Known as an artist and writer as well as an inventor, Samuel F. B Morse wrote a series of highly popular newspaper articles denouncing the immigration of Catholics to the U.S. These were published under the pen name “Brutus.” Gathered into book form in 1835, they helped create an American tradition of anti-immigration sentiment.
The first all-Federal housing project in America was an eleven-block, low-rent housing project called Tech-wood, in Atlanta, Georgia. Built in 1936 by the Public Works Administration, it cost $2,875,000. The project offered 22 brick and concrete apartments for families with annual incomes under $1,800.
The federal government founded the National Rail Passenger Corporation Amtrak in 1970 to prevent the imminent extinction of passenger railroads in the U.S. Unable to compete with airlines, the commercial railroads had been eliminating most of their passenger service and concentrating on freight. Railroad passenger-miles traveled in a single year had declined from a height…
It was Brooklyn-born Shirley Chisholm (1924), who was the first black woman elected to Congress from that borough in 1969. In 1972, she ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for president.
The Kentucky Derby, the Preakness (begun at Pimlico, Baltimore, in 1873), and the Belmont (begun in 1867 at Jerome Park, New York; now held in Belmont Park, New York) make up the Triple Crown. Sir Barton in 1919 first won the Triple Crown.
The movie actor Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) was a veteran of World War I. While serving in the Navy, Bogart was wounded in the shelling of the ship Leviathan. The injury resulted in the scarred and partially paralyzed upper lip that gave him his trademark lisp and tight-set mouth.