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- Pocahontas was a Native American woman, belonging to the Powhatan people, notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of a network of tributary tribes in the Tsenacommacah, encompassing the Tidewater region of Virginia. Pocahontas's birth year is unknown, but some historians estimate it to have been around 1596. In A True Relation of Virginia (1608), Smith described meeting Pocahontas in the spring of 1608 when she was "a child of ten years old." In a 1616 letter, he again described her as she was in 1608, but this time as "a child of twelve or thirteen years of age.
- Cotton Mather FRS (February 12, 1663 - February 13, 1728) was a New England Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer. Educated at Harvard College, in 1685 he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House of Boston, where he continued to preach for the rest of his life. A major intellectual and public figure in English-speaking colonial America, Cotton Mather helped lead the successful revolt of 1689 against Sir Edmund Andros, the governor imposed on New England by King James II. Mather's subsequent involvement in the Salem witch trials of 1692-1693, which he defended in the book Wonders of the Invisible World (1693), attracted intense controversy in his own day and has negatively affected his historical reputation. As a historian of colonial New England, Mather is noted for his Magnalia Christi Americana (1702).
- Benjamin Franklin FRS FRSA FRSE (January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Among the leading intellectuals of his time, Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a drafter and signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, and the first United States Postmaster General.
- American planter, politician and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution. His writings, including substantial portions of the Fairfax Resolves of 1774, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, and his Objections to this Constitution of Government (1787) opposing ratification, have exercised a significant influence on American political thought and events.
- George Washington was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army, Washington led the Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War and served as the president of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which created the Constitution of the United States and the American federal government. Washington has been called the "Father of the Nation" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the country.
- Benedict Arnold was born on 14 January 1741 in Norwich, Connecticut, USA. He died on 14 June 1801 in London, England.
- John Dickinson was born on 8 November 1732 in Croisadore, near Trappe, Province of Maryland, British America [now Maryland, USA]. John was married to Mary 'Polly' Norris. John died on 14 February 1808 in Wilmington, Delaware, USA.
- Fisher Ames was born on 9 April 1758 in Dedham, Massachusetts, USA. Fisher died on 4 July 1808 in Dedham, Suffolk County [now Norfolk County], Massachusetts, USA.
- Meriwether Lewis was an American explorer, soldier, politician, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark. Their mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, establish trade with, and sovereignty over the natives near the Missouri River, and claim the Pacific Northwest and Oregon Country for the United States before European nations. They also collected scientific data, and information on indigenous nations. President Thomas Jefferson appointed him Governor of Upper Louisiana in 1806. He died of gunshot wounds in what was either a murder or suicide, in 1809. While the Louisiana Purchase was not made official until July 1803, president Jefferson secretly requested Congress to fund the expedition in January 1803.
- Sacagawea was born in May 1788 in Idaho, USA. She died on 20 December 1812 in South Dakota, USA.
- Tecumseh was born in 1768 in Old Chillicothe, Ohio, USA. He died on 5 October 1813 in Moravian of the Thames, Upper Canada [now Ontario], Canada.
- Mercy Otis Warren was a published poet, political playwright and satirist during the age of the American Revolution-a time when women were encouraged and expected to keep silent on political matters. Warren not only engaged with the leading figures of the day-such as John, Abigail, and Samuel Adams-but she became an outspoken commentator and historian, as well as the leading female intellectual of the Revolution and early republic.
Born on September 14, 1728 in Barnstable, Massachusetts, Warren was the third of thirteen children of James Otis and Mary Allyne Otis. Her exposure to politics began early; her father was an attorney who was elected to the Massachusetts legislature in 1745. Like most girls at the time, Warren had no formal education; hers came from sitting in on her brother's lessons, where she took a particular interest in history and politics. She also made extensive use of her uncle's large book collection to educate herself.
In 1754, she wed the politically active James Warren, a classmate of her brother's at Harvard, who encouraged her to pursue writing. The couple had five sons. After James Warren's election to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1766, the Warrens began hosting leading citizens in their Plymouth home, particularly those opposed to British policies. In fact, Warren herself would maintain a lifelong, though at times tumultuous, friendship with John Adams, which included extensive letters on the nature of the new republic.
An avid patriot, Warren began writing political dramas that denounced British policies and key officials in Massachusetts, notably Governor Thomas Hutchinson. Her 1772 satire, "The Adulator" (published anonymously in the Massachusetts Spy newspaper), criticized the British colonial governor's policies a full four years before Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Warren also published two additional plays skewering British colonial leaders, Defeat (1773) and The Group (1775.) She supported the Boston Tea Party and boycotts of British imports and urged other women to follow suit.
From the outset of the American Revolution, Warren began writing its history, which was published in 1805 as History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution. This was among the first nonfiction book published by a woman in America, and she was the third woman (after Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley) to publish a book of poems. Some of her other works-Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous, for example-were similarly influenced by her first-hand experiences with the war. Warren, who embraced the natural rights philosophy that undergirded the Patriot cause, was hopeful that it would lead to egalitarian and democratic policies in the new republic and beyond. A Jeffersonian Republican, she took a firm stand against ratification of the Constitution, which put her at odds with conservative political friend, John Adams, a champion of the document. Likely based on her personal experiences, she opposed women's lack of access to formal education.
Warren lived to age eighty-six. She remained vital even in her final years, continuing to write and correspond with political friends. - Elbridge Gerry (July 17, 1744 - November 23, 1814) was an American Founding Father, politician, and diplomat who served as the fifth vice president of the United States under President James Madison from 1813 until his death in 1814. The political practice of gerrymandering is named after him. He was the second vice president to die in office.
- Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the second vice president of the United States under John Adams and the first United States secretary of state under George Washington. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation. He produced formative documents and decisions at state, national, and international levels.
- John Adams was born on 30 October 1735 in Braintree, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer, known for Biography (1987). He was married to Abigail Smith. He died on 4 July 1826 in Quincy, Massachusetts, USA.
- Jedediah Smith was born on 6 January 1799 in Bainbridge, New York, USA. He died on 27 May 1831 in Ulysses, Kansas, USA.
- Writer
James Monroe was born on 28 April 1758 in Westmoreland County, Virginia, USA. He was a writer. He was married to Elizabeth Kortright. He died on 4 July 1831 in New York City, New York, USA.- After school, he enrolled in college in 1774, but dropped out two years later at the start of the American Revolution to join the Virginia Army. During the fighting, Monroe was wounded and promoted to major. In 1782, Monroe began studying law and became friends with Thomas Jefferson. With this he was represented in Virginia's delegation to the Continental Congress from 1783 to 1786. During this time, Monroe married Elizabeth Kortright.
After practicing law for several years, Monroe was elected to the Senate in 1790. In this role, together with James Madison and Jefferson, he organized the opposition to President George Washington, which eventually developed into the Republican Party. From 1794 to 1796, Monroe served as an envoy to revolutionary France. In 1799 he was elevated to governor of Virginia. In this role he helped suppress a slave rebellion the following year.
In 1803, Monroe was again in diplomatic service in France, where he negotiated the American purchase of Louisiana with Robert R. Livingston. From 1804 to 1807 he served as an envoy to Great Britain. In 1811, under James Madison's presidency, Monroe was appointed Secretary of State. During the military conflict with Great Britain in 1814/15 he also served as Minister of War. As a Republican candidate, Monroe won the presidential election in 1816.
During his double term in office from 1817 to 1825, he developed a policy of internal consolidation that included expanding the army, strengthening the US Bank and enforcing protectionism. During his presidency, he established the "Era of Good Feeling", which was based on restoring political harmony and overcoming partisan differences. The president's power of integration was expressed in the elections of 1820, in which Monroe received all the votes unopposed.
In the area of foreign policy, Monroe was able to claim Florida in 1819. On the question of recognizing the independent Latin American states, the US President took an independent position vis-à-vis the major European powers. In his annual address of December 2, 1823, Monroe rejected any European intervention in Latin America to restore Spanish dominance. He also reiterated the United States' intention not to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations.
This foreign policy program, then known as the "Monroe Doctrine," was to determine the isolationist and hegemonic course of US foreign policy for a long time. After Monroe left the presidency in 1825, he became involved with the University of Virginia. In 1829 he attended the Virginia Constitutional Convention with James Madison.
James Monroe died on July 4, 1831 in New York City. - He enjoyed a humanistic school education. Madison completed his studies in 1771 with a Bachelor of Arts. He showed particular interest in the new ideas of the time, the Enlightenment, with which he dealt intensively. He became politically active at an early age. In 1776 he was elected to the Virginia Convention, which advocated independence and a constitution. During the American Revolution he campaigned for the colonial resistance movement against Great Britain in Virginia. Here he met the governor and later President Thomas Jefferson, with whom he became lifelong friends. In 1780, James Madison was elected to the Continental Congress, where he advocated for a strong central government that would help complete American liberation. The planter was instrumental in the preparations for the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, where he drafted the so-called "Virginia Plan" in May 1787.
In it, Madison advocated for a strong national central government that would guarantee personal freedoms, party diversity, and federal freedoms. With this model of a balanced party system that should lead to a mutual sharing of power, Madison founded the basic principle of the republican system of government in the USA. From 1789 to 1797, Madison represented Virginia in Congress. In 1794 he married Dolley Payne Todd. After supporting the presidential campaign of his friend Thomas Jefferson, Madison was appointed Secretary of State when he took office in 1801. In the election campaign of 1808, Madison himself was elected fourth president of the United States. Although he became embroiled in war with Great Britain on June 18, 1812, Madison was re-elected to a second term that same year.
The war with Great Britain was initially very disadvantageous for the USA. In 1814, Madison watched as the Capitol and White House were set ablaze by British troops. Nevertheless, the President was able to end the war with an advantageous peace agreement within the end of the year. A hugely popular leader, Madison left the office of president in March 1817. In the coming years he assisted Jefferson in planning the University of Virginia. He acted as an advisor to the next President James Monroe. In 1829, Madison officially returned to political life to attend the Virginia Constitutional Convention. He then withdrew into private life as a quiet observer of politics.
James Madison died on June 28, 1836 in Montpelier, Virginia. - William Clark (August 1, 1770 - September 1, 1838) was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he grew up in Pre-statehood Kentucky before later settling in what became the state of Missouri. Along with Meriwether Lewis, Clark led the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806 across the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Ocean, the first major effort to explore and map much of what is now the Western United States and to assert American claims to the Pacific Northwest. Before the expedition, he served in a militia and the United States Army. Afterward, he served in a militia and as governor of the Missouri Territory. From 1822 until his death in 1838, he served as Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
- Harrison, who was born on a plantation, also came from a distinguished family of planters and politicians. His father, Benjamin Harrison, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He was governor of Virginia between 1781 and 1784. William Harrison initially studied at college and at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1792 he joined the army. In 1794 he was used against the Indians in Ohio. A year later, Harrison married Anna Tuthill Symmes, an Ohio girl. In 1798, Harrison left the army as a captain. Harrison was then elected as a representative in the US Congress. In 1801, President John Adams made him governor of Indiana. During his 12 years in office, Harrison proved himself in the fight against the Indians, who had come together to form a federation under the leadership of Tecumseh.
During the war with Great Britain from 1812 to 1814, he secured American rule over Indiana and the Northwest. Returning to Ohio, William Harrison was elected to the House of Representatives in 1816, where he was represented until 1819. In 1825 he was elected to the US Senate, where William Harrison was active until 1828. In 1828, President John Quincy Adams sent Harrison as an envoy to Colombia, but he was recalled the following year. After a temporary withdrawal from politics, Harrison was considered a candidate in the presidential election in 1836, which was won by Martin van Buren. In the following election campaign in 1840, Harrison was able to garner the majority of votes. In March 1841 he took office as the ninth President of the USA.
William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia in Washington just one month later, on April 4, 1841. He was succeeded by John Tyler. - Music Department
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Francis Scott Key was born to Ann Phoebe Penn Dogworthy and Captain James Ross Key at the family plantation Terra Rubra on August 1, 1779 in Frederick, Maryland. His father was a lawyer, judge, and officer in the Continental Army and his great grandparents Philip Key and Susanna Barton Gardiner where both born in England and immigrated to America in 1726. Francis graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis in 1796. During the War of 1812 Key was on board the British ship HMS Tomnant; he witnessed the bombarding of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore on the night of September 13-14, 1814. When the smoke cleared Francis saw an American flag still waving and was inspired to write the poem "The Defense of Fort McHenry." This poem was first published in the Patriot on September 20, 1814. It was subsequently set to the melody of composer John Stafford Smith's composition "To Anacreon in Heaven" and has gone on to be internationally known as "The Star-Spangled Banner." "The Star-Spangled Banner" was adopted as the American anthem by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 and further confirmed as such by a Congressional resolution signed by President Herbert Hoover in 1931. Moreover, the stanza "In God is Our Trust" was adopted as the national motto by law in 1956. From 1817 to 1843 Key served as the Vice President of the American Bible Society. In 1832 he served as the attorney for Congressman Sam Houston during his trial in the U.S. House of Representatives for assaulting another Congressman. Francis published a prose work entitled "The Power of Literature and Its Connection to Religion" in 1834. In 1835 Francis prosecuted Richard Lawrence for his unsuccessful attempt at assassinating President Andrew Jackson. He was married to Mary "Polly" Tayloe Lloyd and was the father of nine children. Key died of pleurisy at age 63 on January 11, 1843 in Baltimore, Maryland.- Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 - June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religion that continues to the present with millions of global adherents.
- Andrew Jackson was an American lawyer, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. An expansionist president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy" and to preserve the Union.
- His father, John Adams, served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. In 1779, at the age of 12, the young Adams accompanied his father to Europe. There the linguistically gifted boy supported the US embassy as a translator and secretary. When Adams enrolled at Harvard in 1785, he already had knowledge of Greek, Latin, French, Dutch and German. After studying law, he began working as a lawyer in Boston in 1790. At the same time, he gained a certain level of notoriety by writing political essays for the press in support of George Washington's administration. In 1793 the young Adams was sent to the Netherlands as a diplomat. On a diplomatic mission to London he met the American consulate's daughter Louisa Catherine Johnson, whom he married in 1797. In the same year Adams was sent as an envoy to Prussia.
Returning to the United States, he was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1801. In 1803 he was appointed to the US Senate, where he served until 1808. In 1809, Adams went on a diplomatic mission to Russia, where he was able to win over Tsar Alexander as a mediator in the American conflict with Great Britain. In 1812 he helped negotiate the peace treaty with Great Britain. From 1815 Adams worked as an ambassador in London. Two years later, he was appointed Secretary of State by President James Monroe. In complete agreement with the president, in this role until 1825 he contributed to raising the USA to an equal size with the European powers, giving them independent diplomacy and helping them make territorial gains. In this context, Adams was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the acquisition of Florida and the securing of Louisiana's western border. In 1823 he contributed to the development of the "Monroe Doctrine".
In 1824, Adams won the American presidential election to become the sixth president of the United States for one term from the following year. However, his policy of internal reform and national consolidation was largely unsuccessful due to opposition resistance. In the election campaign of 1828, John Quincy Adams was overwhelmingly defeated by Andrew Jackson, who succeeded him as president a year later. After a temporary withdrawal from political life, Adams was elected to the House of Representatives in 1831, where he served until his death in 1848. As an independent, he took up the demand for the abolition of slavery without joining the ranks of the abolitionists. Soon after, he suffered a stroke in the House of Representatives.
John Quincy Adams died on February 23, 1848 in Washington. - Writer
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Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, named David Poe Jr., and his mother, named Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe, were touring actors. Both parents died in 1811, and Poe became an orphan before he was 3 years old. He was adopted by John Allan, a tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia, and was sent to a boarding school in London, England. He later attended the University of Virginia for one year, but dropped out and ran up massive gambling debts after spending all of his tuition money. John Allan broke off Poe's engagement to his fiancée Sarah Royster. Poe was heartbroken, traumatized, and broke. He had no way out and enlisted in the army in May of 1827. At the same time Poe published his first book, "Tamerlane and Other Poems" (1827). In 1829, he became a West Point cadet, but was dismissed after 6 months for disobedience. By that time he published "Al Aaraf" (1929) and "Poems by Edgar A. Poe" (1831), with the funds contributed by his fellow cadets. His early poetry, though written in the manner of Lord Byron, already shows the musical effects of his verses.
Poe moved in with his widowed aunt, Maria Clemm, and her teenage daughter, Virginia Eliza Clemm, whom he married before she was 14 years old. He earned respect as a critic and writer. In his essays "The Poetic Principle" and "The Philosophy of Composition," Poe formulated important literary theories. But his career suffered from his compulsive behavior and from alcoholism. He did produce, however, a constant flow of highly musical poems, of which "The Raven" (1845) and "The Bells" (1849) are the finest examples. Among his masterful short stories are "Ligeia" (1838), "The Fall of the House of Usher"(1839) and "The Masque of the Red Death". Following his own theory of creating "a certain unique or single effect", Poe invented the genre of the detective story. His works: "The Murder in the Rue Morgue" (1841) is probably the first detective story ever published.
Just when his life began to settle, Poe was devastated by the death of his wife Virginia in 1847. Two years later he returned to Richmond and resumed a relationship with his former fiancée, Sarah Royster, who, by that time, was a widow. But shortly after their happy reconciliation he was found unconscious on a street in Baltimore. Poe was taken to the Washington College Hospital where Doctor John Moran diagnosed "lesions on the brain" (the Doctor believed Poe was mugged). He died 4 days later, briefly coming in and out of consciousness, just to whisper his last words, "Lord, help my poor soul." The real cause of his death is still unknown and his death certificate has disappeared. Poe's critic and personal enemy, named Rufus Griswold, published an insulting obituary; later he visited Poe's home and took away all of the writer's manuscripts (which he never returned), and published his "Memoir" of Poe, in which he forged a madman image of the writer.
The name of the woman in Poe's poem "Annabel Lee" was used by Vladimir Nabokov in 'Lolita' as the name for Humbert's first love, Annabelle Leigh. Nabokov also used in 'Lolita' some phrases borrowed from the poem of Edgar Allan Poe. "The Fall of the House of Usher" was set to music by Claude Debussy as an opera. Sergei Rachmaninoff created a musical tribute to Poe by making his favorite poem "The Bells" into the eponymous Choral Symphony.- Zachary Taylor was an American military leader who served as the 12th president of the United States from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor previously was a career officer in the United States Army, rising to the rank of major general and becoming a national hero as a result of his victories in the Mexican-American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was preserving the Union. He died sixteen months into his term, having made no progress on the most divisive issue in Congress, slavery.
- Favorite writer of generations of Americans, Cooper was born on Tuesday, September 15th, 1789, and grew up on his family's huge wooded settlement, in Cooperstown, New York, which his father, William Cooper, a prominent Federalist, had founded before this son's birth. His days as a Yale student were cut short when he was expelled for misbehavior. He gamely joined the navy, earning the rank of midshipman. On New Year's Day, Tuesday, January 1st, 1811 he married Susan Augusta De Lancey, settling down and writing prolifically, politically, and prodigiously. Eventually he and his wife moved south to an estate in Scarsdale, New York, where he continued to write and publish his critical, thoughtful, and creative works. Cooper died at Cooperstown on Sunday, September 14th, 1851, one day shy of reaching sixty-two.
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John Howard Payne was born on 9 June 1791 in East Hampton, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for The Family Stone (2005), The Chechahcos (1923) and First Love (1939). He died on 10 April 1852 in Tunis, Tunisia.- Soundtrack
Isaac Baker Woodbury was born on 23 October 1819 in Beverly, Massachusetts, USA. Isaac Baker died on 26 October 1858 in Columbia, South Carolina, USA.- Writer
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Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 - November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), both of which appear in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain that deal with subjects such as Alhambra, Christopher Columbus and the Moors. Irving served as American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s.- John Brown was born on 9 May 1800 in Torrington, Connecticut, USA. He died on 2 December 1859 in Charles Town, West Virginia, USA.
- J.H. Ingraham was born on 26 January 1809 in Portland, Maine, USA. He was a writer, known for The Ten Commandments (1956). He died on 18 December 1860 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, USA.
- Nathaniel Lyon was the first Union general to be killed in the American Civil War. He is noted for his actions in Missouri in 1861, at the beginning of the conflict, to forestall secret secessionist plans of the governor Claiborne Jackson. He had fought in the Second Seminole War in Florida and the Mexican-American War. After being assigned to Kansas, where many residents were divided about slavery and the Union, he developed strong pro-Union views. In February 1861, Lyon was made commander of the Union arsenal in St. Louis, Missouri (another divided state). Suspicious of governor Claiborne, who was working with Jefferson Davis on a secret plan for secession, Lyon forced the surrender of the pro-Confederate militia. Some civilians rioted and Lyon's troops fired into the crowd, which came to be known as the Camp Jackson Affair. Lyon was promoted brigadier-general and given command of Union troops in Missouri. He was killed at the Battle of Wilson's Creek, while trying to rally his outnumbered soldiers. Despite his passing during the first year of the war, Lyon's efforts prevented the State of Missouri from joining the Confederacy.
- His father was governor of Virginia and a judge. After graduating from college in 1807, Tyler studied law. At 19 he was admitted to the bar. From 1811 to 1815, Tyler sat in the Virginia House of Delegates. He then served as a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from 1817 to 1821. Tyler was appointed governor of Virginia in 1825. In 1827 he resigned from this position because he was now elected to the US Senate, where he was represented until 1836. In these positions, Tyler distinguished himself as a staunch advocate of the "states' rights" theory and a faithful interpretation of the Constitution. The doctrine advocated the primary sovereignty and independence of the US states over the federal government. After turning away from the Democratic Party, Tyler was elected vice president in 1840 as the Whig candidate.
However, the new President William Harrison died in 1841 after only a month in office. Therefore, Tyler succeeded him as the tenth President of the USA on April 4, 1841. Differences with his new Whig party blocked the new president's key domestic policy initiatives. As a southern aristocrat, the former Virginia governor and senator was only put forward to win southern voters for Harrison. However, his political views were opposed to those of the Whig Party, which represented the interests of the northeastern states with their emerging industry and business community - so he vetoed the establishment of a national bank, which was a fundamental concern of the Whigs and their most prominent senator, Henry Clay. In the fall of 1841, he was expelled from the Whig Party. In 1842, when he vetoed the tariff bill, Congress tried, but failed, to impeach him.
In the area of foreign policy, Tyler prepared the incorporation of Texas into the Union after his presidency. In 1842, his Secretary of State Daniel Webster was able to reach a border treaty with Great Britain that established the border between Maine and Canada. In the run-up to the Civil War, he campaigned for secession and was elected to the Congress of the Confederacy, but died of a stroke before he could take office. In the presidential election of 1844, Tyler was no longer a candidate. Tyler was replaced in 1845 by James Knox Polk. After his presidency, however, Tyler remained involved in political life. Shortly before his death, he was elected to the Congress of the Confederate States of America in 1861. The politician died before its meetings opened.
John Tyler died on January 18, 1862 in Richmond, Virginia. - Writer
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David Henry Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of three children to John and Synthia Thoreau. He studied at Harvard from 1822-1837, majoring in English. Thoreau was a companion of Ralph Aldo Emerson, who patronized him and introduced him to some of the most important writers and thinkers of his time. Thoreau's early publications were made possible initially only after pressure from Emerson, who suggested that his apprentice should write his observations in his journal. Thoreau's principles of non-violence and his opposition to the Mexican-American War was also inspired by Emerson. His essay "A Walk to Wachussett" was published in the January 1843 issue of The Boston Miscellany. Thoreau spent a few months later in 1843 in New York, tutoring Emerson's sons, and trying to be published.
On the 4-th of July, 1845, Thoreau embarked on his two-year experiment in simple living. He lived in a tiny self-built house on the shore of Walden Pond, on the land owned by Emerson on the outskirts of Concord. There Thoreau had an ideal environment for thinking and writing. However, he once spent a night in jail for refusing to pay six years of delinquent poll taxes. During that time he published an elegy to his late brother, putting himself into debt for years, because he paid all expenses out of pocket. He left Walden Pond on September 6, 1847, and worked off his debt in a few years. His essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" (1849) was recognized by Lev Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, Martin Luther King, and many others, as an important influence on their respective careers.
Thoreau's writings evolved from his fascination with nature and natural way of life. His interest in natural history and travel narratives, like Darwin's and Bartram's, inspired many of his own works. His essays "Autumnal tints", "The Succession of Trees", "Wild Apples", and the recently published "Faith in a Seed" make Thoreau one of the early American environmentalist.
Thoreau suffered from tuberculosis, which he contracted in 1835. He also worked at his family's pencil factory for many years and seriously compromised his health by inhaling dust particles. He died on May 6, 1862, and was laid to rest in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. His three-million words journal was published in 1906, helping to build his modern reputation.- Soundtrack
Edwin Pearce Christy was an American composer, actor and stage producer, most famous for founding the most successful black-face minstrel show of the 19th century, Christy's Minstrels. Born in Philadelphia, his career as a minstrel and singer began in Buffalo, New York, where he performed singing in the Edwin Dean Company in 1836. By 1843, the group was growing in popularity and began touring in and around upstate New York until 1846, when Christy took over management of the group. As Christy's Minstrels, they began performing in New York City at Palmo's Opera House. After performing at an 1847 benefit in Cincinnati for young songwriter Stephen Foster, the group began to specialize in performances of Foster's works and were instrumental in spreading the popularity of the songs of America's first professional songwriter. Foster even sold his song, Old Folks at Home (aka Swanee River) to Christy for his exclusive use, although this was done most likely due to Foster's ongoing financial difficulties due to the lack of enforcement of music copyrights back then. In the early to mid-1850's, Christy's Minstrels were one of the top stage attractions in New York City. Christy himself retired as a performer in 1855 but continued in entertainment, running a chain of theaters called Christy's Opera House in several cities, while his stepson George continued with the minstrel group. However, due to marriage and other personal problems, and afraid of the financial damage he was suffering due to the effects of the Civil War, on May 20, 1862, Christy committed suicide by throwing himself from a window at his residence at 78 East 18th Street in Manhattan. He died the next day from his injuries and was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.- Served as eighth President of the United States (1837-1841). He was one of the founders of the Democratic Party. He was the eighth Vice President of the United States (1833-1837) He was also the tenth Secretary of State. Martin Van Buren was the first President of the United States of the United States to actually be born in the United States. He was a major factor in the abolitionist movement.
- Stonewall Jackson was born on 21 January 1824 in Clarksburg, Virginia, USA. He died on 10 May 1863 in Guinea Station, Virginia, USA.
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Clement Moore was born on 15 July 1779 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for Lance's Crappy Christmas (2021), The Night Before Christmas (1912) and Mission Rejected (2019). He was married to Catherine Taylor. He died on 10 July 1863 in Newport, Rhode Island, USA.- Robert Gould Shaw was born on 10 October 1837 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Robert Gould was a writer, known for Glory (1989). Robert Gould was married to Annie Haggerty. Robert Gould died on 18 July 1863 in Charleston, South Carolina, USA.
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Sam Houston is an American soldier and politician. An important leader of the Texas Revolution, Houston served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas, and was one of the first two individuals to represent Texas in the United States Senate. He also served as the sixth governor of Tennessee and the seventh governor of Texas, the only American to be elected governor of two different states in the United States.
Born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, Houston and his family migrated to Maryville, Tennessee when Houston was a teenager. Houston later ran away from home and spent time with the Cherokee, becoming known as Raven. He served under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. With the support of Jackson and others, Houston won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1823. He strongly supported Jackson's presidential candidacies, and in 1827, Houston was elected as the governor of Tennessee. In 1829, Houston resigned from office, and joined his Cherokee friends in Arkansas Territory.
Sam Houston settled in Texas in 1832. After the Battle of Gonzales, Houston helped organize Texas's provisional government and was selected as the top-ranking official in the Texian Army. He led the Texian Army to victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive battle in Texas's war for independence against Mexico. After the war, Houston won election in the 1836 Texas presidential election. He left office due to term limits in 1838, but won election to another term in the 1841 Texas presidential election.
He was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidential nomination of the American Party in the 1856 presidential election and the Constitutional Union Party in the 1860 presidential election. In 1859, Houston won election as the governor of Texas. He was forced out of office in 1861 and died in 1863. Houston's name has been honored in numerous ways, and he is the eponym of the city of Houston, the fourth most populous city in the United States.- Music Department
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Stephen Foster was America's first professional songwriter of note. He was born in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, and developed musical talent early in his life, while still young beginning to compose in the style of Negro minstrel music of the day. His first hit as a professional songwriter was "Oh! Susanna," which he sold to a publisher for $100 in 1848. In 1849, he began writing songs for the most successful black-faced minstrel troupe of all time, led by E.P. Christy, and from whom the 1960's folk group The New Christy Minstrels took their name. "The Old Folks at Home" (a/k/a "Swanee River") was written for Christy, and during the 1850's, Foster wrote most of his best-known songs, including "Camptown Races" and "My Old Kentucky Home." He married Jane Denny McDowell on July 22, 1850 and they settled in Pittsburgh, having one daughter, Marion. The troubled marriage was one of separations and reconciliations. During one such separation, he wrote "Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair," inspired by his estranged wife, and they reconciled after its publication. However, although Foster composed more than 200 songs in his lifetime, many still popular today, copyright laws in music were rarely enforced at the time and he made little money in his short life. By 1857, he was in a creative slump and in such economic straits that he sold all rights to any future songs for just under $2,000. He and his wife soon separated, but this one was to last until his death. He moved to New York City, living alone and suffering from acute alcoholism, which only added to his financial problems. Songs of the Civil War being fought at the time did not prove as popular as his previous songs. On January 13, 1864, he died in the charity ward of New York's Bellevue Hospital, being taken there after a protracted fever that had weakened him so much that he had collapsed and hit his head on a washbasin at home. Only two weeks before, he had composed his last great song, "Beautiful Dreamer."- Writer
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Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist, dark romantic, and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that town. Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, and graduated in 1825. He published his first work in 1828, the novel Fanshawe; he later tried to suppress it, feeling that it was not equal to the standard of his later work. He published several short stories in periodicals, which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The following year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at the Boston Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment as consul took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return to Concord in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, and was survived by his wife and their three children. Much of Hawthorne's writing centers on New England, many works featuring moral metaphors with an anti-Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity. His published works include novels, short stories, and a biography of his college friend Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States.- William T. Anderson--aka "Bloody Bill Anderson"--was born in Hopkins County, KY, in 1840. His family moved to Kansas when he was a youngster. As a young man he made money by rustling horses and selling them to unsuspecting buyers. His father, a diehard Southerner, got into an argument with a judge who was a Union loyalist, resulting in his father being shot dead. Bill, fearing for his own life, took off for Missouri, where he made a living robbing travelers. Union soldiers pursued him, and he killed several of them. Shortly after the Civil War broke out Anderson joined up with a gang of Confederate guerrillas led by former schoolteacher William Quantrill. Anderson developed a useful skill as a guerrilla--setting up ambushes of Union soldiers and their civilian allies, which earned him the admiration and trust of the gang's leaders. It wasn't long before the authorities found out who Anderson was, and they arrested and imprisoned his sisters, one of whom died in custody, leading Anderson to vow bloody revenge. He played a vital part in what became known as the "Lawrence Massacre"--on August 21, 1863, Quantrill's gang attacked the small Kansas town of Lawrence, which had a reputation of being a center of abolitionists and pro-Union militias, known as Jayhawkers, and a particularly violent group of anti-slavery vigilantes known as Redlegs, who themselves were responsible for the killings of many pro-Confederate and/or pro-slavery civilians. Approximately 450 guerrillas attacked Lawrence shortly after 5:00 am, taking over a hotel for their headquarters and fanning out across town with lists of men to be killed. Many of those killed were unarmed, including approximately 20 young men who had just been recruited into the Union army, although they had not yet been sworn in. Altogether approximately 150 men and boys--some as young as 12--were executed, some of them shot or knifed, and others tied up and thrown into burning buildings. The guerrillas set fire to as many buildings as they could, and approximately one-quarter of the town eventually burned to the ground. Anderson himself was implicated in some of the most brutal murders committed during the incident, and it was estimated that he personally killed more than a dozen unarmed prisoners.
After the raid Quantrill and his band went to Texas to spend the winter, and it was here that Quantrill and Anderson had a falling out. Anderson accused Quantrill of the murder of one of the guerrillas, resulting in Quantrill's arrest by Confederate authorities. Anderson then formed his own band of guerrillas and returned to Kansas, becoming one of the most feared of the guerrilla bands infesting the area. On Sept. 27, 1864, Anderson led his band in an attack on the Kansas town of Centralia. He captured 24 Union soldiers, and after assuring them of good treatment, proceeded to execute them all. He then laid a trap for Union forces coming to relieve the town, which resulted in more than 100 militiamen being killed.
Approximately a month after that incident, Anderson was himself the victim of an ambush by Union troops. Caught by surprise, many of his men were killed, wounded or fled. Anderson was recognized by a pursuing Union officer, who fired several shots at him. He was hit behind the ear with at least one bullet and, apparently, died instantly. - Writer
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Abraham Lincoln was an American politician from Kentucky. He was the second presidential candidate of the then-new Republican Party, following John Charles Frémont (1813 - 1890). He served as President of the United States from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. He was assassinated in April 1865, the first of four American presidents to be assassinated during their term in office.
In February 1809, Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin, located on the Sinking Spring Farm . The Farm itself was located near the modern city of Hodgenville, Kentucky, which was incorporated in 1836. Lincoln was the second child born to the illiterate farmer Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851) and his first wife Nancy Hanks (1784-1818). Both of his parents were born in Virginia.
Lincoln was a namesake grandson of Captain Abraham Lincoln (1744 - 1786), a military veteran of the American Revolutionary War. The senior Abraham was born in Pennsylvania, and settled in the areas of modern Kentucky in 1781. He was shot by an unnamed Native American in May 1786, while working in his field. The Lincoln family were descendants of Samuel Lincoln (1622 - 1690), an English weaver who had settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637.
Lincoln's father Thomas bought or leased various farms in Kentucky, but lost most of his land in court disputes over property titles. In 1816, the Lincoln family settled in Indiana, which at the time had a more reliable and surveying system. Indiana was a "free-state", having abolished slave-holding in 1816. This suited Thomas' religious beliefs. He had joined the Separate Baptists, a religious group which forbade its members to own slaves.
In October 1818, Lincoln's mother Nancy died due to milk sickness. She had ingested milk cow containing the poison tremetol. She was 34-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln was only 9-years-old at the time. The boy's primary caregiver for a while was his older sister Sarah Lincoln (1807 - 1828), who took over most household duties.
In December 1819, Lincoln's father married his second wife Sarah Bush (1788 - 1869). She was a widow, with three children of her own from a previous marriage. Lincoln grew close to his stepmother, and started calling her mother. By that time, Lincoln was old enough to start working in the farm. He reportedly never liked the physical labor, and his family regarded him as particularly lazy.
Lincoln received little formal schooling, relying on brief tutoring by itinerant teachers. He learned to read at the age of 7, but was not trained to write for several years. However, he became a bibliophile and spend most of his free time "reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing Poetry, etc" He was largely self-educated, reading on a variety of topics.
As a teenager, Lincoln was "tall, strong, and athletic". He was trained in the "catch-as-catch-can" style of wrestling, a grappling style, and had a career as an amateur wrestler. He earned his reputation in the sport by defeating the leader of "the Clary's Grove Boys", a local gang of troublemakers.
In 1830, the Lincoln family moved to Macon County, Illinois. By that time, Lincoln was 21-years-old, legally entering adulthood. His relationship with his father Thomas became difficult, as young Lincoln craved for financial independence. In 1831, Thomas and most of his family settled in a new homestead, located in Coles County, Illinois. Lincoln decided not to follow them, and started living on his own. He settled for a few years in New Salem, Illinois.
In 1831, Lincoln and his partner Denton Offutt purchased a general store in New Salem. Lincoln gained a reputation of honesty, when he realized that he had accidentally overcharged a customer and voluntarily returned the money to him. By 1832, the general store had failed. The partnership was dissolved.
Also In 1832, Lincoln stood as a candidate for the Illinois General Assembly. He was an unlikely candidate, as he was rather poor and lacked political connections. He received 277 votes, nearly every vote in the village of New Salem. He lost the election as he was unknown outside this village.
In the early 1830s, Lincoln worked as New Salem's postmaster, and then as county surveyor. He aspired to become a lawyer, and read law on his own. He extensively studied legal texts in order to qualify. He later claimed that he was entirely self-taught. In 1834, Lincoln sought election to the Illinois General Assembly again. This time, he stood as a candidate for the powerful Whig Party and won the election. He served four terms in the General Assembly.
Lincoln's first known romantic relationship involved Ann Rutledge (1813 - 1835), a local woman who was reputedly engaged to another man. Rutledge died in August 1835, during a typhoid epidemic. She was only 22-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln became severely depressed following her death. Biographers think that he wrote the poem "The Suicide's Soliloquy"(1838), to record his own suicidal thoughts during this period.
In 1836, Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois bar, and moved to Springfield Illinois to practice law. He started his career as a lawyer by practicing law under experienced lawyer John Todd Stuart (1807 - 1885), who happened to be a long-time friend of Lincoln. Lincoln gained a reputation as a formidable trial lawyer in cases involving cross-examinations.
In his political career in the 1830s, Lincoln championed the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. He later served as a Canal Commissioner. He voted to expand suffrage to all white males, not only white landowners. He adopted a "free soil" policy, vocally opposing both slavery and abolitionism. He favored the plan of the Whig party leader Henry Clay (1777 - 1852) to use freedmen in the colonization of Liberia.
In 1839, Lincoln became romantically interested in Mary Todd (1818 - 1882), a daughter of the wealthy businessman Robert Smith Todd (1791-1849). They were engaged in 1840, and were married in 1842. They had four sons. Mary had a higher social standing than Lincoln, being part of the gentry in Springfield, Illinois. She had reputedly rejected several suitors. Her most notable suitor before Lincoln was the successful lawyer Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813 -1861).
In 1842, Lincoln's last term in the Illinois General Assembly ended. In 1843, he sought the Whig nomination for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost the nomination to John Jay Hardin (1810 - 1847), but convinced party officials to not renominate Hardin in the next election. Lincoln won the Whig nomination in 1846, and went on to win the election. He served as a congressman from 1847 to 1849. During this time, Lincoln was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation.
During his term in congress, Lincoln proposed a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and to compensate slave owners for the loss of property. The bill failed to gain sufficient support, even from his own party. Lincoln spoke out against the country's involvement in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), warning that the price of glory would be "showers of blood".
Lincoln did not seek renomination to Congress in the 1848 election, honoring a 1846 pledge to serve a single term. He supported Zachary Taylor's campaign to win the Whig nomination for the presidency. When Taylor won the presidential election, Lincoln expected political favors from the new president. Taylor offered to Lincoln an appointment as secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory, which was at that time a stronghold of the Democratic Party. Lincoln declined the offer, as it would require him to abandon his legal career in Illinois. He resumed life as a lawyer.
During the 1850s, Lincoln was one of Illinois' leading lawyers. He appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases, and was the sole counsel in 51 of these cases. He solidified his reputation as a defense lawyer in two murder trials. In the trial of Duff Armstrong (1833-1899), Lincoln was able to prove that a key eyewitness was actually lying about what he had seen. Lincoln found that the witness stood at too great a distance in nighttime conditions to have seen anything. In the trial of Simeon Quinn "Peachy" Harrison (a cousin of Lincoln), Lincoln was able to convince a judge that the dying declaration of the murder victim should not be excluded as hearsay, That declaration was that the victim had actively provoked Harrison into attacking, helping the defense's case.
In 1854, Lincoln resumed his active participation in political life by speaking out against the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law that repealing the Missouri Compromise (1820), and would allow for the expansion of slavery to the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The Whig Party split in two due to its factions' different reactions to the new law. The Party's anti-slavery faction helped establish the new Republican Party, which also attracted anti-slavery politicians from the Free Soil Party, the Liberty Party, and the Democratic Party.
In 1854, Lincoln stood as a Whig candidate to the United States Senate. He was not able to secure the election, but managed to convince his supporters to vote for Lyman Trumbull (1813 - 1896), an anti-slavery Democrat with similar views to their own. Trumbull won the election. In 1856, Lincoln formally joined the Republican Party. At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, Lincoln was one of the candidates for the party's nomination for Vice President of the United States. Lincoln received 110 votes, finishing second among the candidates. The vice-presidential nomination was instead won by William Lewis Dayton (1807 - 1864).
In 1858, Lincoln stood as a Republican candidate for the United States Senate. His opponent was Stephen Arnold Douglas, a leading Democrat politician. The Senate campaign featured seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas, which attracted nationwide attention. The candidates argued extensively over the legal and moral status of slavery in the United States. In this elections, the Republican Party won the popular vote, but the Democratic Party won more seats. The legislature re-appointed Douglas to the Senate. But Lincoln had become nationally famous, and he was often mentioned by the press as a likely presidential candidate.
In 1860, Lincoln received early endorsements as a presidential candidate. In the 1860 Republican National Convention, he secured the party's nomination. His most significant rival for the nomination was William Henry Seward (1801-1872), who finished second among the various candidates. Only Lincoln and Seward received over 50 votes from delegates. The party's nomination for vice president was secured by Hannibal Hamlin (1809 - 1891), a former Democrat who had opposed slavery for most of his career.
In the 1860 United States presidential election, the Democratic Party was split into two rival factions, which nominated different candidates. In the election, Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, or 39.8% of the popular vote. In the electoral college, he received 180 votes, winning the election. Lincoln every one of the free Northern states, plus California and Oregon in the recently annexed Western United States. He received no votes at all in 10 of the 15 slave states.
Lincoln started his presidency in March 1861. By that time, 7 states had already seceded from the Union in reaction to his victory (in chronological order: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas). The American Civil War started in April 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter, a bombardment of a Union fort located near Charleston, South Carolina. On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send a total of 75,000 volunteer troops to recapture forts, protect Washington, and "preserve the Union". In Baltimore rioting crowds started attacking Union forces. Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus in select areas, allowing the government forces to confine people without formal trials. Thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers were confined.
Lincoln soon established his executive control over the Union's war effort, and helped shape its military strategy, He expanded his war powers, and exercising "unprecedented authority" over the country. He had the full support of the Republican-controlled Congress, as well as popular support in states loyal to the Union. His political opposition consisted of two different factions, the Copperheads and the Radical Republicans. The Copperheads were a faction of the Democratic Party which demanded a compromise on the matter of slavery, and a peace settlement with the Confederates. The Radical Republicans were a faction of the Republican Party which demanded the "permanent eradication of slavery", and rejected any ideas concerning compromises with slave-owners.
In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the emancipation of slaves in 10 Confederate states. The Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. By the spring of 1863, Lincoln had started recruiting "black troops" in massive numbers. By the end of the year, 20 regiments of African Americans from the Mississippi Valley had been recruited by the Union.
Lincoln ran for re-election in the 1864 United States presidential election. He united the main factions of the Republican Party and the War Democrats (a pro-Union faction of the Democratic Party) into a coalition known as Union Party. The remaining factions of the Democratic Party made the mistake of nominating retired general George Brinton McClellan (1826 - 1885) as their presidential candidate. McClellan held a grudge against Lincoln, but rejected any ideas concerning peace with the Confederates. Meaning that the Copperheads could see little difference between him and Lincoln.
Lincoln won the presidential election with 2,218,388 votes, representing 55.0% of the popular vote. 78% of Union soldiers. voted fort him, as they did not want a compromise to end the War. Lincoln won 212 electoral votes, and had the support of 22 out of the Union's 25 states. His new vice-president was Andrew Johnson (1808 - 1875), a prominent War Democrat.
In 1865, the Union seemed to be winning the American Civil War. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife attended Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. They wanted to see a performance of the then-popular British play "Our American Cousin" (1858) by Tom Taylor (1817 - 1880). During the performance, Lincoln was assassinated by the well-known actor John Wilkes Booth (1838 - 1865). Booth was a Confederate sympathizer, and hoped to turn the tide of the War. Lincoln was 56-years-old at the time of his death.
Lincoln's corpse was returned for burial to Springfield, Illinois, where he had lived for decades. On May 4, 1865, Lincoln was interred at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. The Lincoln Tomb later became a state historic site. His wife and three of their four sons were later buried there as well.
Historians tend to rank Lincoln among the top Presidents of the United States. Due to his violent death, he came to be regarded as "a national martyr". Several political factions trace their origins to Lincoln's ideas and policies. He has been described as "a classical liberal" of the 19th-century, and is well-regarded for his policies favoring trade and business.- John Wilkes Booth was an American theatrical actor from Maryland. He was a member of the prominent Booth theatrical family. Booth assassinated president Abraham Lincoln, and was killed shortly after. He was the first of four presidential assassins in United States history.
In 1838, Booth was born in Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland. It was a small town with less than 200 residents. Booth's father was Junius Brutus Booth (1796 -1852), a British Shakespearean actor who had migrated to the United States in 1821. Booth's mother was Mary Ann Holmes, Junius' long-term mistress. His parents could not be legally married, as Junius had left his wife back in England when he migrated.
Booth was named after the British radical politician John Wilkes (1725 -1797), a member of the Hellfire Club (an exclusive club for high-society rakes). Wilkes happened to be a cousin of Booth's father, though they never met. Junius chose to emphasize their relation.
In 1851, Junius Booth finally secured a divorce from his first wife, following 30 years of separation. On May 10, 1851 Junius married Holmes. This allowed him to legitimize his children by her. Also in 1851, Junius started building Tudor Hall as a new summer home for his family. It would serve as John Booth's main residence from December 1852 to 1856.
In 1852, Junius Booth died during a steamboat trip from New Orleans to Cincinnati. He is thought to have been accidentally poisoned through drinking impure river water. John Booth became an orphan at age 14, and was forced to drop out of school. He had previously attended the "Milton Boarding School for Boys" and the military academy "St. Timothy's Hall". Booth was reportedly an indifferent student. A former teacher thought that Booth was intelligent, but not particularly interested in his studies.
As a teenager, Booth aspired to become an actor. His older brothers Junius Brutus Booth Jr. (1821-1883) and Edwin Booth (1833 - 1893) had already started their own acting careers. In preparation for an acting career, Booth practiced elocution daily and studied the works of William Shakespeare.
In August 1855, Booth made his stage debut at the "Charles Street Theatre" of Baltimore. He was playing the Earl of Richmond in Shakespeare's "Richard III". He missed some of his lines, and the audience jeered at him. At about that time, Booth started performing regularly at the " Holliday Street Theater" of Baltimore. This theater had previously hosted performances by other members of the Booth family.
In 1857, Booth joined the stock company of the "Arch Street Theatre" in Philadelphia. He used the alias "J.B. Wilkes" to avoid comparison with his father and brothers. He gained a reputation as a scene stealer, and the audience reacted positively to his enthusiasm. In February, 1858, Booth played the role of Petruchio Pandolfo in the opera "Lucrezia Borgia" by Gaetano Donizetti. He developed stage fright, and accidentally turned his opening lines into a comedic monologue. The audience reacted with roaring laughter.
Later within 1858, Booth started performing in Virginia. He joined the stock company of the "Richmond Theatre" in Virginia. He became popular due to his energetic performances, and the audience singled him out for praise. By the end of 1858, Booth had appeared in 83 plays in a single year. His favorite role was playing Marcus Junius Brutus, because he was "the slayer of a tyrant".
By the end of the 1850s, Booth had a yearly income of 20,000 dollars. Critics described him as "the handsomest man in America" and a "natural genius", and female audience members idolized him. His performances were often acrobatic in nature, with him leaping upon the stage. He was passionately gesturing as he spoke his lines. He regularly practiced swordsmanship to use its movements in his performances. He reportedly "cut himself with his own sword" on several occasions.
In 1860, Booth started his first national tour as a leading actor. He performed in major cities, such as New York City, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Columbus, Georgia, Montgomery, Alabama, and New Orleans. Critics praised his lively performances, though they noted that Booth was less cultured and graceful than his brother Edwin. Walt Whitman commented that Booth had flashes of real genius as he performed.
In 1861, the American Civil War started. Booth publicly expressed his admiration for the Southern United States secession. Several people wanted him to be banned from the stage for his supposedly treasonous statements, but no official action was taken against Booth. In 1862, Booth regularly performed in the Union states of the war, despite his Confederate sympathies. He also performed in the border states, the small group of slave states who refused to secede from the Union (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri).
By 1863, Booth won more acclaim for portraying villains on stage. He frequently performed as Richard III, King of England (1452 - 1485, reigned 1483-1485) in Shakespeare's tragedy "Richard III". He also played the villainous Duke Pescara in "The Apostate". By the autumn of 1863, Booth was regularly performing in Boston, Providence, Rhode Island, and Hartford, Connecticut.
In November 1863, Booth first performed on "Ford's Theatre" in Washington, D.C. The theatre building was new, debuting in August 1863. It was owned by John Thompson Ford (1829-1894), an old friend of the Booth family. Booth was among the first leading men to appear in the theatre. Among the audience in Booth's original performance was Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln and his family noted that Booth frequently glared at the president throughout the performance. Booth declined an invitation to meet Lincoln in person. Booth gained a new fan in Tad Lincoln (1853 -1871), Lincoln's youngest son, who was thrilled with Booth's performances. Booth delivered a rose to Tad as a gift, in appreciation of the boy's vocal admiration for him.
Booth continued regularly performing in 1864 and early 1865, making his final theatrical performance on on March 18, 1865. In 1864, Booth helped raise funds for the erection of a statue of William Shakespeare for Central Park. Also in 1864, Booth invested part of his income in Fuller Farm Oil, a Pennsylvania-based oil drilling company. Their oil well reportedly yielded 25 barrels (4 kl) of crude oil daily. Booth withdrew his financial support of the company by the end of the year, possibly in reaction to an industrial accident involving explosives.
In February 1865, Booth was engaged to the famed socialite Lucy Lambert Hale (1841-1915), daughter of the Republican senator John Parker Hale. Booth's mother approved their relationship, though Holmes warned her son that his romantic infatuations tended to be short-lived. Booth reportedly had never explained his hatred of Lincoln to his fiancee.
By late 1864, Booth had formed a small network of Confederate sympathizers. They plotted to kidnap Abraham Lincoln. But in April 1865, Booth heard the news that Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House. He decided that the kidnapping plot was no longer feasible, and started plotting to assassinate Lincoln instead.
By April 14, Booth had finalized his plan to personally assassinate Lincoln while the President attended a performance at Ford's Theatre. Booth's fellow conspirators were supposed to also assassinate vice-president Andrew Johnson and secretary of state William H. Seward, the two men at the top of the presidential succession order. Their plan was to throw the Union into a state of panic and confusion, in hopes of prolonging the civil war.
On the night of April 14, Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head with with a .41 caliber Deringer pistol. Major Henry Rathbone (1837-1911) then attempted to apprehend Booth, but Booth stabbed him with a knife. Booth then jumped on the state, loudly proclaiming "sic semper tyrannis". (Latin for "Thus always to tyrants"). He was quoting a phrase attributed to Marcus Junius Brutus, in reference to Julius Caesar's assassination. His fellow conspirators failed in their own assassination tasks. Johnson was left unharmed, while Seward received non-fatal wounds in the attack targeting him.
After leaving Washington, D.C on horseback, Booth fled into southern Maryland. By that time, Booth had injured his leg in uncertain circumstances. His leg was briefly treated by Dr. Samuel Mudd (1833 - 1883). Booth spend days hiding in the Maryland woods, waiting for an opportunity to cross the Potomac River into Virginia. By April 26, Booth was located by Union troops while hiding in Richard H. Garrett tobacco barn in Virginia. When Booth refused to surrender, the soldiers set the barn on fire. Booth was shot by sergeant Boston Corbett (1832-c. 1894), who was acting against orders.
Booth was fatally wounded in the neck, with the bullet partially severing his spinal cord. He was left paralyzed, and had to be transported to Garrett's farmhouse. He died there three hours later, at the age of 26. His last request was for the soldiers to tell his mother that he died for his country. His final words were "useless, useless", in reference to his paralyzed hands.
Booth's corpse was transported by ship to the Washington Navy Yard for identification and an autopsy. The body was then buried in a storage room at the Old Penitentiary. In 1867, Booth's remains were moved to a warehouse at the Washington Arsenal. In 1869, his remains were released to the Booth family, and buried in the family plot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.
Booth's legacy has remained controversial in the 150 years that followed his death. Confederate veterans and their families praised him for years as a martyr to their cause, while Northerners cursed him as the madman who killed the "savior of the Union" (Lincoln). By the early 20th century, Booth was popularly blamed for supposedly causing all the mutual hostility and violence associated with the Reconstruction era (1865-1877). But he remains one of the most famous figures associated with the American Civil War. His tomb annually attracts visitors. - William Quantrill was born on 31 July 1837 in Canal Dover, Ohio, USA. He died on 6 June 1865 in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
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Theodore O'Hara was born on 11 February 1820 in Danville, Kentucky, USA. He was a writer. He died on 6 June 1867 in Guerryton, Bullock County, Alabama, USA.- After graduating from college in 1809, Buchanan became a lawyer. In 1814 he entered the Pennsylvania Assembly as a Federalist representative. In 1820 Buchanan was elected to the US House of Representatives, where he served until 1831. At the same time he served as envoy to Russia from 1823 to 1833. He became a leading figure in the newly emerging Democratic Party in Pennsylvania. From 1834 to 1845 he served in the US Senate, where he supported the southern states' position on the slave issue. Under the presidency of James Knox Polk (1845-1849), Buchanan played a key role in his expansionist policies as Secretary of State.
Meanwhile, he was chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1836 to 1841. He reached an agreement with Great Britain on the Oregon issue. In the war against Mexico (1846-1848) he advocated the annexation of large parts of the neighboring country. President Franklin Pierce sent Buchanan as an envoy to Great Britain from 1853 to 1856. In 1856 he won the US presidential election as the Democratic candidate. The following year he began his term in the White House. Buchanan was the only unmarried President of the United States. His niece, Harriet Lane, served as "First Lady" during his term.
As with his predecessor Franklin Pierce, Buchanan's efforts at reconciliation and compromise were doomed to failure in view of the increasingly irreconcilable conflict over the slave issue. During his presidency, the Democratic Party was increasingly divided into northern and southern factions. An economic depression and conflict with the Mormons in Utah continued to complicate the domestic political environment of Buchanan's administration. Having already lost the 1860 presidential election to Abraham Lincoln, Buchanan faced his final crisis in office with the secession of South Carolina.
The US President lacked the ability to take decisive action to counteract the southern state's secession from the Union. Amid allegations of having been responsible for the dissolution of the Union and the outbreak of the American Civil War, Buchanan bitterly withdrew from the presidency and politics in 1861.
James Buchanan died on June 1, 1868 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.