The two candidates for the U.S. Senate in Illinois in 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, held seven debates.
Democrat Douglas was reelected. But Lincoln’s strong performance in the campaign led to his nomination as the Republican candidate for president in 1860.
Captain Robert L. Crippen and John W. Young flew the space shuttle Columbia on its maiden voyage April 12-14, 1981.
Oliver North served no prison time. The Marine colonel at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal was convicted in 1989 of falsifying and destroying records, accepting an illegal gratuity, and obstructing Congress, but was not given prison time. Instead, he was given a three-year suspended sentence and ordered to perform 1,200 hours of community service….
After serving in the Spanish-American War, New Jersey nurse Clara Maass volunteered in 1901 to take part in yellow fever experiments in Cuba. Dr. Walter Reed designed the experiments to see whether a mild case of the disease would render people immune. Maass allowed herself to be bitten twice by infected mosquitoes. She developed not…
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.
In the 1896 decision that established the grounds for “separate but equal” public facilities, Homer Plessy was an octoroon (mixed race) who was arrested in Louisiana when he sat in a “white” car on a train. John H. Ferguson was the New Orleans criminal court judge who convicted him.
There are 13 stars, arrows, olive leaves, and olives in the Great Seal of the United States, symbolizing the original 13 colonies. The design of the seal was approved by Congress in 1782. As seen on the back of the dollar bill, the seal consists of an eagle holding olives and arrows in its talons,…