Showing posts with label today in history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label today in history. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - ABE DEFENDING HIS MEMORIAL
Today in history Andrew Johnson became the 17th POTUS and Abe Lincoln became a DEAD PRESIDENT!
Saturday, April 12, 2014
THE DEAD PRESIDENTS - FDR PROTECTING THE WHITE HOUSE
Today in history, Vice President Harry S. Truman became the 33rd president of the United States after Franklin D. Roosevelt passed on and became a member of THE DEAD PRESIDENTS...
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Monday, July 15, 2013
Today in POTUStory - "CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE"
The speech was ahead of its time. The speech is remembered as the "malaise" even though the word never appeared or used by President Jimmy Carter.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Today in HISTORY! - GETTYSBURG
Trailer for the 1993 TNT mini-series about GETTYSBURG, a major turning point in the Civil War 150 years ago. USA! USA! USA!
Friday, June 28, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Today in POTUStory
On the first ballot, the Democratic National Convention renominated former President Stephen Grover Cleveland in 1892. New York Governor Cleveland won the 1884 presidential election with only a plurality of the popular vote against James G. Blaine. President Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to Benjamin Harrison, grandson of William Henry Harrison, the 9th POTUS, in his reelection bid. Four years later in 1892, a rematch between the 1888 candidates, but now it was President Harrison versus former President Cleveland.
This was the first time a major political party had renominated a former president. Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, and Theodore Roosevelt were nominated for president by third parties with MVB getting 10% of the popular vote and that's it. Fillmore carried one State, whereas TR was the first and last third party candidate to come in second, but not the last to carry States. The Republican Party came close to renominating Ulysses S. Grant for a third time, non-consecutively, but the nomination went to dark horse nominee James A. Garfield.
Former President Cleveland would once again win a plurality of the popular vote with 46%, 2% less than his 1884 and 1888 popular vote wins. He and Adlai E. Stevenson would win the General Election, the only time a former president defeated an incumbent. Stevenson would become the 23rd VPOTUS. Cleveland's second term would be labeled as a second presidency, so he would not just be the 22nd POTUS but the 24th POTUS as well.
This gay 1890s ticket of Illinois' Adlai E. Stevenson and Grover Cleveland in 1892.
A ticket to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1892. The ticket is for the 21st of June and 2 days later, Cleveland was renominated a third time by the Democratic Party, or for divisive politicos, the Democrat Party.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Today in HISTORY!
When I taught U.S. Government to high schoolers, after we discussed the flag burning and the First Amendment case of Texas v. Johnson, I would show the FUTURAMA episode "A Taste of Freedom" and below is a clip from the episode.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Today in POTUStory
The following video is from President Ronald Reagan's visit to Berlin in 1987 and in his speech he famously said...
That was 26 years ago today.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Happy Birthday George Washington
While the 16th president of the United States gets all the attention in this the 200th year of his birth, February 22nd is the 1st president of the United States' birthday, George Washington.
Historians love to go back and forth between Lincoln and Washington as either the first and second best of the 43 men that have served as president. I say at times it is difficult to chose who should get the top spot out of the two men. Lincoln did have to deal with a fractious nation literally divided between the North and the South.
However there would be no 16th president or road to the Civil War if it weren't for Washington. Washington was finished serving his country after leading the Continental Army to victory against the greatest power of the 18th Century, or so he thought.
The United States that we know and love today was far from a group of united States. Washington was president over a country that was nothing more than a collection of States. He was the chosen one to be the first president because he had commanded such respect and success in the American Revolution and the new federal government created out of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 established the office of the president. But it was Washington to established the role and traditions that would be followed for the decades that would follow.
Washington is seen everyday for those that still use paper and coin currency and that is really it. He is our first president and the Father of our country. His courage, leadership, devotion to duty, and ability to give up power should be an example to all the citizens of the United States. Because if it weren't for all that there would be no 16th president and there would more than likely be no United States.
Washington is and should always be "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
Historians love to go back and forth between Lincoln and Washington as either the first and second best of the 43 men that have served as president. I say at times it is difficult to chose who should get the top spot out of the two men. Lincoln did have to deal with a fractious nation literally divided between the North and the South.
However there would be no 16th president or road to the Civil War if it weren't for Washington. Washington was finished serving his country after leading the Continental Army to victory against the greatest power of the 18th Century, or so he thought.
The United States that we know and love today was far from a group of united States. Washington was president over a country that was nothing more than a collection of States. He was the chosen one to be the first president because he had commanded such respect and success in the American Revolution and the new federal government created out of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 established the office of the president. But it was Washington to established the role and traditions that would be followed for the decades that would follow.
Washington is seen everyday for those that still use paper and coin currency and that is really it. He is our first president and the Father of our country. His courage, leadership, devotion to duty, and ability to give up power should be an example to all the citizens of the United States. Because if it weren't for all that there would be no 16th president and there would more than likely be no United States.
Washington is and should always be "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Today in POTUStory
Today in 1809 the myth, the legend, and the man...well just the man was born. The myth and the legend would come on April 15, 1865.
200 years ago our nation's 16th president of the United States was born in Kentucky. He and his family then moved to Indiana before settling down in his home state he has become associated with Illinois.
The 16th President of the United States
Lincoln would go on to become a lawyer traveling the judicial circuit of Illinois. As a lawyer he honed his skills which would help him become the great writer and speaker of his later years.
From 1847-1849, Lincoln served one term in the United States House of Representatives during the Mexican-US War in which he strongly opposed. While he would go on to become a founding member of the Republican Party, he served in the House as a member of the Whigs, a political party which would contribute to the founding of the Grand Old Party.
Lincoln would rise to national prominence in the most famous senate race in U.S. history. In 1858 Lincoln would debate his Democratic opponent Stephen Douglas and utter the famous "house divide" lines in terms of the nation existing half slave and half free. Although not competing in a directly elected senate contest since this took place prior to 1913, the Democrats won the majority in the State legislature and thus elected Douglas to the U.S. Senate. Lincoln may have lost but he became a national figure.
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
In 1860 the New York Republican Party invited Lincoln to speak at Cooper Union. His speech elevated his status within the Republican Party. That year Lincoln would take on the big names of the Republican Party for the party's presidential nomination. Men like William Seward of New York, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Edward Bates of Missouri. Lincoln, the one term Representative from Illinois, would be the victor in the contest against the heavy weights.
Lincoln's chief rival for the Republican nomination and his pick for Secretary of State, William Seward
By November Lincoln would face three other opponents for the presidency: the incumbent vice president John Breckinridge, John Bell, and his former opponent for the U.S. senate, Stephen Douglas. Lincoln won.
With Lincoln's election, or the election of a Republican, the South protested in form of succeeding from the Union. Lincoln would be inaugurated as president without a complete Union of States.
Seal of the Confederate States of America
Those that left the Union feared Lincoln would abolish their way of life or violate their States' Right. Lincoln made it clear he had no intention of doing such a thing. But that did not stop the southern States from leaving the Union and rebelling.
Lincoln's term would become defined by war like no other president in U.S. history. While Lincoln struggled with the war he thought would be over quickly, he also tried to maintain the status of the Union by continuing construction on the dome of the Capitol or building the transcontinental railroad connecting east and west.
The war between the States (or the Civil War or The War against Northern Aggression) was not fought on the issue of slavery. For Lincoln the war was fought to preserve the idea of the Union which was established in 1776. The war took on the notion of ending slavery by January of 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, freeing the slaves within the States in rebellion. With that new cause taken by President Lincoln, the war was not only fought to preserve the Union and free the slaves but to essentially fight for a new definition of what the United States was truly about.
All the way up until 1864, Lincoln thought he would be a one term president. But as successes came in by Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Sherman, Lincoln's election became clear. Instead of running as a Republican, he ran on the Union Party ticket with Democrat Andrew Johnson, the only senator from the South to remain loyal to the Union. The Union Party won and Lincoln was reelected.
Lincoln was determined to not punish the South and he made it clear in his Second Inaugural Address as he declared "With malice toward none, with charity for all."
Lincoln's Second Inaugural on the east front of the Capitol
Lincoln would be shot by southern sympathizer, Confederate spy, and well known actor John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, creating the myth and the legend of the man.
John Wilkes Booth
After his death Abraham Lincoln became a secular saint to some Americans and a war criminal to others. Historians rank him as the best or second best president (George Washington and Lincoln duke it out for the top two spots), while others claim him to be a tyrant and should be removed from Mount Rushmore.
No matter what you believe about Abraham Lincoln, savior of the Union or aggressor toward southerners, he now belongs to the ages.
200 years ago our nation's 16th president of the United States was born in Kentucky. He and his family then moved to Indiana before settling down in his home state he has become associated with Illinois.
The 16th President of the United States
Lincoln would go on to become a lawyer traveling the judicial circuit of Illinois. As a lawyer he honed his skills which would help him become the great writer and speaker of his later years.
From 1847-1849, Lincoln served one term in the United States House of Representatives during the Mexican-US War in which he strongly opposed. While he would go on to become a founding member of the Republican Party, he served in the House as a member of the Whigs, a political party which would contribute to the founding of the Grand Old Party.
Lincoln would rise to national prominence in the most famous senate race in U.S. history. In 1858 Lincoln would debate his Democratic opponent Stephen Douglas and utter the famous "house divide" lines in terms of the nation existing half slave and half free. Although not competing in a directly elected senate contest since this took place prior to 1913, the Democrats won the majority in the State legislature and thus elected Douglas to the U.S. Senate. Lincoln may have lost but he became a national figure.
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
In 1860 the New York Republican Party invited Lincoln to speak at Cooper Union. His speech elevated his status within the Republican Party. That year Lincoln would take on the big names of the Republican Party for the party's presidential nomination. Men like William Seward of New York, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Edward Bates of Missouri. Lincoln, the one term Representative from Illinois, would be the victor in the contest against the heavy weights.
Lincoln's chief rival for the Republican nomination and his pick for Secretary of State, William Seward
By November Lincoln would face three other opponents for the presidency: the incumbent vice president John Breckinridge, John Bell, and his former opponent for the U.S. senate, Stephen Douglas. Lincoln won.
With Lincoln's election, or the election of a Republican, the South protested in form of succeeding from the Union. Lincoln would be inaugurated as president without a complete Union of States.
Seal of the Confederate States of America
Those that left the Union feared Lincoln would abolish their way of life or violate their States' Right. Lincoln made it clear he had no intention of doing such a thing. But that did not stop the southern States from leaving the Union and rebelling.
Lincoln's term would become defined by war like no other president in U.S. history. While Lincoln struggled with the war he thought would be over quickly, he also tried to maintain the status of the Union by continuing construction on the dome of the Capitol or building the transcontinental railroad connecting east and west.
The war between the States (or the Civil War or The War against Northern Aggression) was not fought on the issue of slavery. For Lincoln the war was fought to preserve the idea of the Union which was established in 1776. The war took on the notion of ending slavery by January of 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, freeing the slaves within the States in rebellion. With that new cause taken by President Lincoln, the war was not only fought to preserve the Union and free the slaves but to essentially fight for a new definition of what the United States was truly about.
All the way up until 1864, Lincoln thought he would be a one term president. But as successes came in by Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Sherman, Lincoln's election became clear. Instead of running as a Republican, he ran on the Union Party ticket with Democrat Andrew Johnson, the only senator from the South to remain loyal to the Union. The Union Party won and Lincoln was reelected.
Lincoln was determined to not punish the South and he made it clear in his Second Inaugural Address as he declared "With malice toward none, with charity for all."
Lincoln's Second Inaugural on the east front of the Capitol
Lincoln would be shot by southern sympathizer, Confederate spy, and well known actor John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, creating the myth and the legend of the man.
John Wilkes Booth
After his death Abraham Lincoln became a secular saint to some Americans and a war criminal to others. Historians rank him as the best or second best president (George Washington and Lincoln duke it out for the top two spots), while others claim him to be a tyrant and should be removed from Mount Rushmore.
No matter what you believe about Abraham Lincoln, savior of the Union or aggressor toward southerners, he now belongs to the ages.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Today in POTUStory
Finally after 178 years under our current Constitution these words were written into the great document:
In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
And that was just the start.
Before 1967 the Constitution never specified what exactly would happen if something happened to the president of the United States. For the first time on April 4, 1841, a president passed away. The nation's 9th chief magistrate, William Henry Harrison gave the longest inaugural address in the depths of winter on March 4th of that year. The oldest man elected to the office to that point (Ronald Reagan would later hold that title) decided to give his long address without a top hat or overcoat. The 68 year old president died 30 days (or 32?) later of pneumonia.
William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the United States
Hay dios mio! What do we do?
The 10th vice president of the United States, John Tyler, found out the next day that President Harrison had passed away. The Constitution said:
In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President
What did devolve mean? It was unclear and the Founding Fathers made it unclear intentionally or unintentionally. But Vice President Tyler took it to mean that he would become the president of the United States.
John Tyler, 10th Vice President of the United States and 10th President of the United States
On April 6th he took the oath of office and the reigns of power. The cabinet, which Harrison appointed, tried to deny Tyler the authority of the presidency. Tyler made it clear to them and his detractors in the Congress that he was the president of the United States, not Acting-President or the Vice President in the role of the presidency until some kind of special election.
The 10th vice president went on to become the 10th president.
Vice President Tyler being informed of the death of President Harrison
The Tyler Precedent would be followed by Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson. The Tyler Precedent would go on to be written into the Constitution as the 25th Amendment. Gerald Ford would be the first to be elevated thanks to the 25th Amendment. Ford would also be the first to be appointed vice president due to a vacancy.
House Minority Leader Gerald Ford being sworn in as the 40th Vice President of the United States
The 25th Amendment would also make sure that there would never be a vacancy in the vice presidency. Whenever the vice presidents succeeded to the presidency, died in office, or resigned leaving the vice presidency vacant it would remain so until the next election and then inauguration.
The acknowledgment that the vice president becomes the president is the first thing mentioned in the 25th Amendment and has taken effect only by Gerald Ford's ascendancy. Filling the vacancy is the second part of the Amendment which has only occurred twice, Ford replacing Spiro Agnew after his resignation in 1973 and Nelson Rockefeller's appointment once Ford succeeded President Nixon in 1974. The third section of the Amendment allows the president to inform the President Pro Tempore and the Speaker of the House that he or she cannot perform the duties of the office and transmit the powers to the Vice President to perform them as Acting President and can reclaim the powers once he or she informs the two leaders of the Congress. Ronald Reagan did this in 1985, making Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush the first Acting-Presidnet. While Dick Cheney held the title twice during the George W. Bush administration once in 2002 and then again in 2007.
The final section of the 25th Amendment has never taken place. George H. W. Bush calls the fourth section a legal coup. The vice president and a majority of the cabinet officers are needed to declare the president unable to execute the duties of the office. The closest we've come to this is in the feature film Air Force One when the vice president played by Glenn Close is presented with a letter readied for her to sign initiating the Acting President status under the fourth section of the 25th Amendment. She tears it up at the end of the film once the president is safe from the Russian terrorists and no longer in danger.
Air Force One movie poster
It took the threat of a nuclear age for the line of succession of vice president to president to be clearly written into the Constitution. After the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the vice presidency remained vacant. Where as before then no evil or dangerous threat really harmed or threatened the country as succession slowly took its time. But in the post-Cuban Missile Crisis United States immediate succession took precedent.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
december 13...today in history
in 2003 the headline was "WE GOT HIM!"
"Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole under a farmhouse in Adwar, near his hometown of Tikrit."
in 2000 the 36 day post-2000 election came to an end.
"Republican George W. Bush claimed the presidency 36 days after Election Day."
and al gore gave one of the greatest speeches in presidential history [according to me:)]
it's interesting...a historical what if...would the 2003 event have occurred had the 2000 event gone the way it should have which is gore becoming the 43rd potus?
i remember after gore gave his speech crowds were cheering "gore in 4!" as he left the old executive office building (where he gave the speech). but gore chose not to run...i'm sure had there been no 9/11 (even though it more than likely would've occurred no matter the potus) and iraq war gore could've won just as jackson and cleveland (popular vote winners who returned four years later...tilden did not try again) had done. but once bush became a war time potus it just seemed for sure he'd be a two termer.
another historical what if would be that obama most likely wouldn't have run in 2008 and 2008 would've probably had either an incumbent vp (assuming gore/lieberman made it to the white house in '01 and were reelected in '04) or an incumbent potus (assuming president gore lost reelection...in this scenario i guess obama could've run in '08 as a democrat)...i know a lot of over thinking, but that's how what if's work :)
"Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces while hiding in a hole under a farmhouse in Adwar, near his hometown of Tikrit."
in 2000 the 36 day post-2000 election came to an end.
"Republican George W. Bush claimed the presidency 36 days after Election Day."
and al gore gave one of the greatest speeches in presidential history [according to me:)]
it's interesting...a historical what if...would the 2003 event have occurred had the 2000 event gone the way it should have which is gore becoming the 43rd potus?
i remember after gore gave his speech crowds were cheering "gore in 4!" as he left the old executive office building (where he gave the speech). but gore chose not to run...i'm sure had there been no 9/11 (even though it more than likely would've occurred no matter the potus) and iraq war gore could've won just as jackson and cleveland (popular vote winners who returned four years later...tilden did not try again) had done. but once bush became a war time potus it just seemed for sure he'd be a two termer.
another historical what if would be that obama most likely wouldn't have run in 2008 and 2008 would've probably had either an incumbent vp (assuming gore/lieberman made it to the white house in '01 and were reelected in '04) or an incumbent potus (assuming president gore lost reelection...in this scenario i guess obama could've run in '08 as a democrat)...i know a lot of over thinking, but that's how what if's work :)
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