. Rakove, was published. In 2002 Garry Wills authored James Madison."
(AP, 6/28/97)(WSJ, 2/2/95, p.A-16)(WSJ, 9/1/99, p.A24)(WSJ, 3/26/02, p.A21)
1848 Dolly Madison, wife of former Pres. James Madison, died.
#5 James Monroe (1817-1825)
1758 Apr 28, James Monroe (d.1831), later secretary of state and the fifth president of the United States (1817-1825), was born in Westmoreland County, Va. He created the Monroe Doctrine, warning Europe not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(HN, 4/28/99)(HNQ, 7/27/99)
1768 Jun 30, Elizabeth Kortright, later Elizabeth Monroe, first lady to U.S. President James Monroe, was born.
1792 Alexander Hamilton, Sec. of the Treasury, was accused of teaming with Mr. James Reynolds to speculate illegally in government securities. Hamilton then acknowledged to three lawmakers, including James Monroe, hush money payment to Mr. Reynolds to cover an affair.
1794 Nov 3, Thomas Paine was released from a Parisian jail with help from the American ambassador James Monroe. He was arrested for having offended the Robespierre faction.
1797 James T. Callender, journalist, published charges concerning the alleged financial misdeeds of Alexander Hamilton. The information came from letters that Hamilton provided to interrogators around 1792 concerning funds paid to James Reynolds to keep quiet an affair with Reynold's wife. The letters were passed from James Monroe to Thomas Jefferson, who passed them to Callender. Hamilton published a 28,000-word defense that revealed his relationship with Maria Reynolds and his payment of hush money.
1816 Dec 4, James Monroe of Virginia was elected the fifth president of the United States. He defeated Federalist Rufus King.
(AP, 12/4/97)(MC, 12/4/01)
1817 Jan, James Monroe became the 5th President of the US and served to 1825.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(WUD, 1994, p.927)
1817 Oct, Pres. and Mrs. James Monroe moved back into the restored White House.
1818 Apr 16, U.S. Senate ratified the Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed U.S.-Canada border. The Rush-Bagot Agreement between Great Britain and the U.S. had to do with mutual disarmament on the Great Lakes. In the exchange of notes between British minister to the U.S. Charles Bagot and Richard Rush, Acting Secretary of State, the countries agreed to limits on their inland naval forces. A sequel to the Treaty of Ghent, the agreement was approved by the U.S. Senate on April 16, 1818.
(HN, 4/16/98)(HNQ, 6/7/00)
1818 Apr 28, President Monroe proclaimed naval disarmament on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.
1818 Oct 20, The United States and Britain established the 49th Parallel as the boundary between Canada and the United States.
1820 Mar 6, The Missouri Compromise was enacted by Congress and signed by President James Monroe. This compromise provided for the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibited slavery in the rest of the northern Louisiana Purchase territory.
1820 Mar 9, Congress passed the Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion.
1820 May 15, The U.S. Congress designated the slave trade to a form of piracy.
1820 Dec 6, James Monroe, the 5th US president, was elected for a 2nd term.
1821 Mar 5, Monroe was the first president to be inaugurated on March 5, only because the 4th was a Sunday.
1822 Twenty years after the war of 1812 the US government finished paying off the national debt entirely.
1823 Jan 27, Pres Monroe appointed 1st US ambassadors to South America.
#6 John Quincy Adams (1825-1829)
1767 Jul 11, John Quincy Adams (d.1848), son of John Adams and the sixth president of the United States, was born in Braintree, Mass.
(AHD, 1971, p.14)(AP, 7/11/97)(HN, 7/11/98)
1775 Feb 12, Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams was born.
1781 John Quincy Adams (14) served as secretary to the American ambassador to Russia.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, Z1 p.12)
1782 Mar 18, John C. Calhoun (d.1850), U.S. statesman, was born. He served as US vice-president from 1825-1832 under Adams and Jackson.
1814 Dec 24, A treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, terminating the War of 1812, was signed at Ghent, Belgium. The news did not reach the United States until two weeks later (after the decisive American victory at New Orleans). The treaty, signed by John Quincy Adams for the US, committed the US and Britain "to use their best endeavors" to end the Atlantic slave trade.
(AP Internet, 12/24/97)(WSJ, 12/31/97, p.A11)(HN, 12/24/98)(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.T10)
1821 John Quincy Adams, Sec. of State, wrote: "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion only of her own."
1824 Nov 2, Popular presidential vote was 1st recorded; Jackson beat J.Q. Adams. Gen. Jackson won the popular vote followed by John Quincy Adams, William Crawford and Henry Clay. Jackson won 99 electoral votes, Adams won 84, Crawford won 41 and Clay won 37. Crawford, Treasury secretary, was accused of malfeasance. Henry Clay was denounced for passing days gambling and nights in a brothel. Clay convinced his supporters in congress to vote for Adams. The House of Representatives chose John Quincy Adams, who chose Clay for vice president. A furious Jackson proceeded to help found the Democratic Party.
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A22)(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A26)(WSJ, 12/11/00, p.A18)(MC, 11/2/01)
1824 Dec 1, The presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives when a deadlock developed among John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay with Jackson 32 votes shy of a majority. John Quincy Adams ended up the winner. He was reportedly the only bald-headed president.
(AP, 12/1/97)(WSJ, 12/31/97, p.A11)(SFEC, 11/1/98, Z1p.10)
1825 Mar 4, John Quincy Adams was inaugurated as 6th President.
1825 Feb 9, The House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams Jr. 6th U.S. president (1825-1829) after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(AHD, 1971, p.14)(HN, 2/9/97)(AP, 2/9/99)
1828 Jul 4, Ground-breaking ceremonies were held in Baltimore for construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Charles Carroll, last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, turned the spade in Baltimore. At the groundbreaking, Carroll said, "I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to that of signing the Declaration of Independence, if even it be second to that." On the same day, in nearby Georgetown, President John Quincy Adams, with great fanfare, lifted the first shovel of dirt to begin construction of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal that would link Washington, Baltimore and Pittsburgh by water. The railroad went on to become one of the nation's longest rail lines, reaching St. Louis, Missouri, in 1857. The 185-mile canal, though it had many years of use, was quickly eclipsed as a transportation medium by the superior technology of the railroad.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)(HNQ, 10/4/99)
1828 Pres. John Quincy Adams helped Abdul Rahman Ibrahima, a former prince from Timbuktu, gain freedom following 40 years of enslavement on a cotton plantation.
1830 A year after leaving office as the sixth president of the United States, the Plymouth district of Massachusetts unexpectedly elected John Quincy Adams to the House of Representatives, where he served until he suffered a stroke on the House floor in 1848. He died two days later. Adams at the time enjoyed the distinction of having been the only son to follow his father to the presidency.
1841 Mar 1, John Quincy Adams (74), former US president, concluded his defense of "the Mendi people," a group of Africans who had rebelled and killed the crew of the slave ship Amistad, while enroute from Cuba to Haiti. They faced mutiny charges upon landing on Long Island, but Adams won their acquittal before the Supreme Court. In thanks they bestowed to him an 1838 English Bible. In 1996 the Bible was stolen from the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy, Mass.
(http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/amistad/adamsarg.html)(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A7)
1841 Mar 9, The rebel slaves who seized a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, two years earlier were freed by the US Supreme Court despite Spanish demands for extradition.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A7)(HN, 3/9/99)
1848 Feb 23, John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States (1825-1829), died of a stroke at age 80. Samuel Flagg Bemis wrote a biography. In 1997 Paul C. Nagel published a biography.
(AP, 2/23/98)(WSJ, 10/22/97, p.A20)(MC, 2/23/02)
1850 Mar 31, John Calhoun (b.1782), US vice-president (1825-1832), died while a senator from South Carolina. He was elected vice president under two presidents, John Quincy Adams in 1824 and Andrew Jackson in 1828.
(WUD, 1994 p.210)(HNQ, 8/19/99)(MC, 3/31/02)
#7 Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)
1767 Mar 15, Andrew Jackson (d.1845), seventh President of the United States known as "Old Hickory," was born in Waxhaw, South Carolina. The first American president to be born in a log cabin, Jackson was a hero of the War of 1812, an Indian fighter and a Tennessee lawyer. Neither a particularly intelligent man nor a wise one, Jackson became the symbol of his age by being the right man believing in the right things at the right time. Success was a race, Jackson believed, and the government's primary responsibility was to guarantee that every man got a fair chance at winning. Jackson's administration (1829-37) saw the development of modern-style political parties and changes in the voting laws that nearly tripled the electorate. Known for his strong will, Jackson was fond of saying: "When I mature my course I am immovable." Jackson was the first congressman from Tennessee and later became a senator and state supreme court judge. Jackson was involved in a number of duels and killed a man in one. Personal feuds with Thomas Jefferson led him out of public life for some time. Jackson was elected president in 1828 and served until 1837. He initiated the spoils system and had the first "Kitchen Cabinet" of intimate advisers. Jackson died June 8, 1845. In 1997 Max Byrd wrote "Jackson," a biographical novel.
(AP, 3/15/97)(WSJ, 5/14/97, p.A20)(HNQ, 4/30/99)(HNPD, 4/30/99)
1767 Jun 15, Rachel Robards Jackson, U.S. first lady to Andrew Jackson, was born. She caused a scandal by marrying Jackson before divorcing her husband.
1796 Andrew Jackson was elected as Tennessee's 1st congressman.
1802 Andrew Jackson was elected to command the Tennessee militia.
1806 Andrew Jackson killed Charles Dickinson in a duel over a debt owed on a horse race bet. Jackson was struck in the chest by Dickinson's shot but returned fire and killed his opponent. "I should have hit him," he reportedly said, "if he had shot me through the brain." His duel with Dickinson was one of several the often ill-tempered Jackson engaged in. Jackson, who became the seventh U.S. president in 1829, carried Dickinson's bullet in his chest until he died in 1845.
1813 Andrew Jackson received a bullet wound that shattered his left shoulder. The bullet was not removed until 1832 and was later suspected of causing lead poisoning.
1814 Mar 27, General Jackson led U.S. soldiers who killed 700 Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend, La. [in Northern Alabama] Jackson lost 49 men. In 2001 John Buchanon authored "Jackson's Way" and Robert V. Remini authored "Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars."
(SFEC, 2/16/97, BR p.4)(HN, 3/27/99)(WSJ, 7/26/01, p.A12)
1814 Mar 29, In the Battle at Horseshoe Bend, Alabama, Andrew Jackson beat the Creek Indians. [see Mar 27]
1814 Aug 9, Andrew Jackson and the Creek Indians signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson, giving the whites 23 million acres of Mississippi Creek territory. This ended Indian resistance in the region and opened the doors to pioneers after the conclusion of the War of 1812.
(HN, 8/9/98)(HNQ, 8/13/99)
1814 Nov 7, Andrew Jackson attacked and captured Pensacola, Florida, defeating the Spanish and driving out a British force.
1814 Dec 13, General Andrew Jackson announced martial law in New Orleans, Louisiana, as British troops disembarked at Lake Borne, 40 miles east of the city.
1814 Andrew Jackson called the followers of French freebooter Jean Lafitte "hellish banditti." Jackson later revised his opinion and asked Lafitte to aid him against the British in the defense of New Orleans. Many of the 4,500 men behind Jackson's entrenchments at New Orleans on January 8, 1815, were followers of Lafitte.
1815 Jan 8, US forces led by Gen. Andrew Jackson and French pirate Jean Lafitte led some 3,100 backwoodsmen to victory against 7,500 British veterans at Chalmette in the Battle of New Orleans in the closing engagement of the War of 1812. A British army marched on New Orleans without knowing that the War of 1812 had ended on Christmas Eve of 1814. A massacre ensued, as 2,044 British troops, including three generals, fell dead, wounded or missing before General Andrew Jackson's well-prepared earthworks, compared with only 71 American casualties. Among the British victims were Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham and the Highlanders of the 93rd Regiment of Foot. In 2000 Robert V. Remini published "The Battle of New Orleans."
(AP, 1/8/98)(HN, 1/8/99)(WSJ, 1/26/00, p.A20)(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1821 Jul 17, Andrew Jackson became the governor of Florida.
1828 Dec 3, Andrew Jackson was elected 7th president of the United States over John Quincy Adams. Resentment of the restrictive credit policies of the first central bank, the Bank of the United States, fueled a populist backlash that elected Andrew Jackson.
(AP, 12/3/97)(WSJ, 12/31/97, p.A11)(WSJ, 6/10/98, p.A18)
1828 Dec 22, Rachel Jackson, beloved wife of Andrew Jackson, died of heart disease just weeks before her recently elected husband was inaugurated as president of the United States. Andrew Jackson had been 21 and a promising young lawyer when Rachel Donelson Robards, his landlady's daughter and the estranged wife of Lewis Robards of Kentucky, caught his eye. Robards had started divorce proceedings, but had dropped them without his wife's knowledge. Believing she was a free woman, Rachel married Andrew Jackson in 1791. Two years later, the couple discovered that Robards was finally suing for divorce--on the grounds of adultery and desertion. The divorce was granted, and in 1794, the couple quietly remarried. Yet, for the rest of her life, Rachel was unjustly slandered for her irregular marriage. The gossip became particularly painful during the 1828 presidential campaign when the 37-year-old scandal was resurrected as a campaign issue. Andrew Jackson defeated his opponent John Quincy Adams, but when Rachel died soon after the election, Jackson bitterly attributed her death to "those vile wretches who...slandered her."
1828 Opponents of Andrew Jackson accused the general of having murdered a Baptist minister and five other white militiamen during the Creek War.
1828 John Overlord, Andrew Jackson and James Winchester, the founders of Memphis, Tenn., bestowed an easement to the Mississippi riverfront for a promenade.
1829-1937 Andrew Jackson (1767-1845), served as the 7th President of the United States (1829-1937) and was known as "Old Hickory."
(HNPD, 3/15/99)(HNQ, 4/30/99)
1829 Mar 4, An unruly crowd mobbed the White House during the inaugural reception for President Jackson, the 7th US President. The event was later depicted by artist Louis S. Glanzman in his painting "Andrew Jackson's Inauguration" (1970).
(AP, 3/4/98)(WSJ, 1/17/09, p.W5)
1829 Aug 25, Pres. Jackson made an offer to buy Texas, but the Mexican government refused.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1829 Dec 8, The first presidential address of Andrew Jackson.
1830 May 28, Congress authorized Indian removal from all states to western prairie.
1830 Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the US, signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The act banished the Cherokee and other eastern tribes to beyond the Mississippi.
(NG, 5/95, p.78)
1834 The first use of Federal troops to intervene in a labor dispute took place when President Andrew Jackson ordered the War Department to put down a "riotous assembly" near Willamsport, Maryland, among Irish laborers constructing the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
1845 Jun 8, Andrew Jackson, 7th president of the US, died in Nashville, Tenn. His health had deteriorated over the last 30 years and in 1999 scientists cited lead poisoning from an 1813 wound as the primary cause of his health problems. In 1945 Arthur Schlesinger Jr. authored "The Age of Jackson," for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Dr. Robert Remini later authored a 3-volume biography. In 2005 H.W. Brands authored "Andrew Jackson: A Life and Times." In 2008 Jon Meacham authored "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the white House."
(AP, 6/8/97)(SFC, 8/11/99, p.A2)(SSFC, 10/30/05, p.M3)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.85)(SSFC, 12/7/08, Books p.1)
1853 Mar 8, The first bronze statue of Andrew Jackson was unveiled in Washington, D.C.
#8 Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)
1782 Dec 5, Martin Van Buren, 8th US President (1837-1841) was born in Kinderhook, N.Y. He was the first chief executive to be born after American independence.
1783 Mar 8, Hannah Hoes Van Buren, wife of Martin Van Buren, was born.
1837 There was a financial bust and John Jacob Astor bought up foreclosed properties in NYC and later sold them for a 10-fold profit.
1862 Jul 24, Martin Van Buren (79), the eighth president of the United States, died in Kinderhook, N.Y.
#9 William Henry Harrison (1841)
1773 Feb 9, William Henry Harrison, the 9th president of the United States (March 4- April 4, 1841), was born in Charles City County, Va.
(HN, 2/9/97)(AP, 2/9/99)(MC, 2/9/02)
1775 Jul 25, Anna Symmes Harrison, 1st lady, was born.
1811 Nov 7, Gen. William Henry Harrison won a battle against the Shawnee Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in the Indiana territory. Tenskwatawa, the brother of Shawnee leader Tecumseh, was engaged in the Battle of the Wabash, aka Battle of Tippecanoe, in spite of his brother's strict admonition to avoid it. The battle near the Tippecanoe River with the regular and militia forces of Indiana Territory Governor William Henry Harrison, took place while Tecumseh was out of the area seeking support for a united Indian movement. The battle, which was a nominal victory for Harrison's forces, effectively put an end to Tecumseh's dream of a pan-Indian confederation. Harrison's leadership in the battle also provided a useful campaign slogan for his presidential bid in 1840.
(HFA, '96, p.46)(HNQ, 5/28/98)(HN, 11/7/98)
1813 May 9, U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison rescued Fort Meigs from British and Canadian troops.
1813 Oct 5, The Battle of Moraviantown was decisive in the War of 1812. Known as the Battle of the Thames in the United States, the U.S. victory over British and Indian forces near Ontario at the village of Moraviantown on the Thames River is know in Canada as the Battle of Moraviantown. Some 600 British regulars and 1,000 Indian allies under English General and Shawnee leader Tecumseh were greatly outnumbered and quickly defeated by U.S. forces under the command of Maj. Gen. William Henry Harrison. Tecumseh was killed in this battle. [see Oct 15]
(HN, 10/5/98)(HNQ, 10/20/98)(MC, 10/5/01)
1841 Feb 18, 1st continuous filibuster in US Senate began and lasting until March 11.
1841 Apr 4, President William Henry Harrison (68), 9th President of the US, succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inaugural, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office. VP. Tyler assumed office.
(A&IP, ESM, p.59,96b)(AP, 4/4/97)
#10 John Tyler (1841-1845)
1790 Mar 29, John Tyler, the 10th president of the United States (1841-1845), was born in Charles City County, Va. He was also the first vice-president to succeed to office on the death of a president.
(AP, 3/29/97)(HN, 3/29/99)(MC, 3/29/02)
1841-1845 John Tyler, elected as Vice-President under Harrison, became the 10th President of the US upon Harrison's unexpected death.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)
1844 Feb 28, A 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others. On the new warship, USS Princeton, the shipboard cannon called the "Peacemaker" exploded during a demonstration firing. Also aboard the ship was President John Tyler, additional cabinet members and hundreds of distinguished guests. The cannon weighed 27,000 pounds, had a 15-foot-long barrel and could hurl a 225-pound ball six miles.
(AP, 2/28/98)(HNQ, 11/29/98)
1844 Jun 26, Julia Gardiner and President John Tyler were married in New York City.
1845 Jan 23, Congress decided all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The law was signed by Pres. John Tyler.
(AP, 1/23/98)(WSJ, 3/13/00, p.A1)
1845 Mar 1, President Tyler signed a congressional resolution to annex the Republic of Texas. Texas was annexed as a state of the US on Dec 29.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A3)(AP, 3/1/98)
1845 Mar 3, For the first time, the U.S. Congress passed legislation on this day overriding a President's veto. President John Tyler was in office at the time.
1862 Jan 18, John Tyler (71), 10th president of the United States (1841-1845), died and was buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va. He drank a mint julep every morning for breakfast. Tyler had joined the Confederacy after his presidency and was designated a "sworn enemy of the United States."
(AP, 1/18/98)(SFEC, 11/15/98, Z1 p.10)(SFEC, 12/20/98, Z1 p.8)(HN, 1/18/99)
#11 James Polk (1845-1849)
1844 Dec 4, James K. Polk was elected 11th president of US. His wife, Sarah, recognized that James was insufficiently impressive to draw attention on appearance and therefore began the tradition of having "Hail to the Chief" played when he made a public showing.
(HFA, '96, p.46)(SFC, 7/14/96, Z 1 p.2)(MC, 12/4/01)
1845 Mar 4, James K. Polk was inaugurated as 11th President.
1845 Nov 4, The 1st US nationally observed uniform election day was held.
1845-1849 James Knox Polk became President of the US. He offered Mexico $25 million for California, but the offer was declined. Polk then ordered General Zacharay Taylor, known as Old Rough and Ready, to Texas with troops and an eye on expansion.
1846 Jan 13, President James Polk dispatched General Zachary Taylor and 4,000 troops to the Texas Border as war with Mexico loomed. At the outset of the Mexican-American War, the Mexican army numbered 32,000 and the American army consisted of 7,200 men. The American army had, since 1815, only fought against a few Indian tribes. Forty-two percent of the army was made up of recent German or Irish immigrants. In the course of the war, the total U.S. force employed reached 104,000. In 2008 Martin Dugard authored "The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848." In 2012 Amy S. Greenberg authored "A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln and the 1846 US Invasion of Mexico."
(HNQ, 2/28/99)(WSJ, 5/16/08, p.W8)(SSFC, 1/6/13, p.F6)
1846 May 8, News reached Washington DC that Mexican troops had attacked a US reconnaissance patrol near the Rio Grande and killed or captured some 40 men. That same afternoon Polk and his cabinet had decided to ask Congress for a declaration of war against Mexico.
1846 May 13, The US under Pres. Polk declared war against Mexico, 2 months after fighting began. This was in response to an incident where the Mexican cavalry surrounded a scouting party of American dragoons. $10 million was appropriated for war expenses by Congress. 50, 000 volunteers responded to the war effort and Gen. Taylor used his forces to capture the Mexican town of Monterey [in California] and then moved south to defeat Santa Anna's armies at the Battle of Buena Vista.
(WCG, p.59)(HFA, '96, p.48)(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1846 Jun 15, The United States and Britain signed a treaty settling a boundary dispute between Canada and the United States in the Pacific Northwest at the 49th parallel. Great Britain and the U.S. agreed on a joint occupation of Oregon Territory. President Polk agreed to a compromise border along the 49th parallel. The debate over the northwestern border of the United States. The campaign slogan "54-40 or fight" referred to the debate over the northwestern border of the United States. The slogan "54-40 or fight" refers to the north latitude degree and minute where many Americans wanted to place the border between the U.S. and then Great Britain in the Pacific Northwest.
(AP, 6/15/97)(HN, 6/15/98)(SFC, 1/25/99, p.A3)(HNQ, 3/28/00)
1846 Jun 15, Washington diplomats established a straight line border between the US and Canada in the northwest and thus established Point Roberts, Wa. as the westernmost corner of the US. The enclave is 4.9 sq. miles and allows Canadians to escape their country, its high taxes and buy GMCs - gasoline, milk and cheese.
(SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-6)
1846 Aug 10, President James Polk signed a measure establishing the Smithsonian Institution. The US Congress chartered the Smithsonian Institution, named after English scientist James Smithson (1765-1836), whose bequest of $500,000 made it possible. The Smithsonian Institute was born and Joseph Henry became its first secretary.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)(AP, 8/10/07)
1846 Aug 22, The United States annexed New Mexico.
1848 Feb 2, US and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico ceded one-third of its territory to the US including California, agreed to the Rio Grande as the boundary between Texas and Mexico and was awarded $15 million. 25,000 Mexicans and 12,000 Americans lost their lives in the 17-month old conflict.
(HFA, '96, p.48)(SFC, 6/13/96, p.A17)(HN, 2/2/99)
1848 Jul 4, The Cornerstone of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. was laid by President Polk. The white marble obelisk, which is 555 feet tall and 55 fee square at the base, was not completed until 1184. The public was admitted to the monument on October 9, 1888.
1848 Dec 5, President Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California. Paula Mitchell Marks later wrote "Precious Dust," an account of the gold rush.
(AP, 12/5/97)(SFEC, 4/12/98, BR p.7)
1849 Mar 4, The US had no President. Pres. James K. Polk officially stepped down as the 11th US president and President Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn-in on a Sunday. US Sen. Some say David Rice Atchison (1807-1886) of Missouri then technically held office as president until Zachary Taylor took his oath the next day. However Atchison's term as president pro tempore of the Senate had also expired, and his new term did not begin until March 5.
1849 Jun 15, James Polk, the 11th president of the United States, died of cholera in Nashville, Tenn. Following a visit to New Orleans. In 2008 Walter R. Borneman authored "Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America."
(AP, 6/15/97)(WSJ, 5/16/08, p.W8)(Econ, 7/30/11, p.55)
David Atchinson (1849)
1807 Aug 11, David Atchison, legislator, was born. He was president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, and president of U.S. for one day [March 4, 1849], the Sunday before Zachary Taylor was sworn in.
# 12 Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)
1784 Nov 24, Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States (1849-1850), was born in Orange County, Va.
1848 Nov 7, General Zachary Taylor was elected president of US. Millard Fillmore was vice-president. With the exception of South Carolina, who left the selection of electors to its legislature, the election of 1848 marked the first time in which every state in the union voted for President and Vice President on the same day: Taylor won election over Cass, capturing 163 of the 290 electoral votes cast. Zachary Taylor, a Southerner, a slaveholder and the hero of the Mexican War, had been nominated by the Party as a candidate for president of the US. He was an inoffensive candidate in the anxious years leading up to the Civil War because he had never taken a position on a political issue or even cast a vote in his life. During his 16 months as president, Congress addressed the explosive issue of slavery's expansion to the west with the Compromise of 1850, but Taylor himself never had the opportunity to act on this issue.
(http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/U.S._presidential_election,_1848)(HNPD, 7/11/98)
1849 Mar 5, Zachary Taylor took the oath of office at his presidential inauguration.
1849-1850 Zacharay Taylor was the12th President of the US but died of a stroke after 16 months in office. He was considered the 5th worst president by a rating cited in the Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the Presidency.
(A&IP, ESM, p.71,96b, photo)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.E10)
1850 Jul 4, President Zachary Taylor stood hatless in the sun for hours listening to long-winded speeches. He returned to the White House and attempted to cool off by eating cherries, cucumbers and drinking iced milk. Severe stomach cramps followed and it is likely that Taylor's own physicians inadvertently killed him with a whole series of debilitating treatments. [see Jul 9]
1850 Jul 9, Zachary Taylor (b.1784), the 12th president of the United States, died of cholera at the age of 65 after serving only 16 months. He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore. Taylor was a Southerner, a slaveholder and the hero of the Mexican War in 1848 when he was nominated by the Whig Party as a candidate for president of the United States. He was an inoffensive candidate in the anxious years leading up to the Civil War because he had never taken a position on a political issue or even cast a vote in his life. During his 16 months as president, Congress addressed the explosive issue of slavery's expansion to the west with the Compromise of 1850, but Taylor himself never had the opportunity to act on this issue.
(WUD,1994,p.1679)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.E10)(AP, 7/9/97)(HN, 7/9/98)(HN, 7/11/99)
#13 Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)
1798 Mar 13, Abigail Powers Fillmore, First Lady, was born.
1800 Jan 7, Millard Fillmore, 13th US president (1850-1853), was born in Summerhill (Locke), N.Y.
(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)(AP, 1/7/98)(HN, 1/7/99)
1850 Jul 10, Millard Fillmore (Whig) was sworn in as the 13th president following the death of Zachary Taylor.
(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25) (AP, 7/10/97)(HN, 7/10/98)
1850 Sep 20, The slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished as a provision of Henry Clay's Compromise of 1850. Because each state had its own slavery code when the District of Columbia was founded in 1800, Washington had adopted Maryland's laws. Although the 1850 legislation made the slave trade illegal, slavery itself was still legal. Nevertheless, Washington became a haven for free blacks. By 1860, free blacks outnumbered slaves almost four-to-one. President Abraham Lincoln put an end to Washington's slavery altogether in 1862, freeing about 2,989 African Americans who were then slaves according to the slavery code.
(HNPD, 9/20/98)(HN, 9/20/98)
1850 Sep 29, Pres. Millard Fillmore named Mormon leader Brigham Young as the first governor of the Utah Territory.
(HN, 9/29/98)(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)
1850 Pres. Fillmore recommended a federal mint in SF to replace the 20 private mints.
(SSFC, 1/28/03, p.E1)
1850 Pres. Millard Fillmore designated the Lime Point Military Reservation, later Fort Baker, on the Marin side of the entrance to SF Bay.
(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.B4)
1850 Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky introduced the 8 provisions of the Great Compromise Bill. The provisions of the Great Compromise bill were reduced to 5 and passed one by one. They were in sum: 1) the admission of California as a free state; 2) slavery in the territories of Utah and New Mexico would be resolved by popular sovereignty; 3) slavery would be ended in the District of Columbia; 4) the federal government would assume a $10 million debt by Texas; 5) the federal government would be responsible for the return of runaway slaves. W.F. Seward stated: "The unity of our empire hangs on the decision of this day."
1850s The political organization called the American Party, which flourished in the 1850s, is better known as the Know-Nothing Party. Originally a clandestine organization, members were instructed to say that they "know nothing" when asked about the party, hence the name. Primarily, the party was anti-immigrant and stood in opposition to whatever political power immigrant groups happened to have in Northern cities. In 1854 the American Party won significant elections in seven state governments. The party's national platform in 1856 included anti-Catholic and anti-alien planks.
1851 President Fillmore sent the USS Michigan, the Navy's first iron-hulled warship, to Beaver Island to arrest James Strang. Strang was put on trial in Detroit and was declared innocent of all charges. Strang then effectively detached his kingdom from the US but maintained voting rights.
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.88)
1853 Jul 14, Commodore Matthew Perry met with Prince Toda and Prince Ido at ceremony at Kurihama, Japan, and presented a letter from former Pres. Fillmore to Emperor Osahito requesting trade relations. Fillmore's term of office had already expired by the time the letter was delivered.
(ON, 11/04, p.12)(AP, 7/14/07)
1855 Millard Fillmore, the 13th president of the United States, declined to accept an honorary degree from the University of Oxford, proclaiming, "I had not the advantage of a classical education, and no man should, in my judgment, accept a degree he cannot read."
1874 Mar 8, Millard Fillmore (b.1800), the 13th president of the United States (1850-1853), died of a stroke in Buffalo, N.Y.
(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)(AP, 1/7/98)(AP, 3/8/98)
#14 Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)
1804 Nov 23, Franklin Pierce, 14th president of the United States (1853-1857), was born in Hillsboro, N.H.
1852 Nov 2, Franklin Pierce was elected US president over Gen'l. Winfield Scott, who ran as a Whig. In 1852, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution giving Scott the pay and rank of a lieutenant general. Scott, not Ulysses S. Grant, was the first to hold this rank since George Washington. William R. King was elected vice-president.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.E8)(http://tinyurl.com/8ku7j)
1852 It took 49 ballots to nominate Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire, for the presidency.
1853 Mar 2, The Territory of Washington was organized after separating from Oregon Territory. Pres. Franklin Pierce appointed Isaac Ingalls Stevens (1818-1862) as the first governor of the Washington Territory. Stevens served as US Congressman from the territory (1857-1858), and as a major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He died at the Battle of Chantilly.
(HN, 3/2/99)(SC, 3/2/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Stevens)
1853 Mar 4, Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) took office as the 14th president of the US. William Rufus de Vane King (D) was sworn in as 13th US Vice President.
(www.potus.com/fpierce.html)
1853 Jul 14, Pres. Franklin Pierce opened the 1st industrial exposition in NY. Some 4,000 exhibitors gathered for a trade show at the New York Crystal Palace (later Bryant Park).
1853 Dec 30, The United States bought some 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico in a deal known as the Gadsden Purchase. It included parts of Arizona and New Mexico (29,640 sq. miles) south of the Gila River. The purchase was ratified by Congress on April 25, 1854.
(AWAM, Dec. 94, p.31)(HFA, '96, p.28)(AHD, p.537)(AP, 12/30/97)
1853-1857 Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the US, acquired land from Mexico and supported the nation's 1st trade agreement with Japan. Jefferson Davis served as his secretary of war.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(WSJ, 2/11/03, p.A10)
1854 Mar 20, The Republican Party was founded when former members of the Whig political party met to establish a new political party that would oppose the spread of slavery into the western territories. [see Feb 28, Jul 6]
1854 May 30, The Kansas-Nebraska Act, designed by Sen. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, was passed by the US Congress. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The governor of the Kansas Territory was James William Denver. Pres. Pierce kept appointing proslavery governors. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise and opened the north to slavery. This period of Kansas history was incorporated into the 1998 novel "The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton," by Jane Smiley.
(AP, 5/30/97)(WSJ, 2/11/03, p.A10)(www.historyplace.com/lincoln/kansas.htm)(ON, 4/08, p.1)
1854 Jul 6, The Republican Party was officially organized in Jackson, Michigan. The Republican Party was formed in Ripon, Wisconsin, by a group of anti-slavery politicians at the Little White Schoolhouse. [see Mar 20]
(Hem., 7/96, p.28)(HN, 7/6/98)
1854 US Congress passed a resolution that declared: The great and conservative element in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
1855 Jun 5, The anti-foreign, anti-Roman Catholic Know-Nothing Party held its 1st convention.
1856 Feb 18, The American (Know-Nothing) Party abolished secrecy.
1856 Jun 17, In Philadelphia, the Republican Party opened its first national convention. John C. Fremont (1830-1890), American explorer, was the 1st Republican presidential candidate. He platform pledged to end polygamy and slavery. He lost to James Buchanan by about 500,000 votes. Fremont went on to serve as territorial governor of Arizona from 1878 to 1883.
(AP, 6/17/97)(HN, 6/17/98)(SFEC, 2/13/00, BR p.5)(HNQ, 3/11/00)(WSJ, 9/7/01, p.W17)
1856 The last presidential candidate of the Whig Party was Millard Fillmore in 1856. Fillmore and his running mate Andrew J. Donelson were also the nominees of the American (Know Nothing) Party that year. In 1999 Michael F. Hold published "The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party."
(HNQ, 9/10/98)(WSJ, 7/8/99, p.A16)
1869 Oct 8, Franklin Pierce (64), the 14th president (1853-1857) of the United States, died in Concord, N.H.
#15 James Buchanon (1857-1861)
1821 Jan 21, John Breckinridge (d.1875), 14th U.S. Vice President, was born.
1856 Jun 17, In Philadelphia, the Republican Party opened its first national convention. John C. Fremont (1830-1890), American explorer, was the 1st Republican presidential candidate. He platform pledged to end polygamy and slavery. He lost to James Buchanan by about 500,000 votes. Fremont went on to serve as territorial governor of Arizona from 1878 to 1883. In 2003 Lewis L. Gould authored "Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans."
(AP, 6/17/97)(HN, 6/17/98)(SFEC, 2/13/00, BR p.5)(HNQ, 3/11/00)(WSJ, 9/7/01, p.W17)(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.M1)
1856 Nov 4, James Buchanan was elected US president.
(http://tinyurl.com/8ku7j)(http://www.potus.com)
1857-1861 James Buchanon served as the 15th president. John Cabell Breckinridge (1821-1875) was the US vice-president under Buchanan. Breckenridge was a Confederate General in the Civil War.
(WUD, 1994, p.183)(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A12)(WUD, 1994, p.183)
1858 Apr 6, President Buchanan issued a proclamation declaring Mormons in the Utah Territory to be in a state of rebellion against the US government.
1858 Aug 16, A telegraphed message from Britain's Queen Victoria to President Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable. The cable linked Ireland and Canada and failed after a few weeks.
(AP, 8/16/97)(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/e_inquiry.html)
1859 Oct 19, Pres. James Buchanan signed a letter that confirmed the return of California mission properties to the church.
1859 Pres. Buchanan ordered a blockade of Cuba to intercept American-owned slave ships.
(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.C12)
1860 Apr 25, The first Japanese ambassador to the US, Niimi Buzennokami, and his 74-man staff arrived in Washington to present their credentials to Pres. James Buchanan.
(www.trivia-library.com/b/world-history-1860.htm)
1861 Dec 4, The Federal Senate, voting 36 to 0, expelled Senator John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky because he joined the Confederate Army.
1861 James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States, retired to Wheatland, his Pennsylvania home.
1868 Jun 1, James Buchanan (b. Apr 23, 1791), the 15th president of the United States, died near Lancaster, Pa. He was the only US president to have never married. In 1961 Philip Shreiver Klein authored "President James Buchanan: A Biography."
(AP, 6/1/97)(ON, 12/00, p.12)
#16 Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)
(www.nps.gov/liho/lincoln.htm)
1809 Feb 12, Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the US, was born in Hardin County (present-day Larue County), Kentucky. Lincoln was president of the United States during one of the most turbulent times in American history. Although roundly criticized during his own time, he is recognized as one of history's greatest figures who preserved the Union during the Civil War and proved that democracy could be a lasting form of government. Lincoln entered national politics as a Whig congressman from Illinois, but he lost his seat after one term due to his unpopular position on the Mexican War and the extension of slavery into the territories. The 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates for the Senate gave him a national reputation. In 1860, Lincoln became the first president elected from the new Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. In 1996 a new biography of Abraham Lincoln by David Donald was published.
(AP, 2/12/98)(AHD, 1971, p.759)(WSJ, 2/10/95, p.A-8) (SFC, 9/1/96, Par. p.12)(http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln88.html)
1818 Dec 13, Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln, was born.
1842 Nov 4, Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd in Springfield, Ill.
1842 Sep 2, A letter by Abraham Lincoln (31) in the Sangamon Journal satirized the Illinois State Auditor's call for state taxes to be paid in silver or gold. This in part led auditor James Shields to challenge Lincoln to a duel.
1844 The Lincolns purchased a 1 1/2 story Greek Revival home at Eighth and Jackson in Springfield, Ill. Mary and Abraham Lincoln paid $1,200 in cash and land for the one-and-half-story, five-room, wood-clapboard structure. It was the only home the Lincolns ever owned. They spent the next 16 years enlarging and improving it.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T4)(HNQ, 5/6/01)
1849 May 29, A patent for lifting vessels was granted to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, & some of the people some of time, but you can't fool all of the people all of time"
1854 Oct 4, Abraham Lincoln made his 1st political speech at Illinois State Fair.
1854 Oct 16, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech in Peoria, Ill., part of a series against legislation proposed by Sen. Stephen Douglas that would allow settlers to decide the status of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska. In 2008 Lewis E. Lehrman authored "Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point."
1857 Pres. Lincoln made a speech on the Dred Scott decision where he pointed out that the Declaration of Independence asserts that all men are equal in their right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
(WSJ,2/12/97, p.A16)
1858 Jun 16, In a speech accepting the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Springfield, Ill., Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved, declaring, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
1858 Jul 24, During the Illinois senatorial campaign Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln challenged Democrat Steven Douglas to a series of joint debates, which covered the slavery controversy and its impact on the nation. The debates illuminated the positions of Lincoln and Douglas on slavery, which Lincoln regarded as "a moral, a social and a political wrong," while Douglas evaded the moral issue. Even though Lincoln narrowly won the popular vote, Douglas prevailed in the state legislature 54-41 and thus the election. The debates propelled Lincoln to national prominence.
(HNPD, 9/4/99)(AP, 7/24/08)
1858 Aug 21, The first of seven debates between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Ottowa, Ill. Douglas went on to win the Senate seat in November, but Lincoln gains national visibility for the first time. Douglas stated in the 1st debate: "I believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men."
(WSJ, 3/3/00, p.W11)(HN, 8/21/00)(AP, 8/21/08)
1858 Aug 27, The 2nd of 7 of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the 1858 Illinois senatorial race of took place in Freeport, Ill. Stephen Douglas formulated what became known as the Freeport Doctrine, which stated that the people of a territory could, by lawful means, exclude slavery prior to the formulation of a state constitution. Douglas first pronounced it in response to a question posed by Lincoln as to how Douglas could reconcile the doctrine of "popular sovereignty" with the Dred Scott decision.
(HNQ, 6/4/99)(ON, 4/08, p.2)
1858 Sep 8, Lincoln made a speech about when you can fool people.
1858 Sep 15, The third debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas was held in Jonesboro, Ill.
1858 Sep 18, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas held the fourth of their senatorial debates, this one in Charleston, Ill.
1858 Oct 7, Lincoln and Douglas held their 5th debate in Galesburg, Ill., on the Knox College campus.
(SFEM, 10/29/00, p.8)(ON, 4/08, p.2)
1858 Oct 13, The sixth debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Quincy, Ill.
1858 Oct 15, The seventh and final debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Alton, Ill.
(ON, 4/08, p.2)(AP, 10/15/08)
1858 Nov 2, In Illinois Abraham Lincoln won 4,085 more popular votes for the Senate than did Sen. Stephen Douglas; however Illinois senators were elected by the state legislatures and Douglas won reelection there by 8 votes.
1860 Feb 27, Abraham Lincoln spoke at the Great Hall of Cooper Union College in NYC: "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
1860 Mar 6, While campaigning for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln made a speech defending the right to strike.
1860 May 16, The Republican convention operned in Chicago.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Republican_National_Convention)
1860 May 18, The Republican Convention in Chicago nominated Abraham Lincoln for US president and Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine as Vice President. Other presidential candidates included William Seward and Salmon Chase.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Republican_National_Convention)(Econ, 12/1/12, p.75)
1860 Nov 6, Former Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln was elected as the 16th US president. He defeated three other candidates, John Breckinridge, John Bell and Stephen Douglas. He won the US presidential elections with a majority of the electoral votes in a 4-way race. Lincoln became the first president elected from the new Republican Party. Following his election South Carolina seceded from the Union followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Hannibal Hamlin was his vice-president. Lincoln was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. In 1996 a new biography of Abraham Lincoln by David Donald was published.
(WSJ, 2/10/95, p.A-8)(SFC, 9/1/96, Par. p.12)(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A13) (AP, 2/12/98)(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A3)(AP, 11/6/08)(SFC, 4/30/99, p.E9)
1860 Nov 13, South Carolina's legislature called a special convention to discuss secession from the Union.
1861 Jan 25, Pres. Lincoln picked Ferdinand Schavers, a black man, as his first bodyguard. (Hem., 5/97, p.18)(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A13)
1861 Feb 4, Delegates from six southern states met in Montgomery, Ala., to form the Confederate States of America. They included Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.
(AP, 2/4/97)(ON, 11/00, p.1)
1861 Feb 11, President-elect Lincoln departed Springfield, Ill., for Washington.
1861 Feb 13, Abraham Lincoln was declared president.
(www.thelincolnlog.org/view/1861/2/13)
1861 Feb 19, Pres.-elect Lincoln traveled through NYC on his way to Washington.
1861 Feb 23, President-elect Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office after a suspected assassination plot was foiled in Baltimore. Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, may have saved Abraham Lincoln's life by suspecting a plot to assassinate the president-elect in Baltimore, Md. At the detective's suggestion, Lincoln avoided the threat by secretly slipping through the city at night. A few months later, Pinkerton joined Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's staff as chief intelligence officer. Using the name "Major Allen," the private detective remained with McClellan until late 1862, catching southern spies and running an espionage network in Confederate territory.
(AP, 2/23/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Plot)
1861 Mar 4, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated president.
1861 Mar 5, Pres. Lincoln appointed William H. Seward as his Sec. of State. Seward served until March 4, 1869.
(http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/seward-william-henry)
1861 Mar 9, First hostile act of the Civil War occurred when Star of the West fired on Sumter, S.C.
1861 Apr 6, Pres. Lincoln dispatched 3 ships and 600 men to Fort Sumter as a relief expedition carrying provisions. He followed this with a note to South Carolina Gov. Francis W. Pickens that no arms were included.
1861 Apr 15, Three days after the attack on Fort Sumter, S.C., President Lincoln declared a state of insurrection and called out for 75,000 Union volunteers.
1861 Apr 19, President Lincoln ordered the blockade of Confederate ports.
(http://history.state.gov/milestones/1861-1865/Blockade)
1861 Apr 27, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
1861 Jun 17, President Abraham Lincoln witnessed Dr. Thaddeus Lowe demonstrate the use of a hot-air balloon.
1861 Jul 27, President Abraham Lincoln replaced General Irwin McDowell with General George B. McClellen as head of the Army of the Potomac.
1861 Apr 16, US president Lincoln outlawed business with confederate states.
1861 Apr 30, President Lincoln ordered Federal Troops to evacuate Indian Territory.
1861 May 3, Lincoln asked for 42,000 Army Volunteers and another 18,000 seamen.
1861 May 3, Gen. Winfield Scott presented his Anaconda Plan.
1861 May 16, Pres. Lincoln commissioned Benjamin F. Butler, a Massachusetts politician, as a major general of volunteers in the US Army.
1861 Jun 10, Thaddeus Lowe demonstrated his balloon, the Enterprise, along with its telegraphy capabilities for Pres. Lincoln at the White House lawn.
1861 Aug 15, Lincoln directed reinforcements to be sent to Missouri.
1861 Aug 16, President Lincoln prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding states of the Confederacy.
1861 Aug 30, Union General John Fremont declared martial law throughout Missouri and made his own emancipation proclamation to free slaves in the state. However, Fremont's order was countermanded days later by President Lincoln. Fremont was soon relieved of command after refusing Lincoln's order to rescind his proclamation and adhere to the terms of the August 6 Confiscation Act.
(HN, 8/30/98)(AP, 8/30/06)(ON, 6/10, p.1)
1861 Oct 23, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in Washington, D.C. for all military-related cases.
(HN, 10/23/98
1861 Oct 24, Western Union completed the first transcontinental telegraph line. The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent as Justice Stephen J. Field of California transmitted a telegram to President Lincoln. Telegraph lines linked the West Coast to the rest of the country and made the Pony Express obsolete late in the year.
(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A19)(AP, 10/24/97)(HN, 10/24/98)
1861 Dec 3, In his first annual message Lincoln argued that "labor is prior to, and independent of capital. Capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed..."
(WSJ, 2/10/95, p.A8)(http://caps.fool.com/blogs/quotes-by-lincoln/548670)
1861 Dec 21, Pres. Lincoln signed legislation establishing the Medal of Honor. The medal was first authorized for Sailors and Marines, and the following year for Soldiers as well.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_of_Honor)
1861 Pres. Lincoln appointed Anson Burlingame, congressman from Mass., as ambassador to China.
(Ind, 8/11/01, 5A)
1861-1869 William Henry Seward was the American Sec. of State during these years
(HFA, '96, p.30)(AHD, p.1187)
1862 Jan 11, Lincoln accepted Simon Cameron's resignation as Secretary of War.
1862 Jan 13, President Lincoln named Edwin M. Stanton Secretary of War.
1862 Jan 27, President Abraham Lincoln issued General War Order No. 1, setting in motion the Union armies.
1862 Feb 20, Willie Lincoln (b.1850), son of Pres. Lincoln, died in Washington DC. Typhoid fever was the suspected cause.
(SSFC, 3/20/05, Par p.4)(www.nps.gov/liho/lincoln.htm)
1862 Mar 6, Pres. Lincoln proposed to Congress a revised plan of compensated emancipation for slave-owners in the District of Columbia and the border states.
1862 May 20, President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land to settlers in the West.
1862 Jun 19, Slavery was outlawed in U.S. territories. President Abraham Lincoln outlined his Emancipation Proclamation. News of the document reached the south and Texas through General Gordon Granger.
(BEP, 1994)(DTnet, 6/19/97)(HN, 6/19/99)
1862 Jul 1, Abraham Lincoln instituted an income tax to pay for the Civil War. The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was founded. Internal Revenue Law imposed federal taxes on inheritance, tobacco & a progressive rate on incomes over $600.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.D1)(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-1)
1862 Jul 1, Pres. Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act.
(SSFC, 9/23/12, p.H3)
1862 Jul 2, Lincoln signed an act granting land for state agricultural colleges. [see Jul 1]
1862 Jul 11, President Abraham Lincoln appointed General Henry Halleck as general in chief of the Federal army. [see Aug 11] Stephen Ambrose later authored "Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff."
(HN, 7/11/98)(WSJ, 8/20/01, p.A8)
1862 Aug 11, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Union General Henry Halleck to the position of general in chief of the Union Army. [see Jul 11]
1862 Sep 22, President Lincoln announced at a cabinet meeting that he intended to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in rebel states should be free as of Jan. 1, 1863. President Abraham Lincoln brought the issue of freedom to the forefront of the Civil War when he delivered the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet , a few days after the bloody Battle of Antietam. The proclamation stated that slaves in any of the states in rebellion against the Union would be freed if the states had not returned to the Union by January 1, 1863. After that, nearly 180,000 black soldiers enlisted to fight the Confederates until the end of the war.
(SFE Mag., 2/12/95, p. 30)(AP, 9/22/97)(HNPD, 9/22/98)
1862 Sep 23, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was published in Northern Newspapers.
1862 Sep 24, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus against anyone suspected of being a Southern sympathizer.
1862 Sep, Pres. Lincoln warned the South that he would free all slaves in Southern territory if the rebellion continued. Unlike some others, Lincoln always promoted a voluntary colonization, rather than forcing blacks to leave. In 2011 the book "Colonization After Emancipation," by Philip Magness and Sebastian Page made the case that Lincoln was even more committed to colonizing blacks than previously known.
1862 Sep, The troops of the 1st Louisiana Native Guards were free black men who lived in New Orleans. When Pres. Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation he invited black men in Confederate territory to join the Union army. Union Major General Benjamin Butler immediately mustered the 1st Louisiana Native Guards into Federal service, making them the Union's first black soldiers. They had volunteered for state service in the Civil War, and served as a home guard unit. When New Orleans fell to Union forces in April 1862, the black troops remained in the city and offered their services to Butler.
1862 Nov 5, President Abraham Lincoln relieved General George McClellan of command of the Union armies and named Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside commander of the Army of the Potomac.
1862 Dec 1, President Lincoln gave the State of the Union message to the 37th Congress. "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present… As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves."
1862 Dec 6, President Lincoln ordered the hanging of 39 of the 303 convicted Indians who participated in the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota. They were to be hanged on Dec 26. The Dakota Indians were going hungry when food and money from the federal government was not distributed as promised. They led a massacre that left over 400 white people dead. The uprising was put down and 300 Indians were sentenced to death. Pres. Lincoln reduced the number to 39, who were hanged. The government then nullified the 1851 treaty.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A6)(HN, 12/6/98)
1862 Dec 17, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11 designed to combat a Civil War black market in cotton. Grant believed the trade was run primarily by Jewish traders and ordered Jews expelled in his military district. Pres. Lincoln rescinded the order on Jan. 4, 1863. In 2012 Jonathan D. Sarna authored "When General Grant Expelled the Jews."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._11_(1862))(SSFC, 4/22/12, p.F3)
1862 Dec 25, President and Mrs. Lincoln visited hospitals in the Washington D.C. area on this Christmas Day.
1862 Dec 30, The draft of the Emancipation Proclamation was finished and circulated around Lincoln's cabinet for comment.
1862 Dec 31, President Lincoln signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union.
1862 Pres. Lincoln spoke to a White House audience of free blacks, urging them to leave the US and settle in Central America.
1862 Pres. Lincoln made Andrew Johnson the military governor of Tennessee after Federal forces captured Nashville.
1863 Jan, 1, All slaves held in rebellion territory in USA were made free by Abraham Lincoln's Sep 22, 1862, Emancipation Proclamation.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(V.D.-H.K.p.275)(AP, 1/1/98)(HN, 1/1/99)
1863 Jan 4, General Halleck, by direction of President Lincoln, ordered U.S. Grant to revoke his infamous General Order No. 11 that expelled Jews from his operational area.
1863 Jan 26, President Lincoln named General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac. [see Jan 25]
1863 Feb 26, Pres. Lincoln signed a National Currency Act.
1863 Mar 2, The US Congress passed the False Claims Act to protect the government from being ripped off by suppliers outfitting the Union army. It is often referred to as the "Lincoln Law," because it was passed under the administration of President Abraham Lincoln.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Claims_Act)(Econ, 8/30/14, p.22)
1863 Mar 3, President Abraham Lincoln signed the conscription act compelling U.S. citizens to report for duty in the Civil War or pay $300.00. 86,724 men paid the exemption cost to avoid service. The inequality of this arrangement led to the Draft Riots in New York.
(HN, 3/3/99)(HNQ, 10/18/00)(SSFC, 2/8/15, p.N5)
1863 Mar 3, Abraham Lincoln approved a charter for National Academy of Sciences.
(www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ABOUT_main_page)
1863 Apr 24, The Lieber code, also known as Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field, General Order № 100, was signed by Pres. Abraham Lincoln. It was named after the German-American jurist and political philosopher Francis Lieber and dictated how soldiers should conduct themselves in war time. It set a new norm of respect for private property.
(Econ, 4/10/10, p.64)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieber_Code)
1863 Jun 25, Pres. Lincoln chose US General George Meade to replace General Hooker, hoping he would be more aggressive. [see Jun 28]
1863 Jul 2, Mrs. Lincoln was thrown from her carriage and spent weeks recovering at the Anderson Cottage, Washington DC. The seat assembly may have been sabotaged.
(SFC, 5/20/02, p.F10)
1863 Jul 13, Rioting against the Civil War military draft erupted in New York City; about 1,000 people died over three days. Anti-abolitionist Irish longshoremen rampaged against blacks in the deadly Draft Riots in New York City in response to Pres. Lincoln's announcement of military conscription.
(WSJ, 3/19/96, p.A-12)(AP, 7/13/97)(HN, 7/13/98)
1863 Jul 30, Pres. Lincoln issued his "eye-for-eye" order to shoot a rebel prisoner for every black prisoner shot.
1863 Aug 3, Governor Seymour asked Pres. Lincoln to suspend the draft in NY.
1863 Oct 3, President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November, Thanksgiving Day.
1863 Nov 17, Lincoln began the 1st draft of his Gettysburg Address.
1863 Nov 19, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania. Lincoln had been asked to deliver a few "appropriate remarks" to the crowd at the dedication of the National Cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His address was almost ignored in the wake of the lengthy oration by main speaker Edwin Everett, the former governor of Massachusetts. In fact, Lincoln's speech was over before many in the crowd were even aware that he was speaking. Lincoln concluded his speech with this vow: "We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
(http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~brixr01/theTIMEMACHINE.html)(AP, 11/19/97)(ON, 8/07, p.1)
1863 Dec 8, President Lincoln announced his plan for the Reconstruction of the South. President Lincoln offered amnesty for confederate deserters.
1863 Dec 14, The widow of Confederate General B.H. Helm was given amnesty by President Lincoln after she swore allegiance to the Union. Mrs. Helm was the half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln.
1863 Pres. Lincoln granted a British agent permission to recruit volunteers for a Belize colony.
1863 Abraham Lincoln sent 450 newly freed slaves to Haiti's Ile-à-Vache to found a colony, though most gave up and returned home a year later.
1863-1865 The 1998 novel "The Last Full Measure" by Jeff Shaara covers the Civil War across it last two years.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.D5)
1864 Mar 9, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln officially commissioned Ulysses S. Grant lieutenant general in the U.S. Army. After leading Union victories in the West in 1862-63, Lincoln gave Grant supreme command of the Union forces with the revived rank of lieutenant general.
1864 Jun 8, Abraham Lincoln was nominated for another term as president during the National Union (Republican) Party's convention in Baltimore.
1864 Jun 30, Pres. Lincoln signed legislation creating America's first national park. Congress gave to California the lands known as Yosemite with the understanding that the state would preserve them for public enjoyment.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.T4)(SSFC, 6/22/14, p.P6)
1864 Jul 12, President Abraham Lincoln became the first standing president to witness a battle as Union forces repelled Jubal Early's army on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.
1864 Jul 18, President Lincoln asked for 500,000 volunteers for military service.
1864 Aug 28, The Democratic National Convention began in Chicago. General George B. McClellan's campaign platform called the war in America a failure. [see Aug 31]
1864 Aug 31, At the Democratic convention in Chicago, General George B. McClellan was nominated for president. [see Aug 28]
1864 Nov 8, President Abraham Lincoln was re-elected with Andrew Johnson as his vice-president. Lincoln won with 55% of the popular vote.
(HN, 11/6/98)(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A3)(ON, 12/03, p.4)
1865 cJan-Apr, Pres. Lincoln dispatched Gen'l. Lew Wallace to the Mexican border to stop the flow of contraband. Wallace was appointed vice-president of the trial over those accused of conspiring to assassinate Lincoln. He then presided over the trials of Confederate Capt. Henry Wirz, commander of the Andersonville prison camp. He served as governor of New Mexico for 4 years and then served as US minister to Turkey.
1865 Feb 3, The Hampton Roads Conference was attended by President Abraham Lincoln and the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander H. Stephens, in an attempt to end the American Civil War. The four-hour meeting aboard the Union steamboat River Queen anchored in Hampton Roads in Virginia, also included Lincoln's Secretary of State, William H. Seward, Confederate Assistant Secretary of War John Campbell and Senator R.M.T. Hunter. Lincoln's peace offer required rebel states to return to the Union, accept the freedom of their slaves and to disband their army. Even though military defeat was imminent, the Confederate representatives did not have the authority to accept any peace offer without a guarantee of independence for the Confederacy, therefore, no agreement was reached.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 2/3/97)(HNQ, 2/5/00)
1865 Mar 2, General Lee proposed peace to Grant. President Abraham Lincoln rejected Confederate General Robert E. Lee's plea for peace talks, demanding unconditional surrender.
1865 Mar 4, President Lincoln was inaugurated for his 2nd term as President. It was held at the Patent Office, the site of a military hospital. Four companies of African-American troops and lodges of African-American Masons and African-American Odd-Fellows joined the procession to the Capitol.
(WSJ, 2/12/04, p.D12)(SSFC, 1/20/13, Par p.4)
1865 Mar 6, President Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Ball was held.
1865 Mar 15, Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address.
1865 Apr 11, Lincoln urged a spirit of generous conciliation during reconstruction.
1865 Apr 14, On the evening of Good Friday, just after 10 p.m., Pres. Lincoln was shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth while attending the comedy "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington DC. Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth burst into the presidential box and shot Lincoln behind the ear. Booth shouted out "sic semper tyrannis" (thus always to tyrants), Virginia's state motto, after shooting Pres. Lincoln. He leaped to the stage, breaking his left leg on impact, and escaped through a side door. Lincoln was carried to a nearby house where he remained unconscious until his death at 7:22 the following morning. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who had kept vigil at Lincoln's bedside, said, "Now he belongs to the ages." As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy."
(V.D.-H.K.p.277)(AP, 4/14/97)(AP, 4/14/98)(HNPD, 4/14/00)(WSJ, 10/13/06, p.W13)
1864 Apr 14, A 2nd assassin stabbed the Sec. of State 5 times. A 3rd assassin for the vice president got cold feet.
(SSFC, 4/8/01, Par p.12)
1865 Apr 15, President Lincoln died, several hours after he was shot at Ford's Theater in Washington by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson, Vice-President under Lincoln, became the 17th President (1865-1869) of the US upon the assassination. The first Mourning Stamp was issued after his assassination, a 15-cent black commemorative. In 1999 Allen C. Guelzo authored "Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President," an intellectual biography. In 2002 William Lee Miller authored "Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography." In 2004 Ronald C. White Jr. authored "The Eloquent President." In 2005 Doris Kearns Goodwin authored "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." In 2006 Douglas L. Wilson authored "Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Woods."
(http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~brixr01/NYTAPR151865.html)(WSJ, 12/29/99, p.A16)(WSJ, 2/8/02, p.W9)(WSJ, 1/20/05, p.D9) (SSFC, 11/27/05, p.M3)(SFC, 11/27/06, p.C2)
1865 Apr 17, Mary Surratt was arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.
1865 Apr 27, John Wilkes Booth was killed by Federal Cavalry in Virginia. In 2004 Michael W. Kauffman authored "American Brutus." In 2006 James L. Swanson authored "Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer. [see Apr 26]
(HN, 4/27/98)(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.P10)(WSJ, 1/28/07, p.P10)
1865 May 3, President Lincoln's funeral train arrived in Springfield, Illinois.
1865 May 4, Abraham Lincoln was buried in a temporary tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T4)(www.state.il.us/HPA/hs/Tomb.htm)
1865 Pres. Lincoln authorized Clara Barton to organize a volunteer group to locate Union soldiers who had gone missing in action. The team of unpaid assistants managed to discover the fates of over 20,000 missing men, many who had died as prisoners of war.
1871 Sep 19, President Abraham Lincoln's body was transferred to a partially completed permanent tomb at Springfield, Il.
(www.state.il.us/HPA/hs/Tomb.htm)
1872 William Henry Seward (b.1801), former US Sec. of State (1861-1869), died. In 1900 Frederic Bancroft authored "The Life of William H. Seward."
(WUD, 1994 p.1307)
1882 Jul 16, Mary Todd Lincoln, the widow of Abraham Lincoln, died of a stroke.
1887 Apr 10, President Abraham Lincoln was re-buried with his wife in Springfield, Il.
1892 Feb 12, Illinois made President Lincoln's birthday a state holiday. Other states followed suit over the years.
1909 Aug 2, The 1st Lincoln head pennies were minted. It was 95% copper and was the first US coin to depict the likeness of a president.
(SFEC, 9/8/96, Par p.21)(SFC, 12/29/96, Z1 p.2)(MC, 8/2/02)
1915 Feb 12, The cornerstone for the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington, D.C.
1922 May 30, The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., by Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Robert Todd Lincoln. The Memorial has 48 sculptured festoons above the columns representing the number of states at the time of dedication. The 36 Doric columns in the Lincoln Memorial represent the number of states in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death in 1865. The limestone and marble edifice, which is situated at the western end of the Mall, was designed by Henry Bacon of North Carolina in the style of a Greek temple. Daniel Chester French co-designed the memorial with Bacon.
(HNQ, 2/12/00)(WSJ, 5/24/08, p.W12)(AP, 5/30/08)
2004 Daniel Mark Epstein authored "Lincoln and Whitman."
2014 Joshua Zeitz authored "Lincoln's Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln's Image."
Jefferson Davis (1861-1865)
1808 Jun 3, Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederacy, was born in Christian County, Ky.
1812-1882 Alexander Hamilton Stephens was born near Crawfordville, Georgia. He is best known as Vice President of the Confederate States of America. Stephens, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1843 to 1859, was a delegate at the Montgomery meeting that formed a new union of the seceded states. He was elected vice president to Jefferson Davis on February 9, 1861. Stephens was later elected governor of Georgia in 1882 but died after serving just a few months.
1826 May 7, Varina Howell Davis (d.1905), 1st lady (Confederacy), was born.
1861 Jan 21, U.S. Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four (five) other Southern senators made emotional farewell speeches. Just weeks after his home state of Mississippi seceded from the Union, Davis prepared to leave Washington, D.C., and the country he had served as a soldier, cabinet member and member of Congress. One more time, Davis enumerated the reasons why the South felt secession was its only recourse: "...when you deny to us the right to withdraw from a Government which...threatens to be destructive to our rights, we but tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim our independence...." Davis then apologized to any senators he may have offended, and finished his address by saying, "...it only remains for me to bid you a final adieu."
(AP, 1/21/01)(HNPD, 1/21/99)
1861 Feb 4, Delegates from six southern states met in Montgomery, Ala., to form the Confederate States of America. They included Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. They elected Jefferson Davis as president of Confederacy.
(AP, 2/4/97)(ON, 11/00, p.1)(MC, 2/4/02)
1861 Feb 18, Jefferson F. Davis was inaugurated as the Confederacy's provisional president at a ceremony held in Montgomery, Ala.
1861 Mar 13, Jefferson Davis signed a bill authorizing slaves to be used as soldiers for the Confederacy.
1861 Nov 6, Jefferson Davis was elected to a six-year term as president of the Confederacy.
1861-1865 Jefferson Davis served as the first and only president of the Confederacy. He was later imprisoned and indicted for treason, but the case was dropped.
1862 Feb 22, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated president of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. for the second time.
1862 Apr 16, Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved conscription act for white males between 18 and 35.
1863 Mar 12, President Jefferson Davis delivered his State of the Confederacy address.
1863 Aug 8, Confederate President Jefferson Davis refused General Robert E. Lee's resignation.
1864 Jan 14, Confederate President Jefferson Davis wrote to General Johnson, observing that troops might need to be sent to Alabama or Mississippi.
1864 Jul 17, Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaced General Joseph E. Johnston with General John Bell Hood in hopes of defeating Union General William T. Sherman outside Atlanta.
1865 Apr 2, Confederate President Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Va. Grant broke Lee's line at Petersburg. President Jefferson Davis moved his government headquarters to Danville, Va., when its previous capital, Richmond, became engulfed in flames. Though it would have been safer to secure a location further south, Danville was naturally protected by the Dan and Staunton rivers, and it was in close proximity to Gen. Robert E. Lee's army to the north and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army to the south. The Piedmont Railroad connected Danville and Greensboro, N.C. and offered easy access to supplies.
(AP, 4/2/97)(HN, 4/2/98)(HNQ, 11/1/01)
1865 May 2, President Johnson offered a $100,000 reward for the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
1865 May 10, Confederate Pres. Jefferson Davis was captured by Union troops near Irvinville, Georgia. [see May 19]
1865 May 19, President Jefferson Davis was captured by Union Cavalry in Georgia. [see May 10]
1866 May 11, Confederate President Jefferson Davis became a free man after spending two years in prison for his role in the American Civil War.
1883 Mar 4, Alexander H. Stephens (71), Vice President Confederate States, died.
1889 Dec 6, Jefferson Davis (81), the first and only president of the Confederate States of America (1861-1865), died in New Orleans. In 2001 William J. Cooper Jr. authored "Jefferson Davis, American."
(AP, 12/6/97)(SSFC, 1/28/01, Par p.12)(MC, 12/6/01)
1972 Mar 3, Sculpted figures of Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, and Stonewall Jackson were completed at Stone Mountain, GA.
2005 Doris Kearns Goodwin authored "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." It inspired the 2012 film "Lincoln."
#17 Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)
1808 Dec 29, Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States who succeeded Lincoln (1865-1869), was born in a 2-room shack in Raleigh, N.C. [Waxhaw, South Carolina]
(AP, 12/29/97)(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A3)(HN, 12/29/98)(HNPD, 3/15/99)
1857 Andrew Johnson, Democrat of Tennessee, was elected to Senator.
1865 Aug 20, Pres. Johnson proclaimed an end to the "insurrection" in Texas.
1865 Oct 11, President Johnson paroled CSA VP Alexander Stephens.
1865 Dec 18 The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery, was adopted by the US Congress.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(V.D.-H.K.p.276)(AP, 12/18/97)
1866 Mar 27, President Andrew Johnson vetoed the civil rights bill, which later became the 14th amendment.
1866 Apr 2, Pres. Johnson ended war in Ala, Ark, Fla, Ga, Miss, La, NC, SC, Ten and Va.
1866 Apr 9, A Civil Rights Bill passed over Pres Andrew Johnson's veto to secure for former slaves all the rights of citizenship intended by the 13th Amendment. The president was empowered to use the Army to enforce the law. This formed the basis for the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
(MC, 4/9/02)(PC, 1992, p.502)
1866 Aug 20, President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, even though the fighting had stopped months earlier. After the Civil War Congress voted to give freed slaves 40 acres and a mule but Pres. Johnson killed the plan with a veto.
1866 Pres. Andrew Johnson signed an executive order that removed the Shoalwater Bay Indians in Washington state from their villages and onto a 1-sq. mile reservation. By 2000 erosion took away over half the tribal land and miscarriages stood at 4 times the expected rate.
(SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A8)
1867 Jan 8, Legislation gave suffrage to DC blacks, despite Pres. Johnson's veto.
1867 Mar 23, Congress passed a 2nd Reconstruction Act over President Johnson's veto.
1867 Mar 30, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward reached agreement with Russia's Baron Stoeckl to purchase the territory of Alaska for $7.2 million, two cents an acre, a deal roundly ridiculed as "Seward's Folly." The treaty was signed the nest day.
1867 Jun 20, Pres. Andrew Johnson announced the purchase of Alaska.
1867 Jul 25, President Andrew Johnson signed an act creating the territory of Wyoming. [see Jul 25, 1868]
1867 Aug 12, US House member Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868) led the Radical Republicans in a move to impeach President Andrew Johnson. The move was sparked when Johnson defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.
1867 Sep 7, President Andrew Johnson extended amnesty to all but a few of the leaders of the Confederacy.
1867 Nov 25, US Congress commission looked into impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.
1868 Feb 21, Pres. Johnson told Gen. Lorenzo Thomas (63) to go the War Dept. with orders to remove Edwin Stanton from office and to assume the responsibilities of Sec. of War.
1868 Feb 24, Impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson began. The House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson following his attempt to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; the Senate later acquitted Johnson. Sen. Edmund G. Ross of Kansas cast the last deciding vote against impeachment. Democrats defended Johnson. 7 Republicans cast "no" votes.
(HN, 2/24/98)(AP, 2/24/98)(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.A14)(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A3)
1868 Mar 5, The Senate was organized into a court of impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson, who was later acquitted.
1868 Mar 13, The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began in the U.S. Senate.
1868 Mar 30, The trial of President Johnson began with opening statements. Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase was the presiding judge in the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Chief Justice Chase insisted on the observance of legal procedure, attempting to maintain some semblance of non-partisanship.
1868 May 16, The U.S. Senate failed by one vote, cast by Edmund G. Ross, to convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its first ballot on one of 11 articles of impeachment against him. Johnson, who came to office on Abraham Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, was an honest but tactless man who made many enemies in the Radical Republican Congress. In response to Johnson's recurrent interference with Radical Reconstruction, the U.S. House of Representatives drew up 11 articles of impeachment against the chief executive in March 1868. Although the charges against him were weak, Johnson was tried by the Senate as the Constitution provides.
1868 May 26, The US Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ended with his acquittal as the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction. Edward Ross of Kansas cast the deciding vote.
1868 Jul 28, Pres. Johnson signed the Burlingame Treaty. It was negotiated by Anson Burlingame, who represented the interests of China, and committed the US to a policy of noninterference in Chinese affairs. It also established commercial ties and provided unrestricted immigration of Chinese to the US.
1868 Dec 25, President Andrew Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to all persons involved in the Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War.
1875 Jul 31, The 17th president of the United States, Andrew Johnson, died in Carter Station, Tenn., at age 66. He had succeeded Abraham Lincoln and was the first US president to face impeachment proceedings.
#18 Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)
1812 Feb 16, Henry Wilson, 18th U.S. Vice President (1873-1875), was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.1635)(HN, 2/16/98)
1822 Apr 27, Ulysses S. Grant (d.1885), general and 18th U.S. president (1869-1877), was born in Point Pleasant [Hiram], Ohio.
1823 Mar 23, Schuyler Colfax, (R) 17th US Vice President (1869-73), was born.
1854 Ulysses S. Grant was stationed at Fort Humboldt in northern California.
1861 Sep 6, Union General Ulysses S. Grant's forces captured Paducah, Kentucky from Confederate forces. A lifelong friend and trusted aide of Ulysses S. Grant, Ely Parker rose to the top in two worlds, that of his native Seneca Indian tribe and the white man's world at large.
1862 Feb 15, Grant launched a major assault on Fort Donelson, Tenn.
1862 Feb 16, During the Civil War, some 14,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered at Fort Donelson, Tenn. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's victory earned him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant." Nathan Bedford Forrest escaped.
1862 Apr 6, Two days of bitter fighting began at the Civil War battle of Shiloh (called Pittsburg Landing by the Confederates) as the Confederates attacked Grant's Union forces in southwestern Tennessee. Union commander Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, planning to advance on the important railway junction at Corinth, Miss., met a surprise attack by General Albert Sidney Johnston's Army of Mississippi. The Confederates pushed the Federals back steadily during the first day's fighting, in spite of Johnston's death that afternoon. Only with the arrival of Union reinforcements during the night did the tide turn, forcing the rebels to withdraw. The opposing sides slaughtered each other with such ferocity that one survivor wrote, "No blaze of glory...can ever atone for the unwritten and unutterable horrors of the scene." Gen. Ulysses Grant after the Battle of Shiloh said: "I saw an open field... so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across... in any direction, stepping on dead bodies without a foot touching the ground." More than 9,000 Americans died. The battle left some 24,000 casualties and secured the West for the Union. In 1952 Shelby Foote wrote "Shiloh," an historical novel based on documentation from participants in the battle. Recorded Books made a cassette version in 1992.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.E5)(HT, 4/97, p.13)(AP, 4/6/97)(AM, May/Jun 97 p.27)(RBI, 1992) (HN, 4/6/98)(HNPD, 4/6/99)
1862 Apr 7, Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. Gen. Ulysses Grant after the Battle of Shiloh said: "I saw an open field... so covered with dead that it would have been possible to walk across... in any direction, stepping on dead bodies without a foot touching the ground." More than 9,000 Americans died.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.E5)(HT, 4/97, p.13)(AP, 4/7/97)
1862 Nov 9, General US Grant issued orders to bar Jews from serving under him. The order was quickly rescinded.
1862 Dec 18, Grant announced the organization of his army in the West. Sherman, Hurlbut, McPherson, and McClernand would be Corps Commanders.
1863 Mar 9, U.S. Grant was appointed commander-in-chief of the Union forces.
1863 Mar 11, Union troops under General Ulysses S. Grant gave up their preparations to take Vicksburg after failing to pass Fort Pemberton, north of Vicksburg.
1863 May 17, Union General Ulysses Grant continued his push towards Vicksburg at the Battle of the Big Black River Bridge in Mississippi.
1863 May 19, Union General Ulysses S. Grant's first attack on Vicksburg, Miss., was repulsed.
1863 May 22, U.S. Grant's second attack on Vicksburg, Miss., failed and a siege began.
1863 Jul 4, General U.S. Grant's Union army captured the Confederate town of Vicksburg after a long siege during the Civil War.
(HN, 7/4/98)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1863 Jul 7, Orders barring Jews from serving under US Grant were revoked.
1863 Oct 16, Grant was given command of Union forces in West. [see Oct 17]
1863 Oct 17, General Ulysses S. Grant was named overall Union Commander of the West. [see Oct 16]
1863 Oct 19, Gen'l. Grant ordered Major Gen'l. George Thomas to replace Major Gen'l. Rosecrans and Major Gen'l. Joseph Hooker arrived at Chattanooga with 20,000 fresh Federals from Virginia.
1863 Oct 23, Gen'l. Grant arrived at Chattanooga. [see Oct 24]
1863 Oct 24, General Ulysses S. Grant arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee to find the Union Army there starving. [see Oct 23]
1864 Mar 10, Ulysses S. Grant became commander of the Union armies in the Civil War.
1864 Apr 17, General Grant banned the trading of prisoners.
1864 May 4, Ulysses S Grant crossed Rapidan and began his duel with Robert E Lee.
1864 May 5, The Battle of Wilderness began as Robert E. Lee caught U.S. Grant's forces in the Virginia woods. It was the first in a series of clashes fought as Grant's army advanced on Richmond, Va. During the close range fighting in the dense woods of Virginia, forest fires broke out, killing many wounded soldiers. While the battle ended as a tactical draw, Lee was unable to halt Grant's progress toward Richmond.
(HN, 5/5/98)(HNPD, 5/5/99)
1864 May 6, In the second day of the Battle of Wilderness between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet was wounded by his own men.
1864 May 7, In Virginia the Battle of Wilderness ended, with heavy losses to both sides.
1864 May 8-19 Grant and Lee's armies suffered horrendous losses at the "Bloody Angle" during the Battle of Spotsylvania. Shortly after the Battle of the Wilderness, Grant's Union forces once again attempted to outflank or smash Lee's Confederates. Defensive breastworks contributed to savage, close combat that lasted about a week and a half, resulting in 17,000 Union and 8,000 casualties.
(HNQ, 10//00)
1864 May 23, Union General Ulysses Grant attempted to outflank Lee in the Battle of North Anna, Virginia.
1864 Jun 18, At Petersburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant realized the town could no longer be taken by assault and settled into a siege.
1864 Jun 25, Union troops surrounding Petersburg, Virginia began building a mine tunnel underneath the Confederate lines. With the Army of Northern Virginia stubbornly clinging to Petersburg, Ulysses S. Grant decided to cut its vital rail lines.
1864 Jul 10, During the siege of Petersburg, General Ulysses S. Grant established a huge supply center, called City Point, at the confluence of the James and Appomattox rivers. After nearly 10 months of trench warfare, Confederate resistance at Petersburg, Va., suddenly collapsed. Desperate to save his army, Robert E. Lee called on his soldiers for one last miracle.
1864 Jul 31, Ulysses S. Grant was named General of Volunteers.
1864 Aug 1, Union General Ulysses S. Grant gave general Philip H. Sheridan the mission of clearing the Shenandoah Valley of Confederate forces.
1864 Sep 17, Gen. Grant approved Sheridan's plan for Shenandoah Valley Campaign. "I want it so barren that a crow, flying down it, would need to pack rations."
1865 Apr 9, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and ended the Civil War. A lifelong friend and trusted aide of Ulysses S. Grant, Seneca Indian Ely Parker was at his general's side at the surrender at Appomattox. The Union 20th Maine Infantry Unit was designated as one of the regiments to receive the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. One in four Southern men of military age died vs. one in ten for the Yankees. In 1998 Bevin Alexander published "Robert E. Lee's Civil War." In 2001 Jay Winik authored "April 1865: the Month That Saved America."
(A&IP, p.92)(AP, 4/9/97)(WSJ, 4/2/98, p.A20)(HN, 4/9/98)(WSJ, 7/24/98, p.W10)(WSJ, 4/2/01, p.A20)
1866 Jul 25, Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army, the first officer to hold the rank.
1868 May 20, The Republican National Convention met in Chicago and nominated Grant.
1868 Nov 3, Republican Ulysses S. Grant was elected 18th president. He won the election over Democrat Horatio Seymour (1810-1886), two-time governor of NY (1853-54 and 1863-64), by 27,000 votes. Seymour ran fairly close to Ulysses Grant in the popular vote, but was defeated decisively in the electoral vote by a count of 214 to 80. Grant used the 1867 typewriter phrase "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party" for his campaign.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Seymour)(AP, 11/3/97)(SFEC, 3/22/98, Z1 p.8)(WSJ, 2/17/99, p.A22)
1869 Mar 4, Ulysses S. Grant was sworn in as the 18th president of the US.
1869-1877 Ulysses S. Grant served as the 18th President of the US.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b)
1869-1921 Of the 11 U.S. presidents serving between 1869 and 1921, seven of them were born in Ohio. The presidents and their places of birth were: Ulysses S. Grant, Point Pleasant; Rutherford B. Hayes, Delaware; James A. Garfield, Orange; Benjamin Harrison, North Bend; William McKinley, Niles; William H. Taft, Cincinnati; Warren G. Harding, Morrow County. These were the only Ohio-born presidents. Three of them, Garfield, McKinley and Harding died in office.
1870 Jan 15, The Democratic party was represented as a donkey in a cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly.
1870 Mar 30, the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race, passed.
1870 Jun 22, The US Congress created the Department of Justice.
1871 Feb 28, The 2nd Enforcement Act set federal control of congressional elections.
1871 Mar, Pres. Grant sent federal troops to South Carolina to suppress violence instigated by the Ku Klux Klan.
1871 Apr 20, The US 3rd Enforcement Act, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, allowed the President to suspend writ of habeas corpus.
(http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/events/04_20)(AH, 6/03, p.31)
1871 Oct 12, President Grant ordered the South Carolina Ku Klux Klan to disperse and disarm in five days.
1871 Oct 17, President Grant suspended writ of habeas corpus in South Carolina in response to violence by the KKK. It applied to all arrests made by US marshals and federal troops in nine of the state's western counties. By the end of November some 600 arrests were made.
1872 Jan, US Attorney Gen'l. Amos T. Akerman (1821-1880), ardent prosecutor of KKK activities, resigned at the request of Pres. Grant.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_T._Akerman)(AH, 6/03, p.33)
1872 Mar 1, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a measure creating Yellowstone National Park (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming). The act of Congress creating Yellowstone National Park was based on a report from an expedition led by Ferdinand Hayden. The 2.2 million-acre preserve was the first step in a national park system. Nathaniel Pitt Langford (39) was appointed the 1st Superintendent.
(SFC, 5/19/96, Z1, p.2)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)(ON, 11/02, p.4)(PCh, 1992, p.526)(AP, 3/1/08)
1872 Jun 5, The Republican National Convention, the first major political party convention to include blacks, commenced.
1872 Nov 5, Ulysses S. Grant was re-elected US president.
1872 Nov 5, Suffragist Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in a presidential election. (She never paid the fine.) Susan B. Anthony was arrested for trying to vote. [see Jun 18, 1873]
1872 The federal government of the United States became more involved with education by granting public land to the states for the purpose of establishing agricultural and mechanical arts colleges. The initiative resulted in 68 of such land-grant colleges.
1873 Mar 4, Pres. Ulysses S. Grant accepted the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice Salmon Chase, for his 2nd term. At the inauguration ceremony 150 canaries, whose chirping was to amuse guests, froze to death in their cages.
(SFC, 1/20/09, p.A7)(www.bartleby.com/124/pres34.html)
1873 Sep 20, A financial panic hit the NY Stock Exchange when the high-flying bond dealer, Jay Cooke, granted too many loans to the railroads. Panic spread to Europe as London and Paris markets crashed and the New York Stock Exchange closed for the first time for 10 days. The economy went into a 6 year depression.
(WSJ, 2/27/95, p.A-10)(WSJ, 7/8/96, p.C1)(WSJ, 10/7/98, p.A22)(MC, 9/20/01)
1873 Pres. Grant signed an executive order that permitted Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce to live in the Wallowa Valley to perpetuity.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, Par. p.5)
1875 Mar 1, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which was invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1883.
1875 In the United States the Whiskey Ring scandal was exposed. It involved diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors. The Whiskey Ring began in St. Louis but was also organized in Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Peoria. Pres. Ulysses S. Grant appointed John Brooks Henderson as the first special prosecutor to investigate the conspiracy. Grant eventually fired Henderson for challenging Grant's interference in the prosecutions. Grant replaced Henderson with attorney James Broadhead.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Ring)
1876 Feb 8, A trial began for Pres. Ulysses S. Grant's private secretary, Gen. Orville E. Babcock. He was acquitted after 18 days of involvement in the Whiskey Ring, a conspiracy among distillers, revenue collectors, and high federal officials to avoid taxation through fraudulent reports on whiskey production. 230 indictments were secured, but no convictions were made. Grant helped Babcock secure an acquittal for his part in the ring. This affair contributed to the reputation for corruption that Grant's administrations acquired.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orville_E._Babcock)
1876 Oct 26, President Grant sent federal troops to SC.
1876 President Ulysses S. Grant authorized the funds to complete the construction of the Washington Monument, but without the ornate building and classical statue.
1879 Sep 20, Former Pres. Ulysses S. Grant arrived in San Francisco aboard the steamship City of Tokio. He was in a bad mood because a steward had just emptied a glass of water with his false teeth through a porthole.
1879 Oct 8, Former Pres. Ulysses S. Grant was treated to a reception by Nevada Senator William Sharon at the old Ralston mansion in Belmont, Ca. Grant had just finished a tour around the world.
(Ind, 7/1/00,5A)
1885 Jul 23, Ulysses S. Grant (b.1822), commander of the Union forces at the end of the Civil War and the 18th president of the United States, died in Mount McGregor, NY, at age 63. He had just completed the final revisions to his memoirs, which were published as a 2 volume set by Mark Twain. In 1928 W.E. Woodward authored "Meet General Grant," and in 1981 William S. McFreeley authored "Grant: A Biography." His tomb was placed in the largest mausoleum in the US on a bluff over the Hudson River. In 1998 Geoffrey Perret published the biography "Ulysses S. Grant: Soldier and President." In 2004 Mark Perry authored "Grant and Twain." In 2006 Edward G. Longacre authored "General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and Man." In 2011 Charles Bracelen Flood authored "Grant's Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant's Heroic Last Year."
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A7)(SFEC, 4/19/98, Par p.20)(AP, 7/23/98)(ON, p.11)(ON, 12/00, p.7)(WSJ, 5/14/04, p.W10)(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.P9)(SSFC, 12/4/11, p.F5)
Victoria Chaflin Woodhull
1838 Sep 23, Victoria Chaflin Woodhull (d.1927), feminist and the first woman presidential candidate in the United States, was born into a family of charlatans in Ohio. She was also the first woman newspaper publisher, a militant suffragist and advocated free love. She was Wall Street's first female broker after attracting Cornelius Vanderbilt and the first woman to address Congress. Her story is documented in "The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull" by Lois Beachy Underhill. In 1998 Mary Gabriel published "Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored. In 1998 Barbara Goldsmith published "Other Powers—The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull."
(WSJ, 7/25/95, p.A-10)(SFEC, 2/22/98, BR p.5)(HN, 9/23/98)(HNPD, 4/28/00)(SFEC, 3/8/98, Par p.14)
1870 Apr 2, Victoria Claflin Woodhull became the first woman to run for president of the United States when she announced her candidacy for the 1872 election, but she spent Election Day in jail for sending obscene literature through the mail. Woodhull challenged convention in Victorian-era America. Victoria and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, got their start as spiritual advisors to financier Cornelius Vanderbilt. With his backing, the sisters became the first women to open their own successful brokerage firm.
1872 May 10, Victoria Woodhull became the first woman nominated for U.S. president. Thomas Nast depicted her as "Mrs. Satan." Woodhull adhered to a diet prescribed by Sylvester Graham, known for his ginger-colored crackers. Sylvester preached against demon rum and died at age 57 after administering himself a medicinal treatment with considerable liquor.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, Par p.14-16)(SFC, 10/17/98, p.E5)(HN, 5/10/98)
#19 Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)
1822 Oct 4, Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president (R) of the United States, was born in Delaware, Ohio. Hayes was a major-general in the Civil War, then an Ohio congressman, then succeeded Grant as president (1877-81).
(AP, 10/4/97)(HN, 10/4/98)(MC, 10/3/01)
1852 Dec 30, Future U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes married Lucy Ware Webb in Cincinnati.
1876 James G. Blaine, Republican candidate for the presidency, saw his chances collapse under criticism for accepting a $100,000 fee while lobbying for railroads. The problem came up again in 1884.
1876 Nov 7, The presidential vote between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden was very close and the Florida result looked like it would determine the national outcome. In 1974 Prof. Jerrell Shofner authored "Nor Is It Over," a study of the 1876 election. In 2003 Roy Morris Jr. authored "Fraud of the Century." Louisiana was stolen for Hayes. 13,000 Tilden votes were discounted in Louisiana by a bribe-taking election board.
(WSJ, 12/11/00, p.A18)(WSJ, 2/3/03, p.D6)
1876 Nov 7, Rutherford B. Hayes was elected 19th president of the US. Because of the closeness of the race he became president only by a deal with Southern conservatives to end Federal occupation of the South, i.e. the Hayes-Tildon Compromise. Samuel J. Tilden (D) won the popular vote. Hayes carried the electoral college by one vote. Lemonade Lucy, wife of Pres. Hayes, later received the 1st Siamese cat in the US.
(HN, 11/7/99)(WSJ, 4/10/00, p.A20)(SFC, 8/5/00, p.B4)(SSFC, 10/17/04, p.M3)
1876 Dec 6, US Electoral College picked Republican Hayes as president, although Tilden won the popular election. A questionable vote count in Florida ended and Hayes was ahead by 924 votes. The Democratic attorney general validated the Tilden electors.
(WSJ, 12/11/00, p.A18)(MC, 12/6/01)
1877 Jan 1, The Florida state Supreme Court rejected a canvassing board vote count that showed Hayes in the lead by 208 votes. The Democratic legislature ordered a recount and named Mr. Tilden's electors as rightful. The matter went to the US Congress after the state Supreme Court declined to take up the case until June.
1877 Jan 25, Congress determined the presidential election between Hayes and Tilden. Tilden won the popular votes, while Hays won the electoral votes. [see Jan 29]
1877 Jan 29, A highly partisan Electoral Commission, made up of eight Republicans and seven Democrats, was established by Congress to settle the issue of Democrat Samuel Tilden for president against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. Under the terms of the Tilden-Hayes Election Compromise, Hayes became president and the Republicans agreed to remove the last Federal troops from Southern territory, ending Reconstruction. On election night, 1876, it was clear that Tilden had won the popular vote, but it was also clear that votes in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon were fraudulent because of voter intimidation. Republicans knew that if the electoral votes from these four states were thrown out, Hayes would win. The country hovered near civil war as both Democrats and Republicans claimed victory. Illustrator Thomas Nast drew his cartoon, "Tilden or Blood," showing the Democrats threatening violence.
(HNPD, 1/29/99)(PCh, 1992, p.542)
1877 Feb, A special US congressional panel awarded the Florida's electors to Rutherford B. Hayes.
1877 Mar 2, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was declared winner of the 1876 presidential election over Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote 50.1 to 47.95%.
(AP, 3/2/98)(WSJ, 12/11/00, p.A18)
http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~brixr01/theTIMEMACHINE.html
1877 Mar 3, Rutherford B. Hayes took the oath of office as the 19th president of the United States in a private ceremony. A public swearing-in took place two days later.
1877 Mar 5, Rutherford B. Hayes was inaugurated as 19th US president.
1877 Apr 24, Federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North's post-Civil War rule in the South.
1877 May 1, President Hayes ordered the withdrawal all Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.
(http://www.historycentral.com/rec/EndofRec.html)
1877 Jun 1, U.S. troops were authorized to pursue bandits into Mexico.
(DTnet, 6/1/97)(HN, 6/1/98)
1877 Jun, The Nez Perce War was fought in the northwestern US between the US and Nez Perce Indians. The First Squadron of the First Regiment, the oldest cavalry unit in the US, fought the Apaches and the Nez Perces.
(WUD, 1994, p.964)(WSJ, 12/27/95, p. A-1)
1877 Jul 17, Riots and violence erupted in several major American cities stemming from strikes against railroads in protest of wage cuts. Strikes started against the Baltimore & Ohio, and quickly spread west, with riots erupting in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Chicago and St. Louis. Nine were killed when Federal troops were sent into Martinsburg, West Virginia.
1877 Dec 31, Pres. and Mrs. Hayes celebrated their silver anniversary (technically, a day late) by re-enacting their wedding ceremony in the White House.
1877 Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes appointed John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911) of Kentucky to the Supreme Court Justice.
1877-1881 Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president (R) of the United States. Hayes refused to seek a second term.
1878 Apr 1, The 1st large-scale Easter Monday egg roll was held on White House lawn under President Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife Lucy. The egg roll has been held every year since except during the war years of WWI and WWII until 1953 when Pres. Eisenhower re-established the egg roll tradition.
(AH, 4/07, p.14)(http://tinyurl.com/ygrbvwq)
1878 Nov 12, US Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes was called upon to arbitrate a dispute between Paraguay and Argentina over the Chaco grasslands, a land area about the size of Colorado. He ruled in favor of Paraguay and became a national hero.
(WSJ, 4/10/00, p.A1,20)
1878 The Posse Comitatus Act was passed which basically said that the military cannot operate within the US.
(Wired, 8/96, p.137)
1879 Feb 15, Congress authorized women lawyers to practice before the Supreme Ct.
(440 Int'l., 2/15/99)
1879 Feb 15, President Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court.
1879 Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes had the first White House telephone installed.
1879 Congress passed a law that banned ships from bringing more than 15 Chinese passengers to the US at one time.
1880 Mar 8, President Rutherford B. Hayes declared that the United States would have jurisdiction over any canal built across the isthmus of Panama.
1880 US Pres. Rutherford Hayes lunched at the Cliff House in SF.
#20 James Garfield (1881)
1863 James Garfield was elected to Congress.
1876 James Garfield, US president assassinated in 1881, purchased his Lawnfield home in Mentor, Ohio. In 1936 the home was donated to the Western Reserve Historical Society.
1880 At the Republican national convention Pres. Grant lost his bid for a 3rd term to James Garfield after 35 ballots.
(Ind, 2/3/00, 5A)
1880 Nov 2, James A. Garfield was elected 20th president. During the Civil War, Garfield was a commander at the bloody fight at Chickamauga. The election was close, with Republican James Garfield getting 48.27% to Democrat Winfield Hancock's 48.25% and a difference of less than 2,000 votes! Garfield was shot by a disgruntled office seeker four months into his presidency.
(HN, 11/2/98)(HNQ, 11//00)
1881 Mar 4, James A. Garfield was inaugurated as 20th President.
1881 Jul 2, Less than four months after his inauguration, James Garfield, the 20th President of the US, was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau, who wished to be appointed consul to France, at the Washington railroad station. Garfield lived out the summer with a fractured spine and seemed to be gaining strength until he caught a chill and died on September 19. Guiteau was apprehended at the time of the shooting and, in spite of an insanity defense, was convicted of murder. Chester Alan Arthur became the 21st President. Guiteau was hanged in June 1882.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo,110)(HN, 7/2/98)(HNPD, 9/19/98)(AP, 7/2/07)
1881 Sep 19, The 20th president of the United States, James A. Garfield, died of wounds inflicted by assassin, Charles J. Guiteau. Alexander Graham Bell had made several unsuccessful attempts to remove the assassin's bullet with a new metal detection device.
(AP, 9/19/97)(AP, 11/14/97)(ON, 5/02, p.9)
1882 Jun 30, Charles Guiteau the assassin of President Garfield was hanged in a Washington jail.
1885 The James A. Garfield monument on Kennedy Drive in San Francisco's golden Gate Park was erected by the offerings of a "grateful people."
(SFC, 12/30/96, p.A13)(SFL)
#21 Chester Arthur (1881-1885)
1829 Oct 5, the 21st president of the United States, Chester Alan Arthur, was born in Fairfield, Vt. Some sources list 1830.
1881 Jul 2, Less than four months after his inauguration, James Garfield, the 20th President of the US, was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau, who wished to be appointed consul to France, at the Washington railroad station. Garfield lived out the summer with a fractured spine and seemed to be gaining strength until he caught a chill and died on September 19. Guiteau was apprehended at the time of the shooting and, in spite of an insanity defense, was convicted of murder. Chester Alan Arthur became the 21st President.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo,110)(WUD, 1994, p.85)(AP, 7/2/97)(HN, 7/2/98) (HNPD, 9/19/98)
1881 Sep 20, Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as the 21st president of the United States, succeeding James A. Garfield, who had been assassinated.
1881-1885 Chester A. Arthur, Vice-President under Garfield, served as the 21st President of the US.
1882 Mar 16, US Pres. Chester Arthur signed the Treaty of Geneva following the Senate's ratification of the treaty. The US thus joined the Int'l. Red Cross.
1882 Mar 22, US Congress outlawed polygamy. The Edmunds-Tucker Act was adopted by the US to suppress polygamy in the territories. [see Morrill Act 1862] President Chester Arthur signed a measure outlawing polygamy.
(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.39)(AP, 3/22/08)
1882 May 6, Over President Arthur's veto, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from the United States for 10 years. It was amended and passed by Congress on August 3 and was signed by Pres. Arthur. Renewals and amendments continued to 1904. The laws were repealed in 1943. In 2011 the US Senate passed a resolution expressing regret for the act.
(AP, 5/6/97)(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h739.html)(SFC, 10/11/11, p.C1)
1882 Aug 3, US Congress passed the 1st Immigration Act. The amended act banned Chinese immigration for ten years. The Chinese Exclusion Act barred laborers from China and halted a massive immigration of Cantonese peasants. [see 1882-1943]
(HN, 8/3/98)(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h739.html)
1882 Pres. Chester Arthur approved new borders for the Hopi reservation, a 1.6 million-acre site in the center of 17 million acres of Navajo land in the 4 Corners area of the Southwest. A 3,863 sq. mile area was set up as a Hopi reservation. The intent was to keep Mormon settlers away from Hopi pueblos. The Hopi Reservation was formed on territory historically used by both Hopi and Navajo.
(SFC, 12/28/96, p.A4)(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A26)(SFEC, 5/4/97, z1 p.4)
1882 US Pres. Chester Arthur (1829-1886) was diagnosed with terminal kidney disease. Only his doctors knew and his fatigue was commonly mistaken for executive laziness.
1883 May 24, The Brooklyn Bridge, hailed as the "eighth wonder of the world," was dedicated by President Chester Arthur and New York Gov. Grover Cleveland, and officially opened to traffic. The suspension bridge linking the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn became a symbol of America's progress and ingenuity. The bridge has a span of 1,595 feet with 16-inch steel wire suspension cables fastened to Gothic-style arches 276 feet tall. Civil engineer John Augustus Roebling, inventor of the steel wire cable and designer of the bridge, was killed in a construction accident at the outset of construction in 1869. His son and partner, Washington A. Roebling, supervised the project to its completion in spite of a debilitating illness. 20 men died during construction and many suffered from caisson disease, later known as the bends, while working in pressurized air chambers under the river.
(HNPD, 5/23/99)(ON, 4/01, p.9)(AP, 5/24/08)
1886 Nov 18, Chester A. Arthur (56), 21st president of the United States (1881-1885), died in New York.
#22 Stephen Grover Cleveland, 1st term (1885-1889)
1837 Mar 18, Stephen Grover Cleveland , was born Caldwell, N.J. He was the 22nd (1885-1889) and 24th (1893-1897) president of the United States, the only President elected for two nonconsecutive terms.
1864 Grover Cleveland, a lawyer and politician in Buffalo, New York, dodged the draft by provided a substitute when he was drafted. Andrew Johnson was a brigadier general of volunteers before becoming a military governor and then vice president. James Garfield began as a lieutenant colonel and rose to become a major general before resigning upon being elected to Congress in 1863. Benjamin Harrison started as a second lieutenant in the 70th Indiana eventually mustering out as a brevet brigadier general in 1865. William McKinley enlisted as a private in 1861 and was mustered out a brevet major four years later.
1884 Nov 4, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected to his first term as president, defeating Republican James G. Blaine. The reference to the Democratic party as the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" played a large part in Republican candidate James Blaine's defeat in the election of 1884. The indiscreet reference made by one of Blaine's supporters has been credited with causing the Blaine's loss of the crucial state of New York. Blaine lost the popular vote by less than 100,000 and lost New York by just 1,149, out of a total vote of 1,125,000 cast, to Grover Cleveland, the first Democrat since Buchanan to win a presidential election. Cleveland won by a margin of 30,000 votes.
(AP, 11/4/97)(HNQ, 9/13/99)(SFEC, 4/23/00, Z1 p.2)
1884 Prior to his first election to the presidency in 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland, then a bachelor, admitted that Republican charges accusing him of fathering a child as a young man in Buffalo were true. His honesty helped to calm the issue, despite the popular campaign chant against him:
"Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!" Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the White House in 1886. He lost a reelection bid in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison, even though he won the popular vote, but regained the White House in 1892 to serve a second term as the 24th president.
1885 Mar 4, Grover Cleveland was inaugurated as 1st Democratic President since Civil War.
1885-1889 Grover Cleveland served as the 22nd President of the US.
1886 Feb 9, President Cleveland declared a state of emergency in Seattle because of anti-Chinese violence.
1886 Jun 2, President Cleveland married Frances Folsom in a White House ceremony. Cleveland's bride, Frances Folsom, was the 22-year-old daughter of Cleveland's late law partner and friend, Oscar Folsom. The intimate wedding ceremony took place in the White House Blue Room with fewer than 40 people present.(To date, Cleveland is the only president to marry in the Executive Mansion while in office.)
(AP, 6/2/97)(WSJ, 9/23/97, p.A1)(HNQ, 6/2/98)
1889 Feb 22, President Cleveland signed a bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana and Washington state to the Union. The "omnibus bill" was an act dividing the Dakota Territory into the states of North and South Dakota, and enabling the two Dakotas to formulate constitutions. A constitutional convention was held at Bismarck beginning July 4, 1889. A constitution was formulated and submitted to a vote of the people of the State of North Dakota on October 1, 1889, and was adopted.
(AP, 2/22/99)(www.court.state.nd.us/court/history/dakotaterritory.htm)
#23 Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)
1833 Aug 20, Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States and grandson of President William Henry Harrison, was born in North Bend, Ohio.
1858 Apr 30, Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, Pres. B. Harrison's first lady, was born.
1888 Nov 6, Benjamin Harrison of Indiana won the presidential election, beating incumbent Grover Cleveland on electoral votes, 233-168, although Cleveland led in the popular vote. Tammany Hall helped carry new York for the GOP.
(AP, 11/6/97)(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A26)
1889 Mar 4, Benjamin Harrison was inaugurated as 23rd President.
1889 Mar 23, President Harrison opened Oklahoma for white colonization.
1891 Apr 25, Pres. Benjamin Harrison visited SF.
1901 Mar 13, Benjamin Harrison (67), 23rd president of the United States (1889-1893), died in Indianapolis.
(AP, 3/13/97)(BG, 3/13/16, p.B6)
#24 Stephen Grover Cleveland, 2nd term (1893-1897)
1892 Nov 8, Former US President Grover Cleveland beat incumbent Benjamin Harrison and became the first (and, to date, only) president to win non-consecutive terms in the White House. The candidate of the people's Party carried five states on a platform of support for farmers and abandoning the gold standard.
(AP, 11/8/97)(Econ 7/1/17, SR p.8)
1893 Jan 4, US president Cleveland granted amnesty to Mormon polygamists.
1893 Mar 4, Grover Cleveland (D) was inaugurated as 24th US President (2nd term).
1893 Sep 9, Frances Cleveland, wife of President Cleveland, gave birth to a daughter, Esther, in the White House. It was the first time a president's child was born in the executive mansion.
1893-1897 Grover Cleveland became the 24th President of the US.
1893-1897 Adlai Ewing Stevenson (D) served as 23rd VP.
1897 Mar 2, President Cleveland vetoed legislation that would have required a literacy test for immigrants.
1897 Pres. Grover Cleveland established a forest reserve in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state with sharp restrictions on commercial logging. 3 years later McKinley remanded a third of the reserve back to open logging.
1908 Jun 24, The 22nd and 24th president (1893-1897) of the United States, Grover Cleveland, died in Princeton, N.J., at age 71. In 1988 Richard E. Welch authored "The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland."
(SFEC, 1/12/97, Z 3 p.4)(AP, 6/24/97)(ON, 10/99, p.12)
1947 Oct 29, Former first lady Frances Cleveland Preston died in Baltimore at age 83.
#25 William McKinley
1843 Jan 29, William McKinley (d.1901), the 25th president of the United States, was born in Niles, Ohio. McKinley was the last Civil War veteran to serve as President of the United States. He had served with the 23rd Regiment, Ohio Volunteers, eventually rising to the rank of brevet major. He saw action at South Mountain, Antietam, Winchester and Cedar Creek. For a time he served on Rutherford B. Hayes' staff. McKinley was elected the 25th president in 1896. He led the country in the Spanish-American War. He died in Buffalo, New York, on September 14, 1901, after being shot by an anarchist assassin on Sep 6.
1896 Nov 3, Republican William McKinley was elected 25th president. He defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan for the presidency. McKinley and Garret Hobart supported the gold standard while The Democrats supported the free coinage of silver. Marcus Hanna, an Ohio industrialist, led the fund-raising for McKinley and personally underwrote the cost of winning this 1st modern presidential campaign. In 1929 Thomas Beer authored a biography of Hanna.
(AP, 11/3/97)(SFC, 10/28/98, Z1 p.7)(HN, 11/3/98)(WSJ, 3/24/04, p.B1)
President William McKinley: "I do not prize the word cheap. It is not a badge of honor ... it is a symbol of despair. Cheap prices make for cheap goods; cheap goods make for cheap men; and cheap men make for a cheap country!" Memorial platters were made with his final words: "It is God's way, his will be done."
(AP, 10/16/97)(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)
1897 Mar 4, William McKinley was sworn in as the 25th president.
1898 Apr 20, President McKinley signed a congressional resolution recognizing Cuban independence from Spain. He signed the Joint Resolution for War with Spain that authorized U.S. military intervention to Cuban independence. The US thus hijacked the independence rebellion in Cuba started by Jose Marti in 1995.
(AP, 4/20/97)(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A19)(Econ, 12/3/16, p.19)
1899 Jan 20, President William McKinley appointed a Philippine Commission led by Jacob G. Schurman, president of Cornell University, to study the situation in the island and to submit a report to serve as a basis for setting up a civil government. The commission issued findings in June suggesting the ultimate independence for the islands but, for an indefinite period continued U.S. rule.
1899 Mar 2, President McKinley signed a measure creating the rank of Admiral of the Navy for Adm. George Dewey.
(AP, 3/299)
1899 Nov 21, Vice President Garret A. Hobart, serving under President McKinley, died in Paterson, N.J., at age 55.
1900 Feb 6, President McKinley appointed W.H. Taft commissioner to report on the Philippines.
1900 Mar 19, President McKinley asserted the need for free trade with Puerto Rico.
1900 May 25, President William McKinley signed the Lacey Act, 16 U.S.C. § 3371–3378, to defend fauna from poachers. It banned the illegal commercial transportation of wildlife. The conservation law was introduced by Iowa Rep. John F. Lacey. It has been amended several times. The most significant times were in 1969, 1981, and in 1989.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_Act)
1900 Nov 6, President McKinley was re-elected, beating Democrat William Jennings Bryan.
1901 Mar 4, William McKinley was inaugurated president for the second time. Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated as vice president. The team ran on the issue of keeping the Philippines as a colony.
1901 Sep 6, At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, anarchist Leon Czolgosz (28) made his way along a reception line filing past President William McKinley. Concealed within a handkerchief, Czolgosz held a .32-caliber revolver. As he came face to face with the president, he fired two shots through the handkerchief, striking McKinley in the chest and the abdomen. McKinley died eight days after the shooting and became the third American president assassinated. He was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. Czolgosz, explaining that he "thought it would be a good thing for the country to kill the President," was put to death by electrocution 45 days later. Emma Goldman was one of the people blamed for the assassination.
(AP, 9/6/97)(Hem, Dec. 94, p.70) (WSJ, 5/17/95, p.A-18) (WSJ, 12/11/95, p.A-1)(HNPD, 9/6/98)(HN, 9/6/98)
1904 Feb 15, Mark Hanna (b.1837), American businessman and Republican politician, died in Washington, DC. He served as a United States Senator from Ohio. A friend and political ally of President William McKinley, Hanna used his wealth and business skills to successfully manage McKinley's presidential campaigns in 1896 and 1900.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hanna)
1904 In San Francisco an allegorical sculpture honoring Pres. McKinley showed a figure holding a palm branch in one hand and a sword in the other was erected in Golden Gate Park.
#26 Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)
1858 Oct 27, Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States (1901-1909) who was the namesake of the "Teddy" bear, was born in New York City in a townhouse at 28 East 20th Street. Today a reconstruction of the house is a National Historic Site and open to the public. The 26th president of the U.S., Roosevelt died on January 6, 1919. He wrote the 4-volume "The Winning of the West." In 1996 The American Experience series broadcast a 4-hr. TV special that covered his life. His pursuit of boxing left him blind in one eye. He put 230 million acres of land under federal protection. "Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one."
(WSJ, 9/30/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/4/96, p.C13)(AP, 10/27/97)(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A20)(HN, 10/27/98)(HNQ, 11/18/98) (AP, 4/22/99)
1858 Oct 27, Theodore Roosevelt's words, "The only one who makes no mistakes is one who never does anything," were inscribed on the New York City home where he was born. The Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site is located at 28 E. 20th Street in Manhattan, www.nps.gov/thrb.
1878 Oct, Theodore Roosevelt first saw his future wife, Alice Hathaway (1861-1884).
1878-1884 Theodore Roosevelt maintained a diary over this period.
1880 Oct 27, Theodore Roosevelt (22) married his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee.
1882 Theodore Roosevelt described Thomas Jefferson as "perhaps the most incapable executive that ever filled the presidential chair." Roosevelt added, "It would be difficult to imagine a man less fit to guide a state with honor and safety through the stormy times that marked the opening of the present century."
1895-1897 Teddy Roosevelt served as the head of the NYC board of Police commissioners.
(WSJ, 8/2100, p.A16)
1896 Feb, Teddy Roosevelt, Police Commissioner of NYC, closed all the police lodging houses on the advice of Jacob A. Riis (1849-1914), Danish-born author and photographer.
1897 Teddy Roosevelt, the police commissioner of NYC, was appointed assistant secretary of war under Pres. William McKinley, after Col. Frederick Grant, son of Ulysses S. Grant, turned down the position. In 2012 Richard Zacks authored "Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York."
(SSFC, 4/8/12, p.F3)
1898 Jun 22, Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt and Col. Leonard Wood led the Rough Riders, a volunteer cavalry regiment, onto the beach at Daiquiri in the Spanish American War.
1901 Sep 2, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair.
1901-1909 Theodore Roosevelt (b. Oct 27, 1858) served as the 26th President of the US. He had been elected Vice-President under McKinley's 2nd term. His "Gunboat Diplomacy" was used to exert US influence and deter Europeans from the Americas.
(AP, 10/27/97)(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/3/04, p.A12)
1902 May 12, Over 100,000 miners in northeastern Pennsylvania called a strike and kept the mines closed all summer. Owners refused arbitration and Pres. Roosevelt intervened. [see Oct 3]
(LCTH, 10/3/99)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1902 May 20, The United States ended its three-year military presence in Cuba as the Republic of Cuba was established under its first elected president, Tomas Estrada Palma. Theodore Roosevelt had criticized the government's sluggish withdrawal of disease-stricken US troops from Cuba.
(HN, 5/20/98)(WSJ, 11/13/98, p.A1)(AP, 5/20/02)
1902 Aug 22, President Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. chief executive to ride in an automobile, in Hartford, Conn.
1902 Oct 3, President Theodore Roosevelt met with miners and coal field operators in an attempt to settle the anthracite coal strike, then in its fifth month. The country relied on coal to power commerce and industry and anthracite or "hard coal" was essential for domestic heating. Pennsylvania miners had left the anthracite fields demanding wage increases, union recognition, and an eight-hour workday. As winter approached, public anxiety about fuel shortages and the rising cost of all coal pushed Roosevelt to take unprecedented action. A presidential commission awarded the workers a 10% wage increase and a shorter work week. [see May 12]
1902 Nov 16, A cartoon appeared in the Washington Star, prompting the Teddy Bear Craze, after President Teddy Roosevelt refused to kill a captive bear tied up for him to shoot during a hunting trip to Mississippi.
1902 President Theodore Roosevelt said he would intervene in a coal strike: "I knew that this action would form an evil precedent, and that it was one which I should take most reluctantly." The strike settled without intervention.
1903 Mar 3, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Immigration Act of 1903, one day after its passage in Congress.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1903)
1903 May 14, The Dewey Memorial in Union Square, San Francisco, was dedicated by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt. Robert Aitken sculpted the 12-foot statue of Victory that stood atop an 83-foot column. Alma de Bretteville, later Alma Spreckels, had posed as the model. Sugar magnate Adolph Spreckels was so taken with the model that he married her.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Monument)(SSFC, 5/11/03, p.D1)(SFC, 1/9/16, p.C4)
1903 May 15, President Theodore Roosevelt and naturalist John Muir began a 3-day camping trip in Yosemite National Park.
(http://tinyurl.com/m2htr2s)Econ, 12/24/16, p.101)
1904 Feb 11, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed strict neutrality for the U.S. in the Russo-Japanese War.
1904 Apr 30, At 1:06 p.m. President Theodore Roosevelt officially opened the St. Louis World's Fair commemorating the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase.
(HN, 5/2/98)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)(SFC, 6/24/00, p.B3)
1904 Nov 8, Theodore Roosevelt (R) defeated Alton B. Parker (D) in US presidential elections. Roosevelt had succeeded the assassinated William McKinley.
1904 Dec 6, Theodore Roosevelt confirmed the Monroe-doctrine (Roosevelt Corollary).
1905 Mar 4, The inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt.
(http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~brixr01/theTIMEMACHINE.html)
1905 Jul 29, US Secretary of War William Howard Taft, under the approval of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, and PM of Japan Katsura Taro signed the Taft-Katsura Agreement, which reinforced American and Japanese influence and spelled doom for Korean sovereignty. Japan agreed not to interfere in the ongoing US rape of the Philippines in return for the US agreement not to interfere with Japan's forthcoming rape of Korea.
(AH, 10/07, p.56)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taft-Katsura_Agreement)
1905 Teddy Roosevelt established the million-acre Siskiyou Forest Reserve in Oregon.
1905 East Coasters including Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie and Frederic Remington set up the American Bison Society. In 1907 they sent 15 animals by rail to the new Wichita Bison Refuge in Oklahoma. The society met for the last time in 1935. The society was revitalized in 2005 to secure the ecological future of the animal. In 2009 Steven Rinella authored "American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon."
1905 In SF a reform movement began led by former mayor James Phelan and Fremont Older, editor of the San Francisco Bulletin. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt sent special prosecutor Francis Heney to investigate graft in SF.
(SSFC, 4/15/07, p.B5)
1906 Mar 11, The Simplified Spelling Board was announced with Andrew Carnegie funding the organization, to be headquartered in New York City. In August Pres. Theodore Roosevelt issued an executive order mandating simplified spelling in all government administrative documents.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Spelling_Board)
1906 Mar 17, President Theodore Roosevelt first likened crusading journalists to a man with "the muck-rake in his hand" in a speech to the Gridiron Club in Washington, DC, as he criticized what he saw as the excesses of investigative journalism.
(AP, 3/17/06)(www.gwu.edu/~smpa/faculty/documents/Harvard.pdf)
1906 May 26, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt approved the US Congress chartered the Archaeological Institute of America.
(www.archaeological.org/pdfs/AIA_Congressional_CharterA5S.pdf)
1906 Jun 8, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt signed the American Antiquities Act, first proposed in 1882. It was used to set aside American resources by executive order. Roosevelt had urged the passage of the Antiquities Act to allow the president to designate areas of scientific, historic or archeological significance as national monuments without the approval of Congress.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquities_Act)(Arch, 1/06, p.4)
1906 Jun 29, The US Congress enacted the Hepburn Act, which prohibited railroads from offering discounted rates to large shippers and authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to set maximum freight charges for railroads. Pres. Roosevelt had personally appealed for its passage.
(AH, 6/07, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_Act)
1906 Nov 9, President Theodore Roosevelt left Washington D.C. for a 17 day trip to Panama and Puerto Rico, becoming the first president to make an official visit outside of the US. His trip popularized the Panama hat, a product actually made in Ecuador and shipped since the 1840s to prospective gold diggers in Panama. The toquilla straw hats had been made in Ecuador as long ago as the 17th century.
(HN, 11/9/98)(Econ, 7/19/14, p.33)
1906 Nov 21, In San Juan, President Theodore Roosevelt pledged citizenship for Puerto Rican people.
1906 Dec 12, US Pres. Theodore Roosevelt nominated Oscar Straus to be secretary of commerce and labor; Straus became the first Jewish Cabinet member.
1906 US colleges set up the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the behest of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt.
1907 Jan 1, President Theodore Roosevelt shook a record 8,513 hands in 1 day.
1907 Feb 20, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt signed an immigration act which excluded "idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons" from being admitted to the US.
1907 Feb 26, Members of US Congress raised their own salaries to $7500.
1907 Mar 14, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order designed to prevent Japanese laborers from immigrating to the United States as part of a "gentlemen's agreement" with Japan.
1907 Oct 22, President Theodore Roosevelt visited The Hermitage, the Nashville, Tenn., home of the late President Andrew Jackson. Years later, Maxwell House claimed that Roosevelt had praised a cup of its coffee during this visit by saying it was "good to the last drop."
1908 Jan, Pres. Theodore Roosevelt created Pinnacles National Monument in California. The area was expanded in 2000 for the 7th time and covered 24,000 acres in San Benito and Monterey counties.
1908 Pres. Teddy Roosevelt criticized the courts for interpreting the Sherman Antitrust Act narrowly, and urged more federal supervision of corporations.
1908 Pres. Theodore Roosevelt established the Lower Klamath Refuge in northern California and southern Oregon as the nation's first preserve set aside for waterfowl.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Klamath_National_Wildlife_Refuge)(SFC, 4/21/12, p.A10)
1909 Feb 28, President Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to visit the Austrian embassy.
1909 Mar 23, Theodore Roosevelt began an African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
1909 Pres. Theodore Roosevelt established the Farallon Islands, 28 miles off the coast of San Francisco, as a wildlife refuge.
1909 Under Pres. Theodore Roosevelt two Calaveras groves of Redwood trees in California were purchased by the federal government to prevent them being logged. The area was declared a state park in 1931.
(http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/ocj/vol1909/iss4/9/)(Econ, 12/24/16, p.101)
1910 Feb 11, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Eleanor Alexander announced their wedding date--June 20, 1910. President Theodore Roosevelt signed a bill creating Mesa Verde National Park.
1910 Mar 21, The U.S. Senate granted ex-President Teddy Roosevelt a pension of $10,000 yearly.
1910 Aug 20-1910 Aug 21, The Great Idaho Fire killed 86 people and destroyed some 3 million acres of timber in Idaho, Montana and Washington. In 2009 Timothy Egan authored "The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Save America."
(http://www.idahoforests.org/fires.htm)(SFC, 12/1/09, p.E8)
1910 Aug 31, Theodore Roosevelt laid out his progressive philosophy as he delivered the "New Nationalism" speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, effecting a split in the Republican Party. The speech was interpreted as an assault upon the conservatism of the Taft administration. In the speech, Roosevelt proclaimed that the New Nationalism "maintains that every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it." He also warned that America's industrial economy had been taken over by a handful of corporate giants garnering wealth for a small number of people.
(HNQ, 12/22/99)(Econ, 10/13/12, p.23)(Econ, 9/17/16, SR p.3)
1911 Mar 18, Theodore Roosevelt opened the Roosevelt Dam in Phoenix, Ariz., the largest dam in the U.S. to date.
1912 Aug 7, The Progressive Party (Bull Moose Party) nominated Theodore Roosevelt for president. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt had stormed the Republican convention but failed to wrest the nomination from William Howard Taft. He then founded his own, short-lived, Progressive Party. The party split allowed Taft to win the election.
(WSJ, 6/5/96, p.A12)(AP, 8/7/97)(SFEC, 3/5/00, p.D8)
1912 Nov 5, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected the 28th president, defeating Progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt and incumbent Republican William Howard Taft. Wilson had served as the president of Princeton Univ. California's Gov. Hiram Johnson was the running mate for former Pres. Theodore Roosevelt on a Progressive Party platform that included a universal system of social insurance to protect all Americans from the "hazards of sickness." In 2004 James Chace authored "1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs – The election that Changed the Country.
(I&I, Penzias, p.216)(AP, 11/5/97)(HN, 11/5/98)(WSJ, 2/8/99, p.A21)(WSJ, 5/11/04, p.D12)(SFC, 12/11/17, p.A10)
1914 Feb, In Brazil a 22-man party, that included former Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, started down the Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt) in the Amazon Basin for a 2-month adventure. In 2005 Candice Millard authored "The River of Doubt" Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey."
1915 Oct 12, Former President Theodore Roosevelt criticized the concept of "hyphenated Americanism," referring to U.S. citizens who identified themselves by dual nationalities.
1919 Jan 6, The 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, died in Oyster Bay, N.Y., at age 60. "Put out the light" were his last words. In 1920 his autobiography was published by Scribner. In 1997 H.W. Brands published the biography: "T.R.: The Last Romantic." Around 1954 Carleton Putnam (d.1998), dropped his position as chairman of Delta Airlines and wrote the biography: "Theodore Roosevelt", that covered the first 28 years of Roosevelt's life. Theodore Roosevelt coined the term "Good to the last drop," used by Maxwell House Coffee. The original Maxwell House hotel was in Nashville, Tenn. In 1980 Edmund Morris authored the Pulitzer Prize winning Vol 1: "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt." In 1997 "T.R. The Last Romantic" by H.W. Brands was published. In 2001 Edmund Morris authored Vol 2: "Theodore Rex." In 2004 the Library of America published "Theodore Roosevelt: Letters and Speeches; The rough Riders, an Autobiography."
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A20)(AP, 1/6/98)(SFC, 3/17/98, p.A20)(SFC, 6/27/98, p.E4)(WSJ, 9/27/99, p.A32)(ON, 12/99, p.12)(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A16)(SFC, 10/21/04, p.E1)
2013 Doris Kearns Goodwin authored "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of Journalism."
#27 William Howard Taft (1909-1913)
1857 Sep 15, William Howard Taft (72), 27th president of the United States (1909-1913), was born in Cincinnati.
(AP, 3/8/98)(HNQ, 12/10/98)(MC, 3/8/02)
1908 May, Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party candidate for president in the US, began his national campaign in the courthouse square of Girard, Kansas. The town was the home of the national socialist newspaper "Appeal to Reason" edited by J.A. Wayland.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-16)
1908 Nov 3, Republican William Howard Taft was elected the 27th president, outpolling William Jennings Bryan. James Sherman was the VP.
(AP, 11/3/97)(HN, 11/3/98)(SFC, 10/1/99, p.B6)
1909 Mar 4, President Taft was inaugurated as 27th President during a 10" snowstorm.
1909 Jun 1, Pres. William Howard Taft touched a key in Washington, DC, sending a signal to Seattle, opening the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Expo at the Seattle World's Fair, as well as a signal to NYC initialing the New York to Seattle Automobile Race.
1909 Oct 6, Pres. William Taft visited San Francisco.
(SSFC, 10/4/09, p.50)
1909 Dec 1, President Taft severed official relations with Nicaragua's Zelaya government, and declared support for the revolutionaries.
1909-1913 William Howard Taft became the 27th President of the US.
1910 Apr 14, President William Howard Taft began a sports tradition by throwing out the first pitch on baseball's Opening Day. Taft threw to Washington Senator pitcher Walter Johnson, who went on to hurl a shutout win, allowing the Philadelphia Phillies just one hit and ending the day with a 3-0 victory for Washington.
1910 Nov 8, Democrats prevailed in congressional elections for the first time since 1894.
1911 Aug 22, President William Taft vetoed a joint resolution of Congress granting statehood to Arizona. Taft vetoed the resolution because he believed a provision in the state constitution authorizing the recall of judges was a blow at the independence of the judiciary. The offending clause was removed an Arizona was admitted to statehood on February 14, 1912. Afterward, the state restored the article in its constitution.
1911 May 23, The NY Public Library building at 5th Avenue was dedicated by Pres. Taft.
1912 Apr 22, At the urging of Pres. Taft the Chamber of Commerce of the USA was established at a Washington hotel by a gathering of 700 delegates from 44 states. The represented 324 voluntary organizations.
1913 Feb 25, The 16th Amendment to the constitution was adopted, setting the legal basis for the income tax. The amendment, proposed by Congress at the urging of Pres. Taft, established a corporate tax. Churches and other religious organizations were exempted from federal taxation. Cordell Hull, author of the Revenue Act of 1913, said: "Of course any kind of society or corporation that is not doing business for profit and not acquiring profit would not come within the meaning of the taxing clause."
(HN, 2/25/98)(WSJ, 3/11/98, p.A20)(AH, 4/07, p.31)(http://tinyurl.com/yg2j694)
1921 Jun 30, President Harding nominated former President Taft chief justice of the United States, to succeed the late Edward Douglass White. Republican William Howard Taft (72), 27th president of the United States (1909-1913), served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1921 until illness forced him to resign in 1930.
1930 Mar 8, William Howard Taft (72), 27th president of the United States (1909-1913), died in Washington. In addition to John F. Kennedy, William Howard Taft is the only other U.S. president buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Born in Cincinnati on September 15, 1857, Taft was the 27th president, serving from 1909 to 1913. He later served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1921 until illness forced him to resign in 1930.
(AP, 3/8/98)(HNQ, 12/10/98)
1930 Mar 11, Former President and Chief Justice Taft was the first U.S. president to be buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington, Va.
#28 Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)
1854 Mar 14, Thomas Riley Marshall, 28th U.S. Vice President (Woodrow Wilson), was born.
1856 Dec 28, Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States (1912-1921), who brought the country into World War I, was born in Staunton, Va. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919. "The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation."
(AP, 12/28/97)(HN, 12/28/98)(AP, 7/2/99)(MC, 12/28/01)
1913 Mar 4, Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as 28th President.
1913 Mar 15, President Wilson met with reporters for what's been described as the first presidential press conference. Some sources say Wilson's first actual press conference was a week later.
1913 Oct 3, A 1% US federal income tax was signed into law by Pres. Wilson. The law spared interest of any kind, including home-mortgage interest.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1913)(Econ, 2/4/12, p.86)
1913 Dec 2, Woodrow Wilson re-established the tradition of delivering the US state of the union address in person. He was the first to do so since John Adams in 1800.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_State_of_the_Union_Address)(Econ, 1/24/15, p.22)
1913 Dec 23, The Federal Reserve Act was signed by Pres. Woodrow Wilson. The Owen-Glass Act established the decentralized, government-controlled banking system in the U.S. known as the Federal Reserve. It repealed the gold standard and replaced it with a system that ensured that the US dollar would be a better store of value than gold. The act guarded against inflation but allowed deflation. It was the first thorough reorganization of the national banking system since the Civil War. The goal was to strive for maximum employment and price stability
(Wired, 10/96, p.142)(WSJ, 3/7/97, p.A14)(HNQ, 10/16/99)(SSFC, 11/28/04, p.D1)
1913-1921 Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the US. Thomas Riley Marshall served as vice-president.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(NW, 12/17/01, p.51)
1914 May 7, Woodrow Wilson's daughter Eleanor married in the White House.
1914 May 9, Pres. Wilson proclaimed Mother's Day.
1914 Aug 6, Ellen Louise Wilson, the first wife of the twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson, died of Barite's disease.
1914 Oct 15, Congress passed President Wilson signed the Clayton Anti-Trust Act, which labor leader Samuel Gompers called "labor's charter of freedom." It strengthened previous anti-monopoly legislation. The act exempted unions from anti-trust laws; strikes, picketing and boycotting became legal; corporate interlocking directorates became illegal, as did setting prices which would effect a monopoly.
(SFC, 7/8/96, p.D2)(HN, 10/15/98)(AP, 10/15/08)
1915 Jan 26, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Rocky Mountain National Park Act. The 415 square miles park, northwest of Denver, was created following a decade of lobbying by photographer and naturalist Enos Mills. During its first year the park drew some 31,000 visitors.
(http://home.nps.gov/romo/historyculture/upload/chapter2.pdf)(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A2)(SFC, 1/26/15, p.A5)
1915 Jan 28, Pres. Wilson refused to prohibit the immigration of illiterates.
1915 Feb 10, President Wilson blasted the British for using the U.S. flag on merchant ships to deceive the Germans. He also warned the Kaiser that he would hold Germany "to a strict accountability" for U.S. lives and property endangered. In Europe [Lithuania], the Germans encircled and captured 100,000 Russians near Nieman River. When the United States entered World War I, propagandist George Creel set out to stifle anti-war sentiment.
1915 Feb 20, President Wilson opened the Panama-Pacific Expo in San Francisco to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. A 20-acre salt marsh was paved over at Crissey Field for the Expo. It was held on what later became the Marina District and 300,000 people attended opening day. The fair was crowned by a 43-story Tower of Jewels decorated with cut glass. Herb Caen later claimed to have been conceived during the expo. A 40-ton organ with 7,000 pipes played the "Hallelujah Chorus." It was made by the Austin Organs Co. of Hartford, Conn. After the fair it was moved to the Civic Auditorium and used for 7 decades until the 1989 earthquake damaged it.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p.A1)(SFC, 10/4/96, p.A22)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.W4)(SSFC, 2/15/15, p.p4)
1915 Dec 18, President Wilson, widowed the year before, married Edith Bolling Galt at her Washington home.
1916 Jan 27, President Woodrow Wilson opened a preparedness program.
1916 Jan 28, Louis D. Brandeis was appointed by President Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming its first Jewish member.
1916 Mar 10, US President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing to pursue and capture Pancho Villa, following Villa's raid in New Mexico.
1916 Nov 7, President Woodrow Wilson was re-elected over Charles Evans Hughes, but the race was so close that all votes had to be counted before an outcome could be determined, so the results were not known until November 11. President Woodrow Wilson was elected for a second term largely because he had successfully kept America out of the war that was raging in Europe since 1914. His campaign slogan was: "He kept us out of the war." Wilson beat Charles Evans Hughes, a former Supreme Court Justice with an electoral college vote of 277-254. Wilson's victory in California, 13 electoral votes, by 3,773 votes gave him 277 electoral votes to 254 for Hughes. Wilson carried the popular vote 9.1 million to 8.5 for Hughes.
(HN, 11/7/98)(HNPD, 2/24/99)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A21)(SFEC, 10/29/00, p.A1) (SFC, 11/10/00, p.A3)
1916 Pres. Woodrow Wilson put a Maine Park under federal protection and dubbed it Sieur de Monts National Monument.
1916 The 1915 film "Birth of a Nation" was shown to Pres. Woodrow Wilson, the first motion picture shown in the White House.
1916 Pres. Woodrow Wilson signed the Harrison Drug Act. It required all persons licensed to sell narcotics to file an inventory of their stocks with the IRS. It outlawed the use of cocaine, which had been a key ingredient in many patent medicines. [2nd source says the act was created in 1914]
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1 p.2)(SFC, 10/4/97, p.E3)
1916 Pres. Wilson signed the federal estate tax into law. It was a levy on the transfer of large fortunes between generations. In 2006 Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro authored "Death by a Thousand Cuts," a unique portrait of American politics as viewed through the lens of the death tax repeal saga.
(WSJ, 7/13/00, p.A1)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.25)
1917 Feb 19, American troops were recalled from the Mexican border. When the United States entered World War I, propagandist George Creel set out to stifle anti-war sentiment. Pres. Wilson, following his 1916 re-election, had asked the NY publicist to design a public relations campaign to swing the country's interests to support Britain and France.
(HN, 2/19/98)(AH, 6/07, p.46)
1917 Mar 8, The US Senate voted to limit filibusters by adopting Rule XXII, the cloture rule, introduced at the urging of Pres. Wilson. The Senate had operated without a cloture rule since 1806. The rule required a 2/3 vote. In 1975 it amended to a 3/5 vote.
(AP, 3/8/98)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.30)(Econ, 2/20/10, p.24)(Econ, 4/8/17, p.25)
1917 Apr 2, At 8:30 p.m. President Woodrow Wilson, delivered his message before a joint session of Congress and recommended that a state of war be declared between the United States and the imperial German government. Realizing that the war looming ahead would be a costly one, Wilson said, "the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured…" and "The world must be made safe for democracy."
(AP, 4/2/97)(HN, 4/2/98)(HNPD, 4/2/99)
1917 Aug 10, The US Congress passed the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act. It gave Pres. Wilson the power to regulate the transportation, production and storage of wartime necessities.
(AH, 6/07, p.44)(www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3401802360.html)
1918 Mar 7, Pres. Wilson authorized US Army's Distinguished Service Medal.
1918 Dec 4, President Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles Peace Conference. He was the 1st chief executive to travel outside US while in office.
1918 Pres. Wilson pushed through Congress the Sedition Act of 1918. It was the most extreme antispeech legislation in American history.
1919 Jan 16, Prohibition became law in the US with the passage of the Volstead Act, which enforced and defined the 18th Amendment. It was passed over President Wilson's veto with the necessary two-thirds majority of state ratification. [see Jan 16, 1920]
(HFA, '96, p.22)(WUD, 1994, p.1681)(WSJ, 8/22/96, p.A14)(MC, 1/16/02)
1919 Jul 8, President Wilson received a tumultuous welcome in New York City after his return from the Versailles Peace Conference in France.
1919 Jul 10, President Wilson personally delivered the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate and urged its ratification.
1920 May 5, US Pres. Wilson made the Communist Labor Party illegal.
1920 The US Congress repealed 60 wartime measures despite the objections of Pres. Wilson. Republican presidential nominee Harding pledged that he would abjure executive autocracy.
1921 Jan 4, Congress overrode President Wilson's veto, reactivating the War Finance Corps to aid struggling farmers.
1924 Feb 3, Woodrow Wilson (68), the 28th president of the United States, died in Washington. The Woodrow Wilson Foundation in 1958 asked Prof. Arthur Link (1920-1998) of Northwestern Univ. to oversee the publication of Wilson's papers. Link spent 35 years on the project and completed his 69th and final volume in 1983. Link also produced a 5-volume biography on Wilson. In 2013 A. Scott Berg authored the biography "Wilson."
(AP, 2/3/97)(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.E7)(Econ, 9/7/13, p.83)
1934 Dec 18, Woodrow Wilson, the 28th US President, appeared on a Gold certificate valued at $100,000, largest note ever issued by the United States. It was only printed between December 18, 1934 and January 9, 1935 and used only for transactions between Federal Reserve Banks. Salmon P. Chase, the U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Lincoln, appeared on the $10,000 bill, James Madison on the $5,000 bill and Grover Cleveland on the $1,000 bill. All of these bills ceased being printed in 1946.
(HNQ, 11/7/99)(http://tinyurl.com/n9sqnjz)
#29 Warren Harding (1921-1929)
1865 Nov 2, Warren Gamaliel Harding, the 29th president of the United States (1921-29), was born near Corsica, Ohio. Harding was owner and publisher of the Marion Star.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, Z3 p.4)(AP, 11/2/97)(HNQ, 10/21/98)
1920 Jun 11, The US Republican Senate bosses gathered in rooms 408 & 410 of the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago and selected Sen. Warren Harding to break a deadlock. Harding, disregarding his mistress of four years, Nan Britton, declared himself to be of good character. The Republicans nominated Warren G. Harding at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. Britton later wrote a book, "The President's Daughter," about their relations and claimed that she bore his daughter. Harding had another mistress named Carrie Phillips. In 1999 Martin Blinder published his novel "Fluke" based on Harding's political career and presidency.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A12)(Hem, 8/96, p.84)(SFC, 2/5/98, p.A8)(SFEC, 5/2/99, BR p.8)
1920 Jun 12, Republicans in Chicago nominated Warren G. Harding for president and Calvin Coolidge, governor of Massachusetts, for vice president.
1920 Nov 2, Warren G. Harding was elected 29th president. He defeated James Cox, governor of Ohio, and his VP running mate Franklin Delano Roosevelt (38).
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.E7)(AH, 10/04, p.50)
1920 Nov 2, The first radio broadcast of presidential elections in the United States were made by radio. Westinghouse had built radio station KDKA on its factory roof in Pittsburgh and was among the first to broadcast returns from the Harding-Cox presidential election. 8MK, the first US station owned by a newspaper (the Detroit News), also broadcast the election returns.
(www.oldradio.com/current/the1st.htm)(WSJ, 1/12/98, p.A19)(HN, 11/2/98)(AP, 11/2/99)
1921 Mar 4, Warren G. Harding was sworn in as America's 29th President. By the time Pres. Woodrow Wilson left office, the top tax rate was 77%.
(HN, 3/4/98)(WSJ, 9/25/02, p.D8)
1921 May 17, Pres. Harding opened the 1st Valencia Orange Show via telephone.
1921 Jun 10, The US Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 required the President to submit the budget to Congress for each fiscal year which is the 12-month period beginning on October 1 and ending on September 30 of the next calendar year. The act was approved by President Warren G. Harding to provide a national budget system and an independent audit of government accounts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_budget_process)(Econ, 2/7/15, p.31)
1921 Nov 11, President Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. The unknown soldier was buried in Virginia's Arlington National Cemetery on Armistice Day. He had been taken from an American cemetery in France.
(SFC, 5/27/96, p.B8)(AP, 11/11/97) (HN, 11/11/98)
1921 Nov 23, President Harding signed the Willis Campell Act, better known as the anti-beer bill. It forbade doctors to prescribe beer or liquor for medicinal purposes.
1921 Albert Fall, New Mexico senator, was appointed as Interior Secretary to Pres. Harding. Fall got Harding to sign an executive order to transfer control of oil reserves from the Navy to the Interior. Leases on the Elk Hills and Teapot Dome to businessmen Edward Doheny and Harry Sinclair soon followed and Fall was $400,000 richer. Fall was fined $100,000 in 1929 and was sentenced to a year in jail. He pleaded poverty and never paid the fine.
1922 Feb 8, President Harding had a radio installed in the White House.
1922 Mar 20, President Harding ordered U.S. troops back from the Rhineland.
1922 Jun 14, Warren G. Harding became the first president heard on radio, as Baltimore station WEAR broadcast his speech dedicating the Francis Scott Key memorial at Fort McHenry. [see Jan 19, 1903]
1922 Sep 21, Pres Warren G. Harding signed a joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
1922 Sep 21, The US passed a tariff act. The Fordney-McCumber Tariff bill (named after Joseph Fordney, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Porter McCumber, chair of the Senate Finance Committee) was signed by President Warren Harding. In the end, the tariff law raised the average American ad valorem tariff rate to 38 percent.
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.126)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordney-McCumber_Tariff)
1923 Aug 2, Following a return trip from Alaska the 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding (57), died in San Francisco at the Palace Hotel of a "stroke of apoplexy." Not considered to have been a particularly intelligent man, Harding owed his rise to political power to the driving ambition of his wife, Florence Kling Harding. As president, the Ohio native was troubled by scandals caused by his weakness for pretty women and a tendency to place unscrupulous friends—called "The Ohio Gang"—in positions of power. Graft, corruption and other scandals that led to the suicides of two high Federal officials had begun to taint the Harding Administration when the president suddenly died of a heart attack, just before the Teapot Dome Scandal broke, the largest scandal of his administration. In 1998 Carl Sferrazza Anthony published "Florence Harding: The First Lady, The Jazz Age and the Death of America's Most Scandalous President." Vice President Calvin Coolidge became president upon the death of Warren G. Harding.
(TMC, 1994, p.1923)(AP, 8/2/97)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W27)(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A15,19)(HN, 8/2/98)(HN, 8/2/98)(HNQ, 12/7/98)
1923 US Pres. Warren Harding authorized a 22-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve as an emergency oil supply for the US Navy near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. In 2015 ConocoPhillips became the first company to draw from the reserve.
(Econ, 12/11/04, p.28)(SFC, 3/4/16, p.A9)
#30 Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
1872 Jul 4, John Calvin Coolidge (d.1933) 30th President of the United States (1923-29), was born in Plymouth, Vermont. Calvin Coolidge, also known as 'Silent Cal,' was a Republican; Vice President from 1921-23 and succeeded to the Presidency on the death of Warren Harding in 1923; elected President in 1924 and served a full term. He was especially known for his economy of language. A lady dinner companion during his presidency told him she had a bet she could get him to say more than two words; he replied: "You lose." "Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil. Our great hope lies in developing what is good."
(AP, 7/4/97)(HN, 7/4/98)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)(AP, 12/26/99)
1879 Jan 3, Grace Coolidge (Goodhue) First Lady: wife of 30th U.S. President Calvin Coolidge [1923-29], was born.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1919 Sep 9, Most of Boston's 1,500-member police force went on strike. The city's police commissioner fired the strikers and Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), who was running for governor, came out in support of the firings.
(AP, 9/9/99)(AH, 6/07, p.67)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge)
1920 Jan 8, Massachusetts' Gov. Calvin Coolidge stated: "There is a limit to the taxing power of the state beyond which increased rates produce decreased revenues."
(www.calvin-coolidge.org/html/address_to_the_general_court_b.html)
1923 Aug 2, Vice President Calvin Coolidge went to bed at 9 p.m. at his father's home in Plymouth, Vermont, where he was enjoying a short vacation. It took several hours for the news of President Warren G. Harding's death in California to reach the small town, but by 2 a.m., Coolidge was told that Harding was dead. Traditionally, the president is sworn in by the chief justice of the Supreme Court—but he slept 500 miles away. At 2:30 a.m. on August 3, 1923, Coolidge's father, a notary public, administered the oath of office to his son by the light of a kerosene lamp.
(HNPD, 8/3/98)
1923 Aug 3, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th president of the United States, following the death of Warren G. Harding. It took several hours for the news of President Warren G. Harding's death in California to reach the small town of Plymouth, Vermont, where he was enjoying a short vacation, but by 2 a.m., Coolidge was told that Harding was dead. Traditionally, the president is sworn in by the chief justice of the Supreme Court--but he slept 500 miles away. At 2:30 a.m. on August 3, 1923, Coolidge's father, a notary public, administered the oath of office to his son by the light of a kerosene lamp.
(AP, 8/3/97)(HNPD, 8/3/98)
1923 Nov 22, Pres. Coolidge pardoned WW I German spy Lothar Witzke, who was sentenced to death.
1923 Dec 6, A presidential address was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Coolidge spoke to a joint session of Congress.
1924 Feb 22, Calvin Coolidge delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House as he addressed the country over 42 stations.
1924 May 26, President Coolidge signed an Immigration-restriction law based on eugenic principles.
(www.historicaldocuments.com/ImmigrationActof1924.htm)(WSJ, 2/28/06, p.D8)
1924 May 26, The US Immigration Act of 1924 (aka Johnson–Reed Act) prevented any further Japanese immigration to the US for the next four decades. It included the National Origins Act and the Asian Exclusion Act which prohibited the immigration of Arabs, East Asians, and Indians.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924)(SFC, 8/23/14, p.C2)
1925 Mar 4, President Calvin Coolidge's inauguration was broadcast live on 21 radio stations coast-to-coast.
1925 The Ghazir rug, created by orphans of the Armenian genocide (1915-1917), was donated to US Pres. Calvin Coolidge.
1926 Feb 23, President Calvin Coolidge opposed a large air force, believing it would be a menace to world peace.
1926 Nov 11, Pres. Calvin Coolidge dedicated the 217-foot Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Mo., in honor of those who died in WW I.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G6)(http://tinyurl.com/wz55k)(Econ, 4/8/17, p.28)
1927 Feb 23, President Coolidge signed the Radio Act, a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission, forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover established the Federal Radio Commission to prevent interference among radio signals by allocating broadcast spectrum.
(WSJ, 11/3/97, p.A20)(AP, 2/23/98)(Econ, 8/14/04, p.61)
1927 Aug 2, Four years after becoming president, Calvin Coolidge issued a written statement to reporters: "I do not choose to run for President in 1928."
1927 Aug 10, Pres. Calvin Coolidge took part in the formal dedication of Mount Rushmore. Gutzon Borglum began work and the Mount Rushmore project was completed in 1941. When South Dakota officials invited Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941) to design a sculpture on the face of the Black Hills, he declared, "American history shall march along that skyline." Bor-glum's son Lincoln (d.1986) led the completion of the project created by some 400 workers.
(www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/texte/mount_rushmore.htm)(SSFC, 9/9/07, p.C4)(ON, 2/11, p.10)
1928 Mar 21, Coolidge gave the Congressional Medal of Honor to Charles Lindbergh. The Medal of Honor was not always awarded for "courage above and beyond" the call of duty.
1929 Jan 14, Pres. Calvin Coolidge issued an executive order declaring Oakland an official port of entry. This included Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, Emeryville and San Leandro and allowed ships to clear without stopping in SF.
1929 Feb 22, with the influence of Congressman William Williamson and Senator Peter Norbeck pushing Congress for approval of the bill and President Coolidge ready to sign it into law, Public Law 805 was passed and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission was established.
(http://moh.tie.net/content/docs/WhySD.pdf)
1933 Jan 5, The 30th president (1923-1929) of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, died in Northampton, Mass., at age 60. In 1998 Robert Sobel published his biography: "Coolidge: An American Enigma." Robert Ferrell published "The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge." In 2006 David Greenberg authored "Calvin Coolidge."
(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A17)(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W13)(WSJ, 12/12/06, p.D8)
2013 Amity Shales authored Coolidge," a biography of Calvin Coolidge who served as US president from 1923-1929.
#31 Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)
1874 Aug 10, Herbert Clark Hoover (d.1964), the 31st president of the United States (1929-1933), was born in West Branch, Iowa.
(AP, 8/10/97)(SFEC, 1/12/97, zone 3 p.4)(HN, 8/10/98)(AH, 12/02, p.20)
1875 Mar 29, Lou Henry Hoover, first lady, was born.
1900 As artillery shells crashed around their house during the siege of Tientsin, Lou Hoover played solitaire. She and new husband Herbert Hoover had moved there after their wedding in 1899. Herbert had been engaged as the Director General of the Department of Mines of the Chinese Government. News from China during the Boxer Rebellion was bleak, and one New York newspaper had reported their deaths and printed obituaries.
1918-1919 Herbert Hoover directed the American Relief Administration under Pres. Wilson.
1921 Mar 21, Herbert Hoover, U.S. Secretary of Commerce opposed all trade with Russia.
1922 Feb 27, Commerce Sec. Herbert Hoover convened the 1st National Radio Conference.
1927 Apr 7, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover was on hand for the first inter-city (DC to Manhattan) transmission by telephone of video imagery.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1927_in_television)
1928 Jun 14, The Republican National Convention in Kansas City nominated Herbert Hoover for president on the first ballot. George Barr Baker was Hoover's confidential advisor during the campaign.
(AP, 6/14/98)(SFC, 12/30/98, p.A18)
1928 Nov 6, In a first, presidential election results were flashed on an electronic sign outside the New York Times building; Herbert Hoover beat Alfred E. Smith. Norman Thomas was the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party. Hoover won just over 83% of the electoral vote.
(AP, 11/6/97)(SFC, 2/12/00, p.A21)(HNQ, 11/7/00)
1928 Dec 11, Police in Buenos Aires thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert Hoover.
1929 Mar 4, Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as 31st President.
1929 Mar 4, Charles Curtis (R-Kansas) became 1st native American Vice President.
1929 After his appointment as Secretary of State by Herbert Hoover in 1929, Henry L. Stimson was quoted as saying, "Gentlemen do not read other's mail." Stimson had learned of the existence of the Black Chamber eavesdropping program and shut down the cryptographic service run by Herbert Yardley. Born in New York in 1867, Stimson served in the cabinets of four presidents as Secretary of War and Secretary of State. He died on October 20, 1950.
(HN, 3/1/00)(Econ, 12/19/15, p.41)
1930 Jun 17, Pres. Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill, placing the highest tariff on imports to the U.S. It was sponsored by Willis Hawley, a congressman from Oregon, and Reed Smoot, a senator from Utah. An international trade war began with the US passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Foreign countries retaliated. Many economists blame Smoot-Hawley for deepening the depression. It reflected the "Protectionism" of the times.
(WSJ, 7/1/96, p.A11)(HN, 6/17/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)(WSJ, 2/3/04, p.A12)
1930 Jul 21, President Herbert Hoover signed an executive order establishing the Veterans Administration.
1931 Mar 3, Pres. Hoover signed a bill making "The Star-Spangled Banner", written by Francis Scott Key, the national anthem of the United States: act of Congress (46 Stat.L. 1508). The melody was originally an English drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven."
(HFA, '96, p.26)(WSJ, 9/13/95, p.B-1)(AP, 3/3/98)(HC, Internet, 3/3/98)(HNQ, 2/16/02)
1932 In the presidential campaign, President Herbert Hoover warned Americans that if the "New Deal" proposed by Democrat Franklin Roosevelt came to power, "the grass will grow in the streets of a hundred cities, a thousand towns; the weeds will overrun the fields of millions of farms…." Roosevelt won the election and quickly implemented his "New Deal" policies to bring America out of the Great Depression.
1932 Pres. Hoover pushed through a ferocious tax increase to balance the budget and restore "confidence."
1932 The Great Sand Dunes in Colorado were declared a national monument by Pres. Herbert Hoover.
1938 Mar 8, Herbert Hoover told Hitler that his doctrine would be unacceptable and intolerable in the U.S.
1964 Oct 20, Herbert Hoover (b.1874), the 31st president of the United States (1929-1933), died in New York at age 90.
(AP, 10/20/97)(AH, 12/02, p.20)
#32 Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945)
1868 Dec 22, John Nance Garner, (VP-D-1933-41), was born in Texas.
1882 Jan 30, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, was born in Hyde Park, N.Y. He led the country out of the Great Depression and through most of World War II.
1905 Mar 17, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, married her fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in New York and by 1916, they had become the parents of six children.
(AP, 3/17/97)(HN, 3/17/98)(HNPD, 10/11/99)
1920 Jul 6, The Democrats ended their convention in San Francisco with the selection James Cox of Ohio and running mate Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Cox and FDR were committed internationalists and lost the elections due to the isolationism of the times.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.4)(AH, 10/04, p.56)
1921 Aug 10, Franklin D. Roosevelt (39) was stricken with polio at his summer home on the Canadian island of Campobello, New Brunswick. Mrs. Roosevelt acted as her partially paralyzed husband's eyes and ears by traveling, observing and reporting her observations to him. As First Lady, an author and newspaper columnist and, later, a delegate to the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt labored tirelessly for the poor and disadvantaged. In the words of historian John Kenneth Galbraith, she showed "more than any other person of her time, that an American could truly be a world citizen."
(HNPD, 10//99)(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D11)
1930 Nov 4, New York reelected Gov. Franklin Delano Roosevelt by a landslide.
(ON, 12/07, p.2)(www.presidentialtimeline.org/html/timeline.php?id=32)
1932 Jul 1, New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated for president at the Democratic convention in Chicago.
1932 Jul 2, New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt won the nomination for president on the 4th ballot at the Democratic convention in Chicago.
1932 Nov 8, New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated incumbent Herbert Hoover for the presidency. Roosevelt became the 32nd president with about 87% of the Electoral College.
(AP, 11/8/97)(HN, 11/6/98)(HNQ, 11/7/00)
1932 The Milton Ager and Jack Yellen song "Happy Days Are Here Again" was used as the campaign song for the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
1933 Feb 15, President-elect Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami. Giuseppa Zangara, an unemployed New Jersey bricklayer from Italy, fired five pistol shots at the back of President-elect Franklin Roosevelt's head from only twenty-five feet away. While all five rounds missed their target, each bullet found a separate victim. One of these was Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago. Gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed more than four weeks later, on March 20. [see Mar 6, 20]
1933 Mar 4, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated to his first term as president in Washington, D.C. He pledged to lead the country out of the Great Depression: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." The start of President Roosevelt's first administration brought with it the first woman to serve in the Cabinet: Labor Secretary Frances Perkins. He chose Homer Cummings as his attorney general. Cummings served 5 years and 10 months. Herbert Hoover was denied the courtesy of Secret Service protection traditionally accorded an outgoing president.
(AP, 3/4/98)(HN, 3/4/98)(SFC, 1/11/99, p.A5)(HNQ, 1/16/01)(SC, 3/4/02)
1933 Mar 6, A nationwide bank holiday declared by President Roosevelt went into effect. Overseas deposits shrank by just 2% as a result of the closure.
(AP, 3/6/98)(Econ, 5/15/10, SR p.13)
1933 Mar 12, President Roosevelt delivered the first of his radio "fireside chats," telling Americans what was being done to deal with the nation's economic crisis.
1933 Mar 13, US Banks began to re-open after a holiday declared by President Roosevelt.
1933 Mar 20, Giuseppe [Joe] Zangara was electrocuted for assassination attempt on FDR.
1933 Mar 22, During Prohibition, President Roosevelt signed a measure to make wine & beer containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol legal. [see Feb 20, Apr 7, Dec 5]
1933 Mar 31, Congress approved, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed, the Emergency Conservation Work Act (Reforestation Relief Act), which created the Civilian Conservation Corps. The US unemployment rate reached 25%. In its nine years of existence, the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps had a total of 2.9 million men aged 18 to 25 enrolled. The program was designed to provide jobs for young men in the national forests, conservation programs and national road construction. Enacted as one of President Franklin Roosevelt's first New Deal programs, it lasted until World War II. At its high point in September 1935, the CCC had 2,514 work camps across the U.S. with 502,000 men enrolled.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, Z1 p.1)(HNQ, 7/23/99)(AP, 3/31/08)(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.D6)
1933 Apr 7, "Near beer" (3.2 beer) became legal after FDR signed an amendment to the Volstead Act, which had made drinking alcohol a federal crime. Prohibition ended when Utah became the 38th state to ratify 21st Amendment. [see Dec 5]
(SFC, 4/7/96, p.B-11)(HN, 4/7/97)(MC, 4/7/02)
1933 Apr 19, The United States went off the gold standard. FDR tied this with orders that 445,000 newly minted gold $20 "Double Eagle" coins be destroyed. Ten coins escaped and one was scheduled for auction in 2002. [see Jun 5]
(TMC, 1994, p.1933)(AP, 4/19/97)(SSFC, 3/31/02, Par p.6)
1933 May 18, The Tennessee Valley Authority Act was signed by President Roosevelt. The TVA proceed to build damns in the Tennessee Valley.
1933 Aug 5, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the National Labor Board to enforce the right of collective bargaining. It was later replaced with the National Labor Relations Board.
(AP, 8/5/08)(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.D6)
1933 Nov 8, President Roosevelt unveiled the Civil Works Administration, designed to create jobs for more than 4 million unemployed.
(AP, 11/8/97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Works_Administration)
1933 Nov 9, The Civil Works Administration was created as a short term program designed to carry the nation over a critical winter while other programs such as the Federal Emergency Relief Administration were being planned and developed.
(http://content.lib.washington.edu/civilworksweb/essay.html)
1933 Nov 23, FDR recalled Ambassador Welles from Havana and urged stability in Cuba.
1933 Dec 28, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated, "The definite policy of the U.S. from now on is one opposed to armed intervention."
1933 Economists from the Univ. of Chicago sent Pres. Roosevelt a memo outlining a plan to split the two main functions of banks: taking deposits and making loans. This came to be known as the Chicago Plan. Roosevelt opted instead for deposit insurance.
1934 Jan 4, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress for $10.5 billion to fund recovery programs over the next 18 months.
(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.D6)
1934 Jan 31, President Roosevelt devalued the dollar in relation to gold. He raised the price of gold to $35. The United States Gold Reserve Act required that all gold and gold certificates held by the Federal Reserve be surrendered and vested in the sole title of the United States Department of the Treasury.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act)(AP, 1/31/00)(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A24)
1934 Jan 31, President Roosevelt signed the Farm Mortgage Refinancing Act.
1934 Mar 24, President Roosevelt signed a bill granting future independence to the Philippines.
1934 Mar 24, San Francisco's 103-foot Mount Davidson Cross was illuminated by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt via an electrical impulse telegraphed to turn on floodlights at the base. It was created by architect George Kelham. This was the 5th crsoss created at this site. The first was erected in 1923 as a memorial to the veterans of WW I.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Davidson_%28California%29)(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A1,11)(SFC, 4/24/98, p.A17)(SFC, 1/5/00, p.A18)(SFC, 8/14/13, p.D5)
1934 Apr 28, FDR signed a Home Owners Loan Act.
1934 Jun 19, President Roosevelt signed the US Communications Act. It established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to supervise radio, telegraph and telephone communications.
(WSJ, 11/3/97, p.A20)(AP, 6/19/06)
1934 Jul 11, President Roosevelt became the first chief executive to travel through the Panama Canal while in office.
1934 Nov 23, U.S. and Britain agreed on a 5-5-3 naval ratio with both countries allowed to build five million tons of naval ships while Japan can only build three; Japan denounced the treaty.
1935 Jan 4, Pres. Roosevelt claimed in his State of the Union message that the federal government would provide jobs for 3.5 million Americans on welfare.
1935 Feb 22, All plane flights over the White House were barred because they disturbed President Roosevelt's sleep.
1935 Apr 8, The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act authorized $5 billion to increase employment and for useful projects including the Works Progress Administration (WPA). President Franklin Roosevelt proposed the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression of the 1930s when almost 25 percent of Americans were unemployed. The WPA created low-paying federal jobs to provide immediate relief. The WPA put 8.5 million jobless to work on projects as diverse as constructing highways, bridges and public buildings to arts programs like the Federal Writers' Project. In 2008 Nick Taylor authored ""American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, When FDR Put America to Work."
(AP, 4/8/97)(HN, 4/8/98)(HNPD, 4/8/99)(SFC, 3/12/08, p.E2)
1935 May 27, The US Supreme Court, in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, declared President Roosevelt's National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional.
1935 Jun 28, FDR ordered a federal gold vault to be built at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
1935 Jul 5, President Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act), which provided for a National Labor Relations Board and authorized labor to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was created by a statute as an independent federal agency that conducts secret-ballot elections to determine whether employees desire union representation. This inaugurated the "pink decade" of Soviet espionage and penetration of America's labor movement by Communists.
(WSJ, 5/12/97, p.A15)(AP, 7/5/97)(SFC, 11/27/99, p.C4)(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.M6)
1935 Aug 14, The Social Security Act became law as President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Bill, providing assistance to the poor and needy. It created an old-age and unemployment insurance, and supplemented mothers' pensions with Aid to Dependent Children.
(AP, 8/14/97)(www.ssa.gov/history/1930.html)
1935 Aug 31, President Roosevelt signed an act prohibiting the export of U.S. arms to belligerents.
1936 Jan 27, The US Congress overrode Pres. Roosevelt's veto and passed a large bonus for veterans of WWI. This provided an economic stimulus for the year, which disappeared in 1937.
(Econ, 6/20/09, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Bill)
1936 Feb 7, President Roosevelt authorized a flag for the office of the vice president.
1936 Aug 24, FDR gave the FBI authority to pursuit fascists and communists.
1936 Sep 11, President Roosevelt dedicated Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) by pressing a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam's first hydroelectric generator in Nevada. The Dam was completed ahead of schedule. It was the first and most important link in a chain of dams, canals and aqueducts built to harness the Colorado River. The colossal mass of concrete is wedged into Black Canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, 32 miles SE of Las Vegas. Paul L. Wattis, headed the construction company that built Boulder Dam.
(AP, 9/11/97)(HNQ, 4/3/02)(SFC, 6/6/02, p.A22)
1936 Oct 31, The Literary Digest published a poll that predicted that Alfred Landon, the governor of Kansas, would win over Pres. Roosevelt with 57% of the popular vote. Landon lost all but two states to Roosevelt.
(WSJ, 10/2/06, p.B1)(www.historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5168/)
1936 Nov 3, Pres. Roosevelt, the 32nd president, was re-elected for second term in a landslide over Republican challenger Alfred M. "Alf" Landon. Landon ran on a "wrong-headed" economic program. Roosevelt received 60.8% of the popular vote and an astounding 98.5% of the Electoral College defeating Republican Alfred Landon, the governor of Kansas. In terms of winning the largest percentage of electoral votes, the presidential election of 1936 was the biggest landslide of the 20th century.
(TMC, 1994, p.1936)(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A28)(AP, 11/3/97)(HN, 11/3/98)(HNQ, 11/7/00)
1936 Nov 23, U.S. abandoned the American embassy in Madrid, Spain, which was engulfed by civil war.
1936-1937 John Knox, new Harvard Law school graduate, worked as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice James C. McReynolds, a grouch, racist and anti-Semite. He later wrote a memoir of his clerkship that was published in 2002: "The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox."
1937 Jan 20, President Franklin Roosevelt was inaugurated for a 2nd term. He became the first chief executive to be inaugurated on Jan. 20 instead of March 4.
(AP, 1/20/08)(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.D6)
1937 Apr 27, The Franklin Roosevelt administration began distributing the nation's first Social Security checks.
1937 May 1, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an act of neutrality, keeping the United States out of World War II.
1937 May 28, President Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington signaling that vehicular traffic could cross the just-opened Golden Gate Bridge in California. Cars were charged 50 cents each way.
(AP, 5/28/97)(SSFC, 5/20/12, p.E10)
1937 Aug 26, President Roosevelt signed the Judicial Procedure Reform Act, a compromise on his judicial reorganization plan.
1937 Pres. Roosevelt paid a visit to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. Some 3 thousand school children gathered to urge him establish Olympic National Park.
1938 Jan 3, The March of Dimes was established by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fight poliomyelitis. Roosevelt himself was afflicted with polio. The organization was originally called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, as the disease was commonly known.
(AP, 1/3/98)(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1938 Jun 25, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act. It included a restriction on the sale of embedded non-food items, unless there's a functional value, like the stick on a lollipop. It was partially provoked by a rash of injuries from depilatory creams.
1939 Jan 27, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the sale of U.S. war planes to France.
1939 Mar 20, Franklin D. Roosevelt named William O. Douglas to the Supreme Court. He replaced Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), appointed in 1916, who retired. Douglas left the court in 1975, holding the record as the longest serving Supreme Court justice.
(HN, 3/20/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Brandeis)(Econ, 11/20/10, p.95)
1939 Jun 11, King & Queen of England tasted their 1st "hot dogs" at FDR's party.
1939 Sep 8, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a "limited national emergency" in response to the outbreak of war in Europe.
1939 Nov 15, President Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
1939 Nov 23, Thanksgiving. Franklin D. Roosevelt had proclaimed Thanksgiving Day a week earlier--on the fourth, not the last, Thursday of November--in an effort to encourage more holiday shopping.
1939 Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), U.S. 80th Supreme Court Justice (1939-62), was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Court and served until 1962. "There is no inevitability in history except as men make it."
(AP, 2/27/98)(HNQ, 3/16/99)(MC, 11/15/01)
1939-1941 This period is covered in Lynne Olson's 2013 book: "Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II." Hundreds of British agents flooded neutral America with Roosevelt's tacit approval.
1940 Jun, President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Vannevar Bush director of the newly formed National Defense Research Committee to continue U.S. nuclear research. In response to a plea by scientists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard, FDR initiated a modest program of uranium research in 1939. By June 1940, interest in uranium and its properties had increased to the point that the president created a larger organization, the National Defense Research Committee, with a broader scope of activity. He named as director Vannevar Bush, the president of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. The slowly growing effort gained further impetus in mid-1941 from a startling British document code-named the "MAUD Report." Based on British nuclear research, the report stated that a very small amount of uranium-235 could produce an explosion equivalent to that of several thousand tons of TNT. Roosevelt responded by creating a still larger organization, the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which, directed by Bush, would mobilize scientific resources to create an atomic weapon.
1940 Jul 18, The Democratic national convention in Chicago nominated President Roosevelt for an unprecedented third term in office.
1940 Aug 17, President Roosevelt and Canadian Prime Minister William Mackenzie King met in Ogdensburg, N.Y., where they agreed to set up a joint defense commission.
1940 Sep 16, President Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act, which set up the first peacetime military draft in U.S. history.
1940 Nov 5, President Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term in office, beating Republican challenger Wendell L. Willkie along with Surprise Party challenger Gracie Allen.
(AP, 11/5/97)(HN, 11/5/98)(WSJ, 10/27/04, p.B1)
1940 Dec 29, In a radio interview, President Roosevelt proclaimed the U.S. is the 'arsenal of democracy.'
1940 Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt began recording presidential meetings to ensure that he was quoted accurately.
1941 Jan 6, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to support the lend-lease plan to help supply the Allies. In an address to Congress President Franklin Roosevelt expressed the general world aims of the United States as these "Four Freedoms": of speech and expression; of worship; from want; and from fear. Oscar Cox had helped draft the Lend-Lease Act.
(HN, 1/6/99)(HNQ, 3/2/00)(WSJ, 2/18/05, p.W6)
1941 Jan 20, US Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated for his 3rd term. It was the first time any US president had been elected for more than two terms.
1941 Mar 11, President Roosevelt authorized the Lend-Lease Act and signed into law the Lend-Lease Bill, providing war supplies to countries fighting the Axis.
1941 May 27, Amid rising world tensions, President Roosevelt proclaimed an "unlimited national emergency."
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)(AP, 5/27/97)
1941 Aug 9, President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. Their meeting produced the Atlantic Charter, an agreement between the two countries on war aims, even though the United States was still a neutral country.
1941 Aug 27, The Prime Minister of Japan, Fumimaro Konoye, issued an invitation for a meeting with President Roosevelt.
1941 Sep 11, FDR ordered any Axis ship found in American waters be sunk on sight, in response to submarine attacks on US vessels.
1941 Nov 10, Freedom House founded by a group of prominent individuals, including Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie. It emerged from an amalgamation of two groups that had been formed, with the quiet encouragement of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to encourage popular support for American involvement in World War II at a time when isolationist sentiments were running high in the United States.
(www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=249)
1941 Nov 26, Congress adopted a joint resolution, permanently setting the date of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill establishing the fourth Thursday in November as the national Thanksgiving holiday.
(HN, 11/26/98)(HNPD, 11/26/98)
1941 Dec 5, President Roosevelt sent a message to Japanese Emperor Hirohito expressing hope that gathering war clouds would be dispelled. Hirohito smiled enigmatically, knowing that Japan would attack Pearl Harbor the next day.
1941 Dec 6, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito to use his influence to avoid war.
1941 Dec 22, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for a wartime conference with President Roosevelt.
1941 Pres. Franklin Roosevelt invoked the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917 to authorize the Fed to restrict consumer installment loans in order to suppress consumption and free resources for the war effort.
1941 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Rexford Guy Tugwell as governor of Puerto Rico. Under his direction the island became an experiment in central planning.
1942 Feb 8, Congress advised FDR that Americans of Japanese descent should be locked up en masse so they wouldn't oppose the US war effort.
1942 Feb 9, FDR reimposed daylight saving time (DST) in the US calling it "war time" with clocks turned one hour forward. It was repealed after the war. [see 1966]
(AP, 2/9/99)(WSJ, 3/31/05, p.D8)
1942 Feb 22, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered Gen. Douglas MacArthur to leave the Philippines.
1942 Mar 19, FDR ordered men between 45 and 64 to register for non military duty.
1942 Jun 13, President Roosevelt created the Office of War Information, and appointed radio news commentator Elmer Davis to be its head. The OSS, Office of Strategic Services, was formed.
1942 Oct, Pres. Roosevelt signed special legislation that allowed General Motors to take a complete tax write-off for the loss of Opel, its Nazi subsidiary. The tax reduction amounted to some $22.7 million, an amount equal to about $285 billion in 2007.
(SSFC, 1/7/07, p.E6)
1942 Nov 7, FDR became the 1st US president to broadcast in a foreign language, French.
1942 Nov 13, US Pres. Roosevelt signed a measure lowering the minimum draft age from 21 to 18.
1942 Nov 26, President Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning Dec 1.
1942 Dec 4, President Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression.
1943 Jan 11, President Franklin D. Roosevelt flew to Morocco for a top-secret meeting with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He had not flown since 1932, when he traveled from Albany, New York, to Chicago to accept his nomination at the Democratic national convention. No U.S. president had previously flown while in office because the Secret Service regarded flying as a dangerous mode of transport. Air travel was the only realistic option for the trip to Casablanca because German submarines lurking in the Atlantic made a surface crossing too risky.
1943 Jan 24, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill concluded a wartime conference in Casablanca, Morocco.
1943 Feb 9, FDR ordered a minimal 48 hour work week in war industry.
1943 Apr 13, President Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial. It was designed by John Russell Pope.
(AP, 4/13/97)(HN, 4/13/98)(WSJ, 9/21/00, p.A26)
1943 Apr 21, President Roosevelt announced that several Doolittle pilots were executed by Japanese.
1943 Jun 10, FDR signed a withholding tax bill into law.
1943 Jul 28, President Roosevelt announced the end of coffee rationing.
1943 Dec 1, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin concluded their Tehran conference and agreed to Operation Overlord (D-Day).
1944 Jan 2, The US under Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board to protect the endangered populations of Europe. In June Raoul Wallenberg of Sweden was hired to head the agency's office in Budapest, where he arrived on July 9.
1944 Jun 22, President Roosevelt signed the GI Bill of Rights, authorizing a broad package of benefits for World War II veterans.
1944 Jul 19, The Democratic National Convention convened in Chicago with the renomination of President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered a foregone certainty.
1944 Jul 20, President Roosevelt was nominated for an unprecedented fourth term of office at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
1944 Jul 21, The Democratic National Convention in Chicago nominated Sen. Harry S. Truman to be vice president. He replaced Henry Wallace. In Room 708 of the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago Roosevelt told Truman at the convention that he wanted him on the ticket
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A12)(AP, 7/20/97)(WSJ, 4/27/98, p.A20)
1944 Sep 11, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met in Canada at the second Quebec Conference.
1945 Jan 20, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated for his fourth term.
1945 Feb 2, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill departed Malta for the Yalta summit with Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
1945 Feb 4-1945 Feb 12, President Roosevelt, British PM Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin held a wartime conference at Yalta, in the southern Ukraine. Roosevelt joked to Stalin that the only concession he might give to Ibn Saud in Saudi Arabia was "the 6 million Jews in the US." In 2012 Michael Dobbs authored "Six Months in 1945: FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman – From World War to Cold War."
(AP, 2/4/97)(WUD, 1994, p.1653)(WSJ, 3/8/99, p.A16)(SSFC, 11/25/12, p.F4)
1945 Feb 11, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin signed the Yalta Agreement during World War II and adjourned. Alger Hiss was one of the advisors who accompanied Roosevelt.
(WSJ, 5/5/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A3)(HN, 2/11/97)(AP, 2/11/97)
1945 Mar 1, President Roosevelt, back from the Yalta Conference, proclaimed the meeting a success when he addressed a joint session of Congress.
1945 Apr 12, Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt the 32nd president of the United States, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63. Roosevelt, a polio victim confined to a wheelchair, spent a great deal of time in the soothing waters of the resort. He succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage while posing for a portrait by Elizabeth Shoumatoff at what came to be known as the Little White House in Warm Springs, where the unfinished portrait remains on display. Lucy Rutherford Mercer, his secret companion, was at his bedside. He was succeeded by his Vice-President, Harry S. Truman. The 63-year-old president had been at Warm Springs, Georgia, since March 28, resting from the rigors of leading a nation at war. Roosevelt, left paralyzed by polio in 1921, was elected to the nation's highest office four times and is judged by historians to be among the greatest American presidents. He was buried at the Roosevelt family home in Hyde Park, New York. The period is covered in "Mr. Truman's War" (1996) by Robert Moskin. In 2001 "The New Dealer's War," the 5th and last volume of the Roosevelt biography by Thomas Fleming (d.1999) was published. In 2001 Kenneth S. Davis authored "FDR: The War President." In 2003 Conrad Black, aka Lord Black of Crossharbour, authored "Franklin Delano Roosevelt."
(A & IP., ESM, p.167)(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A8)(SFC, 9/6.96, p.A10)(AP, 4/12/97)(HN, 4/11/99)(HNQ, 6/16/00)(WSJ, 4/26/01, p.A18)(WSJ, 12/3/03, p.D12)
1946 Nov 5, US Republicans took control of the Senate and the House in midterm elections.
1954 Robert H. Jackson, US Supreme Court Justice (1941-1954), died. His incomplete memoir of FDR, begun in the early 1950s, was published in 2003 as "That Man: An Insider's Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt."
1965 Nov 18, Henry A. Wallace (77), VP (1941-45) and founder (Progressive Party), died.
1967 Nov 7, John Nance Garner (98), (VP-D, 1933-41), died.
1997 May 2, A new national memorial honoring Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt was officially opened in Washington, D.C., and was dedicated by Pres. Clinton
#33 Harry Truman (1949-1953)
1884 May 8, Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States (1945-1953), was born near Lamar, Mo. A history buff, President Harry Truman penned this description of Franklin Pierce, the 14th president, "Pierce was the best looking President the White House ever had—but as President he ranks with Buchanan and Calvin Coolidge." "If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military." He decided to drop the bomb that ended World War II and sent troops to Korea to halt communist aggression.
(AP, 5/8/97)(AP, 1/17/99)(HN, 5/8/99)
1885 Feb 13, Elizabeth Virginia "Bess" Truman, 1st lady (1945-52), was born.
1945 Apr 16, In his first speech to Congress, President Truman pledged to carry out the war and peace policies of his predecessor, President Roosevelt.
1945 Jul 17, President Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II.
1945 Aug 8, President Truman signed the United Nations Charter.
1945 Aug 14, President Truman announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II. Shaken by the atomic destruction wreaked on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and faced with the daunting prospect of Allied invasion, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito met with his ministers on the morning of August 14 and announced, "We cannot continue the war any longer." Japan accepted the Allies "Potsdam Declaration," a cease-fire. In 1999 Prof. John W. Dower published "Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II." Dower earlier published "War Without Mercy," a study of the war in the Pacific.
(WSJ, 8/14/95, p. A-11)(AP, 8/14/97)(HN, 8/14/98)(WSJ, 3/31/99, p.A20)(AP, 8/14/08)
1945 Aug 21, President Harry S. Truman ended the Lend-Lease program that had shipped some $50 billion in aid to America's Allies during World War II.
1946 Jan 8, President Truman vowed to stand by the Yalta accord on self-determination for the Balkans.
1946 Jan 22, President Truman set up the Central Intelligence Group. In late 1945 he had coordinated various intelligence reform plans considered in the drafting of the directive that created the CIG. In 1947 it was re-named the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
(http://tinyurl.com/l3go2n)
1946 May 17, President Truman seized control of the nation's railroads, delaying — but not preventing — a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen.
1946 Jul 25, In Monroe, Georgia, 2 black couples were killed by Ku Klux Klansmen near Moore's Ford Bridge in Walton County. Roger Malcom had just been given bail after stabbing a white farmer 11 days earlier. Pres. Truman ordered an FBI investigation and 55 suspects were named in the lynching of Roger and Dorothy Malcom and George and Mae Murray Dorsey, but no one was ever charged. Dorothy Malcom was pregnant.
(SFC, 7/26/05, p.A5)(Econ., 2/21/15, p.32)(SSFC, 12/31/17, p.A21)
1946 Jul 26, President Truman ordered the desegregation of all US forces.
1946 Aug 1, President Truman signed the Fulbright Program into law, establishing the scholarships named for Sen. William J. Fulbright.
1946 Aug 1, President Truman established the Atomic Energy Commission. Physicist John Simpson (d.2000 at 83) helped develop the 1946 McMahon Act, which called for civilian control of atomic energy.
(AP, 8/1/97)(SFC, 9/2/00, p.A23)(http://tinyurl.com/66tsq)
1946 Nov 9, Pres. Truman ended a wage and price freeze.
1946 Dec 5, President Truman created the Committee on Civil Rights by Executive Order #9808.
1946 Dec 31, President Truman officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
1946 President Harry Truman presented James Rives Childs (d.1987), a native of Lynchburg, Va., with the Medal of Freedom. Childs had served in the US Army as a code breaker in France during World War I. During World War II, as charge d'affaires for the American Legation in Tangier, Morocco, he helped 1,200 Hungarian Jews obtain visas to Spanish Morocco.
1947 Jan 8, Gen. George Marshall became US Sec. of State.
1947 Mar 12, Pres. Truman outlined the Truman Doctrine of economic and military aid to nations threatened by Communism. The doctrine was intended to speed recovery of Mediterranean countries He specifically requested aid for Greece and Turkey to resist Communism.
(EWH, 1968, p.1207)(AP, 3/12/98)(MC, 3/12/02)
1947 Mar 21, Pres. Truman signed Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to swear allegiance to the United States.
1947 Apr 30, President Truman signed a measure officially changing the name of Boulder Dam to Hoover Dam.
1947 May 22, The Truman Doctrine brought aid to Turkey and Greece. President Harry S. Truman relied heavily on Dean Acheson for his most significant foreign policy achievements.
(EWH, 1968, p.1207)(AP, 5/22/97)(HN, 5/22/98)
1947 Jul 18, President Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act, which placed the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore next in the line of succession after the vice president.
1947 Jul 23, U.S. President Harry S Truman made the first Presidential surprise visit to Capitol Hill since 1789. "Give Em Hell Harry."
1947 Jul 26, President Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, FBI, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The act forbade the CIA from operating within the US. The CIA was transformed from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), founded by Gen. William Donovan (1941), and was led by Adm. Walter Chilcott Ford (d.1999 at 96) until 1949.
(SFC, 11/23/96, p.A2)(AP, 7/26/97)(SFC, 11/25/99, p.D9)(WSJ, 1/14/07, p.P8)
1947 Aug 23, An audience at the Hollywood Bowl heard President Truman's daughter, Margaret, give her first public concert as a singer.
1947 Oct 5, In the first televised White House address, President Truman asked Americans to refrain from eating meat on Tuesdays and poultry on Thursdays to help stockpile grain for starving people in Europe.
1947 Dec 6, Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Truman.
1947 Dec 23, Truman granted a pardon to 1,523 who had evaded the World War II draft.
1947 Pres. Truman raised $17 billion to fund the Marshall Plan in Western Europe.
(TMC, 1994, p.1947)
1947 Pres. Truman raised margin requirements of futures to 33% as wartime controls ended and food prices soared.
(Econ, 10/11/08, SR p.16)
1948 Jan 7, US president Truman raised taxes for the Marshall-plan.
1948 Feb 2, President Harry Truman sent to Congress a 10-point civil rights program calling for measures against lynching, poll taxes and job discrimination.
1948 Apr 1, The Berlin Airlift began. Pres. Truman countered the Soviet blockade of Berlin with a successful airlift, and beat Thomas E. Dewey in the elections.
(TMC, 1994, p.1948)(HN, 4/1/98)
1948 Apr 3, Congress adopted and President Truman signed the Marshall Plan, which allocated more than $5 billion in aid for 16 European countries. The Marshall Plan was begun to aid the European nations in their economic recovery following WW II. It provided $13.15 billion over 4 years to 17 European nations.
(SFC, 2/5/97, p.A20)(AP, 4/3/97)(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.A10)(HN, 4/3/98)
1948 Jun 25, Pres. Harry Truman signed the Displaced Persons Act of 1948. It was primarily inspired by anti-Communism and led to a relaxation of US immigration policy. Following WWII the US took in more than 650,000 displaced Europeans.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/refugees_01.shtml)(Econ, 10/17/15, p.29)
1948 Jul 26, President Harry Truman In Executive Order No. 9981 called for "equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion or national origin."
(USAT, 7/23/98, p.8A)(HN, 7/26/98)(MC, 7/26/02)
1948 Jul 15, President Truman was nominated for another term of office by the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
1948 Jul 17, Southern Democrats opposed to the nomination of President Truman met in Birmingham, Ala., to endorse South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond.
1948 Jul 31, President Truman helped dedicate New York International Airport (later John F. Kennedy International Airport) at Idlewild Field.
1948 Nov 2, President Truman was elected 33rd president in an upset. He won re-election by a narrow margin over Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey. The Chicago Daily Tribune had been so sure of Dewey's victory that they had printed front-page "Dewey Defeats Truman" articles before the final results were in. Truman defeated Dewey by 2.2 million popular votes and 114 electoral votes. During the presidential election campaign, almost everyone expected New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey to win and few had faith in a victory for incumbent Harry S. Truman. While Truman went on a "whistle stop" tour across the United States, giving more than 350 speeches, Dewey's confident campaign was more reserved. Prof. Frank Kofsky later wrote "Harry Truman and the War Scare of 1948." Henry Wallace was the candidate for the Progressive Party. In 2000 Zachary Karabell authored "The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election."
(AP, 11/2/97)(SFC,11/26/97, p.C6)(SFC, 10/12/98, p.A17)(HN, 11/2/98)(HNPD, 11/2/98)(SFEC, 5/14/00, BR p.5)
1949 Jan 5, In his State of the Union address, President Truman labeled his administration the "Fair Deal." Alben Barkley (1877-1956) served as Truman's vice-president.
(WUD, 1994 p.120)(AP, 1/5/98)(WSJ, 2/12/02, p.A18)
1949 Jan 20, Pres. Truman was inaugurated for his 2nd term. He presented a 4-point plan for American foreign policy. Point 4 called for "a bold new program" of assistance to economically underdeveloped areas. In his inaugural address, Truman branded communism a "false philosophy" as he outlined his program for U.S. world leadership.
(EWH, 1968, p.1207)(AP, 1/20/99)
1949 May 14, Pres. Truman signed a bill establishing a rocket test range at Cape Canaveral.
1949 Aug 10, The National Military Establishment was renamed the Department of Defense. Pres. Truman signed a bill that established a department of defense with broader and more definite powers for the Sec. of defense.
(AP, 8/10/97)(EWH, 1968, p.1207)
1949 Aug 11, President Truman nominated Gen. Omar N. Bradley to become the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
1949 Oct 13, India's PM Nehru, on his first visit to America, met with Pres. Truman and addressed the US House and Senate in two identical speeches.
(http://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/36630)
1949 Pres. Truman appointed Tom C. Clark (-1967) and Sherman Minton (-1956) to the Supreme Court.
(TOH, 1982, p.1949)
1949 Pres. Truman appointed Carlton Skinner (d.2004) as the 1st civilian governor of Guam. Skinner established the island's 1st university and wrote a constitution.
1950 Jan 31, President Truman announced that he had ordered full-speed development of the hydrogen bomb.
(TMC, 1994, p.1950)(AP, 1/31/98)
1950 Mar 30, President Truman denounced Senator Joe McCarthy as a saboteur of U.S. foreign policy.
1950 Apr 14, A national security report , NSC-68, was presented to Pres. Truman. It was in response to a directive issued by Truman on January 31: "to undertake a reexamination of our objectives in peace and war and of the effect of these objectives on our strategic plans, in the light of the probable fission bomb capability and possible thermonuclear bomb capability of the Soviet Union."
(www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nsc-68/nsc68-1.htm)
1950 Jul 3, Truman signed public law 600. It provided federal statutory authorization for the people of Puerto Rico to write their own constitution.
(www.puertorico-herald.org/issues/2004/vol8n34/CBRoadComnwlth.shtml)
1950 Jul 8, President Harry Truman named US Gen. Douglas MacArthur as commander-in-chief of United Nations forces assisting the South Koreans.
(WSJ, 6/24/96, C1)(AP, 7/8/97)(HN, 7/8/99)
1950 Aug 3, A US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) of 35 men arrives in Saigon. By the end of the year, the US was bearing half of the cost of France's war effort in Vietnam. Pres. Truman gave military aid to the Vietnamese regime of Bao-Dai.
(www.oakton.edu/user/~wittman/chronol.htm)
1950 Aug 10, President Harry S. Truman called the National Guard to active duty to fight in the Korean War.
1950 Aug 25, President Truman ordered the Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike. The railroads were returned to their owners 2 years later.
(AP, 8/25/97)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1950 Nov 30, President Truman declared that the U.S. would use the A-bomb to get peace in Korea.
1950 US Pres. Harry Truman sent military personnel to Vietnam to aid French forces.
1950 Rules for discharging US homosexual service members were established in the Uniform Code of Military Service and signed by Pres. Harry Truman.
1951 Jan 23, President Truman created the Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, to monitor the anti-Communist campaign.
1951 Feb 27, The 22nd amendment was ratified, limiting president to 2 terms.
1951 Apr 2, William McChesney Martin (1906-1998) began to serve as chairman of the US Federal Reserve and continued to 1970. Pres. Harry Truman pressed him to keep interest rates low despite the inflationary consequences of the Korean War. Martin refused.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McChesney_Martin)(Econ, 4/29/17, p.58)
1951 Apr 11, President Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his commands in the Far East. President Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur.
1951 Apr 19, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his command by President Truman, bid farewell to Congress, quoting a line from a ballad: "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."
1951 Jul 9, President Truman asked Congress to formally end the state of war between the United States and Germany.
1951 Sep 4, President Truman addressed the nation from the Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco in the first live, coast-to-coast television broadcast. The broadcast was carried by 94 stations.
1952 Jan 5, PM Churchill arrived in Washington to confer with Pres. Truman.
1952 Mar 29, Pres. Harry Truman removed himself from the presidential race.
1952 Apr 8, President Truman, to avert a strike, ordered the Army to seize the nation's steel mills after companies rejected Wage Stabilization Board recommendations. Truman's attempt to take over the US steel industry was later denied by the Supreme Court and the mills were shut down by strikers for 8 weeks [see Jun 2].
(TMC, 1994, p.1952)(AP, 4/8/97)(HN, 4/8/98)(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.B10)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
1952 Apr 15, President Harry Truman signed the official Japanese peace treaty.
1952 Jun 10, Pres. Truman tried to nationalize the steel industry. [see Apr 8]
1952 Jul 24, President Truman announced a settlement in a 53-day steel strike.
1952 Jul 24, Pres. Truman commuted Oscar Collazo's death sentence to life imprisonment. On the same day he signed an act enlarging the self-government of Puerto Rico. [See Nov 1, 1950]
(AP, 11/1/97)(HN, 11/1/98)(HNQ, 1/24/02)
1952 Oct 4, Pres. Truman arrived in SF to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson.
(SFC, 10/4/02, p.E4)
1952 Gen. Omar Bradley told outgoing Pres. Truman that a criminal investigation of the international oil cartels threatens national security. Truman dropped his attack on Standard Oil of New Jersey, Gulf, The Texas Company, Socony-Mobil, Standard Oil of Calif., and their foreign colleges, Anglo-Iranian Oil, and Royal Dutch-Shell. The justice department dropped it's grand jury probe in April and filed a civil complaint accusing the companies of conspiracy to monopolize the industry.
(PCh, 1992, p.939)
1952 The US National Security Agency (NSA) was created in a secret executive order by Pres. Harry Truman to intercept electronic communications through eavesdropping. 16 years later its power to eavesdrop on foreigners was established in public law. In 2008 an edited history of the NSA by Thomas R. Johnson, begun in 1992 and completed in 1998, was made public.
(WSJ, 11/14/08, p.A14)(Econ, 12/19/15, p.41)
1953 Jan 7, President Truman announced in his State of the Union address that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb.
1953 In 2002 Arnold Offner authored "Another Such Victory," an account of Pres. Truman and the development of the Cold War.
1956 Apr 30, Alben W. Barkley (78), (VP-D-1949-53), died.
1972 Dec 26, The 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, died in Kansas City, Mo. In 1995 Robert H. Ferrell published the biography "Harry S. Truman: A Life." In 1999 Ferrell published "Truman and Pendergrast."
(AP, 12/26/97)(WSJ, 7/19/99, p.A13)
#34 Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961)
1890 Oct 14, Dwight D. Eisenhower (d.1969), 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas.
1916 Jul 1, Dwight D. Eisenhower married Mary "Mamie" Geneva Doud in Denver.
1942 Jun 25, Major General Dwight Eisenhower was appointed commander of US forces in Europe.
1942 Aug 14, Dwight D. Eisenhower was named the Anglo-American commander for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa.
1943 Feb 11, General Eisenhower was selected to command the allied armies in Europe.
1943 Feb 13, There was a German assault on Sidi Bou Zid, Tunisia, as Gen. Eisenhower visited the front.
1944 Jan 16, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed supreme command of the Allied Expeditionary Force in London.
1944 Apr 14, Gen. Eisenhower became head commander of allied air fleet.
1944 May 15, Eisenhower, Montgomery, Churchill and George VI discussed the D-Day plan.
1944 May 17, General Eisenhower set D-Day for June 5th.
1944 Jun 6, By the end of D-Day 156,000 Allied soldiers had come ashore on the Normandy beaches with losses of 2,500 men. By the end of the day, the Allies had established a tenuous beachhead that would lead to an offensive that pinned Adolf Hitler's Third Reich between two pincers--the Western Allies and the already advancing Soviets--accelerating the end of World War II. A million Allied troops, under the overall command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, moved onto five Normandy beachheads in three weeks. Operations "Neptune" and "Overlord" put forces on the beaches and supplies aimed at the liberation of Europe and the conquest of Germany. Operation Overlord landed 400,000 Allied American, British, and Canadian troops on the beaches of Normandy, France. In addition, US and British airborne forces landed behind the German lines and US Army Rangers scaled the cliffs at Pointe de Hoc. More than 6,000 trucks of the Red Ball Express kept gasoline and other vital supplies rolling in as American troops and tanks pushed the Germans back toward their homeland.
{France, USA, Germany, WWII, EisenhowerD, Britain, Canada}
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.B9)(HN, 6/6/98)(HNPD, 6/6/99)(ON, 2/08, p.12)
1945 Mar 24, Gens. Eisenhower, Montgomery and Bradley discussed advance in Germany.
1947 Feb 23, Gen. Eisenhower opened a drive to raise $170M in aid for European Jews.
1948 Feb 7, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower resigned as Army chief of staff and was succeeded by Gen. Omar Bradley.
1948 Dwight D. Eisenhower, WW II general, became president of Columbia Univ.
1950 Dec 19, The North Atlantic Council named General Eisenhower supreme commander of Western European defense forces of NATO.
(www.nato.int/multi/photos/1950/m501219a.htm)(AP, 12/19/00)
1952 Apr 28, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower stepped down to run for President.
1952 Republican Dwight Eisenhower won the New Hampshire primary over Robert Taft 50.2 to 38.6%. Democrat Estes Kefauver won over Harry Truman 54.6 to 43.9%.
1952 Jul 11, The Republican National Convention, meeting in Chicago, nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower for president and Richard M. Nixon for vice president. Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin (1900-1974), the governor of Maryland (1951-1959), gave the nominating speech.
(AP, 7/11/97)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.23)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_McKeldin)
1952 Sep 23, Republican vice-presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon went on television to deliver what came to be known as the "Checkers" speech as he refuted allegations of improper campaign financing. Nixon denied that he maintained a private slush fund and all financial allegations except for the gift of a cocker spaniel dog named Checkers from a Texan who heard that his daughters wanted a puppy. Some 30 million television viewers watched as Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower's running mate in the upcoming presidential elections, made a plea for sympathy and vindication in light of charges he was living a lifestyle beyond the means of his $12,500 Senate salary. In 1997 plans were underway to exhume the dog and rebury it near the former president.
(TMC, 1994, p.1952)(SFC, 4/28/97, p.A5)(AP, 9/23/97)(HNQ, 10/12/99)
1952 Oct 24, Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower declared in Detroit, "I shall go to Korea" as he promised to end the conflict if elected. He made the visit over a month later.
1952 Nov 4, Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) was elected president the 34th president, defeating Democrat Adlai Stevenson in presidential elections. The Republicans took over for the first time in 20 years. A Univac computer in Philadelphia predicted the results based on early returns. Richard Nixon was vice president.
(TMC, 1994, p.1952)(AP, 11/4/97)(HN, 11/4/98)(SJM, 5/1/01, p.1C)
1953 Feb 11, President Eisenhower refused a clemency appeal for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
1953 Mar 26, Eisenhower offered increased aid in Indochina (Vietnam) to France.
1953 Mar, The US CIA's Tehran station reported that an Iranian general had approached the US embassy for support in an army-led coup. Based on this information Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, approved $1 million to be used to help bring about the fall of Prime Minister Mossadegh. Pres. Eisenhower gave the CIA the ok to overthrow the elected government of PM Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. after Britain refused to compromise and split profits 50-50. In 2003 Stephen Kinzer authored "All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of the Middle East Terror."
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.A18)(SSFC, 8/24/03, p.M6)
1953 Apr 27, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10450: Security Requirements for Government Employment. The order listed "sexual perversion" as a condition for firing a federal employee and for denying employment to potential applicants. Homosexuality, moral perversion, and communism were categorized as national security threats; the issue of homosexual federal workers had become a dire federal personnel policy concern.
(http://tinyurl.com/3bblwc)
1953 Jun 7, Pres. Eisenhower announced that proposals for a Korean truce are acceptable to the US and appealed to South Korea to accept terms to stop the war.
1953 Jun, In response to Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy's tactics against alleged Communists and un-American activities, Republican President Eisenhower spoke out against "book burners" in June 1953 and "demagogues thirsty for personal power and public notice" in May 1954. Eisenhower also asserted the right of everybody to meet his "accuser face to face." [see Nov 23]
(HNQ, 6/18/98)(HNQ, 11/2/99)
1953 Jul 17, Pres. Eisenhower proclaimed Captive Nations Week following US Senate resolution on July 6 and US House resolution on July 8. It aimed at raising public awareness of the oppression of nations under the control of Communist and other non-democratic governments. It became public law in 1959.
(www.jstor.org/pss/2195306)
1953 Aug 3, Pres. Eisenhower created the US Information Agency to communicate with foreign nations and counter Soviet propaganda. "The USIA explains and supports American foreign policy and promotes US national interests through a wide range of overseas information programs." Theodore Streibert served as its first director. The agency was dissolved in 1999. In 2008 Nicholas J. Cull authored "The Cold War and the United States Information Agency."
(WSJ, 7/23/08, p.A13)(http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/usia/abtusia/commins.pdf)
1953 Nov 19, US VP Richard Nixon visited Hanoi.
1953 Dec 3, Eisenhower criticized McCarthy for saying communists are in Republican party.
1953 Dec 8, Pres. Eisenhower delivered his "Atoms for Peace" address to the UN. He called on both the US and Soviet Union to abandon their nuclear arsenals. The "Atoms for Peace" program spread nuclear technology to nations that agreed not to use it for military purposes.
(SFC, 5/28/98, p.A9)(SFC, 12/9/03, p.A10)
1953 Dec 16, Pres. Eisenhower held the 1st White House Press Conference before 161 reporters.
1953-1961 Dwight D. Eisenhower (b.1890), (R) 34th President.
1954 Jan 8, President Dwight Eisenhower proposed stripping convicted Communists of their U.S. citizenship.
1954 Feb 2, President Eisenhower reported the 1952 detonation of 1st Hydrogen bomb.
1954 Feb 10, Eisenhower warned against US intervention in Vietnam.
1954 Mar 10, Pres. Eisenhower called Sen. Joseph McCarthy a peril to the Republican Party.
1954 Apr 1, U.S. Air Force Academy was founded in Colorado. President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill authorizing the establishment of an Air Force Academy, similar to West Point and Annapolis. On July 11, 1955, the first class was sworn in at Lowry Air Force Base. The academy moved to a permanent site near Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1958.
(HN, 4/1/98)(HNQ, 2/22/99)(MC, 4/1/02)
1954 Apr 7, Pres. Eisenhower spoke at a press conference about why we needed to protect Vietnam and mentioned his fear of a "domino-effect" in Indochina.
(www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2630)
1954 May 13, President Eisenhower signed into law the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Act.
1954 Jun 14, President Eisenhower signed an order adding the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance. On Feb 7 Eisenhower had attended a service where Rev. George M. Docherty (d.2008 at 97), a Scotland-born pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, in Washington, DC, repeated his 1952 sermon saying the pledge should acknowledge God.
(AP, 6/14/97)(SFC, 6/29/98, p.A4)(AP, 11/30/08)
1954 Jul 12, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a highway modernization program, with costs to be shared by federal and state governments.
1954 Aug 24, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Communist Control Act, virtually outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.
1954 Nov 10, The US Marine Corps Memorial, depicting the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, was dedicated by President Eisenhower in Arlington, Va.
1955 Jan 19, A presidential news conference was filmed for television for the first time, with permission from President Eisenhower.
1955 Jan 31, A document thus dated stated that Yuri Rastvorov, a Soviet defector, told Eisenhower administration officials in a private Jan 28 meeting that US and other UN POWs were held in Siberia during the 1950-1953 Korean War.
(SFEC, 5/5/96, World p.1)
1955 Feb 12, President Eisenhower sent 1st US "advisors" to South Vietnam to aid the government under Ngo Dinh Diem.
(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.A19)(MC, 2/12/02)
1955 Mar 16, President Eisenhower upheld the use of atomic weapons in case of war.
1955 Jun 7, Pres. Eisenhower became the 1st president to appear on color TV.
1955 Jun 20, The 10th commemorative session of the UN opened in SF with delegates from 60 nations. Pres. Eisenhower pledged a US policy of "peaceful and reasonable negotiations" with all other powers.
1955 Jul 18, A summit opened in Geneva, Switzerland, attended by Pres. Eisenhower, Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin, British PM Anthony Eden and French Premier Edgar Faure.
1955 Jul 21, During the Geneva summit, President Eisenhower presented his "open skies" proposal under which the United States and the Soviet Union would trade information on each other's military facilities and allow aerial reconnaissance.
1955 Aug 4, Eisenhower authorized $46 million for the construction of CIA headquarters.
1955 Aug 12, Pres Eisenhower raised the minimum wage from $0.75 to $1 an hour.
1955 Sep 26, The New York Stock Exchange suffered $44 million loss, the heaviest one-day loss since 1929 following word that Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack.
1956 Jan 25, Khrushchev said that he believed that Eisenhower was sincere in his efforts to abolish war.
1956 Jan 28, Pres. Eisenhower rejected a proposal for a friendship pact from Soviet Premier Bulganin.
(EWH, 1968, p.1210)
1956 Feb 29, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced he would seek a second term.
1956 May 28, Pres. Eisenhower signed the Agriculture Act which embodied the "soil bank" plan to reduce surpluses.
1956 June 9, In Washington, DC, President Eisenhower underwent surgery for an intestinal blockage. The operation was a success and doctors assured the nation that the president will make a full recovery.
(NYT, 6/9/1956, p.1)
1956 Jun 29, Pres. Eisenhower signed the US Federal Highway Act. It authorized a 42,500 mile network linking major urban centers. 90% of the cost was to be born by the federal government. Initial estimates put completion by 1968 for $25 billion. The system was completed in 1993 at a cost of $425 billion (in 2006 dollars). The Federal Highway Act included the Highway Revenue Act as Title II and created the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) to finance the construction.
(SFC, 6/17/06, p.A1)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.32)(Econ, 11/19/11, p.34)
1956 Aug 1, Pres. Eisenhower signed legislation expanding Social Security benefits to include disability insurance. The Disability Insurance Trust Fund was created as a part of the Social Security Act Amendments.
(Econ, 3/12/11, p.36)(www.ssa.gov/history/tally56.html)
1956 Aug 22, President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon were nominated for second terms in office by the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.
(AP, 8/22/97)(Ind, 11/3/01, 5A)
1956 Oct 15, Pres. Eisenhower appointed William J. Brennan Jr. to the Supreme Court. He served until 1990. In 1997 a collection of essays on Brennan was edited by Rosenkranz and Schwartz titled: "Reason and Passion: Justice Brennan's Enduring Influence."
(TOH, 1982, p.1956)(WSJ, 7/24/97, p.A16)(MC, 10/15/01)
1956 Oct 31, President Dwight D. Eisenhower praised the promise by Moscow made the previous day of major concessions to Hungarians in revolt as "the dawning of a new day" in Eastern Europe. Anti-government demonstrations in Budapest a week earlier had forced a reshuffling of the Hungarian government and demands that the new government denounce the Warsaw Pact and seek liberation from Soviet domination.
1956 Nov 6, The Eisenhower-Nixon Republican ticket won the presidential elections beating Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson. The Democrats won a majority in both houses of Congress.
(SFC, 11/7/56, p.A1)(EWH, 1968, p.1210)(AP, 11/6/97)
1956 Dec 25, Pres. Eisenhower invited Robert George (d.1998 at 74) to the White House as the official Santa Claus. George served as the official Santa for 6 presidents and maintained a year-round Christmas display at his home in Glendale, CA., until 1987 when it was declared a gaudy eyesore.
1956 Dec 29, President Eisenhower asked Congress for the authority to oppose Soviet aggression in the Mideast.
1957 Jan 5, President Eisenhower, in an address to Congress, proposed offering military assistance to Middle Eastern countries so they could resist Communist aggression; this became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.
1957 Jan 19, Pat Boone sang at President Eisenhower's inaugural ball.
1957 Jan 20, President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon were sworn in for their second terms of office in a private Sunday ceremony. A public ceremony was held the next day.
1957 Mar 21, US President Eisenhower and British PM Harold Macmillan began a four-day conference in Bermuda.
1957 Sep 2, Pres. Eisenhower signed the Price-Anderson Act, which limited firms' liability in commercial nuclear disasters. The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, a United States federal law, has since been renewed several times since its passage.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price-Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act)(SSFC, 4/8/07, p.A18)
1957 Sep 2, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. Pres. Eisenhower soon responded with Federal troops to enforce federal law for integration. The nine students, mentored by Daisy Gatson (d.1999 at 84) went on to lead very productive lives as detailed in a 1997 retrospective.
(www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=89)(SFC, 4/28/00, p.A11)
1957 Sep. 9, President Eisenhower signed into law the first civil rights bill to pass Congress since Reconstruction.
1957 Sep 14, Pres. Eisenhower met with Arkansas Gov. Faubus in Rhode Island. Faubus agreed to cooperate with the president's decisions regarding the high schools of Little Rock.
(http://tinyurl.com/2vggdj)
1957 Nov 25, President Eisenhower suffered a slight stroke.
1957 Pres. Eisenhower approved the execution of John Bennett, an Army private convicted of raping and attempting to kill an 11-year-old Austrian girl. He was hanged in 1961.
1958 Jan 3, The first six members of the newly formed US Commission on Civil Rights held their first meeting at the White House after they were sworn in by President Eisenhower.
1958 Jan 9, President Eisenhower, in his State of the Union address to Congress, warned of the threat of Communist imperialism.
1958 Apr 1, President Eisenhower signed a $1.85 billion emergency housing measure.
1958 Apr 28, Vice President Richard Nixon and his wife, Pat, began a goodwill tour of Latin America that was marred by hostile mobs in Lima, Peru, and Caracas, Venezuela.
1958 May 8, Vice President Nixon was shoved, stoned, booed and spat upon by anti-American protesters in Lima, Peru.
1958 May 13, Vice President Nixon's limousine was battered by rocks thrown by anti-U.S. demonstrators in Caracas, Venezuela. Nixon's eight-nation South America goodwill tour encountered violent demonstrations, particularly in Peru and Venezuela, spurring President Dwight Eisenhower to order the movement of US forces into Caribbean bases.
1958 Jun 18, President Eisenhower expressed support for his chief of staff, Sherman Adams, who was accused of improperly accepting gifts from a businessman. Adams resigned in September 1958.
1958 Jul 7, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska statehood bill. Alaska became the 49th state in January 1959.
1958 Jul 8, President Eisenhower began a visit to Canada, where he conferred with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and addressed the Canadian Parliament.
1958 Jul 15, President Eisenhower ordered 5,000 U.S. Marines to Lebanon, at the request of that country's president, Camille Chamoun, in the face of a perceived threat by Muslim rebels; to help end a short-lived civil war.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T8)(AP, 7/15/98)(HN, 7/15/98)
1958 Jul 29, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created NASA.
1958 Aug 25, President Eisenhower signed a measure providing pensions for former U.S. presidents and their widows.
1958 Sep 2, President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act, which provided aid to public and private education to promote learning in such fields as math and science.
1958 Sep 11, Responding to Communist China's artillery attacks on the Taiwan-held islands of Quemoy and Matsu, President Eisenhower said in a broadcast address the US had to be prepared to fight to prevent a communist takeover of the islands.
1959 Jan 3, President Eisenhower signed a proclamation admitting Alaska to the Union as the 49th state. Its area is 586,412 sq. mls. Capital: Juneau; bird: willow ptarmigan; flower: forget-me-not; nickname: The Last Frontier.
(TMC, 1994, p.1959)(THM, 4/27/97, p.L5)(AP, 1/3/98)(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)
1959 Jan 7, The United States recognized Fidel Castro's new government in Cuba.
1958 Mar 6, Form letters from Pres. Eisenhower to 6 civilians appointees provided for them to take office in the event of a national emergency. The group met in 1960 with the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization to discuss staffing for their agencies. Pres. Kennedy relieved the group of its duties in 1961.
1959 Mar 18, President Eisenhower signed the Hawaii statehood bill. Hawaii became a state on Aug. 21, 1959.
1959 Jul 17, The US Congress approved a joint resolution establishing Captive Nations Week to be observed on the 3rd week of July. Pres. Eisenhower signed Public Law 86-90 establishing the week, aimed at raising public awareness of the oppression of nations under the control of Communist and other non-democratic governments, began in 1953.
(www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/WCPD-2002-07-22/pdf/WCPD-2002-07-22-Pg1222.pdf)
1959 Jul 24, During a visit to the Soviet Union, VP Richard M. Nixon got into a "kitchen debate" with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a US exhibition. Nixon correctly said that the $100-a-month mortgage for the model ranch house was well within the reach of a typical American steelworker.
1959 Aug 21, Hawaii became the 50th state as President Eisenhower signed an executive order, five months after he'd signed the Hawaiian statehood bill.
1960 Mar 17, Eisenhower formed anti-Castro-exile army under the CIA.
1960 May 6, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
1960 Sep 8, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., was dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. This followed the activation of the facility in July of that year, when a key element of the U.S. Army's Ballistic Missile Agency was transferred from the Department of Defense to NASA. The Marshall Center is named in honor of General George C. Marshall, who was the Army Chief of Staff during World War II, U.S. Secretary of State, and a Nobel Prize winner for his post-World War II "Marshall Plan."
(NASA PR, 8/22/00)
1960 Sep 14, REITs were created when President Eisenhower signed into law the REIT Act title contained in the Cigar Excise Tax Extension of 1960. REITs were created by Congress in order to give all investors the opportunity to invest in large-scale, diversified portfolios of income-producing real estate.
(www.reit.com/timeline/timeline.php)
1960 Nov 1, US Pres. Eisenhower announced that the US would take all steps necessary to defend its naval base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay.
1961 Jan 17, US Pres. Dwight Eisenhower and Canada's PM John Diefenbaker signed a treaty to jointly control the Columbia River. The treaty was implemented in 1964.
(Econ, 6/7/14, p.42)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Treaty)
1961 Jan 17, Patrice Lumumba (34), the 1st premier Congo, was murdered. President Eisenhower allegedly approved the assassination of Congo's Patrice Lumumba. The US and Joseph Mobutu were implicated but no conclusive proof has emerged. Sidney Gottlieb (d.1999 at 80), a CIA deputy, carried a deadly bacteria to the Congo that was used to kill Lamumba. In 2000 the Belgium Parliament opened an inquiry into possible government involvement in the killing of Congo's Premier Patrice Lumumba. This followed allegations in the new book "The Murder of Lumumba" by Ludo De Witte. In 2001 the inquiry found that King Baudouin knew of the plot but did nothing to stop it. The Katanga government did not announce the death until Feb 13. Moscow charged that UN Sec. Gen. Dag Hammarskjöld was involved.
(TMC, 1994, p.1961)(PCh, 1992, p.979)(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A14)(SFC, 5/3/00, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/9/01, p.A1)
1962 Oct 8, Former Pres. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon visited San Francisco as the SF Giants beat the NY Yankees in a World Series baseball game.
(SSFC, 10/7/12, DB p.46)
1968 Feb 6, Former president Dwight Eisenhower hit a golfing hole-in-one.
1969 Mar 28, Dwight D. Eisenhower (b.1890), the 34th president of the US, died at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington at age 78. In 2002 Carlo D'Este authored "Eisenhower: A Soldier's Life." In 2006 John Wukovits authored "Eisenhower. In 2007 Kasey S. Pipes authored "Ike's Final Battle: The Road to Little Rock and the Challenge of Equality." In 2007 Michael Korda authored "Ike: An American Hero." In 2012 Jean Edward Smith authored "Eisenhower: In War and Peace."
(AP, 3/28/97)(WSJ, 7/12/02, p.W12)(WSJ, 3/7/07, p.D7)(AH, 6/07, p.70)(SFC, 8/22/07, p.E1)(Econ, 3/17/12, p.92)
1970 Dec 31, Congress authorized the Eisenhower dollar coin.
(http://eisenhowerdollarguide.com/)
1971 Nov 1, The Eisenhower dollar was put into circulation.
(www.coinresource.com/guide/photograde/pg_$1ike.htm)
1979 Nov 1, Mamie Eisenhower (b.1896), former first lady, died at a family farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
#35 John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)
1917 May 29, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States (1961-1963), was born at 83 Beals St. in Brookline, Mass. He was assassinated in his first term.
(AP, 5/29/97)(HN, 5/29/99)(SSFC, 9/8/02, p.C12)
1929 Jul 28, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, wife of President John F. Kennedy and first lady from 1961 to 1963, was born in Southampton, N.Y.
1943 Aug 2, A Navy patrol torpedo boat, PT-109, commanded by Lt. John F. Kennedy, sank after being sheared in two by the Amagiri, a Japanese destroyer, off the Solomon Islands. Lt. John F. Kennedy, towing an injured sailor, swam to a small island in the Solomon Islands. The night before, his boat, PT-109, had been split in half by the destroyer Amagiri. Kennedy was credited with saving members of the crew. Two members of the crew were killed in the collision in the Blackett Strait off Gizo, the main town of western Solomon Islands. An injured Kennedy and the ship's other survivors clung to the wreckage and swam to a nearby island, where Aaron Kumana and Biuku Gasa found them. The pair rowed 35 miles through enemy-held waters to summon a rescue boat.
(AP, 8/2/97)(HN, 8/2/98)(AP, 8/30/07)
1944 Aug 12, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., eldest son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was killed with his co-pilot when their explosives-laden Navy plane blew up over England during World War II.
1946 Nov 5, John F. Kennedy (D-Mass) was elected to House of Representatives.
1953 Sep 12, Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy (36) of Massachusetts married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier (24).
1954 Jun 28, US Sen. John F. Kennedy wrote a letter to Gunilla von Post, a Swedish woman he had met on the French Riviera in August 1953, and suggested sailing with her for 2 weeks around the Mediterranean. Kennedy was 36 when he met Post (21). In 1997 Post authored a book, "Love, Jack," that detailed her long-distance affair with Kennedy. In 2010 an auction house put 11 letters and 3 telegrams of their correspondence up for sale.
1955 Sen. John Kennedy began seeing Dr. Janet Graham Travell for his back pain. Travell later became the 1st woman to serve as White House physician.
1956 Aug 16, Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. John F. Kennedy made his convention debut at the Democratic convention in Chicago. Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver withdrew his name from the balloting and asked his 200 delegates to support Adlai E. Stevenson for the presidential nomination. Stevenson won the nomination on the first ballot with 905 votes to New York Governor Averell Harriman's 200 votes. Kefauver then went on to narrowly defeat Senator John F. Kennedy for the party's vice-presidential nomination.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A12)(HNQ, 8/10/99)(AP, 8/16/97)
1958 US Senator John F. Kennedy authored "A Nation of Immigrants." It was written as part of the Anti-Defamation League's series entitled the One Nation Library.
(Econ., 3/14/15, SR p.16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nation_of_Immigrants)
1960 Jan 2, Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
1960 Republican Richard Nixon won the New Hampshire primary over Nelson Rockefeller 89.3 to 3.8%. Democrat John Kennedy won over Paul Fisher 85.2 to 13.5%.
1960 May 10, John F. Kennedy won the primary in West Virginia.
1960 Jul 15, John F. Kennedy accepted the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.
1960 Sep 12, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy addressed the issue of his Roman Catholic faith, telling a Protestant group in Houston, "I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me."
1960 Oct 7, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican opponent Richard M. Nixon held the second of their broadcast debates, in Washington, DC.
1960 Nov 8, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy was elected 35th president by 118,550 popular votes. He defeated Richard Nixon in the US pres. elections. Popular legend later held that the political machine of Richard Daley in Chicago provided the necessary votes for Kennedy to win Illinois (27 electoral votes) and the elections. The Electoral College result was 303 to 219.
(SFEC, 8/31/97, p.B5)(AP, 11/8/97)(SFEC, 1/18/98, Par p.2)(HN, 11/6/98)
1960 Nov 10, Pres. Elect John F. Kennedy named Pierre Salinger (35), a former SF Chronicle reporter, to be his White House Press Secretary and Andrew T. Hatcher (37), a negro and former editor of the SF Sun-Reporter, as associate press secretary.
1960 Nov 25, John F. Kennedy Jr. (d.1999), son of JFK, lawyer, magazine publisher (George), was born in NYC.
1961 Jan 20, Pres. Kennedy made his inaugural address from the steps of the US Capital. In 2004 Thurston Clarke authored "Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America." In 2005 Richard J. Tofel authored "Sounding the Trumpet: The Making of John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address."
(SSFC, 10/24/04, p.M2)(WSJ, 8/24/05, p.D10)
1961 Jan 20, Poet Robert Frost recited his poem "The Gift Outright" [The Outright Gift] at the inauguration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Frost, born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874, was the first poet to participate in a presidential inauguration. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize four times, most of Frost's work drew on themes from rural New England life. He died on January 29, 1963. Although 86-year-old Robert Frost had composed a new poem, titled "Dedication," for the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, he was unable to recite it at the ceremony because he could not read his own typewritten manuscript. A dim typewriter ribbon conspired with Frost's failing eyesight and bright glare on a sunny day with snow cover, making it impossible for the poet to read the poem written especially for the occasion. Instead Frost recited from memory his famous poem "The Gift Outright."
1961 Jan 25, President Kennedy held the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and television.
1961 Jan 26, Janet G. Travell became the 1st woman personal physician to the US President (JFK).
1961 Feb 25, John F. Kennedy named Henry Kissinger national security adviser. Years later, Kissinger was President Nixon's envoy for secret negotiations with North Vietnam. About this time Kennedy also named Adlai Stevenson as ambassador to the UN.
(HN, 2/25/98)(SFEC, 6/6/99, p.A19)
1961 Mar 1, President Kennedy established the Peace Corps. The first volunteers were sent to Ghana.
(TMC, 1994, p.1961)(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A15)(AP, 3/1/98)(SFC, 3/21/98, p.A13)
1961 May 11, Pres. Kennedy authorized American advisors to aid South Vietnam against the forces of North Vietnam.
1961 Mar 26, John F. Kennedy met with British Premier Macmillan, in Washington to discuss increased Communist involvement in Laos.
1961 Apr 24, President Kennedy accepted "sole responsibility" following Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
1961 May 25, President Kennedy summoned a joint session of Congress and asked the nation to work toward putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
1961 Jun 25, US Pres. John F. Kennedy spoke from Berlin urging citizens "to recognize the possibilities of nuclear war in the missile age."
1961 Aug 17, The Kennedy administration established the Alliance for Progress.
1961 Aug 30, President John F. Kennedy appointed General Lucius D. Clay as his personal representative in Berlin.
1961 Sep 5, President Kennedy signed a law against hijacking. It called for the death penalty for convicted hijackers.
1961 Nov 1, Pres. J.F. Kennedy signed executive order 10971 creating a board of three members to investigate a dispute between TWA and certain of its employees.
(www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/jfkeo/eo/10971.htm)
1961 Robert Donovan (d.2003 at 90), newspaperman, authored "PT-109: John F. Kennedy in World War II."
1961-1963 During the Kennedy administration economist Arthur Okun (1928-1980), an economic adviser to both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, concocted the discomfort index, later referred to as the "misery index." It was simply the jobless rate added to the inflation rate. Okun's Law describes a linear relation between percentage changes in unemployment and percent changes in gross national product: for every 1% increase in unemployment, the country suffers a 3% loss of yearly GNP.
(http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/books/tobin/jt_events.htm)
1962 Feb 3, President John F. Kennedy banned all trade with Cuba except for food & drugs.
1962 Feb 7, President Kennedy began the blockade of Cuba.
1962 Feb 12, Pres. Kennedy commuted the death sentence of Jimmie Henderson, a Navy seaman, to confinement for life.
1962 Mar 2, JFK announced US will resume above ground nuclear testing.
1962 Mar 13, John F. Kennedy met Cameroon President Ahmadou Ahidjo.
1962 Mar 15, US President John F Kennedy gave an address to Congress in which he formally addressed the issue of consumer rights. He was the first world leader to do so. World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) was first observed on March 15, 1983, and has since become an important occasion for mobilizing citizen action.
{KennedyJ, USA, Retail}
(http://www.consumersinternational.org/our-work/wcrd/)
1962 Mar 23, Pres. John F. Kennedy visited San Francisco and spoke at UC Berkeley on the 100th anniversary of the Morrill Act. "For this university and so many other universities across our country owe their birth to the most extraordinary piece of legislation this country has ever adopted, and that is the Morrill Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in the darkest and most uncertain days of the Civil War, which set before the country the opportunity to build the great land grant colleges of which this is so distinguished a part. Six years later this university obtained its Charter."
(http://tinyurl.com/6fbdog)
1962 May 19, Marilyn Monroe sang "Happy Birthday" to Pres. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden while wearing a dress described as "skin and beads." In 1999 the dress sold for $1.15 million at Christie's auction house. In 2016 the dress sold for nearly $5 million at a Los Angeles auction to Ripley's Believe It or Not.
1962 May, The stock market decline coincided with Pres. Kennedy's attack on the steel industry and Attorney General Kennedy's antitrust suits against numerous American industries. Kennedy launched a price-fixing investigation after US Steel raised prices by $6 a ton and other steel-makers followed suit.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.B2)(WSJ, 5/12/03, p.A6)
1962 May, A memo from the CIA briefing for Attorney Gen'l. Robert Kennedy revealed that $150,000 was offered to the US mob for the assassination of Fidel Castro. The mob insisted on doing the job at no charge.
1962 Jun, In 2012 Mimi Alford (69), a grandmother and retired church administrator said she began a relationship with Pres. John F. Kennedy while she was a 19-year-old intern in the White House press office. According to a New York Post, which obtained a copy of the memoir, the affair began in the summer of 1962, on the fourth day of Alford's internship, when they had an encounter in the White House swimming pool. That night, Alford says, she lost her virginity to the president in First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy's bedroom. The affair was first revealed in 2003, when Kennedy biographer Robert Dallek wrote in "An Unfinished Life" about an unnamed intern who allegedly had a relationship with the late president. Alford's "Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and Its Aftermath" was released on Feb 8, 2012.
(http://tinyurl.com/7shp9j3)
1962 Jul, Pres. Kennedy installed a taping system in the White House.
1962 Aug 10, Appointed by Pres. Kennedy, Gen. Edward Landsdale participated in a meeting of the Special Group Augmented where discussion of assassinating foreign leaders was discussed. Highlights of the meeting were written down in a memorandum dated Aug 13. Attorney General Robert Kennedy was the augmented member.
1962 Aug 18, Pres. J.F. Kennedy led the official groundbreaking ceremonies for the San Luis Joint-Use Complex, Ca. In 1961 the state and feds had agreed to the project which required the B.F. Sisk San Luis Dam for storage of flows pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Sisk Dam was named after Congressman B.F. Sisk of Fresno.
(CDWR, brochure)
1962 Sep 13, Pres. John F. Kennedy signed a bill into law creating the Point Reyes National Seashore. Boyd Stewart, a Marin, Ca., cattleman, helped create the Point Reyes National Seashore on 70,000 acres of grassland.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Reyes_National_Seashore)(SFC, 1/1/05, p.A14)(SSFC, 5/19/13, p.A2)
1962 Nov 6, Edward M. Kennedy (1932-2009) of Massachusetts was 1st elected as US Senator (D) to fill the vacancy caused by the 1960 resignation of his brother, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, for the term ending January 3, 1965. Pres. Kennedy had persuaded the governor of Massachusetts to appoint his college roommate, Benjamin A. Smith II, until Edward turned 30.
(http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=K000105)(Econ, 8/29/09, p.30)
1962 Oct 11, The US Trade Expansion Act was enacted under Pres. Kennedy. It included a federal program called the Trade Adjusted Assistance (TAA), which offered superior unemployment benefits to US manufacturing and farm workers who lose jobs due to imports or production shifts out of country.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Expansion_Act)(WSJ, 4/20/09, p.A1)(Econ, 7/2/11, p.23)
1962 Oct 15, Byron R. White (1917-2002) was appointed to the US Supreme Court by Pres. Kennedy.
(MC, 10/15/01)(SFC, 4/16/02, p.A5)
1962 Oct 16, The Cuban missile crisis began as President Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photographs had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba.
1962 Oct 16-1962 Oct 29, The Cuban missile crises. Russia under Khrushchev removed its missiles from Cuba. The 13-day missile crises was in part recorded by Kennedy on tape and published in 1997: "The Kennedy Tapes," ed. by Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, Parade p.6)(TMC, 1994, p.1962)(WSJ, 9/23/97, p.A20)
1962 Nov 19, Fidel Castro accepted the removal of Soviet weapons.
1962 Oct 22, President John F. Kennedy announced that missile bases had been discovered in Cuba and they had the potential to attack the United States with nuclear warheads. Kennedy ordered a naval and air blockade on further shipment of military equipment to Cuba. The Russians had previously agreed not to bring new offensive weapons into Cuba, but after hearing Kennedy's announcement, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev refused to cooperate with the quarantine. Following a confrontation that threatened nuclear war, Kennedy and Khrushchev agree on October 28 on a formula to end the crisis. On November 2 Kennedy reported that Soviet missile bases in Cuba are being dismantled.
(AP, 10/22/97)(HNPD, 10/22/98)(HN, 10/22/02)
1962 Oct 24, The U.S. blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis officially began under a proclamation signed by President Kennedy.
1962 Oct 28, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the United States that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba. Radio Moscow reported nuclear missiles in Cuba deactivated. Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed on a formula to end the Cuban missile crisis: the Russians would dismantle their bases and the United States would publicly promise not to invade Cuba.
(AP, 10/28/97)(HN, 10/22/98)(HNPD, 10/22/98)(MC, 10/28/01)
1962 Nov 2, Pres. Kennedy reported that Soviet missile bases in Cuba were being dismantled.
1962 Nov 17, Washington's Dulles International Airport opened in rural Virginia and was dedicated by President Kennedy. The terminal was designed by Finnish-born architect Eero Saarinen. The airport spawned a high-tech corridor that by 2005 sat in the fastest growing county in the US.
(Hem., 5/97, p.68)(AP, 11/17/97)(Econ, 11/26/05, p.80)
1962 Nov 20, President Kennedy barred religious or racial discrimination in federally funded housing.
1962 Dec 5, Pres. Kennedy discussed stockpiling nuclear weapons to deter Soviet attacks with senior staff including Def. Sec. McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor.
1962 Dec, Pres. Kennedy proposed a tax cut.
1962 Dec, Pres. Kennedy commuted the sentence of Junius Scales (d.2002 at 82), who had served 15 months for being a member of the Communist Party. Scales was 1st arrested in 1954 and was later convicted and sentenced to 6 years in prison, the only American ever sent to prison for being a CP member.
1962 Pres. Kennedy signed an Executive Order maintaining the right of federal employees to join unions and negotiate on many issues.
1962 The CIA established its code-named Operation Mongoose spurred by Attorney Gen'l. Robert Kennedy to get rid of Fidel Castro.
1963 Jan 8, President John F. Kennedy attended the unveiling of the Mona Lisa on loan at America's National Gallery of Art.
1963 Mar 19, In Costa Rica, President John F. Kennedy and six Latin American presidents pledged to fight Communism.
1963 Mar 27, John F. Kennedy met with King Hassan II of Morocco.
1963 May 8, JFK offered Israel assistance against aggression.
1963 Jun 9, JFK named Winston Churchill a US honorary citizen.
1963 Jun 10, JFK signed an equal pay for equal work law for men & women.
1963 Jun 11, JFK said segregation is morally wrong & that it is "time to act."
1963 Jun 27, Pres. Kennedy spent his 1st full day in Ireland.
1963 Jul 2, President John F. Kennedy met Pope Paul the Sixth at the Vatican, the first meeting between a Roman Catholic US chief executive and the head of the Catholic Church.
1963 Jul, Interest Equalization Tax was a domestic tax measure implemented by US President John F. Kennedy. It was meant to make it less profitable for US investors to invest abroad by taxing the interest on foreign securities.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_Equalization_Tax)
1963 Aug 30, The hot-line communications link between Washington, D.C., and Moscow went into operation.
1963 Oct 31, Pres. John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Act, which aimed to close asylums and treat mental disorders more like illnesses and less like crimes.
(Econ, 7/11/15, SR p.7)(http://tinyurl.com/pe447ha)
1963 Oct, Pres. Kennedy spoke with Mayor Daley of Chicago to get congressman Roland Libonati to vote the Party line. The conversation was recorded.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.43)
1963 Nov 22, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, had been in office two years, 10 months and two days, when an assassin's bullet ended his life in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy, on a pre-campaign trip to supposedly hostile Texas, had been greeted warmly by enthusiastic crowds at every stop. Upon their arrival in Dallas, President and Mrs. Kennedy, accompanied by Texas Governor John Connolly and his wife, were driven slowly through the downtown streets on their way to a scheduled speech at the Dallas Trade Mart. At 12:30 p.m., as the open limousine traveled through Dealey Plaza past the Texas School Book Depository, Kennedy was shot. Within the hour, Kennedy was pronounced dead at Parkland Hospital and by 2 p.m., Dallas police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald as the suspected assassin. At 2:38 p.m. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States.
1963 Nov 22, John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. Texas Gov. John B. Connally was seriously wounded. Rufus Youngblood (1924-1996), a Secret Service agent, shielded VP Johnson from possible gunshots with his body. Johnson rewarded him by promoting him over time to the No. 2 position in the Secret Service. Ruby used a .38 Colt Cobra purchased at Ray's Hardware and Sporting Goods in Dallas run by Lawrence Brantley (1921-1996). From the address that President Kennedy never got to deliver in Dallas: "If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be no help."
(TMC, 1994, p.1963)(AHD, p. 931)(SFC, 10/4/96, p.B2)(SFC, 10/17/96, C2)(AP, 11/22/97)
1963 Nov 22, Two amateur films recorded the assassination of Pres. Kennedy. A 24 ½ sec. video by Orville Nix Sr. and Abraham Zapruder, a dress manufacturer, captured the assassination on video tape. In 1981 David Lifton published "Best Evidence," on the medical evidence of the assassination. In 1993 Gerald Posner published "Case Closed," a book on the Warren Commission report. In 1998 new testimony was released that a 2nd set of pictures was taken at the autopsy that were never made public. In 2007 David Talbot authored "Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years." In 2007 Vincent Bugliosi authored "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy."
(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A5)(SFC, 10/25/98, p.D5)(SFC, 11/23/00, p.A11)(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M1)(WSJ, 5/19/07, p.P8)
1963 Nov 22, Dr. Charles Andrew Crenshaw, a 3rd year surgical intern at Dallas' Parkland Memorial, tended Kennedy and placed him into a coffin. In 1992 Crenshaw (d.2001) authored "JFK: Conspiracy of Silence" and insisted that Kennedy had 4 gunshot wounds, including one from the front and that the neck wound had been tampered to look like an exit wound.
1963 Nov 22, Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit was slain by Oswald 45 minutes after Kennedy was shot when he called Oswald over for questioning.
(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A5)(SFC, 10/25/98, p.D5)
1963 Nov 25, Assassinated President John F. Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
1963 George Joannides, a CIA agent, was in charge of the Revolutionary Students Directorate (DRE), one of the most powerful Cuban anti-Castro organizations in Miami. A few months before the assassination of JFK the DRE had significant contacts with Lee Harvey Oswald and Oswald tried to infiltrate the New Orleans branch of the DRE.
1965 May 14, An acre at the field at Runnymede, the site of the signing of the Magna Carta, was dedicated by Queen Elizabeth as a memorial to the late John F. Kennedy, US President.
(www.camelotintl.com/365_days/may.html)(http://tinyurl.com/flw65)
1966 Mark Lane (1927-2016) authored "Rush to Judgement," a result of his inquiry into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The 1973 the film "Executive Action" was based on his book.
1967 Mar 14, The body of President Kennedy was moved from a temporary grave to a permanent memorial site at Arlington National Cemetery.
1999 Aug 3, Arbitrators ruled the government had to pay the heirs of Dallas dressmaker Abraham Zapruder $16 million for his movie film that captured the assassination of President Kennedy.
2003 Robert Dallek authored "An Unfinished Life," an 815-page political portrait of JFK.
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