Timeline US Presidents Washington to JFK
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Presidents
#1-44
morphing
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1906 John Sergeant Wise authored "Recollections
of 13 Presidents."
(WSJ, 2/11/03, p.A10)
1984 Paul F. Boller authored "Presidential Campaigns."
(WSJ, 2/11/03, p.A10)
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.
(HN, 4/13/98)(MC, 4/13/02)
1785 Nov 23, John Hancock was
elected President of the Continental Congress for the second time.
(HN, 11/23/98)
#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.
(HN, 6/2/00)
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.
(HNQ, 12/16/99)
1753 Aug 4, George Washington
became a master mason.
(MC, 8/4/02)
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.
(MC, 7/24/02)
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.
(MC, 10/11/01)
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.
(A & IP, ESM, p.13)
1775 Jun 15, The Second
Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington
head of the Continental Army.
(AP, 6/15/97)(HN, 6/15/98)
1775 Jul 2, George Washington
arrived in Boston and took over as commander-in-chief of the new
Continental Army.
(HT, 3/97, p.33)
1775 Jul 3, Gen. George Washington
took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Mass.
(AP, 7/3/97)
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.
(HN, 12/31/98)
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.
(HT, 5/97, p.47)
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.
(WSJ, 5/19/05, p.W10)
1776 Mar 25, The Continental
Congress authorized a medal for General George Washington.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1776 Apr 3, George Washington
received an honorary doctor of law degree from Harvard College.
(AP, 4/3/97)
1776 Aug 29, General George
Washington retreated during the night from Long Island to New York City.
(HN, 8/29/98)
1776 Sep 10, George Washington
asked for a spy volunteer and Nathan Hale volunteered.
(MC, 9/10/01)
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.
(MC, 10/28/01)
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.
(AP, 12/8/97)
1776 Dec 25, Gen. George
Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River for a surprise
attack against Hessian forces at Trenton, N.J.
(AP, 12/25/97)
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.
(WSJ, 3/9/95, p.A-16)
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.
(HN, 9/11/98)
1777 Sep 27, At the Battle of
Germantown the British defeated Washington's army. English General
William Howe occupied Philadelphia. [see Sep 25,26]
(MC, 9/27/01)
1777 Oct 4, George Washington's
troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Penn.,
resulting in heavy American casualties.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1777 Dec 2, British Gen. Howe
plotted his attack on Washington's army for Dec 4.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1777 Dec 19, Gen. George
Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, Pa., to
camp for the winter.
(AP, 12/19/97)
1777 George Washington wrote a
letter offering Nathaniel Sackett $50 a month to set up an intelligence
network.
(SFC, 7/17/02, p.A3)
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.
(WSJ, 1/15/97, p.A12)
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.
(HN, 6/19/98)(MC, 6/20/02)
1778 Jul 8, George Washington
headquartered his Continental Army at West Point.
(MC, 7/8/02)
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.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
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.
(HNPD, 9/21/98)
1781 Mar 1, The Continental
Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation.
(AP, 3/1/98)
1781 Aug 20, George Washington
began to move his troops south to fight Cornwallis.
(MC, 8/20/02)
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.
(HN, 10/9/99)(MC, 10/9/01)
1781 Oct 16, Gen. Washington took
Yorktown.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1781 Oct 17, Cornwallis was
defeated at Yorktown. [see Oct 16,19]
(MC, 10/17/01)
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]
(MC, 8/2/02)
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.
(AP, 8/7/97)(HN, 8/7/98)
1783 Nov 2, Gen. George Washington
issued his "Farewell Address to the Army" near Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 11/2/97)
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.
(AP, 12/23/97)
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.
(SFC, 11/23/98, p.A6)
1786 Sep 9, George Washington
called for the abolition of slavery.
(HN, 9/9/98)
1787 May 25, The Constitutional
Convention was convened in Philadelphia after enough delegates showed
up for a quorum. George Washington presided.
(AP, 5/25/97)(HN, 5/25/99)
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 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.
(AP, 1/7/98)
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.
(AP, 4/16/97)(HN, 4/16/98)
1789 Apr 21, John Adams was sworn
in as the first vice president of the United States.
(AP, 4/21/97)(HN, 4/21/98)
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.
(AP, 7/27/08)
1789 Sep 24, President George
Washington appointed John Jay as the 1st Chief Justice.
(MC, 9/24/01)
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.
(MC, 10/15/01)
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)
1790 Jan 4, President Washington
delivered the 1st "State of the Union" address.
(MC, 1/4/02)
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 8, George Washington
delivered the first State of the Union address.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1790 Mar 21, Thomas Jefferson
reported to President Washington in New York as the new secretary of
state.
(AP, 3/21/97)
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]
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 8/6/99)(AP, 4/10/07)
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.
(HN, 2/25/99)
1791 Mar 4, President Washington
called the US Senate into its 1st special session.
(SC, 3/4/02)
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.
(HN, 2/20/98)(AP, 2/20/98)
1792 Feb 21, US Congress passed
the Presidential Succession Act.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1792 Apr 5, George Washington cast
the first presidential veto, rejecting a congressional measure for
apportioning representatives among the states.
(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 5/5/97)
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.
(www.coinfacts.com/mint_history/mint_history_1792/mint_history_1792.htm)
1792 Apr 22, President Washington
proclaimed American neutrality in the war in Europe.
(HN, 4/22/98)
1792 Dec 5, George Washington was
re-elected president; John Adams was re-elected vice president.
(AP, 12/5/97)
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.
(AP, 2/25/98)
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.
(MC, 4/22/02)
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.
(AP, 1/13/01)
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."
(AP, 9/19/97)
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.
(WSJ, 2/26/02, p.A24)
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."
(WSJ, 6/26/01, p.A23)
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, The first president
of the United States, George Washington, died at his Mount Vernon, Va.,
home at age 67. 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."
(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)
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."
(AP, 12/26/97)
1850 Feb 12, Washington's original
Farewell Address manuscript sold for $2,300.
(MC, 2/12/02)
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.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1889 Apr 30, The George Washington
Bridge, linking New York City and New Jersey, opened.
(HN, 4/30/98)
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]
(HN, 4/30/99)
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."
(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.M1)
# 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.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1764 Oct 25, John Adams, future US
president, wed Abigail Smith. He called her “a constant feast.” Their
marriage lasted 54 years.
(AH, 10/04, p.15)
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.
(WSJ, 2/12/96, p.A-12)
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)
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.
(A & IP, ESM, p.13)
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.
(AP, 9/27/97)
1779 John Adams drafted most of
the Massachusetts state constitution.
(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A16)
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.
(HNQ, 6/23/98)
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.
(Econ, 1/28/06, p.80)
1788 John Adams published "A
Defense of the Constitutions."
(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A16)
1789 Apr 21, John Adams was sworn
in as the first vice president of the United States.
(AP, 4/21/97)(HN, 4/21/98)
1792 Dec 5, George Washington was
re-elected president; John Adams was re-elected vice president.
(AP, 12/5/97)
1796 Nov 3, John Adams was elected
president. [see Dec 7]
(MC, 11/3/01)
1796 Dec 7, Electors chose John
Adams to be the second president of the United States. [see Nov 3]
(AP, 12/7/97)
1796 Supporters of John Adams in
his victorious campaign against Thomas Jefferson, called Jefferson "an
atheist, anarchist, demagogue, coward, mountebank, trickster, and
Francomaniac."
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A22)
1797 Feb 9, John Quincy Adams’
(Sr.) emerged victorious from America's first contested presidential
election.
(HN, 2/9/97)
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.
(AP, 1/8/08)
1798 Jun 25, US passed the Alien
Act allowing president to deport dangerous aliens.
(MC, 6/25/02)
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.
(WSJ, 6/26/01, p.A23)
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.
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.B3)
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.
(ON, 2/10, p.8)
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.
(SFEC, 5/7/00, p.T8)
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.
(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.A22)(AP, 1/20/08)
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)
1756 Feb 6, America's third vice
president, Aaron Burr, was born in Newark, N.J.
(AP, 2/6/97)(HN, 2/6/99)
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.
(HNQ, 7/2/99)
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)
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.
(WSJ, 2/2/95, p.A-16)
1779 Thomas Jefferson (36) was
wartime governor of Virginia and James Madison (28) served in his
cabinet.
(WSJ, 2/2/95, p.A-16)
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.
(HNQ, 6/23/98)
1782 Martha Jefferson, wife of
Thomas Jefferson, died.
(SFC, 4/29/98, p.A6)
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.
(AP, 3/10/98)(HN, 3/10/98)
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.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, BR p.9)
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.
(HN, 7/22/98)
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.
(AP, 9/26/97)(SFC, 8/16/99, p.A21)
1790 Mar 21, Thomas Jefferson
reported to President Washington in New York as the new secretary of
state.
(AP, 3/21/97)
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)
1796 Supporters of John Adams in
his victorious campaign against Thomas Jefferson, called Jefferson "an
atheist, anarchist, demagogue, coward, mountebank, trickster, and
Francomaniac."
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A22)
1797-1815 Thomas Jefferson, the third president of
the United States, served as president of the American Philosophical
Society. 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. He was born in
Virginia on April 13, 1743, and died on July 4, 1826.
(HNQ, 9/24/99)
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."
(WSJ, 5/18/95, p.A-14)
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.
(http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/mtjtime3c.html)
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.
(AP, 2/17/98)(HN, 2/17/98)
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."
(SFC, 9/20/97, p.A9)
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.
(SSFC, 8/17/03, p.M1)
1802 Jan 26, Congress passed an
act calling for a library to be established within the U.S. Capitol.
(AP, 1/26/98)
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.
(AP, 5/3/97)
1802 Congress repealed all taxes
except for a tax on salt and left the government dependent on import
tariffs.
(WSJ, 10/10/97, p.A1)
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.
(HNPD, 8/31/98)
1804 Feb 25, Thomas Jefferson was
nominated for president at the Democratic-Republican caucus.
(HN, 2/25/98)
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.
(HN, 7/25/98)
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.
(MC, 1/17/02)
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.
(AP, 6/3/06)
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.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1807 Feb 19, Former Vice President
Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama. He was subsequently tried for
treason and acquitted. [see Sep 1]
(HN, 2/19/98)(AP, 2/19/98)
1807 Aug 3, The trial of Aaron
Burr began. He was accused of plotting the secession of New England.
(HN, 8/3/98)
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.
(AP, 9/1/97)(HN, 9/1/99)
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.
(AP, 12/22/97)(HN, 12/22/98)
1807-1809 A Jefferson imposed embargo kept American
ships at home. [see Dec 22 1807]
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.F4)
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.
(USAT, 1/7/99, p.3A)
1819 Thomas Jefferson founded the
Univ. of Virginia.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.F2)
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.
(HNQ, 2/16/00)
1821 Thomas Jefferson wrote his
autobiography.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., ‘95, p.62)
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)
1836 Sep 14, Aaron Burr, the 3rd
US Vice President, died. He had served as vice-president under Thomas
Jefferson. Burr is alleged to have fathered a black illegitimate son
named John Pierre Burr. In 1999 Roger W. Kennedy authored "Burr,
Hamilton and Jefferson: A Study in Character." In 2007 Nancy Isenberg
authored “Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr.”
(WSJ, 10/27/99, p.A16)(WSJ, 10/5/05, p.A1)(WSJ,
5/24/07, p.D7)
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.
(WSJ, 3/15/05, p.A1)
2003 Michael Knox Beran authored
"Jefferson's Demons: Portrait of a Restless Mind."
(WSJ, 10/16/03, p.D8)
2003 Garry Wills authored "Negro
President: Jefferson and the Slave Power."
(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.A1)
#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.
(HN, 5/20/99)
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.
(WSJ, 2/2/95, p.A-16)
1779 Thomas Jefferson (36) was
wartime governor of Virginia and James Madison (28) served in his
cabinet.
(WSJ, 2/2/95, p.A-16)
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.
(WSJ, 9/1/99, p.A24)
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 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]
(WSJ, 12/20/95, p.A-12)
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.
(V.D.-H.K.p.227)
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.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1809 Oct 27, President James
Madison ordered the annexation of the western part of West Florida.
Settlers there had rebelled against Spanish authority.
(HN, 10/27/98)
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]
(MC, 1/2/02)
1811 Feb 11, Pres. Madison
prohibited trade with Britain for 3rd time in 4 years.
(MC, 2/11/02)
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.
(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A18)
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.
(AP, 4/20/97)
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.
(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A18)
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.
(HNQ, 10/28/00)
1814 Nov 23, Elbridge Gerry
(b.1744), former Massachusetts governor (1810-1811), died in office as
vice-president of the US under Madison (1812-1814).
(WSJ, 10/22/04,
p.W5)(www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/gerry.htm)
1815 Mar 2, To put an end to
robberies by the Barbary pirates, the United States declared war on
Algiers.
(HN, 3/2/99)
1816 The US passed the first
tariff to protect its industries.
(A&IP, ESM, p.34)
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.
(ON, 9/02, p.4)
#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.
(HN, 6/30/01)
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.
(WSJ, 11/19/98, p.A12)
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.
(HN, 11/3/99)
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.
(WSJ, 11/19/98, p.A12)
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.
(SFEC, 7/4/99, Par p.5)
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.
(HN, 4/28/98)
1818 Oct 20, The United States and
Britain established the 49th Parallel as the boundary between Canada
and the United States.
(HN, 10/20/98)
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.
(HN, 3/6/98)
1820 Mar 9, Congress passed the
Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion.
(HN, 3/9/99)
1820 May 15, The U.S. Congress
designated the slave trade to a form of piracy.
(HN, 5/15/99)
1820 Dec 6, James Monroe, the 5th
US president, was elected for a 2nd term.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1821 Mar 5, Monroe was the first
president to be inaugurated on March 5, only because the 4th was a
Sunday.
(HN, 3/5/98)
1822 Twenty years after the war of
1812 the US government finished paying off the national debt entirely.
(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A18)
1823 Jan 27, Pres Monroe appointed
1st US ambassadors to South America.
(MC, 1/27/02)
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.
(V.D.-H.K.p.232)(AP, 12/2/97)(HN, 12/2/98)
1831 Jul 4, James Monroe, 5th
President of the United States, died in New York City at age 73, making
him the third ex-President to die on Independence Day.
(AP, 7/4/97)(HN, 7/4/98)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
#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.
(HN, 2/12/98)
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.
(HN, 3/18/99)(WUD, 1994, p.210)
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."
(WSJ, 6/25/97, p.A20)
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.
(SC, 3/4/02)
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)
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.
(HNQ, 5/31/01)
1831 Dec 5, Former President John
Quincy Adams took his seat as a member of the U.S. House of
Representatives.
(AP, 12/5/01)
1836 The US Congress, led by
congressman and former president J.Q. Adams, voted to accept the
100,000 gold sovereign donation of Englishman James Smithson and
establish the Smithsonian Institution for the increase and diffusion of
knowledge among men. The actual Institution was not established until
1846.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)(ON, 2/06, p.5)
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. John
Quincy Adams (74), former US president, defended "the Mendi people," a
group of Africans who rebelled and killed the crew aboard the slave
ship Amistad, while en route to Cuba. They faced mutiny charges upon
landing in New York 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.
(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.
(HN, 6/15/98)
1796 Andrew Jackson was elected as
Tennessee’s 1st congressman.
(SSFC, 10/30/05, p.M3)
1802 Andrew Jackson was elected to
command the Tennessee militia.
(SSFC, 10/30/05, p.M3)
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.
(HNQ, 3/22/00)
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.
(SFC, 8/11/99, p.A2)
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]
(MC, 3/29/02)
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.
(HN, 11/7/98)
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.
(HN, 12/13/98)
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.
(HN, 1/17/00)
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.
(HN, 7/17/98)
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."
(HNPD, 12/22/98)
1828 Opponents of Andrew Jackson
accused the general of having murdered a Baptist minister and five
other white militiamen during the Creek War.
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A22)
1828 John Overlord, Andrew Jackson
and James Winchester, the founders of Memphis, Tenn., bestowed an
easement to the Mississippi riverfront for a promenade.
(Econ, 4/10/04, p.24)
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.
(WSJ, 4/2/96, p.A-14)
1830 May 28, Congress authorized
Indian removal from all states to western prairie.
(HN, 5/28/98)
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)
1831 The anti-Mason Party met in
Baltimore for the first presidential nominating convention in the US.
The 116 delegates selected William Wirt of Maryland.
(Hem, 8/96, p.86)
1832 May 21, The first Democratic
National Convention got under way, in Baltimore and re-nominated Andrew
Jackson.
(Hem, 8/96, p.86)(AP, 5/21/97)
1832 Jul 10, President Andrew
Jackson vetoed legislation to re-charter the Second Bank of the United
States.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1832 Nov 24, South Carolina passed
an Ordinance of Nullification. The US government had enacted a tariff.
South Carolina nullified it and threatened to secede. Pres. Jackson
threatened armed force on his home state but a compromise was devised
by Henry Clay that ducked the central problem.
(WSJ, 9/19/97,
p.A13)(www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Nullification.html)
1832 Nov 24, The doctrine of
nullification involved an argument concerning the nature of the union
as defined by the writers of the Constitution and addressed the
question: "Was the US a compact of sovereign states, each retaining
ultimate authority, or was the US one nation formed by the people
through the writing of the Constitution?" John C. Calhoun, supporter of
the doctrine of nullification, was Pres. Jackson's principal opponent
in the nullification crises.
(www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/butowsky2/constitution4.htm#17)
1832 Dec 5, Andrew Jackson was
re-elected US president and became the 1st president to win an election
in which the turnout exceeded 50%. The US anti-Mason Party with William
Wirt drew 8% of the vote against Henry Clay and the eventual winner,
Andrew Jackson. Clay led the Whig Party which coalesced against the
power of Andrew Jackson. The Whigs came from the conservative,
nationalist wing of the Jeffersonian Republicans. The election served
as a referendum on Jackson’s position against the 2nd Bank of the US.
(Hem, 8/96, p.86)(WSJ, 7/8/99, p.A16)(Panic,
p.3)(AH, 6/07, p.45)
1832 Dec 28, John C. Calhoun
became the first vice president of the United States to resign,
stepping down over differences with President Jackson. Van Buren served
as vice president under Andrew Jackson from 1833 to 1837.
(SFC, 9/19/96, p.A18)(AP, 12/28/97)(HNQ, 9/19/99)
1832 Pres. Jackson dispatched the
US Navy to South Carolina to quash an effort to nullify federal tariffs
within the state.
(WSJ, 5/19/05, p.D8)
1832 Pres. Jackson sent the
frigate Potomac to bombard the pirate lair of Kuala Batu.
(WSJ, 10/9/01, p.A22)
1834 Jan 29, President Jackson
ordered the 1st use of US troops to suppress a labor dispute. Jackson
ordered the War Department to put down a "riotous assembly" near
Willamsport, Maryland, among Irish laborers constructing the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal.
(HNQ, 1/23/99)(MC, 1/29/02)
1834 Mar 28, The US Senate voted
to censure Pres. Jackson for the removal of federal deposits from the
Bank of the United States. The Senate declared that Pres. Andrew
Jackson: "in the last executive proceedings in relation to the public
revenue, has assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred by
the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both."
(AP, 3/28/97)
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.
(HNQ, 1/23/99)
1834 Pres. Jackson had special
1804 silver dollars minted for the sultan of Muscat (later Oman) and
the King of Siam (later Thailand) for trade treaties negotiated by
Edmund Roberts.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.A6)
1835 Jan 31, Richard Lawrence
misfired at President Andrew Jackson (aka 'Old Hickory') at the White
House. Lawrence fired 2 pistols at Pres. Andrew Jackson during funeral
services for Rep. Warren Davis. Jackson wasn’t hit and Lawrence, who
thought he was the king of England and that Jackson owed him money, was
found to be insane.
(SFC, 7/25/98, p.A6)(HN, 1/31/99)(SFC, 2/5/00, p.B3)
1835 Pres. Andrew Jackson
succeeded in retiring the national debt largely through the sale of
public land.
(WSJ, 2/6/97, p.C18)(Panic, p.6)
1836 Jul 11, Pres. Jackson,
alarmed by the growing influx of state bank notes being used to pay for
public land purchases, issued the Specie Circular shortly before
leaving office. This order commanded the Treasury to no longer accept
paper notes as payment for such sales. This led to the financial panic
of 1837.
(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h967.html)(Panic, p.6)
1836 Pres. Jackson vetoed the bill
to renew the charter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1836.
Not until the Federal Reserve Act of 1911 did the US Government get
back its monopoly on the creation of money. [see the New York Free
Banking Act of 1838]
(WSJ,11/24/95, p.A-8)
1836 Pres. Jackson named Martin
Van Buren as his successor and Col. Richard Johnson as the vice
presidential candidate, despite Johnson’s mulatto mistress and 2
illegitimate children.
(WSJ, 8/15/00, p.A26)
1837 Mar 3, US President Andrew
Jackson and Congress recognized the Republic of Texas.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1837 Mar 4, When Pres. Jackson
left office there followed a financial crash and a bitter depression
and the government was again forced to borrow money. Pres. Jackson had
returned surplus government funds to the state governments as bonuses.
(WSJ, 2/6/97, p.C18)(WSJ, 6/26/00, p.A1)
1837 Mar 17, Upon his return to
his home in Tennessee, Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the
U.S., proclaimed that he left office "with barely $90 in my pocket."
The old soldier and war hero who had served as president for eight
years, spoke those words when he returned to his home in Tennessee.
(HNQ, 8/6/98)
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)
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)
1853 Mar 8, The first bronze
statue of Andrew Jackson was unveiled in Washington, D.C.
(HN, 3/8/98)
#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.
(AP, 12/5/08)
1783 Mar 8, Hannah Hoes Van Buren,
wife of Martin Van Buren, was born.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1831 New York Senator William L.
Marcy made the statement, "To the victor belong the spoils of the
enemy," on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1831. Marcy was
responding to attacks on Secretary of State Martin van Buren made by
Senator Henry Clay with regard to the use of patronage for party
purposes, known as the "spoils system." Marcy, who retired from the
senate in 1833, became known as the "champion of the spoils system." He
went on to serve as secretary of war and secretary of state.
(HNQ, 9/23/99)
1836 Dec 7, Martin Van Buren
(d.1862) was elected the eighth president of the United States and
served one term. He was known as the "Little Magician" and the "Red Fox
of Kinderhook." The eighth president earned these monikers for his
political adroitness and skill at keeping his thoughts close to the
vest.
(AP, 12/7/97)(HNQ, 9/19/99)
1836 Pres. Jackson named Martin
Van Buren as his successor and Col. Richard Johnson as the vice
presidential candidate, despite Johnson’s mulatto mistress and 2
illegitimate children.
(WSJ, 8/15/00, p.A26)
1837 Feb 8, The Senate selected
Richard Mentor Johnson as the vice president of the United States.
Johnson was nominated for vice president on the Democratic ticket with
Martin Van Buren in 1836. When Johnson failed to receive a majority of
the popular vote, the election was thrown into the Senate for the first
and only time. Johnson won the election in the Senate by a vote of 33
to 16.
(AP, 2/8/99)(HNQ, 3/8/99)
1837 Mar 4, Martin Van Buren was
inaugurated as 8th President.
(SC, 3/4/02)
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.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R43)
1837-1841 Martin Van Buren became 8th President of
the US. His term was marred by depression and financial panic.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(HFA, ‘96, p.46)
1840 Mar 31, 1840, American
President Martin Van Buren issued an executive order extending the
"10-hour system" to all laborers and mechanics employed on federal
public works. The movement for the 10-hour workday grew after Eastern
city building trades workers and the municipal government of
Philadelphia instituted it in the early 1830s. The average daily hours
of factory workers in 1840 was estimated at 11.4. By 1860 the 10-hour
day was standard among most skilled workers and laborers.
(HNQ, 3/15/99)
1840 In his re-election campaign
Van Buren was attacked for "wallowing lasciviously in raspberries."
(WSJ, 9/9/96, p.A16)
1862 Jul 24, Martin Van Buren
(79), the eighth president of the United States, died in Kinderhook,
N.Y.
(AP, 7/24/97)(HN, 7/24/98)
#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.
(SC, 7/25/02)
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.
(HN, 5/9/99)
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)
1839 Dec 4, The Whig Party opened
a national convention in Harrisburg, Pa., where delegates nominated
William Henry Harrison for president. Soon after the Whigs constructed
a 10-foot ball of twine, wood and tin, covered with Whig slogans, and
rolled it from Cleveland to Columbus, Ohio, and across the country.
This led to the expression "Keep the ball rolling."
(AP, 12/4/99)(SSFC, 1/11/04, p.D6)
1840 Dec 2, William Henry Harrison
was elected president of US. Whig candidate William Henry Harrison, Old
Buckeye, and his running mate John Tyler ran and won in a landslide
against Democrat Pres. Martin Van Buren. Depression and financial panic
had marked Van Buren’s term. Fans of the Harrison Party rolled huge
balls of paper, rope and tin through Midwestern towns and into the
Pennsylvania convention. "Hard cider" Whigs disrupted the Democratic
gathering in Baltimore.
(HFA, ‘96, p.46)(Hem, 8/96, p.84)(WSJ, 8/15/00,
p.A26)(MC, 12/2/01)
1840 John Janey was chairman of
the Whig Party Convention in Virginia that nominated W.H. Harrison for
president. Janey and John Tyler were the nominees for the vice
presidency. The convention vote was a tie and Janey voted for John
Tyler, who became president when William Henry Harrison died in 1841.
(SFC, 12/17/96, p.E8)
1840 In his re-election campaign
Van Buren was attacked for "wallowing lasciviously in raspberries."
(WSJ, 9/9/96, p.A16)
1841 Feb 18, 1st continuous
filibuster in US Senate began and lasting until March 11.
(MC, 2/18/02)
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 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)
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.
(HN, 6/26/98)
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.
(HC, Internet, 3/3/98)
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)
1795 Nov 2, James Knox Polk, the
11th president of the United States, was born in Mecklenburg County,
N.C.
(AP, 11/2/97)(HN, 11/2/98)
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.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1845 Nov 4, The 1st US nationally
observed uniform election day was held.
(MC, 11/4/01)
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.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(HFA, ‘96, p.46)
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.”
(HN, 1/13/99)(HNQ, 2/28/99)(WSJ, 5/16/08, p.W8)
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.
(AH, 6/07, p.44)
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.
(AP, 8/22/97)
1848 Feb 14, James Polk became the
first U.S. President to be photographed in office by Matthew Brady.
(HN, 2/14/98)
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.
(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
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.
(AH, 2/03, p.18)
1849 Jun 15, James Polk, the 11th
president of the United States, died in Nashville, Tenn. In 2008 Walter
R. Borneman authored “Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and
America.”
(AP, 6/15/97)(HN, 6/15/98)(WSJ, 5/16/08, p.W8)
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.
(MC, 8/11/02)
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.
(AH, 2/03, p.18)
# 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.
(AP, 11/24/97)(HN, 11/24/98)
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 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.
(AH, 2/03, p.18)
1849 Mar 5, Zachary Taylor took
the oath of office at his presidential inauguration.
(AP, 3/5/99)
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]
(HN, 7/11/99)
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.
(HN, 3/13/98)
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."
(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)
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.
(HNQ, 8/27/98)
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."
(HNQ, 2/17/99)
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.
(AP, 11/23/97)(HN, 11/23/98)
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.
(HNQ, 8/27/98)
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.
(WSJ, 2/11/03, p.A10)
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).
(WSJ, 9/14/00, p.A24)(MC, 7/14/02)
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]
(MC, 3/20/02)
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.
(WSJ, 6/26/01, p.A23)
1855 Jun 5, The anti-foreign,
anti-Roman Catholic Know-Nothing Party held its 1st convention.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1856 Feb 18, The American
(Know-Nothing) Party abolished secrecy.
(MC, 2/18/02)
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.
(AP, 10/8/97)(MC, 10/8/01)
#15 James Buchanon (1857-1861)
1821 Jan 21, John Breckinridge
(d.1875), 14th U.S. Vice President, was born.
(HN, 1/21/99)
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. [His ?brother-in-law was Lloyd Tevis, founder of
Wells Fargo]
(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.
(AP, 4/6/08)
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.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T5)
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.
(HN, 12/4/98)
1861 James Buchanan, 15th
President of the United States, retired to Wheatland, his Pennsylvania
home.
(HNQ, 4/15/01)
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 Feb 12, 1809, in Hardin County
(present-day Larue County), Kentucky. His father owned two 600-acre
farms. 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.
1818 Dec 13, Mary Todd Lincoln,
wife of President Abraham Lincoln, was born.
(HN, 12/13/98)
1831-1837 Abraham Lincoln lived in New Salem, Ill.
During this time he enlisted in the Black Hawk War. [see 1832]
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.)(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T4)
1832 Apr 21, Abraham Lincoln (23)
assembled with his New Salem neighbors for the Black Hawk War on the
Western frontier. Illinois Governor John Reynolds had called for
volunteers to beat back a new Indian threat. Black Hawk, chief of the
Sac and Fox Indians, had returned to his homeland at the head of a band
of 450 warriors, intent on forcibly reversing the treaty he had signed
28 years earlier that ceded control of the tribe’s ancestral home in
northwestern Illinois to the U.S. government.
(HNQ, 7/21/00)
1835 Aug 25, Ann Rutledge (22),
said to be Lincoln's true love, died in Ill.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1842 Nov 4, Abraham Lincoln
married Mary Todd in Springfield, Ill.
(AP, 11/4/97)(HN, 11/4/98)
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.
(ON, 11/02, p.11)
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"
(HN, 5/29/98)(SC, 5/29/02)
1854 Oct 4, Abraham Lincoln made
his 1st political speech at Illinois State Fair.
(MC, 10/4/01)
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.”
(WSJ, 7/26/08, p.W9)
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."
(AP, 6/16/98)(HN, 6/16/98)
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.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1858 Sep 15, The third debate
between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas
was held in Jonesboro, Ill.
(AP, 9/15/08)
1858 Sep 18, Abraham Lincoln and
Stephen A. Douglas held the fourth of their senatorial debates, this
one in Charleston, Ill.
(AP, 9/18/08)
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.
(AP, 10/13/08)
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.
(ON, 4/08, p.3)
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.”
(SSFC, 8/15/04, p.D11)
1860 Mar 6, While campaigning for
the presidency, Abraham Lincoln made a speech defending the right to
strike.
(HN, 3/6/99)
1860 May 16, Chicago: Republican
convention selected Abraham Lincoln as their presidential candidate.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1860 May 18, The Republican
Convention in Chicago nominated Abraham Lincoln for US president in a
hastily constructed edifice called the Wigwam.
(Hem., 7/96, p.26)(HN, 5/18/98)
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. Following his election South
Carolina seceded from the Union followed by Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. Hannibal Hamlin was his
vice-president.
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A13)(HN, 11/6/98)(SFC, 12/21/98,
p.A3)(AP, 11/6/08)
1860 Nov 13, South Carolina’s
legislature called a special convention to discuss secession from the
Union.
(HN, 11/13/98)
1861 Jan 25, Pres. Lincoln picked
Ferdinand Schavers, a black man, as his first bodyguard. He appointed
William H. Seward as his Sec. of State.
(Hem., 5/97, p.18)(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A13)
1861 Jan, Pres. Lincoln appointed
William H. Seward as his Sec. of State.
(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.
(AP, 2/11/97)
1861 Feb 13, Abraham Lincoln was
declared president.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1861 Feb 19, Pres.-elect Lincoln
traveled through NYC on his way to Washington.
(WSJ, 2/12/04, p.D12)
1861 Feb 23, President-elect
Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office after an
assassination plot was foiled in Baltimore. Allan Pinkerton, founder of
the Pinkerton Detective Agency, may have saved Abraham Lincoln’s life
by uncovering 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)(HNPD, 3/22/99)
1861 Mar 4, Abraham Lincoln was
inaugurated president.
(AP, 3/4/99)
1861 Mar 4, President Lincoln
opened the Government Printing Office.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1861 Mar 9, First hostile act of
the Civil War occurred when Star of the West fired on Sumter, S.C.
(HN, 3/9/98)
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.
(ON, 11/00, p.2)
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.
(AP, 4/15/97)(HN, 4/15/98)
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.
(HN, 4/27/98)
1861 Jun 17, President Abraham
Lincoln witnessed Dr. Thaddeus Lowe demonstrate the use of a hot-air
balloon.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1861 Jul 27, President Abraham
Lincoln replaced General Irwin McDowell with General George B.
McClellen as head of the Army of the Potomac.
(AP, 7/27/97)(HN, 7/27/98)
1861 Apr 16, US president Lincoln
outlawed business with confederate states.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1861 Apr 30, President Lincoln
ordered Federal Troops to evacuate Indian Territory.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1861 May 3, Lincoln asked for
42,000 Army Volunteers and another 18,000 seamen.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1861 May 3, Gen. Winfield Scott
presented his Anaconda Plan.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1861 Jun 10, Thaddeus Lowe
demonstrated his balloon, the Enterprise, along with its telegraphy
capabilities for Pres. Lincoln at the White House lawn.
(ON, 2/05, p.8)
1861 Aug 15, Lincoln directed
reinforcements to be sent to Missouri.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1861 Aug 16, President Lincoln
prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding
states of the Confederacy.
(AP, 8/16/97)
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 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.A-8)
1861 Pres. Lincoln appointed Anson
Burlingame, congressman from Mass., as ambassador to China.
(Ind, 8/11/01, 5A)
1861-1865 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.
(HN, 2/12/98)(AP, 2/12/98)(AHD, 1971, p.759)(WSJ,
2/10/95, p.A-8)(SFC, 9/1/96, Par. p.12)(HNPD, 2/12/99)(SFC, 4/30/99,
p.E9)
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.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1862 Jan 13, President Lincoln
named Edwin M. Stanton Secretary of War.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1862 Jan 27, President Abraham
Lincoln issued General War Order No. 1, setting in motion the Union
armies.
(HN, 1/27/99)
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.
(ON, 6/10, p.1)
1862 May 20, President Lincoln
signed the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land to
settlers in the West.
(HN, 5/20/01)
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.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.D1)(WSJ, 12/15/95, p.A-1)
1862 Jul 2, Lincoln signed an act
granting land for state agricultural colleges. [see Jul 1]
(SC, 7/2/02)
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]
(HN, 8/10/98)
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.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1862 Sep 24, President Abraham
Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus against anyone suspected of
being a Southern sympathizer.
(HN, 9/24/98)
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.
(HN, 11/5/98)
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.”
(WSJ, 9/7/06, p.A20)
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 25, President and Mrs.
Lincoln visited hospitals in the Washington D.C. area on this Christmas
Day.
(HN, 12/25/98)
1862 Dec 30, The draft of the
Emancipation Proclamation was finished and circulated around Lincoln's
cabinet for comment.
(HN, 12/30/98)
1862 Dec 31, President Lincoln
signed an act admitting West Virginia to the Union.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1862 Pres. Lincoln made Andrew
Johnson the military governor of Tennessee after Federal forces
captured Nashville.
(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A3)
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.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1863 Jan 26, President Lincoln
named General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the
Army of the Potomac. [see Jan 25]
(HN, 1/26/99)
1863 Feb 26, Pres. Lincoln signed
a National Currency Act.
(SC, 2/26/02)
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 draft
riots in New York.
(HN, 3/3/99)(HNQ, 10/18/00)
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]
(MC, 6/25/02)
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.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1863 Aug 3, Governor Seymour asked
Pres. Lincoln to suspend the draft in NY.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1863 Oct 3, President Lincoln
declared the last Thursday in November, Thanksgiving Day.
(AP, 10/3/97)
1863 Nov 17, Lincoln began the 1st
draft of his Gettysburg Address.
(MC, 11/17/01)
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.
(AP, 12/8/97)(MC, 12/8/01)
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.
(HN, 12/14/98)
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.
(HNQ, 3/13/99)
1864 Jun 8, Abraham Lincoln was
nominated for another term as president during the National Union
(Republican) Party's convention in Baltimore.
(AP, 6/8/07)
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.
(HN, 7/12/98)
1864 Jul 18, President Lincoln
asked for 500,000 volunteers for military service.
(MC, 7/18/02)
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]
(WSJ, 9/25/03, p.A18)
1864 Aug 31, At the Democratic
convention in Chicago, General George B. McClellan was nominated for
president. [see Aug 28]
(HN, 8/31/98)
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.
(HT, 3/97, p.66)
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.
(HFA, ‘96, p.22)(HN, 3/2/99)
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.
(SC, 3/4/02)(WSJ, 2/12/04, p.D12)
1865 Mar 6, President Lincoln's
2nd Inaugural Ball was held.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1865 Mar 15, Lincoln delivered his
Second Inaugural Address.
(HFA, ‘96, p.28)
1865 Apr 11, Lincoln urged a
spirit of generous conciliation during reconstruction.
(MC, 4/11/02)
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.
(HN, 4/17/98)
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.
(HN, 5/3/98)
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)
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.
(HN, 7/16/98)
1887 Apr 10, President Abraham
Lincoln was re-buried with his wife in Springfield, Il.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1892 Feb 12, Illinois made
President Lincoln's birthday a state holiday. Other states followed
suit over the years.
(AP, 3/9/05)
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.
(AP, 2/12/98)
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."
(WSJ, 2/12/04, p.D12)
Jefferson Davis (1861-1865)
1808 Jun 3, Jefferson Davis, the
first and only president of the Confederacy, was born in Christian
County, Ky.
(AP, 6/3/97)(HN, 6/3/99)
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.
(HNQ, 5/24/98)
1826 May 7, Varina Howell Davis
(d.1905), 1st lady (Confederacy), was born.
(MC, 5/7/02)
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.
(AP, 2/18/98)(HN, 2/18/98)
1861 Mar 13, Jefferson Davis
signed a bill authorizing slaves to be used as soldiers for the
Confederacy.
(HN, 3/13/98)
1861 Nov 6, Jefferson Davis was
elected to a six-year term as president of the Confederacy.
(AP, 11/6/97)(HN, 11/6/98)
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.
(AP, 6/3/97)(HN, 6/3/99)
1862 Feb 22, Jefferson Davis was
inaugurated president of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. for the
second time.
(HN, 2/22/98)
1862 Apr 16, Confederate President
Jefferson Davis approved conscription act for white males between 18
and 35.
(HN, 4/16/98)
1863 Mar 12, President Jefferson
Davis delivered his State of the Confederacy address.
(HN, 3/12/98)
1863 Aug 8, Confederate President
Jefferson Davis refused General Robert E. Lee’s resignation.
(HN, 8/8/98)
1864 Jan 14, Confederate President
Jefferson Davis wrote to General Johnson, observing that troops might
need to be sent to Alabama or Mississippi.
(HN, 1/14/99)
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.
(HN, 7/17/98)
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.
(HN, 5/2/98)
1865 May 10, Confederate Pres.
Jefferson Davis was captured by Union troops near Irvinville, Georgia.
[see May 19]
(AP, 5/10/97)(HN, 5/10/98)
1865 May 19, President Jefferson
Davis was captured by Union Cavalry in Georgia. [see May 10]
(HN, 5/19/98)
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.
(HN, 5/11/99)
1883 Mar 4, Alexander H. Stephens
(71), Vice President Confederate States, died.
(SC, 3/4/02)
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.
(SC, 3/3/02)
#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.
(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A3)
1865 May 2, President Johnson
offered a $100,000 reward for the capture of Confederate President
Jefferson Davis.
(HN, 5/2/98)
1865 Aug 20, Pres. Johnson
proclaimed an end to the "insurrection" in Texas.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1865 Oct 11, President Johnson
paroled CSA VP Alexander Stephens.
(MC, 10/11/01)
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.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1866 Apr 2, Pres. Johnson ended
war in Ala, Ark, Fla, Ga, Miss, La, NC, SC, Ten and Va.
(MC, 4/2/02)
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.
(AP, 8/20/97)(SFC, 6/29/99, p.A7)
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.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1867 Mar 23, Congress passed a 2nd
Reconstruction Act over President Johnson's veto.
(SS, 3/23/02)
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.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/01)
1867 Jun 20, Pres. Andrew Johnson
announced the purchase of Alaska.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1867 Jul 25, President Andrew
Johnson signed an act creating the territory of Wyoming. [see Jul 25,
1868]
(HN, 7/25/98)
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.
(AP, 8/12/97)(AH, 2/06, p.12)
1867 Sep 7, President Andrew
Johnson extended amnesty to all but a few of the leaders of the
Confederacy.
(MC, 9/7/01)
1867 Nov 25, US Congress
commission looked into impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.
(MC, 11/25/01)
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.
(ON, 9/01, p.6)
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.
(AP, 3/5/08)
1868 Mar 13, The impeachment trial
of President Andrew Johnson began in the U.S. Senate.
(AP, 3/13/97)(ON, 9/01, p.7)
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.
(HNQ, 1/6/99)
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.
(AP, 5/16/97)(HNPD, 5/16/99)
1868 May 26, The 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.
(AP, 5/26/97)(SFC, 2/12/99, p.A12)
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.
(Ind, 8/11/01, 5A)
1868 Dec 25, President Andrew
Johnson granted an unconditional pardon to all persons involved in the
Southern rebellion that resulted in the Civil War.
(AP, 12/25/97)
1875 Jul 31, The 17th president of
the United States, Andrew Johnson, died in Carter Station, Tenn., at
age 66. He succeeded Abraham Lincoln and was the only president to face
impeachment proceedings.
(AP, 7/31/97)(HN, 7/31/98)
#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.
(AP, 4/27/97)(HN, 4/27/02)
1823 Mar 23, Schuyler Colfax, (R)
17th US Vice President (1869-73), was born.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1854 Ulysses S. Grant was
stationed at Fort Humboldt in northern California.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, p.T5)
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.
(HN, 9/6/98)
1862 Feb 15, Grant launched a
major assault on Fort Donelson, Tenn.
(HN, 2/15/98)
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.
(AP, 2/16/98)(HN, 2/16/98)
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.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1862 Dec 18, Grant announced the
organization of his army in the West. Sherman, Hurlbut, McPherson, and
McClernand would be Corps Commanders.
(HN, 12/18/98)
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.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1863 Mar 9, U.S. Grant was
appointed commander-in-chief of the Union forces.
(HN, 3/9/98)
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.
(HN, 3/11/99)
1863 May 17, Union General Ulysses
Grant continued his push towards Vicksburg at the Battle of the Big
Black River Bridge in Mississippi.
(HN, 5/17/99)
1863 May 19, Union General Ulysses
S. Grant's first attack on Vicksburg, Miss., was repulsed.
(HN, 5/19/99)
1863 May 22, U.S. Grant’s second
attack on Vicksburg, Miss., failed and a siege began.
(HN, 5/22/98)
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.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1863 Oct 16, Grant was given
command of Union forces in West. [see Oct 17]
(MC, 10/16/01)
1863 Oct 17, General Ulysses S.
Grant was named overall Union Commander of the West. [see Oct 16]
(HN, 10/17/98)
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.
(HT, 4/97, p.56)
1863 Oct 23, Gen’l. Grant arrived
at Chattanooga. [see Oct 24]
(HT, 4/97, p.56)
1863 Oct 24, General Ulysses S.
Grant arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee to find the Union Army there
starving. [see Oct 23]
(HN, 10/24/98)
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.
(HNQ, 3/13/99)
1864 Mar 10, Ulysses S. Grant
became commander of the Union armies in the Civil War.
(AP, 3/10/98)
1864 Apr 17, General Grant banned
the trading of prisoners.
(HN, 4/17/98)
1864 May 4, Ulysses S Grant
crossed Rapidan and began his duel with Robert E Lee.
(HN, 5/4/98)
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.
(HN, 5/6/99)
1864 May 7, In Virginia the Battle
of Wilderness ended, with heavy losses to both sides.
(HN, 5/7/98)
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.
(HN, 5/23/98)
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.
(HN, 6/18/98)
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.
(HN, 6/25/98)
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.
(HN, 7/10/98)
1864 Jul 31, Ulysses S. Grant was
named General of Volunteers.
(MC, 7/31/02)
1864 Aug 1, Union General Ulysses
S. Grant gave general Philip H. Sheridan the mission of clearing the
Shenandoah Valley of Confederate forces.
(HN, 8/1/98)
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."
(MC, 9/17/01)
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.
(AP, 7/25/97)
1868 May 20, The Republican
National Convention met in Chicago and nominated Grant.
(MC, 5/20/02)
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.
(ON, 9/01, p.7)
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.
(HNQ, 5/9/98)
1870 Jan 15, The Democratic party
was represented as a donkey in a cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper’s
Weekly.
(Hem, 8/96, p.84)(AP, 1/15/98)
1870 Mar 30, the 15th Amendment to
the Constitution, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race,
passed.
(AP, 3/30/97)(HN, 3/30/98)
1870 Jun 22, The US Congress
created the Department of Justice.
(AP, 6/22/97)
1871 Feb 28, The 2nd Enforcement
Act set federal control of congressional elections.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1871 Mar, Pres. Grant sent federal
troops to South Carolina to suppress violence instigated by the Ku Klux
Klan.
(AH, 6/03, p.28)
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.
(AH, 6/03, p.31)
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.
(AH, 6/03, p.31)
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.
(HN, 6/5/98)
1872 Nov 5, Ulysses S. Grant was
re-elected US president.
(MC, 11/5/01)
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]
(AP, 11/5/97)(HN, 11/5/98)
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.
(HNQ, 9/4/00)
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.
(HN, 3/1/98)
1876 Feb 7, Pres. Grant's private
secretary Orville was acquitted in Whiskey Ring.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1876 Oct 26, President Grant sent
federal troops to SC.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1876 President Ulysses S. Grant
authorized the funds to complete the construction of the Washington
Monument, but without the ornate building and classical statue.
(ON, 3/00, p.10)
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.
(Ind, 2/17/00, 5A)
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, N.Y.,
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.”
(SFC, 4/14/97, p.A7)(SFEC, 4/19/98, Par p.20)(AP,
7/23/98)(HN, 7/23/98)(ON, SC, p.11)(ON, 12/00, p.7)(WSJ, 5/14/04,
p.W10)(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.P9)
1875
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.
(HNPD, 4/28/99)
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.
(AP, 12/30/02)
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.
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A22)
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.
(WSJ, 12/11/00, p.A18)
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]
(MC, 1/25/02)
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.
(WSJ, 12/11/00, p.A18)
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.
(AP, 3/3/02)
1877 Mar 5, Rutherford B. Hayes
was inaugurated as 19th US president.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1877 Apr 24, Federal troops were
ordered out of New Orleans, ending the North's post-Civil War rule in
the South.
(AP, 4/24/00)
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.
(HNQ, 12/11/98)
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.
(AP, 12/31/02)
1877 Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes
appointed John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911) of Kentucky to the Supreme
Court Justice.
(WSJ, 5/28/02, p.D7)
1877-1881 Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president (R)
of the United States. Hayes refused to seek a second term.
(AP, 10/4/97)(HN, 10/4/98)(MC, 10/3/01)
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.
(AP, 2/15/98)
1879 Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes had
the first White House telephone installed.
(SFC, 2/3/97, p.D1)
1879 Congress passed a law that
banned ships from bringing more than 15 Chinese passengers to the US at
one time.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1880 Mar 8, President Rutherford
B. Hayes declared that the United States would have jurisdiction over
any canal built across the isthmus of Panama.
(HN, 3/8/99)
1880 US Pres. Rutherford Hayes
lunched at the Cliff House in SF.
(SSFC, 8/21/05, p.A1)
#20 James Garfield (1881)
1831 Nov 19, James A. Garfield
(d.1881) the 20th Pres. of the US, was born in Orange Township, Ohio.
(WUD, 1994, p.584)(AP, 11/19/08)
1863 James Garfield was elected to
Congress.
(HNQ, 8/3/02)
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.
(SFC, 2/11/04, p.F10)
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.
(SC, 3/4/02)
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.
(HNPD, 9/19/98)
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.
(AP, 10/5/07)
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.
(AP, 9/20/97)(HNPD, 9/19/98)
1881-1885 Chester A. Arthur, Vice-President under
Garfield, served as the 21st President of the US.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)
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.
(AP, 5/6/97)(www.u-s-history.com/pages/h739.html)
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.
(AH, 6/07, p.14)
1886 Nov 18, Chester A. Arthur
(56), 21st president of the United States (1881-1885), died in
New York.
(AP, 11/18/97)
#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.
(AP, 3/18/97)(HN, 3/18/02)
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.
(HNQ, 8/4/00)
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.
(HN, 1/19/00)
1885 Mar 4, Grover Cleveland was
inaugurated as 1st Democratic President since Civil War.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1886 Feb 9, President Cleveland
declared a state of emergency in Seattle because of anti-Chinese
violence.
(MC, 2/9/02)
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.
(AP, 8/20/97)(HN, 8/20/98)
1858 Apr 30, Mary Scott Lord
Dimmick, Pres. B. Harrison's first lady, was born.
(HN, 4/30/98)
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.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1889 Mar 23, President Harrison
opened Oklahoma for white colonization.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1891 Apr 25, Pres. Benjamin
Harrison visited SF.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1901 Mar 13, Benjamin Harrison
(67), 23rd president of the United States (1889-1893), died in
Indianapolis.
(AP, 3/13/97)(MC, 3/13/02)
#24 Stephen Grover Cleveland, 2nd term (1893-1897)
1835 Oct 23, Adlai Ewing
Stevenson, (D) 23rd VP (1893-97), was born.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1892 Nov 8, Former President
Cleveland beat incumbent Benjamin Harrison and became the first (and,
to date, only) president to win non-consecutive terms in the White
House.
(AP, 11/8/97)
1893 Jan 4, US president Cleveland
granted amnesty to Mormon polygamists.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1893 Mar 4, Grover Cleveland (D)
was inaugurated as 24th US President (2nd term).
(SC, 3/4/02)
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.
(AP, 9/9/97)
1893-1897 Grover Cleveland became the 24th President
of the US.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)
1893-1897 Adlai Ewing Stevenson (D) served as 23rd VP.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1897 Mar 2, President Cleveland
vetoed legislation that would have required a literacy test for
immigrants.
(AP, 3/2/98)
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.
(NG, 7/04, p.66)
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.
(AP, 10/29/97)
#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.
(AP, 1/29/98)(HNQ, 11/13/98)
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.
(AP, 3/4/98)
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.
(HNQ, 1/3/00)
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.
(AP, 11/21/99)
1900 Feb 6, President McKinley
appointed W.H. Taft commissioner to report on the Philippines.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1900 Mar 19, President McKinley
asserted the need for free trade with Puerto Rico.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1900 May 25, President William
McKinley signed the Lacey Act of 1900, or more commonly The Lacey Act,
16 U.S.C. § 3371–3378. 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.
(AP, 11/6/97)(HN, 11/6/98)
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.
(HN, 3/4/99)
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)
#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.
(HNQ, 9/28/02)
1878 Oct, Theodore Roosevelt first
saw his future wife, Alice Hathaway (1861-1884).
(SFEC, 9/29/96, Par p.8)
1878-1884 Theodore Roosevelt maintained a diary over
this period.
(SFEC, 9/29/96, Par p.8)
1880 Oct 27, Theodore Roosevelt
(22) married his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee.
(AP, 10/27/07)
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."
(HNQ, 9/21/98)
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.
(WSJ, 8/25/08, p.A11)
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.
(MC, 6/22/02)
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.
(AP, 9/2/97)
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)
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.
(AP, 8/22/97)(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A20)
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]
(LCTH, 10/3/99)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A17)
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.
(HN, 11/16/00)
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.
(HNQ, 12/23/02)
1903 May 14, The Dewey Memorial in
Union Square, San Francisco, was dedicated by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt.
(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F2)
1904 Feb 11, President Theodore
Roosevelt proclaimed strict neutrality for the U.S. in the
Russo-Japanese War.
(HN, 2/11/97)
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.
(HN, 11/6/98)(AP, 11/8/04)
1904 Dec 6, Theodore Roosevelt
confirmed the Monroe-doctrine (Roosevelt Corollary).
(MC, 12/6/01)
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.
(SFEC, 6/20/99, p.T8)
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.”
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.82)
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
muckrake 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)(AP, 3/17/08)
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 U.S.
(HN, 11/9/98)
1906 Nov 21, In San Juan,
President Theodore Roosevelt pledged citizenship for Puerto Rican
people.
(HN, 11/21/98)
1906 Dec 12, US Pres. Theodore
Roosevelt nominated Oscar Straus to be secretary of commerce and labor;
Straus became the first Jewish Cabinet member.
(AP, 12/12/07)
1907 Jan 1, President Theodore
Roosevelt shook a record 8,513 hands in 1 day.
(MC, 1/1/02)
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.
(AP, 2/20/07)
1907 Feb 26, Members of US
Congress raised their own salaries to $7500.
(SC, 2/26/02)
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.
(AP, 3/14/07)
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."
(AP, 10/22/07)
1908 Pres. Teddy Roosevelt
criticized the courts for interpreting the Sherman Antitrust Act
narrowly, and urged more federal supervision of corporations.
(WSJ, 1/14/08, p.R2)
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.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.C1)
1908 Pres. Teddy Roosevelt
declared parts of the Klamath Basin the first federal wildlife refuge.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.B4)
1909 Feb 28, President Roosevelt
became the first U.S. president to visit the Austrian embassy.
(HN, 2/28/98)
1909 Mar 23, Theodore Roosevelt
began an African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and
National Geographic Society.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1909 Pres. Theodore Roosevelt
established the Farallon Islands, 28 miles off the coast of San
Francisco, as a wildlife refuge.
(SFC, 2/17/05, p.A1)
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.
(HN, 2/11/97)
1910 Mar 21, The U.S. Senate
granted ex-President Teddy Roosevelt a pension of $10,000 yearly.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1911 Mar 18, Theodore Roosevelt
opened the Roosevelt Dam in Phoenix, Ariz., the largest dam in the U.S.
to date.
(HN, 3/18/98)
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)
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.”
(SSFC, 10/23/05, p.M3)
1915 Oct 12, Former President
Theodore Roosevelt criticized the concept of "hyphenated Americanism,"
referring to U.S. citizens who identified themselves by dual
nationalities.
(AP, 10/12/05)
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)
#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.
(SC, 3/4/02)
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.
(AH, 6/03, p.18)
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.
(HN, 12/1/98)
1909-1913 William Howard Taft became the 27th
President of the US.
(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)
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.
(HNQ, 8/9/02)
1910 Nov 8, Democrats prevailed in
congressional elections for the first time since 1894.
(HN, 11/6/98)
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.
(HNQ, 11/21/99)
1911 May 23, The NY Public Library
building at 5th Avenue was dedicated by Pres. Taft.
(MC, 5/23/02)
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.
(WSJ, 3/11/98, p.A20)(AP, 6/30/08)
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.
(HN, 3/11/98)(AP, 3/11/02)
#28 Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)
1854 Mar 14, Thomas Riley
Marshall, 28th U.S. Vice President (Woodrow Wilson), was born.
(HN, 3/14/98)
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)
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. 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)
1913 Mar 4, Woodrow Wilson was
inaugurated as 28th President.
(SC, 3/4/02)
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.
(AP, 3/15/97)
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.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1914 May 9, Pres. Wilson
proclaimed Mother's Day.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1914 Aug 6, Ellen Louise Wilson,
the first wife of the twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson, died of
Barite’s disease.
(HN, 8/6/98)
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 28, Pres. Wilson refused
to prohibit the immigration of illiterates.
(MC, 1/28/02)
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.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1915 Dec 18, President Wilson,
widowed the year before, married Edith Bolling Galt at her Washington
home.
(AP, 12/18/98)
1916 Jan 27, President Woodrow
Wilson opened a preparedness program.
(HN, 1/27/99)
1916 Jan 28, Louis D. Brandeis was
appointed by President Wilson to the Supreme Court, becoming its first
Jewish member.
(AP, 1/28/98)
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.
(SFC, 3/11/09, p.B2)
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.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.T6)
1916 The 1915 film "Birth of a
Nation" was shown to Pres. Woodrow Wilson, the first motion picture
shown in the White House.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E3)
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 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.
(MC, 3/7/02)
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.
(AP, 12/4/97)
1918 Pres. Wilson pushed through
Congress the Sedition Act of 1918. It was the most extreme antispeech
legislation in American history.
(WSJ, 10/29/04, p.W10)
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.
(AP, 7/8/97)
1919 Jul 10, President Wilson
personally delivered the Treaty of Versailles to the Senate and urged
its ratification.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1920 May 5, US Pres. Wilson made
the Communist Labor Party illegal.
(MC, 5/5/02)
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.
(AH, 6/07, p.44)
1921 Jan 4, Congress overrode
President Wilson’s veto, reactivating the War Finance Corps to aid
struggling farmers.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1924 Feb 3, The 28th president of
the United States, Woodrow Wilson, died in Washington at age 68. 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.
(AP, 2/3/97)(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.E7)
#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.
(HN, 6/12/98)(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A17)
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.
(MC, 5/17/02)
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.
(WSJ, 3/11/98, p.A20)(AP, 6/30/08)
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.
(HN, 11/23/98)
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.
(SSFC, 7/14/02, p.G2)
1922 Feb 8, President Harding had
a radio installed in the White House.
(AP, 2/8/99)
1922 Mar 20, President Harding
ordered U.S. troops back from the Rhineland.
(HN, 3/20/98)
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]
(AP, 6/14/97)(HN, 6/14/98)
1922 Sep 21, Pres Warren G.
Harding signed a joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish
homeland in Palestine.
(MC, 9/21/01)
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 form 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)
#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)
1920 Jun 12, Republicans in
Chicago nominated Warren G. Harding for president and Calvin Coolidge,
governor of Massachusetts, for vice president.
(HN, 6/12/98)(WSJ, 6/16/98, p.A17)
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.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1923 Dec 6, A presidential address
was broadcast on radio for the first time as President Coolidge spoke
to a joint session of Congress.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1924 Feb 22, Calvin Coolidge
delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House
as he addressed the country over 42 stations.
(AP, 2/22/08)
1924 May 26, President Coolidge
signed an Immigration law that restricted immigration.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1925 Mar 4, President Calvin
Coolidge's inauguration was broadcast live on 21 radio stations
coast-to-coast.
(AP, 3/4/99)
1926 Feb 23, President Calvin
Coolidge opposed a large air force, believing it would be a menace to
world peace.
(HN, 2/23/98)
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."
(AP, 8/2/08)
1927 Aug 10, Pres. Calvin Coolidge
took part in the formal dedication of Mount Rushmore.
(www.ohranger.com/mount-rushmore/making-mount-rushmore)
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.
(HN, 3/21/98)
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.
(SFC, 1/9/04, p.E6)
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)
#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.
(HN, 3/29/98)
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.
(HNQ, 11/27/02)
1918-1919 Herbert Hoover directed the American Relief
Administration under Pres. Wilson.
(AH, 12/02, p.20)
1921 Feb 24, Herbert Hoover became
Secretary of Commerce. In a January 1926 letter to then Secretary of
Commerce Herbert Hoover, the senior Guggenheim announced the
establishment of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of
Aeronautics.
(HN, 2/24/98)
1921 Mar 21, Herbert Hoover, U.S.
Secretary of Commerce opposed all trade with Russia.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1922 Feb 27, Commerce Sec. Herbert
Hoover convened the 1st National Radio Conference.
(MC, 2/27/02)
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 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.
(AP, 12/11/97)
1929 Mar 4, Herbert Hoover was
inaugurated as 31st President.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1929 Mar 4, Charles Curtis
(R-Kansas) became 1st native American Vice President.
(SC, 3/4/02)
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.
(AP, 7/21/07)
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.
(HNQ, 7/13/98)
1932 Pres. Hoover pushed through a
ferocious tax increase to balance the budget and restore "confidence."
(WSJ, 9/25/02, p.D8)
1932 The Great Sand Dunes in
Colorado were declared a national monument by Pres. Herbert Hoover.
(AP, 9/12/04)
1938 Mar 8, Herbert Hoover told
Hitler that his doctrine would be unacceptable and intolerable in the
U.S.
(HN, 3/8/98)
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.
(MC, 12/22/01)
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.
(AP, 1/30/98)(HN, 1/30/99)
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.
(AP, 7/1/07)
1932 Jul 2, New York Gov. Franklin
D. Roosevelt won the nomination for president on the 4th ballot at the
Democratic convention in Chicago.
(ON, 12/07, p.3)
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.
(SFC, 1/19/09, p.E1)
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]
(WSJ, 5/24/00, p.A24)(AP, 2/15/07)
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.
(AP, 3/12/98)
1933 Mar 20, Giuseppe [Joe]
Zangara was electrocuted for assassination attempt on FDR.
(MC, 3/20/02)
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]
(AP, 3/22/97)(HN, 3/22/97)
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.
(AP, 5/18/97)(HN, 5/18/99)
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.
(HN, 11/23/98)
1933 Dec 28, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt stated, "The definite policy of the U.S. from now on is one
opposed to armed intervention."
(HN, 12/28/98)
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.
(AP, 1/31/00)(WSJ, 11/9/00,
p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act)
1934 Jan 31, President Roosevelt
signed the Farm Mortgage Refinancing Act.
(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.D6)
1934 Mar 24, President Roosevelt
signed a bill granting future independence to the Philippines.
(AP, 3/23/97)
1934 Apr 28, FDR signed a Home
Owners Loan Act.
(MC, 4/28/02)
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.
(AP, 7/11/97)
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.
(HN, 11/23/98)
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.
(HN, 1/4/99)
1935 Feb 22, All plane flights
over the White House were barred because they disturbed President
Roosevelt's sleep.
(HN, 2/22/98)
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.
(HN, 5/27/98)(AP, 5/27/07)
1935 Jun 28, FDR ordered a federal
gold vault to be built at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
(MC, 6/28/02)
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.
(AP, 8/31/97)
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.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1936 Aug 24, FDR gave the FBI
authority to pursuit fascists and communists.
(MC, 8/24/02)
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 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.
(HN, 11/23/98)
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."
(WSJ, 5/31/02, p.W12)
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.
(AP, 4/27/06)(AH, 4/07, p.14)
1937 May 1, President Franklin
Roosevelt signed an act of neutrality, keeping the United States out of
World War II.
(HN, 5/1/99)
1937 May 28, Pres. Roosevelt
pushed a button in Washington signaling that vehicular traffic could
cross the just-opened Golden Gate Bridge in California.
(AP, 5/28/97)
1937 Aug 26, President Roosevelt
signed the Judicial Procedure Reform Act, a compromise on his judicial
reorganization plan.
(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.D6)
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.
(NG, 7/04, p.70)
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)
1939 Jan 27, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt approved the sale of U.S. war planes to France.
(HN, 1/27/99)
1939 Mar 20, Franklin D. Roosevelt
named William O. Douglas to the Supreme Court.
(HN, 3/20/98)
1939 Jun 11, King & Queen of
England tasted their 1st "hot dogs" at FDR's party.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1939 Sep 8, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt declared a "limited national emergency" in response to the
outbreak of war in Europe.
(AP, 9/8/99)
1939 Nov 15, President Roosevelt
laid the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.
(AP, 11/15/97)
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.
(HN, 11/26/98)
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)
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.
(HNQ, 5/30/01)
1940 Jul 18, The Democratic
national convention in Chicago nominated President Roosevelt for an
unprecedented third term in office.
(AP, 7/18/00)
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.
(AP, 8/17/97)
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.
(AP, 9/16/97)(HN, 9/16/98)
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.’
(HN, 12/29/98)
1940 Pres. Franklin Delano
Roosevelt began recording presidential meetings to ensure that he was
quoted accurately.
(AH, 6/03, p.10)
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.
(WUD, 1944, p.1683)
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.
(AP, 3/11/98)(HN, 3/11/98)
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.
(HN, 8/9/98)
1941 Aug 27, The Prime Minister of
Japan, Fumimaro Konoye, issued an invitation for a meeting with
President Roosevelt.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1941 Sep 11, FDR ordered any Axis
ship found in American waters be sunk on sight, in response to
submarine attacks on US vessels.
(MC, 9/11/01)
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.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1941 Dec 6, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt issued a personal appeal to Emperor Hirohito to use his
influence to avoid war.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1941 Dec 22, British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for a wartime
conference with President Roosevelt.
(AP, 12/22/97)
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.
(MC, 2/8/02)
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.
(HN, 2/22/99)
1942 Mar 19, FDR ordered men
between 45 and 64 to register for non military duty.
(MC, 3/19/02)
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.
(AP, 6/13/97)(MC, 6/13/02)
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.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1942 Nov 13, US Pres. Roosevelt
signed a measure lowering the minimum draft age from 21 to 18.
(AP, 11/13/07)
1942 Nov 26, President Roosevelt
ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning Dec 1.
(AP, 11/26/97)
1942 Dec 4, President Roosevelt
ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had
been created to provide jobs during the Depression.
(AP, 12/4/97)
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.
(HNQ, 4/8/02)
1943 Jan 24, President Roosevelt
and British Prime Minister Churchill concluded a wartime conference in
Casablanca, Morocco.
(AP, 1/24/98)
1943 Feb 9, FDR ordered a minimal
48 hour work week in war industry.
(MC, 2/9/02)
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.
(HN, 4/21/98)
1943 Jun 10, FDR signed a
withholding tax bill into law.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1943 Jul 28, President Roosevelt
announced the end of coffee rationing.
(AP, 7/28/97)
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).
(AP, 12/1/00)
1944 Jun 22, President Roosevelt
signed the GI Bill of Rights, authorizing a broad package of benefits
for World War II veterans.
(AP, 6/22/97)(HN, 6/22/98)
1944 Jul 19, The Democratic
National Convention convened in Chicago with the renomination of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered a foregone certainty.
(AP, 7/19/08)
1944 Jul 20, President Roosevelt
was nominated for an unprecedented fourth term of office at the
Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
(AP, 7/20/97)
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.
(AP, 9/11/97)
1945 Jan 20, Franklin D. Roosevelt
was inaugurated for his fourth term.
(HN, 1/20/99)
1945 Feb 2, President Roosevelt
and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill departed Malta for the
Yalta summit with Soviet leader Josef Stalin.
(AP, 2/2/97)
1945 Feb 4-12, The Big Three,
President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and
Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a wartime conference at Yalta, in the
southern Ukraine.
(AP, 2/4/97)(WUD, 1994, p.1653)(HN, 2/4/99)
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 Feb 14, Saudi King Abd
al-Aziz and Franklin D. Roosevelt met on a ship in the Suez Canal and
reached an understanding whereby the US would protect the Saudi royal
family in return for preferred access to Saudi oil. William Eddy, US
minister to Saudi Arabia, arranged the meeting.
(WSJ, 10/4/01, p.A1)(Econ, 11/8/08,
p.102)(http://tinyurl.com/5a3c49)
1945 Mar 1, President Roosevelt,
back from the Yalta Conference, proclaimed the meeting a success when
he addressed a joint session of Congress.
(AP, 3/1/98)
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.
(AP, 11/5/97)
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."
(WSJ, 9/19/03, p.W11)
1965 Nov 18, Henry A. Wallace
(77), VP (1941-45) and founder (Progressive Party), died.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1967 Nov 7, John Nance Garner
(98), (VP-D, 1933-41), died.
(MC, 11/7/01)
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
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A3)(AP, 5/2/98)
#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.
(MC, 2/13/02)
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)
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.
(AP, 4/16/97)
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.
(AP, 7/17/97)
1945 Aug 8, President Truman
signed the United Nations Charter.
(AP, 8/8/97)
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.
(AP, 8/21/97)(HN, 8/21/98)
1946 Jan 8, President Truman vowed
to stand by the Yalta accord on self-determination for the Balkans.
(HN, 1/8/99)
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.
(AP, 5/17/08)
1946 Jul 26, President Truman
ordered the desegregation of all US forces.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1946 Aug 1, President Truman
signed the Fulbright Program into law, establishing the scholarships
named for Sen. William J. Fulbright.
(AP, 8/1/97)
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.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1946 Dec 5, President Truman
created the Committee on Civil Rights by Executive Order #9808.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1946 Dec 31, President Truman
officially proclaimed the end of hostilities in World War II.
(HN, 12/31/98)(AP, 12/31/97)
1947 Jan 8, Gen. George Marshall
became US Sec. of State.
(MC, 1/8/02)
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.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1947 Apr 30, President Truman
signed a measure officially changing the name of Boulder Dam to Hoover
Dam.
(AP, 4/30/97)
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.
(HFA, '96, p.34)(AP, 7/18/97)
1947 Jul 23, U.S. President Harry
S Truman made the first Presidential surprise visit to Capitol Hill
since 1789. "Give Em Hell Harry."
(MC, 7/23/02)
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.
(AP, 8/23/97)
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.
(AP, 10/5/97)
1947 Dec 6, Everglades
National Park in Florida was dedicated by President Truman.
(AP, 12/6/97)
1947 Dec 23, Truman granted a
pardon to 1,523 who had evaded the World War II draft.
(HN, 12/23/98)
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.
(MC, 1/7/02)
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.
(AP, 2/2/08)
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, Truman signed
Displaced Persons Bill allowing 205,000 Europeans to come to the US.
(MC, 6/25/02)
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.
(AP, 7/15/97)
1948 Jul 17, Southern Democrats
opposed to the nomination of President Truman met in Birmingham, Ala.,
to endorse South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond.
(AP, 7/17/97)
1948 Jul 31, President Truman
helped dedicate New York International Airport (later John F. Kennedy
International Airport) at Idlewild Field.
(HFA, ‘96, p.34)(AP, 7/31/97)
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.
(MC, 5/14/02)
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.
(AP, 8/11/08)
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.
(SSFC, 8/29/04, p.B7)
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.
(HN, 3/30/98)
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.
(HN, 8/10/98)
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.
(HN, 11/30/98)
1951 Jan 23, President Truman
created the Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, to
monitor the anti-Communist campaign.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1951 Feb 27, The 22nd amendment
was ratified, limiting president to 2 terms.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1951 Apr 11, President Truman
relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his commands in the Far East.
President Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur.
(AP, 4/11/97)(HN, 4/11/98)
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."
(AP, 4/19/97)
1951 Jul 9, President Truman asked
Congress to formally end the state of war between the United States and
Germany.
(AP, 7/9/97)
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.
(AP, 9/4/97)(HN, 9/4/98)
1952 Jan 5, PM Churchill arrived
in Washington to confer with Pres. Truman.
(HN, 1/5/01)
1952 Mar 29, Pres. Harry Truman
removed himself from the presidential race.
(HN, 3/29/98)
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.
(HN, 4/15/98)
1952 Jun 10, Pres. Truman tried to
nationalize the steel industry. [see Apr 8]
(MC, 6/10/02)
1952 Jul 24, President Truman
announced a settlement in a 53-day steel strike.
(AP, 7/24/02)
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)
1953 Jan 7, President Truman
announced in his State of the Union address that the United States had
developed a hydrogen bomb.
(AP, 1/7/98)
1953 In 2002 Arnold Offner
authored "Another Such Victory," an account of Pres. Truman and the
development of the Cold War.
(WSJ, 4/16/02, p.D7)
1956 Apr 30, Alben W. Barkley
(78), (VP-D-1949-53), died.
(MC, 4/30/02)
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.
(AP, 10/14/97)(HN, 10/14/98)
1916 Jul 1, Dwight D. Eisenhower
married Mary "Mamie" Geneva Doud in Denver.
(AP, 7/1/97)
1942 Jun 25, Major General Dwight
Eisenhower was appointed commander of US forces in Europe.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1942 Aug 14, Dwight D. Eisenhower
was named the Anglo-American commander for Operation Torch, the
invasion of North Africa.
(HN, 8/14/98)
1943 Feb 11, General Eisenhower
was selected to command the allied armies in Europe.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1943 Feb 13, There was a German
assault on Sidi Bou Zid, Tunisia, as Gen. Eisenhower visited the front.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1944 Jan 16, Gen. Dwight D.
Eisenhower assumed supreme command of the Allied Expeditionary Force in
London.
(AP, 1/16/98)(HN, 1/16/99)
1944 Apr 14, Gen. Eisenhower
became head commander of allied air fleet.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1944 May 15, Eisenhower,
Montgomery, Churchill and George VI discussed the D-Day plan.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1944 May 17, General Eisenhower
set D-Day for June 5th.
(MC, 5/17/02)
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.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1947 Feb 23, Gen. Eisenhower
opened a drive to raise $170M in aid for European Jews.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1948 Feb 7, Gen. Dwight D.
Eisenhower resigned as Army chief of staff and was succeeded by Gen.
Omar Bradley.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1948 Dwight D. Eisenhower, WW II
general, became president of Columbia Univ.
(SSFC, 8/15/04, p.D11)
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.
(MC, 4/28/02)
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%.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A19)
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.
(AP, 10/24/07)
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.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1953 Mar 26, Eisenhower offered
increased aid in Indochina (Vietnam) to France.
(HN, 3/25/98)
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.
(SFC, 6/6/03, p.E2)
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.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1953 Dec 3, Eisenhower criticized
McCarthy for saying communists are in Republican party.
(MC, 12/3/01)
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.
(MC, 12/16/01)
1953-1961 Dwight D. Eisenhower (b.1890), (R)
34th President.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1954 Jan 8, President Dwight
Eisenhower proposed stripping convicted Communists of their U.S.
citizenship.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1954 Feb 2, President Eisenhower
reported the 1952 detonation of 1st Hydrogen bomb.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1954 Feb 10, Eisenhower warned
against US intervention in Vietnam.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1954 Mar 10, Pres. Eisenhower
called Sen. Joseph McCarthy a peril to the Republican Party.
(HN, 3/10/98)
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.
(AP, 5/13/97)
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.
(HN, 7/12/98)
1954 Aug 24, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower signed the Communist Control Act, virtually outlawing the
Communist Party in the United States.
(WUD, 1994, p.1685)(AP, 8/24/07)
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.
(AP, 11/10/08)
1955 Jan 19, A presidential news
conference was filmed for television for the first time, with
permission from President Eisenhower.
(AP, 1/19/98)
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.
(MC, 3/16/02)
1955 Jun 7, Pres. Eisenhower
became the 1st president to appear on color TV.
(SC, 6/7/02)
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.
(SFC, 6/17/05, p.F3)
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.
(AP, 7/18/05)
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.
(AP, 7/21/07)
1955 Aug 4, Eisenhower authorized
$46 million for the construction of CIA headquarters.
(MC, 8/4/02)
1955 Aug 12, Pres Eisenhower
raised the minimum wage from $0.75 to $1 an hour.
(SC, 8/12/02)
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.
(AP, 9/26/03)
1956 Jan 25, Khrushchev said that
he believed that Eisenhower was sincere in his efforts to abolish war.
(HN, 1/25/99)
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.
(AP, 2/29/00)(HN, 2/29/00)
1956 May 28, Pres. Eisenhower
signed the Agriculture Act which embodied the "soil bank" plan to
reduce surpluses.
(EWH, 1968, p.1210)
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 borne by the
federal government. Initial estimates put completion in 12 years for
$25 billion. The system was completed in 1993 at a cost of $425 billion
(in 2006 dollars).
(EWH, 1968, p.1210)(SFC, 6/17/06, p.A1)(Econ,
2/16/08, p.32)
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.
(HNQ, 10/1/99)
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.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.C2)
1956 Dec 29, President Eisenhower
asked Congress for the authority to oppose Soviet aggression in the
Mideast.
(HN, 12/29/98)
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.
(AP, 1/5/07)
1957 Jan 19, Pat Boone sang at
President Eisenhower's inaugural ball.
(MC, 1/19/02)
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.
(AP, 1/20/07)
1957 Mar 21, US President
Eisenhower and British PM Harold Macmillan began a four-day conference
in Bermuda.
(AP, 3/21/07)
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.
(AP, 9/9/97)
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.
(AP, 11/25/97)
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.
(AP, 7/29/08)
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.
(AP, 1/3/08)
1958 Jan 9, President Eisenhower,
in his State of the Union address to Congress, warned of the threat of
Communist imperialism.
(AP, 1/9/08)
1958 Apr 1, President Eisenhower
signed a $1.85 billion emergency housing measure.
(AP, 4/1/08)
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.
(AP, 4/28/99)
1958 May 8, Vice President Nixon
was shoved, stoned, booed and spat upon by anti-American protesters in
Lima, Peru.
(AP, 5/8/97)
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.
(AP, 5/13/97)(HNQ, 6/14/99)
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.
(AP, 6/18/08)
1958 Jul 7, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower signed the Alaska statehood bill. Alaska became the 49th
state in January 1959.
(AP, 7/7/07)
1958 Jul 8, President Eisenhower
began a visit to Canada, where he conferred with Prime Minister John
Diefenbaker and addressed the Canadian Parliament.
(AP, 7/8/08)
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.
(AP, 7/29/97)
1958 Aug 25, President Eisenhower
signed a measure providing pensions for former U.S. presidents and
their widows.
(AP, 8/25/08)
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.
(AP, 9/2/08)
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.
(AP, 9/11/08)
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.
(AP, 1/7/98)
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.
(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.A2)
1959 Mar 18, President Eisenhower
signed the Hawaii statehood bill. Hawaii became a state on Aug. 21,
1959.
(AP, 3/18/07)
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.
(AP, 7/24/97)(Econ, 5/26/07, p.33)
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.
(AP, 8/21/08)
1960 Mar 17, Eisenhower formed
anti-Castro-exile army under the CIA.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1960 May 6, President Eisenhower
signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
(HN, 5/6/98)
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 Nov 1, US Pres. Eisenhower
announced that the US would take all steps necessary to defend its
naval base at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.
(AH, 4/07, p.18)
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)
1968 Feb 6, Former president
Dwight Eisenhower hit a golfing hole-in-one.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, Z1 p.8)
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.”
(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)
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.
(AP, 11/1/99)
#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.
(AP, 7/28/98)(HN, 7/28/98)
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.
(AP, 8/12/97)
1946 Nov 5, John F. Kennedy
(D-Mass) was elected to House of Representatives.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1953 Sep 12, Senator John
Fitzgerald Kennedy (36) of Massachusetts married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier
(24).
(AP, 9/12/03)
1954 Feb 14, Sen. John Kennedy
appeared on "Meet the Press."
(MC, 2/14/02)
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.
(SFC, 2/17/10, p.A9)
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.
(SFC, 11/22/04, p.A2)
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)
1960 Jan 2, Sen. John F. Kennedy
of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for the Democratic
presidential nomination.
(AP, 1/2/98)
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%.
(SSFC, 1/25/04, p.A19)
1960 May 10, John F. Kennedy won
the primary in West Virginia.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1960 Jul 15, John F. Kennedy
accepted the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.
(HN, 7/15/98)
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."
(AP, 9/12/00)
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.
(AP, 10/7/08)
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 25, John F. Kennedy Jr.
(d.1999), son of JFK, lawyer, magazine publisher (George), was born in
NYC.
(MC, 11/25/01)
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."
(HNQ, 9/12/98)(HNQ, 1/21/00)
1961 Jan 25, President Kennedy
held the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and
television.
(AP, 1/25/98)
1961 Jan 26, Janet G. Travell
became the 1st woman personal physician to the US President (JFK).
(MC, 1/26/02)
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.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F4)
1961 Mar 26, John F. Kennedy met
with British Premier Macmillan, in Washington to discuss increased
Communist involvement in Laos.
(HN, 3/25/98)
1961 Apr 24, President Kennedy
accepted "sole responsibility" following Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
(HN, 4/24/98)
1961 May 25, President Kennedy
asked the nation to work toward putting a man on the moon by the end of
the decade.
(AP, 5/25/97)
1961 Aug 17, The Kennedy
administration established the Alliance for Progress.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1961 Aug 30, President John F.
Kennedy appointed General Lucius D. Clay as his personal representative
in Berlin.
(HN, 8/30/98)
1961 Sep 5, President Kennedy
signed a law against hijacking. It called for the death penalty for
convicted hijackers.
(MC, 9/5/01)
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."
(SFC, 8/9/03, p.A15)
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.
(HN, 2/3/99)(MC, 2/3/02)
1962 Feb 7, President Kennedy
began the blockade of Cuba.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1962 Feb 12, Pres. Kennedy
commuted the death sentence of Jimmie Henderson, a Navy seaman, to
confinement for life.
(AP, 7/29/08)
1962 Mar 2, JFK announced US will
resume above ground nuclear testing.
(SC, 3/2/02)
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 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 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 include 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)(http://tinyurl.com/d9q7sa)(WSJ,
4/20/09, p.A1)
1962 Nov 19, Fidel Castro accepted
the removal of Soviet weapons.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1962 Nov 20, President Kennedy
barred religious or racial discrimination in federally funded housing.
(HN, 11/20/98)
1962 Dec 5, Pres. Kennedy
discussed stockpiling nuclear weapons to deter Soviet attacks with
senior staff including Def. Sec. McNamara and Gen. Maxwell Taylor.
(SFC, 2/7/02, p.A4)
1963 Jan 8, President John F.
Kennedy attended the unveiling of the Mona Lisa on loan at America's
National Gallery of Art.
(HN, 1/8/99)(MC, 1/8/02)
1963 Mar 19, In Costa Rica,
President John F. Kennedy and six Latin American presidents pledged to
fight Communism.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1963 Mar 27, John F. Kennedy met
with King Hassan II of Morocco.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1963 May 8, JFK offered Israel
assistance against aggression.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1963 Jun 9, JFK named Winston
Churchill a US honorary citizen.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1963 Jun 10, JFK signed an equal
pay for equal work law for men & women.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1963 Jun 11, JFK said segregation
is morally wrong & that it is "time to act."
(SC, 6/11/02)
1963 Jun 27, Pres. Kennedy spent
his 1st full day in Ireland.
(SC, 6/27/02)
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.
(AP, 7/2/00)
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.
(AP, 8/30/97)
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.
(HNPD, 11/22/98)
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. Oswald was
in turn shot in front of TV cameras by Jack Ruby. 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.
(SFC, 11/21/01, p.A25)
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.
(AP, 11/25/97)(HN, 11/25/98)
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.
(SSFC, 5/13/07, p.M5)
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)
1967 Mar 14, The body of President
Kennedy was moved from a temporary grave to a permanent memorial site
at Arlington National Cemetery.
(AP, 3/14/98)(HN, 3/14/98)
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.
(AP, 8/3/00)
2003 Robert Dallek authored "An
Unfinished Life," an 815-page political portrait of JFK.
(WSJ, 5/13/03, p.D5)
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