1.
United States presidential election, 1956
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The United States presidential election of 1956 was the 43rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6,1956. The popular incumbent President, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, successfully ran for re-election, the election was a re-match of 1952, as Eisenhowers opponent in 1956 was Adlai Stevenson, a former Illinois governor, whom Eisenhower had defeated four years earlier. Eisenhower was popular, although his health had become a quiet problem, Stevenson remained popular with a core of liberal Democrats, but held no office and had no real base. As the country enjoyed peace - Eisenhower had ended the Korean War - and economic growth, compared to the 1952 election, Eisenhower gained Kentucky, Louisiana, and West Virginia from Stevenson, while losing Missouri. This was the last presidential election before the admissions of Alaska and Hawaii and this is also the last election in which all the mainland states won by the Democrats were contiguous, except in 1972 and 1984, when they only carried one state. In 1955, Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack. However, he recovered after both incidents, and after being cleared by his doctors, he decided to run for a second term. Given Eisenhowers enormous popularity, he was re-nominated with no opposition at the 1956 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, the only question among Republicans was whether Vice-President Richard Nixon would again be Eisenhowers running mate. However, Harold Stassen was the only Republican to publicly oppose Nixons re-nomination for Vice-President, Nixon had also reshaped the vice-presidency, using it as a platform to campaign for Republican state and local candidates across the country, and these candidates came to his defense. In the spring of 1956, Eisenhower publicly announced that Nixon would again be his running mate, unlike 1952, conservative Republicans did not attempt to shape the platform. At the convention, one voted for a fictitious Joe Smith for Vice-President to prevent a unanimous vote. Kefauver won the New Hampshire primary unopposed, after Kefauver upset Stevenson in the Minnesota primary, Stevenson, realizing that he was in trouble, agreed to debate Kefauver in Florida. Stevenson and Kefauver held the first televised debate on May 21,1956. Stevenson carried Florida by a 52-48% margin, by the time of the California primary in June 1956, Kefauvers campaign had run low on money and could not compete for publicity and advertising with the well-funded Stevenson. Stevenson won the California primary by a 63-37% margin, and Kefauver soon withdrew from the race, averell Harriman, who was backed by former President Harry S. Truman, challenged Stevenson for the nomination. However, Stevensons delegate lead was too large for Harriman to overcome. The roll call, as reported in Richard C, Bain and Judith H. Parris, Convention Decisions and Voting Records, pp. This set off a scramble among several candidates to win the nomination
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San Francisco, CA
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
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Cow Palace
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Cow Palace is an indoor arena located in Daly City, California, situated on the citys border with neighboring San Francisco. Completed in 1941, it hosted the San Francisco Warriors of the NBA from 1962 to 1964, the Warriors temporarily returned to the Cow Palace to host the 1975 NBA Finals due to the fact that the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum Arena was booked for an Ice Follies performance. It was the site of both the 1956 Republican National Convention and the 1964 Republican National Convention, during the 1960s and 1970s, the SF Examiner Games, a world-class indoor track and field meet, was held annually at the Cow Palace. From 1966 until 1999, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus visited the Cow Palace, joined in later years by what is now Disney on Ice, the arena seats 11,089 for ice hockey and 12,953 for basketball. When the Warriors played there its basketball capacity was just over 15,000 and it has also been the home of the annual Grand National Rodeo, Horse & Stock Show since 1941. The venue hosted the 1960 mens NCAA basketball Final Four and the 1967 NBA All-Star Game, sesame Street Live has been held at the Cow Palace since the early 1980s, as has Champions on Ice. In recent years the Cow Palace has been the Bay Area stop for the Cirque du Soleil, the idea for the arena was inspired by the popularity of the livestock pavilion at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition. A local newspaper asked, as early as May 1935, Why, a headline writer turned the phrase around, thus Cow Palace. Dont Spurn “Cow Palace Almost ever since the Panama Pacific International Exposition twenty years ago San Francisco has been talking about holding an annual livestock show and it has made a few attempts in temporary quarters. For the past few years agitation has been active until now there is a possibility of establishing a million-dollar stock show plant in Visitacion Valley. Instead of doing what they can toward accomplishing this worthy enterprise there seems to be an effort on the part of many misguided souls to decry what they call a “cow palace. San Francisco has expended plenty in San Mateo county, the most recent investment of prominence being the new county jail and that is a better proposition than many other cities have even been offered when they came to lay out an agricultural exposition grounds. They bring country dollars to town as well as pry loose some of the money that comes out for a different type of amusement. The great good that is done for the industry, which in turn is for the ultimate benefit of the consumer. Instead of spoofing the “million dollar cow palace” the city papers and organizations should get behind it 100 per cent. Sausalito News, during World War II, though, the arena was used for processing soldiers bound for the Pacific Theater. The arena is used for the Grand National Rodeo today. The San Francisco Warriors of the National Basketball Association called the Cow Palace home from 1962 to 1964, the franchise then moved across the bay to the new Oakland Coliseum Arena and changed their name to Golden State Warriors. The Warriors lost to the Boston Celtics in the 1964 NBA Finals, the 1967 NBA Finals between San Francisco and the Philadelphia 76ers saw three games held at the Cow Palace
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Dwight David Ike Eisenhower was an American politician and Army general who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a general in the United States Army during World War II. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43, in 1951, he became the first Supreme Commander of NATO. Eisenhower was of mostly Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry and was raised in a family in Kansas by parents with a strong religious background. He graduated from West Point in 1915 and later married Mamie Doud, after World War II, Eisenhower served as Army Chief of Staff under President Harry S. Truman and then accepted the post of President at Columbia University. Eisenhower entered the 1952 presidential race as a Republican to counter the non-interventionism of Senator Robert A. Taft, campaigning against communism, Korea and he won in a landslide, defeating Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson and temporarily upending the New Deal Coalition. Eisenhower was the first U. S. president to be constitutionally term-limited under the 22nd Amendment, Eisenhowers main goals in office were to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits. He ordered coups in Iran and Guatemala, Eisenhower gave major aid to help the French in the First Indochina War, and after the French were defeated he gave strong financial support to the new state of South Vietnam. Congress agreed to his request in 1955 for the Formosa Resolution, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA, which led to the space race. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Eisenhower condemned the Israeli, British and French invasion of Egypt and he also condemned the Soviet invasion during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but took no action. Eisenhower sent 15,000 U. S. troops to Lebanon to prevent the government from falling to a Nasser-inspired revolution during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. Near the end of his term, his efforts to set up a meeting with the Soviets collapsed because of the U-2 incident. On the domestic front, he covertly opposed Joseph McCarthy and contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking executive privilege and he otherwise left most political activity to his Vice President, Richard Nixon. Eisenhower was a conservative who continued New Deal agencies and expanded Social Security. Eisenhowers two terms saw considerable economic prosperity except for a decline in 1958. Voted Gallups most admired man twelve times, he achieved widespread popular esteem both in and out of office, since the late 20th century, consensus among Western scholars has consistently held Eisenhower as one of the greatest U. S. Presidents. The Eisenhauer family migrated from Karlsbrunn in the Saarland, to North America, first settling in York, Pennsylvania, in 1741, accounts vary as to how and when the German name Eisenhauer was anglicized to Eisenhower. Eisenhowers Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors, who were farmers, included Hans Nikolaus Eisenhauer of Karlsbrunn
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Kansas
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Kansas /ˈkænzəs/ is a U. S. state located in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita, Kansas is named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribes name is said to mean people of the wind or people of the south wind. For thousands of years, what is now Kansas was home to numerous, tribes in the eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison. When it was opened to settlement by the U. S. Thus, the area was a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided. The abolitionists eventually prevailed, and on January 29,1861, after the Civil War, the population of Kansas grew rapidly when waves of immigrants turned the prairie into farmland. By 2015, Kansas was one of the most productive agricultural states, producing high yields of wheat, corn, sorghum, and soybeans. Kansas, which has an area of 82,278 square miles is the 15th largest state by area and is the 34th most populous of the 50 United States with a population of 2,911,641, residents of Kansas are called Kansans, officially. Mount Sunflower is Kansass highest point at 4,041 feet, for a millennia, the land that is currently Kansas was inhabited by Native Americans. The first European to set foot in present-day Kansas was Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, in 1803, most of modern Kansas was secured by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Southwest Kansas, however, was still a part of Spain, Mexico, from 1812 to 1821, Kansas was part of the Missouri Territory. The Santa Fe Trail traversed Kansas from 1821 to 1880, transporting manufactured goods from Missouri and silver and furs from Santa Fe, wagon ruts from the trail are still visible in the prairie today. In 1827, Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent settlement of white Americans in the future state, the Kansas–Nebraska Act became law on May 30,1854, establishing the U. S. territories of Nebraska and Kansas, and opening the area to broader settlement by whites. Kansas Territory stretched all the way to the Continental Divide and included the sites of present-day Denver, Colorado Springs, Missouri and Arkansas sent settlers into Kansas all along its eastern border. These settlers attempted to sway votes in favor of slavery, the secondary settlement of Americans in Kansas Territory were abolitionists from Massachusetts and other Free-Staters, who attempted to stop the spread of slavery from neighboring Missouri. Directly presaging the American Civil War, these forces collided, entering into skirmishes that earned the territory the name of Bleeding Kansas, Kansas was admitted to the United States as a free state on January 29,1861, making it the 34th state to enter the Union. He was roundly condemned by both the conventional Confederate military and the partisan rangers commissioned by the Missouri legislature and his application to that body for a commission was flatly rejected due to his pre-war criminal record
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Richard Nixon
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Richard Milhous Nixon was an American politician who served as the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974, when he became the only U. S. president to resign from office. He had previously served as a U. S, Representative and Senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California, after completing his undergraduate studies at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife Pat moved to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government and he subsequently served on active duty in the U. S. Navy Reserve during World War II. Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950 and his pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence. He was the mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election. Nixon served for eight years as vice president and he waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California to Pat Brown in 1962. In 1968, he ran for the presidency again and was elected by defeating incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Nixon ended American involvement in the war in Vietnam in 1973 and brought the American POWs home, and ended the military draft. His administration generally transferred power from Washington D. C. to the states and he imposed wage and price controls for a period of ninety days, enforced desegregation of Southern schools and established the Environmental Protection Agency. Nixon also presided over the Apollo 11 moon landing, which signaled the end of the moon race and he was reelected in one of the largest electoral landslides in U. S. history in 1972, when he defeated George McGovern. The year 1973 saw an Arab oil embargo, gasoline rationing, the scandal escalated, costing Nixon much of his political support, and on August 9,1974, he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was issued a pardon by his successor, in retirement, Nixons work writing several books and undertaking of many foreign trips helped to rehabilitate his image. He suffered a stroke on April 18,1994. Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9,1913 in Yorba Linda, California and his parents were Hannah Nixon and Francis A. Nixon. His mother was a Quaker and his father converted from Methodism to the Quaker faith, Nixons upbringing was marked by evangelical Quaker observances of the time, such as refraining from alcohol, dancing, and swearing. Nixon had four brothers, Harold, Donald, Arthur, four of the five Nixon boys were named after kings who had ruled in historical or legendary England, Richard, for example, was named after Richard the Lionheart. Nixons early life was marked by hardship, and he quoted a saying of Eisenhower to describe his boyhood, We were poor. The Nixon family ranch failed in 1922, and the moved to Whittier
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California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
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1960 Republican National Convention
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The 1960 National Convention of the Republican Party of the United States was held in Chicago, Illinois, from July 25 to July 28,1960, at the International Amphitheatre. It was the 14th and most recent time overall that Chicago hosted the Republican National Convention, the convention nominated Vice President Richard M. Nixon for President and former Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. of Massachusetts for Vice President. By the time the Republican convention opened, Nixon had no opponents for the nomination, the highlight of the convention was the speech by U. S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona removing himself from the race where he called on the Conservatives to take back the party and it was at this convention that Nixon promised to campaign in every state during his campaign. Nixon still managed victory, earning 1,321 votes to 10 for Goldwater, before choosing Lodge, Nixon considered the following candidates for the vice presidential nomination, among others, Robert B. Anderson, U. S. Treasury Secretary from Texas Prescott S. Bush, U. S. Senator from Connecticut Everett M. Dirksen, U. S. Senate Minority Leader from Illinois Arthur S. Flemming, U. S. HEW Secretary from Ohio Gerald R. Ford, representative from Michigan Barry M. Goldwater, U. S. Senator from Arizona Alfred M. Gruenther, former NATO Supreme Commander from Nebraska Charles A. Halleck, U. S. House Minority Leader from Indiana Walter H. Judd, U. S. Representative from Minnesota Neil H. McElroy, former Secretary of Defense from Ohio James P. Mitchell, U. S. Labor Secretary from New Jersey Thurston B. Senator from Kentucky Charles H. Percy, businessman from Illinois Nelson A. Rockefeller, Governor of New York William P. Rogers, U. S. Attorney General from Maryland Hugh D. Scott, Senator from Pennsylvania Frederick A. Seaton, U. S. Republican Party platform of 1960 at The American Presidency Project Nixon acceptance speech at The American Presidency Project Universal newsreel footage of the convention
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Republican National Convention
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The Republican National Convention is a series of presidential nominating conventions of the United States Republican Party since 1856. Like the Democratic National Convention, it signifies the end of a primary season. In recent years, the nominee has been known well before the convention, some 2,472 delegates have attended the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, July 18–21 to select the presidential nominee. The winner must carry 1, 237—half of the total, plus one, if no single candidate has secured a majority of delegates after the first ballot, a brokered convention results. It has never happened since the 1976 Republican National Convention, historically, the convention was the final determinant of the nomination, and often contentious as various factions of party insiders maneuvered to advance their candidates. Since the almost universal adoption of the election for selecting delegates in the last quarter of the 20th century, however. On the second ballot,55 percent of the delegates are free to vote for whomever they want, by the third ballot,85 percent of the delegates are free. The size of delegations to the Republican National Convention, for state, territory. Virgin Islands, are nominated as delegates to the national convention. In addition, each of the fifty states are allowed ten additional at-large delegates, Congressional delegation delegates Each state is allowed three district delegates for each member of the United States House of Representatives. Presidential support delegates A state can earn additional delegates if the state voted in the plurality for the GOP candidate, should Puerto Rico become a state between national conventions, it would earn additional delegates under this provision regardless of whether its voters supported the GOP or Democratic candidate. Republican state success delegates Each state can earn additional delegates based on how well the state party does in electing candidates to state, the composition of the individual state and territory delegations is determined by the bylaws of their respective state and territory parties. In the past, competing factions of a state party sometimes drew up lists of delegates. One of the first agenda items at a convention is therefore credentialing, Texas is the second-most populous state, and it is also a Republican stronghold. Its delegation would consist of 155 members, as follows, Under the at-large rule, under the Congressional delegation rule, Texas has 36 members in the House of Representatives, thus, Texas is allowed 108 delegates. Both houses of the Texas Legislature are controlled by the Republican Party, both United States Senators from Texas are Republicans, thus, Texas earns two additional delegates under this provision. The Texas delegation would thus consist of 10 +3 +108 +28 +1 +1 +2 +2 =155 members, California is the most-populous state, however, it is a Democratic Party stronghold. Its delegation would consist of 172 members, as follows, Under the at-large rule, under the Congressional delegation rule, California has 53 members in the House of Representatives, thus, California is allowed 159 delegates
