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At the time, John F. Kennedy was serving as a United States senator from Massachusetts, and the events that were about to unfold would require the thinking and leadership of the nation’s president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Yet the effects of those events would eventually come to bear on the presidency of John Kennedy. It started with the launching of Sp
During the last three decades of the nineteenth century, Americans were entertained, challenged, educated, and even shocked by an orator who crisscrossed the country by train, delivering more than 1,300 lectures and campaigning successfully for Republican Party presidents and politicians. He was heard by more Americans than any other person before the invention of the radio. His close friend, Walt Whitman,
Timeline of Events (Year 1814):May 9: News of Napoleon's abdication reached Washington.May 10-19: U.S. forces under Lt. Col. John B. Campbell captured and burned Port Dover and Port Talbot, Upper Canada (Ontario)—an outrage that contributed to the British decision to burn the public buildings of Washington, D.C.May 20: President James Madison tried to prod Secretary of War Jo
No measure of Thomas Jefferson’s presidential administration captured the public imagination, and no policy approach so significantly affected the character of the nation, as did the acquiring of the Louisiana Territory.1 Yet long before his presidency, Jefferson was keenly interested in the land to the west of the Mississippi River. For example, just after the Revolution, he had heard th
Timeline of Events:August 29, 1814: Faced with a British demand to surrender 21 merchant ships, naval and ordinance stores and cotton, flour, tobacco and wines from the city warehouses or face attack from a squadron of seven ships, Alexandria's mayor and council bowed to the inevitable and agreed to the British demand—for they had no reliable defenses or defenders.August 30, 1814: A wa
Jimmy Carter would say later, "No matter who was with me, we watched the big grandfather clock by the door." Time was running out, for it was Tuesday, January 20, 1981. The scene was the Oval Office. In just hours this president would leave it for good, and a new leader, Ronald Reagan, would move in. As the clock ticked the time
