On April 30, 1789, George Washington delivered his first inaugural address to a joint session of Congress, assembled in Federal Hall in the nation’s new capital, New York City. Continue reading.

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A bit of June 14th history…

1642 - 1st compulsory education law in America passed in Massachusetts

1645 - “New Model Army” under Oliver Cromwell beat royalist forces of English King Charles I at battle of Naseby (pictured)

1775 - US army 1st forms as the Continental Army to fight the American Revolutionary War

1777- US Continental Congress adopts Stars and Stripes flag

1847 - Robert Bunsen invents bunsen burner

1954 - President Eisenhower signs order adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance

2013 - US government charges NSA leaker Edward Snowden with violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property 

Matthew Vassar, founder and namesake of Vassar College, was born on April 29, 1792, in Norfolk, England. Continue reading.

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, often said to be America’s greatest composer, bandleader, and recording artist, was born on April 29, 1899 in Washington, D.C. Continue reading.

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A bit of June 13th history…

1774 - Rhode Island becomes 1st colony to prohibit importation of slaves

1865 - President Johnson proclaims reconstruction of confederate states

1920 - US Post Office says children cannot be sent by parcel post (pictured)

1966 - US Supreme Court’s Miranda decision - suspects must be informed of rights

1967 - Thurgood Marshall nominated as 1st African American Supreme Court Justice

1994 - Jury in Anchorage, Alaska blames recklessness by Exxon and Captain Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages

2018 - Antarctica is melting at an accelerating rate - 200 billion tons a year, 3 trillion tons in 25 years  

Billy the Kid escaped from the Lincoln County, New Mexico jail house on April 28, 1881, killing two deputies on guard. Continue reading.

James Henry Neel Reed, known as Henry Reed, was born on April 28, 1884, in the Appalachian Mountains of Monroe County, West Virginia. Reed was a master fiddler, banjoist, and harmonica player whose amazing repertoire consisted of hundreds of tunes, as well as multiple performance styles. Continue reading.

Cameraman G. W. “Billy” Bitzer filmed Professor Leonidas and his troupe of dogs and cats in the film short Stealing a Dinner on April 28, 1899. Continue reading.

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A bit of June 12th history…

1859 - Comstock Silver Lode discovered in Nevada, 1st major silver discovery in US

1897 - Possibly the most severe earthquake in history strikes Assam, India; shock waves felt over an area the size of Europe

1964 - Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison in South Africa

1967 - US Supreme Court unanimously ends laws against interracial marriages

2019 - Earliest evidence of humans smoking cannabis discovered in 2500 year old grave in China (pictured a brazier which cannabis leaves and hot stones were put in and resulting smoke was inhaled) 

On April 27, 1822, military leader and U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. Continue reading.

On April 27, 1895, the popular periodical Harper’s Weekly carried a story on the World’s Transportation Commission visit to Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka. Continue reading.

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A bit of June 11th history…

1184 BC - Troy is sacked and burned according to calculations of Eratosthenes

1742 - Benjamin Franklin invents his Franklin stove

1776 - Continental Congress creates committee (Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman and Livingston) to draft a Declaration of Independence

1963 - President Kennedy says segregation is morally wrong and that it is “time to act”

1963 - Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc immolates himself at a Saigon intersection, creating a Vietnam War iconic image (pictured)

2009 - WHO declares H1N1 swine flu to be a global pandemic - the 1st in 40 years

2018 - Net neutrality is officially repealed by Federal Communications Commission in the US 

Frederick Law Olmsted, America’s foremost landscape architect of the nineteenth century, was born on April 26, 1822. Continue reading.

William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564, in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Continue reading.

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