There have been 538 members of the Electoral College since 1964, when, in keeping with the 23rd Amendment, the District of Columbia acquired three electors.
In addition, each state chooses as many electors as it has senators and representatives in Congress.
At present, 270 electoral votes are needed to win, a majority of the 538 electors.
The company IBM, now known as International Business Machines was originally founded as the Computing Tabulating Recording Company in 1911.
Vermont widow Ida May Fuller received the first Social Security check in 1940. The check totalled $22.54.
On the July 2, 1938, flight during which Amelia Earhart disappeared, the aviatrix was traveling from New Guinea to Howland Island, in the Pacific. In June 1928, Earhart had become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, one year after Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight. Earhart’s remains were never found.
The term “manifest destiny” appeared in an article by John L. O’Sullivan in the July-August 1845 United States Magazine and Democratic Review. In the article, O’Sullivan said it was “our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”
The “Hair Buyer of Detroit” was Henry Hamilton, the Detroit settlement’s British governor during the American Revolution. To fight the spread of U.S. settlements, he armed massive numbers of Native Americans with knives and ordered them to scalp frontier dwellers.
Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay negotiated for the United States in a treaty that ended the Revolutionary War. The Treaty of Paris, ending the war and recognizing American independence, was signed on February 3, 1783.