No number of Supreme Court justices is specified in the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court began with six justices, rose to a peak of ten during the Lincoln years, and settled at nine in 1869.
Times Square was named for the 1903 building that was headquarters for the New York Times. The building, located at the intersection of Seventh Avenue, Forty-second Street, and Broadway, transmitted news by the band of electric lights that ran across the top of the building. New York Newsday now occupies the spot and still flashes…
A bestseller in its time, the 1931 “informal history” Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen was the first popular recreation of the Jazz Age and the 1920s. The book is still in print.
There are four stanzas in the song “America the Beautiful” by Katharine Lee Bates (1850-1929), originally published in 1895 and revised in 1904 and 1911. The stanzas begin respectively with these lines: 1. 0 beautiful for spacious skies 2. 0 beautiful for pilgrim feet 3. 0 beautiful for heroes proved 4. 0 beautiful for patriot…
The earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1906 is estimated to have measured 8.3 on the Richter scale. Four square miles of downtown San Francisco were destroyed and over 500 people died in the earthquake and subsequent fire on April 18-19, 1906.
James K. Polk, who served as Speaker of the House from 1835 to 1839, was sworn in as president in 1845. Polk served one term, leaving office in 1849.