Washington, D.C.
Washington, D. C. formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D. C. is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July 16,1790, Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land ceded by Virginia, in 1871. Washington had an population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is a part, has a population of over 6 million, the centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress and Supreme Court.
Washington is home to national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups. A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D. C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, the District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961. Various tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Piscataway people inhabited the lands around the Potomac River when Europeans first visited the area in the early 17th century, One group known as the Nacotchtank maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia.
Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland. 43, published January 23,1788, James Madison argued that the new government would need authority over a national capital to provide for its own maintenance. Five years earlier, a band of unpaid soldiers besieged Congress while its members were meeting in Philadelphia, known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, the event emphasized the need for the national government not to rely on any state for its own security. However, the Constitution does not specify a location for the capital, on July 9,1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which approved the creation of a national capital on the Potomac River. The exact location was to be selected by President George Washington, formed from land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia, the initial shape of the federal district was a square measuring 10 miles on each side, totaling 100 square miles.
Two pre-existing settlements were included in the territory, the port of Georgetown, founded in 1751, many of the stones are still standing
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The Democrats dominant worldview was once socially conservative and fiscally classical liberalism, especially in the rural South, since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has promoted a social-liberal platform, supporting social justice. Today, the House Democratic caucus is composed mostly of progressives and centrists, the partys philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It seeks to provide government intervention and regulation in the economy, the party has united with smaller left-wing regional parties throughout the country, such as the Farmer–Labor Party in Minnesota and the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business, the New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities.
After Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South, after the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most southern whites and many northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller and less supportive after the 1970s, white Evangelicals and Southerners became heavily Republican at the state and local level in the 1990s. However, African Americans became a major Democratic element after 1964, after 2000, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Asian Americans, the LGBT community, single women and professional women moved towards the party as well. The Northeast and the West Coast became Democratic strongholds by 1990 after the Republicans stopped appealing to socially liberal voters there, the Democratic Party has retained a membership lead over its major rival the Republican Party. The most recent was the 44th president Barack Obama, who held the office from 2009 to 2017, in the 115th Congress, following the 2016 elections, Democrats are the opposition party, holding a minority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The party holds a minority of governorships, and state legislatures, though they do control the mayoralty of cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D. C. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and that party inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s, since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. They have been liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy both parties changed position several times and that party, the Democratic-Republican Party, came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812 the Federalists virtually disappeared and the national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans. The Democratic-Republican party still had its own factions, however.
As Norton explains the transformation in 1828, Jacksonians believed the peoples will had finally prevailed, through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president
Rand McNally
Rand McNally is an American technology and publishing company that provides mapping and hardware for the consumer electronics, commercial transportation and education markets. The company is headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, with a center in Richmond. In 1856, William Rand opened a shop in Chicago. The shop did big business with the forerunner of the Chicago Tribune, in 1868, the two men established Rand McNally & Co. and bought the Tribunes printing business. The company initially focused on printing tickets and timetables for Chicagos booming railroad industry, in 1870, the company expanded into printing business directories and an illustrated newspaper, the Peoples Weekly. The first Rand McNally map, created using a new cost-saving wax engraving method, Rand McNally became an incorporated business in 1873, with Rand as its president and McNally as vice president. The Business Atlas, containing maps and data pertinent to business planning, was first published in 1876, the atlas is still updated today, now titled the Commercial Atlas & Marketing Guide.
The Trade Book department was established in 1877, publishing such titles as The Locust Plague in the United States, Rand McNally began publishing educational maps in 1880 with its first line of maps and geography textbooks, soon followed by a world atlas. Also in 1894, the opened an office in New York City headed by Caleb S. Hammond. Rand McNally published its first road map, the New Automobile Road Map of New York City & Vicinity, in 1910, the company acquired the line of Photo-Auto Guides from G. S. Chapin, which provided photographs of routes and intersections with directions. Andrew McNally II personally took photos on his honeymoon for the Chicago-to-Milwaukee edition, the company continued to expand its book publishing business, with best-selling childrens books such as The Real Mother Goose in 1916 and Kon-Tiki in 1950. Rand McNally was the first major map publisher to embrace a system of numbered highways, one of its cartographers, John Brink, invented a system that was first published in 1917 on a map of Peoria, Illinois.
In addition to creating maps with numbered roads, Rand McNally erected many of the actual roadside highway signs and this system was subsequently adopted by state and federal highway authorities. The oil industry quickly developed an interest in maps, enticing Americans to explore. In 1920, Rand McNally began publishing road maps for the Gulf Oil Company, by 1930, Rand McNally had two major road map competitors, General Drafting and Gousha, the latter of which was founded by a former Rand McNally sales representative. The Rand McNally Auto Chum, to become the ubiquitous Rand McNally Road Atlas, the first full-color edition was published in 1960 and in 1993, it became fully digitized. The Goodes School Atlas, named for its first editor, Dr. J. Paul Goode, was published in 1923 and it became a standard text for high school and college geography curricula. Later retitled Goodes World Atlas, it is now in its 22nd edition, the first Rand McNally Travel Store was opened in New York City in 1937
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, United States, owned by tronc, Inc. formerly Tribune Publishing. The Tribune was founded by James Kelly, John E. Wheeler, publishing its first edition on June 10,1847. The paper saw numerous changes in ownership and editorship over the eight years. Initially, the Tribune was not politically affiliated but tended to either the Whig or Free Soil parties against the Democrats in elections. By late 1853, it was frequently running xenophobic editorials that criticized foreigners, about this time it became a strong proponent of temperance. Ray became editor-in-chief, Medill became the editor, and Alfred Cowles, Sr. brother of Edwin Cowles. Each purchased one third of the Tribune, under their leadership the Tribune distanced itself from the Know Nothings and became the main Chicago organ of the Republican Party. However, the continued to print anti-Catholic and anti-Irish editorials. Between 1858 and 1860, the paper was known as the Chicago Press & Tribune, on October 25,1860, it became the Chicago Daily Tribune.
Before and during the American Civil War, the new editors pushed an abolitionist agenda and strongly supported Abraham Lincoln, the paper remained a force in Republican politics for years afterwards. In 1861, the Tribune published new lyrics for the song John Browns Body by William W. Patton, Medill served as mayor of Chicago for one term after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Under the 20th-century editorship of Colonel Robert R. Joseph McCarthy, when McCormick assumed the position of co-editor in 1910, the Tribune was the third-best-selling paper among Chicagos eight dailies, with a circulation of only 188,000. At the same time, the Tribune competed with the Hearst paper, by 1914, the cousins succeeded in forcing out Managing Editor William Keeley. By 1918, the Examiner was forced to merge with the Chicago Herald, in 1919, Patterson left the Tribune and moved to New York to launch his own newspaper, the New York Daily News. In a renewed war with Hearsts Herald-Examiner, McCormick and Hearst ran rival lotteries in 1922.
The Tribune won the battle, adding 250,000 readers to its ranks, in 1922, the Chicago Tribune hosted an international design competition for its new headquarters, the Tribune Tower. The competition worked brilliantly as a publicity stunt, and more than 260 entries were received, the winner was a neo-Gothic design by New York architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood. The newspaper sponsored an attempt at Arctic aviation in 1929
National Security Act of 1947
The National Security Act of 1947 was a major restructuring of the United States governments military and intelligence agencies following World War II. The majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on September 18,1947, the Act merged the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment, headed by the Secretary of Defense. It created the Department of the Air Force, which separated the Army Air Forces into its own service and it protected the Marine Corps as an independent service, under the Department of the Navy, prohibiting it from ever being absorbed into the Army. Aside from the reorganization, the act established the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. The National Security Act of 1947 was a restructuring of the United States governments military. The act and its changes, along with the Truman Doctrine, the bill signing took place aboard Trumans VC-54C presidential aircraft Sacred Cow, the first aircraft used for the role of Air Force One.
The majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on September 18,1947 and his power was initially limited and it was difficult for him to exercise the authority to make his office effective. This was changed in the amendment to the act in 1949, the Act merged the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment, headed by the Secretary of Defense. It created the Department of the Air Force, which separated the Army Air Forces into its own service and it protected the Marine Corps as an independent service, under the Department of the Navy, prohibiting it from ever being absorbed into the Army. Initially, each of the three service secretaries maintained quasi-cabinet status, but the act was amended on August 10,1949, at the same time, the NME was renamed as the Department of Defense. The purpose was to unify the Army and Air Force into a federated structure. S. s first peacetime intelligence agency. The councils function was to advise the president on domestic and military policies, the 1949 Revolt of the Admirals.
The Story Behind the National Security Act of 1947, underlying assumptions of the National Security Act of 1947. The National Security Act of 1947, Its Thirtieth Anniversary, enrolled Acts and Resolutions of Congress, compiled 1789 -2008. U. S. National Archives and Records Administration
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party, commonly referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party. The party is named after republicanism, the dominant value during the American Revolution and it was founded by anti-slavery activists, modernists, ex-Whigs, and ex-Free Soilers in 1854. The Republicans dominated politics nationally and in the majority of northern States for most of the period between 1860 and 1932, there have been 19 Republican presidents, the most from any one party. The Republican Partys current ideology is American conservatism, which contrasts with the Democrats more progressive platform, its platform involves support for free market capitalism, free enterprise, fiscal conservatism, a strong national defense and restrictions on labor unions. In addition to advocating for economic policies, the Republican Party is socially conservative. As of 2017, the GOP is documented as being at its strongest position politically since 1928, in addition to holding the Presidency, the Republicans control the 115th United States Congress, having majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The party holds a majority of governorships and state legislatures, the main cause was opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas. The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil, the first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement where the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on March 20,1854, in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. The name was chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jeffersons Republican Party. The first official party convention was held on July 6,1854, in Jackson and it oversaw the preserving of the union, the end of slavery, and the provision of equal rights to all men in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–1877. The Republicans initial base was in the Northeast and the upper Midwest, with the realignment of parties and voters in the Third Party System, the strong run of John C. Fremont in the 1856 United States presidential election demonstrated it dominated most northern states, early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan free labor, free land, free men, which had been coined by Salmon P.
Chase, a Senator from Ohio. Free labor referred to the Republican opposition to labor and belief in independent artisans. Free land referred to Republican opposition to the system whereby slaveowners could buy up all the good farm land. The Party strove to contain the expansion of slavery, which would cause the collapse of the slave power, representing the fast-growing western states, won the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency. The party took on the mission of preserving the Union, and destroying slavery during the American Civil War, in the election of 1864, it united with War Democrats to nominate Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket. The partys success created factionalism within the party in the 1870s and those who felt that Reconstruction had been accomplished and was continued mostly to promote the large-scale corruption tolerated by President Ulysses S. Grant ran Horace Greeley for the presidency. The Stalwarts defended Grant and the system, the Half-Breeds led by Chester A.
Arthur pushed for reform of the civil service in 1883
Ferdinand Magellan (railcar)
Named after the Portuguese explorer, the Ferdinand Magellan is a former Pullman Company observation car which served as Presidential Rail Car, U. S. Number 1 from 1943 until 1958, the current owner Gold Coast Railroad Museum in Miami-Dade County, acquired it in 1959. The Ferdinand Magellan was designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior, the Ferdinand Magellan was built in 1929 by the Pullman Company in Lot 6246, Plan 3972B as a private car. It was one of six similar cars constructed in two batches - four on Lots 6037, and two on Lot 6246 and they were named after famous explorers, David Livingstone, Henry Stanley, Marco Polo, Robert Peary, Roald Amundsen and Ferdinand Magellan. The Ferdinand Magellan was selected, and the Pullman Company rebuilt the car, the Ferdinand Magellan became the first passenger railcar built for a President since the War Department had built a special car for the use of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The other Lot 6246 car, Roald Amundsen has preserved and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
When the Ferdinand Magellan was rebuilt for service as United States Railcar No,1, the original six bedrooms in the car were reduced to four, and the dining room and observation lounge were enlarged. Two of the bedrooms were a suite for the President and the First Lady, with a fully equipped bathroom, including a bathtub, the dining room could be used as a conference room. It has a mahogany table that measures 38 x 72. The front end of the car held quarters for two stewards, a pantry, a galley, mechanical equipment and ice bunkers, the car was protected with 5/8 armor plate on the sides, top and ends. The windows were replaced with sealed three inch thick 12-ply laminated bullet resistant glass, as the windows were sealed, the car was air conditioned by blowing the interior air over pipes carrying the meltwater from ice. The wheel-chair elevator was removed after Roosevelts death in 1945 and these modifications increased the weight of the car from 160,000 pounds to 285,000 pounds, making the Ferdinand Magellan the heaviest passenger railcar ever used in the United States.
The Ferdinand Magellan traveled at the end of a train that included Pullman sleeping cars for staff, baggage cars. Other modifications included change to coupler and draft gear, change of trucks, additional generator - all of which were encompassed in the new Plan, the car was air conditioned on 12/28/1933 to Special Order 546, and was not part of the transformation to Presidential Car. The conversion from the Private Car pool to Presidential Car was accomplished in three steps - at the Pullman-Standard Buffalo Plant, at the Pullman Car Works and at Calumet. At the end of the conversions, the car was weighed on December 8,1942, President Roosevelts first trip in the Ferdinand Magellan was to Miami, where he boarded a Pan American World Airways flying boat for his trip to the Casablanca Conference in 1943. He traveled approximately 50,000 miles in the car in the two years, using it for the last time on a trip to Warm Springs, Georgia two weeks before he died there. Like other observation cars of its era, the Ferdinand Magellan had a platform on the rear end of the car
Harry S. Truman National Historic Site
The site was designated a National Historic Site on May 23,1983. Bess Trumans maternal grandfather, George Porterfield Gates, built the house over a period of years from 1867 to 1885. After Besss father, David Willock Wallace, committed suicide in 1903, she and her mother and brothers moved into the house with Besss grandparents and Elizabeth Gates. After Trumans haberdashery failed in 1922, he and his continued to live in the house to save money while he paid his debts. After being elected to the Senate in 1935, he moved to Washington, D. C. with his wife, whenever they came back to Missouri, the house at 219 N. Delaware was their home. After he retired in 1953, until the Truman Library was opened on July 6,1957, bess lived in the home until her death in 1982, and she bequeathed the property to the National Park Service. The home was closed for 8 months in 2009-10 for a $1.1 million renovation that improved fire safety, visitor comfort, the Trumans only child, Mary Margaret, was born in the home on February 17,1924.
The site includes the two adjacent homes of Mrs. Trumans brothers, across Delaware Street, the Noland Home, the site operates a visitors center, located inside an historic firehouse, in downtown Independence. NPS park ranger-interpreters lead guided tours of the home on a regular basis, though Margaret died in 2008, the NPS has maintained the closure in order to best preserve the home. A photo tour of the rooms, including Harry and Besss bedroom, is available. The fireplace is framed with tiles depicting a fanciful Middle Eastern desert landscape with tents and minarets, likely inspired by One Thousand, Truman is one of the few Presidents who never owned his own home prior to his time in office. The house is now located in the Harry S. Truman Historic District, the Harry S. Truman Farm Home is located 15 miles away from Independence in Grandview, Missouri. Truman worked the farm as a man, from 1906–1917. It was here, said his mother, that Harry got his common sense, there is no visitor center on the site, but the grounds are open year-round for self-guided tours, and an audio tour is available.
Guided tours were conducted during the summer, but were cancelled in 2013 due to sequestration-related budget cuts. After Truman returned to life he sold portions of the farm for the Truman Corners Shopping Center as well as other Kansas City suburban development. Official Park Service site Harry Truman and Independence, This is Where I Belong, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places lesson plan
San Francisco Chronicle
It was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and was the largest circulation newspaper on the West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like many other newspapers, it has experienced a fall in circulation in the early 21st century. The newspaper publishes two web sites, SFGate, which has a mixture of news and web features. Between World War II and 1971, new editor Scott Josephine Newhall took a bold, the newspaper grew in circulation to become the citys largest, overtaking the rival San Francisco Examiner. The demise of other San Francisco dailies through the late 1950s and early 1960s left the Examiner, from 1965 on the two papers shared a single classified-advertising operation. This arrangement stayed in place until the Hearst Corporation took full control of the Chronicle, beginning in the early 1990s, the Chronicle started to face competition beyond the borders of San Francisco.
The Chronicle launched five zoned sections to appear in the Friday edition of the paper, the sections covered San Francisco, and four different suburban areas. They each featured a unique columnist, enterprise pieces and local news specific to the community, the newspaper added 40 full-time staff positions to work in the suburban bureaus. The de Young family controlled the paper, via the Chronicle Publishing Company, until July 27,2000, following the sale, the Hearst Corporation transferred the Examiner to the Fang family, publisher of the San Francisco Independent and AsianWeek, along with a $66-million subsidy. Under the new owners, the Examiner became a free tabloid, in 1949, the de Young family founded KRON-TV, the Bay Areas third television station. Until the mid-1960s, the station, operated from the basement of the Chronicle Building, KRON moved to studios at 1001 Van Ness Avenue. The frequent bold-faced, all-capital-letter headlines typical of the Chronicles front page were eliminated, editor Ward Bushees note heralded the issue as the start of a new era for the Chronicle.
On July 6,2009, the paper unveiled some alterations to the new design that included yet newer section fronts and wider use of color photographs and graphics. In a special section publisher Frank J. Vega described new, the newer look was accompanied by a reduction in size of the broadsheet. On November 9,2009, the Chronicle became the first newspaper in the nation to print on high-quality glossy paper, the high-gloss paper is used for some section fronts and inside pages. As of 2013 the publisher of the Chronicle is Jeffrey Johnson, audrey Cooper was named editor-in-chief in January 2015 and is the first woman to hold the position
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 17 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States, the three powers were represented by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and, Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. The goals of the conference included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaty issues. In the five months since the Yalta Conference, a number of changes had taken place which would affect the relationships between the leaders. Firstly, the Soviet Union was occupying Central and Eastern Europe, by July, the Red Army effectively controlled the Baltic states, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, and fearing a Stalinist take-over, refugees were fleeing from these countries. Stalin had set up a communist government in Poland and he insisted that his control of Eastern Europe was a defensive measure against possible future attacks and claimed that it was a legitimate sphere of Soviet influence.
Secondly, Britain had a new Prime Minister, a general election was held in the UK on 5 July, the results of which became known during the conference, with a Labour Party majority, Labour leader Clement Attlee became the new Prime Minister. During the war and in the name of Allied unity, Roosevelt had brushed off warnings of a potential domination by a Stalin dictatorship in part of Europe, while inexperienced in foreign affairs, Truman had closely followed the allied progress of the war. With the end of the war, the priority of allied unity was replaced with a new challenge, the two leading powers continued to sustain a cordial relationship to the public but suspicions and distrust lingered between them. As the suspicion grew between the two rising powers, Stalin proposed that America will use their advantage and success in order to entices other nations into expanding their U. S. policies. Truman became much more suspicious of communist moves than Roosevelt had been and his advisers saw Soviet actions in Eastern Europe as aggressive expansionism which was incompatible with the agreements Stalin had committed to at Yalta the previous February.
However, the Potsdam Conference marks the first and only time Truman would ever meet Stalin in person, at the end of the conference, the three Heads of Government agreed on the following actions. All other issues were to be answered by the peace conference to be called as soon as possible. Allied Chiefs of Staff at the Potsdam Conference decided to temporarily partition Vietnam at the 16th parallel for the purposes of operational convenience. It was agreed that British forces would take the surrender of Japanese forces in Saigon for the half of Indochina. The Allies issued a statement of aims of their occupation of Germany and Austria were to be divided respectively into four occupation zones, and similarly each capital and Vienna, was to be divided into four zones. It was agreed that the Nazi war criminals would be put to trial, all German annexations in Europe were to be reversed, including Sudetenland, Alsace-Lorraine and the westernmost parts of Poland. Germanys eastern border was to be shifted westwards to the Oder–Neisse line, the territories east of the new border comprised East Prussia, West Prussia, and two thirds of Pomerania
