Portal:United States
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Introduction
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The United States of America is a federal republic of 50 states, a federal district and 14 territories. It is located mostly in central North America. The U.S. has three land borders, two with Canada and one with Mexico, and has sea borders with Cuba, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Bermuda and Russia, and is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 50 states, only Alaska and Hawaii are not contiguous with any other state. The U.S. also has a collection of districts, territories, and possessions in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Each state has a high level of autonomy according to the system of federalism. The U.S. traces its national origin to the declaration by 13 British colonies in 1776 that they were one free and independent state. They were recognized as such by the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Since then, the nation has grown to become a superpower and exerts a high level of economic, political, military, and cultural influence.
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Edith Kermit Roosevelt (née Carow; August 6, 1861 – September 30, 1948) was the second wife of President Theodore Roosevelt and the first lady of the United States from 1901 to 1909. She had previously been the second lady of the United States in 1901 and the first lady of New York from 1899 to 1900.
Edith Carow grew up alongside the Roosevelt family and married Theodore Roosevelt in 1886. They established a home in Sagamore Hill, where Edith had five children with Theodore, and they moved back and forth between New York and Washington, D.C., as Theodore's political career progressed over the following years. Edith became a public figure when her husband became a war hero in the Spanish–American War and was elected governor of New York. Theodore became vice president in March 1901, and she became second lady of the United States for six months; she became first lady when the assassination of President William McKinley propelled Theodore to the presidency in September of that year. (Full article...) -
John Early SJ (July 1, 1814 – May 23, 1873) was an Irish-American Catholic priest and Jesuit educator who was the president of the College of the Holy Cross and Georgetown University, as well as the founder and first president of Loyola College in Maryland. Born in Ireland, he emigrated to the United States at the age of nineteen. Upon his arrival, he enrolled at Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Maryland and entered the Society of Jesus, completing his education at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Early became president of the College of the Holy Cross in 1848, where he unsuccessfully petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to charter the school. Four years later, he was charged with establishing Loyola College in Maryland, which was intended to educate the lay students who attended St. Mary's Seminary and College, which the Sulpicians sought to keep as a seminary only. While also serving as the first pastor of St. Ignatius Church, he oversaw the early years of Loyola College. He also established its high school division, which later became Loyola Blakefield. In 1858, Early left to become president of Georgetown University. During the Civil War, instruction continued uninterrupted, despite intermittent occupation by the Union Army and dwindling enrollment. (Full article...) -
Fuck (stylized as F★CK) is a 2005 American documentary film by director Steve Anderson about the word "fuck". The film argues that the word is an integral part of societal discussions about freedom of speech and censorship. It examines the term from perspectives which include art, linguistics, society and comedy, and begins with a segment from the 1965 propaganda film Perversion for Profit. Scholars and celebrities analyze perceptions of the word from differing perspectives. Journalist Sam Donaldson talks about the versatility of the word, and comedian Billy Connolly states it can be understood despite one's language or location. Musician Alanis Morissette comments that the word contains power because of its taboo nature. The film features the last recorded interview of author Hunter S. Thompson before his suicide. Scholars, including linguist Reinhold Aman, journalism analyst David Shaw and Oxford English Dictionary editor Jesse Sheidlower, explain the history and evolution of the word. Language professor Geoffrey Nunberg observes that the word's treatment by society reflects changes in our culture during the 20th century.
Anderson was exposed to public conceptions surrounding the word "fuck" by comedian George Carlin's monolog "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television". He named the film Fuck despite anticipating problems with marketing. Animator Bill Plympton provided sequences illustrating key concepts in the film. The documentary was first shown at the AFI Film Festival on November 7, 2005, at ArcLight Hollywood in Hollywood. (Full article...) -
John Dunning Whitney SJ (July 19, 1850 – November 27, 1917) was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who became the president of Georgetown University in 1898. Born in Massachusetts, he joined the United States Navy at the age of 16, where he was introduced to Catholicism by way of a book that accidentally came into his possession and prompted him to become a Catholic. He entered the Society of Jesus and spent the next twenty-five years studying and teaching mathematics at Jesuit institutions around the world, including in Canada, England, Ireland, and around the United States in New York, Maryland, Boston, and Louisiana. He became the vice president of Spring Hill College in Alabama before being appointed the president of Georgetown University.
During his three-year tenure, several improvements were made to Georgetown's campus, including the completion of Gaston Hall and the construction of the entrances to Healy Hall. The Georgetown University Hospital and what would become the School of Dentistry were also established. After the end of his term, he went to Boston College for several years as treasurer before doing pastoral work in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Baltimore, where he became the prefect of St. Ignatius Church. He continued to spend time at Boston College, where he died in 1917. (Full article...) -
William Derrick Bates (born December 7, 1963) is an American former professional baseball second baseman and pinch runner who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Milwaukee Brewers and the Cincinnati Reds. In 29 career games, Bates had a batting average of .125 with six hits, two runs batted in (RBI), 11 runs, and eight stolen bases. Though his defensive position was at second base, the Reds primarily used Bates as a pinch runner. After he scored the winning run in Game 2 of the 1990 World Series, Bates never played in MLB again.
Born in Houston, Bates attended the University of Texas and, in his freshman season, won the 1983 College World Series as a part of the Texas Longhorns baseball team. For the next two seasons, Bates was named to the College Baseball All-America Team, a team composed of the best collegiate baseball athletes in America. Drafted by Milwaukee in the fourth round of the 1985 MLB draft, he rose through the Brewers' farm system helping several of his minor league teams win their respective league titles. He made his MLB debut in 1989, after Milwaukee's starting second baseman Jim Gantner was injured. A trade in 1990 sent Bates to Cincinnati, where the Reds used him primarily as a pinch runner at the end of the regular season and into the postseason. Facing the Oakland Athletics in the World Series, Bates reached base on a pinch hit single against Dennis Eckersley and later scored the winning run in Game 2 as the Reds swept the Athletics four games to none. Following the World Series championship, the Reds re-signed Bates on a one-year contract, and he played for their Triple-A team. He spent the next year with the Chicago Cubs Triple-A affiliate, and last played exhibition baseball in 1995. After retiring, he worked as an equipment supplier in the oil and gas industry in Houston. (Full article...) -
Shannen Says is an eight-episode American reality television series broadcast on WE TV from April 10 to May 13, 2012. The show focuses on the preparations for the 2011 wedding of actress Shannen Doherty and photographer Kurt Iswarienko, with help from celebrity-wedding planner David Tutera. Doherty and Iswarienko developed the show as a way to document the stress on a couple while planning their wedding.
Filmed in Malibu, California, between August 2011 and October 2011, Shannen Says was produced by RelativityReal and Doherty's production company No Apologies Productions. To prepare for filming, Doherty watched reality shows by Tori Spelling and Kim Kardashian. The series was released on the iTunes Store and Amazon Video under the title Shannen Says, Season 1, but it was not made available on DVD or Blu-ray. (Full article...) -
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who was the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party and became an important figure in the American conservative movement. His presidency is known as the Reagan era.
Born in Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and was hired the next year as a sports broadcaster in Iowa. In 1937, he moved to California where he became a well-known film actor. During his acting career, Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild twice from 1947 to 1952 and from 1959 to 1960. In the 1950s, he hosted General Electric Theater and worked as a motivational speaker for General Electric. During the 1964 presidential election, Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" speech launched his rise as a leading conservative figure. After being elected governor of California in 1966, he raised state taxes, turned the state budget deficit into a surplus and implemented harsh crackdowns on university protests. Following his loss to Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries, Reagan won the Republican Party's nomination and then a landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election. (Full article...) -
The Actions along the Matanikau—sometimes referred to as the Second and Third Battles of the Matanikau—were two separate but related engagements between the United States and Imperial Japanese naval and ground forces in the Pacific theater of World War II. The actions occurred around the Matanikau River on Guadalcanal Island in the southwestern Pacific during the Guadalcanal campaign. These particular engagements—the first taking place between 23 and 27 September, and the second between 6 and 9 October—were two of the largest and most significant of the Matanikau actions.
The Matanikau River area includes a peninsula called Point Cruz, the village of Kokumbona, and a series of ridges and ravines stretching inland from the coast. Japanese forces used the area to regroup from attacks against U.S. forces on the island. From there, they launched further attacks on the U.S. defenses that guarded Henderson Field at Lunga Point on Guadalcanal, as a base to defend against Allied attacks directed at Japanese troop and supply encampments on western Guadalcanal, and as a location for watching and reporting on Allied activity around Henderson Field. (Full article...) -
The capture of Fort Ticonderoga occurred during the American Revolutionary War on May 10, 1775, when a small force of Green Mountain Boys led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold surprised and captured the fort's small British garrison. The cannons and other armaments at Fort Ticonderoga were later transported to Boston by Colonel Henry Knox in the noble train of artillery and used to fortify Dorchester Heights and break the standoff at the siege of Boston.
Capture of the fort marked the beginning of offensive action taken by the Americans against the British. After seizing Ticonderoga, a small detachment captured the nearby Fort Crown Point on May 11. Seven days later, Arnold and 50 men raided Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River in southern Quebec, seizing military supplies, cannons, and the largest military vessel on Lake Champlain. (Full article...) -
When Megan Went Away is a 1979 children's picture book written by Jane Severance and illustrated by Tea Schook. It is the first picture book to include any LGBT characters, and specifically the first to feature lesbian characters, a distinction sometimes erroneously bestowed upon Lesléa Newman's Heather Has Two Mommies (1989). The book, published by the independent press Lollipop Power, depicts a child named Shannon dealing with the separation of her mother and her mother's partner, Megan.
As a lesbian working in a feminist bookstore in Denver in her early twenties, Severance sought to rectify the lack of picture book content for children with lesbian parents. When Megan Went Away was not widely distributed upon publication, although the text of the story was republished by the magazine Ms. in 1986 under the pen name R. Minta Day. The work proved divisive among critics, some praising the story for being an anti-sexist example of lesbian life and others finding its depiction of same-sex separation poorly timed, arriving at a moment when lesbian motherhood was on the rise. Copies of When Megan Went Away were primarily accessible in archives and library special collections as of the 2010s. (Full article...) -
The Lexington–Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar, sometimes the Lexington–Concord half dollar or Patriot half dollar, is a commemorative fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1925 in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which began the American Revolutionary War. It was designed by Chester Beach and features Daniel Chester French's 1874 The Minute Man statue on the obverse.
Members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation introduced legislation in 1924 which would provide for a commemorative half dollar for the anniversary. The bill passed both houses of Congress and was signed by President Calvin Coolidge. Beach had to satisfy committees from both Lexington and Concord, and the Commission of Fine Arts passed the design only reluctantly, feeling Beach had been given poor materials to work with. (Full article...) -
Baby Driver is a 2017 action crime film written and directed by Edgar Wright. It stars Ansel Elgort as a getaway driver seeking freedom from a life of crime with his girlfriend Debora (Lily James). Kevin Spacey, Eiza Gonzalez, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm, and Jamie Foxx appear in supporting roles. Eric Fellner and his Working Title Films partner Tim Bevan produced Baby Driver in association with Big Talk Productions' Nira Park. Sony and TriStar Pictures handled commercial distribution of the film. Baby Driver was financed through tax subsidies from the Georgia state government and a co-production pact between TriStar and MRC.
Wright developed Baby Driver for over two decades. He devised the idea in his youth, and his early directing experience further shaped his ambitions for Baby Driver. Originally based in Los Angeles, Wright chose Atlanta as the film's setting after the studio secured tax credits to subsidize production costs, integrating the city's ethos into an important storytelling device. Principal photography took place in Atlanta from February to May 2016. Production involved the planning of meticulously coordinated stunts, choreography, and in-camera editing. Thematic studies of Baby Driver examine patterns of color symbolism and Baby's evolving morality. (Full article...) -
Tropical Storm Henri was a moderate tropical storm that struck Florida during the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season. The eighth storm of the season, Henri was one of six tropical cyclones to hit the United States in the year. Henri formed from a tropical wave in the Gulf of Mexico on September 3. Moving generally to the east, it strengthened to reach peak winds of 60 mph (97 km/h) two days later. Henri encountered unfavorable conditions, and it weakened before making landfall on western Florida near Clearwater as a tropical depression. Although Henri degenerated into a remnant low on September 8, the weather system persisted off the east coast of the United States for a few days before moving back ashore over North Carolina. The system brought heavy rainfall across parts of the Mid-Atlantic before dissipating on September 17.
Henri caused little damage as a tropical cyclone. In Florida, it dropped heavy rainfall, though damage was limited to minor flooding damage. In Delaware and Pennsylvania, damage was greater, where heavy rainfall damaged hundreds of houses and businesses. The resulting floods in Delaware were described as a 1 in 500 year event. The total damage by Henri along its path amounted to $19.6 million (2003 USD), but no deaths were reported. (Full article...) -
John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American statesman and naval officer who represented the state of Arizona in Congress for over 35 years, first as a Representative from 1983 to 1987, and then as a U.S. senator from 1987 until his death in 2018. He was the Republican Party's nominee in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
McCain is a son of Admiral John S. McCain Jr. and grandson of Admiral John S. McCain Sr. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958 and received a commission in the U.S. Navy. McCain became a naval aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he almost died in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. While on a bombing mission during Operation Rolling Thunder over Hanoi in October 1967, McCain was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973. McCain experienced episodes of torture and refused an out-of-sequence early release. He sustained wounds that left him with lifelong physical disabilities. McCain retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and moved to Arizona. (Full article...) -
State Route 520 (SR 520) is a state highway and freeway in the Seattle metropolitan area, part of the U.S. state of Washington. It runs 13 miles (21 km) from Seattle in the west to Redmond in the east. The freeway connects Seattle to the Eastside region of King County via the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge on Lake Washington. SR 520 intersects several state highways, including Interstate 5 (I-5) in Seattle, I-405 in Bellevue, and SR 202 in Redmond.
The original floating bridge was opened in 1963 as a replacement for the cross-lake ferry system that had operated since the late 19th century. In 1964, SR 520 was designated as a freeway connecting I-5 to I-405. An extension to Redmond was proposed later in the decade. In the 1970s and 1980s, sections of the freeway between Bellevue and Redmond were opened to traffic, replacing the temporary designation of SR 920. (Full article...) -
Kenneth R. Shadrick (August 4, 1931 – July 5, 1950) was a United States Army soldier who was killed at the onset of the Korean War. He was widely but incorrectly reported as the first American soldier killed in action in the war.
Shadrick was born in Harlan County, Kentucky, one of 10 children. After dropping out of high school in 1948, he joined the U.S. Army, and spent a year of service in Japan before being dispatched to South Korea at the onset of the Korean War in 1950 along with his unit, the 34th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division. During a patrol, Shadrick was killed by the machine gun of a North Korean T-34 tank, and his body was taken to an outpost where journalist Marguerite Higgins was covering the war. Higgins later reported that he was the first soldier killed in the war, a claim that was repeated in media across the United States. His life was widely profiled, and his funeral drew hundreds of people. (Full article...) -
Map of the Vicksburg area, De Soto Point, and the canal. The positions to the north of Vicksburg are related to the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou
Grant's Canal (also known as Williams's Canal) was an incomplete military effort to construct a canal through De Soto Point in Louisiana, across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Mississippi. During the American Civil War, the Union Navy attempted to capture the Confederate-held city of Vicksburg in 1862, but were unable to do so with army support. Union Brigadier-General Thomas Williams was sent to De Soto Point with 3,200 men to dig a canal capable of bypassing the strong defenses around Vicksburg. Despite being assisted by locally enslaved people, Williams was unable to finish constructing the canal due to disease and falling river levels, and the project was abandoned until January 1863, when Union Major-General Ulysses S. Grant took an interest in the project.
Grant attempted to resolve some of the issues inherent to the concept by moving the upstream entrance to a spot with a stronger current, but the heavy rains and flooding that broke a dam prevented the project from succeeding. Work was abandoned in March, and Grant eventually used other methods to capture Vicksburg, whose Confederate garrison surrendered on July 4, 1863. In 1876, the Mississippi River changed course to cut across De Soto Point, eventually isolating Vicksburg from the river, but the completion of the Yazoo Diversion Canal in 1903 restored Vicksburg's river access. Most of the canal site has since been destroyed by agriculture, but a small section survives. This section was donated by local landowners to the National Park Service and became part of Vicksburg National Military Park in 1990. A 1974 article in The Military Engineer speculated that the canal would likely have been successful if the dam at the downstream end of the canal had been opened. (Full article...) -
Damageplan was an American heavy metal band from Dallas, Texas, formed in 2003. Following the demise of their previous group Pantera, brothers Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul Abbott wanted to start a new band. The pair recruited former Halford guitarist Patrick Lachman on vocals, and later Bob Zilla on bass. Damageplan released New Found Power, their only album, in February 2004. New Found Power debuted at number 38 on the Billboard 200, selling 44,676 copies in its first week.
While Damageplan was promoting the album at a concert on December 8, 2004 at the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio, deranged fan Nathan Gale climbed on stage and killed guitarist Dimebag Darrell and three others before being fatally shot by a police officer. Although no motive was found, some of Gale's friends reported that he believed that Pantera had stolen his lyrics and that its former members were attempting to steal his identity. Damageplan's manager confirmed there are unreleased Damageplan recordings, although they have not surfaced, and the band has been inactive since the incident. Vinnie and Zilla joined the band Hellyeah, and Lachman joined the Mercy Clinic. Vinnie Paul died in 2018. (Full article...) -
All Souls is an American paranormal hospital drama television series created by Stuart Gillard and Stephen Tolkin and inspired by Lars von Trier's miniseries The Kingdom. It originally aired for one season on UPN from April 17, 2001, to August 31, 2001. The series follows the medical staff of the haunted teaching hospital All Souls. While working as a medical intern, protagonist Dr. Mitchell Grace (Grayson McCouch) encounters various spirits, and discovers that the doctors are running unethical experiments on their patients. The executive producers included Aaron Spelling, E. Duke Vincent, and Mark Frost.
Gillard developed the premise for All Souls from his belief that a medical facility would be an ideal setting for a horror series and his research on statistics of deaths that had taken place in a hospital. Frost also felt that there was a close connection between modern medicine and the supernatural. Though the series was set in Boston, filming took place in Montreal, Canada. Episodes were shot in a working psychiatric hospital, and real patients appear in the background of several scenes. (Full article...) -
Riders Field, formerly known as Dr Pepper/Seven Up Ballpark and Dr Pepper Ballpark, is a baseball park in Frisco, Texas, United States. The home of the Double-A Frisco RoughRiders of the Texas League, it opened on April 3, 2003, and can seat up to 10,216 people. Though primarily a venue for Minor League Baseball games, the facility also hosts high school and college baseball tournaments, and other public and private events throughout the year. It has been the site of three Texas League All-Star Games.
Since its opening, Riders Field has won awards and garnered praise for its unique design, feel, and numerous amenities. In his design, park architect David M. Schwarz desired the creation of a village-like "park within a (ball)park". The stadium received the 2003 Texas Construction Award for Best Architectural Design. (Full article...) -
Aggie Bonfire as it burned in 1989
The Aggie Bonfire was a long-standing annual tradition at Texas A&M University as part of the college rivalry with the University of Texas at Austin. For 90 years, Texas A&M students—known as Aggies—built a bonfire on campus each autumn, known to the Aggie community simply as "Bonfire". The event symbolized Aggie students' "burning desire to beat the hell outta t.u.", a derogatory nickname for the University of Texas.
The bonfire was traditionally lit around Thanksgiving in conjunction with festivities surrounding the annual football game. Early bonfires were little more than piles of trash, but the event gradually became more organized and eventually grew to an immense size, setting the world record in 1969. In 1999, the Bonfire collapsed during construction, killing 12 and injuring 27 others. The accident led Texas A&M to declare a hiatus on an official Bonfire. However, since 2002, a student-sponsored coalition has constructed an annual unsanctioned, off-campus "Student Bonfire" in the spirit of its predecessor. (Full article...) -
William Marrion Branham (April 6, 1909 – December 24, 1965) was an American Christian minister and faith healer who initiated the post-World War II healing revival, and claimed to be a prophet with the anointing of Elijah, who had come to prelude Christ's second coming; some of his followers have been labeled a "doomsday cult". He is credited as "a principal architect of restorationist thought" for charismatics by some Christian historians, and has been called the "leading individual in the Second Wave of Pentecostalism." He made a lasting influence on televangelism and the modern charismatic movement, and his "stage presence remains a legend unparalleled in the history of the Charismatic movement". At the time they were held, Branham's inter-denominational meetings were the largest religious meetings ever held in some American cities. Branham was the first American deliverance minister to successfully campaign in Europe; his ministry reached global audiences with major campaigns held in North America, Europe, Africa, and India.
Branham claimed that he had received an angelic visitation on May 7, 1946, commissioning his worldwide ministry and launching his campaigning career in mid-1946. His fame rapidly spread as crowds were drawn to his stories of angelic visitations and reports of miracles happening at his meetings. His ministry spawned many emulators and set in motion the broader healing revival that later became the modern charismatic movement. At the peak of his popularity in the 1950s, Branham was widely adored and "the neo-Pentecostal world believed Branham to be a prophet to their generation". From 1955, Branham's campaigning and popularity began to decline as the Pentecostal churches began to withdraw their support from the healing campaigns for primarily financial reasons. By 1960, Branham transitioned into a teaching ministry. (Full article...) -
Pierre Soulé, the driving force behind the Ostend Manifesto
The Ostend Manifesto, also known as the Ostend Circular, was a document written in 1854 that described the rationale for the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain while implying that the U.S. should declare war if Spain refused. Cuba's annexation had long been a goal of U.S. slaveholding expansionists. At the national level, American leaders had been satisfied to have the island remain in weak Spanish hands so long as it did not pass to a stronger power such as Britain or France. The Ostend Manifesto proposed a shift in foreign policy, justifying the use of force to seize Cuba in the name of national security. It resulted from debates over slavery in the United States, manifest destiny, and the Monroe Doctrine, as slaveholders sought new territory for the expansion of slavery.
During the administration of President Franklin Pierce, a pro-Southern Democrat, Southern expansionists called for acquiring Cuba as a slave state, but the outbreak of violence following the Kansas–Nebraska Act left the administration unsure of how to proceed. At the suggestion of Secretary of State William L. Marcy, American ministers in Europe—Pierre Soulé for Spain, James Buchanan for Britain, and John Y. Mason for France—met to discuss strategy related to an acquisition of Cuba. They met secretly at Ostend, Belgium, and drafted a dispatch at Aachen, Prussia. The document was sent to Washington in October 1854, outlining why a purchase of Cuba would be beneficial to each of the nations and declaring that the U.S. would be "justified in wresting" the island from Spanish hands if Spain refused to sell. To Marcy's chagrin, Soulé made no secret of the meetings, causing unwanted publicity in both Europe and the U.S. (Full article...) -
The Lafayette dollar was a silver coin issued as part of the United States' participation in the Paris World's Fair of 1900. Depicting Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette with George Washington, and designed by Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber, it was the only U.S. silver dollar commemorative prior to 1983, and the first U.S. coin to depict American citizens.
Beginning in 1898, prominent Americans sought to erect in Paris a monument to Lafayette, a Frenchman who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Among these supporters was Chicago businessman Ferdinand Peck, whom President William McKinley chose as commissioner-general to the exposition. Peck made the monument proposal a part of the American plans for Paris, and appointed the Lafayette Memorial Commission to raise funds for it. A part of this fundraising was the one-dollar commemorative coin, approved by Congress on March 3, 1899. (Full article...) -
Millennium Force is a steel roller coaster located at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio, United States. Manufactured by Intamin, it was the park's fourteenth roller coaster when it opened in 2000, dating back to the opening of Blue Streak in 1964. Upon completion, Millennium Force broke five world records and was the world's first giga coaster, a term coined by Intamin and Cedar Point to represent a roller coaster that exceeds 300 feet (91 m) in height. It was briefly the tallest and fastest in the world until Steel Dragon 2000 opened later the same year. The ride is also the third-longest roller coaster in North America following The Beast at Kings Island and Fury 325 at Carowinds.
Millennium Force features a 310-foot-tall (94 m) cable lift hill with a 300-foot (91 m) drop, two tunnels, three overbanked turns, and three hills. The coaster also has a top speed of 93 mph (150 km/h). Since its debut, Millennium Force has been voted the number one steel roller coaster ten times in Amusement Today's annual Golden Ticket Awards. Although Millennium Force has been surpassed in height and speed, it remains one of the tallest and fastest coasters in the world. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that The Source was the highest-selling music magazine on the newsstands in the United States?
- ... that in 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld West Virginia's largest punitive damages award in history, awarding $10 million – 526 times larger than the compensatory damages?
- ... that David Dean served as general counsel to Texas governor Dolph Briscoe, a Democrat, as well as his Republican successor Bill Clements?
- ... that in the essay "Toward European Unity" George Orwell presumed that one of the greatest obstacles to a federal Europe would be economic pressure by the United States?
- ... that the Chicago Community Bond Fund sought to put itself out of business by eliminating cash bail?
- ... that Manhood was Josh Hawley's second book to be published by Regnery, after he was dropped by Simon & Schuster for his support of attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election?
- ... that agronomist Oliver Golden remained in the Soviet Union after his delegation of cotton experts returned to the United States?
- ... that Frances Cleveland was the first United States first lady to have dedicated journalists write about her activities?
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Frank Woodruff Buckles (born Wood Buckles, February 1, 1901 – February 27, 2011) was a United States Army corporal and the last surviving American military veteran of World War I. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917 aged 16 and served with a detachment from Fort Riley, driving ambulances and motorcycles near the front lines in Europe.
During World War II, then aged 40, he was captured by Japanese forces while working in the shipping business, and spent three years in the Philippines as a civilian prisoner. After the war, Buckles married in San Francisco and moved to Gap View Farm near Charles Town, West Virginia. A widower at age 98, he worked on his farm until the age of 105.
In his last years, he was honorary chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation. As chairman, he advocated the establishment of a World War I memorial similar to other war memorials in Washington, D.C. Toward this end, Buckles campaigned for the District of Columbia War Memorial to be renamed the National World War I Memorial. He testified before Congress in support of this cause, and met with President George W. Bush at the White House. (Full article...)
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Check used for the Alaska PurchaseCheck: William H. Seward; scan: Our Documents initiativeThe check used for the Alaska Purchase, issued on August 1, 1868, and signed by US Secretary of State William H. Seward. For a total of $7.2 million, the United States government purchased Russian America from the Russian Empire (represented here by Russian Minister to the United States Eduard de Stoeckl). The lands involved became the modern state of Alaska in 1959. -
Photo credit: Rise StudioThe construction of Mount Rushmore, a United States National Monument depicting the heads of four U.S. Presidents carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota, began on August 10, 1927, with the bust of George Washington. This first phase was completed in seven years (partial completion in 1932 shown here), culminating in its unveiling in 1934. The remaining three heads—Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt—took only an additional seven years to complete. -
Photograph credit: Carl Van Vechten; restored by Adam CuerdenWilliam Grant Still (1895–1978) was an American composer of nearly 200 works, including five symphonies and nine operas. Often referred to as the "Dean of Afro-American Composers", Still was the first American composer to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera. His first symphony, entitled Afro-American Symphony, was until 1950 the most widely performed symphony composed by an American. Born in Mississippi, he grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, attended Wilberforce University and Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and was a student of George Whitefield Chadwick and later Edgard Varèse. Still was the first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra and the first to have an opera performed on national television. Due to his close association and collaboration with prominent African-American literary and cultural figures, he is considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance movement.
This picture of Still was taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1949; the photograph is in the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. -
Photo credit: CacophonyThe skyline of Seattle, Washington at dusk, viewed from the south. The Columbia Center (middle) is the second tallest building on the West Coast of the United States, and the twelfth tallest in the United States. Smith Tower (left), completed 1914, was at one time the fourth tallest building in the world. The highway in the foreground is Interstate 5. -
Artist: John Cameron; Restoration: Lise BroerThe Battle of Churubusco took place on August 20, 1847, in Churubusco (now a suburb of Mexico City) during the Mexican–American War. Three Mexican battalions—including the Saint Patrick's Battalion made up of immigrants—took up defensive positions inside a convent and were able to repulse the American attacks until they ran out of ammunition. -
Photograph credit: UnknownBessie Coleman (1892–1926) was a civil aviator. On June 15, 1921, she became the first African-American woman and the first Native American to earn an aviation pilot's license. Denied opportunity in the United States because of her race and sex, she had to go to France to learn to fly. Her career involved stunt flying and performing in air shows, and was cut short in 1926 when she was thrown from a plane in mid-air. Her death meant that her ambition to establish a school for young black aviators went unaccomplished, but her pioneering achievements served as an inspiration for a generation of African-American men and women. -
Photograph credit: Andre mThe California State Capitol, located in Sacramento, is the seat of the California government. The building houses the chambers of the California State Legislature, comprising the Assembly and the Senate, along with the office of the governor of California. The Neoclassical structure was designed by Reuben S. Clark and completed between 1861 and 1874. The California State Capitol Museum is housed on its grounds. -
Photograph: Unknown; Restoration: Chick BowenA pile of American bison skulls, waiting to be ground for fertilizer; a man stands atop the pile, with another in front of it. Bison, long a staple of Plains Indian tribal culture, were aggressively hunted by European settlers in the United States, nearly leading to the extinction of the species. -
Photograph: Kevin Rofidal, United States Coast Guard; edit: Papa Lima WhiskeyThe I-35W Mississippi River bridge was an eight-lane, steel truss arch bridge that carried Interstate 35W across the Saint Anthony Falls of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Once the third-busiest bridge in the state, it suddenly collapsed on August 1, 2007, killing 13 and injuring 145. Rescue of people stranded on the bridge was complete in three hours, while recovery of bodies—involving 75 local, state and federal agencies—took three weeks. An NTSB investigation cited a design flaw as the likely cause of the collapse, noting that a too-thin gusset plate ripped along a line of rivets. -
Lithograph: Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler; restoration: Adam CuerdenA bird's eye view of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a 1902 lithograph by Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler. At this point in its history, Pittsburgh was an industrial and commercial powerhouse, with extensive railroad connections to the rest of the United States. Together with the rest of Allegheny County, it produced massive amounts of steel and steel products: by 1911 they reached 24% of the national output of pig iron, 34% of Bessemer steel, 44% of open hearth steel, 53% of crucible steel, 24% of steel rail, and 59% of structural shape. -
Photograph: Jack Weir; restoration: CarolSpearsApollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two humans, commander Neil Armstrong and LM pilot Buzz Aldrin, on the Moon. On July 21, 1969, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the Moon. This mission quickly captured the public's imagination and became prominent in popular culture. Over 530 million viewers worldwide watched the Moon landing, and it received widespread newspaper coverage. For example, the July 21, 1969, edition of The Washington Post—shown here—used the main headline "'The Eagle Has Landed'—Two Men Walk on the Moon". In subsequent years, the Moon landing has been frequently depicted or referenced in media, including in literature, films, and video games. -
Engraving credit: W. W. Rice, after Robert Walter Weir; restored by Andrew ShivaArtists producing art and engraving on United States banknotes began experimenting with copper plates as an alternative to wood engraving in the early 18th century. Applied to the production of paper currency, copper-plate engraving, and later steel engraving, enabled banknote design and printing to rapidly advance during the 19th century. This vignette, engraved by W. W. Rice, appeared on certain United States fifty-dollar bills issued in 1875. Produced for the Department of the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the engraving is of Robert Walter Weir's painting Embarkation of the Pilgrims, which hangs in the United States Capitol rotunda. It depicts the Pilgrims on the deck of the ship Speedwell as they depart Delfshaven in South Holland on July 22, 1620. They met additional colonists at Southampton, England, and transferred to the Mayflower before sailing to the New World. -
Engraving credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restored by Andrew ShivaPhilip Francis Thomas (12 September 1810 – 2 October 1890) was an American lawyer and politician. He served in the Maryland House of Delegates and was the 28th governor of Maryland from 1848 to 1851. In 1860, he was appointed as the 23rd United States secretary of the treasury, in President James Buchanan's administration. He held the post for only one month, resigning after he failed to obtain a loan to pay the interest on the bonded public debt. After unsuccessfully standing for election to the United States Senate in 1878, he returned to the Maryland House of Delegates and later resumed the practice of law. -
Photo credit: Alexander GardnerDavid Herold, one of the conspirators in the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, photographed at the Washington Navy Yard after his arrest in 1865. Herold assisted John Wilkes Booth to the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, where Booth's broken leg (sustained after jumping from the balcony of Ford's Theatre) was set. He remained with Booth and continually aided him until the authorities caught up with them. Herold surrendered to the police, but Booth refused to lay down his arms and was shot dead. Herold was later hanged for his role in the plot. -
Photograph credit: Los Angeles Times; restored by RhododendritesHelen Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She lost her sight and hearing after a bout of illness at the age of nineteen months. When she was seven years old, she met her first teacher and life-long companion, Anne Sullivan, who taught her language skills, including reading and writing. After attending Radcliffe College at Harvard University, she became the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She worked for the American Foundation for the Blind for many years, during which time she toured the United States and traveled to 35 countries around the world. This 1920 photograph depicts Keller examining a magnolia flower.
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Selected culture biography -
Thorpe was of mixed Native American and white ancestry. He was raised as a Sac and Fox, and named Wa-Tho-Huk, roughly translated as "Bright Path". He struggled with racism throughout much of his life and his accomplishments were publicized with headlines describing him as a "Redskin" and "Indian athlete". He also played on several All-American Indian teams throughout his career and barnstormed as a professional basketball player with a team composed entirely of Native Americans.
Thorpe was named the greatest athlete of the first half of the twentieth century by the Associated Press (AP) in 1950, and ranked third on the AP list of athletes of the century in 1999. After his professional sports career ended, Thorpe lived in abject poverty. He worked several odd jobs, struggled with alcoholism, and lived out the last years of his life in failing health. In 1983, thirty years after his death, his medals were restored.
Selected location -
There have been several major planned road projects that would affect the freeway's corridor, including a plan to extend I-68 to Moundsville, West Virginia (which, due to major funding issues, is unlikely to be completed As of 2010[update]) and the plan to construct the Mon-Fayette Expressway, a toll highway which, when completed, will meet I-68 east of Morgantown.
Selected quote -
Anniversaries for April 14
- 1828 – Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.
- 1860 – The first Pony Express rider reaches Sacramento, California.
- 1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford's Theatre (pictured) by John Wilkes Booth.
- 1894 – Thomas Edison demonstrates the kinetoscope, a device for peep-show viewing using photographs that flip in sequence, a precursor to movies.
- 1956 – Videotape is first demonstrated at the 1956 NARTB (now NAB) convention in Chicago, Illinois.
- 1981 – The first operational Space Shuttle, Columbia, lands at Edwards Air Force Base, California after its first test flight.
Selected cuisines, dishes and foods -
American tea culture encompasses the methods of preparation and means of consumption of tea within the context of the culture of the United States. About 85% of the tea consumed in the United States is served cold, usually as iced tea. (Full article...)
Selected panorama -
Lower Manhattan as viewed from the Staten Island Ferry.
More did you know? -
- ...that the Pewee Valley Confederate Memorial (pictured) is the only American Civil War obelisk monument in Kentucky to be made of zinc?
- ...that the second subtitle of title III of the USA PATRIOT Act largely modifies the Bank Secrecy Act in an effort to make it harder for money launderers to operate, and to make it easier for law enforcement and regulatory agencies to police money laundering operations?
- ...that Senator William A. Blakley of the U.S. state of Texas worked as ranch hand as a young man?
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