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This Day in History
Feb 9
Presidential
William Henry Harrison is born, 1773
On this day in 1773, future President William Henry Harrison is born on the Berkeley Plantation in Virginia. Harrison went on to serve as the ninth U.S.…
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Henry A. Kissinger
(1923- ), foreign policy specialist, national security adviser, and secretary of state.
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United States
The United States of America is a federal republic of 50 states. Besides the 48 contiguous states that occupy the middle latitudes of the continent, the United States includes the state of Alaska, at the northwestern extreme of North America, and the island state of Hawaii, in the mid-Pacific Ocean.
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The 1960s
Discontent, rebellion and social change defined the 1960s in the United States, shaking the country to its core.
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The 1930s
When the stock market crashed in October 1929, millions of Americans lost their jobs, their savings and their homes. During the 1930s, the federal government stepped in to help solve these problems.
In the 1812 contest James Madison was reelected president by the narrowest margin of any election since the Republican party had come to power in 1800. He received 128 electoral votes to 89 for his Federalist opponent DeWitt Clinton, the lieutenant governor of New York. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts won the vice presidency with 131 votes to Jared Ingersoll's 86.
The War of 1812, which had begun five months earlier, was the dominant issue. Opposition to the war was concentrated in the northeastern Federalist states. Clinton's supporters also made an issue of Virginia's almost unbroken control of the White House, which they charged favored agricultural states over commercial ones. Clintonians accused Madison, too, of slighting the defense of the New York frontier against the British in Canada.
In the Northeast Madison carried only Pennsylvania and Vermont, but Clinton received no votes south of Maryland. The election proved to be the last one of significance for the Federalist party, largely owing to anti-British American nationalism engendered by the war.
The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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Jefferson is an insightful 2-hour presentation on HISTORY which examines his many identities and asks viewers to answer for themselves: who was the real Thomas Jefferson, and what is his most lasting legacy in our world today?
