On February 4, 1789, electors chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States. Washington’s term, and those of the next 10 presidents, would prove to be a critical six decades in American history. Previously, states had governed much like independent ...read more

On the night of April 14, 1865, well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth slipped into the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., and shot President Abraham Lincoln in the head, mortally wounding him. Booth may have fired the bullet that assassinated the ...read more

The ongoing devastation of World War I engulfed much of Europe in spring of 1918 as soldiers - crowded onto military bases in the United States and along the Western Front in Europe - began to fall ill. Droves of otherwise healthy young men reported to camp infirmaries with ...read more

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to take the United States off the gold standard may have helped to ease the worst effects of the Great Depression. But the causes of the Great Depression were numerous, and after the stock market crash of 1929, a number of complex ...read more

Four U.S. presidents have been murdered while in office – all were brought down by gunfire. And each of these presidential assassinations helped usher in a wave of important reforms and a new political era. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination dramatically changed the Reconstruction ...read more

The Great Depression (1929-1939) was the worst economic downturn in modern history. The preceding decade, known as the “Roaring Twenties,” was a time of relative affluence for many middle- and working-class families. As the economy boomed, new innovations allowed for more leisure ...read more