1.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
2.
Ulysses S. Grant
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Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States. As Commanding General, Grant worked closely with President Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War and he implemented Congressional Reconstruction, often at odds with President Andrew Johnson. His presidency has often criticized for tolerating corruption and for the severe economic depression in his second term. Grant graduated in 1843 from the United States Military Academy at West Point, after the war he married Julia Boggs Dent in 1848, their marriage producing four children. Grant initially retired from the Army in 1854 and he struggled financially in civilian life. When the Civil War began in 1861, he rejoined the U. S. Army, in 1862, Grant took control of Kentucky and most of Tennessee, and led Union forces to victory in the Battle of Shiloh, earning a reputation as an aggressive commander. He incorporated displaced African American slaves into the Union war effort, in July 1863, after a series of coordinated battles, Grant defeated Confederate armies and seized Vicksburg, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River and dividing the Confederacy in two. After his victories in the Chattanooga Campaign, Lincoln promoted him to lieutenant general, Grant confronted Robert E. Lee in a series of bloody battles, trapping Lees army in their defense of Richmond. Grant coordinated a series of devastating campaigns in other theaters, as well, in April 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the war. Historians have hailed Grants military genius, and his strategies are featured in history textbooks. After the Civil War, Grant led the armys supervision of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states and he also used the army to build the Republican Party in the South. After the disenfranchisement of some former Confederates, Republicans gained majorities, in his second term, the Republican coalitions in the South splintered and were defeated one by one as redeemers regained control using coercion and violence. In May 1875, Grant authorized his Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow to shut down and his peace policy with the Indians initially reduced frontier violence, but is best known for the Great Sioux War of 1876. Grant responded to charges of corruption in executive offices more than any other 19th Century president and he appointed the first Civil Service Commission and signed legislation ending the corrupt moiety system. In foreign policy, Grant sought to trade and influence while remaining at peace with the world. His administration successfully resolved the Alabama claims by the Treaty of Washington with Great Britain, Grant avoided war with Spain over the Virginius Affair, but Congress rejected his attempted annexation of the Dominican Republic. His administration implemented a standard and sought to strengthen the dollar. Grant left office in 1877 and embarked on a two-year diplomatic world tour that captured the nations attention, in 1880, Grant was unsuccessful in obtaining the Republican presidential nomination for a third term
3.
President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
4.
Mark Twain
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Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. Among his novels are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain was raised in Hannibal, Missouri, which later provided the setting for Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He served an apprenticeship with a printer and then worked as a typesetter and he later became a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi River before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. He referred humorously to his lack of success at mining, turning to journalism for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, the short story brought international attention and was even translated into classic Greek. His wit and satire, in prose and in speech, earned praise from critics and peers, and he was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. He filed for bankruptcy in the wake of financial setbacks. He chose to pay all his creditors in full, even though he had no legal responsibility to do so. Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halleys Comet, and he predicted that he would go out with it as well and he was lauded as the greatest American humorist of his age, and William Faulkner called him the father of American literature. His parents met when his father moved to Missouri, and they were married in 1823, Twain was of Cornish, English, and Scots-Irish descent. Only three of his siblings survived childhood, Orion, Henry, and Pamela and his sister Margaret died when Twain was three, and his brother Benjamin died three years later. His brother Pleasant died at six months of age, slavery was legal in Missouri at the time, and it became a theme in these writings. His father was an attorney and judge, but he died of pneumonia in 1847, the next year, Twain left school after the fifth grade to become a printers apprentice. In 1851, he working as a typesetter, contributing articles and humorous sketches to the Hannibal Journal. He educated himself in libraries in the evenings, finding wider information than at a conventional school. Twain describes his boyhood in Life on the Mississippi, stating there was but one permanent ambition among his comrades. Pilot was the grandest position of all, the pilot, even in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary – from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay. As Twain describes it, the pilots prestige exceeded that of the captain, bixby took Twain on as a cub pilot to teach him the river between New Orleans and St. Louis for $500, payable out of Twains first wages after graduating. It was more than two years before he received his pilots license, piloting gave also him his pen name from mark twain, the leadsmans cry for a measured river depth of two fathoms, which was safe water for a steamboat
5.
Saratoga Springs, New York
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Saratoga Springs is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 26,586 at the 2010 census, the name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area, which has made Saratoga a popular resort destination for over 200 years. The city is just north of Albany, in the heart of New Yorks Capital Region, Saratoga Springs was ranked tenth in the list of the top 10 places to live in New York State for 2014 according to the national online real estate brokerage Movoto. The picturesque area was occupied by the Algonquian-speaking Mahican Indians before they were pushed out by European settlement and they eventually moved east and became allied with other remnant peoples and became known as the Stockbridge Indians, as they settled near Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The British built Fort Saratoga in 1691 on the west bank of the Hudson River, the current village of Schuylerville was settled about a mile south by British colonists shortly after the fort, it was known as Saratoga until 1831. In 1767, William Johnson, a British soldier who was a hero of the French and they treated his war wounds, as the spring was thought to have medicinal properties. Now known as High Rock Spring, it may still be visited today, in 1756 Johnson had been appointed British Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Northeast region due to his success in building alliances with the Mohawk and other Iroquois tribes. He had learned the language, and created many trading relationships and he achieved great wealth from trading and landholdings, and was knighted for his service to the Crown with the Iroquois. The first permanent European-American settler built a dwelling about 1776, the springs attracted tourists, and Gideon Putnam built the first hotel for travelers. Putnam also laid out the roads and donated land for use as public spaces, the Battle of Saratoga, the turning point of the Revolutionary War, did not take place in Saratoga Springs. Rather, the battlefield is 15 miles to the southeast in the Town of Stillwater, a museum dedicated to the two battles is located on the fields where the battles were fought. The British encampment before the surrender at Saratoga took place 10 miles east of the city, in Schuylerville, the surrender of the sword of battle took place where Fort Saratoga had been, south of Schuylerville. Saratoga Springs was established as a settlement in 1819 from a portion of the Town of Saratoga. Its principal community was incorporated as a village in 1826 and the region became a city in 1915. Tourism was greatly aided after 1832 by the arrival of the Saratoga and Schenectady Railroad, Resort hotels developed to accommodate them. In the 19th century, the noted doctor Simon Baruch encouraged developing European-style spas in the United States as centers for health. With its wealth of waters, Saratoga Springs was developed as a spa, generating the development of many large hotels, including the United States Hotel. The latter was, in its day, the largest hotel in the world, in 1863, Saratoga Race Course opened, moving to its current location the following year
6.
Grant's Tomb
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Grants Tomb, now formally known as General Grant National Memorial, is the final resting place of Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States, and his wife, Julia Dent Grant. Completed in 1897, the tomb is located in Riverside Park in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City and it was placed under the management of the National Park Service in 1958. On July 23,1885, Ulysses S. Grant died of cancer at age 63 in Wilton. Grants family agreed to have his remains interred in New York City, William Russell Grace, the Mayor of New York City, wrote a letter to prominent New Yorkers the following day, to gather support for a national monument in Grants honor. This preliminary meeting was attended by 85 New Yorkers and established the Committee on Organization, the chairman of the Committee was former U. S. president Chester A. Arthur, the secretary was Richard Theodore Greener. This organization would come to be known as the Grant Monument Association, the Grant Monument Association did not originally announce the function or structure of the monument, however, the idea of any monument in Grants honor drew public support. Western Union donated $5,000 on July 29, the day the committee announced its proposal, the GMA continued to receive donations of large and small amounts. At a membership meeting, former New York State governor Alonzo Cornell proposed a goal of $1 million. Private industries such as insurance and iron-trading companies donated funds to the project, for every ton of coal the Consumers Coal Company sold, it gave a major donation of 37½ cents to the GMA. Although there was great enthusiasm for a monument to President Grant, the opposition was vocal in the view that the monument should be in Washington, D. C. Mayor Grace tried to calm the controversy by publicly releasing Mrs. Grants justification for the New York site as the place for her husband. Mrs. Grant wrote, Riverside was selected by myself and my family as the place of my husband. First, because I believed New York was his preference, second, it is near the residence that I hope to occupy as long as I live, and where I will be able to visit his resting place often. Third, I have believed, and am now convinced, that the tomb will be visited by as many of his countrymen there as it would be at any other place. Fourth, the offer of a park in New York was the first which observed and unreservedly assented to the condition imposed by General Grant himself, namely. Criticism was not limited to the debate about the monuments location, according to The New York Times, there was discontent with the internal management of the GMA. The criticism was, even though the GMA members amongst the wealthiest in New York, the New York Times characterized the members as sitting quietly in an office and signing receipts for money voluntarily tendered. In this early stage, the GMA did not have a model for what the monument was to be, it continued to ask for donations without explaining its purpose, which frustrated and discouraged donors
