In 1948, some Democratic leaders looked for a more popular candidate than the controversial Harry Truman.
Before eventually nominating Truman, they approached Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and former Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower.
The official signing ceremony for the Declaration of Independence was on August 2, 1776, not July 4. On July 4, Congress approved the final draft of the declaration, and John Hancock and the secretary of the Congress signed it. But most members of Congress signed it at the official ceremony on August 2. A few…
The term “mechanic” in 18th and early 19th-century America referred to a craftsman, such as a potter, blacksmith, or housewright.
Richard Henry Dana was a college student at Harvard before he shipped out as a sailor in the voyage recounted in Two Years Before the Mast (1840). Dana (1815-82) suffered eye problems that led him to go out to sea in hopes of improving his health. Working as a common seaman, he traveled around South…
Forty-two-year-old Leroy “Satchel” Paige became the oldest rookie in pro baseball when he signed with the Cleveland Indians in 1948. He had been a pitcher in the Negro Leagues since 1926.
It was during the Lincoln administration in the middle of the Civil War that the first federal tax on income was levied by Congress, in the Internal Revenue Act of 1862. The rates ranged from 3 to 5 percent. Congress eliminated the tax in 1872.
Yes, Bob Dylan did indeed meet Woody Guthrie, albeit when Guthrie was in his last years. Born Robert Zimmerman in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, young folksinger Bob Dylan hitchhiked to New York in 1960 to visit his musical idol Woody Guthrie, who was hospitalized with Huntington’s chorea. The composer and collector of hundreds of folk…