The women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) did not live to see the 19th Amendment adopted in 1920 guaranteeing women the right to vote.
But Anthony had voted illegally in a Rochester, New York, election in 1872, and refused to pay the fine that followed.
The first presidential mansion was located at One Cherry Street in New York City. It was not called the White House. George Washington lived there from April 23, 1789, to February 23, 1790.
In his February 9, 1950, speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator Joseph McCarthy brandished a list which he said contained the names of 205 communists, though the number fluctuated over time. For the next few years, McCarthy investigated State Department officials and others, relying on shaky charges and insinuation. He was finally brought down when…
Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry first brought an armed squadron to Tokyo Bay in 1853, when he delivered a letter from President Millard Fillmore to the emperor of Japan. In 1854, on a second expedition, Perry succeeded in persuading the Japanese to open their previously isolated society to U.S. trade.
Born as Malcolm Little (1925-65), Malcolm X served six years in prison for burglary, beginning at age 21. While in prison, he joined the Nation of Islam and took the Muslim name El-Hajj Malik ElShabazz and the public name of Malcolm X. Malcolm became a vocal opponent of white racism and advocate for black rights….
The sheep at the White House were part of the war effort. In 1917, during World War I, President Wilson arranged for a small flock of sheep to graze on the White House lawn, thus freeing up the regular gardeners for military service. Although the sheep began eating more of the White House grounds than…
The average time the 17th- and 18th-century peasants and laborers spent to pay off the debt incurred by their passage to America (about $100) was four years.