American History

Happy #NFLDraft Day! Did you know: retired NASA astronaut Leland Melvin, pictured below with his two rescue dogs, was selected in the 1986 NFL draft. He was a star wide receiver while at the University of Richmond and once had 10 catches for 208 yards (and a TD) in a single game.

Steve Jobs would have been 70 today. Just relistened to his Stanford speech from 2005. Still awesome. 5 quotes I really like: 1. "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward...

Donald J. Trump has been elected the 47th president of the U.S. He is the first person to win, lose, then win again since Grover Cleveland in 1892.

#OnThisDay in 1776, Patriots tore down a statue of King George III, melted it, and used the lead to cast bullets to shoot the British with.

Just started re-reading Robert Caro’s classic ‘Master of the Senate’. Can’t help but think that Daniel Webster’s famous Senate words ring just as true today as they did 191 years ago…

Today is the 5th anniversary of the #PulseNightclub shooting. 49 people were killed in an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The gunman was killed by SWAT team members following a three-hour standoff.

Photo by JARRAD HENDERSON, @USATODAY

In honor of Memorial Day, members of the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment (also known as The Old Guard) placed flags in front of each headstone at Arlington National Cemetery.

On this day in 1917 John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Joseph R. Biden has been sworn in as the 46th President of the United States of America. #InaugurationDay

#OnThisDay in 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. #RosaParks

Joe Biden is projected to be the 46th President of the United States. (Sources: AP/Reuters/NEP/Fox News/Edison, others)

Carolyn Bryant, the woman involved in the alleged incident, revealed in 2017 that she lied about Till making advances towards her. She admitted that Till never touched, threatened or harassed her. She also said, “nothing that Till did could ever justify what happened to him.”

#OnThisDay in 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was brutally murdered in Mississippi. Till allegedly whistled at a white woman in her family’s grocery store.

Photograph taken by Mamie Till Bradley.

The late NASA “human computer” Katherine Johnson was born on this day in 1918. Ms. Johnson helped calculate the trajectories for some of NASA’s most historic missions. #WomenInSTEM 🇺🇸

Pictured: United States President Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks at the signing 55 years ago today. Source: Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. Image Serial Number: A1030-17a.

On this day in 1965, U.S President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. It prohibits racial discrimination in voting.

#OnThisDay in 1945, at 8:15 a.m. local time, an American B-29 aircraft dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy”, contained about 64 kg (141 lb) of uranium-235.

Civil rights leader John Lewis, pictured below being beaten in Selma in 1965, passed away Friday following a bout with cancer. Lewis was one of the original 13 freedom riders and helped organize nonviolent protests in the fight for racial equality.