- published: 04 Nov 2009
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- author: DutchTuna
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Alabama
Alabama (
i/ˌæləˈbæmə/) is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th-most extensive and the 23rd-most populous of the 50 United States. Alabama ranks second in the area of its inland waterways.
From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many Southern states, suffered economic hardship, in part because of continued dependence on agriculture. Despite the growth of major industries and urban centers, white rural interests dominated the state legislature until the 1960s, while urban interests and African Americans were under-represented. Following World War II, Alabama experienced growth as the economy of the state transitioned from agriculture to diversified interests in heavy manufacturing, mineral extraction, education, and technology. In addition, the establishment or expansion of multiple military installations, primarily those of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, added to state jobs.
wn.com/Alabama -
Battle of Inchon
The Battle of Inchon (Korean: 인천 상륙 작전, Hanja: 仁川上陸作戰, Incheon Sangnyuk Jakjeon; code name: Operation Chromite) was an amphibious invasion and battle of the Korean War that resulted in a decisive victory and strategic reversal in favor of the United Nations (UN). The operation involved some 75,000 troops and 261 naval vessels, and led to the recapture of the South Korean capital Seoul two weeks later.
The battle began on September 15, 1950, and ended September 19. Through a surprise amphibious assault far from the Pusan Perimeter that UN and South Korean forces were desperately defending, the largely undefended city of Incheon was secured after being bombed by UN forces. The battle ended a string of victories by the invading North Korean People's Army (NKPA). The subsequent UN recapture of Seoul partially severed NKPA's supply lines in South Korea.
The majority of United Nations ground forces involved were U.S. Marines, commanded by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur was the driving force behind the operation, overcoming the strong misgivings of more cautious generals to a risky assault over extremely unfavorable terrain.
wn.com/Battle_of_Inchon -
Belton, Missouri
Belton is a city in Cass County, Missouri, and part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 21,730.
Belton is at 38°49′6″N 94°31′47″W / 38.81833°N 94.52972°W / 38.81833; -94.52972 (38.818232, -94.529838).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 13.4 square miles (35 km2), of which, 13.4 square miles (35 km2) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.10 km2) of it (0.30%) is water.
As of the census of 2000, there were 21,730 people, 7,945 households, and 5,807 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,622.2 people per square mile (626.1/km²). There were 8,411 housing units at an average density of 627.9 per square mile (242.4/km²).
The racial makeup of the city was 91.95% White, 3.85% Black, 0.60% Native American, 0.58% Asian, 0.09% Pacific Islander, 1.08% from other races, and 1.85% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.69% of the population.
There are 7,945 households, out of which 40.6% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.0% were married couples living together, 12.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.9% were non-families. 22.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.70 and the average family size was 3.15.
wn.com/Belton,_Missouri -
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, "fakir beds" and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart" (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified. The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame"—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
wn.com/Berlin_Wall -
Burma
Burma
i/ˈbɜrmə/ BUR-mə, also known as Myanmar i/ˌmjɑːnˈmɑr/ MYAHN--MAR, is a country in South Asia and Southeast Asia. It is bordered by India, Bangladesh, China, Laos and Thailand. One-third of Burma's total perimeter of 1,930 kilometres (1,200 mi) forms an uninterrupted coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. At 676,578 km2 (261,227 sq mi), it is the 40th largest country in the world and the second largest country in Southeast Asia. Burma is also the 24th most populous country in the world with over 60.28 million people.
Burma is home to some of the early civilizations of Southeast Asia including the Pyu and the Mon. In the 9th century, the Burmans of the Kingdom of Nanzhao, entered the upper Irrawaddy valley and, following the establishment of the Pagan Empire in the 1050s, the Burmese language and culture slowly became dominant in the country. During this period, Theravada Buddhism gradually became the predominant religion of the country. The Pagan Empire fell due to the Mongol invasions (1277–1301), and several warring states emerged. In the second half of the 16th century, the country was reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty which for a brief period was the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Burma as well as Manipur and Assam. The country was colonized by Britain following three Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824–1885).
wn.com/Burma -
Convention Hall
Convention Hall was a convention center in Kansas City, Missouri that hosted the 1900 Democratic National Convention and 1928 Republican National Convention.
It was designed by Frederick E. Hill and built at the corner of 13th and Central and cost $225,000 and opened on February 22, 1899 with a performance by the John Philip Sousa band.
It was destroyed in a fire on April 4, 1900, Kansas City was scheduled to host the Democratic National Convention over July 4. Hill redesigned a new hall that would be fireproof and it was built in 90 days in an effort that was called "Kansas City Spirit." Harry S. Truman was to serve as a page at the convention.
The hall hosted the 1928 Republican Convention and was torn down in 1936 when it became a parking lot for the new Municipal Auditorium.
The hall hosted various traveling events including a Sarah Bernhardt performance of Camille. Its most controversial use was hosting a series of Ku Klux Klan rallies in 1922-1924.
Coordinates: 39°05′55″N 94°35′13″W / 39.098727°N 94.58697°W / 39.098727; -94.58697
wn.com/Convention_Hall -
Duval County, Texas
Duval County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 11,782. It is named for Burr H. Duval, a soldier in the Texas Revolution who died in the Goliad Massacre. The seat of the county is San Diego. It was founded in 1858.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,796 square miles (4,651.6 km2), of which 1,793 square miles (4,643.8 km2) is land and 3 square miles (7.8 km2) (0.17%) is water.
As of the census of 2000, there were 13,120 people, 4,350 households, and 3,266 families residing in the county. The population density was 7 people per square mile (3/km²). There were 5,543 housing units at an average density of 3 per square mile (1/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 80.22% White, 0.54% Black or African American, 0.53% Native American, 0.11% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 15.46% from other races, and 3.11% from two or more races. 87.99% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There were 4,350 households out of which 36.80% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.20% were married couples living together, 16.80% had a female householder with no husband present, and 24.90% were non-families. 22.90% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.70% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.88 and the average family size was 3.40.
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Enola Gay
Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of the pilot, then-Colonel (later Brigadier General) Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb as a weapon of war. The bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was targeted at the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and caused extensive destruction.
The Enola Gay gained additional attention in 1995 when the cockpit and nose section of the aircraft were exhibited during the bombing's 50th anniversary at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution in downtown Washington, D.C. The exhibit was changed due to a controversy over original historical script displayed with the aircraft. Since 2003, the entire restored B-29 has been on display at NASM's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
The Enola Gay (B-29-45-MO, AAF Serial Number 44-86292, Victor number 82) was built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed Martin) at its Bellevue, Nebraska, plant, at what is now known as Offutt Air Force Base, and was one of 15 B-29s with the "Silverplate" modifications necessary to deliver atomic weapons, which included an extensively modified bomb bay with pneumatic doors, special propellors, modified engines and the deletion of protective armor and gun turrets. Enola Gay was personally selected by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group, on 9 May 1945, while still on the assembly line.
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Fat Man
"Fat Man" is the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, by the United States on August 9, 1945. It was the second of two nuclear weapons to be used in warfare to date (the other being "Little Boy"), and its detonation caused the third man-made nuclear explosion. The name also refers more generically to the early nuclear weapon designs of U.S. weapons based on the "Fat Man" model. It was an implosion-type weapon with a plutonium core, similar to "The gadget", the experimental device detonated only a month earlier in New Mexico.
"Fat Man" was possibly named after Winston Churchill, though Robert Serber said in his memoirs that as the "Fat Man" bomb was round and fat, he named it after Sydney Greenstreet's character of "Kasper Gutman" in The Maltese Falcon.
The original target for the bomb was the city of Kokura, but obscuring clouds necessitated changing course to the alternative target, Nagasaki. "Fat Man" was dropped from the B-29 bomber Bockscar, piloted by Major Charles Sweeney of the 393d Bombardment Squadron, Heavy, and exploded at 11:02 AM (JST), at an altitude of about 1,650 feet (500 m), with a yield of about 21 kilotons of TNT or 88 terajoules. Because of poor visibility due to cloud cover, the bomb missed its intended detonation point, and damage was somewhat less extensive than that in Hiroshima. An estimated 39,000 people were killed outright by the bombing at Nagasaki, and a further 25,000 were injured. Thousands more died later from related blast and burn injuries, and hundreds more from radiation illnesses from exposure to the bomb's initial radiation. The bombing raid on Nagasaki had the third highest fatality rate in World War II after the nuclear strike on Hiroshima and the March 9/10 1945 fire bombing raid on Tokyo.
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Fort Sill
Coordinates: 34°42′15″N 98°30′30″W / 34.70417°N 98.50833°W / 34.70417; -98.50833
Fort Sill is a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, about 85 miles southwest of Oklahoma City.
Today, Fort Sill remains the only active Army installation of all the forts on the South Plains built during the Indian Wars. It is designated as a National Historic Landmark and serves as home of the United States Army Field Artillery School as well as the Marine Corps' site for Field Artillery MOS school, United States Army Air Defense Artillery School, the 31st Air Defense Artillery Brigade, the 75th Fires Brigade and the 214th Fires Brigade. Fort Sill is also one of the four locations for Army Basic Combat Training.
As of December 2009, Major General David D. Halverson is the current commanding general of the Fires Center of Excellence and Fort Sill.
The site of Fort Sill was staked out on 8 January 1869, by Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, who led a campaign into Indian Territory to stop hostile tribes from raiding border settlements in Texas and Kansas.
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German Empire
The German Empire (German: Deutsches Kaiserreich) is the common name given to the state officially named the Deutsches Reich (literally: "German Realm"), designating Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.
The German Empire consisted of 27 constituent territories (most of them ruled by royal families). While the Kingdom of Prussia contained most of the population and most of the territory of the Reich; the Prussian leadership became supplanted by German leaders and Prussia itself played a lesser role. As Dwyer (2005) points out, Prussia's "political and cultural influence had diminished considerably" by the 1890s. Its three largest neighbors were rivals Imperial Russia to the east and France to the west and ally Austria-Hungary to the south.
After 1850, Germany industrialized rapidly, with a foundation in coal, iron (and later steel), chemicals and railways. From a population of 41 million people in 1871, it grew to 68 million in 1913. From a heavily rural nation in 1815, it was now predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological and scientific giant, receiving more Nobel Prizes in science than Britain, France, Russia and the United States combined.
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Grandview, Missouri
Grandview is a city in Jackson County, Missouri, United States. The population was 24,475 at the 2010 census.
Grandview is located at 38°53′6″N 94°31′21″W / 38.885°N 94.5225°W / 38.885; -94.5225 (38.885007, -94.522578), along U.S. Route 71, bordering Kansas City, Missouri, to the south.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 14.9 square miles (39 km2), of which, 14.7 square miles (38 km2) of it is land and 0.1 square miles (0.26 km2) of it (0.94%) is water.
As of the census of 2000, there were 24,881 people, 9,709 households, and 6,485 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,689.4 people per square mile (652.2/km²). There were 10,348 housing units at an average density of 702.6 per square mile (271.2/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 59.81% White, 33.54% African American, 0.56% Native American, 1.05% Asian, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 1.93% from other races, and 3.00% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.33% of the population.
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Gresham College
Coordinates: 51°31′04″N 0°06′35″W / 51.5177°N 0.1098°W / 51.5177; -0.1098
Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.
Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of the Royal Exchange, left his estate jointly to the City of London Corporation and to the Mercers' Company, which today support the college through the Joint Grand Gresham Committee under the presidency of the Lord Mayor of London. Gresham's will provided for the setting up of the College—in Gresham's mansion in Bishopsgate, on the site now occupied by Tower 42, the former NatWest Tower—and endowed it with the rental income from shops sited around the Royal Exchange, which Gresham had established.
The early success of the College led to the incorporation of the Royal Society in 1663, which pursued its activities at the College in Bishopsgate before moving to its own premises in Crane Court in 1710. The College remained in Gresham's mansion in Bishopsgate until 1768, and moved about London thereafter until the construction in 1842 of its own buildings in Gresham Street EC2. Gresham College did not become part of the University of London on the founding of the University in the 19th century, although a close association between the College and the University persisted for many years. Since 1991, the College has operated at Barnard’s Inn Hall, Holborn EC1.
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Harrisburg, Illinois
Harrisburg (
/ˈhærɪsbɜrɡ/ or /ˈhɛərzbərɡ/) is a city in and the county seat of Saline County, Illinois, United States. It is located about 57 miles (92 km) southwest of Evansville, Indiana, 111 miles (179 km) southeast of St. Louis, Missouri. The 2010 population was 9,017, and the surrounding Harrisburg Township had a population of 10,790, including the city residents. Harrisburg is included in the Illinois-Indiana-Kentucky Tri-State Area and is the principal city in the Harrisburg Micropolitan Statistical Area with a combined population of 24,913.
Located at the concurrency of U.S. Route 45, Illinois Route 13, Illinois Route 145, and Illinois Route 34, Harrisburg is known as the "Gateway to the Shawnee National Forest", and was made infamous for the Ohio River flood of 1937, the old Crenshaw House (also known as the Old Slave House), the Tuttle Bottoms Monster, prohibition era gangster Charlie Birger, and the 2012 Leap Day tornado outbreak. A Cairo and Vincennes Railroad boomtown, the city was one of the leading bituminous coal mining distribution hubs of the American Midwest between 1900 and 1937.
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Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White (October 9, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was an American economist, and a senior U.S. Treasury department official. He was the senior American official at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, and reportedly dominated the conference and imposed his vision of post-war financial institutions over the objections of John Maynard Keynes, the British representative. After the war, White was a major architect of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
In August 1948, White testified and defended his record to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Three days after testifying he died of a heart attack at his summer home in Fitzwilliam, NH. A number of sources, including the FBI and Soviet archives, indicate that he passed secret state information to the Soviet Union during World War II.
Harry Dexter White was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the seventh and youngest child of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants, Joseph Weit and Sarah Magilewski, who had settled in America in 1885. In 1917 he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and was commissioned as lieutenant and served in France in a non-combat capacity in World War I. He did not begin his university studies until age 30, first at Columbia University, then at Stanford, where he earned a first degree in economics. After completing a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University at 38 years of age, White taught four years at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Harvard University Press published his Ph.D. thesis in 1933, as The French International Accounts, 1880–1913. His PhD dissertation won the David A. Wells Prize granted annually by the Department of Economics, Harvard University.
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Hiroshima
Hiroshima (広島市, Hiroshima-shi?) ( listen (help·info)) is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It is best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M. on August 6, 1945, near the end of World War II. Its name 広島 means "Wide Island".
Hiroshima gained city status on April 1, 1889. On April 1, 1980, Hiroshima became a designated city. The city's current mayor since April 2011 is Kazumi Matsui.
Hiroshima was founded on the river delta coastline of the Seto Inland Sea in 1589 by the powerful warlord Mōri Terumoto, who made it his capital after leaving Koriyama Castle in Aki Province.Hiroshima Castle was quickly built, and Terumoto moved in, in 1593. Terumoto was on the losing side at the Battle of Sekigahara. The winner, Tokugawa Ieyasu, deprived Mori Terumoto of most of his fiefs including Hiroshima and gave Aki province to Masanori Fukushima, a daimyo who had supported Tokugawa.
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Illinois
Illinois (i/ˌɪlɨˈnɔɪ/ IL-i-NOY) is the 25th most extensive and the 5th most populous of the 50 United States, and is often noted as a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is a major transportation hub. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean; as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois River. For decades, O'Hare International Airport has ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics.
Although the state's largest population centers today are in northern Illinois, originally the state's population grew from south to north, with settlers arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan. Railroads and John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars. The Great Migration established a large community of African Americans in Chicago that created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.
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Israel
Coordinates: 31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E / 31; 35
Israel, officially the State of Israel ( /ˈɪzriːəl/ or /ˈɪzreɪəl/; Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Medīnat Yisrā'el, IPA: [me̞diˈnät jisʁäˈʔe̞l] (
listen); Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, IPA: [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]), is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state.
Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations plan to partition Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine. Neighboring Arab states invaded the next day in support of the Palestinian Arabs. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Portions of these territories, including east Jerusalem, have been annexed by Israel, but the border with the neighboring West Bank has not yet been permanently defined.[neutrality is disputed] Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have so far not resulted in peace.
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Kansas City Star
The Kansas City Star is a McClatchy newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri, in the United States. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes. The Star is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry Truman, as the newspaper where a young Ernest Hemingway honed his writing style, and for being central to government-mandated divestiture of radio and television outlets by newspaper concerns in the late 1950s.
The paper, originally called The Kansas City Evening Star, was founded September 18, 1880 by William Rockhill Nelson and Samuel E. Morss. The two moved to Missouri after selling the newspaper that became the Fort Wayne News Sentinel (and earlier owned by Nelson's father) in Nelson's Indiana hometown, where Nelson was campaign manager in the unsuccessful Presidential run of Samuel Tilden.
Morss quit the newspaper business within a year and a half because of ill health. At the time there were three daily competitors – the Evening Mail, The Kansas City Times and the Kansas City Journal.
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Key West, Florida
Key West is a city in Monroe County, Florida, United States. The city encompasses the island of Key West, the part of Stock Island north of U.S. 1 (the Overseas Highway) (east), Sigsbee Park (north, originally known as Dredgers Key), Fleming Key (north), and Sunset Key (west, originally known as Tank Island). Both Fleming Key and Sigsbee Park are part of Naval Air Station Key West and are inaccessible by civilians. Key West is the county seat of Monroe County. Key West is the southernmost city in the Continental United States. It is also the southern terminus of U.S. 1, State Road A1A, the East Coast Greenway and, before 1935, the Florida East Coast Railway.
Key West is 129 miles (208 km) southwest (229.9 degrees) of Miami, Florida, (about 160 miles (260 km) by car) and 106 miles (171 km) north-northeast (21.2 degrees) of Havana, Cuba. Cuba, at its closest point, is 94 statute miles (151 km) south. Key West is a seaport destination for many passenger cruise ships. The Key West International Airport provides airline service. Hotels and guest houses are available for lodging. Naval Air Station Key West is an important year round training site for naval aviation due to the superb weather conditions. It is also a reason the city was chosen as the Winter White House of President Harry S. Truman. The central business district primarily comprises Duval Street, and includes much of the northwest corner of the island along Whitehead, Simonton, Front, Greene, Caroline, and Eaton Streets and Truman Avenue. The official city motto is "One Human Family."
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Kfar Truman
Kfar Truman (Hebrew: כְּפַר טְרוּמַן, lit. Truman Village) is a moshav in central Israel. Located in the Shephelah around three kilometres east of Ben Gurion International Airport, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hevel Modi'in Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 606.
The moshav was established in 1949 by demobilised Palmach soldiers, and was initially called Bnei Harel. In 1950, representatives of the Jewish Agency proposed changing the name to Kfar Truman, in honor of U.S. president Harry S. Truman, whose support was critical for the establishment of the State of Israel. In return, the moshav was promised official recognition, thereby entitling it to services such as roads, running water and electricity. The forest alongside Kfar Truman was renamed for Margaret Truman, daughter of the president.
The village was built on land which had belonged to the village of Beit Nabala.
Coordinates: 31°58′46.92″N 34°55′19.91″E / 31.9797°N 34.9221972°E / 31.9797; 34.9221972
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Lamar, Missouri
Lamar is a city in Barton County, Missouri, United States. The population was 4,474 at the 2011 census. It is the county seat of Barton County. Lamar is well known as the birthplace of President Harry S. Truman.
Lamar is located at 37°29′37″N 94°16′20″W / 37.49361°N 94.27222°W / 37.49361; -94.27222 (37.493676, -94.272111). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.1 square miles (11 km2), of which, 3.8 square miles (9.8 km2) of it is land and 0.3 square miles (0.78 km2) of it (7.25%) is water.
As of the census of 2000, there were 4,425 people, 1,835 households, and 1,154 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,154.5 people per square mile (446.1/km²). There were 1,995 housing units at an average density of 520.5 per square mile (201.1/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 96.61% White, 0.18% African American, 0.61% Native American, 0.34% Asian, 0.14% Pacific Islander, 0.34% from other races, and 1.79% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.40% of the population.
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Lawton, Oklahoma
The city of Lawton (Pawnee: Raaríhtaaruʾ ) is the county seat of Comanche County, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Located in the southwestern region of Oklahoma, approximately 80 miles (130 km) southwest of Oklahoma City, it is the principal city of the Lawton Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the 2010 US Census, Lawton's population was 96,867, making it the fifth largest city in the state.
Built on former reservation lands of Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Indians, Lawton was founded on August 6, 1901, and was named after Major General Henry Ware Lawton, a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient who was killed in action in the Philippine–American War. Lawton's landscape is typical of the Great Plains with flat topography and gently rolling hills, while the area north of the city is marked by the Wichita Mountains.
The city's proximity to Fort Sill Military Reservation gave Lawton economic and population stability in the region throughout the 20th century. Although Lawton's economy is still largely dependent on Fort Sill, it has also grown to encompass manufacturing, higher education, health care, and retail. The city's government is run by a council-manager government consisting of a city manager and a city council headed by a mayor. Interstate 44 and three major United States Highways serve the city, while Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport connects Lawton by air. Recreation can be found at the city's many parks, lakes, museums, and festivals. Notable residents of the city include many musical and literary artists as well as several professional athletes.
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Little Boy
"Little Boy" was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets of the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, Heavy, of the United States Army Air Forces. It was the first atomic bomb to be used as a weapon. The second, the "Fat Man", was dropped three days later on Nagasaki.
The weapon was developed by the Manhattan Project during World War II. It derived its explosive power from the nuclear fission of uranium 235. The Hiroshima bombing was the second artificial nuclear explosion in history, after the Trinity test, and the first uranium-based detonation. Approximately 600 to 860 milligrams of matter in the bomb was converted into the active energy of heat and radiation (see mass-energy equivalence for detail). It exploded with an energy between 13 and 18 kilotons of TNT (54 and 75 TJ) (estimates vary). It has been estimated that 130,000 to 150,000 people had died as a result of its use by the end of December 1945. Its design was not tested in advance, unlike the more complex plutonium bomb (Fat Man). The available supply of enriched uranium was very small at that time, and it was felt that the simple design of a uranium "gun" type bomb was so sure to work that there was no need to test it at full scale.
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Marshfield, Missouri
Marshfield is a city in Webster County, Missouri, United States. The population was 6,633 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat and part of the Springfield, Missouri Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Marshfield was settled in 1830. On May 28, 1856, the court instructed Wright Holland to lay out the County seat on a square in the southeast corner of the acres apportioned. The survey of the town was commenced June 21, 1856. The post-office was established also in 1856, with Allan F. Goss as postmaster. (--State of Missouri, 1889, pp. 252–259.) [7]
Early growth was described as "very slow" until the opening of the railroad in 1870. It had 1 church, about 20 stores, 1 furniture factory and 2 wagon shops. (--Gazetteer of Missouri, Campbell, p. 643; Mr. T. Ballard Watters.)[7]
On April 18, 1880, a tornado measuring F4 on the Fujita scale struck Marshfield. Its damage path was 800 yards (730 m) wide and 64 miles (103 km) long. The tornado killed 99 people and injured 100, and it is said that 10% of Marshfield's residents were killed and all but 15 of its buildings were destroyed.
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Michigan
Michigan (i/ˈmɪʃɨɡən/) is a state located in the Great Lakes region of the Midwestern United States. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake". Michigan is the 8th most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area. Its capital is Lansing, and the largest city is Detroit. Michigan was admitted into the Union on January 26, 1837 as the 26th state.
Michigan has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the world, being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, plus Lake Saint Clair. Michigan is one of the leading U.S. states for recreational boating. The state has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds. A person in the state is never more than six miles (9.7 km) from a natural water source or more than 85 miles (137 km) from a Great Lakes shoreline. It is the largest state by total area east of the Mississippi River.
Michigan is the only state to consist of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is often noted to be shaped like a mitten. The Upper Peninsula (often referred to as "the U.P.") is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile (8 km) channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The two peninsulas are connected by the Mackinac Bridge. The Upper Peninsula is economically important due to its status as a tourist destination. There is also a variety of natural resources to be found there, including a sizable amount of iron ore.
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Minneapolis
Minneapolis (pronunciation:i/ˌmɪniːˈæpəlɪs/), nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City", is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States. Its name is attributed to the city's first schoolteacher, who combined mni, the Dakota word for water, and polis, the Greek word for city.
As of the 2010 Census, the population of the city of Minneapolis is 382,578. Minneapolis lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Saint Paul, the state's capital. Known as the Twin Cities, Minneapolis-Saint Paul is the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S., with approximately 3.3 million residents. The city is abundantly rich in water, with over twenty lakes and wetlands, the Mississippi river, creeks and waterfalls, many connected by parkways in the Chain of Lakes and the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. Among cities of similar densities, Minneapolis has the most dedicated parkland. It was once the world's flour milling capital and a hub for timber, and today is the primary business center between Chicago and Seattle, with Minneapolis proper containing the fifth highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies. It has cultural organizations that draw creative people and audiences to the city for theater, visual art, writing, and music. The community's diverse population has a long tradition of charitable support through progressive public social programs and VOLAGs, as well as private and corporate philanthropy.
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Mississippi
Mississippi (i/ˌmɪsɨˈsɪpi/) is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River"). Mississippi is the 32nd most extensive and the 31st most populous of the 50 United States. The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta area, which was cleared for cotton cultivation in the 19th century. Today, its catfish aquaculture farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States. The state symbol is the magnolia grandiflora tree.
Mississippi is bordered on the north by Tennessee, on the east by Alabama, on the south by Louisiana and a narrow coast on the Gulf of Mexico and on the west, across the Mississippi River, by Louisiana and Arkansas.
In addition to its namesake, major rivers in Mississippi include the Big Black River, the Pearl River, the Yazoo River, the Pascagoula River, and the Tombigbee River. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake and Grenada Lake. The largest lake in Mississippi is Grenada Lake.
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Missouri
Missouri (i/mɨˈzʊəri/) (nickname The Show Me State) is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Missouri is the 21st most extensive and the 18th most populous of the 50 United States. Missouri comprises 114 counties and the independent city of St. Louis. The four largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia. Missouri's capital is Jefferson City. The land that is now Missouri was acquired from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase and became known as the Missouri Territory. Part of the Territory was admitted into the union as the 24th state on August 10, 1821.
Missouri generally mirrors the demographic, economic and political makeup of America and has long been considered a political bellwether state. With the exceptions of the Presidential elections of 1956 and 2008, Missouri's results have accurately predicted the next President of the United States in every election since 1904. It has both Midwestern and Southern cultural influences, reflecting its history as a border state. It is also a transition between the Eastern and Western United States, as St. Louis is often called the "western-most Eastern city" and Kansas City the "eastern-most Western city". Missouri's geography is highly varied. The northern part of the state lies in dissected till plains while the southern part lies in the Ozark Mountains (a dissected plateau), with the Missouri River dividing the two. The state lies at the intersection of the three greatest rivers of North America, with the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers near St. Louis, and the confluence of the Ohio River with the Mississippi north of the Bootheel. The starting points of the Pony Express Trail and Oregon Trail were both in Missouri. The mean center of United States population as of the 2010 Census is at the town of Plato in Texas County, Missouri.
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NATO
Coordinates: 50°52′34.16″N 4°25′19.24″E / 50.8761556°N 4.4220111°E / 50.8761556; 4.4220111
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO ( /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending.
For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure in 1966.
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Nazi Germany
The Third Reich, also Nazi Germany, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..." Under the "leader principle", the Führer's word was above all other laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power and curry favor with the Führer. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning practices. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged.
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Ohio
Ohio (i/oʊˈhaɪ.oʊ/) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Ohio is the 34th most extensive, the 7th most populous, and the 10th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus.
The name "Ohio" originated from Iroquois word ohi-yo’, meaning "great river". The state, originally partitioned from the Northwest Territory, was admitted to the Union as the 17th state (and the first under the Northwest Ordinance) on March 1, 1803. Although there are conflicting narratives regarding the origin of the nickname, Ohio is historically known as the "Buckeye State" (relating to the Ohio buckeye tree) and Ohioans are also known as "Buckeyes".
The government of Ohio is composed of the executive branch, led by the Governor; the legislative branch, which comprises the Ohio General Assembly; and the judicial branch, which is led by the Supreme Court. Currently, Ohio occupies 18 seats in the United States House of Representatives. Ohio is known for its status as both a swing state and a bellwether in national elections.
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Oval Office
The Oval Office, located in the West Wing of the White House, is the official office of the President of the United States.
The room features three large south-facing windows behind the president's desk, and a fireplace at the north end. It has four doors: the east door opens to the Rose Garden; the west door leads to a private smaller study and dining room; the northwest door opens onto the main corridor of the West Wing; and the northeast door opens to the office of the president's secretary.
Presidents generally change the office to suit their personal taste, choosing new furniture, new drapery, and designing their own oval-shaped carpet to take up most of the floor. Paintings are selected from the White House’s own collection, or borrowed from other museums for the president’s term in office.
The Oval Office has become associated in Americans' minds with the presidency itself through memorable images, such as a young John F. Kennedy, Jr. peering through the front panel of his father's desk, President Richard Nixon speaking by telephone with the Apollo 11 astronauts during their moonwalk, and daughter Amy Carter bringing her Siamese cat Misty Malarky Ying Yang to brighten President Jimmy Carter's day.
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Poznań 1956 protests
The Poznań 1956 protests, also known as Poznań 1956 uprising or Poznań June (Polish: Poznański Czerwiec), were the first of several massive protests of the Polish people against the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland. Demonstrations by workers demanding better conditions began on June 28, 1956, at Poznań's Cegielski Factories and were met with violent repression.
A crowd of approximately 100,000 gathered in the city center near the UB secret police building. About 400 tanks and 10,000 soldiers of Ludowe Wojsko Polskie and the Internal Security Corps under Polish-Soviet general Stanislav Poplavsky were ordered to suppress the demonstration and during the pacification fired at the protesting civilians.
The death toll was placed between 57 and over a hundred people, including a 13-year-old boy, Romek Strzałkowski. Hundreds of people sustained injuries. Nonetheless the Poznań protests were an important milestone on the way to the installation of a less Soviet-controlled government in Poland in October.
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Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (/ˌpɔrtə ˈriːkoʊ/ or /ˌpwɛərtə ˈriːkoʊ/), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, [esˈtaðo ˈlibɾe asoˈsjaðo ðe ˈpweɾto ˈriko]—literally, "Associated Free State of Puerto Rico"), is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.
Puerto Rico (Spanish for "rich port") comprises an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands, the largest of which are Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. The main island of Puerto Rico is the smallest by land area of the Greater Antilles. However, it ranks third in population amongst that group of four islands, which also include Cuba, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), and Jamaica. Due to its location, Puerto Rico enjoys a tropical climate and also experiences the Atlantic hurricane season.
Originally populated for centuries by indigenous aboriginal peoples known as Taínos, the island was claimed by Christopher Columbus for Spain during his second voyage to the Americas on November 19, 1493. Under Spanish rule, the island was colonized and the indigenous population was forced into slavery and nearly wiped out due to, among other things, European infectious diseases. The remaining population was emancipated by King Charles I in 1520. Spain possessed Puerto Rico for over 400 years, despite attempts at capture of the island by the French, Dutch, and British. The Spanish Crown, in an attempt to keep Puerto Rico from gaining its independence, revived the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815. The decree was printed in three languages — Spanish, English and French — and it fostered the immigration of hundreds of non-Spanish European families.
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RDS-1
Coordinates: 50°26′15″N 77°48′51″E / 50.4375°N 77.81417°E / 50.4375; 77.81417
The RDS-1 (Russian: РДС-1), also known as Izdeliye 501 (article 501) and First Lightning (Первая молния, Pervaya molniya), was used in the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test, the United States assigned it the code-name Joe-1, in reference to Joseph Stalin. It was exploded on 29 August 1949, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR, after a top-secret R&D project. The weapon was designed at the Kurchatov Institute—at the time officially known as "Laboratory № 2," but designated as the "office" or "base" in internal documents—starting in April 1946. A uranium-235 plant was built near Chelyabinsk in 1948.
The RDS-1 explosion yielded 22 kilotons of TNT, similar to the American Gadget and Fat Man bombs. At Lavrenty Beria's insistence, the RDS-1 bomb was designed as an implosion weapon similar to the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan; it was an implosion type weapon with a solid plutonium core. The bomb designers had developed a more sophisticated design (tested later as RDS-2), but rejected it due to the known reliability of the Fat Man type design; the USSR having received extensive intelligence on the design of the "Fat Man" bomb during World War Two.
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Republic of China
Taiwan (i/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ TY-WAHN; Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; pinyin: Táiwān; see below), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a state in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China now governs the island of Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa), which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands. Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taipei is the capital city and economic and cultural centre of the country, and New Taipei is the most populous city.
The earliest evidence of inhabitation of Taiwan dates back to the late Paleolithic era. The island of Taiwan was mainly inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before being colonized in the 17th century by the Dutch and the Spanish Empire. The first Han Chinese polity on Taiwan began when Koxinga's troops defeated Dutch forces and established the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was subsequently ruled by the Qing Dynasty after the kingdom's defeat in the Battle of Penghu in 1683, a period that lasted for over 200 years. Following Japan's victory over the Qing Dynasty in the first Sino-Japanese war, Taiwan was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.
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Sedalia, Missouri
Sedalia is a city located about 30 miles (48 km) south of the Missouri River in Pettis County, Missouri. U.S. Highway 50 and U.S. Highway 65 intersect in the city. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 21,387. It is the county seat of Pettis County. The Sedalia Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Pettis County. Sedalia is the location of the Missouri State Fair and the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival.[1]. On May 25, 2011, a tornado ripped through Sedalia, causing significant damage to much of the southern side of the city.
Indigenous peoples lived along the Missouri River and its tributaries for thousands of years before European contact. Historians believe the entire area around Sedalia was first occupied by the Osage (among historical American Indian tribes). When the land was first settled by European Americans, bands of Shawnee who had migrated from the East lived in the vicinity of Sedalia.
The area that became the city of Sedalia was founded by General George Rappeen Smith (1804–1879), who went on to found nearby Smithton, Missouri. He filed plans for the official record on November 30, 1857, and gave the area the name Sedville. The original plat included the land from today's Missouri Pacific Railroad south to Third Street. In addition, the version filed jointly by General Smith and David W. Bouldin on October 16, 1860, displayed the city spreading from Clay Street to the north and to Smith Street (i.e., today's Third Street) in the south, and from Missouri Street in the west to Washington Street in the east. Smith and Bouldin anticipated that the city would grow to the north; however, it grew in a southern direction.
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Seoul
Seoul (Korean pronunciation: [sʌ.ul] ( listen), English /soʊl/), officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world. The Seoul National Capital Area is the world's second largest metropolitan area with over 25 million inhabitants, which includes the surrounding Incheon metropolis and Gyeonggi province. Almost a quarter of South Koreans live in Seoul, half of South Koreans live in the metropolitan area, along with over 275,000 international residents.
Located in the Han River, Seoul has been a major settlement for over 2,000 years, with its foundation dating back to 18 B.C. when Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, established its capital in what is now south-east Seoul. It continued as the capital of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty and the Korean Empire. The Seoul National Capital Area is home to four UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Changdeokgung, Hwaseong Fortress, Jongmyo Shrine and the Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty.
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Soviet
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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Soviet Union
The Soviet Union (Russian: Советский Союз, tr. Sovetsky Soyuz), officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR; Russian: Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik; IPA: [sɐˈjus sɐˈvʲetskʲɪx sətsɨəlʲɪˈstʲitɕɪskʲɪx rʲɪsˈpublʲɪk] ( listen); abbreviated СССР, SSSR), was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
The Soviet Union was a single-party state ruled by the Communist Party from its foundation until 1990. A union of 15 subnational Soviet republics, the Soviet state was structured under a highly centralized government and economy.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused the downfall of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution, there was a struggle for power between the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the anti-communist White movement. In December 1922, the Bolsheviks won the civil war, and the Soviet Union was formed with the merger of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.
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Taiwan
Taiwan (i/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ TY-WAHN; Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; pinyin: Táiwān; see below), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a state in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China now governs the island of Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa), which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands. Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taipei is the capital city and economic and cultural centre of the country, and New Taipei is the most populous city.
The earliest evidence of inhabitation of Taiwan dates back to the late Paleolithic era. The island of Taiwan was mainly inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before being colonized in the 17th century by the Dutch and the Spanish Empire. The first Han Chinese polity on Taiwan began when Koxinga's troops defeated Dutch forces and established the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was subsequently ruled by the Qing Dynasty after the kingdom's defeat in the Battle of Penghu in 1683, a period that lasted for over 200 years. Following Japan's victory over the Qing Dynasty in the first Sino-Japanese war, Taiwan was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.
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Taiwan Strait
The Taiwan Strait or Formosa Strait, formerly known as the Black Ditch, is a 180-km-wide (111.85-mile-wide) strait separating the island of Taiwan from the Asian mainland. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to East China Sea to the northeast. The narrowest part is 130 km (81 mi) wide.
Fujian province in mainland China is to the west of the strait, while important islands like Quemoy, Xiamen Island, Pingtan Island, and the Matsu Islands lie just off the coast. To the east are the west coasts of Taiwan and Penghu. The island fishermen use the strait as a fishing resource. The Min and Jiulong Rivers empty into the strait.
There have been discussions about the strategic importance of the Taiwan Strait. Some Japanese politicians claimed that the Taiwan Strait is an essential sea route for oil shipment from the Middle East via the Malacca Strait to Japan. However, some have argued that this is merely an excuse for intervention since the sea lane east of Taiwan is even shorter
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Turkey
Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims. The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population.
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USS Pueblo (AGER-2)
USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is an American ELINT and SIGINTBanner-class technical research ship (Navy intelligence) which was boarded and captured by North Korean forces on 23 January 1968, in what is known as the Pueblo incident or alternatively as the Pueblo crisis or the Pueblo affair. Occurring less than a week after President Lyndon B. Johnson's State of the Union Address and only weeks before the Tet Offensive, it was a major incident in the Cold War.
North Korea stated that it strayed into their territorial waters, but the United States maintains that the vessel was in international waters at the time of the incident.
Pueblo, still held by North Korea today, officially remains a commissioned vessel of the United States Navy. It is currently moored along the Taedong River in Pyongyang, where it is used as a museum ship. It is the only ship of the U.S. Navy currently being held captive.
The ship was launched at the Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Kewaunee, Wisconsin, on 16 April 1944, as United States Army Freight and Passenger (FP) FP-344. The Army later redesignated the FP vessels as Freight and Supply changing the designation to FS-344. The ship, commissioned at New Orleans on 7 April 1945, served as a Coast Guard manned Army vessel used for training civilians for the Army. Her first commanding officer was LT J. R. Choate, USCGR, succeeded by LTJG Marvin B. Barker, USCGR, on 12 September 1945.
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Vietnam
Vietnam (
listen), formally the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam; listen), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 91.5 million inhabitants as of 2012, it is the world's 13th-most-populous country, and the eighth-most-populous Asian country. The name Vietnam translates as "South Viet", and was officially adopted in 1945. The country is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east.
The Vietnamese became independent from Imperial China in 938 AD, following the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Successive Vietnamese royal dynasties flourished as the nation expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century. The First Indochina War eventually led to the expulsion of the French in 1954, leaving Vietnam divided politically into two states, North and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified, with heavy foreign intervention, during the Vietnam War, which ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975.
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Vosges Mountains
The Vosges (French pronunciation: [voːʒ]) (German: Vogesen [foˈɡeːzn̩]) are a range of low mountains in eastern France, near its border with western Germany. They extend along the west side of the Rhine valley in a north-northeast direction, mainly from Belfort to Saverne. The Grand Ballon is the highest peak at 1424 m.
The elongated massif is divided south to north into three sections:
In addition, the term "Central Vosges" is used to designate the various lines of summits, especially those above 1000 metres in elevation. The French department of Vosges is named after the range.
From a geological point of view, a graben in the beginning of the Tertiary area caused the formation of Alsace and the uplift of the plates of the Vosges now in eastern France and the Black Forest now in Germany. Strictly speaking scientifically, the Vosges Mountains are not mountains as such, but rather the western edge of the unfinished Alsatian graben, stretching continuously as part of the larger Tertiary formations. Erosive glacial action was the primary means by which the representative highland massif feature developed.
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Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or signifying New York-based financial interests. It is the home of the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including NASDAQ, the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange. Anchored by Wall Street, New York City is one of the world's principal financial centers.
There are varying accounts about how the Dutch-named "de Waal Straat" got its name. A generally accepted version is that the name of the street name was derived from an earthen wall on the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement, perhaps to protect against English colonial encroachment or incursions by native Americans. A conflicting explanation is that Wall Street was named after Walloons -- possibly a Dutch abbreviation for Walloon being Waal. Among the first settlers that embarked on the ship "Nieu Nederlandt" in 1624 were 30 Walloon families.
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West Wing
The West Wing is the building housing the official offices of the President of the United States of America. It is the part of the White House Complex in which the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room, the Situation Room, and the Roosevelt Room are located. Besides serving as the day-to-day office of the President of the United States, the three floors of the West Wing include offices for senior members of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and their support staff. The West Wing is located directly west of the Executive Residence and is largely concealed from view by trees because its height is lower than that of the main structure.
The West Wing ground floor is also the site of a cafeteria, staffed by Naval culinary specialists and called the White House mess. It is located underneath the Oval Office, and was established by President Truman on June 11, 1951. As of 2009, the mess is open daily from 7 am to 8 pm.
In 1999, The West Wing television series brought greater public attention to the workings of the Presidential staff, as well as to the location of those working in the West Wing. The show followed the working lives of a fictional Democratic American President, Josiah Bartlet, and his senior staff. When asked whether the show accurately captured the working environment in 2003, Press Secretary Scott McClellan commented that the show portrayed more foot traffic and larger rooms than in the real wing.
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White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical style. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades that were meant to conceal stables and storage.
In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed house in October 1817. Construction continued with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829. Because of crowding within the executive mansion itself, President Theodore Roosevelt had all work offices relocated to the newly constructed West Wing in 1901. Eight years later, President William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing and created the first Oval Office which was eventually moved as the section was expanded. The third-floor attic was converted to living quarters in 1927 by augmenting the existing hip roof with long shed dormers. A newly constructed East Wing was used as a reception area for social events; Jefferson's colonnades connected the new wings. East Wing alterations were completed in 1946, creating additional office space. By 1948, the house's load-bearing exterior walls and internal wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman, the interior rooms were completely dismantled and a new internal load-bearing steel frame constructed inside the walls. Once this work was completed, the interior rooms were rebuilt.
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Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945 , was the wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta, in the Crimea.
The meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, Yalta became a subject of intense controversy. To some extent, it has remained controversial.
Yalta was the second of three wartime conferences among the Big Three (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin). It had been preceded by the Tehran Conference in 1943, and it was followed by the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, which was attended by Harry S Truman, who replaced the late Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, who was replaced mid-point by the newly elected British Prime Minister Clement Attlee.
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Aaron Burr
Aaron Burr, Jr. (February 6, 1756 – September 14, 1836) was the third Vice President of the United States under President Thomas Jefferson.
After serving as a Continental Army officer in the Revolutionary War, Burr became a successful lawyer and politician. He was elected twice to the New York State Assembly (1784–1785, 1798–1799), was appointed New York State Attorney General (1789–1791), was chosen as a United States Senator (1791–1797) from the state of New York, and reached the apex of his career as Vice President of the United States (1801–1805).
The highlight of Burr's tenure as President of the Senate (one of his few official duties as Vice President) was the Senate's first impeachment trial, of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase. In 1804, the last full year of his single term as Vice President, Burr killed his political rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Burr was never tried for the illegal duel and all charges against him were eventually dropped. The death of Hamilton, however, ended Burr's political career. President Jefferson dropped him from the ticket for the 1804 presidential election, and he never held office again.
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Abba Eban
Abba Eban (Hebrew: אבא אבן, born Abba Solomon Meir; later adopted Aubrey Solomon Eban; 2 February 1915 – 17 November 2002) was an Israeli diplomat and politician.
In his career he was Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister, Education Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, and ambassador to the United States and to the United Nations. He was also Vice President of the United Nations General Assembly and President of the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Eban moved to the United Kingdom at an early age. As a child, he recalled being sent to his grandfather's house every weekend to study the Hebrew language and Biblical literature. He lived for a period of time in Belfast.
He was educated at St Olave's Grammar School, then in Southwark, before studying Classics and Oriental languages at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he achieved a triple first. During his time at University and afterwards, Eban was highly involved in the Federation of Zionist Youth and was editor of its ideological journal, The Young Zionist.
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Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincolni/ˈeɪbrəhæm ˈlɪŋkən/ (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its greatest constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union while ending slavery, and promoting economic and financial modernization. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer, a Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator in the 1830s, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives in the 1840s. After a series of debates in 1858 that gave national visibility to his opposition to the expansion of slavery, Lincoln lost a Senate race to his arch-rival Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln, a moderate from a swing state, secured the Republican Party nomination. With almost no support in the South he swept the North and was elected president in 1860. His election was the signal for seven southern slave states to declare their secession from the Union and form the Confederate States of America. The departure of the Southerners gave Lincoln's party firm control of Congress, but no formula for compromise or reconciliation was found. And the war came.
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Abram Hewitt
Abram Stevens Hewitt (July 31, 1822 – January 18, 1903) was a teacher, lawyer, an iron manufacturer, chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1876 to 1877, U.S. Congressman, and a mayor of New York. He was the son-in-law of Peter Cooper (1791–1883), an industrialist, inventor and philanthropist. He is best known for his work with the Cooper Union, which he aided Peter Cooper in founding in 1859, and for planning the financing and construction of the New York City subway system, for which he is considered the "Father of the New York City Subway System".
Hewitt was born in Haverstraw, New York. His mother, Ann Gurnee, was of French Huguenot descent, while his father, John Hewitt, was from Staffordshire in England and had emigrated to the U.S. in 1790 to work on a steam engine to power the water plant in Philadelphia.
Hewitt worked his way through and graduated from Columbia College in 1842. He taught mathematics at the school, and became a lawyer several years later.
From 1843 to 1844, Hewitt traveled to Europe with his student, Edward Cooper, the son of industrialist entrepreneur Peter Cooper, and another future New York City mayor. During their return voyage, the pair were shipwrecked together. After this, Hewitt became "virtually a member of the Cooper family", and in 1855 married Edward's sister, Sarah Amelia.
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Adam Malik
Adam Malik Batubara (22 July 1917 – 5 September 1984) was Indonesia's third vice president, a senior diplomat, and one of the pioneers of Indonesian journalism.
Malik was born in Pematang Siantar, North Sumatra, Dutch East Indies to Abdul Malik Batubara and Salamah Lubis. He is from a Batak Muslim family of Batubara clan. After completing Junior High School, he received his first job as a shopkeeper, filling in time by reading books and increasing his knowledge.
Malik quickly developed an interest in politics and aged just 17, became the Chairman of the Pematang Siantar branch of Partindo (Indonesia Party). In this position, Malik campaigned for the Dutch Colonial Government to grant independence to Indonesia. As a result of this, Malik was put in prison for disobeying the Colonial Government's ban on political assemblies. Once he was freed, Malik left Pematang Siantar for Jakarta.
After leaving hometown, Malik pursued a job as a journalist. He wrote for Partindo's Party Magazine and Pelita Andalas Newspaper. In 1937, along with like-minded colleagues, Malik formed ANTARA. ANTARA would develop to become Indonesia's national news agency.
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Addie L. Wyatt
Addie L. Wyatt (née Cameron) (March 8, 1924 – March 28, 2012) was a leader in the United States Labor movement, and a civil rights activist. Wyatt is known for being the first African-American woman elected international vice president of a major labor union, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union. Wyatt began her career in the union in the early 1950s and advanced in leadership. In 1975, with the politician Barbara Jordan, she was the first African-American woman named by Time magazine as Person of the Year.
Wyatt was born to Ambrose and Maggie (Nolan) Cameron in Brookhaven, Mississippi on March 8, 1924. She is the second child and the oldest daughter of eight children. She moved with her family to Chicago in 1930 when she was six years old. She married Claude S. Wyatt Jr. on May 12, 1940. With Claude she had two sons, Renaldo Wyatt and Claude S. Wyatt III. She raised several of her younger siblings after her mother died and her father was unable to care for them because of illness.
After her marriage Wyatt took a job in a Chicago meat packing company in 1941 after failing to be hired as a typist because of her color. She worked as a meat packer from 1941 to 1954, and during this time became increasingly involved with the United Packinghouse and Food and Alliance Workers Union. In 1953, Wyatt was "elected vice president of her branch, Local 56, becoming the first black woman to hold senior office in an American labor union". Wyatt was the director of the Women's Affairs and Human Rights departments of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters. In the early 1960s, Eleanor Roosevelt recognized her leadership abilities and appointed her to a position on the Labor Legislation Committee of the United States Commission on the Status of Women.
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Adlai E. Stevenson I
Adlai Ewing Stevenson I (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914) was a Congressman from Illinois. He was appointed Assistant Postmaster General of the United States during Grover Cleveland's first administration (1885–1889), when he fired many Republican postal workers and replaced them with Southern Democrats. This earned him the enmity of the Republican-controlled Congress, but made him a favorite as Grover Cleveland's running mate in 1892, and he duly became 23rd Vice President of the United States.
In office, he supported the free-silver lobby against the gold-standard men like Cleveland, but was praised for ruling in a dignified, non-partisan manner.
In 1900, he ran for Vice President with William Jennings Bryan. Although unsuccessful, he was the first ex-Vice President ever to win re-nomination for that post with a different Presidential candidate.
Stevenson's parents, John Turner Stevenson and Eliza Ewing Stevenson, were Wesleyans of Scots-Irish descent. John Turner Stevenson's grandfather, William was born in Roxburgh, Scotland then migrated to and from Ulster around 1748, settling first in Pennsylvania and then in North Carolina in the County of Iredell. The family moved to Kentucky in 1813. Stevenson was born on the family farm in Christian County, Kentucky. He attended the common school in Blue Water, Kentucky. In 1852, when he was 16, frost killed the family's tobacco crop. His father set free their few slaves and the family moved to Bloomington, Illinois, where his father then operated a sawmill. Stevenson attended Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington and ultimately graduated from Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky; at the latter he was a part of Phi Delta Theta. His father's death prompted Adlai to return from Kentucky to Illinois to run the sawmill.
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Adlai Stevenson I
Adlai Ewing Stevenson I (October 23, 1835 – June 14, 1914) was a Congressman from Illinois. He was appointed Assistant Postmaster General of the United States during Grover Cleveland's first administration (1885–1889), when he fired many Republican postal workers and replaced them with Southern Democrats. This earned him the enmity of the Republican-controlled Congress, but made him a favorite as Grover Cleveland's running mate in 1892, and he duly became 23rd Vice President of the United States.
In office, he supported the free-silver lobby against the gold-standard men like Cleveland, but was praised for ruling in a dignified, non-partisan manner.
In 1900, he ran for Vice President with William Jennings Bryan. Although unsuccessful, he was the first ex-Vice President ever to win re-nomination for that post with a different Presidential candidate.
Stevenson's parents, John Turner Stevenson and Eliza Ewing Stevenson, were Wesleyans of Scots-Irish descent. John Turner Stevenson's grandfather, William was born in Roxburgh, Scotland then migrated to and from Ulster around 1748, settling first in Pennsylvania and then in North Carolina in the County of Iredell. The family moved to Kentucky in 1813. Stevenson was born on the family farm in Christian County, Kentucky. He attended the common school in Blue Water, Kentucky. In 1852, when he was 16, frost killed the family's tobacco crop. His father set free their few slaves and the family moved to Bloomington, Illinois, where his father then operated a sawmill. Stevenson attended Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington and ultimately graduated from Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky; at the latter he was a part of Phi Delta Theta. His father's death prompted Adlai to return from Kentucky to Illinois to run the sawmill.
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Adlai Stevenson II
Adlai Ewing Stevenson II (/ˈædleɪ/; February 5, 1900 – July 14, 1965) was an American politician, noted for his intellectual demeanor, eloquent oratory, and promotion of liberal causes in the Democratic Party. He served as the 31st Governor of Illinois, and received the Democratic Party's nomination for president in 1952 and 1956; both times he was defeated by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. He sought the Democratic presidential nomination for a third time in the election of 1960, but was defeated by Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. After his election, President Kennedy appointed Stevenson as the Ambassador to the United Nations; he served from 1961 to 1965. He died on July 14, 1965 in London, England after suffering a heart attack.
Although Stevenson was born in Los Angeles, he was a member of a famous Illinois political family. His grandfather Adlai E. Stevenson I was Vice President of the United States under President Grover Cleveland from 1893–1897. His father, Lewis G. Stevenson, never held an elected office, but was appointed Secretary of State of Illinois (1914–1917) and was considered a strong contender for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination in 1928. A maternal great-grandfather, Jesse W. Fell, had been a close friend and campaign manager for Abraham Lincoln; Stevenson often referred to Fell as his "favorite" ancestor. His mother was Helen Davis Stevenson. Stevenson's eldest son, Adlai E. Stevenson III, became a U.S. Senator from Illinois (1970–1981). Actor McLean Stevenson was a second cousin once removed.
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Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.
A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.
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Adolfo Suárez
Adolfo Suárez y González, 1st Duke of Suárez, Grandee of Spain, KOGF (Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðolfo ˈswaɾeθ]; born 25 September 1932) is a Spanish lawyer and politician. Suárez was Spain's first democratically elected prime minister after the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and the key figure in the country's transition to democracy.
He is a son of Hipólito Suárez Guerra and Herminia González Prados (Ávila, 1910 – 18 July 2006), and the brother of Doña María del Carmen Suárez González, who is married to Aurelio Delgado Martín
Suárez studied Law at Salamanca University, and held several government posts during the late Francoist regime.
He became the Minister Secretary General of the National Movement (Movimiento Nacional), a body that served as sole political party, for 18 years, a period that extended beyond the death of Franco in November 1975. At a rally just a month before Franco's death, Suárez was queried by the aging Caudillo on the political future of Spain and told him frankly that the Movement would not likely long survive Franco and that democratization was inevitable. Suárez was appointed as the 138th Prime Minister of Spain by the Spanish King Juan Carlos on 4 July 1976, a move opposed by leftists and some centrists given his Francoist history. As a nationalist, he was chosen by the monarch to lead the country towards a democratic, parliamentary monarchy without annoying the powerful conservative factions (especially the military) in the country. Surprising many observers and political opponents, Suárez introduced Political Reform in 1976 as a first, decisive step in the Transition (La Transición) to democracy.
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Agostinho Neto
António Agostinho Neto (September 17, 1922 – September 10, 1979) served as the first President of Angola (1975–1979), leading the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in the war for independence and the civil war. His birthday is celebrated as National Heroes Day, a public holiday in Angola.
Born at Ícolo e Bengo, in Bengo Province, Angola, in 1922, Neto attended high school in the capital city, Luanda; his father, also called Agostinho Neto, was a Methodist pastor. The younger Neto left Angola for Portugal, and studied medicine at the universities of Coimbra and Lisbon. He combined his academic life with covert political activity of a revolutionary sort; and PIDE, the security police force of the Estado Novo regime headed by Portuguese Prime Minister Salazar, arrested him in 1951 for his separatist activism. Seven years later he was released from prison, and he finished his studies, marrying a white 23-years-old Portuguese woman who was born in Trás-os-Montes, Maria Eugénia da Silva, the same day he graduated. He returned to Angola in 1959.
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Ahmad Shah Massoud
Ahmad Shah Massoud (احمد شاه مسعود Aḥmad Šāh Mas'ūd; September 2, 1953 – September 9, 2001) was a political and military leader in Afghanistan. He was a central figure, known as the "Lion of Panjshir", in the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989, fought against the alliance of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the early 1990s, and led resistance against the Taliban regime between 1996 and 2001. Massoud was assassinated on September 9, 2001, two days before the attacks of September 11.
Massoud was an Afghan-Tajik Sunni Muslim born in the Panjshir in northern Afghanistan. He studied engineering at Kabul University in the 1970s, where he became involved with Muslim anti-communist movements around Burhanuddin Rabbani. He led an uprising against the Soviet-backed communist government in his native Panjshir in 1979. His role in the following period of armed resistance against the Soviet occupation forces earned him the nickname of "Lion of Panjshir" (شیر پنجشیر). Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan the Wall Street Journal named Massoud "the Afghan who won the Cold War". In 1992, he was appointed minister of defense in the government of the newly established Islamic State of Afghanistan by the peace and power-sharing agreement Peshawar Accords. He led the Islamic State's defense against attacks by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's alliance of militias which were backed by Pakistan. Following the rise of the Taliban in 1996, Massoud, who rejected the Taliban's and Al-Qaeda's extremist interpretation of Islam, returned to the role of an armed opposition leader, serving as the military and political leader of the multiethnic United Islamic Front (also known in the West as Northern Alliance). In 1997, he helped end the civil war in neighboring Tajikistan urging parties to accept a United Nations peace plan.
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Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (Arabic أحمد حسن البكر 'Aḥmad Ḥasan al-Bakr; 1 July 1914 – 4 October 1982) was the fourth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 17 July 1968 until 16 July 1979. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region (the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi cell), which espoused ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism.
Al-Bakr first rose to prominence following the 14 July Revolution which overthrew the monarchy. In the newly-established regime, al-Bakr was involved in improving Iraqi–Soviet relations. In 1959 al-Bakr was forced to resign from the Iraqi military; the then Iraqi regime accused him of being involved in anti-government activities. Following his forced retirement, he became the chairman of the Ba'ath Party's Iraqi cell's Military Bureau. Through this office he was able to recruit members to the ba'athist cause through patronage and cronyism. Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim was overthrown in the Ramadan (8 February) Revolution; al-Bakr was appointed Prime Minister, and later, Vice President of Iraq in a ba'ath-nasserist coalition government. The government lasted for little more than a year, and was ousted in November 1963.
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Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) served as the 45th Vice President of the United States (1993–2001), under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President and won the popular vote in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.
Gore is currently an author and environmental activist. He has founded a number of non-profit organizations, including the Alliance for Climate Protection, and has received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in climate change activism.
Gore was previously an elected official for 24 years, representing Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–85), and later in the U.S. Senate (1985–93), and finally becoming Vice President in 1993. In the 2000 presidential election, Gore won the popular vote by a margin of more than 500,000 votes. However, he ultimately lost the Electoral College to Republican George W. Bush when the U.S. Supreme Court settled the legal controversy over the Florida vote recount by ruling 5-4 in favor of Bush. It was the only time in history that the Supreme Court has determined the outcome of a presidential election.
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Alain Poher
Alain Émile Louis Marie Poher (French: [alɛ̃ pɔɛʁ]; 17 April 1909 – 9 December 1996) was a French centrist politician, affiliated first with the Popular Republican Movement and later with the Democratic Centre. He served as a Senator for Val-de-Marne from 1946 to 1995. He was President of the Senate from 3 October 1968 to 1 October 1992 and, in that capacity, served twice as the country's interim president. Candidate in the 1969 presidential election, he was defeated by Georges Pompidou in the second round.
Poher was born in Ablon-sur-Seine, Val-de-Marne.
He graduated from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris and later studied law. On 19 August 1938 he married Henriette Tugler, with whom he had one daughter, Marie-Agnès.
His political career began in 1938, when he became a junior executive officer in the Ministry of Finance.
Later he served on several positions before entering Senate:
A longtime ally and political protege of Schumann, Poher was elected to the Senate in 1952, where he remained for over 40 years (until 1995). As Senator he continued to serve in some governments and his home town mayor. Like Schuman, he was known for strongly pro-European integration positions, having served as President of the European Parliament (1968–1969).
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Alben W. Barkley
Alben William Barkley (November 24, 1877 – April 30, 1956) served as the 35th Vice President of the United States (1949–1953), under President Harry S. Truman. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a U.S. Representative (1913–1927) and a U.S. Senator (1927–1949) from Kentucky. He served as Senate Majority Leader from 1937 to 1947.
After an unsuccessful candidacy in the 1952 presidential election, Barkley was elected again to the U.S. Senate after defeating John Sherman Cooper in 1954. He died shortly afterwards in 1956 at age 78.
Barkley was born Willie Alben Barkley in a log cabin near Lowes, Graves County, Kentucky. His parents, John Wilson Barkley and Electra Eliza (Smith) Barkley, were deeply religious tenant farmers. He graduated from Marvin College in 1897, where he excelled in speech and debate. He worked his way through college with a full-time janitorial job. Barkley later attended Emory College, in Oxford, Georgia. He was a member of Delta Tau Delta social fraternity, graduated in 1900, and then attended the University of Virginia School of Law. It was during this time that he legally changed his name from "Willie Alben" to "Alben William."
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Alcide De Gasperi
Alcide De Gasperi (Italian pronunciation: [alˈtʃiːde de ˈɡasperi]; April 3, 1881 – August 19, 1954) was an Italian statesman and politician and founder of the Christian Democratic Party. From 1945 to 1953 he was the prime minister of eight successive coalition governments. His eight-year rule remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics. A conservative Catholic, he was one of the Founding fathers of the European Union, along with the Frenchman Robert Schuman and the German Konrad Adenauer.
De Gasperi was born in Pieve Tesino in Tyrol, which at that time belonged to Austria-Hungary, now part of the Trentino in Italy. His father was a local police officer of limited financial means. From 1896 De Gasperi was active in the Social Christian movement. In 1900 he joined the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy in Vienna, where he played an important role in the inception of the Christian student movement. He was very much inspired by the Rerum Novarum encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. In 1904 he took an active part in the student demonstrations in favour of an Italian-language university. Imprisoned with other protesters during the inauguration of the Italian juridical faculty in Innsbruck, he was released after twenty days. In 1905, De Gasperi obtained a degree in philology.
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Aldo Moro
Aldo Moro (Italian pronunciation: [ˈaldo ˈmɔːro]; September 23, 1916 – May 9, 1978) was an Italian politician and the 39th Prime Minister of Italy, from 1963 to 1968, and then from 1974 to 1976. He was one of Italy's longest-serving post-war Prime Ministers, holding power for a combined total of more than six years.
A leader of Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democracy, DC), Moro was considered an intellectual and a patient mediator, especially in the internal life of his party. He was kidnapped on March 16, 1978, by the left-wing Red Brigades (BR), and killed after 55 days of captivity.
Moro was born in Maglie, in the province of Lecce (Puglia), into a family from Ugento. At 4, he moved with his family to Milan, but they soon moved back to Puglia, where he gained a classical high school degree at Archita lyceum in Taranto. Till 1939 he studied Law at the University of Bari, an institution where he was later to hold the post of ordinary professor of philosophy of Law and Colonial Policy (1941) and of Criminal Law (1942).
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Alexander Buckner
Alexander Buckner (1785 – June 6, 1833) was a United States Senator from Missouri. Born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, he studied law and moved to Charleston, Indiana in 1812. He moved to Missouri in 1818 and settled near Jackson; he practiced law and also engaged in agricultural pursuits. He was appointed by the Territorial Governor as circuit attorney for the Cape Girardeau district, and was president of the State constitutional convention in 1820. He was a member of the Missouri Senate from 1822 to 1826 and was elected to the U.S. Senate, serving from March 4, 1831, until his death due to cholera in Cape Girardeau County, 1833. Interment was on his farm in Cape Girardeau County; reinterment was in City Cemetery, Cape Girardeau, in 1897.
Buckner was instrumental in its founding of the Grand Lodge of Indiana and served as the first Grand Master of Masons in 1818.
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Alexander Dubček
Alexander Dubček (Slovak pronunciation: [ˈalɛksandɛr ˈduptʃɛk]; 27 November 1921 – 7 November 1992) was a Slovak politician and briefly leader of Czechoslovakia (1968–1969), famous for his attempt to reform the communist regime during the Prague Spring. Later, after the overthrow of the government in 1989, he was Chairman of the federal Czecho-Slovak parliament.
Dubček was born in Uhrovec, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), and raised in the Kyrgyz SSR of the Soviet Union (now Kyrgyzstan) as a member of the Esperantist industrial cooperative Interhelpo. His father, Štefan, moved from Chicago to Czechoslovakia after World War I, when he refused to serve in the military for his pacifism. Alexander Dubček was conceived in Chicago, but born after the family relocated to Czechoslovakia. When Alexander Dubček was three, the family moved to the Soviet Union, in part to help build socialism and in part because jobs were scarce in Czechoslovakia. In 1938 the family returned to Czechoslovakia.
During the Second World War, Alexander Dubček joined the underground resistance against the wartime pro-German Slovak state headed by Jozef Tiso. In August 1944, Dubček fought in the Slovak National Uprising and was wounded. His brother, Július, was killed.
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Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official. Hiss was accused of being a Soviet spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in connection with this charge in 1950.
On August 3, 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist Party member, testified under subpoena before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that Hiss had secretly been a Communist while in federal service. Chambers had previously testified under oath that Hiss had never been a Communist or a spy, and Chambers would admit, under oath, to other instances where he had committed perjury under oath. Called before HUAC, Hiss categorically denied the charge. When Chambers repeated his claim on nationwide radio, Hiss filed a defamation lawsuit against him.
During the pretrial discovery process, Chambers produced new evidence indicating that he and Hiss had been involved in espionage, which both men had previously denied under oath to HUAC. A federal grand jury indicted Hiss on two counts of perjury; Chambers admitted to the same offense but, as a cooperating government witness, was never charged. Although Hiss's indictment stemmed from the alleged espionage, he could not be tried for that crime because the statute of limitations had expired. After a mistrial due to a hung jury, Hiss was tried a second time. In January 1950, he was found guilty on both counts of perjury and received two concurrent five-year sentences, of which he eventually served three and a half years. Hiss maintained his innocence until his death.
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Alison Cheek
Alison Cheek is a religious leader best known for being named by Time magazine as a Woman of the Year in 1975 representing the Women's Movement. Cheek was an Episcopal priest and became one of the first women to be an ordained priest in an Episcopal church. In August 1974 She was installed as assistant priest at the Church of St. Stephen and the Incarnation in Washington. In November 1974 Cheek became the first woman to celebrate communion in an Episcopal church in defiance of the diocesan bishop.
"A Dozen Who Made a Difference – Alison Cheek: Defiant Deacon". Time. 1976-01-05. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947599-5,00.html. Retrieved 2008-02-14.
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Allen G. Thurman
Allen Granberry Thurman (November 13, 1813 – December 12, 1895) was a Democratic Representative, Ohio Supreme Court justice, and Senator from Ohio, as well as the nominee of the Democratic Party for Vice President of the United States in 1888.
He was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, to Pleasant Thurman and Mary Granberry Allen Thurman. Both his parents were teachers; his father also a Methodist minister. In 1815, his parents emancipated their slaves and moved to Chillicothe, Ohio. He attended the academy run by his mother, and then studied law as an apprentice to his uncle, William Allen (who later became a Senator from Ohio). At the age of eighteen, Thurman worked on a land survey, and at twenty-one became private secretary to the Governor of Ohio, Robert Lucas. In 1835 he was admitted to the Ohio bar and became his uncle's law partner. In 1837 his uncle entered the Senate. On November 14, 1844, Thurman married Mary Dun Thomplins (or Tompkins), and they were the parents of three children.
The same year he was elected to the House of Representatives as its youngest member. He generally supported the majority of the Democrats on all issues except internal improvements, on which he tended to vote with the Whigs. He supported the Polk Administration's conduct of the Mexican-American War, spoke in favor of the 54°40' northern limit to the Oregon territory, and voted for the Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery from the territory gained from Mexico. Ironically, his support for the latter was due to anti-African-American prejudice, as he wanted to reserve this territory for white settlement. After a single two-year term, he left the House voluntarily to resume private law practice.
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Alton B. Parker
Alton Brooks Parker (May 14, 1852 – May 10, 1926) was an American lawyer, judge and the Democratic nominee for U.S. president in the 1904 elections.
Parker was born in Cortland, New York. He graduated LL.B. from Albany Law School and practiced law in Kingston, New York. He was a justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1885 to 1897, and Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1898 to 1904. In addition to his judicial duties, he served as president of the Ulster County Savings Institution from 1896 to 1904. Parker was a protege of conservative Democratic politician David B. Hill. He married Mary L. Schoonmaker on October 16, 1872.
Parker resigned from the bench after receiving the 1904 Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. presidency. He chose former U.S. Senator from West Virginia, Henry G. Davis to be his running mate for the office of Vice President of the United States. Parker was supported by conservative Bourbon Democrats, like former President Grover Cleveland, who had been alienated from the party in 1896 and 1900 due to the radicalism of the party's nominee William Jennings Bryan on economic issues. It was hoped that Parker could be acceptable to both factions since he was "sound" on economic issues, but had supported Bryan in 1896 as a good party man. These hopes were frustrated, however, as Parker had little appeal to Bryanites and carried only the Solid South.
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Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (Russian: Андре́й Андре́евич Громы́ко; Belarusian Андрэ́й Андрэ́евіч Грамы́ка; 18 July [O.S. 5 July] 1909 – 2 July 1989) was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1957–1985) and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1985–1987). Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1987. In the West he was given the nickname Mr. Nyet ("Mr. No").
Gromyko's political career started in 1939 with his employment at the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (later renamed Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1946). In 1943 Gromyko became the Soviet ambassador to the United States, leaving in 1946 to become the Soviet Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Upon his return to the Soviet Union he became a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and later the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He went on to become the Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1952.
Gromyko played a direct role in the Cuban Missile Crisis in his role as the Soviet Foreign Minister. Gromyko helped negotiate arms limitations treaties such as the ABM Treaty, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and SALT I and II among others. Under Leonid Brezhnev's leadership Gromyko helped build the policy of détente between the US and the USSR. He supported Mikhail Gorbachev's candidacy for General Secretary in 1985. Gromyko lost his office as foreign minister when Gorbachev became General Secretary, and was instead appointed to the largely ceremonial office of head of state. Gromyko retired from political life in 1988 and died the following year on 2 July 1989 in Moscow.
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Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh President of the United States (1829–1837). Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814), and the British at the Battle of New Orleans (1815). A polarizing figure who dominated the Second Party System in the 1820s and 1830s, as president he destroyed the national bank and relocated most Indian tribes from the Southeast to west of the Mississippi River. His enthusiastic followers created the modern Democratic Party. The 1830–1850 period later became known as the era of Jacksonian democracy.
Jackson was nicknamed "Old Hickory" because of his toughness and aggressive personality; he fought in duels, some fatal to his opponents. He was a rich slaveholder, who appealed to the common men of the United States, and fought politically against what he denounced as a closed, undemocratic aristocracy. He expanded the spoils system during his presidency to strengthen his political base.
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Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th President of the United States (1865–1869). As Vice President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American Civil War. Johnson's reconstruction policies failed to promote the rights of the Freedmen, and he came under vigorous political attack from Republicans, ending in his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives; he was acquitted by the U.S. Senate.
Johnson, born in poverty and of Scots-Irish descent, became a master tailor and was self-educated, married and had five children. He served as an alderman and as Mayor of Greeneville, Tennessee and then sat in both houses of the Tennessee legislature. He went on to spend five consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and two terms as Governor of Tennessee, all as a Democrat. His signature legislative endeavor in the state and federal arenas was passage of the Homestead Act.
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Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957. He was also Foreign Secretary for three periods between 1935 and 1955, including during the Second World War. He is best known for his outspoken opposition to appeasement in the 1930s, his diplomatic leadership in the 1940s and 1950s, and the failure of his Middle East policy in 1956 that ended his premiership.
Eden's worldwide reputation as an opponent of appeasement, a "Man of Peace", and a skilled diplomat was overshadowed in the second year of his premiership when the United States refused to support the Anglo-French military response to the Suez Crisis, which critics across party lines regarded as an historic setback for British foreign policy, signalling the end of British predominance in the Middle East. Most historians argue that he made a series of blunders, especially not realizing the depth of opposition to military action by the US. Most historians say that Eden completely dominated the British decision-making process in the Suez crisis. However, Jonathan Pearson argues in Sir Anthony Eden and the Suez Crisis: Reluctant Gamble (2002) that Eden was more reluctant and less bellicose than most historians say.
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António de Spínola
António Sebastião Ribeiro de Spínola, GCTE, ComA (generally referred to as António de Spínola, though this particular surname never had a particle) (Santo André, Estremoz, April 11, 1910 – Lisbon, August 13, 1996) was a Portuguese soldier, conservative politician and author, who was important in the transition to democracy following the Portuguese Carnation Revolution.
He was a son of António Sebastião Spínola and first wife Maria Gabriela Alves Ribeiro, both natives of Madeira.
Spínola entered the Colégio Militar in 1920, beginning what would be a very successful military career. By 1928, Spínola was at Portugal's Military Academy, where he stood out as a young and promising cavalry officer.
In Anjos, Lisbon, by August 1932, he married Maria Helena Martin Monteiro de Barros (14 January 1913 - 23 May 2002), daughter of João de Azevedo Monteiro de Barros and his German wife Gertrud Elisabete Martin.
In 1939, he became adjunct-de-camp of the Guarda Nacional Republicana (English: Republican National Guard). In 1941 he travelled to the German-Russian Front, as an observer, to monitor Wehrmacht movements during the encirclement of Leningrad (the Portuguese volunteers had been incorporated into the Blue Division).
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Anwar Sadat
Anwar El Sadat (Arabic: محمد أنور السادات Anwar as-Sādāt, Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [mæˈħæmmæd ˈʔɑnwɑɾˤ essæˈdæːt]; 25 December 1918 – 6 October 1981) was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981. In his eleven years as president he changed Egypt's direction, departing from some of the economic and political principles of Nasserism by re-instituting the multi-party system, and launching the Infitah economic policy.
He was a senior member of the Free Officers group that overthrew the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of President Gamal Abdul Nasser, whom he succeeded as President in 1970. As president he led Egypt in the October War of 1973 to re-acquire Egyptian territory lost to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, making him a hero in Egypt and, for a time, the wider Arab World. Afterwards he engaged in negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. This won him the Nobel Peace Prize but also made him unpopular among some Arabs, resulting in a temporary suspension of Egypt's membership in the Arab League, and eventually his assassination.
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Aníbal Cavaco Silva
Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, GCC (Portuguese pronunciation: [ɐˈniβɐɫ kɐˈvaku ˈsiɫvɐ]; born 15 July 1939), is the President of Portugal. He won the Portuguese presidential election on 22 January 2006 and was re-elected on 23 January 2011, for a second five-year term. Cavaco Silva was sworn in on 9 March 2006.
He was previously Prime Minister of Portugal from 6 November 1985 to 28 October 1995. His tenure of ten years was the longest of any Prime Minister since Salazar, and he was the first Portuguese Prime Minister to have won an absolute parliamentary majority under the current constitutional system (which was established after the country's redemocratization following the Carnation Revolution).
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Arthur H. Vandenberg
Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg (March 22, 1884 – April 18, 1951) was a Republican Senator from the U.S. state of Michigan who participated in the creation of the United Nations.
Arthur Vandenberg was born to Aaron and Alpha Hendrick Vandenberg and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Vandenberg attended public schools there and studied law at the University of Michigan (1900–1901), where he was a member of Delta Upsilon.
After a brief stint working in New York at Collier's magazine, he returned home in 1906 to marry his childhood sweetheart, Elizabeth Watson. They had three children. She died in 1917, and in 1918 Vandenberg married Hazel Whittaker. They had no children.
From 1906 to 1928, he worked as a newspaper reporter, editor, and publisher at the Grand Rapids Herald, which was owned by William Alden Smith, who served as a Republican in the U.S. Senate from 1907 to 1919."Vandenberg [was] . . . best known for [authoring] his Alexander Hamilton: The Greatest American.
Vandenberg was a Mason, Shriner, Elk and Woodman.
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Arthur Sewall
Arthur Sewall (November 25, 1835 – September 5, 1900) was a U.S. Democratic politician from Maine most notable as William Jennings Bryan's first running mate in 1896. As the Populist Party nominee, Bryan had another running mate as well, Thomas E. Watson. Sewall never held elective office, although he was a member of the Democratic National Committee from 1888 to 1896.
Arthur Sewall's main claim to fame had been as an exceptionally successful, wealthy shipbuilder and New England industrialist. He was a director of the Maine Central railroad and President of the Bath National Bank for years. His selection is believed to have been an effort to win votes among conservative and New England members of the party who were disturbed by the populist aspects of William Jennings Bryan. Arthur Sewall is also one of the few politicians to be an adherent of Swedenborgianism, a religion based on the writings of Swedish theologian Emanuel Swedenborg.
His main vice-presidential opponent, Garret A. Hobart (Rep), was also an eastern banker and industrialist who had served in his party's national committee. The two also wore large mustaches.
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August Belmont
August Belmont, Sr. (December 8, 1813 – November 24, 1890) was an American politician.
August Belmont was born in Alzey, Hesse, on December 8, 1813--some sources say 1816--to Simon and Frederika Elsass Schönberg, a Jewish family. After his mother's death, when he was seven, he lived with his uncle and grandmother in Frankfurt. He attended the Jewish Junior and Senior High School until he began his first job as an apprentice to the Rothschilds. He would sweep floors, polish furniture, and run errands while studying English, arithmetic, and writing. He was then given a confidential clerkship in 1832 and promoted to private secretary before travelling to Naples, Paris, and Rome. In 1837, Belmont set sail for Havana charged with the Rothschild's Cuban interests. On his way to Havana, however, Belmont stopped in New York. He arrived there during the Panic of 1837 and then remained to supervise jeopardised Rothschild interests there instead of continuing on to Havana. After he emigrated to the United States, he changed his surname, Schönberg (German for "beautiful mountain"), to Belmont (French for "beautiful mountain").
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Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet (Spanish pronunciation: [auˈɣusto pinoˈtʃet]), (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973. He was the commander-in-chief of the Chilean army from 1973 to 1998, president of the Government Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981 and President of the Republic from 1974 until transferring power to a democratically elected president in 1990.
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Augustus Schell
Augustus Schell (August 1, 1812 – March 27, 1884) was a New York politician and lawyer. He was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1872 to 1876.
Schell was born on August 1, 1812 in Rhinebeck, New York and was educated at Rhinebeck Academy and Wesleyan Seminary. He was graduated in 1830 from Union College with Phi Beta Kappa honors and membership in the Kappa Alpha Society, and then studied at Litchfield Law School. He was admitted to the bar and started a practice in New York City. He started out as an early expert in the then new field of corporate law and through his profession became active in railroad management. A friend of Cornelius Vanderbilt, he gradually expanded his railroad connections through investments as well as legal counsel.
An active Democrat, he joined Tammany Hall where, after William M. Tweed's fall, he became Grand Sachem in 1872. He was head of the Democratic state committee 1853-1856. During the administration of President James Buchanan he was collector of the Port of New York. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee that supported John C. Breckinridge for the presidency in 1860 and also 1872-1876. After the trial of William M. Tweed and his associates, Schell labored for the purification and rehabilitation of the Tammany society, and in 1878 was its unsuccessful candidate for mayor.
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Babrak Karmal
Babrak Karmal (born Sultan Hashem; 6 January 1929 – 1 or 3 December 1996) was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War. Karmal was born in Kamari and educated at Kabul University, after which he started his career as a bureaucrat. Before, during and after his career as a bureaucrat Karmal was a leading member of the Afghan movement. He was introduced to Marxism by Mir Akbar Khyber during his imprisonment for activities deemed too radical by the government. When the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was formed, Karmal became one of its leading members, and eventually became the leader of the Parcham faction. When the PDPA split in 1967, the Parcham-faction established a Parcham PDPA, while their ideological nemesis, the Khalqs, established a Khalqist PDPA. Under Karmal's leadership, the Parchamite PDPA participated in Mohammad Daoud Khan's rise to power, and his subsequent regime. While relations were good at the beginning, Daoud began a major purge of leftist influence in the mid-1970s. This in turn led to the refoundation of the PDPA in 1977. The PDPA took power in the 1978 Saur Revolution.
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Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (i/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.
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Barbara Jordan
Barbara Charline Jordan (February 21, 1936 – January 17, 1996) was an American politician and a leader of the Civil Rights movement. She was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after Reconstruction and the first southern black female elected to the United States House of Representatives. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous other honors. On her death she became the first African-American woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery.
Barbara Jordan was born in Houston, Texas' Fifth Ward. Her parents were Benjamin Jordan, a Baptist minister; and Arlyne Jordan, a "domestic worker". Barbara attended Roberson Elementary School. She graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in 1952 as an honor student.
Because of segregation, she did not attend The University of Texas at Austin and instead chose Texas Southern University, majoring in political science and history. Barbara was a national champion debater, defeating her opponents from such schools as Yale and Brown and tying Harvard University. She graduated magna cum laude in 1956. At Texas Southern University, she pledged Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She attended Boston University School of Law, graduating in 1959.
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Benigno Aquino, Jr.
Benigno Simeon "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr. (November 27, 1932 – August 21, 1983) was a Filipino Senator and a former Governor of Tarlac. Aquino, together with Gerry Roxas and Jovito Salonga, formed the leadership of the opposition to the Marcos regime in the years leading to the imposition of martial law in the Philippines. In 1973 he was arrested and incarcerated for 7 years, but was allowed to depart for the United States to seek medical treatment after he suffered a heart attack in 1980. He was assassinated at the Manila International Airport upon returning home from exile in the United States in 1983. His death catapulted his widow, Corazon Aquino, into the limelight, and prompted her to run for President as a member of the UNIDO party in the 1986 elections. Manila International Airport has been renamed Ninoy Aquino International Airport in his honor, and the anniversary of his death is a national holiday in the Philippines, Ninoy Aquino Day.
Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. was born in Concepcion, Tarlac, to a prosperous family of hacenderos (landlords), original owners of Hacienda Tinang, Hacienda Lawang and Hacienda Murcia.[citation needed]
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Benjamin F. Hallett
Benjamin Franklin Hallett (December 2, 1797 – September 30, 1861) was a Massachusetts lawyer and Democratic Party activist, most notable as the first chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Benjamin Franklin Hallett was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts. After graduating from Brown University in 1816, he studied law and began a journalistic career in Providence, Rhode Island. He soon moved to Boston, where he began with the Boston Advocate, shifting to the Boston Daily Advertiser in 1827. At that time he espoused the views of the Anti-Masonic Party, but when that particular group went out of fashion he switched to the Democratic Party as an enemy of Henry Clay. He joined and became a prominent member of the Suffolk County, Massachusetts bar.
As a candidate for Congress in 1844 and 1848 he was defeated both times by Whig Robert C. Winthrop. In the latter race Charles Sumner was also a candidate, representing the Free-Soil Party. In 1848 he became, for four years, the first Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
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Benjamin Gratz Brown
Benjamin Gratz Brown (May 28, 1826 – December 13, 1885) was an American politician. He was a Senator, the 20th Governor of Missouri, and the Liberal Republican and Democratic Party Vice presidential candidate in the presidential election of 1872.
Brown was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1826. He was the grandson of Senators John Brown and Jesse Bledsoe of Kentucky. He graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington in 1845 where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity, and from Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1847. He studied law, and later settled in St. Louis, Missouri. There he joined his cousin, Francis P. Blair, Jr., and Senator Thomas Hart Benton in a struggle against the pro-slavery faction for control of Missouri's Democratic Party.
Brown became a member of the Missouri House of Representatives and served there between 1852 and 1858. An able lawyer in St. Louis, Brown made a speech in 1857 against a joint resolution opposing emancipation. The speech marked the beginning of the Free Soil movement in Missouri. He was a leader of the movement. After that, he edited the Missouri Democrat between 1854 and 1859. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Missouri in 1857.
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Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was the 23rd President of the United States (1889–1893). Harrison, a grandson of President William Henry Harrison, was born in North Bend, Ohio, and moved to Indianapolis, Indiana at age 21, eventually becoming a prominent politician there. During the American Civil War, he served the Union as a Brigadier General in the XX Corps of the Army of the Cumberland. After the war he unsuccessfully ran for the governorship of Indiana, and was later appointed to the U.S. Senate from that state.
Harrison, a Republican, was elected to the presidency in 1888, defeating Democratic incumbent Grover Cleveland. His administration is most remembered for economic legislation, including the McKinley Tariff and the Sherman Antitrust Act, and for annual federal spending that reached one billion dollars for the first time. Democrats attacked the "Billion Dollar Congress", and used the issue, along with the growing unpopularity of the high tariff, to defeat the Republicans, both in the 1890 mid-term elections and in Harrison's bid for re-election in 1892. Harrison advocated, although unsuccessfully, for federal education funding and legislation to protect voting rights for African Americans. He also saw the admittance of six states into the Union.
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Bess Truman
Bess Truman (née Elizabeth Virginia Wallace) (February 13, 1885 – October 18, 1982), was the wife of Harry S. Truman and First Lady of the United States from 1945 to 1953.
She had known her future husband since they attended the same school in Independence, Missouri. As First Lady, she did not enjoy big social events, and was relieved to quit Washington. Dying at 97, she remains the longest-lived First Lady.
Elizabeth Virginia Wallace was born to David Willock Wallace (1860–1903) and his wife, the former Margaret Elizabeth Gates (1862–1952), in Independence, Missouri, and was known as Bessie during her childhood. She was the eldest of four; three brothers: Frank Gates Wallace, (4 March 1887 - 12 August 1960), George Porterfield Wallace, (1 May 1892 - 24 May 1963), David Frederick Wallace, (7 January 1900 - 30 September 1957).
Harry Truman, whose family moved to town in 1890, always kept his first impression of when he saw her at Sunday school: "Golden curls" and "the most beautiful blue eyes." A relative said, "there never was but one girl in the world" for him. They attended the same schools from fifth grade through high school.
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Bettino Craxi
Benedetto "Bettino" Craxi (pronounced [betˈtiːno ˈkraksi]) (24 February 1934 – 19 January 2000) was an Italian politician, head of the Italian Socialist Party from 1976 to 1993, the first socialist President of the Council of Ministers of Italy from 1983 to 1987.
Craxi led the 2nd longest-lived government of Italy during the republican era (after the 2nd Silvio Berlusconi cabinet), and had strong influence in Italian politics throughout the eighties; for some time, he was a close ally of two key figures of Christian Democracy, Giulio Andreotti and Arnaldo Forlani, in a loose cross-party alliance often dubbed CAF (from the first letter of the surname Craxi-Andreotti-Forlani). Craxi had a firm grasp on a party previously troubled by factionalism, and tried to distance it from the communists and to bring it closer to Christian Democrats and other parties; his objective was to create an Italian version of European reformist socialist parties, like the German SPD or the French Socialist Party. The Italian Socialist Party reached its post-war apex when it increased its share of votes in the general election of 1987. However, the Italian Socialist Party never outgrew the much larger Italian Communist Party, whose highly charismatic leader, Enrico Berlinguer, was a fierce adversary of Craxi's policies throughout the years.
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Betty Ford
Elizabeth Ann Bloomer Warren Ford (April 8, 1918 – July 8, 2011), better known as Betty Ford, was First Lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977 during the presidency of her husband Gerald Ford. As First Lady, she was active in social policy and created precedents as a politically active presidential wife.
Throughout her husband's term in office, she maintained high approval ratings despite opposition from some conservative Republicans who objected to her more moderate and liberal positions on social issues. Ford was noted for raising breast cancer awareness following her 1974 mastectomy and was a passionate supporter of, and activist for, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Pro-choice on abortion and a leader in the Women's Movement, she gained fame as one of the most candid first ladies in history, commenting on every hot-button issue of the time, including feminism, equal pay, the ERA, sex, drugs, abortion, and gun control. She also raised awareness of addiction when she announced her long-running battle with alcoholism in the 1970s.
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Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described as a New Democrat. Many of his policies have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance.
Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton became both a student leader and a skilled musician. He is an alumnus of Georgetown University where he was Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. He is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has served as the United States Secretary of State since 2009 and was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. Both Clintons received law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as Chair of the National Governors Association.
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Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington) is an American business magnate, computer programmer and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive officer (CEO) and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books.
Gates is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. Gates has been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive, an opinion which has in some cases been upheld by the courts. In the later stages of his career, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
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Billie Jean King
Billie Jean King (née Moffitt; born November 22, 1943) is a former professional tennis player from the United States. She won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, 16 Grand Slam women's doubles titles, and 11 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles. King has been an advocate against sexism in sports and society. She won "The Battle of the Sexes" in 1973, in which she defeated Bobby Riggs, a former Wimbledon men's singles champion, for $100,000, winner take all. She completed a career tour all surfaces win-loss performance of 81.76% (696-165). Her win-loss performance in all Grand Slam singles tournaments was 82.00% (190-39), at the French Open 77.77% (21-6), at Wimbledon 86.36% (95-15), at the US Open 80.55% (58–14), and at the Australian Open 80.00% (16-4).
King is the founder of the Women's Tennis Association, the Women's Sports Foundation, and owner of World Team Tennis, which was founded by her former husband, Larry King, Dennis Murphy, Frank Barman, and Jordan Kaiser.
Billie Jean Moffit was born in Long Beach, California, into a conservative Methodist family, the daughter of a fireman father and housewife mother. Her younger brother Randy Moffitt grew up to become a professional baseball player, pitching for 12 years in the major leagues for the San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros, and Toronto Blue Jays.
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Bitch (insult)
The word "bitch", literally meaning a female dog, is a common slang term in the English language, especially used as a denigrating term applied to a person, commonly a woman. It often refers to someone who is belligerent, unreasonable, rudely intrusive or aggressive.
Its original use as a vulgarism, documented to the fourteenth century, suggested high sexual desire in a woman, comparable to a dog in heat. The range of meanings has expanded in modern usage. In a feminist context, it can indicate a strong or assertive woman, one who might make men feel threatened. When applied to a man, "bitch" is a derogatory term for a subordinate.
The term "bitch" comes from the 1150[citation needed] word bicche, which was developed from the Old English word bicce. It also may have been derived from the Old Norse word bikkja for "female dog." The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term meaning "female dog" to around 1000 A.D.
As a derogatory term for women, it has been in use since the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Its earliest slang meaning mainly referred to sexual behavior, according to the English language historian Geoffrey Hughes:
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Bolesław Bierut
Bolesław Bierut ([bɔˈlɛswaf ˈbjɛrut] ( listen); 1892–1956; also known under assumed names Jerzy Bolesław Bielak and Bolesław Birkowski) was a Polish Communist leader, NKVD agent, and a hard-line Stalinist who became President of Poland after the Soviet takeover of the country in the aftermath of World War II.
Bierut was born in Rury Jezuickie, now a part of Lublin, as the son of Henryk Rutkowski, a village teacher, and his wife Barbara Biernacka (Wojciech and Maria, according to IPN source). He later adopted the surname "Bierut" combining the first syllables of his parents' surnames. In 1918 he took courses at the Warsaw School of Economics, and in 1924–1930 went to Moscow, to be trained at the school of the Communist International.
In 1930–1931 Bierut was sent by the Comintern to Austria, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. In 1933 he became an agent of Soviet military intelligence, the GRU, and subsequently, was sentenced in Poland to 10 years in prison for his anti-state activities (incarcerated between 1933–1938). The pro-Soviet Communist Party of Poland was dissolved by Joseph Stalin in 1938. Bierut was fortunate to avoid being caught in the Great Purge, which led to the execution of most of the leaders of the Communist Party of Poland in the USSR. After an amnesty from the Polish government in 1938 Bierut settled down in Warsaw and worked as a bookkeeper in a cooperative.
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Bono
Paul David Hewson (born 10 May 1960), most commonly known by his stage name Bono (/ˈbɒnoʊ/ BON-oh), is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his future wife, Alison Stewart, and the future members of U2. Bono writes almost all U2 lyrics, often using political, social, and religious themes. During their early years, Bono's lyrics contributed to U2's rebellious and spiritual tone. As the band matured, his lyrics became inspired more by personal experiences shared with members of U2.
Outside the band, he has collaborated and recorded with numerous artists, is managing director and a managing partner of Elevation Partners, and has refurbished and owns The Clarence Hotel in Dublin with The Edge. Bono is also widely known for his activism concerning Africa, for which he co-founded DATA, EDUN, the ONE Campaign and Product Red. He has organised and played in several benefit concerts and has met with influential politicians. Bono has been praised and criticised for his activism and involvement with U2. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, was granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, and was named as a Person of the Year by Time, among other awards and nominations.
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Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (Russian: Бори́с Никола́евич Е́льцин; IPA: [bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn] ( listen); 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was the President of Russia, serving from 1991 to 1999.
Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. On 12 June 1991 he was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR), at that time one of the 15 constituent republics of the Soviet Union. He won 57% of the vote in a six-candidate contest and became the second democratically elected leader of Russia in history. Upon the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991, Yeltsin remained in office as the President of the Russian Federation, the USSR's successor state. Yeltsin was reelected in the 1996 election; in the second round of the election Yeltsin defeated Gennady Zyuganov from the revived Communist Party by a margin of 13%. However, Yeltsin never recovered his early popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s.
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Brian Mulroney
Martin Brian Mulroney, PC CC GOQ (born March 20, 1939) was the 18th Prime Minister of Canada from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993 and was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 to 1993. His tenure as Prime Minister was marked by the introduction of major economic reforms, such as the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and the Goods and Services Tax, and the rejection of constitutional reforms such as the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord. Prior to his political career, he was a prominent lawyer and businessman in Montreal.
Mulroney was born on March 20, 1939, in Baie-Comeau, Quebec, a remote and isolated town in the eastern part of the province. He is the son of Irish Canadian Catholic parents, Mary Irene (née O'Shea) and Benedict Martin Mulroney, who was a paper mill electrician. Six of the couple's children survived infancy. As there was no English-language Catholic high school in Baie-Comeau, Mulroney completed his high school education at a Roman Catholic boarding school in Chatham, New Brunswick operated by St. Thomas University (in 2001, St. Thomas University named its newest academic building in his honour). Benedict Mulroney worked overtime and ran a repair business to earn extra money for his children's education, and he encouraged his oldest son to attend university.
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Calvin Coolidge
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. (July 4, 1872 – January 5, 1933) was the 30th President of the United States (1923–1929). A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state. His conduct during the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. Soon after, he was elected as the 29th Vice President in 1920 and succeeded to the Presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small-government conservative, and also as a man who said very little.
Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his predecessor's administration, and left office with considerable popularity. As a Coolidge biographer put it, "He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength." Coolidge praised the achievement of widespread prosperity in 1928, saying: "The requirements of existence have passed beyond the standard of necessity into the region of luxury." Some later criticized Coolidge as part of a general criticism of laissez-faire government. His reputation underwent a renaissance during the Ronald Reagan Administration, but the ultimate assessment of his presidency is still divided between those who approve of his reduction of the size of government programs and those who believe the federal government should be more involved in regulating and controlling the economy.
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Calvin S. Brice
Calvin Stewart Brice (September 17, 1845 – December 15, 1898) was a Democratic politician from Ohio. Born in Denmark, Morrow County, Ohio, Brice dropped out of Miami University in 1861 to join the Union Army. After a short stint in the army he returned to Miami and earned his undergraduate degree in 1863. After the Civil War, Brice studied law at the University of Michigan and then started a business career where he amassed a fortune, largely in railroads. In 1879, he became president of the Lake Erie and Western Railroad and built the Nickel Plate Road in 1882. A Democrat, Brice was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1889 until 1892 and won elected to the Senate in 1890, serving a single term in office.
Calvin Brice was born on September 17, 1845 in the small town of Denmark, Ohio, to Elizabeth Stewart and William Kilpatrick Brice, a Presbyterian minister of no great wealth. Originally home-schooled, he later entered the Columbus Grove public school system in Putnam County. Showing some promise as a student, Brice began preparations for higher education and in 1859 gained admission to Miami University. After graduating in 1863 with high honors, he would become a devoted alumnus later in life. His efforts in 1885 and 1888 to provide funding for the University were largely responsible for its survival, and a science building, Brice Hall (now demolished) was named in his honor.
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Cambodian Civil War
The Cambodian Civil War was a conflict that pitted the forces of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (known as the Khmer Rouge) and their allies the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Viet Cong against the government forces of Cambodia (after October 1970, the Khmer Republic), which were supported by the United States (U.S.) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).
The struggle was exacerbated by the influence and actions of the allies of the two warring sides. People's Army of Vietnam (North Vietnamese Army) involvement was designed to protect its Base Areas and sanctuaries in eastern Cambodia, without which the prosecution of its military effort in South Vietnam would have been more difficult. Then following the Cambodian coup of 1970, the North Vietnamese Army's attempt to overrun the entire country in March–April 1970 plunged Cambodia into civil war. The U.S. was motivated by the need to buy time for its withdrawal from Southeast Asia and to protect its ally, the South Vietnamese regime. American and both South and North Vietnamese forces directly participated (at one time or another) in the fighting. The central government was mainly assisted by the application of massive U.S. aerial bombing campaigns and direct material and financial aid.
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Carl Schurz
Carl Christian Schurz (German: [ˈkaʁl ˈʃʊʁts]; March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German revolutionary, American statesman and reformer, and Union Army General in the American Civil War. He was also an accomplished journalist, newspaper editor and orator, who in 1869 became the first German-born American elected to the United States Senate.
His wife, Margarethe Schurz, was instrumental in establishing the kindergarten system in the United States. During his later years, Schurz was perhaps the most prominent independent in American politics, noted for his high principles, his avoidance of political partisanship, and his moral conscience.
He is famous for saying: "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." Many streets, schools, and parks are named in honor of him, including New York City's Carl Schurz Park.
Schurz was born in Liblar (now part of Erftstadt), Germany on March 2, 1829, the son of a schoolteacher. He studied at the Jesuit Gymnasium of Cologne, and learned piano under private instructors. Financial problems in his family obligated him to leave school a year early, without graduating, to help manage his family's financial affairs. Later he graduated from the gymnasium by passing a special examination, and he entered the University of Bonn.
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Carla Anderson Hills
Carla Anderson Hills (born January 3, 1934) is an American lawyer and a public figure. She served as United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Gerald Ford administration, and as U.S. Trade Representative. She was the first woman to serve as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the third woman to serve as a cabinet officer.
Born Carla Anderson in Los Angeles, she received her B.A. degree from Stanford University, after studying at Oxford University. She earned her LL.B. degree from Yale University Law School in 1958 and married Roderick M. Hills the same year.
Hills was admitted to the California bar in 1959, and served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Los Angeles from 1959 to 1961. From 1962 to 1974, she was a partner at Munger, Tolles, Hills, and Rickershauser in Los Angeles. In 1972, she was an adjunct professor at UCLA. An authority on federal practice and anti-trust law, Mrs. Hills wrote of Federal Civil Practice and Antitrust Advisor. She is a former president of the National Association of Women Lawyers.
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Carol Sutton
Carol Sutton (June 29, 1933-February 19, 1985) was an American journalist. In 1974 she became the first female managing editor of a major U.S. daily newspaper, The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. She was cited as the example of female achievement in journalism when Time named American Women as the 1975 People of the Year. During her tenure at the paper, it was awarded the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for its coverage of school desegregation in Louisville. She is also credited with significantly raising the number of minority reporters on staff.
"Kentucky Women Remembered," a permanent exhibit at the Kentucky State Capitol's Main Floor of watercolors of Women of Kentucky and those who help(ed) change the mindset of those upcoming. "TODAY'S WOMAN" Magazine for KY & Indiana. Daughter Kate Whaley Archer accepts the First Postumous Award Ever Given. Carol Sutton knew of her Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame award at the University of Kentucky before her death in 1985, and was very humbled and honored by it. The family holds a Carol Sutton Memorial Scholarship Award in her honor every year, which has grown from our first recipient to 8 or twelve deserving people. It is for we people who want and need more racial and ethnic equality within the news reporting workplace. She was the first white woman to be inducted into the National Association of Black Journalist's Hall of Fame.
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Caspar Weinberger
Caspar Willard "Cap" Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006), was an American politician and businessman. He served in a variety of prominent state and federal positions for three decades, most prominently as Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987.
Born in San Francisco, California, Weinberger served in the 41st Infantry Division in the Pacific theater of World War II. His entry into politics was as a California State Assemblyman from 1953 to 1959, and he would go on to serve as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. An accomplished private sector businessman, he later became vice president and general counsel of Bechtel Corporation, and still later Chairman of Forbes.
His tenure as Secretary of Defense is the third longest in U.S. history, and spanned the final years of the Cold War. He is also known for his key role in the administration's Strategic Defense Initiative and later indictments in the Iran-Contra affair. He was awarded both the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1987 and an honorary British knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.
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Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, Hebrew: חיים עזריאל ויצמן, Arabic: حاييم وايزمان Hayyiyim Wayizman (November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952.
Weizmann was also a chemist who developed the ABE-process, which produces acetone through bacterial fermentation. He founded the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
Weizmann was born in the village of Motal near Pinsk in Belarus (at that time part of the Russian Empire). He was the third of 15 children. His father was a timber merchant. Until the age of 11, he attended a traditional heder. At the age of 11, he entered high school in Pinsk.
Weizmann studied chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute of Darmstadt, Germany, and University of Fribourg, Switzerland. In 1899, he was awarded a doctorate with honors. In 1901, he was appointed assistant lecturer at the University of Geneva and, in 1904, senior lecturer at the University of Manchester.
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Charles Curtis
Charles Curtis (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was a United States Representative, a longtime United States Senator from Kansas later chosen as Senate Majority Leader by his Republican colleagues, and the 31st Vice President of the United States (1929–1933). He was the first person with significant acknowledged Native American ancestry and the first person with significant acknowledged non-European ancestry to reach either of the two highest offices in the United States government's executive branch. His maternal ancestry was three-quarters' Native American, of ethnic Kaw, Osage and Pottawatomie ancestry. Curtis spent years of childhood living with his maternal grandparents on their Kaw reservation.
As an attorney, Curtis entered political life early, winning multiple terms from his district in Topeka, Kansas, starting in 1892 as a Republican to the US House of Representatives. He was elected to the US Senate first by the Kansas Legislature (in 1906), and then by popular vote (in 1914, 1920 and 1926), serving one six-year term from 1907 to 1913, and then most of three terms from 1915 to 1929 (when he became Vice President). His long popularity and connections in Kansas and national politics helped make Curtis a strong leader in the Senate; he marshaled support to be elected as Senate Minority Whip from 1915–1925 and then as Senate Majority Leader from 1925–1929. In these positions he was instrumental in managing legislation and accomplishing Republican national goals.
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Charles D. Drake
Charles Daniel Drake (April 11, 1811 – April 1, 1892) was a United States Senator from Missouri. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he attended St. Joseph's College (Bardstown, Kentucky) in 1823 and 1824, and Patridge's Military Academy (Middletown, Connecticut) in 1824 and 1825; he was appointed midshipman in the United States Navy in 1825 and served four years, when he resigned. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati in 1833 and moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1834 and continued the practice of law.
Drake was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives in 1859-1860 and a member of the State constitutional convention in 1865; he was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate and served from March 4, 1867, to December 19, 1870, when he resigned to accept a judicial position. While in the Senate he was chairman, Committee on Education (Forty-first Congress). He was appointed chief justice of the United States Court of Claims and held that position from 1870 to 1885, when he retired. He published a Treatise on the Law of Suits by Attachment in the United States (1854) and Union and Anti-Slavery Speeches (1864).
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Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (/ˈtʃɑrlz/ or /ˈʃɑrl dəˈɡɔːl/; French: [ʃaʁl də ɡol] ( listen); 22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969.
A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of mobile armoured divisions, which he considered would become central in modern warfare. During World War II, he earned the rank of brigadier general (retained throughout his life), leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Battle of France in May in Montcornet, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling. De Gaulle was the most senior French military officer to reject the June 1940 armistice to Nazi Germany right from the outset.
He escaped to Britain and gave a famous radio address, broadcast by the BBC on 18 June 1940, exhorting the French people to resist Nazi Germany and organised the Free French Forces with exiled French officers in Britain. As the war progressed de Gaulle gradually gained control of all French colonies except Indochina most of which had at first been controlled by the pro-German Vichy regime. Despite earning a reputation for being a difficult man to do business with, by the time of the Allied invasion of France in 1944 he was heading what amounted to a French government in exile, but although he insisted that France be treated as a great independent power by the other Allies, the Americans in particular remained deeply suspicious of his motives. De Gaulle became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 because of political conflicts.
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Charles Edison
Charles Edison (August 3, 1890 – July 31, 1969) was a son of Thomas Edison and Mina Miller. He was a businessman, who became Assistant and then United States Secretary of the Navy, and served as the 42nd Governor of New Jersey.
Born at his parents' home, Glenmont, in West Orange, New Jersey, he attended the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut. In 1915-1916 he operated the one hundred seat "Little Thimble Theater" with Greenwich Village figure Guido Bruno. There they played the works of George Bernard Shaw and August Strindberg while Charles contributed verse to "Bruno's Weekly" under the pseudonym "Tom Sleeper". Late in 1915, he brought his players Ellis Island to perform for Chief Clerk Augustus Sherman and more than four hundred detained immigrants. These avant-garde activities came to a halt when his father put him to work. He married Carolyn Hawkins on March 27, 1918. They had no children. For a number of years Charles Edison ran Edison Records. Charles became president of his father's company Thomas A. Edison, Inc. in 1927, and ran it until it was sold in 1957, when it merged with the McGraw Electric Company to form the McGraw-Edison Electric Company. Edison was board chairman of the merged company until he retired in 1961.
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Charles F. Brannan
Charles Franklin Brannan (August 23, 1903 – July 2, 1992) was the Secretary of Agriculture from 1948 to 1953.
He was born in Denver, Colorado, and received his law degree from the University of Denver law school in 1929. Beginning in 1935, he held a series of legal and administrative position with the United States government, culminating as the Secretary of Agriculture in 1948.
In 1949, he advocated the Brannan plan, as part of president Truman's Fair Deal program. Brannan wanted to guarantee farmer's income, while letting the free market forces determine the prices of commodities. That plan was not enacted by the Republican controlled congress, which was focusing on the Cold War.
After leaving the government following the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, Brannan became the general counsel of the National Farmers Union (United States) until 1990. He died on July 2, 1992, in Denver, Colorado. Prior to his death, Brannan had been the last surviving member of the Truman Cabinet.
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Charles G. Dawes
Charles Gates Dawes (August 27, 1865 – April 23, 1951) was an American banker and politician who was the 30th Vice President of the United States (1925–1929). For his work on the Dawes Plan for World War I reparations he was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served in the First World War, was U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, the first director of the Bureau of the Budget, and, in later life, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Dawes was married to Caro Blymyer on January 24, 1889, and they had four children: Rufus Fearing Dawes, Carolyn Dawes, Dana McCutcheon, and Virginia Dawes (Waller 1998: 273).
Dawes was born in Marietta, Washington County, Ohio to Civil War soldier Rufus R. Dawes and Mary Beman Gates. He graduated from Marietta College in 1884, and from the Cincinnati Law School in 1886. While attending Marietta College he joined The Delta Upsilon Fraternity. He was admitted to the bar and practiced in Lincoln, Nebraska, between 1887 and 1894. When Lt. John Pershing, the future Army general, was appointed military instructor at the University of Nebraska while attending the law school, he and Dawes became acquainted, forming a lifelong friendship.
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Charles Hard Townes
Charles Hard Townes (born July 28, 1915) is an American Nobel Prize-winning physicist and educator. Townes is known for his work on the theory and application of the maser, on which he got the fundamental patent, and other work in quantum electronics connected with both maser and laser devices. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1964 with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov. The Japanese FM Towns computer and game console is named in his honour.
Townes was born in Greenville, South Carolina on July 28, 1915, the son of Henry Keith Townes, an attorney, and Ellen (Hard) Townes. He attended the Greenville public schools and then Furman University in Greenville, where he completed the requirements for the Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and the Bachelor of Arts degree in Modern Languages, graduating summa cum laude in 1935, at the age of 19. Physics had fascinated him since his first course in the subject during his sophomore year in college because of its "beautifully logical structure". He was also interested in natural history while at Furman, serving as curator of the museum, and working during the summers as collector for Furman's biology camp. In addition, he was busy with other activities, including the swimming team, the college newspaper and the football band.
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Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) (nicknamed "Slim", "Lucky Lindy", and "The Lone Eagle") was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.
As a 25-year-old U.S. Air Mail pilot Lindbergh emerged suddenly from virtual obscurity to instantaneous world fame as the result of his Orteig Prize-winning solo non-stop flight on May 20–21, 1927, made from Roosevelt Field located in Garden City on New York's Long Island to Le Bourget Field in Paris, France, a distance of nearly 3,600 statute miles (5,800 km), in the single-seat, single-engine purpose built Ryan monoplane Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh, a U.S. Army reserve officer, was also awarded the nation's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his historic exploit.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Lindbergh used his fame to promote the development of both commercial aviation and Air Mail services in the United States and the Americas. In March 1932, however, his infant son, Charles, Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in what was soon dubbed the "Crime of the Century". This eventually led to the Lindbergh family being "driven into voluntary exile" in Europe to which they sailed in secrecy from New York under assumed names in late December 1935 to "seek a safe, secluded residence away from the tremendous public hysteria" in America. The Lindberghs did not return to the United States until April, 1939.
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Charles Stark Draper
Charles Stark Draper (October 2, 1901 – July 25, 1987) was an American scientist and engineer, often referred to as "the father of inertial navigation." He was the founder and director of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, later renamed the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, which under his direction designed and built the Apollo Guidance Computer for NASA, which made the Apollo moon landings possible.
Born in Windsor, Missouri, he attended the University of Missouri in 1917, then transferred to Stanford University, California in 1919, from which he earned a B.A. in psychology in 1922. After Stanford, he attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), from which he earned an S.B. in electrochemical engineering in 1926, and an S.M. and Sc.D. in physics in 1928 and 1938 respectively.
He started teaching while at MIT, first as an assistant, then quickly became a full professor in aeronautical engineering in 1939. It was here that he founded the Instrumentation Laboratory in the 1930s, spun off in 1973 as The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc. In 1961, Draper and the Instrumentation Lab were awarded the first contract given out for the Apollo program to send humans to the moon, which had just been announced by President John F. Kennedy. This led to the creation of the Apollo Guidance Computer, a one-cubic-foot computer that controlled the navigation and guidance of the Lunar Excursion Module to the surface of the moon during six successful landings.
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Charles W. Bryan
Charles Wayland Bryan (February 10, 1867 – March 4, 1945) was the younger brother of perennial U.S. Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, with whom he shares the distinction of being the only set of brothers to be nominated for national office by a major party.
Born in 1867 in Salem, Illinois, Bryan served as mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska from 1915 to 1917, and again from 1935 to 1937, and as the 20th and 23rd Governor of Nebraska from 1923 to 1925 and again from 1931 to 1935. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor in 1926, 1928, and 1938.
Bryan was also notable as the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1924, where he was picked largely because of his name to serve as running mate to conservative easterner John W. Davis. The ticket was overwhelmingly defeated. He died in 1945 in Lincoln, Nebraska, and is buried at the Wyuka Cemetery in Lincoln.
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Charles W. Fairbanks
Charles Warren Fairbanks (May 11, 1852 – June 4, 1918) was an American politician who served as a Senator from Indiana from 1897 to 1905 and the 26th Vice President of the United States from 1905 to 1909.
Born in a log cabin near Delaware, Ohio, Fairbanks's ancestry traced back to Puritan followers of Oliver Cromwell, with Jonathan Fayerbankes the first family member to reach America in 1632. The son of a wagon-maker, Fairbanks in his youth saw his family's home used as a hiding place for runaway slaves. After attending country schools and working on a farm, Fairbanks attended Ohio Wesleyan University, where he graduated in 1872. While there, Fairbanks was co-editor of the school newspaper with Cornelia Cole, whom he married after both graduated from the school.
Fairbanks, Alaska is named after Charles W. Fairbanks.
Fairbanks' first position was as an agent of the Associated Press in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reporting on political rallies for Horace Greeley during the 1872 presidential election. Fairbanks then moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he briefly attended law school before his admittance to the Ohio bar in 1874. He then moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, the same year. Although not generally known his uncle was Ohio Governor and United States President Rutherford B. Hayes who treated his nephew as a political advisor.
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Charles W. Sawyer
Charles W. Sawyer (February 10, 1887 – April 7, 1979) was United States Secretary of Commerce from May 6, 1948 to January 20, 1953 in the administration of Harry Truman.
Sawyer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He served as a member of Cincinnati City Council from 1912–1916. Prior to his political career, he worked at the Cincinnati law firm of Dinsmore & Shohl. Between the world wars, he was a prominent Democratic politician in Ohio. In the 1930s, a faction led by Sawyer vied with a faction led by Martin L. Davey for control of the state Democratic party. He was the 44th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio from 1933–1935. In 1938, Sawyer was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Ohio governor.
Charles Sawyer authored the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.Sawyer, Concerns of a Conservative Democrat,Southern Illinois University Press, Pgs 48-51.
He was also appointed as United States Ambassador to Belgium by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and was Minister to Luxembourg during the difficult period 1944–1946 in this country, the beginning of the Belgian royal question concerning King Leopold III of Belgium.
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Che Guevara
Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈtʃe ɣeˈβaɾa]; June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia within popular culture.
As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout Latin America and was radically transformed by the endemic poverty and alienation he witnessed. His experiences and observations during these trips led him to conclude that the region's ingrained economic inequalities were an intrinsic result of capitalism, monopolism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, with the only remedy being world revolution. This belief prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Arbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow solidified Guevara's political ideology. Later, while living in Mexico City, he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht, Granma, with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second-in-command, and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime.
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Chiang Ching-kuo
Chiang Ching-kuo (traditional Chinese: 蔣經國; simplified Chinese: 蒋经国; pinyin: Jiǎng Jīngguó; Wade–Giles: Chiang Ching-kuo; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Chiúⁿ Keng-kok; Shanghai/Ningbo dialect: [tɕiã.tɕiŋ.koʔ]) (April 27,1 1910 – January 13, 1988), Kuomintang (KMT) politician and leader, was the son of President Chiang Kai-shek and held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China (ROC). He succeeded his father to serve as Premier of the Republic of China between 1972 and 1978, and was the President of the Republic of China from 1978 until his death in 1988. Under his tenure, the government of the Republic of China, while authoritarian, became more open and tolerant of political dissent. Towards the end of his life, Chiang relaxed government controls on the media and speech and allowed native Taiwanese into positions of power, including his successor Lee Teng-hui.
The son of President Chiang Kai-shek and his first wife Mao Fumei, Chiang Ching-kuo was born in Fenghua, Zhejiang, with the courtesy name of Jiànfēng (建豐). He had an adopted brother, Chiang Wei-kuo. "Ching" literally means "longitude" while "kuo" means "nation"; in his brother's name, "wei" literally means "parallel (of latitude)". The names are inspired by the references in Chinese classics such as the Guoyu, in which "to draw the longitudes and latitudes of the world" is used as a metaphor for a person with great abilities, especially in managing a country.
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Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek (October 31, 1887 – April 5, 1975) was a political and military leader of 20th-century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí (蔣介石) or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng (蔣中正) in Mandarin.
Chiang was an influential member of the Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and was a close ally of Sun Yat-sen. He became the Commandant of the Kuomintang's Whampoa Military Academy, and took Sun's place as leader of the KMT when Sun died in 1925. In 1926, Chiang led the Northern Expedition to unify the country, becoming China's nominal leader. He served as Chairman of the National Military Council of the Nationalist government of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 to 1948. Chiang led China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which the Nationalist government's power severely weakened, but his prominence grew. Unlike Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek was socially conservative, promoting traditional Chinese culture in the New Life Movement and rejecting western democracy and the nationalist democratic socialism that Sun Yat-sen and some other members of the KMT embraced in favor of a nationalist authoritarian government.
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Chris Dodd
Christopher John "Chris" Dodd (born May 27, 1944) is an American lawyer, lobbyist, and Democratic Party politician who served as a United States Senator from Connecticut for a thirty-year period ending with the 111th United States Congress.
Dodd is a Connecticut native and a graduate of Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda, Maryland, and Providence College. His father, Thomas J. Dodd, was one of Connecticut's United States Senators from 1959-1971. Chris Dodd served in the Peace Corps for two years prior to entering law school at the University of Louisville, and during law school concurrently served in the United States Army Reserve.
Dodd returned to Connecticut, winning election in 1974 to the United States House of Representatives from Connecticut's 2nd congressional district and was reelected in 1976 and 1978. He was elected United States Senator in the elections of 1980, and was the longest-serving senator in Connecticut's history.
Dodd served as general chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1995 to 1997. He served as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee until his retirement. In 2006, Dodd decided to run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, but eventually withdrew after running behind several other competitors. In January 2010, Dodd announced that he would not run for re-election in the 2010 midterm elections. Dodd was succeeded by Richard Blumenthal. On March 1, 2011, the Motion Picture Association of America announced that Dodd will head that organization.
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Claire McCaskill
Claire Conner McCaskill (pronounced /məˈkæskəl/; born July 24, 1953) is the senior United States Senator from Missouri and a member of the Democratic Party. She defeated Republican incumbent Jim Talent in the 2006 United States Senate election, by a margin of 49.6% to 47.3%. She is the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Missouri in her own right. She became the state's senior U.S. Senator upon the retirement of Kit Bond in 2011.
Before her election to the U.S. Senate, McCaskill was State Auditor of Missouri from 1999 to 2007. She previously served as Jackson County Prosecutor (1993–1998) and a member of the Missouri House of Representatives (1983–1988). She was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Missouri in the 2004 gubernatorial election. She is a native of Rolla and graduate of the University of Missouri.
In the U.S. Senate, McCaskill serves as a member of the Committee on Armed Services, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and Special Committee on Aging. She is chairperson of the Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight.
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Claude A. Swanson
Claude Augustus Swanson (March 31, 1862 – July 7, 1939) was an American lawyer and Democratic Party politician from Virginia.
He served seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1893 until 1906, was the 45th Governor of Virginia from 1906 until 1910, and represented Virginia as a United States Senator from 1910 until 1933. Swanson lived most of his life at his estate Eldon in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, built by the Whittle family for whom Chatham's Whittle Street is named.
He was Secretary of the Navy under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 until his death at age 77.
The Swanson Middle School in Arlington, Virginia is named for him.
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Claude A. Watson
Claude A. Watson (June 26, 1885 – January 1978) was a lawyer, businessman, and minister from Hermon (a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California), who was nationally active in the temperance movement. He was the Prohibition Party candidate for vice-president of the United States in 1936 and was the party's presidential candidate in both 1944 and 1948.
A certified pilot, Watson was the first American presidential candidate in history to fly his own airplane and flew over 16,000 miles campaigning.
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Claude R. Wickard
Claude Raymond Wickard (February 28, 1893 – April 29, 1967) served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940 to 1945. Wickard was born on his family farm in Carroll County, Indiana, near Camden. He graduated from Purdue University in 1915, with a bachelor's degree in agriculture, and was chosen as "Master Farmer of Indiana" in 1927 for his improvements in stock feeding and farming. Elected to the Indiana Senate in 1932, he was appointed as Undersecretary of Agriculture. When Henry A. Wallace resigned as Secretary of Agriculture in 1940 to run for Vice-President of the United States, Wickard succeeded to the post. During World War II, Wickard headed the War Foods Administration, promoting increased farm production as a matter of patriotism. His slogan was "Food Will Win the War and Write the Peace".
Wickard resigned in 1945 to become chief of the Rural Electrification Administration, until 1953. He ran, unsuccessfully, as the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1956, losing to incumbent Homer E. Capehart. Wickard was killed in an automobile accident on April 29, 1967, at the age of 74. Reportedly, he ran a stop sign at the intersection of State Highway 18 and U.S. Highway 421 near Delphi, Indiana, and his vehicle was hit by a crushed-stone truck. He was buried at the Maple Lawn Cemetery in Flora, Indiana.
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Clem L. Shaver
Clement Lawrence Shaver (known as Clem L. Shaver) was a West Virginia politician who was the Democratic National Committee Chairman from 1924 to 1928. He was born in Marion County, West Virginia on January 22, 1867. He was the West Virginia Democratic state chair from 1913 to 1916 and from 1916 to 1920. In 1934 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate.
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Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was also the first person to hold the office of Deputy Prime Minister, under Winston Churchill in the wartime coalition government, before leading the Labour Party to a landslide election victory over Churchill's Conservative Party in 1945. He was the first Labour Prime Minister to serve a full Parliamentary term, and the first to command a Labour majority in Parliament.
The government he led put in place the post-war settlement, based upon the assumption that full employment would be maintained by Keynesian policies, and that a greatly enlarged system of social services would be created – aspirations that had been outlined in the wartime Beveridge Report. Within this context, his government undertook the nationalisation of major industries and public utilities as well as the creation of the National Health Service. After initial Conservative opposition to Keynesian fiscal policy, this settlement was broadly accepted by all parties until Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979.
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Congo Crisis
The Congo Crisis (1960–1966) was a period of turmoil in the First Republic of the Congo that began with national independence from Belgium and ended with the seizing of power by Joseph Mobutu. At various points, it had the characteristics of anti-colonial struggle, a secessionist war with the province of Katanga, a United Nations peacekeeping operation, and a Cold War proxy battle between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Crisis resulted in the deaths of some 100,000 people (King Léopold II’s rule had resulted in the deaths of around 10,000,000 Congolese people). It led to the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, as well as a traumatic setback to the United Nations following the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld in a plane crash as he sought to mediate.
Prior to the establishment of the First Republic in 1960, the native Congolese elites had formed semi-political organizations which gradually evolved into the main parties striving for independence. These organizations were formed on one of three foundations: ethnic kinship, connections formed in schools, and urban intellectualism[citation needed].
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Corazon Aquino
Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco-Aquino (January 25, 1933 – August 1, 2009) was the 11th President of the Philippines and the first woman to hold that office. She led the 1986 People Power Revolution, which toppled Ferdinand Marcos and restored democracy in the Philippines. She was named "Woman of the Year" in 1986 by Time Magazine.
A self-proclaimed "plain housewife", Aquino was married to Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., the staunchest critic of then President Ferdinand Marcos. Senator Aquino was assassinated on August 21, 1983 upon returning to the Philippines after three years in exile in the United States. After her husband's assassination, Corazon Aquino emerged as the leader of the opposition against the Marcos administration. In late 1985, when President Marcos called for a snap election, Aquino ran for president with former senator Salvador Laurel as her vice-presidential running mate. After the elections were held on February 7, 1986, and the Batasang Pambansa proclaimed Marcos the winner in the elections, she called for massive civil disobedience protests, declaring herself as having been cheated and as the real winner in the elections. Filipinos enthusiastically heeded her call and rallied behind her. These events eventually led to the ousting of Marcos and the installation of Aquino as President of the Philippines on February 25, 1986 through the "People Power Revolution".
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Cordell Hull
Cordell Hull (October 2, 1871 – July 23, 1955) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Tennessee. He is best known as the longest-serving Secretary of State, holding the position for 11 years (1933–1944) in the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during much of World War II. Hull received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 for his role in establishing the United Nations, and was referred to by President Roosevelt as the "Father of the United Nations".
Hull was born in a log cabin in Olympus, which is now part of Pickett County, Tennessee, but was then part of Overton County. He became the elected chairman of the Clay County Democratic Party at the age of 19.
In 1891, Hull graduated from Cumberland School of Law at Cumberland University and was admitted to the bar. He served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1893 to 1897. During the Spanish-American War, he served in Cuba as a captain in the Fourth Regiment of the Tennessee Volunteer Infantry.
Hull served 11 terms in the United States House of Representatives (1907–1921 and 1923–1931) and authored the federal income tax laws of 1913 and 1916 and the inheritance tax of 1916. After an electoral defeat in 1920, Hull served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was elected to the Senate in 1930, but resigned upon being named Secretary of State in 1933.
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Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution (Chinese: 文化大革命; pinyin: Wénhuà Dàgémìng), was a social-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976. Set into motion by Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Communist Party of China, its stated goal was to enforce socialism in the country by removing capitalist, traditional and cultural elements from Chinese society, and to impose Maoist orthodoxy within the Party. The revolution marked the return of Mao Zedong to a position of absolute power after the failed Great Leap Forward. The movement politically paralyzed the country and significantly affected the country economically and socially.
The Revolution was launched in May 1966. Mao alleged that bourgeois elements were infiltrating the government and society at large, aiming to restore capitalism. He insisted that these "revisionists" be removed through violent class struggle. China's youth responded to Mao's appeal by forming Red Guard groups around the country. The movement spread into the military, urban workers, and the Communist Party leadership itself. It resulted in widespread factional struggles in all walks of life. In the top leadership, it led to a mass purge of senior officials who were accused of taking a "capitalist road", most notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. During the same period Mao's personality cult grew to immense proportions.
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Dan Quayle
James Danforth "Dan" Quayle ( /ˈkweɪl/; born February 4, 1947) served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush (1989–1993). He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana.
Quayle was born in Indianapolis but spent most of his childhood living in Arizona. He married Marilyn Tucker in 1972 and obtained his J.D. from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in 1974. He practiced law in Huntington, Indiana with his wife before being elected to the United States Congress in 1976, aged 29. In 1980, Quayle was elected to the Senate.
In 1988, Vice President George H. W. Bush was nominated for the presidency by the Republican Party and asked his party to nominate Quayle as his vice presidential running mate. Although this choice was met with some dismay, the Bush/Quayle ticket won the 1988 election over Democrats Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen. As vice president, Quayle made official visits to 47 countries and was appointed chairman of the National Space Council. He secured re-nomination for vice-president in 1992 but the Bush/Quayle ticket was defeated by Democrat Bill Clinton and his vice-presidential running mate, Al Gore.
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Daniel C. Roper
Daniel Calhoun Roper (April 1, 1867 – April 11, 1943) was a U.S. administrator, particularly under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, born in Marlboro County, South Carolina. His father, John Wesley Roper, was a leader of the Scotch Boys (Company F) of the 18th Regiment of North Carolina troops in the Confederate Army.
Daniel Calhoun Roper graduated from Duke University (then called "Trinity College") in 1888, and received his bachelor of laws from National University in 1901.
In 1889 he married Lou McKenzie, who bore him 7 children, 2 daughters and 5 sons, over the following two decades (Roper 1941).
He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1892 to 1894, and from 1893 to 1897 he was a clerk for the U.S. Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce. From 1900 to 1910 he worked for the Census Bureau, and then served as the clerk of the Committee on Ways and Means in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1911 to 1913.
Immediately following and through 1916, he served as first assistant postmaster general, and was chairman of Woodrow Wilson's reelection campaign in 1916. He was the chairman of the 1917 U.S. Tariff Commission and served as Commissioner of Internal Revenue from 1917 to 1920. He served as the Secretary of Commerce between 1933 and 1938, and as Ambassador to Canada in 1939.
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Daniel D. Tompkins
Daniel D. Tompkins (June 21, 1774 – June 11, 1825) was the fourth Governor of New York (1807–1817), and the sixth Vice President of the United States (1817–1825).
A jurist by background, he was notable as one of the most enterprising governors in the War of 1812. To help organize the state militia, he often invested his own capital when the legislature would not approve the necessary funds. After the war, he failed to recover these massive loans, despite endless litigation, which took a toll on his health, and induced the alcoholism that affected his performance as Vice President.
Tompkins was baptized Daniel Tompkins, but added the middle initial "D." while a student at Columbia College to distinguish himself from another Daniel Tompkins there. There is controversy as to what the middle initial stood for; some have suggested "Decius".[citation needed]
Tompkins was born in Scarsdale, Westchester County, New York at his home, the estate of Fox Meadow. He graduated from Columbia College in New York City in 1795. Tompkins studied law and in 1797 was admitted to the bar, practicing in New York City. He was a delegate to the New York State Constitutional Convention in 1801, a member of the New York State Assembly in 1804, and was elected to the 9th United States Congress, but resigned before the beginning of the term to accept, at age 30, an appointment as associate justice of the New York Supreme Court, in which capacity he served from 1804 to 1807. His brother, Caleb Tompkins (1759–1846), was a United States Representative from New York from 1817 to 1821.
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Daniel Ortega
José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (Spanish pronunciation: [xo̞ˈse̞ ðaˈnje̞l o̞rˈte̞ɣa saˈβe̞ðɾa]; born 11 November 1945) is a Nicaraguan politician. He is the current President of Nicaragua (since 2007), a position he has held previously between 1985 and 1990. A leader in the socialist Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN), his policies in government have seen the implementation of leftist reforms across Nicaragua.
Born into a working class family, from an early age Ortega developed a hatred of the ruling President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who was widely seen as a dictator, and became involved in the underground movement to oppose Somoza's regime. Joining the Sandinistas, he also travelled to Cuba to receive training in guerilla warfare from Fidel Castro's Marxist-Leninist government. After the Nicaraguan Revolution resulted in the overthrow and exile of the Somoza's government in 1979, Ortega became a member of the ruling multipartisan Junta of National Reconstruction and was later elected president, serving from 1985 to 1990. At the time a Marxist-Leninist, his first period in office was characterized by a controversial program of land reform, wealth redistribution and literacy programs. Such leftist reforms damaged U.S. economic interests in the country, gaining hostility from the U.S.'s governing Reagan administration, who funded a right wing militia, the Contras, to overthrow Ortega's government.
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Daniel T. Jewett
Daniel Tarbox Jewett (September 14, 1807 – October 7, 1906) was a United States Senator from Missouri in 1870 and 1871. Born in Pittston, Maine, he completed preparatory studies, attended Colby College, graduated from Columbia College (New York City) in 1830 and from the Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the bar and practiced in Bangor, Maine; he was city solicitor from 1834 to 1837. From 1850 to 1853 he engaged with his brother in operating a steamboat line upon the Chagres River, Isthmus of Panama. He moved to California and engaged in gold mining for two years, after which he returned to Bangor and practiced law.
In 1857 he moved to St. Louis, Missouri and continued the practice of law; in 1866 he was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives. Jewett was appointed as a Republican to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Charles D. Drake and served from December 19, 1870, to January 20, 1871, when a successor was elected. He declined to be a candidate for election to the Senate to fill this vacancy and resumed the practice of law.
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Darlington Hoopes
Darlington Hoopes (1896—1989) was the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections.
Darlington Hoopes was born was born September 11, 1896 in Vale, Maryland in Harford County, the son of a farmer. He was a descendant of Joshua Hoopes, a Quaker from Yorkshire, England who had settled in Pennsylvania in 1683 to take part in William Penn's "Holy Experiment." Young Darlington attended the public schools of Maryland until the eighth grade, and then completed his education at a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania, George School, graduating in 1913. While attending George School, Darlington became a Christian Socialist.
After high school, Hoopes returned to Maryland to work on the farm of his parents. In 1914, he began his studies at the University of Wisconsin, majoring in agriculture. He also visited the Madison office of the Socialist Party in October 1914 and joined the party. Hoopes only completed one year at the University before being called back to work on his parents' new farm in Pennsylvania. He changed his career goals and decided to study the law on his own, taking correspondence courses in public speaking and law from the socialist school People's College at Fort Scott, Kansas, as well as studying during the evening for a five year period at a law office in Norristown, Pennsylvania. He passed his final Pennsylvania Bar Exam in 1921. Hoopes practiced law in Norristown from 1921 to 1927.
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David Allen Smalley
David Allen Smalley (April 6, 1809 – March 10, 1877) was a United States federal judge.
Born in Middlebury, Vermont, Smalley read law in 1831 and practiced in Jericho, Vermont where he was postmaster from 1831 to 1836. Moving first to Lowell, Vermont he settled in Burlington, Vermont in 1836, and was a member of the Vermont State Senate from 1843 to 1844.
At the 1852 Democratic National Convention he was Vermont's Vice President of the Convention as well as member of the platform committee and choice to serve on the Democratic National Committee. President Franklin Pierce appointed him Collector of Customs for the District of Vermont in April 1853. Again a delegate at the Democratic Convention held at Cincinnati in 1856, he was reappointed to the National Committee where he served as Chairman (1856–1860).
On February 2, 1857, Smalley was nominated by President Franklin Pierce to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Vermont vacated by the death of Samuel Prentiss the month before. Smalley was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 3, 1857, and received his commission the same day. As Chair of the Democratic National Committee it was Smalley's task to open the ill-fated Charleston Convention on April 23, 1860. He continued to serve as District Judge until his death, in Burlington, in 1877.
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David Barton
David Barton (December 14, 1783 – September 28, 1837) was one of the first U.S. senators from Missouri, serving 1821–1831.
Barton was born near Greeneville, Tennessee, then part of North Carolina. He was a major political presence in early Missouri, serving as president of the state's constitutional convention, speaker of the Missouri territorial House of Representatives, and as one of its first pair of U.S. Senators. Barton County, Missouri is named for him.
He was the brother of Joshua Barton, the first Missouri Secretary of State. David opposed the reappointment of William Rector to the Office of Surveyor General for Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas, saying that Rector was using his relatives for surveying positions and paying them too much while Rector was surveying the Louisiana Purchase. Joshua published the charges in the St. Louis Republican under the signature of "Philo." Rector's brother Thomas Rector challenged Joshua to a duel in 1823 on Bloody Island (Mississippi River) and killed Joshua. President James Madison did not reappoint Rector.
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David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion (help·info) (Hebrew: דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן, Arabic: دافيد بن غوريون Dafeed Bin Ghuriyyun, born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the main founder and the first Prime Minister of Israel.
Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946. As head of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he became the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, and largely led its struggle for an independent Jewish state in Palestine. On 14 May 1948, he formally proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, and was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which he had helped to write. Ben-Gurion led the provisional government of Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and united the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Subsequently, he became known as "Israel's founding father".
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David Frum
David J. Frum (/ˈfrʌm/; born June 30, 1960) is a Canadian American journalist active in both the United States and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency. His editorial columns have appeared in a variety of Canadian and American magazines and newspapers, including the National Post and The Week. He is a featured writer for The Daily Beast and Newsweek, which he joined after a brief stint as the founder of FrumForum.com (formerly NewMajority.com), a political group blog, and serves on the board of directors of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He is the son of Barbara Frum.
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Frum is the son of the late Barbara Frum, a well-known journalist and broadcaster, and Murray Frum, a dentist, who later became a real estate developer, philanthropist, and art collector. Frum's sister, Linda Frum, is a member of the Canadian Senate. Frum is married to writer Danielle Crittenden, the stepdaughter of former Toronto Sun editor Peter Worthington. The couple has three children. He is a distant cousin of economist Paul Krugman.
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David H. Armstrong
David Hartley Armstrong (October 21, 1812 – March 18, 1893) was a United States Senator from Missouri. Born in Nova Scotia, Canada, he attended Maine Wesleyan Seminary and taught school in New Bedford, Massachusetts from 1833 to 1837. He moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1837, and then to Lebanon, Illinois, where he taught at McKendree University. He returned to Missouri and was principal of the public school at Benton from 1838 to 1847, comptroller of St. Louis from 1847 to 1850, postmaster of St. Louis from 1854 to 1858 and a member of the board of police commissioners from 1873 to 1876.
Armstrong served as a member of the board of freeholders which framed the charter of St. Louis in 1876, and was appointed as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Lewis V. Bogy, serving from September 29, 1877, to January 26, 1879, when a successor was elected and qualified. Armstrong was not a candidate for reelection in 1879; and in 1893 died in St. Louis. Interment was in Bellefontaine Cemetery.
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David Ho (scientist)
David Da-i Ho (Chinese: 何大一; born November 3, 1952) is a Taiwanese AmericanAIDS researcher famous for pioneering the use of protease inhibitors in treating HIV-infected patients with his team. He is the scientific director and chief executive officer of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the Irene Diamond Professor at the Rockefeller University in New York.
Born in Taichung, Taiwan, to Paul (何步基, an engineer) and Sonia Ho (江雙如). David Ho attended Taichung Municipal Guang-Fu Elementary School until sixth grade before immigrating to the United States with his mother and younger brother to unite with his father, who had already been in the US since 1957. He grew up in Los Angeles and received his bachelor of science in physics with highest honors from the California Institute of Technology (1974) and MD from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (1978). Subsequently, he did his clinical training in internal medicine and infectious diseases at UCLA School of Medicine (1978–1982) and Massachusetts General Hospital (1982–1985), respectively. He was a resident in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 1981 when he came into contact with some of the first reported cases of what was later identified as AIDS.
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David McCullough
David Gaub McCullough (pronounced /məˈkʌlə/; born July 7, 1933) is an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award.
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, McCullough earned a degree in English literature from Yale University. His first book was The Johnstown Flood (1968); and he has since written eight more on such topics as Harry S Truman, John Adams, and the Brooklyn Bridge. McCullough has also narrated multiple documentaries, as well as the 2003 film Seabiscuit; and he hosted American Experience for twelve years. McCullough's two Pulitzer Prize-winning books, Truman and John Adams, have been adapted by HBO into a TV film and a mini-series, respectively. McCullough's most recent work, The Greater Journey, about Americans in Paris from the 1830s to the 1900s, was released on May 24, 2011.
McCullough was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Ruth (née Rankin) and Christian Hax McCullough. He is of Scotch-Irish descent. He was educated at Linden Avenue Grade School and Shady Side Academy, in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of four sons, McCullough had a "marvelous" childhood with a wide range of interests, including sports and drawing cartoons. McCullough's parents and his grandmother, who read to him often, introduced him to books at an early age. His parents talked openly about history, a topic he feels should be discussed more often. McCullough "loved school, every day"; he contemplated many career choices ranging from architect, actor, painter, writer, lawyer, and even attending medical school.
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David Rice Atchison
David Rice Atchison (August 11, 1807 – January 26, 1886) was a mid-19th century DemocraticUnited States Senator from Missouri. He served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate for six years. He is best known for the claim that for one day (March 4, 1849) he may have been Acting President of the United States.
Atchison, owner of many slaves and a plantation, was a prominent pro-slavery activist and Border Ruffian leader, deeply involved with violence against abolitionists and other free-staters during the "Bleeding Kansas" events.
Atchison was born to William Atchison in Frogtown (later Kirklevington), which is now part of Lexington, Kentucky. He was educated at Transylvania University in Lexington, where his classmates included five future Democratic senators (Solomon Downs of Louisiana, Jesse Bright of Indiana, George W. Jones of Iowa, Edward Hannegan of Indiana, and Jefferson Davis of Mississippi). Atchison was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1829.
In 1830 he moved to Liberty in Clay County in western Missouri, and set up practice there, where he also farmed. Atchison's law practice flourished, and his best-known client was Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr.. Atchison represented Smith in land disputes with non-Mormon settlers in Caldwell County and Daviess County.
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Dean Acheson
Dean Gooderham Acheson (April 11, 1893 – October 12, 1971) was an American statesman and lawyer. As United States Secretary of State in the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953, he played a central role in defining American foreign policy during the Cold War. Acheson helped design the Marshall Plan and played a central role in the development of the Truman Doctrine and creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Acheson's most famous decision was convincing President Truman to intervene in the Korean War in June 1950. He also persuaded Truman to dispatch aid and advisors to French forces in Indochina, though in 1968 he finally counseled President Lyndon B. Johnson to negotiate for peace with North Vietnam. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy called upon Acheson for advice, bringing him into the executive committee (ExComm), a strategic advisory group.
In the late 1940s Acheson came under heavy attack over Truman's policy toward China, and for Acheson's defense of State Department employees (such as Alger Hiss) accused during the anti-Communist Red Scare investigations of Senator Joseph McCarthy and others.
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Dean G. Acheson
Dean Gooderham Acheson (April 11, 1893 – October 12, 1971) was an American statesman and lawyer. As United States Secretary of State in the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953, he played a central role in defining American foreign policy during the Cold War. Acheson helped design the Marshall Plan and played a central role in the development of the Truman Doctrine and creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Acheson's most famous decision was convincing President Truman to intervene in the Korean War in June 1950. He also persuaded Truman to dispatch aid and advisors to French forces in Indochina, though in 1968 he finally counseled President Lyndon B. Johnson to negotiate for peace with North Vietnam. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy called upon Acheson for advice, bringing him into the executive committee (ExComm), a strategic advisory group.
In the late 1940s Acheson came under heavy attack over Truman's policy toward China, and for Acheson's defense of State Department employees (such as Alger Hiss) accused during the anti-Communist Red Scare investigations of Senator Joseph McCarthy and others.
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Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping (IPA: [tə̂ŋ ɕjɑ̀ʊpʰǐŋ] ( listen); 22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy. While Deng never held office as the head of state, head of government or General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (historically the highest position in Communist China), he nonetheless served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 to 1992. As the core of the second generation leaders Deng shared his power with the two most powerful men after him: Li Xiannian and Chen Yun.
Born into a peasant background in Guang'an, Sichuan, China, Deng studied and worked in France in the 1920s, where he was influenced by Marxism. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1923. Upon his return to China he worked as a political commissar in rural regions and was considered a "revolutionary veteran" of the Long March. Following the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Deng worked in Tibet and other southwestern regions to consolidate Communist control. He was also instrumental in China's economic reconstruction following the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s. His economic policies were at odds with the political ideologies of Chairman Mao Zedong. As a result, he was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution but regained prominence in 1978 by outmaneuvering Mao's chosen successor, Hua Guofeng.
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Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney (born January 30, 1941) served as the 46th Vice President of the United States (2001–2009), under George W. Bush.
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney was primarily raised in Sumner, Nebraska, and Casper, Wyoming. He began his political career as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger, eventually working his way into the White House during the Nixon and Ford administrations, where he served the latter as White House Chief of Staff. In 1978, Cheney was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming; he was reelected five times, eventually becoming House Minority Whip. Cheney was selected to be the Secretary of Defense during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, holding the position for the majority of Bush's term. During this time, Cheney oversaw the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, among other actions.
Out of office during the Clinton presidency, Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000.
Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of Marjorie Lorraine (née Dickey) and Richard Herbert Cheney. He is of predominantly English, as well as Welsh, Irish, and French Huguenot, ancestry; Cheney's 8th great-grandfather, William Cheney, immigrated from England to Massachusetts in the 17th century. Although not a direct descendant, he is collaterally related to Benjamin Pierce Cheney (1815–1895), the early American expressman. Cheney is a very distant cousin of both Harry S. Truman and Barack Obama; the three share a common ancestor in Mareen Duvall, a Huguenot who fled from France to England in the 17th century and later settled in Maryland. His father was a soil conservation agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his mother was a softball star in the 1930s; Cheney was one of three children.
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Donald A. Glaser
Donald Arthur Glaser (born September 21, 1926), is an American physicist, neurobiologist, and a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the bubble chamber used in subatomic particle physics.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Glaser completed his B.Sc. degree in physics and mathematics from the Case Western Reserve University in 1946. He completed his Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1949. Glaser accepted a position as an instructor at the University of Michigan, and was promoted to professor in 1957. He joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, in 1959, as a Professor of Physics. During this time his research concerned short-lived elementary particles. The bubble chamber enabled him to observe the paths and lifetimes of the particles.
Starting in 1962, Glaser changed his field of research to molecular biology, starting with a project on ultraviolet-induced cancer. In 1964, he was given the additional title of Professor of Molecular Biology. Glaser's current position (since 1989) is Professor of Physics and Neurobiology in the Graduate School.
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Donald Fowler
Donald L. Fowler (born 1935) served as National Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1995 to 1997. (Christopher J. Dodd served as "General Chairman" during this same period.) Fowler is a political science professor and businessman from South Carolina who has spent most of his adult life in various Democratic Party roles, including state party executive director, state party chair, and CEO of the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta.
Fowler earned a degree in psychology from Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1957 where he had his basketball jersey retired, was president of the student body, and became a member of the Kappa Alpha Order. For his master’s and doctoral degrees, he attended the University of Kentucky, a pioneering institution in the disciplines of political science and public administration. He has taught public administration and American politics at the University of South Carolina since 1964, and has taught at Wofford from time to time. He is also a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a graduate of the U.S. Army War College.
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Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur (26 January 1880 – 5 April 1964) was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines Campaign. Arthur MacArthur, Jr., and Douglas MacArthur were the first father and son to each be awarded the medal. He was one of only five men ever to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the U.S. Army, and the only man ever to become a field marshal in the Philippine Army.
Douglas MacArthur was raised in a military family in the American Old West. He attended the West Texas Military Academy, where he was valedictorian, and the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he was First Captain and graduated top of the class of 1903. During the 1914 United States occupation of Veracruz, he conducted a reconnaissance mission, for which he was nominated for the Medal of Honor. In 1917, he was promoted from major to colonel and became chief of staff of the 42nd (Rainbow) Division. In the fighting on the Western Front during World War I, he rose to the rank of brigadier general, was again nominated for a Medal of Honor, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice and the Silver Star seven times.
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (pronounced /ˈaɪzənhaʊər/, EYE-zən-how-ər; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He had previously been a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II, and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45, from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first supreme commander of NATO.
Eisenhower was of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, and was reared in a large family in Kansas, by parents with a robust work ethic and religious background. As one of five sons, he was conditioned by a competitive atmosphere which instilled self-reliance. He attended and graduated from West Point, and later was married with two sons. After World War II Eisenhower served as Chief of Staff under President Harry S. Truman, then assumed the post of President at Columbia University.
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Earl Warren
Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American jurist and politician who served as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States and the 30th Governor of California.
He is known for the sweeping decisions of the Warren Court, which ended school segregation and transformed many areas of American law, especially regarding the rights of the accused, ending public-school-sponsored prayer, and requiring "one-man-one vote" rules of apportionment. He made the Court a power center on a more even base with Congress and the presidency especially through four landmark decisions: Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), Reynolds v. Sims (1964), and Miranda v. Arizona (1966).
Warren is one of only two people to be elected Governor of California three times, the other being Jerry Brown. Before holding these positions, he was a district attorney for Alameda County, California, and Attorney General of California.
Warren was also the vice-presidential nominee of the Republican Party in 1948, and chaired the Warren Commission, which was formed to investigate the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
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Ed Flynn
Edward Joseph Flynn (September 22, 1891 The Bronx, then New York County, now Bronx County, New York City - August 18, 1953 Dublin, Republic of Ireland) was an American lawyer and politician. Flynn was a leading Democratic politician of the mid-1900s
Flynn was the youngest son of Henry T. Flynn and Sarah Mallon Flynn. He graduated from Fordham Law School in 1912, and was admitted to the bar in June 1913. Flynn practiced law in partnership with Bill McKeown and later with Monroe Goldwater. He became involved in poltiics and became a prominent local member of the Democratic Party. He served as Assemblyman of Bronx county (1918–1921), Sheriff of Bronx County (1922–1925) Chamberlain of the City of New York (1926–1928), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Bronx County Democratic Committee (1922–1953), Secretary of State for New York (1929–1939), Democratic National Committeeman from New York (1930–1953), and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (1940–1943). He was also the United States Commissioner General on the New York World's Fair Commission, from 1939-1940.
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Ed Rendell
Edward Gene "Ed" Rendell (/rɛnˈdɛl/; born January 5, 1944) is an American politician who served as the 45th Governor of Pennsylvania, from 2003 to 2011. Rendell, a member of the Democratic Party, was elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 2002, and his term of office began January 21, 2003. He was recently a member of the Democratic Governors Association Executive Committee and served as General Chairman of the Democratic National Committee during the 2000 presidential election. Rendell is also a football analyst on Comcast SportsNet's Eagles Postgame Live, hosted by Michael Barkann.
From 2008 to 2009, Governor Rendell was the Chairman of the National Governors Association. He was married to Marjorie Rendell, a federal judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit until they amicably separated in 2011. Rendell is also a faculty member of the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, and chair of Team Pennsylvania Foundation.
Rendell was born in New York City, the son of Emma (née Sloat) and Jesse T. Rendell. His parents were Jewish and all four of his grandparents were immigrants from Russia. He attended Riverdale Country School before the University of Pennsylvania, where he joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity in 1962 and earned a B.A. degree, 1965, and Villanova University School of Law, Juris Doctor, 1968. He served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1968 to 1974.
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Edmund Muskie
Edmund Sixtus "Ed" Muskie (March 28, 1914 – March 26, 1996) was an American politician from Rumford, Maine. He served as Governor of Maine from 1955 to 1959, as a member of the United States Senate from 1959 to 1980, and as Secretary of State under Jimmy Carter from 1980 to 1981. Muskie was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in the 1968 presidential election, and was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 1972.
Muskie held the highest office (Secretary of State) held by a Polish American in U.S. history, and also is the only Polish American ever nominated by a major party for Vice President.
Muskie was born in Rumford, Maine. His father, Stephen Marciszewski (mar-chih-SHEF-ski) immigrated to the United States in 1903 and changed his name to Muskie. His mother Josephine (née Czarnecki) was born in Buffalo, New York, to Polish immigrants. His parents, Roman Catholics, had seven children, of whom six survived.
Muskie attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where he majored in history and government. While at Bates, Muskie was a successful member of the debating team, participated in several sports, and was elected to student government. He also worked during the school year as a waiter, and during the summers at a hotel in Kennebunk, Maine, to supplement the scholarship that allowed him to attend the college. He graduated from Bates in 1936, and from Cornell Law School in 1939.
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Eduard Shevardnadze
Eduard Shevardnadze (Georgian: ედუარდ შევარდნაძე [ɛduard ʃɛvardnad͡zɛ]; born 25 January 1928) is a former Soviet, and later, Georgian statesman from the height to the end of the Cold War. He served as President of Georgia from 1995 to 2003, and as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party (GPC, the de facto leader of Soviet Georgia), from 1972 to 1985. Shevardnadze was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy in the Gorbachev Era. He was forced to retire in 2003 as a consequence of the bloodless Rose Revolution.
Shevardnadze's political career started in the late 1940s as a leading member of his local Komsomol organisation. He was later appointed its Second Secretary, and even First Secretary. His rise up the Georgian Soviet hierarchy continued until 1961 when he was demoted after he insulted a senior official. After spending two years in obscurity, Shevardnadze's returned as a First Secretary of a Tbilisi city district, and was able to charge the Tbilisi First Secretary at the time for corruption. His anti-corruption work quickly garnered the interest of the Soviet government, and Shevardnadze was appointed to First Deputy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR. He would later become the head of the internal affairs ministry and was able to charge First Secretary (leader of Soviet Georgia) Vasil Mzhavanadze for corruption charges.
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Edward Gierek
Edward Gierek (Polish pronunciation: [ˈɛdvart ˈɡʲɛrɛk]; January 6, 1913 – July 29, 2001) was a Polish communist politician.
He was born in Porąbka, outside of Sosnowiec. He lost his father to a mining accident in a pit at the age of four. His mother married again and emigrated to northern France, where he was raised. He joined the French Communist Party in 1931 and was later deported to Poland for organizing a strike. After his military service in Stryj, Galicia, Gierek went to Belgium in 1934, where he joined the Communist Party of Belgium while working in the coal mines of Waterschei. During World War II, he remained activist of the Communist Party of Belgium. He returned to Poland in 1948 and rose through the party ranks to become by 1957 a member of the Polish parliament. As first secretary of the Katowice voivodship party organization (1957–70), Gierek created a personal power base and became the recognized leader of the young technocrat faction of the party. When rioting over economic conditions broke out in late 1970, Gierek replaced Władysław Gomułka as party first secretary. Gierek promised economic reform and instituted a program to modernize industry and increase the availability of consumer goods, doing so mostly through foreign loans. His good relations with Western politicians, especially France's Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and West Germany's Helmut Schmidt, were a catalyst for his receiving western aid and loans.
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Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005) was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–74) and as Leader of the Conservative Party (1965–75).
Born in Broadstairs, Kent, Heath studied at Oxford and served in the Second World War. He was first elected in the 1950 general election, for Bexley and was government Chief Whip during the 1950s. Entering the Cabinet as Minister of Labour in 1959, he was then Lord Privy Seal responsible for Macmillan's unsuccessful EEC entry negotiations, then President of the Board of Trade. In 1965 Heath won the leadership of the Conservative Party against Reginald Maudling and Enoch Powell. The general election of 1966 saw the Labour government of Harold Wilson achieve a large increase in seats, however Heath remained Conservative leader.
Heath became Prime Minister after winning the 1970 general election. In 1971, Heath oversaw the decimalisation of British coinage and in 1972, he implemented major reform to the UK's system of local government. In foreign policy, Heath took the UK into the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. Heath's premiership oversaw the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, with the suspension of the Stormont parliament and the imposition of direct British rule. Unofficial talks with IRA delegates were unsuccessful, as was the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973, which caused Ulster Unionists to withdraw from the Conservative whip.
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Edward J. Flynn
Edward Joseph Flynn (September 22, 1891 The Bronx, then New York County, now Bronx County, New York City - August 18, 1953 Dublin, Republic of Ireland) was an American lawyer and politician. Flynn was a leading Democratic politician of the mid-1900s
Flynn was the youngest son of Henry T. Flynn and Sarah Mallon Flynn. He graduated from Fordham Law School in 1912, and was admitted to the bar in June 1913. Flynn practiced law in partnership with Bill McKeown and later with Monroe Goldwater. He became involved in poltiics and became a prominent local member of the Democratic Party. He served as Assemblyman of Bronx county (1918–1921), Sheriff of Bronx County (1922–1925) Chamberlain of the City of New York (1926–1928), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Bronx County Democratic Committee (1922–1953), Secretary of State for New York (1929–1939), Democratic National Committeeman from New York (1930–1953), and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (1940–1943). He was also the United States Commissioner General on the New York World's Fair Commission, from 1939-1940.
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Edward Mills Purcell
Edward Mills Purcell (August 30, 1912 – March 7, 1997) was an American physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for his independent discovery (published 1946) of nuclear magnetic resonance in liquids and in solids.Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has become widely used to study the molecular structure of pure materials and the composition of mixtures. See also Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Born and raised in Taylorville, Illinois, Purcell received his BSEE in electrical engineering from Purdue University, followed by his M.A. and Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University. He was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Phi Kappa Sigma while at Purdue. After spending the years of World War II working at the MIT Radiation Laboratory on the development of microwave radar, Purcell returned to Harvard to do research. In December 1946, he discovered nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) with his colleagues Pound and Torrey. NMR provides scientists with an elegant and precise way of determining chemical structure and properties of materials, and is widely used in physics and chemistry. It also is the basis of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), one of the most important medical advances of the 20th century. For his discovery of NMR, Purcell shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in physics with Felix Bloch of Stanford University.
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Edward Teller
Edward Teller (Hungarian: Teller Ede; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb", even though he claimed he did not care for the title. Teller made numerous contributions to nuclear and molecular physics, spectroscopy (the Jahn–Teller and Renner–Teller effects), and surface physics. His extension of Fermi's theory of beta decay (in the form of the so-called Gamow–Teller transitions) provided an important stepping stone in the applications of this theory. The Jahn–Teller effect and the BET theory have retained their original formulation and are still mainstays in physics and chemistry. Teller also made contributions to Thomas–Fermi theory, the precursor of density functional theory, a standard modern tool in the quantum mechanical treatment of complex molecules. In 1953, along with Nicholas Metropolis and Marshall Rosenbluth, Teller co-authored a paper which is a standard starting point for the applications of the Monte Carlo method to statistical mechanics.
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Edward V. Long
Edward Vaughn Long (July 18, 1908 – November 6, 1972) was a United States Senator from Missouri and a member of the Democratic Party. He served in the United States Senate from 1960 until 1968.
Born in rural Lincoln County, Missouri near Whiteside, he was educated at Culver-Stockton College and the University of Missouri.
After holding various local offices in Bowling Green and Pike County, Long was elected to the Missouri State Senate, where he served from 1945 to 1955; he was elected majority floor leader in 1952 and President pro tempore in 1955.
In his first statewide race, he was elected the Lieutenant Governor of Missouri in 1956, serving from 1957 until his appointment in 1960 by Governor James T. Blair, Jr. to the Senate seat made vacant by the death of Thomas C. Hennings, Jr.. He won election to the Senate in his own right in 1962, but lost a primary challenge to Thomas F. Eagleton in 1968, and resigned his seat on December 27 of that year, resuming his law practice in Missouri.
Long is buried in Grand View Burial Park, Hannibal, Missouri.
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Edwin W. Pauley
Edwin Wendell Pauley, Sr. (January 7, 1903 – July 28, 1981) was an American businessman and political leader.
Born in Indianapolis, Indiana to Elbert L. Pauley and the former Ellen Van Petten, he attended Occidental College northeast of Los Angeles during 1919–1920 before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and earned earning a Bachelor of Science in 1922 and a Master of Science the following year.
Pauley made his fortune running oil companies from the mid-1920s onward. He founded The Petrol Corp. in 1923. Pauley was president of Fortuna Petroleum by 1933. In 1947 he bought Coconut Island in Hawaii, as a private retreat. Several of his deals involved Zapata Corporation, run by George H. W. Bush, including a joint-venture with Pemargo in 1960. In 1958 he founded Pauley Petroleum which, with Howard Hughes, expanded oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.
Later Pauley also became a part owner of the Los Angeles Rams football team and a director of Western Airlines.
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Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Thomas Gerry (/ˈɛlbrɪdʒ ˈɡɛri/; July 17th, 1744 – November 23rd, 1814) was an American statesman and diplomat. As a Democratic-Republican he was selected as the fifth Vice President of the United States (1813–1814), serving under James Madison, until his death a year and a half into his term.
Gerry was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. He was one of three men who refused to sign the United States Constitution because it did not then include a Bill of Rights. Gerry later became the ninth Governor of Massachusetts. He is known best for being the namesake of gerrymandering, a process by which electoral districts are drawn with the aim of aiding the party in power, although its initial "g" has softened to /dʒ/ from the hard /ɡ/ of his name.
Born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the third of twelve children, he was a graduate of Harvard College, where he studied to be a doctor, attending there from age fourteen. He worked in his father's shipping business and came to prominence over his opposition to commerce taxes. He was elected to the General Court of the province of Massachusetts in May 1772 on an anti-British platform.
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Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (/ˈɛlɨnɔr ˈroʊzəvɛlt/; October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962) was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international author, speaker, politician, and activist for the New Deal coalition. She worked to enhance the status of working women, although she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment because she believed it would adversely affect women.
In the 1940s, Roosevelt was one of the co-founders of Freedom House and supported the formation of the United Nations. Roosevelt founded the UN Association of the United States in 1943 to advance support for the formation of the UN. She was a delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 and 1952, a job for which she was appointed by President Harry S. Truman and confirmed by the United States Senate. During her time at the United Nations she chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Truman called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.
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Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms, and head of the 54-member Commonwealth of Nations. She is also head of state of the Crown Dependencies.
Elizabeth was born in London, and educated privately at home. Her father acceded to the throne as George VI in 1936 on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII. She began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, in which she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. On the death of her father in 1952, she became Head of the Commonwealth and queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon. Her coronation service in 1953 was the first to be televised. Between 1956 and 1992, the number of her realms varied as territories gained independence and some realms became republics. Today, in addition to the first four aforementioned countries, Elizabeth is Queen of Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
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Ella T. Grasso
Ella T. Grasso (May 10, 1919 – February 5, 1981) was an American politician, and the first woman elected governor of Connecticut.
Ella Rose Tambussi was born in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, to Italian immigrant parents Maria (née Oliva) and Giacomo Tambussi, a mill worker. Contrary to popular belief, she was not the first elected woman to serve as governor of a U.S. state; however, Grasso was the first woman who was elected governor "in her own right", i.e. without being the wife or widow of a past governor.
After attending St. Mary's School, Windsor Locks, and the Chaffee School, Windsor, she attended Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she earned her B.A. in 1940, and her M.A. two years later. After graduation, she served as assistant director of research for the War Manpower Commission of Connecticut.
In 1952, Grasso was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives and served until 1957. She became first woman to be elected Floor Leader of the House in 1955. In 1958 she was elected Secretary of the State of Connecticut and was re-elected in 1962 and 1966. She was the first woman to chair the Democratic State Platform Committee and served from 1956-68. She served as a member of the Platform Drafting Committee for the 1960 Democratic National Convention. She was the co-chairman for the Resolutions Committee for the Democratic National Conventions of 1964 and 1968. In 1970 she was elected as a Democratic representative to the 92nd Congress, and won re-election in 1972.
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Elmo Roper
Elmo Burns Roper, Jr. (July 31, 1900 in Hebron, Nebraska – April 30, 1971 in Redding, Connecticut) was a pollster known for his pioneering work in market research and opinion polling. In 1934, he cofounded Cherington, Wood, and Roper, a marketing research firm. When that partnership fell apart, he founded his own research company, Elmo Roper, Inc. He was hired by Henry Luce in 1935 to run surveys for Fortune, continuing these surveys for 15 years. His prediction of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's electoral victory over Alf Landon in 1936 was correct to within 0.9%; his 1940 prediction of Roosevelt's victory was correct to within 0.5%, further solidifying the reputation of Roper's techniques. In 1940, Roosevelt hired Roper to assess public opinion of Lend-Lease prior to its implementation. In 1942 he was hired by William Joseph Donovan to be the deputy director of the Office of Strategic Services; Roper subsequently worked with the Office of War Information. After leaving the OWI he founded the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut in 1947.
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Emilio G. Segrè
Emilio Gino Segrè (1 February 1905 – 22 April 1989) was an Italian-born, naturalized American, physicist and Nobel laureate in physics, who with Owen Chamberlain, discovered antiprotons, a sub-atomic antiparticle.
Segrè was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Tivoli, near Rome, and enrolled in the University of Rome La Sapienza as an engineering student. He switched to physics in 1927 and earned his doctorate in 1928, having studied under Enrico Fermi.
After a stint in the Italian Army from 1928 to 1929, he worked with Otto Stern in Hamburg and Pieter Zeeman in Amsterdam as a Rockefeller Foundation fellow in 1930. Segrè was appointed assistant professor of physics at the University of Rome in 1932 and served until 1936, becoming one of Via Panisperna boys. From 1936 to 1938 he was Director of the Physics Laboratory at the University of Palermo. After a visit to Ernest O. Lawrence's Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, he was sent a molybdenum strip from the laboratory's cyclotron deflector in 1937 which was emitting anomalous forms of radioactivity. After careful chemical and theoretical analysis, Segrè was able to prove that some of the radiation was being produced by a previously unknown element, dubbed technetium, and was the first artificially synthesized chemical element which does not occur in nature.
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Enrico Berlinguer
Enrico Berlinguer (Italian pronunciation: [berliŋˈɡwɛr]) (25 May 1922 – 11 June 1984) was an Italian politician; he was national secretary of the Italian Communist Party (Partito Comunista Italiano or PCI) from 1972 until his death.
The son of Mario Berlinguer and Maria Loriga, Enrico Berlinguer was born in Sassari, Italy to a noble and important Sardinian family, in a notable cultural context, with family ties and political contacts that would heavily influence his life and career. His surname 'Berlinguer' is of Catalan origin, a reminder of the period when Sardinia was part of the dominions of the Crown of Aragon.
He was a cousin of Francesco Cossiga (who was a leader of the Italian Christian Democrats and later became a President of the Italian Republic), and both were relatives of Antonio Segni, another Christian Democrat leader and President of the Republic. Enrico's grandfather, Enrico Berlinguer Sr., was the founder of La Nuova Sardegna, an important Sardinian newspaper, and a personal friend of Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, whom he had helped in his attempts through his parliamentary work to improve the sad conditions on the island.
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Enver Hoxha
Enver Hoxha ( pronunciation (help·info); 16 October 1908 – 11 April 1985) was the leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania. He also served as Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954, Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chairman of the Democratic Front from 1945 to his death, and as Commander-in-Chief of the Albanian armed forces from 1944 to his death. Hoxha's leadership was characterized by his proclaimed firm adherence to anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism from the mid-1970s onwards. After his break with Maoism in the 1976–1978 period, numerous Maoist parties declared themselves Hoxhaist. The International Conference of Marxist–Leninist Parties and Organizations (Unity & Struggle) is the most well known collection of these parties today.
Hoxha was born in Gjirokastër, a city in southern Albania (then under the Ottoman Empire) that has been home to many prominent families. He was the son of Halil Hoxha, a BektashiTosk cloth merchant who travelled widely across Europe and the United States of America, and Gjylihan (Gjylo) Hoxha. At age 16 he helped found and became secretary of the Students Society of Gjirokastër, which protested against the monarchist government. After the Society was closed down by the government, he left his hometown and moved to Korçë, continuing his studies in a French secondary school. There he learned French history, literature and philosophy. In this city he read for the first time the Communist Manifesto.
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Erich Honecker
Erich Honecker (German: [ˈeːʁɪç ˈhɔnɛkɐ]; 25 August 1912 – 29 May 1994) was a German socialist politician who led the German Democratic Republic as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1971 until 1989, serving as Head of State as well after Willi Stoph's relinquishment of that post in 1976.
Following the definite end of the Cold War, Honecker refused all but cosmetic changes and was ousted by the party in late 1989 and removed from power. Following the German reunification he successfully evaded prosecution for human rights abuses committed under his regime, finally settling down with his family in Chile in 1993, dying the following year from liver cancer.
Honecker was born on Max-Braun-Straße in Neunkirchen, now Saarland, as the son of Wilhelm Honecker, a coal miner and political activist, who in 1905 had married Caroline Catharina Weidenhof. There were six children born to the family: Katharina (Käthe), Wilhelm (Willi), Frieda, Erich, Gertrud (b. 1917; m. Hoppstädter), and Karl-Robert.
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Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He co-founded and served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1940, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government he supported the creation of NATO.
Bevin was born in the village of Winsford in Somerset, England, to Diana Bevin who, since 1877, had described herself as a widow. His father is unknown. After his mother's death in 1889, the young Bevin lived with his half-sister's family, moving to Morchard Bishop in Devon. He had little formal education, having briefly attended two village schools and then Hayward's School, Crediton, starting in 1890 and leaving in 1892. He later recalled being asked as a child to read the newspaper aloud for the benefit of adults in his family who were illiterate. At the age of eleven, he went to work as a labourer, then as a lorry driver in Bristol, where he joined the Bristol Socialist Society. In 1910 he became secretary of the Bristol branch of the Dockers' Union, and in 1914 he became a national organiser for the union.
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Estes Kefauver
Carey Estes Kefauver ( /ˈɛstɨs ˈkiːfɔːvər/; July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1939 to 1949 and in the Senate from 1949 to his death in 1963.
After leading a much-publicized investigation into organized crime in the early 1950s, he twice sought his party's nomination for President of the United States. In 1956, he was selected by the Democratic National Convention to be the running mate of presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. Still holding his U.S. Senate seat after the Stevenson-Kefauver ticket lost to the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket in 1956, Kefauver was named chair of the U.S. Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee in 1957 and served as its chairman until his death.
Kefauver was born in Madisonville, Tennessee, to Robert Cooke Kefauver and Phredonia Bradford Estes. Robert Kefauver was a hardware manager. Estes attended the University of Tennessee from 1922 to 1924, receiving a bachelor of arts degree and being initiated into the Lambda Chapter of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. After a year of teaching mathematics and coaching football at a Hot Springs, Arkansas, high school, he attended Yale University, from which he received an LL.B. cum laude in 1927. For the next dozen years Kefauver practiced law in Chattanooga, first with the firm of Cooke, Swaney & Cooke, as a partner in Sizer, Chambliss & Kefauver, and later in the firm of Duggan, McDonald, & Kefauver. In 1935 he married Nancy Pigott of Glasgow, Scotland, eight years his junior, whom he had met during her visit to relatives in Chattanooga. They raised four children, one of them adopted. Mrs. Kefauver died in 1967.
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Everett Dirksen
Everett McKinley Dirksen (January 4, 1896 – September 7, 1969) was an American politician of the Republican Party. He represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives (1933–1949) and U.S. Senate (1951–1969). As Senate Minority Leader for over a decade, he played a highly visible and key role in the politics of the 1960s, including helping to write and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Open Housing Act of 1968, both landmarks of civil rights legislation. He was also one of the Senate's strongest supporters of the Vietnam War and was known as "The Wizard of Ooze" for his oratorical style.
Dirksen was born to Johann Friedrich Dirksen and his wife Antje Conrady, German immigrants who lived in Pekin, Illinois, a small city near Peoria, Illinois. Everett had a fraternal twin, Thomas Dirksen, and also had a brother named Benjamin Harrison, a nod to the Republican leanings of his father, who died when Everett was nine years old.
Dirksen grew up on a farm on Pekin's outskirts, in a section called "Beantown" because immigrants grew beans instead of flowers. He attended the local schools and then entered the University of Minnesota Law School, but dropped out during World War I to enlist in the U.S. Army, serving as a second lieutenant in a field artillery battery. He was a member of the Reformed Church in America, founded by Dutch immigrants.
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F. W. de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk (born 18 March 1936), often known as F. W. de Klerk, was the seventh and last State President of apartheid-era South Africa, serving from September 1989 to May 1994. De Klerk was also leader of the National Party (which later became the New National Party) from February 1989 to September 1997.
De Klerk is best known for engineering the end of apartheid, South Africa's racial segregation policy, and supporting the transformation of South Africa into a multi-racial democracy by entering into the negotiations that resulted in all citizens, including the country's black majority, having equal voting and other rights. He won the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize in 1991, the Prince of Asturias Award in 1992 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 along with Nelson Mandela for his role in the ending of apartheid.
He was one of the Deputy Presidents of South Africa during the presidency of Nelson Mandela until 1996, the last white person to hold the position to date. In 1997 he retired from politics.
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Farrell Dobbs
Farrell Dobbs (July 25, 1907 – October 31, 1983) was an American Trotskyist and trade unionist.
He was born in Queen City, Missouri where his father was a worker in a coal company garage. They moved to Minneapolis, and he graduated from North High School in 1925. In 1926, he left for North Dakota to find work but returned the following fall. At this point, young Farrell Dobbs was a conservative Republican and supported Herbert Hoover for President. However, his political viewpoint was changed during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Seeing the plight of workers in that situation (including himself), he became politically radicalized to the left.
In 1933, while working for the Pittsburgh Coal Company in Minneapolis, Dobbs joined the Teamsters and after getting to know the three Trotskyist Dunne brothers, (Miles, Vincent & Grant Dunne) and Swedish socialist Carl Skoglund, he joined the Communist League of America. Dobbs was one of the initiators of a general strike in Minneapolis, and for a while worked full-time as a union organiser, but quit in 1939 to work for the new Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Dobbs met the Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky when he visited Mexico shortly before Trotsky's death in 1940.
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Felipe González
Felipe González Márquez (born 5 March 1942) is a Spanish socialist politician. He was the General Secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from 1974 to 1997. To date, he remains the longest-serving Prime Minister of Spain, after having served four successive mandates from 1982 to 1996.
Felipe was born in Seville, son of a farmer who had a small dairy. He has a sister named Lola González y Márquez, married to Francisco Germán Palomino y Romera, by whom she has two sons, Felipe and Germán Palomino y González. He studied Law at Seville University and started his career as attorney specialising in labour. While at the University he met members of the socialist trade union Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) that was clandestine at the time. He also contacted members of the PSOE and started taking part in the party's clandestine activity. During that time he adopted the nom de guerre Isidoro and moved to Madrid. He was elected Secretary General of the Party at the Suresnes Congress, in France.
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Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Frankfurter was born in Vienna and immigrated to New York at the age of 12. He graduated from Harvard Law School and was active politically, helping to found the American Civil Liberties Union. He was a friend and adviser of President Franklin Roosevelt, who appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1939. Frankfurter served on the Supreme Court for 23 years, and was a noted advocate of judicial restraint in the judgments of the Court.
Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma (Winter) Frankfurter. His forebears had been rabbis for generations. In 1894, when he was twelve, his family immigrated to New York City's Lower East Side. Frankfurter attended P.S. 25, where he excelled at his studies and enjoyed chess and crap shooting on the street. He spent many hours reading at The Cooper Union and attending political lectures, usually on subjects such as trade unionism, socialism and communism.
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Ferdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino politician who held the title of President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives (1949–1959) and a member of the Philippine Senate (1959–1965). He was Senate President from 1963–1965.
While in power he implemented wide-ranging programs of infrastructure development and economic reform. However, his administration was marred by massive authoritarian corruption, despotism, nepotism, political repression, and human rights violations.
In 1983, his government was accused of being involved in the assassination of his primary political opponent, Benigno Aquino, Jr. Public outrage over the assassination served as the catalyst for the People Power Revolution in February 1986 that led to his removal from power and eventual exile in Hawaii. It was later discovered that, during his 20 years in power, he and his wife Imelda Marcos had moved billions of dollars of embezzled public funds to accounts and investments in the United States, Switzerland, and other countries.
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Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (Spanish: [fiˈðel ˈkastro]; born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011. Politically a Marxist-Leninist, under his administration the Republic of Cuba was converted into a one-party socialist state, with industry and business being nationalized under state ownership and socialist reforms implemented in all areas of society. On the international stage, he also served as the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and 2006 to 2008.
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Fidel V. Ramos
Fidel "Eddie" Valdez Ramos, GCMG (born March 18, 1928), popularly known as FVR, was the 12th President of the Philippines from 1992 to 1998. During his six years in office, Ramos was widely credited and admired by many for revitalizing and renewing international confidence in the Philippine economy.
Prior to his election as president, Ramos served in the Cabinet of President Corazon Aquino first as chief-of-staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and, later on, as Secretary of National Defense from 1986 to 1991.
During the historic 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, Ramos upon the invitation of then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, was hailed as a hero even though he was not part of the plan by many Filipinos for his decision to break away from the administration of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos and pledge allegiance and loyalty to the newly established revolutionary government of President Aquino, following the downfall of Marcos from power in February 1986. Previously, he was the AFP vice chief-of-staff, chief of PC/INP under President Marcos.
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Fielding L. Wright
Fielding Lewis Wright (May 16, 1895 – May 4, 1956) was a Democratic politician who served as Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi from 1944 to 1946, then as Governor after the incumbent, Thomas L. Bailey, died in office in 1946. Wright was elected Governor in his own right in 1947 and served a full four year term. In 1948 Wright was nominated as the vice-presidential candidate of the States' Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats), running alongside South Carolina's Governor Strom Thurmond.
Wright was born into a politically active family in the town of Rolling Fork, in Sharkey County, Mississippi, on May 16, 1895. Through his mother, Anne Foote Wright, he was a direct descendant of Fielding Lewis and his wife, Betty Washington Lewis, a sister of George Washington. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War I he returned home vowing that he would never become a "dang politician". Wright studied law at the University of Alabama, then went on to open a law office in Rolling Fork in partnership with his uncle.
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Forrest C. Donnell
Forrest C. Donnell (August 20, 1884 – March 3, 1980) was a United States Senator and the 40th Governor of Missouri. He was a Republican.
Donnell was born in Quitman, Missouri.
Donnell graduated from Maryville High School (Missouri) in 1900 and where his father was once mayor ironically living in the same home as Albert Morehouse who had also been governor.
At the University of Missouri he was a member of the Kappa Sigma and Phi Delta Phi fraternities and was elected to member in Phi Beta Kappa, Theta Kappa Nu and QEBH societies. He was valedictorian of the 1904 class and received a law degree in 1907.
In 1907 he moved to St. Louis, Missouri. In October 1911 he and future Senator Selden P. Spencer formed the law firm of Spencer & Donnell. In 1917 he was president of the Association of Young Republicans of Missouri; in 1918-1920 as a member of the executive committee of the Republican State Committee of Missouri; and in 1919 as president of the 28th Ward Republican Club of St. Louis.
He was the city attorney of Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb southwest of St. Louis City.
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Frances Perkins
Frances Perkins (April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965), born Fannie Coralie Perkins, was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition. She and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes were the only original members of the Roosevelt cabinet to remain in office for his entire presidency.
During her term as Secretary of Labor, Perkins championed many aspects of the New Deal, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration and its successor the Federal Works Agency, and the labor portion of the National Industrial Recovery Act. With The Social Security Act she established unemployment benefits, pensions for the many uncovered elderly Americans, and welfare for the poorest Americans. She pushed to reduce workplace accidents and helped craft laws against child labor. Through the Fair Labor Standards Act, she established the first minimum wage and overtime laws for American workers, and defined the standard 40-hour work week. She formed governmental policy for working with labor unions and helped to alleviate strikes by way of the United States Conciliation Service, Perkins resisted having American women be drafted to serve the military in World War II so that they could enter the civilian workforce in greatly expanded numbers.
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Francesco Cossiga
Francesco Cossiga (26 July 1928 – 17 August 2010) was an Italian politician, the 43rd Prime Minister and the eighth President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari.
Cossiga was born in Sassari in the north of Sardinia. He started his political career during World War II. His name is now usually pronounced Italian pronunciation: [kosˈsiːɡa], but it was originally pronounced Italian pronunciation: [ˈkɔssiɡa], with the stress on the first syllable, meaning "Corsica". He was the cousin of Enrico Berlinguer.
He was a minister several times for the Democrazia Cristiana party (DC), notably during his stay at Viminale (Ministry for internal affairs) where he re-structured the Italian police, civil protection and secret services. In 1977, when Cossiga was minister of internal affairs, police squads organized by Cossiga shot against a demonstration in Rome, killing student Giorgiana Masi. Cossiga for many years stated that she was killed by her companions.
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Francis Biddle
Francis Beverley Biddle (May 9, 1886 – October 4, 1968) was an American lawyer and judge who was Attorney General of the United States during World War II and who served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg trials.
Biddle was one of four sons of Frances Brown (Robinson) and Algernon Sydney Biddle, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania of the Biddle family. He was also a great-great-grandson of Edmund Randolph, and a half second cousin four times removed of James Madison. He was born in Paris while his family was living abroad. He graduated from the Groton School, where he participated in boxing.
He earned degrees from Harvard University in 1909 (A.B.) and 1911 (law degree). He first worked as a private secretary to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. from 1911 to 1912. He spent the next 27 years practicing law in Philadelphia, PA. In 1912, he supported the presidential candidacy of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's renegade Bull Moose Party. He was also in the United States Army in 1918, during World War I. He served as special assistant to the U.S. attorney of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1922 to 1926.
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Francis Cockrell
Francis Marion Cockrell (October 1, 1834 – December 13, 1915) was a Confederate military commander and American politician from the state of Missouri. He served as a United States Senator from Missouri for five terms. He was a prominent member of the famed South–Cockrell–Hargis family of Southern politicians.
Cockrell was born in Warrensburg, Missouri. His older brother was Jeremiah Vardaman Cockrell, who was a congressman from Texas in the 1890s. Francis Cockrell attended local schools and Chapel Hill College in Lafayette County, Missouri, graduating in July 1853; He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1855, practicing law in Warrensburg until the outbreak of the Civil War.
At the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, Cockrell joined the Missouri State Guard as a captain. After transferring to the Confederate army and being promoted to colonel, he was an important leader in the Vicksburg Campaign and was wounded in the hand by an exploding shell during the Siege of Vicksburg. Cockrell distinguished himself at the Battle of Champion Hill, launching a counterattack that temporarily ousted troops of XVII Corps off the hill. He also took part in the Battle of Big Black River Bridge. His brigade was able to escape just before federal troops seized the bridge.[1]
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Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde, better known under the name of Franco, (Spanish: [fɾanˈθisko ˈfɾaŋko]; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general, dictator and the leader of the Nationalist military rebellion in the Spanish Civil War, and totalitarian head of state of Spain, from October 1936 (as a unified nation from 1939 onwards) until his death in November 1975. He came to power while recognizing the principles of the far-right Falange movement, although this was for propaganda reasons, as he belonged to no political party before becoming Head of State. As head of state, Franco used the titles Caudillo de España and Generalísimo, but also was called formally as His Excellency, The Head of State.
Franco was from a military family, and although originally intent on entering the Spanish Navy, he instead became a soldier. He participated in the Rif War in Morocco, becoming the youngest general in Europe by 1926. After returning to the Spanish mainland, he saw service suppressing an anarchist-led strike in 1934, defending the stability of Alcalá-Zamora's conservative government. Following the formation of a Popular Front government, made up of various left-wing factions, instability heightened. Violence between militant groups rose sharply with assassination of conservative parliamentary leader José Calvo Sotelo, in retaliation for the killing of José Castillo. Franco and his co-conspirators used Calvo's death as their pretext for war, as they had already initiated the plan for their rebellion.
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Frank Borman
Frank Frederick Borman, II (born March 14, 1928) is a retired NASA astronaut and engineer, best remembered as the Commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon, making him, along with fellow crew mates Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, the first of only 24 humans to do so. Before flying on Apollo, he set a fourteen-day spaceflight endurance record on Gemini 7, and also served on the NASA review board which investigated the Apollo 1 fire. After leaving NASA, he was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Eastern Air Lines from 1975 to 1986. Borman is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. In the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, Borman was played by David Andrews.
Borman was born in Gary, Indiana, where the Frank Borman Expressway is named after him. Because he suffered from numerous sinus problems in the cold and damp weather, his father packed up the family and moved to the better climate of Tucson, Arizona, which Borman considers his home town. He started to fly at the age of 15. He is a graduate of the Tucson High School. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1950 where he served as an Army Football Manager, and along with part of his graduating class, he entered the United States Air Force (USAF) and became a fighter pilot. He received his Master of Science degree in aeronautical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1957. Later, Borman was selected for the USAF test pilot school and became a test pilot.
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Frank C. Walker
Frank Comerford Walker (30 May 1886 – 13 September 1959) was a American lawyer and politician. He served as the United States Postmaster General between 1940 and 1945. He also served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1943 until 1944.
He was born in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. He attended Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington for three years and earned a law degree from Notre Dame in 1909. He then joined his older brother Thomas in a law practice in Butte, Montana. In 1913, he was elected to a term as a Montana state representative.
During World War I, Walker volunteered for the U.S. Army. He became a first lieutenant and saw action on the Western Front. After the war, he returned to his law practice.
In 1925, he moved to New York City, where he become manager and general counsel of Comerford Theatres, a chain of movie theaters owned by his relative Michael Comerford.
In New York, Walker expanded his political activities, and became an early supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1931, he co-founded the Roosevelt for President Society. In 1932, he became Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Until Roosevelt's death, Walker was one of his closest advisers.
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Frank Knox
William Franklin "Frank" Knox (January 1, 1874 – April 28, 1944) was an American newspaper editor and publisher. He was also the Republican vice presidential candidate in 1936, and Secretary of the Navy under Franklin D. Roosevelt during most of World War II.
William Franklin Knox was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were both Canadian: his father was from New Brunswick and his mother Sarah Barnard, was from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. When he was nine, his family moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where his father ran a grocery store. He attended Alma College in Michigan, where he was a member of the Zeta Sigma Fraternity.
During the Spanish-American War, he joined the Army, and served in Cuba with the Rough Riders .
After the war, Knox became a newspaper reporter in Grand Rapids. This was the beginning of a career that included ownership of several papers.
He changed his first name to Frank around 1900. In 1912 as founding editor of New Hampshire's Manchester Leader, forerunner to the New Hampshire Union Leader, he supported Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive ticket. However, with that exception, he adhered to the Republican Party.
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Frank Murphy
William Francis (Frank) Murphy (April 13, 1890 – July 19, 1949) was a politician and jurist from Michigan. He served as First Assistant U.S. District Attorney, Eastern Michigan District (1920–23), Recorder's Court Judge, Detroit (1923–30). Mayor of Detroit (1930–33), the last Governor-General of the Philippines (1933–35), U.S. High Commissioner of the Philippines (1935–36), the 35th Governor of Michigan (1937–39), United States Attorney General (1939–40), and United States Supreme Court Associate Justice (1940–49).
Murphy was born in Harbor Beach, Michigan, then known as "Sand Beach", in 1890. His Irish parents, John T. Murphy and Mary Brennan, raised him as a devout Catholic. He followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a lawyer. He attended the University of Michigan Law School, and graduated with a BA in 1912 and LLB in 1914. He was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and the senior society Michigamua. Murphy was stricken with Diphtheria in the winter of 1911 but was allowed to begin his course in the Law Department from which he received his LL.B. degree in 1914. He performed graduate work at Lincoln's Inn in London and Trinity College, Dublin, which was said to be formative for his judicial philosophy. He developed a need to decide cases based on his more holistic notions of justice, eschewing technical legal arguments. As one commentator wrote of his later supreme court service, he "tempered justice with Murphy."
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Frank P. Briggs
Frank Parks Briggs (February 25, 1894 – September 23, 1992) was a United States Senator from Missouri. Born in Armstrong, Missouri, he attended Armstrong and Fayette schools and Central College at Fayette from 1911 to 1914. He graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1915, engaged in the newspaper business that year, and in the publishing business at Macon, Missouri in 1925. He was mayor of Macon from 1930 to 1932 and a member of the Missouri Senate from 1933 to 1944.
Briggs was appointed, on January 18, 1945, as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Harry S. Truman and served from January 18, 1945, to January 3, 1947; he was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the full term in 1946. He resumed the newspaper publishing business and was chairman of the Missouri State Conservation Commission in 1955-1956; from 1961 to 1965 he was Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife. He was a resident of Macon until his death in 1992; interment was in Walnut Ridge Cemetery, Fayette.
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Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was the 14th President of the United States (1853–1857) and is the only President from New Hampshire. Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" (a Northerner with Southern sympathies) who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general in the Army. His private law practice in his home state, New Hampshire, was so successful that he was offered several important positions, which he turned down. Later, he was nominated as the party's candidate for president on the 49th ballot at the 1852 Democratic National Convention. In the presidential election, Pierce and his running mate William R. King won by a landslide in the Electoral College. They defeated the Whig Party ticket of Winfield Scott and William A. Graham by a 50 percent to 44 percent margin in the popular vote and 254 to 42 in the electoral vote.
He made many friends, but he suffered tragedy in his personal life; all of his children died when young. As president, he made many divisive decisions which were widely criticized and earned him a reputation as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. Pierce's popularity in the Northern states declined sharply after he supported the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which replaced the Missouri Compromise and renewed debate over the expansion of slavery in the American West. Pierce's credibility was further damaged when several of his diplomats issued the Ostend Manifesto. The historian David Potter concludes that the Ostend Manifesto and the Kansas-Nebraska Act were "the two great calamities of the Franklin Pierce administration.... Both brought down an avalanche of public criticism."[citation needed] More importantly, says Potter, they permanently discredited Manifest Destiny and "popular sovereignty" as political doctrines.
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François Mitterrand
François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (French: [fʁɑ̃swa mɔʁis mitɛˈʁɑ̃] ( listen); 26 October 1916 – 8 January 1996) was the 21st President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, serving from 1981 until 1995. He is the longest-serving President of France and, as leader of the Socialist Party, the first figure from the left elected President under the Fifth Republic.
Reflecting family influences, Mitterrand started political life on the Catholic nationalist right. He served under the Vichy Regime in its earlier years. Subsequently, however, he joined the Resistance, moved to the left, and held ministerial office repeatedly under the Fourth Republic. He opposed de Gaulle's establishment of the Fifth Republic. Although at times a politically isolated figure, Mitterrand outmanoeuvred rivals to become the left's standard bearer in every presidential election from 1965 to 1988, except 1969. Elected President in the May 1981 presidential election, he was re-elected in 1988 and held office until 1995.
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Fred R. Harris
Fred Roy Harris (born November 13, 1930) is a former Democratic United States Senator from the state of Oklahoma. He served from 1964 until 1973.
Harris was born in Cotton County, Oklahoma. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1952 and its law school in 1954. He was first elected to the Oklahoma State Senate in 1956 and served in it until 1964. For most of this time he was one of its youngest members. He made an unsuccessful race for governor of Oklahoma in 1962; however, he became better known throughout the state as a consequence of this race.
In 1964 Harris entered the race to serve out the unexpired term of United States Senator Robert S. Kerr, who had died in office. He was successful, defeating former Governor J. Howard Edmondson, who had been appointed to succeed Kerr, in the Democratic primary, then narrowly upsetting Republican nominee and legendary Oklahoma football coach Bud Wilkinson by 51% to 49%, and was sworn in as soon as the vote totals could be verified, becoming, again, one of the youngest members of the body in which he was serving. Despite being fairly liberal from an increasingly conservative state, he was elected to a full term in 1966, defeating attorney Pat H. Patterson by a 54% to 46% margin. During this Senate term, he also served briefly as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, being both preceded and succeeded in that position by Larry O'Brien. Harris was one of the final two candidates considered by Vice President and Presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey to be the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1968; Humphrey ultimately chose Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine due to Harris' young age (37) at the time. Humphrey, according to former DNC Chair Lawrence O'Brien, chose Senator Muskie at the very last minute.
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Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (Arabic: جمال عبد الناصر حسين, IPA: [ɡæˈmæːl ʕæbdenˈnɑːsˤeɾ ħeˈseːn]; 15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of modernization, and socialist reform in Egypt together with a profound advancement of pan-Arab nationalism, including a short-lived union with Syria.
Nasser is seen as one of the most important political figures in both modern Arab history and politics in the 20th century. Under his leadership, Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal Company and came to play a central role in anti-imperialist efforts in the Arab World and Africa. The imposed ending to the Suez Crisis made him a hero throughout the Arab world. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the international Non-Aligned Movement. He is well known for his nationalist policies and version of pan-Arabism, also referred to as Nasserism, which won a great following in the Arab World during the 1950s and 1960s. Although his status as "leader of the Arabs" was badly damaged by the Israeli victory over the Arab armies in the Six-Day War, as well as Egypt's failure to win the subsequent War of Attrition against Israel, many in the general Arab population still view Nasser as a symbol of Arab dignity and freedom.
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Garret Hobart
Garret Augustus Hobart (June 3, 1844 – November 21, 1899) was the 24th Vice President of the United States (1897–1899), serving under President William McKinley. He was the sixth American vice president to die in office.
Hobart was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, on the Jersey Shore, and grew up in nearby Marlboro. After attending Rutgers College, Hobart read law with prominent Paterson attorney Socrates Tuttle. Hobart both studied with Tuttle, and married his daughter. Although he rarely set foot in a courtroom, Hobart became wealthy as a corporate lawyer.
Hobart served in local governmental positions, and then successfully ran for office as a Republican, serving in both the New Jersey General Assembly and the New Jersey Senate. He became Speaker of the first, and president of the latter. Hobart was a longtime party official, and New Jersey delegates went to the 1896 Republican National Convention determined to nominate the popular lawyer for vice president. Hobart's political views were similar to those of McKinley, who was the presumptive Republican presidential candidate. With New Jersey a key state in the upcoming election, McKinley and his close adviser, future senator Mark Hanna, decided to have the convention select Hobart. The vice-presidential candidate emulated his running mate with a front porch campaign, though spending much time at the campaign's New York City office. McKinley and Hobart were elected.
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Gennady Yanayev
Gennady Ivanovich Yanayev (Russian: Генна́дий Ива́нович Яна́ев; 26 August 1937 – 24 September 2010) was a Soviet Russian politician and statesman whose career spanned the rules of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, and culminated during the Gorbachev years. Yanayev was born in Perevoz, Gorky Oblast. After years in local politics, he rose to prominence as Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, but he also held other lesser posts such as deputy of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries.
Due to his chairmanship of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions he gained a seat in the Politburo. During the 1990 July plenum he was elected to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee. Later that year, with the help of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yanayev was elected the first, and only, Vice President of the Soviet Union. Having growing doubts about where Gorbachev's reforms were leading, Yanayev started working with, and eventually leading, the Gang of Eight, the group which deposed Gorbachev during the August coup of 1991. After three days the coup collapsed due to the popularity of Boris Yeltsin, but during its brief grip of power Yanayev was made Acting President of the Soviet Union. He was then arrested for his role in the coup, but in 1994 he was pardoned by the State Duma. He spent the rest of his life working in the Russian tourism administration until his death on 24 September 2010.
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Geoffrey Roberts
Geoffrey Roberts (born in Deptford, London, 1952) is a British historian of the Second World War.
Geoffrey Roberts was born in Deptford, south London in 1952. His father worked as a labourer at the local power station and his mother as a cleaner and tea lady. A pupil of Addey and Stanhope Grammar School he left aged 16 and started his working life as a clerk with the Greater London Council. In the 1970s he was an International Relations undergraduate at North Staffordshire Polytechnic and postgraduate research student at the London School of Economics. In the 1980s he worked in the Education Department of NALGO, the public sector trade union.
He returned to academic life in the 1990s following the publication of his acclaimed first book The Unholy Alliance: Stalin’s Pact with Hitler, 1989.
Many books and articles followed:
Professor Roberts is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and teaches History and International Relations at University College Cork, Ireland. He has won many academic awards and prizes, including a Fulbright Scholarship to Harvard University and a Government of Ireland Senior Research Fellowship. He is a regular commentator on history and current affairs for British and Irish newspapers and a contributor to the History News Service, which syndicates articles to American media outlets. He has many radio and TV appearances to his credit and has acted as historical consultant for documentary series such as Simon Berthon’s highly praised Warlords, broadcast in 2005.
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George B. McClellan
George Brinton McClellan (December 3, 1826 – October 29, 1885) was a major general during the American Civil War and the Democratic Party candidate for President in 1864. He organized the famous Army of the Potomac and served briefly (November 1861 to March 1862) as the general-in-chief of the Union Army. Early in the war, McClellan played an important role in raising a well-trained and organized army for the Union. Although McClellan was meticulous in his planning and preparations, these characteristics may have hampered his ability to challenge aggressive opponents in a fast-moving battlefield environment. He chronically overestimated the strength of enemy units and was reluctant to apply principles of mass, frequently leaving large portions of his army unengaged at decisive points.
McClellan's Peninsula Campaign in 1862 ended in failure, with retreats from attacks by General Robert E. Lee's smaller Army of Northern Virginia and an unfulfilled plan to seize the Confederate capital of Richmond. His performance at the bloody Battle of Antietam blunted Lee's invasion of Maryland, but allowed Lee to eke out a precarious tactical draw and avoid destruction, despite being outnumbered. As a result, McClellan's leadership skills during battles were questioned by President Abraham Lincoln, who eventually removed him from command, first as general-in-chief, then from the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln offered this famous evaluation of McClellan: "If he can't fight himself, he excels in making others ready to fight." Indeed, McClellan was the most popular of that army's commanders with its soldiers, who felt that he had their morale and well-being as paramount concerns.
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George C. Marshall
George Catlett Marshall (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense. Once noted as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II, Marshall served as the United States Army Chief of Staff during the war and as the chief military adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Secretary of State, his name was given to the Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
George Catlett Marshall was born into a middle-class family in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, the son of George Catlett Marshall, Sr. and Laura Emily (Bradford) Marshall. Marshall was a scion of an old Virginia family, as well as a distant relative of former Chief Justice John Marshall. Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where he was initiated into the Kappa Alpha Order, in 1901.
Following graduation from VMI, Marshall was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Until World War I, he was posted to various positions in the US and the Philippines. He served as an infantry platoon leader and company commander in the Phillipines during the Phillipine-American War and several other guerilla uprisings. He was schooled and trained in modern warfare. His pre-war service included a tour at Fort Leavenworth, KS from 1906 to 1910 as both a student and an instructor.
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George Graham Vest
George Graham Vest (December 6, 1830 – August 9, 1904) was a U.S. politician. Born in Frankfort, Kentucky, he was known for his skills in oration and debate. Vest, a lawyer as well as a politician, served as a Missouri Congressman, a Confederate Congressman during the Civil War, and finally a US Senator. He is best known for his "a man's best friend" closing arguments from the trial in which damages were sought for the killing of a dog named Old Drum on Oct 18, 1869.
Vest graduated from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, in 1848 and from the law department of Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, in 1853. He was admitted to the bar in 1853 and planned to move to California. However, while en route, he stopped in Pettis County, Missouri, where he defended a young African-American man accused of murder. Vest's client was acquitted but soon burned at the stake by an angry mob. Vest's own life was also threatened, but he nonetheless decided to stay in Missouri permanently, settling in Georgetown. In 1854 he married Sallie Sneed of Danville, Kentucky. They had three children, two sons and a daughter.
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George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States (1989–93). He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States (1981–89), a congressman, an ambassador, a Director of Central Intelligence, and is currently the oldest surviving president.
Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to Senator Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Bush postponed going to college, enlisted in the US Navy on his 18th birthday, and became the youngest aviator in the Navy at the time. He served until the end of the war, then attended Yale University. Graduating in 1948, he moved his family to West Texas and entered the oil business, becoming a millionaire by the age of 40.
He became involved in politics soon after founding his own oil company, serving as a member of the House of Representatives, among other positions. He ran unsuccessfully for president of the United States in 1980, but was chosen by party nominee Ronald Reagan to be the vice presidential nominee, and the two were subsequently elected. During his tenure, Bush headed administration task forces on deregulation and fighting drug abuse.
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George Lenczowski
George Lenczowski (February 2, 1915 - February 19, 2000) was a lawyer, diplomat, scholar, and Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, at the University of California, Berkeley. Lenczowski was a pioneer in his field as the founder and first chair of the Committee (later Center) of Middle Eastern Studies at Berkeley. He was among America's first major scholars of the modern Middle East.
Lenczowski's book, American Presidents and the Middle East, along with The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict by Steven L. Spiegel and Peace Process by William B. Quandt, are considered by historian and former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, as being "three of the genre's finer examples", focusing on the post-World War II period and seeking to investigate broader aspects of America's Middle East history.
Lenczowski was the father of John Lenczowski, president and founder of the Institute of World Politics.
George Lenczowski was born of Polish parentage, in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1915, at a time when the land of his ancestors was still part of neighboring empires. His father worked as an engineer until the Russian Revolution. One of Lenczowski's earliest memories was a perilous escape from the Bolsheviks through war-torn Russia, which brought the Lenczowski family back to what soon would become an independent Poland, following World War I. It was there that Lenczowski received his education from primary school to the faculty of law from the University of Warsaw. He took his LL.M degree in 1936 and continued his studies in France, where he earned a Certificate in Civil Law at the University of Paris (1936) and a Doctorate in Juridical Science in Lille (1937). His dissertation on Contracts in Private and International Law was written in French and published in Paris by Domat-Montchrestien in 1938.
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George M. Dallas
George Mifflin Dallas (July 10, 1792 – December 31, 1864) was a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and the 11th Vice President of the United States (1845–1849), serving under James K. Polk.
Of Scottish ancestry, George Mifflin Dallas was born on July 10, 1792, to Alexander James Dallas and Arabella Smith Dallas in Philadelphia. Dallas was the second of six children, another of whom, Alexander, would become the commander of Pensacola Navy Yard. Born in Kingston, Jamaica and educated in Edinburgh, the senior Alexander was the Secretary of the Treasury under United States President James Madison, and was also briefly the Secretary of War. George Dallas graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) with highest honors in 1810. He participated in several activities, including the American Whig–Cliosophic Society. Afterwards, he studied law, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1813.
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George Marshall
George Catlett Marshall (December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959) was an American military leader, Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense. Once noted as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II, Marshall served as the United States Army Chief of Staff during the war and as the chief military adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Secretary of State, his name was given to the Marshall Plan, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
George Catlett Marshall was born into a middle-class family in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, the son of George Catlett Marshall, Sr. and Laura Emily (Bradford) Marshall. Marshall was a scion of an old Virginia family, as well as a distant relative of former Chief Justice John Marshall. Marshall graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), where he was initiated into the Kappa Alpha Order, in 1901.
Following graduation from VMI, Marshall was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Until World War I, he was posted to various positions in the US and the Philippines. He served as an infantry platoon leader and company commander in the Phillipines during the Phillipine-American War and several other guerilla uprisings. He was schooled and trained in modern warfare. His pre-war service included a tour at Fort Leavenworth, KS from 1906 to 1910 as both a student and an instructor.
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George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern (born July 19, 1922) is a historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election.
McGovern grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota, where he was a renowned debater. He volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Forces upon the country's entry into World War II and as a B-24 Liberator pilot flew 35 missions over German-occupied Europe. Among the medals awarded him was a Distinguished Flying Cross for making a hazardous emergency landing of his damaged plane and saving his crew. After the war he gained degrees from Dakota Wesleyan University and Northwestern University, culminating in a Ph.D, and was a history professor. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 and re-elected in 1958. After a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in 1960, he was elected there in 1962.
As a senator, McGovern was an exemplar of modern American liberalism. He became most known for his outspoken opposition to the growing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He staged a brief nomination run in the 1968 presidential election as a stand-in for the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy. The subsequent McGovern–Fraser Commission fundamentally altered the Democratic presidential nominating process, by greatly increasing the number of caucuses and primaries and reducing the influence of party insiders. The McGovern–Hatfield Amendment sought to end the Vietnam War by legislative means but was defeated in 1970 and 1971. McGovern's long-shot, grassroots-based 1972 presidential campaign found triumph in gaining the Democratic nomination but left the party badly split ideologically, and the failed vice-presidential pick of Thomas Eagleton undermined McGovern's credibility. In the general election McGovern lost to incumbent Richard Nixon in one of the biggest landslides in American history. Re-elected Senator in 1968 and 1974, McGovern was defeated in a bid for a fourth term in 1980.
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George P. Shultz
George Pratt Shultz (born December 13, 1920) is an American economist, statesman, and businessman. He served as the United States Secretary of Labor from 1969 to 1970, as the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1972 to 1974, and as the U.S. Secretary of State from 1982 to 1989. Before entering politics, he was professor of economics at MIT and the University of Chicago, serving as Dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business from 1962 to 1969. Between 1974 and 1982, Shultz was an executive at Bechtel, eventually becoming the firm's president. He is currently a distinguished fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
George Shultz was born in New York City, the only child of Margaret Lennox (née Pratt) and Birl Earl Shultz. He grew up in Englewood, New Jersey.
In 1938, Shultz graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut. He earned a bachelor's degree, cum laude, at Princeton University, in economics with a minor in public and international affairs. His senior thesis examined the Tennessee Valley Authority's effect on local agriculture, for which he conducted on-site research. Shultz graduated with honors in 1942.
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George Parr
George Berham Parr (March 1, 1901 - April 1, 1975) was a member of the Parr political family, which controlled a Democratic Party political machine that dominated Duval County and, to a lesser extent, Jim Wells County, Texas. He was known as "The Duke of Duval."
The Parr machine functioned on bribery, graft, and illegal donations. Political support came from the southern most counties in Texas. The Parr machine could produce large numbers of votes, both legal and illegal, from both the impoverished and uneducated, and the working class Mexican-American majority population. As a result, the county saw its largely marginalized but large numbers of native Texan yeoman farmers slowly disappear leaving the county commission to be controlled by the Parr family and its cronies. While the Parr Machine had always asserted undue influence over the county's affairs, it was not until Archer Parr that its leadership felt safely secure to overwhelm the remaining independent white farmers by appealing directly to county's new Mexican-American majority by offering them jobs (and in some cases cash directly from the county coffers) in exchange for political support.
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George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was an officer in the United States Army best known for his leadership as a general during World War II. He also developed a reputation for eccentricity and for sometimes-controversial gruff outspokenness—such as during his profanity-laced speech to his expeditionary troops.
He was on the U.S. 1912 Olympic pentathlon team and also designed the U.S. Cavalry's last combat saber: the "Patton Saber" (the M-1913). In 1916 he led the first-ever U.S. motorized-vehicle attack during the Mexican Border Campaign. In World War I, he was the first officer assigned to the new United States Tank Corps and saw action in France.
In World War II, he commanded corps and armies in North Africa, Sicily, and the European Theater of Operations. In 1944, Patton assumed command of the U.S. Third Army, which under his leadership advanced farther, captured more enemy prisoners, and liberated more territory in less time than any other army in history. A German field marshal speaking to American reporters called Patton "your best" (general).
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George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. The eldest son of Barbara Bush and George H. W. Bush, he was born in New Haven, Connecticut. After graduating from Yale University in 1968 and Harvard Business School in 1975, Bush worked in oil businesses. He married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before defeating Ann Richards in the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. In a close and controversial election, Bush was elected President in 2000 as the Republican candidate, defeating Vice President Al Gore in the Electoral College. Bush is the second American president to have been the son of a former president. He is also the brother of Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida.
Terrorist attacks occurred eight months into Bush's first term as president on September 11, 2001. In response, Bush announced the War on Terror, an international military campaign which included the war in Afghanistan launched in 2001 and the war in Iraq launched in 2003. In addition to national security issues, Bush promoted policies on the economy, health care, education, and social security reform. He signed into law broad tax cuts, the PATRIOT Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and Medicare prescription drug benefits for seniors. His tenure saw national debates on immigration, Social Security, electronic surveillance, and enhanced interrogation techniques. His administration also withdrew the U.S. from a some international treaty processes, including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
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George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732 [O.S. February 11, 1731] – December 14, 1799) was the first President of the United States of America, serving from 1789 to 1797, and the dominant military and political leader of the United States from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of the Constitution in 1787. Washington became the first president, by unanimous choice, and oversaw the creation of a strong, well-financed national government that maintained neutrality in the wars raging in Europe, suppressed rebellion, and won acceptance among Americans of all types. His leadership style established many forms and rituals of government that have been used since, such as using a cabinet system and delivering an inaugural address. Washington is universally regarded as the "Father of his country."
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George Wells Beadle
George Wells Beadle (October 22, 1903 – June 9, 1989) was an American scientist in the field of genetics, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Nobel laureate who with Edward Lawrie Tatum discovered the role of genes in regulating biochemical events within cells.
Beadle and Tatum's key experiments involved exposing the bread mold Neurospora crassa to x-rays, causing mutations. In a series of experiments, they showed that these mutations caused changes in specific enzymes involved in metabolic pathways. These experiments led them to propose a direct link between genes and enzymatic reactions, known as the "one gene, one enzyme" hypothesis.
George Wells Beadle was born in Wahoo, Nebraska. He was the son of Chauncey Elmer Beadle and Hattie Albro, who owned and operated a 40-acre (160,000 m2) farm nearby. George was educated at the Wahoo High School and might himself have become a farmer if one of his teachers at school had not directed his mind towards science and persuaded him to go to the College of Agriculture in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1926 he took his B.Sc. degree at the University of Nebraska and subsequently worked for a year with Professor F.D. Keim, who was studying hybrid wheat. In 1927 he took his M.Sc. degree, and Professor Keim secured for him a post as Teaching Assistant at Cornell University, where he worked, until 1931, with Professors R.A. Emerson and L.W. Sharp on Mendelian asynopsis in Zea mays. For this work he obtained, in 1931, his Ph.D. degree. In 1931 he was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology at Pasadena, where he remained from 1931 until 1936. During this period he continued his work on Indian corn and began, in collaboration with Professors Th. Dobzhansky, S. Emerson, and A.H. Sturtevant, work on crossing-over in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster.
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Georges Pompidou
Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ pɔ̃pidu]; 5 July 1911 – 2 April 1974) was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.
He was born in the commune of Montboudif, in the department of Cantal in central France. After his khâgne at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he befriended Senegalese future poet and statesman Léopold Sédar Senghor, he graduated from the École Normale Supérieure with a degree of Agrégation in literature.
He first taught literature at the lycée Henri IV in Paris until hired in 1953 by Guy de Rothschild to work at Rothschild. In 1956, he was appointed the bank's general manager, a position he held until 1962. Later, he was hired by Charles de Gaulle to manage the Anne de Gaulle Foundation for Down's Syndrome (de Gaulle's daughter Anne had Down's Syndrome).
He served as prime minister under de Gaulle after Michel Debré resigned, from 16 April 1962 to 21 July 1968, and to this day is the longest serving French prime minister under the Fifth Republic. His nomination was controversial because he was not a member of the National Assembly. In October 1962, he was defeated by a vote of non-confidence, but de Gaulle dissolved the National Assembly. The Gaullists won the legislative election and Pompidou was reappointed as Prime Minister. In 1964, he was faced with a miners' strike. He led the 1967 legislative campaign of the Union of Democrats for the Fifth Republic to a narrow victory. Pompidou was widely regarded as being responsible for the peaceful resolution of the student uprising of May 1968. His strategy was to break the coalition of students and workers by negotiating with the trade-unions and employers (Grenelle conference). Until this crisis, he was the Prime Minister of a quiet and prosperous France.
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Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King, Jr.; July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006) was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974. As the first person appointed to the vice-presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment (after Spiro Agnew had resigned), when he became President upon Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974, he became the only President of the United States who was never elected President nor Vice-President by the Electoral College. Before ascending to the vice-presidency, Ford served nearly 25 years as the Representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district, eight of them as the Republican Minority Leader.
As President, Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, marking a move toward détente in the Cold War. With the conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U.S. involvement in Vietnam essentially ended. Domestically, Ford presided over arguably the weakest economy since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession during his tenure. One of his more controversial acts was to grant a presidential pardon to President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. During Ford's incumbency, foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, and by the corresponding curb on the powers of the President. In 1976, Ford narrowly defeated Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, but lost the presidential election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.
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Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith (February 27, 1898 – April 15, 1976) was an American clergyman and political organizer, who became a leader of the Share Our Wealth movement during the Great Depression and later the Christian Nationalist Crusade. He founded the America First Party in 1944, for which he was a presidential candidate in the election that year.
He was born in Pardeeville, Wisconsin on February 27, 1898 to Sarah and Lyman Z. Smith. He had one sister. The family moved and the children grew up in Viroqua, Wisconsin. He graduated from Valparaiso University in Indiana in 1918 with a degree in biblical studies.
The descendant of three generations of Disciples of Christ ministers, he followed his father into the ministry, becoming ordained in 1916. He first ministered in the Midwest: Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.
Smith married Elna Sorenson in 1922. They adopted their only child, whom they named Gerald L. K. Smith Jr.
Smith moved his family to Louisiana in 1928 because his wife contracted tuberculosis, and facilities in Shreveport had a good reputation for helping those with the disease. Smith served as a minister in Shreveport, making radio broadcasts attacking local utility companies and corruption, while supporting trade unions.
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Geraldine Ferraro
Geraldine Anne Ferraro (August 26, 1935 – March 26, 2011) was an American attorney, a Democratic Party politician, and a member of the United States House of Representatives. She was the first female Vice Presidential candidate representing a major American political party.
Ferraro grew up in New York City and became a teacher and lawyer. She joined the Queens County District Attorney's Office in 1974, where she headed the new Special Victims Bureau that dealt with sex crimes, child abuse, and domestic violence. She was elected to the House in 1978, where she rose rapidly in the party hierarchy while focusing on legislation to bring equity for women in the areas of wages, pensions, and retirement plans. In 1984, former Vice President and presidential candidate Walter Mondale selected Ferraro to be his running mate in the upcoming election. In doing so she became the only Italian American to be a major-party national nominee in addition to being the first woman. The positive polling the Mondale-Ferraro ticket received when she joined faded as questions about her and her husband's finances arose. In the general election, Mondale and Ferraro were defeated in a landslide by incumbent President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush.
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Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒeˈtuliu doɾˈnɛlis ˈvaɾɡɐs]; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) served as President of Brazil, first as dictator, from 1930 to 1945, and in a democratically elected term from 1951 until his suicide in 1954. Vargas led Brazil for 18 years, the most for any President, and second in Brazilian history only to Emperor Pedro II among heads of government. He favored nationalism, industrialization, centralization, social welfare and populism – for the latter, Vargas won the nickname "O Pai dos Pobres" (Portuguese for "The Father of the Poor"). Despite his promotion of workers' rights, Vargas was a staunch anti-communist.
Vargas was brought to power by political outsiders and the rank and file of the Armed Forces in the Revolution of 1930, a reaction to his loss in rigged elections earlier that year. His ascent marked the end of the Brazilian oligarchic Old Republic and states' dominated café com leite politics. He successfully influenced the outcome of the Brazilian presidential election of 1934, and instituted an authoritarian corporatist regime in 1937 known as the Estado Novo ("New State"), prolonging his hold onto power. Vargas went on to appease and eventually dominate his supporters, and pushed his political agenda as he built a propaganda machine around his figure.
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Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti (Italian pronunciation: [ˈʤuːljo andreˈɔtti]; born January 14, 1919) is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior (1954 and 1978), Defense Minister (1959–1966 and 1974) and Foreign Minister (1983–1989) and he has been a senator for life since 1991. He is also a journalist and author.
He is sometimes called Divo Giulio (from Latin Divus Iulius, "divine Julius", an epithet of Julius Caesar). The movie Il Divo tells about Andreotti's links with the Mafia and won the Prix du Jury at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
Andreotti was born in Rome into a family from Segni. He studied law in Rome, during which time he was member of the Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI, or Italian Catholic University Federation), which was then the only Catholic university association allowed by the Fascist government. Its members included many of the future leaders of the Italian Democrazia Cristiana (or DC, the Christian Democracy party). In July 1939, while Aldo Moro was president of FUCI, Andreotti became director of its magazine Azione Fucina. In 1942, when Moro was enrolled in the Italian Army, Andreotti succeeded him as president of FUCI, a position he held until 1944.
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Glen H. Taylor
Glen Hearst Taylor (April 12, 1904 – April 28, 1984) was an American politician, businessman and United States Senator from Idaho. He was the vice presidential candidate on the Progressive Party ticket in the 1948 election. Taylor was otherwise a member of the Democratic Party. By one measure Taylor was determined to be the second most liberal member of the United States Senate (trailing only Wayne Morse of Oregon), and the fourth most liberal member of Congress overall between 1937 and 2002.
Taylor was the son of a wandering preacher. He moved to a homestead near Kooskia, Idaho, as a child and attended the public schools. In 1919, he joined a stock theater company. Between 1926 and 1944, he became the owner and manager of various entertainment enterprises. Taylor was also a country-western singer; his older sister, Lena, became famous as a jazz singer under the name Lee Morse in the 1920s.
Taylor was inspired to run for political office by King Camp Gillette's book The People's Corporation and Stuart Chase's 1932 book A New Deal. In 1935 Taylor unsuccessfully attempted to organize a Farmer–Labor Party in Nevada and Montana.
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Goulash Communism
Goulash Communism (Hungarian: gulyáskommunizmus) or Kádárism (after János Kádár) refers to the variety of communism as practised in the Hungarian People's Republic from the 1960s until the collapse of Communism in Hungary in 1989. With elements of free market economics and an improved human rights record, it represented a quiet reform and deviation from the Stalinist principles Hungary clung to in the previous decade.
The name is a semi-humorous metaphor derived from "goulash", a popular Hungarian dish. As goulash is made with an assortment of unlike ingredients, it represents how Hungarian communism was a mixed ideology and no longer strictly communist. Sometimes described as "the happiest barrack in the socialist camp", Hungary in this particular period enjoyed many amenities not available to other communist countries in the Eastern bloc.
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Gregorio Honasan
Gregorio Ballesteros Honasan II (born March 14, 1948), better known as Gringo Honasan, is a Filipino political figure. He played a key role in the 1986 EDSA Revolution that toppled the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos. He led a series of coup attempts against the administration of Corazon Aquino. President Fidel Ramos granted him amnesty in 1992. He entered politics and became a senator from 1995 to 2004 and again since 2007.
Gregorio Honasan was born in Baguio City to Colonel Romeo Honasan and Alice Ballesteros, both from Sorsogon province. Honasan spent his elementary days at San Beda College from Kindergarten to Grade 6. After which, he went to Taiwan and studied at the Dominican School, Taipei, Taiwan. He then returned to the Philippines and finished his high school at Don Bosco Mandaluyong. He attained his Bachelor of Science degree at the Philippine Military Academy, where he received the title of "Class Baron", the academy's highest leadership award.
After graduating in 1971, he joined the Philippine Army and went into combat duty against separatist and communist insurgents in Luzon and Mindanao. He was wounded in action at battles in Lebak and Jolo. Making his way up through the armed forces, he became aide-de-camp to Secretary of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile in 1974, and later became the department's Chief of Security.
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Griselio Torresola
Griselio Torresola (1925 - November 1, 1950) born in Jayuya, Puerto Rico, was one of two Puerto Rican Nationalists who attempted to assassinate United States President Harry Truman. During the attack on the president, Torresola mortally wounded White House policeman Private Leslie Coffelt and wounded two other law enforcement officers. Torresola was killed by a shot to the head from the mortally-wounded Coffelt.
Torresola came from a family which believed in the Puerto Rican independence cause. They had participated in many of the island's past revolts. Torresola moved to New York City in August 1948. He was employed by a New York stationery and perfume store. A divorce from his first wife affected him emotionally and eventually he lost his job. He remarried and lived with his wife and two children on a welfare check of $125 a month.
Torresola was a member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and soon joined forces with fellow Nationalist Oscar Collazo. They participated in the attempted assassination of president Truman on November 1, 1950, while the president was residing in the Blair-Lee House while the White House was being renovated. The Nationalist Party was led by the charismatic Pedro Albizu Campos, for whom Torresola was a bodyguard. The party had rejected political participation through balloting and advocated violent resistance to U.S. governance.
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Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms (1885–1889 and 1893–1897) and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents. He was the winner of the popular vote for president three times—in 1884, 1888, and 1892—and was the only Democrat elected to the presidency in the era of Republican political domination that lasted from 1861 to 1913.
Cleveland was the leader of the pro-business Bourbon Democrats who opposed high tariffs, Free Silver, inflation, imperialism and subsidies to business, farmers or veterans. His battles for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the era. Cleveland won praise for his honesty, independence, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. Cleveland relentlessly fought political corruption, patronage, and bossism. Indeed, as a reformer his prestige was so strong that the reform wing of the Republican Party, called "Mugwumps", largely bolted the GOP ticket and swung to his support in 1884.
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Hafez al-Assad
Hafez ibn 'Ali ibn Sulayman al-Assad or more commonly Hafez al-Assad (Arabic: حافظ الأسد Ḥāfiẓ al-Asad, 6 October 1930 – 10 June 2000) was the President of Syria for three decades.
Born to a poor family of minority Alawite background, he served in the Syrian air force, before rising through the ranks of the Syrian-led branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and seizing power in the 1970 Corrective Revolution. He purged the party, introducing Alawite rule of Syria, who came to occupy leading positions in every sector of Syrian society.
On the one hand, Assad's rule consolidated the power of the central government, bringing stability after decades of coups and counter-coups, and continued foreign influence related to the cold war. His rule brought changes, including the 1973 constitution which stated that it guaranteed women's "equal status in society". Assad attempted to industrialize the country, and it was opened up to foreign markets. Oil was discovered, and some degree of the revenue invested in infrastructure, education, medicine, literacy and urban construction.
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Hafizullah Amin
Hafizullah Amin (1 August 1929 – 27 December 1979) was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War. Amin was born in Paghman and educated at Kabul University, after which he started his career as a teacher. After a few years in that occupation, he went to the United States to study. He would visit the United States a second time before moving permanently to Afghanistan, and starting his career in radical politics. He ran as a candidate in the 1965 parliamentary election but failed to secure a seat. Amin was the only Khalqist elected to parliament in the 1969 parliamentary election, thus increasing his standing within the party. He was one of the leading organisers of the Saur Revolution which overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud Khan.
Amin's short-lived presidency was marked by controversies from beginning to end. He came to power by killing his predecessor Nur Muhammad Taraki. The revolt against communist rule which had begun under Taraki worsened under Amin, and was a problem that his government was unable to solve. The Soviet Union, which alleged that Amin was an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, intervened in Afghanistan on behalf of the Twenty-Year Treaty of Friendship between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Amin was assassinated by the Soviets in December 1979 as part of Operation Storm-333, having ruled for slightly longer than three months.
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Haile Selassie I
Haile Selassie I (Ge'ez: ኃይለ፡ ሥላሴ, "Power of the Trinity") (23 July 1892 – 27 August 1975), born Tafari Makonnen, was Ethiopia's regent from 1916 to 1930 and Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He was the heir to a dynasty that traced its origins to the 13th century, and from there by tradition back to King Solomon and Queen Makeda, Empress of Axum, known in the Abrahamic tradition as the Queen of Sheba. Haile Selassie is a defining figure in both Ethiopian and African history.
At the League of Nations in 1936, the emperor condemned the use of chemical weapons by Italy against his people. His internationalist views led to Ethiopia becoming a charter member of the United Nations, and his political thought and experience in promoting multilateralism and collective security have proved seminal and enduring. His suppression of rebellions among the nobles (mekwannint), as well as what some perceived to be Ethiopia's failure to modernize adequately, earned him criticism among some contemporaries and historians.
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Hannibal Hamlin
Hannibal Hamlin (August 27, 1809 – July 4, 1891) was the 15th Vice President of the United States (1861-1865), serving under President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. He was the first Vice President from the Republican Party.
Prior to his election in 1860, Hamlin served in the United States Senate, the House of Representatives, and, briefly, as the 26th Governor of Maine.
Hamlin was born to Anna (née Livermore) and Cyrus Hamlin in Paris, Maine. He was a descendant in the sixth generation of James Hamlin who had settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639. Hamlin was a great nephew of U.S. Senator Samuel Livermore II of New Hampshire,[citation needed] and a grandson of Stephen Emery, Maine's Attorney General in 1839–1840.
Hamlin attended the district schools and Hebron Academy and later managed his father's farm. For the next few years he worked at several jobs: schoolmaster, cook, woodcutter, surveyor, manager of a weekly newspaper in Paris, and a compositor at a printer's office. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1833. He began practicing in Hampden, a suburb of Bangor, where he lived until 1848.
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Harley M. Kilgore
Harley Martin Kilgore (January 11, 1893 – February 28, 1956) was a United States Senator from West Virginia.
Born in Brown, West Virginia, he attended the public schools and graduated from the law department of West Virginia University at Morgantown in 1914 and was admitted to the bar the same year.
He taught school in Hancock, West Virginia in 1914 and 1915, and organized the first high school in Raleigh County, West Virginia in the latter year. He was the school's first principal for a year, and commenced the practice of law in Beckley, West Virginia in 1916. During the First World War he served in the infantry from 1917 and was discharged as a captain in 1920; in 1921 he organized the West Virginia National Guard and retired as a colonel in 1953.
He was judge of the Raleigh County criminal court from 1933 to 1940, and was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 1940, and won re-election twice. He was a member of the Senate from January 3, 1941 until his death in Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1956. From October 1942, he chaired the Subcommittee on War Mobilization of the Military Affairs Committee, otherwise known as the Kilgore Committee, that oversaw U.S. mobilization efforts for World War II. He also helped establish the National Science Foundation in 1950.
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Harlow Curtice
Harlow Herbert Curtice (August 15, 1893 - November 3, 1962) was an American auto industry executive who led General Motors (GM) from 1953 to 1958. As GM's chief, Curtice was selected as Man of the Year for 1955 by TIME magazine.
Curtice was born in Petrieville, Michigan. He joined General Motors at age 20, and rose through its AC Spark Plug division to head it by age 36, and made the division profitable during the Depression. Selected to head the Buick division of GM, he expanded its line and made it profitable in the 1930s.
In 1948, Curtice became executive vice president of GM, and succeeded to the presidency in 1953 when GM president Charles Wilson became Secretary of Defense. With Curtice as president, GM became immensely profitable, and became the first corporation to have $1 billion in profits in one year.
In 1958, Curtice retired just after his 65th birthday. The following year, he accidentally shot and killed a friend while duck hunting. He died in 1962 at age 69.
Curtice was born in Petrieville, Michigan, on August 15, 1893, the son of Marion Curtice and the former Mary Ellen Eckhart, and was raised in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, attending Eaton Rapids High School. During school vacations, he kept the books for his father, a commission merchant, and also worked in a woolen mill. He graduated from the Ferris Business College in 1914. After moving to Flint, Michigan later in 1914, Curtice began his meteoric rise at GM. He started as a bookkeeper for GM's AC Spark Plug Division. The 20-year-old, in his job interview by the company comptroller, told him that his ambition was to become comptroller himself within a year. He did so, becoming AC Spark Plug's comptroller at just 21. Curtice went beyond the ledger, exploring the plant to find out what the figures meant in terms of men and equipment.
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Harold L. Ickes
Harold LeClair Ickes (pronounced /ˈɪkəs/ IK-əss; March 15, 1874 – February 3, 1952) was a United States administrator and politician. He served as United States Secretary of the Interior for 13 years, from 1933 to 1946, the longest tenure of anyone to hold the office, and the second longest serving Cabinet member in U.S. history next to James Wilson. Ickes was responsible for implementing much of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" and is the father of Harold M. Ickes. He and Labor Secretary Frances Perkins were the only original members of the Roosevelt cabinet who remained in office for his entire presidency.
Born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Ickes moved to Chicago at the age of 16 upon his mother's death and attended Englewood High School there. He was the class president while at Englewood High School. After graduating, he worked his way through the University of Chicago, finishing with a B.A. in 1897. At Chicago, Ickes was a charter member re-establishing the Illinois Beta Chapter of Phi Delta Theta.
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Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC, FRS (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963.
Nicknamed 'Supermac' and known for his pragmatism, wit and unflappability, Macmillan achieved notoriety before the Second World War as a Tory radical and critic of appeasement. Rising to high office as a protégé of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he believed in the post-war settlement and the necessity of a mixed economy, and in his premiership pursued corporatist policies to develop the domestic market as the engine of growth. During his time as prime minister, average living standards steadily rose while numerous social reforms were carried out such as the 1956 Clean Air Act, the 1957 Housing Act, the 1960 Offices Act, the 1960 Noise Abatement Act, the Factories Act 1961, and the introduction of a graduated pension scheme to provide an additional income to retirees.
As a One Nation Tory of the Disraelian tradition, haunted by memories of the Great Depression, he championed a Keynesian strategy of public investment to maintain demand, winning a second term in 1959 with an increased majority on an electioneering budget. Benefiting from favourable international conditions, he presided over an age of affluence, marked by low unemployment and high if uneven growth. In his Bedford speech of July 1957 he told the nation they had 'never had it so good', but warned of the dangers of inflation, summing up the fragile prosperity of the 1950s.
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Harold Stassen
Harold Edward Stassen (April 13, 1907 – March 4, 2001) was the 25th Governor of Minnesota from 1939 to 1943. After service in World War II, from 1948 to 1953 he was president of the University of Pennsylvania. In popular culture his name has become most identified with his fame as a perennial candidate for other offices, most notably and frequently President of the United States.
Stassen, the fourth of five children, was born in West St. Paul, Minnesota, to Elsie Emma (née Mueller) and William Andrew Stassen, a farmer and several times mayor of West St. Paul. He was of Norwegian, German and Czech ancestry. He graduated from high school at age 14. At the University of Minnesota Stassen was an intercollegiate debater, captain of the champion university rifle team in 1927, and received bachelor's and law degrees in 1929. After opening a law office with Elmer J. Ryan in South St. Paul that year, he was elected District Attorney of Dakota County in 1930 and 1934, then elected Governor of Minnesota in 1938. Stassen was seen as an "up and comer" after delivering the keynote address at the 1940 Republican National Convention. There he worked to help Wendell Willkie win the Republican Party (GOP) nomination for the presidency.
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Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British Labour politician and Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the February 1974 general election resulted in a hung parliament. He is the most recent British Prime Minister to have served non-consecutive terms.
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Harry B. Hawes
Harry Bartow Hawes (November 15, 1869 – July 31, 1947) was an American politician who served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate from Missouri.
Born in Covington, Kentucky, Hawes moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he graduated from Washington University School of Law in 1896, and began his career in law. He represented the Republic of Hawaii when it was annexed to the US. He later served as president of the St. Louis Police Board.
Hawes entered the Missouri House of Representatives in 1916, but left to serve in World War I. In the election of 1920, Hawes was elected to the US House, where he served until resigning on October 15, 1926. The following month he was elected to the Senate. Because Senator Selden P. Spencer had died, Hawes took his senate seat three months early, December 6, 1926. He resigned on February 3, 1933, to focus on wildlife conservation and law. During his Senate term, he co-authored the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act which propose to grant the Philippines independence from the United States but was repealed by the Philippine Senate.
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Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White (October 9, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was an American economist, and a senior U.S. Treasury department official. He was the senior American official at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, and reportedly dominated the conference and imposed his vision of post-war financial institutions over the objections of John Maynard Keynes, the British representative. After the war, White was a major architect of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
In August 1948, White testified and defended his record to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Three days after testifying he died of a heart attack at his summer home in Fitzwilliam, NH. A number of sources, including the FBI and Soviet archives, indicate that he passed secret state information to the Soviet Union during World War II.
Harry Dexter White was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the seventh and youngest child of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants, Joseph Weit and Sarah Magilewski, who had settled in America in 1885. In 1917 he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and was commissioned as lieutenant and served in France in a non-combat capacity in World War I. He did not begin his university studies until age 30, first at Columbia University, then at Stanford, where he earned a first degree in economics. After completing a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard University at 38 years of age, White taught four years at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Harvard University Press published his Ph.D. thesis in 1933, as The French International Accounts, 1880–1913. His PhD dissertation won the David A. Wells Prize granted annually by the Department of Economics, Harvard University.
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Harry F. Byrd
Harry Flood Byrd, Sr. (June 10, 1887 – October 20, 1966) of Berryville in Clarke County, Virginia, was an American newspaper publisher, farmer and politician. He was a descendant of one of the First Families of Virginia. His ancestors included William Byrd II of Westover Plantation, who established Richmond, Robert "King" Carter of Corotoman, a colonial governor, and Pocahontas, and he was the brother of famed aviator Richard Evelyn Byrd. He was the father of Harry F. Byrd, Jr., who succeeded him as U.S. Senator.
Byrd was a dominant figure in Virginia who reorganized and modernized Virginia's government. His political machine dominated Virginia Democratic Party politics for much of the first half of the 20th century. He was elected the 50th Governor of Virginia in 1925 and continued to lead a political faction that became known as the Byrd Organization as he represented Virginia as a United States Senator from 1933 until 1965.
Financial conditions in Virginia during his youth conditioned his thinking on fiscal matters throughout his life. He is best remembered for his austere pay-as-you-go financial policies, and his opposition to racial desegregation of the public schools, advocating a policy of massive resistance that led to closure of some public school systems in Virginia between 1959 and 1964.
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Harry Hines Woodring
Harry Hines Woodring (May 31, 1890 – September 9, 1967) was a U.S. political figure. He was born in 1890 in Elk City, Kansas. He was educated in city and county schools and at sixteen began work as a janitor in the First National Bank of Neodesha, Kansas. He briefly attended business college, which gained him employment as a bookkeeper and assistant cashier of the First National Bank in Elk City. He soon became assistant cashier at the First National Bank of Neodesha. Woodring moved up quickly to become vice president and owner of the bank until he enlisted as a private in the US Army; later commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Tank Corps in World War I. He was elected department commander of the American Legion in Kansas then in 1928 he sold his banking business to enter politics.
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Harry Hopkins
Harry Lloyd Hopkins (August 17, 1890 – January 29, 1946) was one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's closest advisers. He was one of the architects of the New Deal, especially the relief programs of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which he directed and built into the largest employer in the country. In World War II he was Roosevelt's chief diplomatic advisor and troubleshooter and was a key policy maker in the $50 billion Lend Lease program that sent aid to the allies.
Harry Hopkins was born at 512 Tenth Street in Sioux City, Iowa, the fourth child of four sons and one daughter of David Aldona and Anna (née Pickett) Hopkins. His father, born in Bangor, Maine, ran a harness shop, after an erratic career as a salesman, prospector, storekeeper and bowling-alley operator; but his real passion was bowling, and he eventually returned to it as a business. Anna Hopkins, born in Hamilton, Ontario, had moved at an early age to Vermillion, South Dakota, where she married David. She was deeply religious and active in the affairs of the Methodist church. Shortly after Harry was born, the family moved successively to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Kearney and Hastings, Nebraska. They spent two years in Chicago, and finally settled in Grinnell, Iowa.
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Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953). As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States (1945), he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his unprecedented fourth term.
During World War I, Truman served in combat in France as an artillery officer in his National Guard unit. After the war, he joined the Democratic Party political machine of Tom Pendergast in Kansas City, Missouri. He was elected a county official and in 1934 United States senator. After he had gained national prominence as head of the wartime Truman Committee, Truman replaced vice president Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944.
Truman faced many challenges in domestic affairs. The disorderly postwar reconversion of the economy of the United States was marked by severe shortages, numerous strikes, and the passage of the Taft–Hartley Act over his veto. He confounded all predictions to win election in 1948, helped by his famous Whistle Stop Tour of rural America. After his election, he passed only one of the proposals in his liberal Fair Deal program. He used executive orders to end racial discrimination in the armed forces and created loyalty checks that dismissed thousands of communist supporters from office.
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Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmuːt ˈkoːl]; born 3 April 1930) is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany between 1982 and 1990 and of the reunited Germany between 1990 and 1998) and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. His 16-year tenure was the longest of any German chancellor since Otto von Bismarck and oversaw the end of the Cold War and the German reunification. Kohl is widely regarded as one of the main architects of the German reunification and, together with French President François Mitterrand, the Maastricht Treaty, which contributed to the creation of the European Union.
Kohl and Mitterrand were the joint recipients of the Karlspreis in 1988. In 1998, Kohl was named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government for his extraordinary work for European integration and cooperation, an honour previously only bestowed on Jean Monnet. In 1996, he won the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award in International Cooperation.
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Helmut Schmidt
Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmʊt ˈʃmɪt]; born 23 December 1918) is a German Social Democratic politician who served as Chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Prior to becoming chancellor, he had served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Finance. He had also served briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting Foreign Minister. He is the oldest surviving German Chancellor and the last surviving person to have been solely Chancellor of West Germany (Helmut Kohl was Chancellor of both West Germany and reunified Germany). He is also the oldest living Federal German Minister, after the death of his Interior Minister Werner Maihofer.
Helmut Schmidt was born in Hamburg, as son of two teachers. He studied at Hamburg Lichtwark School, graduating in 1937. He was conscripted into military service and began serving with an anti-aircraft battery at Vegesack near Bremen during World War II. After brief service on the Eastern Front he returned to Germany in 1942 to work as a trainer and advisor at the Reichsluftfahrtministerium. Also in 1942, on 27 June, he married his childhood sweetheart Hannelore "Loki" Glaser (3 March 1919 – 21 October 2010), with whom he fathered two children: Helmut Walter (26 June 1944–February 1945, died of meningitis), and Susanne (b. 1947), who works in London for Bloomberg Television. Toward the end of the war, from December 1944 onwards, he served as an Oberleutnant in the artillery on the Western Front. He was captured by the British in April 1945 on Lüneburg Heath and was a prisoner of war until August. During his service in World War II Schmidt was awarded the Iron Cross.
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Henry A. Wallace
Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was the 33rd Vice President of the United States (1941–1945), the Secretary of Agriculture (1933–1940), and the Secretary of Commerce (1945–1946). In the 1948 presidential election, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.
Henry A. Wallace, son of Henry Cantwell Wallace, was born on October 7, 1888, at a farm near Orient, Adair County, Iowa. Wallace attended Iowa State College at Ames where he was a brother in the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. At Iowa State he became friends with George Washington Carver, spending time together collecting botanical specimens. He graduated in 1910 with a degree in animal husbandry. He worked on the editorial staff of the family-owned paper Wallaces' Farmer in Des Moines, Iowa, from 1910 to 1924 and edited the publication from 1924 to 1929. He experimented with breeding high-yielding hybrid corn, and authored many publications on agriculture. In 1915 he devised the first corn-hog ratio charts indicating the probable course of markets. Wallace was also a self-taught "practicing statistician", co-authoring an influential article with George W. Snedecor on computational methods for correlations and regressions and publishing sophisticated statistical studies in the pages of Wallaces’ Farmer. Snedecor eventually invited Wallace to teach a graduate course on least squares.
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Henry G. Davis
Henry Gassaway Davis (November 16, 1823 – March 11, 1916) was a self-made millionaire and U.S. Senator (1871–1883) from West Virginia. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1904. His brother was U.S. Congressman Thomas Beall Davis.
Henry Gassaway Davis was born near Woodstock, Howard County, Maryland to Caleb Dorsey Davis and Louisa Warfield Brown, He was the great-great-great grandson of Maryland pioneer Thomas Davis, and the great-great-great-great grandson of Maryland politician and justice Colonel Nicholas Gassaway, both of whom were of Welsh ancestry and emigrated to Maryland in the mid 17th century.
Davis worked on a farm until 1843, when he began to work for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as a brakeman and conductor. Later he was put in charge of the Piedmont, West Virginia terminal of the railroad, and soon went into coal mining and banking in Piedmont. Davis married Katherine Ann Salome Bantz on February 22, 1853 in Frederick County, Maryland. Henry and Katherine had 8 children, 3 of whom died in infancy.
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Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger ( /ˈkɪsɪndʒər/; born May 27, 1923) is a German-born American writer, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. A recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, he served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. After his term, his opinion was still sought by many subsequent presidents and many world leaders.
A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People's Republic of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War. Various American policies of that era, including the bombing of Cambodia, remain controversial to many.
Kissinger is still a controversial figure today. He is the founder and chairman of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm.
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Henry L. Stimson
Henry Lewis Stimson (September 21, 1867 – October 20, 1950) was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican Party politician and spokesman on foreign policy. He twice served as Secretary of War 1911–1913 under Republican William Howard Taft and 1940–1945, under Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the latter role he was a leading hawk calling for war against Germany. During World War II he took charge of raising and training 13 million soldiers and airmen, supervised the spending of a third of the nation's GDP on the Army and the Air Forces, helped formulate military strategy, and took personal control of building and using the atomic bomb. He served as Governor-General of the Philippines. As Secretary of State (1929–1933) under Republican President Herbert Hoover he articulated the Stimson Doctrine which announced American opposition to Japanese expansion in Asia.
Born to a wealthy family long involved in Republican politics[citation needed], he was educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where a dormitory is named and dedicated to him, and at Yale College (BA 1888), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He joined Skull and Bones, a secret society that afforded many contacts for the rest of his life. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1890 and joined the prestigious Wall Street law firm of Root and Clark in 1891, becoming a partner two years later. Elihu Root, a future Secretary of War and Secretary of State, became a major influence on and role model for Stimson.
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Henry M. Jackson
Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson (May 31, 1912 – September 1, 1983) was a U.S. Congressman and Senator from the state of Washington from 1941 until his death. Jackson was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 and 1976.
The political philosophies and positions of Jackson, a Cold War anti-Communist Democrat, have been cited as an influence on a number of key figures associated with neoconservatism, including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. The Henry Jackson Society is named in his honor.
Henry Martin Jackson was born in the home of his parents Peter and Marine Jackson in Everett, Washington. Both parents were immigrants from Norway. Peter Jackson was born Peter Gresseth, and changed his name when he immigrated. He met Marine Anderson at the Lutheran church in Everett, where they were married in 1897. Henry was the fifth and last of the Jackson children. Jackson was nicknamed "Scoop" by his sister in his childhood, after a comic strip character that he is said to have resembled.
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Henry S. Geyer
Henry Sheffie Geyer (December 9, 1790 – March 5, 1859) was a politician, lawyer, and soldier from Missouri. Born in Frederick, Maryland, he was instructed privately, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1811 and practiced law in Frederick. During the War of 1812 he served as a first lieutenant in the Thirty-sixth Regiment, Maryland Infantry from 1813 to 1815; in the latter year he settled in St. Louis, Missouri and resumed the practice of law. He was a member of the Territorial assembly in 1818 and a delegate to the constitutional convention in 1820. From 1820 to 1824 he was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives and again in 1834-1835, serving as speaker on two occasions. He authored the Geyer Act of 1839 establishing public education in Missouri as well as the University of Missouri.
Geyer was elected as a Whig to the U.S. Senate and served from March 4, 1851, to March 4, 1857; he was not a candidate for reelection and resumed the practice of law in St. Louis. He was attorney for the defendant slave-owner in the Dred Scott case.
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Henry Wilson
Henry Wilson (16 February 1812 – 22 November 1875) was the 18th Vice President of the United States (1873–1875) and a Senator from Massachusetts (1855–1873). Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading Republican, and a strong opponent of slavery. He devoted his energies to the destruction of the "Slave Power" - the faction of slave owners and their political allies which anti-slavery Americans saw as dominating the country.
He was considered a "Radical Republican". After the Civil War, he supported the Radical program for Reconstruction. in 1872, he was elected Vice President as running mate with President Ulysses S. Grant, and served from 4 March 1873 until his death on 22 November 1875.
Wilson was born Jeremiah Jones Colbath in Farmington, New Hampshire. In 1833 he had his name legally changed by the legislature to Henry Wilson. Henry Wilson moved to Natick, Massachusetts in 1833 and became a shoemaker. He attended several local academies, and also taught school in Natick, where he later engaged in the manufacture of shoes. He was a member of the state legislature between 1841 and 1852, and was owner and editor of the Boston Republican from 1848 to 1851.
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Herbert E. Hitchcock
Herbert Emery Hitchcock (August 22, 1867 – February 17, 1958) was a United States Senator from South Dakota.
Born in Maquoketa, Iowa, he attended public schools in Iowa and San Jose, California, a business college at Davenport, Iowa, Iowa State College at Ames, and the University of Chicago Law School.
He moved to Mitchell, South Dakota in 1884, where he attended school and worked as a stenographer; he was admitted to the South Dakota bar in 1896 and commenced practice in Mitchell. He also engaged in banking, and was clerk of the South Dakota State Senate in 1896. He was elected as a State’s attorney in 1904 and 1906, and was elected to the State Senate in 1909, 1911, and 1929. Hitchcock was a trustee of Yankton College in 1936 and was president of Mitchell school board from 1924 to 1934.
On December 29, 1936, he was appointed as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Peter Norbeck and served from 1936 until November 8, 1938, when a successor was elected. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the nomination to fill the vacancy in 1938. He was defeated by former Governor Tom Berry in the Democratic Primary Election.
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Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st President of the United States (1929–1933). Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business under the rubric "economic modernization". In the presidential election of 1928, Hoover easily won the Republican nomination, despite having no previous elected-office experience. Hoover is the most recent cabinet secretary to be elected President of the United States, as well as one of only two Presidents (along with William Howard Taft) to have been elected without previous electoral experience or high military rank. America was prosperous and optimistic at the time, leading to a landslide victory for Hoover over Democrat Al Smith.
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Hirohito
Hirohito (裕仁?), posthumously in Japan officially called Emperor Shōwa or the Shōwa Emperor (昭和天皇, Shōwa tennō?), (April 29, 1901 – January 7, 1989) was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to exclusively by his posthumous name Emperor Shōwa. The word Shōwa is the name of the era that corresponded with the Emperor's reign, and was made the Emperor's own name upon his death.
At the start of his reign, Japan was already one of the great powers—the ninth largest economy in the world after Italy, the third largest naval country, and one of the five permanent members of the council of the League of Nations. He was the head of state under the limitation of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan during Japan's imperial expansion, militarization, and involvement in World War II. After the war, he was not prosecuted for war crimes as many other leading government figures were. During the postwar period, he became the symbol of the new state.
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Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh (Vietnamese pronunciation: [hô cǐ miɲ] (Vietnamese pronunciation: [hô̤ tɕǐmɪŋ] ( listen)); 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Tất Thành and Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Stalinist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Việt Cộng (NLF or VC) during the Vietnam War.
He led the Việt Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Điện Biên Phủ. He officially stepped down from power in 1955 due to health problems, but remained a highly visible figurehead and inspiration for Vietnamese fighting for his cause – a united, independent Vietnam – until his death. After the war, Saigon, the capital of Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City in his honor.
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Horatio Seymour
Horatio Seymour (May 31, 1810 – February 12, 1886) was an American politician. He was the 18th Governor of New York from 1853 to 1854 and from 1863 to 1864. He was the Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States in the presidential election of 1868, but lost the election to Republican and former Union General of the Army Ulysses S. Grant.
Horatio Seymour was born in Pompey Hill, Onondaga County, New York. His father was Henry Seymour, a merchant and politician; his mother, Mary Ledyard Forman (1785–1859), of Matawan, New Jersey, was the daughter of General Johnathan Forman and Mary Ledyard. At the age of 10 he moved with the rest of his family to Utica, where he attended a number of local schools, including Geneva College (later Hobart College). In the autumn of 1824 he was sent to the American Literary, Scientific & Military Academy. Upon his return to Utica in 1827, Seymour read for the law in the offices of Greene Bronson and Samuel Beardsley. Though admitted to the bar in 1832, he did not enjoy work as an attorney and was primarily preoccupied with politics and managing his family's business interests. He married Mary Bleecker in 1835.
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Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S. Presidential campaign was unsuccessful, Dean is regarded as a pioneer in raising the profile of Internet-based fundraising and grassroots organizing.
Before entering politics, Dean earned his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1978. Dean was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1982 and was elected lieutenant governor in 1986. Both were part-time positions that enabled him to continue practicing medicine. In 1991, Dean became governor of Vermont when Richard A. Snelling died in office. Dean was subsequently elected to five two-year terms, serving from 1991 to 2003, making him the second longest-serving governor in Vermont history, after Thomas Chittenden (1778–1789 and 1790–1797). Dean served as chairman of the National Governors Association from 1994 to 1995; during his term, Vermont paid off much of its public debt and had a balanced budget 11 times, lowering income taxes twice. Dean also oversaw the expansion of the "Dr. Dynasaur" program, which ensures universal health care for children and pregnant women in the state. He is a noted staunch supporter of universal health care.
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Howard McGrath
James Howard McGrath (November 28, 1903 – September 2, 1966) was an American politician and attorney from the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
McGrath, a Democrat, served as U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island before becoming Governor, U.S. Solicitor General, U.S. Senator, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Attorney General of the United States.
McGrath was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He graduated from La Salle Academy in 1922, from Providence College in 1926, and from Boston University Law School in 1929. From 1930 to 1934 he was the city solicitor of Central Falls, Rhode Island. During this time he was also interested in the real estate, insurance, and banking industries. He served as United States Attorney for the District of Rhode Island from 1934 to 1940.
From 1941 until 1945, he was Governor of Rhode Island, reorganizing the juvenile court system while sponsoring a workers' compensation fund and a labor relations board, but he resigned in the middle of his third term to accept appointment as Solicitor General of the United States (1945–46).
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Hua Guofeng
Su Zhu (16 February 1921 – 20 August 2008), better known by the nom de guerre Hua Guofeng, was Mao Zedong's designated successor as the Paramount Leader of the Communist Party of China and the People's Republic of China.
A regional official in Hunan between 1949 and 1971, he became the head of the party leadership in the province during the latter stages of the Cultural Revolution. Hua was elevated to the national stage in early 1976, and was known for his loyalty to Mao. Upon Zhou Enlai's death in January 1976, Hua succeeded Zhou as Premier of the People's Republic of China. After Mao's death, Hua took on the titles of Chairman of the Communist Party of China and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, to the surprise and dismay of Jiang Qing and the rest of the Gang of Four. Hua is the only leader to have simultaneously held the three highest offices of the PRC - leading the Party, State Council, and the Central Military Commission.
Hua brought the Cultural Revolution to an end and ousted the Gang of Four from political power by staging their arrests in Beijing. He attempted moderate reforms and reversing some of the excesses of Cultural Revolution-era policies. However, because of his insistence on continuing the Maoist line, he was himself outmaneuvered a few years later by Deng Xiaoping, a pragmatic reformer, who forced Hua into early retirement. As Hua faded into political obscurity, he continued to insist on the correctness of Maoist principles. He is remembered as a largely benign transitional figure in modern Chinese political history.
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Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978), served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States.
Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and Americans for Democratic Action. He also served as Mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1945 to 1949. Humphrey was the nominee of the Democratic Party in the 1968 presidential election but lost to the Republican nominee, Richard Nixon.
Humphrey was born in a room over his father's drugstore in Wallace, South Dakota. He was the son of Hubert Humphrey, Sr. (1882–1949) and Ragnild Kristine Sannes (1883–1973), a Norwegian immigrant. Humphrey spent most of his youth in Doland, South Dakota, on the Dakota prairie; the town's population was about 700 people when he lived there. His father was a pharmacist who served as mayor and a town-council member. In the late 1920s a severe economic downturn hit Doland; both of the town's banks closed and Humphrey's father struggled to keep his drugstore open.
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Idi Amin
Idi Amin Dada (c. 1924 – 16 August 2003) was the military dictator and third President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Amin joined the British colonial regiment, the King's African Rifles in 1946. Eventually he held the rank of Major General in the post-colonial Ugandan Army and became its Commander before seizing power in the military coup of January 1971, deposing Milton Obote. He later promoted himself to Field Marshal while he was the head of state. While serving in the British Regiment he toured Kenya.
Amin's rule was characterised by gross human rights abuse, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is estimated by international observers and human rights groups to range from 100,000 to 500,000. During his years in power, Amin shifted in allegiance from being a pro-Western ruler enjoying considerable Israeli support to being backed by Libya's Muammar al-Gaddafi, the Soviet Union and East Germany.
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Igor Gouzenko
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko (January 13, 1919 – June 28, 1982) was a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He defected on September 5, 1945, with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West. This forced Prime Minister Mackenzie King to call a Royal Commission to investigate espionage in Canada.
Gouzenko exposed Joseph Stalin's efforts to steal nuclear secrets, and the technique of planting sleeper agents. The "Gouzenko Affair" is often credited as a triggering event of the Cold War.
Gouzenko was born to a Ukrainian family on January 26, 1919, in the village of Rogachevo not far from Moscow. At the start of World War II, he joined the military where he trained as a cipher clerk. In 1943, he was stationed in Ottawa, where for two years he enciphered outgoing messages and deciphered incoming messages for the GRU. His position gave him knowledge of Soviet espionage activities in the West.
In 1945, hearing that he and his family were to be sent home to the Soviet Union and dissatisfied with the quality of life and the politics of his homeland, he decided to defect. Gouzenko walked out of the embassy door carrying with him a briefcase with Soviet code books and deciphering materials. He initially went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but the RCMP officers on duty refused to believe his story. He then went to the Ottawa Journal newspaper, but the paper's night editor was not interested, and suggested he go to the Department of Justice – however nobody was on duty at night when he arrived. Terrified that the Soviets had discovered his duplicity, he went back to his apartment and hid his family in the apartment across the hall for the night. Gouzenko, hidden by a neighbour, watched through the keyhole as a group of Soviet agents broke into his apartment. They began searching through his belongings, and only left when confronted by Ottawa police.
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Imelda Marcos
Imelda R. Marcos (born Imelda Remedios Visitasion Romualdez on July 2, 1929) is a Filipino politician and widow of 10th Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Upon the ascension of her husband to political power, she held various positions to the government until 1986. She is the first politician elected as member of the Philippine legislature in three geographical locations (Manila, Leyte, Ilocos Norte). In 2010, she was elected to become a member of the House of Representatives to represent Ilocos Norte's second district. She is sometimes referred to as the Steel Butterfly or the Iron Butterfly. She is often remembered for symbols of the extravagance of her husband's political reign, including her collection of 2,700 pairs of shoes.
Her paternal ancestors, the Lopezes of Leyte, were wealthy, landed and prominent, and claimed to have founded the town of Tolosa, Leyte. Spanish mestizos, the Lopezes were descended from the Spanish friar and silversmith Don Francisco Lopez, originally from Granada in the Andalusian region of Spain. Together with Fray Salustiano Buz, he arrived by way of Acapulco to build Roman Catholic missions in the island provinces of Samar and Leyte (Buz would establish his home base in Palapag, Samar, the exit-entry point of the Manila Galleons in the Visayas islands). It was common then for Spanish friars to take mistresses, and Lopez's life-long relationship with a Chinese mestiza, Maria Crisostomo y Talentin of Basey, Samar, produced seven children. The eldest of them was Trinidad Lopez, or Doña Tidad in later years.
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Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy (7 June 1896 – 16 June 1958) was a Hungarian communist politician who was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary on two occasions. Nagy's second term ended when his non-Soviet-backed government was brought down by Soviet invasion in the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956, resulting in Nagy's execution on charges of treason two years later.
Nagy (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈnɒɟ]) was born in Kaposvár, to a peasant family and was apprenticed to a locksmith. He enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I and served on the Eastern Front. He was taken prisoner in 1915. He became a member of the Russian Communist Party, and joined the Red Army.
Nagy returned to Hungary in 1921. In 1930 he travelled to the Soviet Union and joined the communist party. He was engaged in agricultural research, and also worked in the Hungarian section of the Comintern. He was expelled from the party in 1936 and later worked for the Soviet Statistical Service. Rumours that he was an agent of the Soviet secret service surfaced later, begun by Hungarian party-leader Károly Grósz in 1989 in an attempt to discredit Nagy. There is evidence, however, that Nagy did serve as an informant for the NKVD during his time in Moscow and provided names to the secret police as a way to prove his loyalty (not an uncommon tactic for foreign communists in the Soviet Union at the time).
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Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (Hindi: इंदिरा प्रियदर्शिनी गांधी Indirā Priyadarśinī Gāndhī listen (help·info), née Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms (1966–77) and a fourth term (1980–84). Gandhi was the second female head of government in the world after Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, and she remains as the world's second longest serving female Prime Minister as of 2012. She was the first woman to become prime minister in India.
Gandhi was the only child of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. She adhered to the quasi-socialist policies of industrial development that had been begun by her father. Gandhi established closer relations with the Soviet Union, depending on that nation for support in India’s long-standing conflict with Pakistan. She was also the only Indian Prime Minister to have declared a state of emergency in order to 'rule by decree' and the only Indian Prime Minister to have been imprisoned after holding that office. She was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in retaliation for ordering Operation Blue Star.
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Isidor Isaac Rabi
Isidor Isaac Rabi ( /ˈrɑːbi/; 29 July 1898 – 11 January 1988) was a Galician-born American physicist and Nobel laureate recognized in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance.
Rabi was born into a traditional Jewish family in Rymanów, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Poland), and was brought to the United States as a child the following year. He was awarded a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry degree from Cornell University in 1919, continuing his studies at Columbia University and received his Ph.D. in 1927. A fellowship enabled him to spend the next two years in Europe working with such eminent physicists as Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli and Otto Stern. He then joined the Columbia faculty and never left.
In 1930 Rabi conducted investigations into the nature of the force binding protons to atomic nuclei. This research eventually led to the creation of the molecular-beam magnetic-resonance detection method, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1944.
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J. Howard McGrath
James Howard McGrath (November 28, 1903 – September 2, 1966) was an American politician and attorney from the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
McGrath, a Democrat, served as U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island before becoming Governor, U.S. Solicitor General, U.S. Senator, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Attorney General of the United States.
McGrath was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He graduated from La Salle Academy in 1922, from Providence College in 1926, and from Boston University Law School in 1929. From 1930 to 1934 he was the city solicitor of Central Falls, Rhode Island. During this time he was also interested in the real estate, insurance, and banking industries. He served as United States Attorney for the District of Rhode Island from 1934 to 1940.
From 1941 until 1945, he was Governor of Rhode Island, reorganizing the juvenile court system while sponsoring a workers' compensation fund and a labor relations board, but he resigned in the middle of his third term to accept appointment as Solicitor General of the United States (1945–46).
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James A. Garfield
James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) served as the 20th President of the United States, after completing nine consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Garfield's accomplishments as President included a controversial resurgence of Presidential authority above Senatorial courtesy in executive appointments; energizing U.S. naval power; and purging corruption in the Post Office Department. Garfield made notable diplomatic and judiciary appointments, including a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Garfield appointed several African-Americans to prominent federal positions.
Garfield was a self-made man who came from a modest background, having been raised in obscurity on an Ohio farm by his widowed mother and endearing brother Thomas, who was nine years his senior. Next door were his uncle Amos and aunt Alpha Boynton. The families were very close as Amos was James' father's half brother, and Alpha was his mother's sister. James and his Boynton cousins cherished their memories of childhood together. Upon entering higher education James worked as a school janitor, bellringer, carpenter, teacher, and preacher to help finance his education. He completed his studies and graduated from Williams College, Massachusetts in 1856. A year later, Garfield entered politics as a Republican, after campaigning for the party's antislavery platform in Ohio. He married Lucretia Rudolph in 1858, and in 1860 was admitted to practice law while serving as an Ohio State Senator (1859–1861). Garfield opposed Confederate secession, served as a Major General in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and fought in the battles of Middle Creek, Shiloh and Chickamauga. He was first elected to Congress in 1862 as Representative of the 19th District of Ohio.
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James A. Reed
James Alexander Reed (November 9, 1861 – September 8, 1944) was an American Democratic Party politician from Missouri.
Reed was born on a farm in Richland County, Ohio. He moved with his family to Cedar Rapids, Iowa at the age of 3. He went to public schools and attended Coe College. He became a lawyer and moved to Kansas City, Missouri in 1887.
Reed served as a city councilor of Kansas City from 1897 to 1898, as prosecutor of Jackson County from 1898 to 1900, and as Kansas City mayor from 1900 to 1904.
As mayor, Reed rocketed to national fame after overseeing the "Kansas City Spirit" construction of Convention Hall in 90 days in order to host the 1900 Democratic National Convention. The original Convention Hall had opened in 1899. It burned down on April 4, 1900. The Convention was scheduled to be held on July 4. Reed marshaled resources and it opened in time for the convention.
In 1910, he was elected to the United States Senate from Missouri as a Democrat. He served in the Senate for three terms, from 1911 until 1929, when he decided to retire. Unlike many members of his party, he opposed the League of Nations. He sought and failed to receive the Democratic nomination for President. He served as chairman of the Committee on Weights and Measures from 1917 to 1921.
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James Buchanan
James Buchanan, Jr. (April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868, English pronunciation: /bjuːˈkænən/) was the 15th President of the United States (1857–1861). He is the only president from Pennsylvania and the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor. His niece Harriet Lane played the role as lady of the house.
Buchanan (often called Buck-anan by his contemporaries) was a popular and experienced state politician and a successful attorney before his presidency. He represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives and later the Senate, and served as Minister to Russia under President Andrew Jackson. He was also Secretary of State under President James K. Polk. After he turned down an offer for an appointment to the Supreme Court, President Franklin Pierce appointed him Minister to the United Kingdom, in which capacity he helped draft the controversial Ostend Manifesto.
Buchanan was nominated in the 1856 election. Throughout most of Franklin Pierce's term he was stationed in London as a Minister to the Court of St. James's and therefore was not caught up in the crossfire of sectional politics that dominated the country. Buchanan was viewed by many as a compromise between the two sides of the slavery question. His subsequent election victory took place in a three-man race with John C. Frémont and Millard Fillmore. As President, he was often called a "doughface", a Northerner with Southern sympathies, who battled with Stephen A. Douglas for the control of the Democratic Party. Buchanan's efforts to maintain peace between the North and the South alienated both sides, and the Southern states declared their secession in the prologue to the American Civil War. Buchanan's view of record was that secession was illegal, but that going to war to stop it was also illegal. Buchanan, first and foremost an attorney, was noted for his mantra, "I acknowledge no master but the law."
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James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC (27 March 1912 – 26 March 2005), was a British Labour politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Commonly known as Jim Callaghan (and nicknamed "Sunny Jim", "Gentleman Jim", "Lucky Jim" or "Big Jim"), Callaghan is the only person to have served in all four of the Great Offices of State: Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary.
Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964 to 1967 during a turbulent period in the British economy in which he had to wrestle with a balance of payments deficit and speculative attacks on the pound sterling. In November 1967, the Government was forced to devalue the pound sterling despite having already denied this would be done, both publicly and to the House of Commons. Callaghan offered to resign, but was persuaded to swap his ministerial post with Roy Jenkins, becoming Home Secretary from 1967 to 1970. In that capacity, Callaghan took the decision to use the Army to support the police in Northern Ireland, after a request from the Northern Ireland Government.
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James F. Byrnes
James Francis Byrnes (May 2, 1882 – April 9, 1972) was an American politician from the state of South Carolina. During his career, Byrnes served as a US Representative (1911–1925), a US Senator (1931–1941), a Justice of the Supreme Court (1941–1942), Secretary of State (1945–1947), and 104th governor of South Carolina (1951–1955). He is one of very few politicians to serve in all three branches of the American national government while also being active in state government. He was a confidant of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was one of the most powerful men in American domestic and foreign policy in the mid-1940s.
Byrnes was born and reared in Charleston, South Carolina. Byrnes' father died shortly after Byrnes was born. His mother, Elizabeth McSweeney Byrnes, was an Irish-American dressmaker. At the age of fourteen, he left St. Patrick's Catholic School to work in a law office, and became a court stenographer. In 1906, he married the former Maude Perkins Busch of Aiken, South Carolina, and became an Episcopalian. Though they had no children, he was the godparent of James Christopher Connor.
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James Farley
James Aloysius Farley (May 30, 1888 – June 9, 1976) was one of the first Irish Catholic politicians in American history to achieve success on a national level, serving as Chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and as Postmaster General simultaneously under the first two administrations of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A business executive and dignitary, and a Knight of Malta, Farley was commonly referred to as a political kingmaker, and was responsible for Franklin D. Roosevelt's rise to the presidency. Farley was the campaign manager for New York State politician Alfred E. Smith's 1922 gubernatorial campaign and Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1928 and 1930 gubernatorial campaigns, as well as FDR's Presidential campaigns of 1932 and 1936. Farley predicted large landslides in both, and revolutionized the use of polling, and polling data. He was responsible for pulling together the New Deal Coalition of Catholics, labor unions, blacks, and farmers for FDR. Farley, and the administration's patronage machine he presided over, helped to fuel the social and infrastructure programs of the New Deal. Farley opposed Franklin Roosevelt breaking the two term tradition of the Presidency, and broke with Roosevelt on that issue in 1940.
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James Forrestal
James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense.
Forrestal was a supporter of naval battle groups centered on aircraft carriers. In 1954, the world's first supercarrier was named USS Forrestal in his honor, as is the headquarters of the United States Department of Energy. He is also the namesake of the Forrestal Lecture Series at the United States Naval Academy, which brings prominent military and civilian leaders to speak to the Brigade of Midshipmen, and of the James Forrestal Campus of Princeton University in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey.
Forrestal observed a famously punishing work schedule in the last years of his life, and rumors had circulated in the press as to his health. President Truman's decision to dismiss him as Secretary of Defense on March 31, 1949 is said to have caused him to suffer a "nervous breakdown", a charge denied by Forrestal's brother. Forrestal was hospitalized on April 2, 1949. On May 22, 1949 he was found dead on the roof of a covered walkway below the window of a kitchen across the hall from his 16th floor room at the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC, commonly known as the Bethesda Naval Hospital), a bathrobe sash knotted tightly around his neck. This happened on the day Forrestal was to be discharged from the hospital. The news media reported that he had committed suicide, and the local coroner and U.S. Navy officials agreed. The circumstances of the death were reviewed, however, by a committee convened by Rear Admiral Morton D. Willcutts, the head of NNMC (1948–1951). The committee released only a brief list of conclusions several months after it had completed its work. The conclusions noted only that Forrestal "died following a fall" and that the fall caused his death. The board did not speculate as to what might have caused the fall.
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James K. Polk
James Knox Polk ( /ˈpoʊk/ "poke"; November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th President of the United States (1845–1849). Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839–1841). Polk was the surprise (dark horse) candidate for president in 1844, defeating Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party by promising to annex Texas. Polk was a leader of Jacksonian Democracy during the Second Party System.
Polk was the last strong pre–Civil War president, and he is the earliest of whom there are surviving photographs taken during a term in office. He is noted for his foreign policy successes. He threatened war with Britain over the issue of which nation owned the Oregon Country, then backed away and split the ownership of the region with Britain. When Mexico rejected American annexation of Texas, Polk led the nation to a sweeping victory in the Mexican-American War, which gave the United States most of its present Southwest. He secured passage of the Walker tariff of 1846, which had low rates that pleased his native South, and he established a treasury system that lasted until 1913.
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James M. Cox
James Middleton Cox (March 31, 1870 – July 15, 1957) was the 46th and 48th Governor of Ohio, U.S. Representative from Ohio and Democratic candidate for President of the United States in the election of 1920.
Cox was born in the tiny Butler County, Ohio, village of Jacksonburg. Cox practiced a variety of trades throughout his life: high school teacher, reporter, owner and editor of several newspapers, and secretary to Congressman Paul J. Sorg.
Cox represented Ohio in the United States House of Representatives (1909–1913), resigning after winning election as Governor of Ohio (1913–1915, and 1917–1921). A capable and well-liked reformer, he was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic party while serving as Governor. Cox supported the internationalist policies of Woodrow Wilson and favored U.S. entry into the League of Nations. However, Cox was defeated in the 1920 presidential election by a fellow Ohioan and newspaperman, U.S. Senator Warren G. Harding of Marion. The public had grown weary of the turmoil of the Wilson years, and eagerly accepted Harding's call for a "return to normalcy." Cox's running mate was future president, then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt. One of the better known analyses of the 1920 election is in author Irving Stone's book about defeated Presidential candidates, They Also Ran. Stone rated Cox as superior in every way over Warren Harding, claiming the former would have made a much better president; the author argued that there was never a stronger case in the history of American presidential elections for the proposition that the better man lost.
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James Madison
James Madison, Jr. (March 16, 1751 (O.S. March 5) – June 28, 1836) was an American statesman and political theorist, the fourth President of the United States (1809–1817). He is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being instrumental in the drafting of the United States Constitution and as the key champion and author of the United States Bill of Rights. He served as a politician much of his adult life. Like other Virginia statesmen in the slave society, he was a slaveholder and part of the élite; he inherited his plantation known as Montpelier, and owned hundreds of slaves during his lifetime to cultivate tobacco and other crops.
After the constitution had been drafted, Madison became one of the leaders in the movement to ratify it. His collaboration with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay produced the Federalist Papers (1788). Circulated only in New York at the time, they would later be considered among the most important polemics in support of the Constitution. He was also a delegate to the Virginia constitutional ratifying convention, and was instrumental to the successful ratification effort in Virginia. Like most of his contemporaries, Madison changed his political views during his life. During the drafting and ratification of the constitution, he favored a strong national government, though later he grew to favor stronger state governments, before settling between the two extremes late in his life.
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James Monroe
James Monroe (April 28, 1758 – July 4, 1831) was the fifth President of the United States (1817–1825). Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation. His presidency was marked both by an "Era of Good Feelings" – a period of relatively little partisan strife – and later by the Panic of 1819 and a fierce national debate over the admission of the Missouri Territory. Monroe is most noted for his proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, which stated that the United States would not tolerate further European intervention in the Americas.
Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, Monroe fought in the American Revolutionary War. He was injured in the Battle of Trenton with a musket ball to his shoulder. After studying law under Thomas Jefferson from 1780 to 1783, he served as a delegate in the Continental Congress. As an anti-federalist delegate to the Virginia convention that considered ratification of the United States Constitution, Monroe opposed ratification, claiming it gave too much power to the central government. Nonetheless, Monroe took an active part in the new government and in 1790 he was elected to the Senate of the first United States Congress, where he joined the Jeffersonians. He gained experience as an executive as the Governor of Virginia and rose to national prominence when as a diplomat in France he helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Monroe was of French and Scottish descent.
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James P. Kem
James Preston Kem (April 2, 1890 – February 24, 1965) represented Missouri in the United States Senate from 1947 to 1953.
James P. Kem was born in Macon, Missouri. He attended Blees Military Academy, then graduated from the University of Missouri in 1910, and Harvard Law School in 1913. He was admitted to the bar in 1913 and commenced practice in Kansas City, Missouri. He entered the U.S. Army infantry in 1917 and was a World War I veteran. In 1920, Kem resumed the general practice of law in Kansas City. He built up a very successful corporate practice over the next two decades. By 1943, he served as President of the Lawyers Association of Kansas City and as chairman of the Jackson County Republican Committee. In 1944, he served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention and began building support for a run for the U.S. Senate. Kem defeated incumbent Frank P. Briggs, who had been appointed to the office in 1945 when Harry S. Truman resigned to become vice president.
During his one term in the Senate, Kem was a staunch opponent of President Truman, characterizing him as a puppet of Tom Pendergast's corrupt political machine in Kansas City. Kem lost his re-election bid in 1952 to Democratic candidate, W. Stuart Symington, a former Emerson Electric CEO who had been Secretary of the Air Force in the Truman administration. Kem retired to a Washington, D.C. law practice and then raised angus cattle in Virginia until his death in 1965 at the age of 74.
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James P. McGranery
James Patrick McGranery (July 8, 1895–December 23, 1962) was an American lawyer and politician.
Born in Philadelphia, he served in World War I as an observation balloon pilot with the United States Army Air Service, and as an adjutant in the One Hundred and Eleventh Infantry. He graduated from Temple University Law School in 1928.
He was elected to the United States House of Representatives for the 75th through the 78th Congresses.
In November 1943, he was appointed assistant to the Attorney General of the United States and was responsible for supervising the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Bureau of Prisons and various divisions. He then served as a judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
In 1952, President Harry Truman appointed McGranery Attorney General and he served in that capacity until 1953. In 1952, McGranery revoked the re-entry permit of Charlie Chaplin when he was accused of Communist sympathies. He returned to practicing law in Washington, D.C. in 1954.
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James Roosevelt
James Roosevelt (December 23, 1907 – August 13, 1991) was the oldest son of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was a United States Congressman, an officer in the United States Marine Corps, an aide to his father, the official Secretary to the President, a Democratic Party activist, and a businessman.
Roosevelt was born in New York City at 125 East 36th Street. He attended the Potomac School and the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., and the Groton School in Massachusetts. At Groton, he rowed and played football, as well as serving as a prefect in his senior year. After graduation in 1926, he attended Harvard University, where he rowed with the freshman and junior varsity crews. At Harvard, he followed some family traditions, joining the Signet Society and Hasty Pudding Club, of which both his father, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, had been members, as well as the Fly Club, which his father had joined, and Institute of the 1770. He graduated from Harvard University in 1930 and was elected permanent treasurer of his class.
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James S. Green
James Stephen Green (February 28, 1817 – January 19, 1870) was a United States Representative and Senator from Missouri.
Born near Rectortown in Fauquier County, Virginia, he attended the common schools and moved to Alabama and then to Missouri about 1838. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1840 and commenced practice in Monticello, Missouri.
His brother, Martin E. Green became a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War.
He was a delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1845 and was elected as a Democrat to the 30th and 31st Congresses, serving from March 4, 1847 to March 4, 1851. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1850, and was Chargé d'Affaires to Colombia in 1853–1854.
He was appointed Minister Resident in June 1854, but did not present his credentials; he was elected to the 35th Congress, but did not take his seat, having been elected to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy in the term commencing March 4, 1855, and served from January 12, 1857, to March 4, 1861. While in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Territories (35th and 36th Congresses).
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James S. Sherman
James Schoolcraft Sherman (October 24, 1855 – October 30, 1912) was a United States Representative from New York and the 27th Vice President of the United States, 1909-1912 under William Howard Taft. He was a member of the inter-related Baldwin, Hoar, and Sherman families, prominent lawyers and politicians of New England (no relation to General William T. Sherman).
Although not a high-powered administrator, he made a natural committee chairman, and his genial personality eased the workings of the House, so that he was known all his life as 'Sunny Jim'. He was the first Vice President to fly in a plane (New York, 1911), and also the first to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game.
Sherman was born in Utica, New York, son of Richard Updike Sherman and his distant cousin Mary Frances (Sherman). His paternal grandfather was a successful local farmer and glass manufacturer, under whose influence Sherman developed his strong pro-business convictions, according to neighbour and future colleague Elihu Root.
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James Shields
James Shields (May 10, 1810 – June 1, 1879) was an American politician and United States Army officer who was born in Altmore, County Tyrone, Ireland. Shields, a Democrat, is the only person in United States history to serve as a U.S. Senator for three different states. Shields was a senator from Illinois 1849 to 1855, in the 31st, 32nd, and 33rd congresses, from Minnesota from May 11, 1858 to March 4, 1859, in the 35th congress, and from Missouri from January 27, 1879 to March 4, 1879, in the 45th congress.
A descendant of the Ó Siadhail clan, Shields was the nephew of another James Shields, also born in Ireland, who was a Congressman from Ohio. The younger Shields immigrated to the United States around 1826 and settled in Kaskaskia, Randolph County, Illinois where he studied and later practiced law. He served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, beginning to serve in 1836, and then as an Illinois Supreme Court justice and in 1839 as the state auditor. (He was elected when not yet a citizen; Illinois then required only that a legislator have been resident in the state for six months.)
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James V. Forrestal
James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense.
Forrestal was a supporter of naval battle groups centered on aircraft carriers. In 1954, the world's first supercarrier was named USS Forrestal in his honor, as is the headquarters of the United States Department of Energy. He is also the namesake of the Forrestal Lecture Series at the United States Naval Academy, which brings prominent military and civilian leaders to speak to the Brigade of Midshipmen, and of the James Forrestal Campus of Princeton University in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey.
Forrestal observed a famously punishing work schedule in the last years of his life, and rumors had circulated in the press as to his health. President Truman's decision to dismiss him as Secretary of Defense on March 31, 1949 is said to have caused him to suffer a "nervous breakdown", a charge denied by Forrestal's brother. Forrestal was hospitalized on April 2, 1949. On May 22, 1949 he was found dead on the roof of a covered walkway below the window of a kitchen across the hall from his 16th floor room at the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC, commonly known as the Bethesda Naval Hospital), a bathrobe sash knotted tightly around his neck. This happened on the day Forrestal was to be discharged from the hospital. The news media reported that he had committed suicide, and the local coroner and U.S. Navy officials agreed. The circumstances of the death were reviewed, however, by a committee convened by Rear Admiral Morton D. Willcutts, the head of NNMC (1948–1951). The committee released only a brief list of conclusions several months after it had completed its work. The conclusions noted only that Forrestal "died following a fall" and that the fall caused his death. The board did not speculate as to what might have caused the fall.
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James Van Allen
James Alfred Van Allen (September 7, 1914 – August 9, 2006) was an American space scientist at the University of Iowa.
The Van Allen radiation belts were named after him, following the 1958 satellite missions (Explorer 1 and Explorer 3) in which Van Allen had argued that a Geiger counter should be used to detect charged particles.
In 1950 an event occurred that began small but was to affect the future of Van Allen and all his countrymen. In March, British Physicist Sydney Chapman dropped in on Van Allen [and] remarked that he would like to meet other scientists in the Washington area. Van Allen got on the phone, soon gathered eight or ten top scientists (Lloyd Berkner, S. Fred Singer, and Harry Vestine) in the living room of his small brick house. ‘It was what you might call a pedigreed bull session,’ he says. ... The talk turned to geophysics and the two ‘International Polar Years’ that had enlisted the world’s leading nations to study the Arctic and Antarctic regions in 1882 and 1932. Someone suggested that with the development of new tools such as rockets, radar and computers, the time was ripe for a worldwide geophysical year. The other men were enthusiastic, and their enthusiasm spread around the world from Washington DC. From this meeting Lloyd Berkner and other participants proposed to the International Council of Scientific Unions that an IGY be planned for 1957-58 during the maximum solar activity). ... The International Geophysical Year (1957-58) stimulated the U.S. Government to promise earth satellites as geophysical tools. The Soviet government countered by rushing its Sputniks into orbit. The race into space or Space Race may be said to have started in Van Allen’s living room that evening in 1950.
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Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru (IPA: [dʒəʋaːɦərˈlaːl ˈneːɦru] ( listen), Hindi: जवाहरलाल नेहरू; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964), often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian lawyer, politician and statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India (1947–64) and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the 1930s and ’40s. Nehru was elected by the Indian National Congress to assume office as independent India's first Prime Minister, and re-elected when the Congress Party won India's first general election in 1951 and 1952. Nehru contributed to the establishment of a parliamentary democracy in India and was one of the founders of the international Non-Aligned Movement.
The son of moderate nationalist leader and Congressman Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru became a leader of the left wing of the Congress when fairly young. Rising to become Congress President under the mentorship of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Nehru was a charismatic leader, advocating complete independence for India from the British Empire. Throughout his life, Nehru advocated Democratic Socialism/Fabian Socialism and a strong public sector as the means by which economic development could be pursued by poorer nations. He was the father of Indira Gandhi and the maternal grandfather of Rajiv Gandhi, who would later serve as the third and sixth Prime Ministers of India respectively.
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Jean Carnahan
Jean Anne Carpenter Carnahan (pronounced /ˈdʒiːn ˈkɑrnəhæn/; born December 20, 1933) is an American politician and writer who served in the United States Senate from 2001 to 2002. A Democrat, she was appointed to the Senate to fill the seat of her posthumously elected husband, becoming the first woman to represent Missouri in the Senate.
Born Jean Anne Carpenter in Washington, D.C. to a working-class family, she was determined to go to college. She worked through the year while attending George Washington University. She graduated in 1955 with a degree in Business and Public Administration — the first in her family to graduate from high school and college. She is an alumna of Kappa Delta sorority. She married Mel Carnahan in 1954.
As Mel Carnahan entered politics, Jean Carnahan was his political partner for several decades. Mel Carnahan was elected Governor of Missouri, serving 1993–2000. Mrs. Carnahan was an activist First Lady — an advocate for on-site day care centers for working families, childhood immunization, abuse centers, the arts, and Habitat for Humanity.
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Jeff Bezos
Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos (/beɪzəs/, born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur who played a key role in the growth of e-commerce as the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com, Inc., an online merchant of books and later of a wide variety of products. Under his guidance, Amazon.com became the largest retailer on the World Wide Web and the model for Internet sales.
Bezos was born Jeffrey Preston Jorgensen in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Jacklyn Gise Jorgensen and Ted Jorgensen. His maternal ancestors were settlers who lived in Texas, and over the generations acquired a 25,000 acre (101 km2 or 39 miles2) ranch in Cotulla. Bezos' maternal grandfather was a regional director of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Albuquerque. He retired early to the ranch, where Bezos spent many summers as a youth, working with him. At an early age, Bezos displayed a striking mechanical aptitude – as a toddler, he tried dismantling his crib with a screwdriver.
Bezos was born to a teenage mother in Albuquerque. Her marriage to his father lasted little more than a year. When Jeff was five, she remarried, this time to Miguel Bezos. Miguel was born in Cuba, immigrated to the United States alone when he was fifteen years old, worked his way through the University of Albuquerque, married, and legally adopted Jeff. After the marriage, the family moved to Houston, Texas, and Miguel became an engineer for Exxon. The young Bezos attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston from fourth to sixth grade. As a child, he spent summers at his grandfather's ranch in southern Texas, "laying pipe, vaccinating cattle and fixing windmills."
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Jesse H. Jones
Jesse Holman Jones (April 5, 1874 – June 1, 1956) was a Houston, Texas politician and entrepreneur. He served as United States Secretary of Commerce from 1940 to 1945. His most important role was to head the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), (1932–45), a federal agency originally created by Herbert Hoover that played a major role in combating the Great Depression and financing industrial expansion in World War II. Jones was in charge of spending US$50 billion, especially in financing railways and building munitions factories.
Born in Robertson County, Tennessee, Jones was the son of tobacco farmer and merchant William Hasque Jones and Laura Anna Holman. His mother died when he was six years old. His father sent him to manage a tobacco factory at age 14, and at 19 he was put in charge of his uncle's lumberyards. Five years later, after his uncle, M. T. Jones, died, Jones moved to Houston to manage his uncle's estate and opened a lumberyard company, which grew quickly. During this period, Jesse opened his own business, the South Texas Lumber Company. He also began to expand into real estate, commercial building and banking.
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Jesse M. Donaldson
Jesse Monroe Donaldson (August 17, 1885 - March 25, 1970) was the first United States Postmaster General to have started his career as a letter carrier. A Methodist and a Freemason, Donaldson began his postal career in 1908 as one of three mailmen for the Shelbyville, Illinois, post office, then rose through the ranks of the Department, being appointed Postmaster General by President Harry S. Truman in 1947 and serving for the remainder of the Truman Administration until 1953. During this period he modernized the postal service and also announced the "3 cent Gold Star Mothers" stamp in recognition of the Sullivan brothers' mother. He died in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1970.
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Jill Ker Conway
Jill Ker Conway (born 9 October 1934) is an Australian-American author. Well known for her autobiographies, in particular her first memoir, The Road from Coorain. She was also Smith College's first woman president, from 1975–1985, and now serves as a Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2004 she was designated a Women's History Month Honoree by the National Women's History Project.
Conway was born in Hillston, New South Wales in the outback of Australia. Together with her two brothers, Conway was raised in near-total isolation on a family owned 73 square kilometres (18,000 acres) tract of land, Coorain (aboriginal word for "windy place"), which was eventually expanded into 129 square kilometres (32,000 acres). On Coorain she lived a lonely life, and grew up without playmates except for her brothers. She was schooled entirely by her mother and a country governess.
Conway spent her youth working the sheep station; by age seven, she was an important member of the workforce, helping with such activities as herding and tending the sheep, checking the perimeter fences and lugging heavy farm supplies around. The farm prospered until a drought that would last for seven years. This and her father's worsening health put an increasing burden on her shoulders. But this ended abruptly when she was 11 and her father drowned in an unfortunate diving accident, while trying to extend the farm's water piping.
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Jim Lovell
James "Jim" Arthur Lovell, Jr., (born March 25, 1928) is a former NASA astronaut and a retired captain in the United States Navy, most famous as the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which suffered a critical failure en route to the Moon but was brought back safely to Earth by the efforts of the crew and mission control. Lovell was also the command module pilot of Apollo 8, the first Apollo mission to enter lunar orbit. Lovell is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, the first of only three people to fly to the Moon twice, and the only one to have flown there twice without making a landing. Lovell was also the first person to fly in space four times.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio to a Czech mother, Lovell's family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Juneau High School and became an Eagle Scout. His father died in a car accident when Lovell was young and, for about two years, he resided with a relative in Terre Haute, Indiana.
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Jim Talent
James Matthes "Jim" Talent (born October 18, 1956) is an American politician and former senator from Missouri. He is a Republican and resided in the St. Louis area while serving in elected office. He identifies with the conservative wing of the Republican party, being particularly outspoken on judicial appointments, abortion, flag burning, and defense issues. After serving for eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives and then working as a lobbyist, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002, narrowly defeating Democrat Jean Carnahan in a special election to complete the term to which Carnahan's husband, Mel, had been elected posthumously in 2000. In the Democratic wave of November 2006, Talent narrowly lost his re-election bid to Claire McCaskill, 50% to 47%. Talent, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign, currently serves as a member of Romney's 2012 Economic Policy Team. Talent is a distinguished fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Talent grew up in a middle-class family in Des Peres, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. His father, Milton Oscar Talent, was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, and was the first in his family to go to college, graduating from Harvard Law School. Jim Talent's mother, Marie Frieda (née Matthes), was an independent court reporter who was raised on a small farm near DeSoto, Missouri. She was from a Christian background; her German ancestors had settled in Jefferson County, Missouri beginning in 1832.
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Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981) and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served as a U.S. Naval officer, was a peanut farmer, served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia (1971–1975).
During Carter's term as President, two new cabinet-level departments were created: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama. Throughout his career, Carter strongly emphasized human rights. He took office during a period of international stagflation, which persisted throughout his term. The end of his presidential tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (at the end of 1979), 1980 Summer Olympics boycott by the United States of the Moscow Olympics and the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
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Joe Andrew
Joseph J. Andrew (born March 1, 1960) was National Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 1999–2001. He served with DNC General Chairman Ed Rendell. Asked to serve by President Bill Clinton, Andrew became, at the age of 39, one of the youngest chairpersons in the history of the DNC. He later served as Chairman of the New Democratic Network, and in 2006 helped to found The Blue Fund, a mutual fund which invests in companies that contribute to Democratic campaigns.
During the 2008 Democratic Presidential nominating contest he was one of the first to endorse Senator Hillary Clinton in November 2007. However, on May 1, 2008, he switched his endorsement from Clinton to Senator Barack Obama.
Andrew, a native of Indiana, graduated from Yale University in 1982 and Yale Law School in 1985. He is the author of a spy novel, The Disciples, published in 1993 by Simon & Schuster, and is currently a partner at SNR Denton in Washington, D.C.
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Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. (pronunciation: /ˈdʒoʊsɨf rɒbɨˈnɛt ˈbaɪdən/; born November 20, 1942) is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama. A Democrat, he was a United States Senator from Delaware from January 3, 1973 until his resignation on January 15, 2009, following his election to the Vice Presidency.
Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and lived there for ten years before moving to Delaware. He became an attorney in 1969, and was elected to a county council in 1970. Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history. He was re-elected to the Senate six times, was the fourth most senior senator at the time of his resignation, and is the 15th-longest serving Senator in history. Biden was a long-time member and former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. His strong advocacy helped bring about U.S. military assistance and intervention during the Bosnian War. He opposed the Gulf War in 1991. He voted in favor of the Iraq War Resolution in 2002, but later proposed resolutions to alter U.S. strategy there. He has also served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dealing with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties, and led creation of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and Violence Against Women Act. He chaired the Judiciary Committee during the contentious U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.
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Joe Clark
Charles Joseph "Joe" Clark, PC CC AOE (born June 5, 1939) is a Canadian statesman, businessman, and university professor, and former journalist and politician. He served as the 16th Prime Minister of Canada, from June 4, 1979, to March 3, 1980.
Despite his relative inexperience, Clark rose quickly in federal politics, entering the House of Commons in the 1972 election and winning the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1976. He came to power in the 1979 election, defeating the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau and ending sixteen continuous years of Liberal rule. Taking office the day before his 40th birthday, Clark is the youngest person to become Prime Minister. His tenure was brief as he only won a minority government, and it was defeated on a motion of non-confidence. Clark subsequently lost the 1980 election and the leadership of the party in 1983.
He returned to prominence in 1984 as a senior cabinet minister in Brian Mulroney's cabinet, retiring from politics after not standing for re-election for the House of Commons in 1993. He made a political comeback in 1998 to lead the Progressive Conservatives before its dissolution, serving his final term in Parliament from 2000 to 2004. Clark today is recognized as a distinguished scholar and statesman, and serves as a university professor and as president of his own consulting firm.
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Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman (born February 24, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party.
Born in Stamford, Connecticut, Lieberman is a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School. He was elected as a "reform Democrat" in 1970 to the Connecticut Senate, where he served three terms as Majority Leader. After an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980, he served as state Attorney General from 1983 to 1989. Lieberman defeated moderate Republican Lowell Weicker in 1988 to win election to the United States Senate and was re-elected in 1994 and 2000. In the 2000 United States presidential election, Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for Vice President, running with presidential nominee Al Gore, becoming the first Jewish candidate on a major American political party presidential ticket. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2004 presidential election.
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John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is a United States politician who served as the 79th United States Attorney General, from 2001 until 2005, appointed by President George W. Bush. Ashcroft previously served as the 50th Governor of Missouri (1985–1993) and a U.S. Senator from Missouri (1995–2001).
Ashcroft was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Grace P. (née Larsen) and James Robert Ashcroft. His father was a minister in an Assemblies of God congregation, served as president of Evangel University from 1958–1974, and jointly as President of Central Bible College from 1958–1963. He later served as president of Valley Forge Christian College. His mother was a housewife whose parents immigrated to the United States from Norway.
Ashcroft went to school in Springfield, Missouri. He attended Yale University, where he was a member of the Sigma Tau Gamma fraternity and St. Elmo Society, graduating in 1964. He received a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago School of Law in 1967.
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John B. Henderson
John Brooks Henderson (November 16, 1826 – April 12, 1913) was a United States Senator from Missouri and a co-author of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Born near Danville, Virginia, he moved with his parents to Lincoln County, Missouri, studied on his own while a farm hand, taught school, was admitted to the bar in 1844, and practiced.
He was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives in 1848-1850 and 1856–1858, and was active in Democratic politics. He was commissioned a brigadier general in the Missouri State Militia in 1861, commanding Federal forces in northeast Missouri.
On January 17, 1862, Henderson was appointed to the U.S. Senate as a Unionist to fill the vacancy caused by the expulsion of Trusten Polk. Later that year, Henderson was elected to a full six-year term in the U.S. Senate.
Henderson signed a peace treaty with Jefferson Jones of the short-lived Kingdom of Callaway, lending that breakaway state legitimacy in 1862.
According to a story circulated in the early 1900s Henderson met with President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 shortly before Lincoln left for Ford's Theatre where he was assassinated that night. Henderson successfully procured a pardon for Missouri resident George S. E. Vaughn who had been convicted of spying and sentenced to death. It was Lincoln's last official act as President. However in 2011 David Blanchette of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois said there is no record of any such pardon.
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John Bricker
John William Bricker (September 6, 1893 – March 22, 1986) was a United States Senator and the 54th Governor of Ohio. A member of the Republican Party, he was the Republican nominee for Vice President in 1944.
Bricker was born on a farm near Mount Sterling, Ohio. He attended The Ohio State University at Columbus, where he divided his time between the debating team and the varsity baseball team. After graduating with a B.A. from Ohio State in 1916 and from its law department in 1920, he was admitted to the bar in 1917 and commenced practice in Columbus in 1920.
He was married to the former Harriet Day.
During World War I, Bricker served as first lieutenant and chaplain in the United States Army in 1917 and 1918. He subsequently served as solicitor for Grandview Heights, Ohio from 1920 to 1928, Assistant Attorney General of Ohio from 1923 to 1927, a member of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio from 1929 to 1932 and Attorney General of Ohio from 1933 to 1937.
He was elected Governor of Ohio for three two-year terms, serving from 1939 to 1945, each time winning with a greater margin of victory. Bricker espoused a stance against centralized government, preferring to increase involvement in state and local governments, and made this known in his inaugural address as Governor:
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John C. Breckinridge
John Cabell Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was an American lawyer and politician. He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from Kentucky and was the 14th Vice President of the United States (1857–1861), to date the youngest vice president in U.S. history, elected at age 35 and inaugurated at age 36.
In the 1860 presidential election, he ran as one of two candidates of the fractured Democratic Party, representing Southern Democrats. Breckinridge came in third place in the popular vote, behind winner Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and Stephen Douglas, a Northern Democrat, but finished second in the Electoral College vote.
Following the outbreak of the American Civil War, he served in the Confederate States Army as a general and commander of Confederate forces prior to the 1863 Siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, and of the young Virginia Military Institute cadets, at the 1864 Battle of New Market in New Market, Virginia. He also served as the fifth and final Confederate Secretary of War.
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John C. Calhoun
John Caldwell Calhoun (/kælˈhuːn/; March 18, 1782 – March 31, 1850) was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. After 1830 he switched to states' rights, limited government, nullification and free trade. He is best known for his intense and original defense of slavery as something positive, his distrust of majoritarianism, and for pointing the South toward secession from the Union.
Devoted to the principle of liberty (though not for slaves) and fearful of corruption, Calhoun built his reputation as a political theorist by his redefinition of republicanism to include approval of slavery and minority rights—with the white South the minority in question. To protect minority rights against majority rule he called for a "concurrent majority" whereby the minority could sometimes block offensive proposals. Increasingly distrustful of democracy, he minimized the role of the Second Party System in South Carolina. Calhoun's defense of slavery became defunct, but his concept of concurrent majority, whereby a minority has the right to object to or even veto hostile legislation directed against it, has been incorporated into the American value system. Calhoun asserted that Southern whites, outnumbered in the United States by voters of the more densely-populated Northern states were one such "minority" deserving special protection in the legislature.
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John C. White
John Coyle White (November 26, 1924–January 20, 1995) was an elected and appointed Democratic official from Texas. He was the longest-serving Texas Commissioner of Agriculture, first elected in 1950 and serving until his resignation in 1977. He was the youngest person ever elected to statewide office in Texas. From 1977 to 1978, he was United States Deputy Secretary of Agriculture. From 1978 to 1981, he was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
White was born in Newport in Clay County in north Texas. His father, Ed White, was a sharecropper. White graduated in 1946 from Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
At the age of twenty-five, White was elected statewide as the Agriculture Commissioner, the youngest person ever elected to statewide office in Texas. He was re-elected twelve times and served 26.5 years in the post. He worked to smooth the transition of Texas frp, an agricultural to a predominately urban economy. White established marketing programs that served as models for other state governments. He was responsible for establishing a close working relationship with Mexican agricultural entities that had expanded markets for both countries.
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John Danforth
John Claggett Danforth (born September 5, 1936) is a former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and former Republican United States Senator from Missouri. He is an ordained Episcopal priest. Danforth is married to Sally D. Danforth and has five adult children.
Danforth was born in 1936 in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended St. Louis Country Day School, received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University in 1958, and attended both law and divinity graduate schools at Yale University. Danforth is the grandson of William H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina. His father was Donald Danforth, a former chief executive of the company. One of his brothers is Dr. Bill Danforth, former chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis.
He is a brother in the Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity.
After a short time at the New York law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, Danforth was elected in 1968 at the age of 32 to be Missouri Attorney General. On his staff of assistant attorneys general were Kit Bond, John Ashcroft, and Clarence Thomas.
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John Diefenbaker
John George Diefenbaker, PC, CH, QC (September 18, 1895 – August 16, 1979) was the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, serving from June 21, 1957, to April 22, 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative (PC or Tory) party leader between 1930 and 1979 to lead the party to an election victory, doing so three times, although only once with a majority of seats in the Canadian House of Commons.
Diefenbaker was born in southwestern Ontario in 1895. In 1903, his family migrated west to the portion of the Northwest Territories which would shortly thereafter become the province of Saskatchewan. He grew up in the province, and was interested in politics from a young age. After brief service in World War I, Diefenbaker became a lawyer. He contested elections through the 1920s and 1930s with little success until he was finally elected to the House of Commons in 1940.
In the House of Commons, Diefenbaker was repeatedly a candidate for the PC leadership. He attained leadership of the party in 1956, leading it for eleven years. In 1957, he led the party to its first electoral victory in 27 years; a year later he called a snap election and spearheaded the Tories to one of their greatest triumphs. Diefenbaker appointed the first female minister in Canadian history to his Cabinet, as well as the first aboriginal member of the Senate. During his six years as Prime Minister, his government obtained passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights and granted the vote to the First Nations and Inuit peoples. In foreign policy, his stance against apartheid helped secure the departure of South Africa from the Commonwealth of Nations, but his indecision on whether to accept Bomarc nuclear missiles from the United States led to his government's downfall. Diefenbaker is also remembered for his role in the 1959 cancellation of the Avro Arrow project.
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John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy pronunciation (help·info) (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.
After military service as commander of the Motor Torpedo Boats PT-109 and PT-59 during World War II in the South Pacific, Kennedy represented Massachusetts's 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat. Thereafter, he served in the U.S. Senate from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated then Vice President and Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. presidential election. He was the youngest elected to the office, at the age of 43, the second-youngest President (after Theodore Roosevelt), and the first person born in the 20th century to serve as president. Kennedy is the only Catholic president, and is the only president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Events during his presidency included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the African American Civil Rights Movement, and early stages of the Vietnam War.
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John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959. He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era, advocating an aggressive stance against communism throughout the world. He advocated support of the French in their war against the Viet Minh in Indochina and it is widely believed that he refused to shake the hand of Zhou Enlai at the Geneva Conference in 1954. He also played a major role in the Central Intelligence Agency operation to overthrow the democratic Mossadegh government of Iran in 1953 (Operation Ajax) and the democratic Arbenz government of Guatemala in 1954 (Operation PBSUCCESS).
Born in Washington, D.C., he was one of five children and the eldest son born to Presbyterian minister Allen Macy Dulles and his wife Edith (Foster). His paternal grandfather, John Welsh Dulles, had been a Presbyterian missionary in India. He attended public schools in Watertown, New York. After graduating from Princeton University (Phi Beta Kappa, 1908), where he competed on the American Whig-Cliosophic Society debate team, and graduating from The George Washington University Law School, he joined the New York City law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where he specialized in international law. He tried to join the United States Army during World War I but was rejected because of poor eyesight. Instead, Dulles received an Army commission as Major on the War Industries Board.
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John Franklin Enders
John Franklin Enders (February 10, 1897 – September 8, 1985) was an American medical scientist and Nobel laureate. Enders had been called "The Father of Modern Vaccines."
Enders was born in West Hartford, Connecticut and was educated at the Noah Webster School at Hartford and St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He then attended Yale University for a short time before entering the United States Army Air Corps in 1918.
After returning from war he graduated from Yale, where he was a member of Scroll and Key as well as Delta Kappa Epsilon, and went on to become a businessman in real estate in 1922. He tried his hand at several careers before choosing to work in the biological field studying infectious diseases, gaining a Ph.D. at Harvard in 1930.
In 1954, while working at Children's Hospital Boston, Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller, and Frederick Chapman Robbins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue". This work was the first to show that viruses of this type could be grown and manipulated outside of the body. It was this technique dubbed the Enders-Weller-Robbins method that Jonas Salk used to develop the polio vaccine in 1952. After a large-scale test of the vaccine proved successful in 1954, Salk appeared on a radio show and announced his success to the world. Although he never claimed the credit for himself, he also did not offer up any credit to any of his colleagues, including Enders, Weller, and Robbins, whose technique made his success possible. Salk became a hero to the public, but was somewhat shunned by the scientific community. Despite this misappropriated credit many professionals in the field still regard Enders', Weller's and Robbins' work as substantial have given Enders the title of "The Father of Modern Vaccines".
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John J. Cochran
John Joseph Cochran (August 11, 1880 – March 6, 1947) was a U.S. Representative from Missouri.
Cochran was born in Webster Groves, Missouri and attended the public schools there. He was employed in the editorial department of various St. Louis newspapers for many years, and served as assistant to the election commissioners of St. Louis from 1911 to 1913.
In 1913 Cochran became secretary to Representative William L. Igoe 1913–1917, serving in that capacity again from 1918 to 1921.
Cochran was private secretary to United States Senator William J. Stone and clerk to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate in 1917 and 1918.
Cochran studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1921 at St. Louis, Missouri, but did not engage in extensive practice. From 1921 through 1926 he served as secretary to Representative Harry B. Hawes.
Cochran was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-ninth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by Hawes' resignation, and at the same time was elected to the Seventieth Congress. Cochran was reelected to the Seventy-first Congress, Seventy-second Congress, and Seventy-third Congress.
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John J. Raskob
John Jakob Raskob, KCSG (19 March 1879 - 15 October 1950) was a financial executive and businessman for DuPont and General Motors, and the builder of the Empire State Building. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1928 to 1932 and a key supporter of Alfred E. Smith's candidacy for President of the United States.
After Franklin D. Roosevelt became President, Raskob was a prominent opponent of the New Deal through his support of a number of anti-Roosevelt organizations including the American Liberty League. Raskob was also a leader in the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment.
Raskob was born to John and Anna Frances (Moran) Raskob in Lockport, New York, where his father ran a successful cigar-production business. The Raskob family originated in the Eifel region in Germany; John J. Raskob's grandfather was an immigrant from the Eifel village Großlittgen. During his studies at both parochial and public schools, Raskob delivered newspapers, worked in seasonal agriculture, participated in local theater, and was involved in the Catholic community. He entered a local business school after his high school graduation but dropped out to support his family through secretarial work following his father's death in 1898.
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John J. Sparkman
John Jackson Sparkman (December 20, 1899 – November 16, 1985) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Alabama. A Southern Democrat, Sparkman served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate from 1937 until 1979. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in the 1952 U.S. presidential election.
Sparkman was born on a farm near Hartselle, Alabama. He attended the rural schools and helped on the family farm. During World War I, he was a member of the Students Army Training Corps. He graduated from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 1921 and from University of Alabama School of Law in 1923. Sparkman was a founding member of the Gamma Alpha Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha.
John Sparkman was admitted to the bar in 1925 and commenced practice in Huntsville. He was an instructor at Huntsville College from 1925 to 1928. A Freemason, he was life member of Helion Lodge#1 in Huntsville. He was also member of the Huntsville Scottish Rite bodies and a recipient of the Knight Commander Court of Honor (KCCH).
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John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior United States Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to then President George W. Bush.
The son of an Army Air Corps serviceman, Kerry was born in Aurora, Colorado. He attended boarding school in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and went on to graduate from Yale University class of 1966, where he majored in political science. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1966 and, during 1968-1969, served a four-month tour of duty in South Vietnam as officer-in-charge (OIC) of a Swift Boat. For that service he was awarded several combat medals that include the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. After returning to the United States, Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in which he served as a nationally recognized spokesperson and as an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam war. During that period, he appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs where he deemed United States war policy in Vietnam to be the cause of "war crimes".
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John Moran Bailey
John Moran Bailey (November 23, 1904 – April 10, 1975) was a U.S. political figure.
He dominated Connecticut Democratic politics as a party boss for many years. He served as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1961 until 1968, and was generally seen as one of the main behind-the-scenes backers of John F. Kennedy.
He was educated at the Catholic University of America and Harvard Law School.
Bailey was the dominant figure in Connecticut politics between 1950 and his death in 1975. From his office in Hartford two blocks from the State Capitol, he coordinated and controlled statewide election campaigns and the activities of the Connecticut General Assembly.
Bailey's tenure as head of the Connecticut Democratic party was credited with turning the state from one politically dominated by WASP Yankee Republicans to one dominated by Democratic candidates of Roman Catholic and Jewish background, such as Abraham Ribicoff, Thomas Dodd, John Dempsey, and Ella T. Grasso.
His Republican rival was Meade Alcorn, who also happened to serve as National Chairman of his party.
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John Nance Garner
John Nance Garner IV (22 November 1868 – 7 November 1967), was an American Democratic politician and lawyer from Texas. He was a state representative from 1898 to 1902, and U.S. Representative from 1903 to 1933. He was the 44th Speaker of the House in 1931–1933. In 1932, he was elected the 32nd Vice President of the United States, serving from 1933 to 1941. A conservative Southerner, Garner opposed the sit-down strikes of the labor unions and the New Deal's deficit spending. He broke with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in early 1937 over the issue of enlarging the Supreme Court, and helped defeat it on the grounds that it centralized too much power in the President's hands. Otherwise he played a minor role in politics while Vice President.
Garner was born near the village of Detroit in Red River County in eastern Texas, to John Nance Garner, III, and his wife, the former Sarah Jane Guest. Garner attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, for one semester before dropping out and returning home. He was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He eventually studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1890, and began practice in Uvalde, Uvalde County, Texas.
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John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adamsi/ˈkwɪnzi/ (July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth President of the United States (1825–1829). He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former President John Adams and Abigail Adams. As a diplomat, Adams played an important role in negotiating many international treaties, most notably the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. As Secretary of State, he negotiated with the United Kingdom over America's northern border with Canada, negotiated with Spain the annexation of Florida, and authored the Monroe Doctrine. Historians agree he was one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries of state in American history.
As president, he sought to modernize the American economy and promoted education. Adams enacted a part of his agenda and paid off much of the national debt. He was stymied by a Congress controlled by his enemies, and his lack of patronage networks helped politicians eager to undercut him. He lost his 1828 bid for re-election to Andrew Jackson. In doing so, he became the first President since his father to serve a single term.
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John Sirica
John Joseph Sirica (March 19, 1904–August 14, 1992) was the Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where he became famous for his role in the Watergate scandal. He rose to national prominence during the Watergate scandal when he ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over his recordings of White House conversations.
Sirica's involvement in the case began when he presided over the trial of the Watergate burglars. He did not believe the claim that they had acted alone, and persuaded or coerced them to implicate the men who had arranged the break-in. For his role in Watergate the judge was named TIME magazine's Man of the Year in 1973.
John Sirica was born in Waterbury, Connecticut to Ferdinand and Rose Zinno Sirica, both of whom were Italian immigrants. He moved to D.C. in 1918, where he attended Emerson Preparatory School and eventually transferred to Columbia Preparatory School. Sirica received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center after doing undergraduate work at Duke University.
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John Sparkman
John Jackson Sparkman (December 20, 1899 – November 16, 1985) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Alabama. A Southern Democrat, Sparkman served in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate from 1937 until 1979. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for Vice President as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in the 1952 U.S. presidential election.
Sparkman was born on a farm near Hartselle, Alabama. He attended the rural schools and helped on the family farm. During World War I, he was a member of the Students Army Training Corps. He graduated from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 1921 and from University of Alabama School of Law in 1923. Sparkman was a founding member of the Gamma Alpha Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha.
John Sparkman was admitted to the bar in 1925 and commenced practice in Huntsville. He was an instructor at Huntsville College from 1925 to 1928. A Freemason, he was life member of Helion Lodge#1 in Huntsville. He was also member of the Huntsville Scottish Rite bodies and a recipient of the Knight Commander Court of Honor (KCCH).
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John Turner
John Napier Wyndham Turner, PC, CC, QC (born June 7, 1929) is an English Canadian lawyer and retired politician, who served as the 17th Prime Minister of Canada from June 30 to September 17, 1984.
In his political career, Turner held several prominent Cabinet posts, including minister of justice and minister of finance, under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau from 1968 to 1975. Amid a world recession and the prospect of having to implement the unpopular wage and price controls, Turner surprisingly resigned his position in 1975. After a hiatus from politics from 1975 to 1984, Turner returned and successfully contested the Liberal leadership. Turner held the office of Prime Minister for 79 days (the second shortest tenure in Canadian history after Charles Tupper), as he dissolved Parliament immediately after being sworn in as Prime Minister, and went on to lose the 1984 election in a landslide. Turner stayed on as Liberal leader and headed the Official Opposition for the next six years, leading his party to a modest recovery in the 1988 campaign, resigning from politics in 1990.
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John Tyler
John Tyler (29 March 1790 – 18 January 1862) was the tenth President of the United States (1841–1845), after being the tenth Vice President of the United States (1841). A native of Virginia, Tyler served as a state legislator, governor, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator before being elected Vice President in 1840. He was the first to succeed to the office of President on the death of the incumbent. Tyler's opposition to nationalism and emphatic support of states' rights endeared him to his fellow Virginians but alienated him from most of the political allies that brought him to power in Washington. His presidency was crippled by opposition from both parties. Near the end of his life, he supported the secession movement in the southern states, and was elected to the Congress of the Confederate States of America.
Tyler was born to an aristocratic Virginia family of English descent and he came to national prominence at a time of political upheaval. In the 1820s, the nation's only political party, the Democratic-Republicans, split into factions, most of which did not share Tyler's strict constructionist ideals. Though initially a Democrat, his opposition to Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren led him to alliance with the Whig Party; he was elected Vice President In 1840 on the Whig ticket. Upon the death of President William Henry Harrison on 4 April 1841, only a month after his inauguration, a short Constitutional crisis arose over the succession process. Tyler immediately moved into the White House, took the oath of office, and assumed full presidential powers, a precedent that would govern future successions and eventually be codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment.
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John W. Bricker
John William Bricker (September 6, 1893 – March 22, 1986) was a United States Senator and the 54th Governor of Ohio. A member of the Republican Party, he was the Republican nominee for Vice President in 1944.
Bricker was born on a farm near Mount Sterling, Ohio. He attended The Ohio State University at Columbus, where he divided his time between the debating team and the varsity baseball team. After graduating with a B.A. from Ohio State in 1916 and from its law department in 1920, he was admitted to the bar in 1917 and commenced practice in Columbus in 1920.
He was married to the former Harriet Day.
During World War I, Bricker served as first lieutenant and chaplain in the United States Army in 1917 and 1918. He subsequently served as solicitor for Grandview Heights, Ohio from 1920 to 1928, Assistant Attorney General of Ohio from 1923 to 1927, a member of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio from 1929 to 1932 and Attorney General of Ohio from 1933 to 1937.
He was elected Governor of Ohio for three two-year terms, serving from 1939 to 1945, each time winning with a greater margin of victory. Bricker espoused a stance against centralized government, preferring to increase involvement in state and local governments, and made this known in his inaugural address as Governor:
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John W. Davis
John William Davis (April 13, 1873 – March 24, 1955) was an American politician, diplomat and lawyer. He served as a United States Representative from West Virginia (1911–1913), then as Solicitor General of the United States and US Ambassador to the UK under President Woodrow Wilson. Over a 60-year legal career, he argued 140 cases before the US Supreme Court.
Davis is best known as the Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States during the 1924 presidential election, losing to Republican incumbent Calvin Coolidge.
Davis's great-grandfather, Caleb Davis, was a clockmaker in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1816, his grandfather, John Davis, moved to Clarksburg in what would later become West Virginia, which had a population of 600–700 at the time, and ran a saddle and harness business. His father, John James Davis, attended Lexington Law School, which later became the Washington and Lee University School of Law, and by the age of twenty, had established a law practice in Clarksburg. John J. Davis was a delegate in the Virginia General Assembly, and after the northwestern portion of Virginia broke away from the rest of Virginia in 1863 and formed West Virginia, he was elected to the new state's House of Delegates and later to the United States House of Representatives.
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John W. Kern
John Worth Kern (December 20, 1849 – August 17, 1917) was a Democratic United States Senator from Indiana. While the title was not official, he is considered to be the first Senate Majority leader (and in turn, the first Senate Democratic Leader), while serving concurrently as Chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Born in Alto, Indiana, Kern studied law at the University of Michigan. He began to practice law in Kokomo, Indiana, where he served as city attorney (1871–1884). He was elected to the Indiana Senate in 1893, serving for four years, serving at the same time as assistant U.S. Attorney for Indiana. From 1897 to 1901 he was city solicitor of Indianapolis, and was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor of Indiana in 1900 and 1904. After these defeats, he returned to his law practice, travelled to Europe, and spent six months at a sanatorium in Asheville, North Carolina, for reasons of health.
In 1908, he became a Midwestern compromise vice presidential candidate on William Jennings Bryan's third unsuccessful run for the presidency. After Bryan was defeated by Taft, Kern was subsequently outmaneuvered by Democrat Benjamin F. Shively for an open U.S. Senate seat for Indiana.
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John W. Snyder
John Wesley Snyder (June 21, 1895 – October 8, 1985) was an American businessman and Cabinet Secretary.
Born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, he studied at Vanderbilt University's engineering school for one year before joining in the Army during World War I.
Snyder came to Washington in the early 1930s with a broad background in banking and business. He held several public and private offices including National Bank Receiver in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Loan Administrator, and Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion. In the last office he played a leading part in the transition of the nation's economy from wartime to a peacetime basis.
Snyder was appointed U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in 1946 by his close personal friend President Harry S. Truman, with whom he had served in World War I. His task as Secretary was to establish a stable postwar economy. The main points of his program were maintaining confidence in the credit of the government, reducing the federal debt, and encouraging public thrift through investment in U.S. Savings Bonds.
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Jonas Savimbi
Jonas Malheiro Savimbi (August 3, 1934 – February 22, 2002) was an Angolan political leader. He founded and led UNITA, a movement that first waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonial rule, 1966–1974, then confronted the rival MPLA during the decolonization conflict, 1974-75, and after independence in 1975 fought the ruling MPLA in the Angolan Civil War until his death in a clash with government troops in 2002.
Savimbi was born on August 3, 1934, in Munhango, Moxico Province, a small town on the Benguela Railway, and raised in Bié Province. Savimbi's father, Lote, was a stationmaster on Angola's Benguela railway line and a preacher of the Protestant "Igreja Evangélica Congregacional de Angola", founded and maintained by American missionaries. Both his parents were members of the Bieno group of the Ovimbundu, the people who later served as Savimbi's major political base.
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Jorge Rafael Videla
Jorge Rafael Videla Redondo (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈxorxe rafaˈel βiˈðela]; born 2 August 1925) is a former senior commander in the Argentine Army who was the de facto President of Argentina from 1976 to 1981. He came to power in a coup d'état that deposed Isabel Martínez de Perón. After the return of a representative democratic government, he was prosecuted for large-scale human rights abuses and crimes against humanity that took place under his rule, including kidnappings or forced disappearance, widespread torture and extrajudicial murder of activists, political opponents (either real, suspected or alleged) as well as their families, at secret concentration camps. The accusations also included the theft of many babies born during the captivity of their mothers at the illegal detention centres. He was under house arrest until 10 October 2008, when he was sent to a military prison. On 5 July 2010, Videla took full responsibility for his army's actions during his rule. "I accept the responsibility as the highest military authority during the internal war. My subordinates followed my orders," he told an Argentine court. On 22 December 2010, Videla was sentenced to life in a civilian prison for the deaths of 31 prisoners following his coup d'état.
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Jose Maria Sison
Jose Maria Sison (born February 8, 1939, Cabugao, Commonwealth of the Philippines) is a writer and activist who reorganized the Communist Party of the Philippines and added elements of Maoism to its philosophy.
Since August 2002, he has been classified as a "person supporting terrorism" by the United States. The European Union's second highest court ruled to delist him as a "person supporting terrorism" and reversed a decision by member governments to freeze assets.
Jose Maria Sison was born at Cabugao, Ilocos Sur on February 8, 1939. Also a member of a prominent family with the connections to other prominent personalities like the Crisologos, Sison affirmed his background as a member of a landowning family. But during his childhood days, his inclination to the left began by listening to his barber discussing him about the Hukblahap in Ilocos (kwentong barbero), as well as studying in a public school in Ilocos (unlike his relatives) before entering Ateneo de Manila, then in Colegio de San Juan de Letran. A 1959 graduate of the University of the Philippines, Sison studied in Indonesia, before returning to the Philippines to settle as a university professor of literature. Sison also joined the Lavaite Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas as well as one of the founding members of the Socialist Party and Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism. And in 1964, he co-founded the Kabataang Makabayan or Patriotic Youth with Nilo S. Tayag. This organization rallied Filipino youth against the Vietnam war, against the Marcos presidency and corrupt politicians alongside Imperialism, Bureaucrat Capitalism and Feudalism. The organization also spearheaded the studying of Maoism as part of the struggle.
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Joseph Lane
Joseph Lane (December 14, 1801 – April 19, 1881) was an American general during the Mexican-American War and Oregon Territory's first governor. Later, when Oregon became a state, he became one of her first United States Senators.
Lane was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina on December 14, 1801. He moved to Kentucky at a young age, and then moved to Indiana, where he was engaged in farming for a while. Lane and his wife, Polly Hart Lane, had ten children. While in Indiana, he served in the State House of Representatives and the Indiana Senate from 1822 to 1846.
At the outbreak of hostilities with Mexico, Lane was appointed colonel of the 2nd Indiana Volunteer Regiment and served along the border. The same year he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and commanded the Indiana Brigade at the Battle of Buena Vista. After the battle he was appointed major general of volunteers and led the relief force which lifted the Siege of Puebla defeating Antonio López de Santa Anna at the Battle of Huamantla along the way.
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Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate.
The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character and/or patriotism of political opponents.
Born and raised on a Wisconsin farm, McCarthy earned a law degree at Marquette University in 1935 and was elected as a circuit judge in 1939, the youngest in state history. At age 33, McCarthy volunteered for the United States Marine Corps and served during World War II. He successfully ran for the United States Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette, Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950 when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department. McCarthy was never able to prove his sensational charge.
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Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин; born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили; 18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and later held the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While the office of the General Secretary was officially elective and not initially regarded as the top position in the Soviet state, Stalin managed to use it to consolidate more and more power in his hands after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 and gradually put down all opposition groups within the Communist Party. This included Leon Trotsky, a socialist theorist and the principal critic of Stalin among the early Soviet leaders, who was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929. Whereas Trotsky was an exponent of permanent revolution, it was Stalin's concept of socialism in one country that became the primary focus of Soviet politics.
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Joshua Lederberg
Joshua Lederberg ForMemRS (May 23, 1925 – February 2, 2008) was an American molecular biologist known for his work in microbial genetics, artificial intelligence, and the United States space program. He was just 33 years old when he won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that bacteria can mate and exchange genes. He shared the prize with Edward L. Tatum and George Beadle who won for their work with genetics.
In addition to his contributions to biology, Lederberg did extensive research in artificial intelligence. This included work in the NASA experimental programs seeking life on Mars and the chemistry expert system Dendral.
Lederberg was born in Montclair, New Jersey, to a Jewish family, son of Esther Goldenbaum Schulman Lederberg and Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Lederberg, in 1925, and moved to Washington Heights, Manhattan as an infant. He had two younger brothers. Lederberg graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City at the age of 15 in 1941. After graduation, he was allowed lab space as part of the American Institute Science Laboratory, a forerunner of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. He enrolled in Columbia University in 1941, majoring in zoology. Under the mentorship of Francis J. Ryan, he conducted biochemical and genetic studies on the bread mold Neurospora crassa. Intending to receive his MD and fulfill his military service obligations, Lederberg worked as a hospital corpsman during 1943 in the clinical pathology laboratory at St. Albans Naval Hospital, where he examined sailors' blood and stool samples for malaria. He went on to receive his undergraduate degree in 1944.
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Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito (Serbo-Croatian pronunciation: [jɔ̂sip brɔ̂ːz tîtɔ]; born Josip Broz; Cyrillic: Јосип Броз Тито; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1945 until his death in 1980. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, due to his successful economic and diplomatic policies, Tito was seen by most as a benevolent dictator, and was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad. Viewed as a unifying symbol, his internal policies successfully maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. He gained international attention as the chief leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, working with Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt.
Josip was born as the seventh child of Franjo and Marija Broz in the village of Kumrovec within Austria-Hungary (modern-day Croatia). Drafted into the army, he distinguished himself, becoming the youngest Sergeant Major in the Austro-Hungarian Army. After being seriously wounded and captured by the Russians, Josip was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains. He participated in the October Revolution, and later joined a Red Guard unit in Omsk. Upon his return home, Broz found himself in the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
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João Goulart
João Belchior Marques Goulart (gaúcho Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈʒu.ɐ̃w bewˈki.ɔɾ ˈmarkis ɡuˈlaɾ], or [ˈʒwɐ̃w ˈbɛwkjɔʁ ˈmaʁkiʒ ɡuːˈlaʁ] in the standard fluminense dialect; March 1, 1919 – December 6, 1976) was a Brazilian politician and the 24th President of Brazil until a military coup d'état deposed him on April 1, 1964. He is considered to have been the last left-wing President of the country until Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2003.
João Goulart is nicknamed "Jango" ([ˈʒɐ̃gu]). The Jânio Quadros–João Goulart presidential bid was thus called "Jan–Jan" ([ʒɐ̃.ʒɐ̃], an amalgamation of Jânio and Jango).
His childhood hypocoristics was "Janguinho" (little Jango), which came from an uncle named Jango. Years later, when he entered the world of politics, supported and advised by Getúlio Vargas, his friends and colleagues started to call him Jango.
His grandfather, Belchior Rodrigues Goulart, descended from Portuguese immigrants from Azores who arrived at Rio Grande do Sul in the second half of the 18th century. In the group of first Azoreans established in the state there were at least three immigrants with the surname Govaert (latter adapted to Goulart or Gularte in Portuguese) of Flemish-Azorean ancestors; the surname Goulart originates from France.
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Juan Domingo Perón
Juan Domingo Perón (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈxwan doˈmiŋɡo peˈɾon]; October 8, 1895 – July 1, 1974) was an Argentine military officer and politician. After serving in several government positions, including those of Minister of Labor and Vice President of the Republic, he was three times elected as President of Argentina although he managed to serve only one full term in this function. Perón's last term as President of the Republic began in 1973 and lasted for just nine months, until his death in 1974, whereupon he was succeeded by his third wife, the Vice President of the Republic, María Estela Martínez.
Perón and his second wife, Eva Duarte, were immensely popular among many Argentines. They are still considered icons by the Peronists. The Peróns' followers praised their efforts to eliminate poverty and to dignify labor, while their detractors considered them demagogues and dictators. The Peróns gave their name to the political movement known as Peronism, which in present-day Argentina is represented mainly by the Justicialist Party.
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Juan Ponce Enrile
Juan Ponce Enrile (born February 14, 1924) is a Filipino politician. As a protege of President Ferdinand Marcos, he served as Justice Secretary and then Defense Secretary under the Marcos regime. He later became one of the leaders (along with General Fidel V. Ramos) of the 1986 People Power Movement that drove Marcos from power. Enrile has continued to be a prominent politician since then; he has been President of the Senate of the Philippines since November 2008.
Juan Ponce Enrile was born Juanito Furagganan in Gonzaga, Cagayan, to Petra Furagganan, the daughter of a poor fisherman. He was born out of wedlock—his father was the already married powerful regional politician and renowned lawyer Alfonso Ponce Enrile. He is the second great-nephew of Mariano Ponce. He was reunited with his father by the time he reached his high school years.
He graduated cum laude in 1949 with an Associate of Arts degree at the Ateneo de Manila University. Afterward, he attended the University of the Philippines College of Law and graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Laws degree. While in law school, he joined the Sigma Rho fraternity. Upon graduation, he was elected to the prestigious Pi Gamma Mu and Phi Kappa Phi international honor societies. He achieved the 11th highest score in the 1953 bar examinations with a 91.72% rating and a perfect score in mercantile law. As a scholar at the Harvard Law School, he earned a Master of Laws degree with specialized training in international tax law.
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Julius A. Krug
Julius Albert Krug (November 23, 1907 – March 26, 1970) was a U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President Harry Truman.
A native of Madison, Wisconsin, Krug graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1929. His first notable jobs were with the Tennessee Valley Authority, where he worked as chief power engineer, and then manager of power. In 1941, Krug was promoted to chief of the power branch of the Office of Production Management. After the beginning of World War II, this office became the War Production Board. Krug was promoted to director of the Office of War Utilities in 1943.
In April 1944, Krug enlisted in the United States Navy. He was recalled that August to serve as chairman of the War Production Board, where he served until the board's dissolution in November 1945. President Truman nominated Krug for the position of Secretary of the Interior on February 26, 1946. Krug took office on March 18.
As Secretary, Krug opposed lumber companies' efforts to gain logging rights to huge forests in Washington state, and opposed the building of unnecessary dams. As the administrator of coal mines in the United States, he led failed negotiations between John L. Lewis and mine owners in an attempt to end a nationwide strike by the United Mine Workers of America. According to Grey Gardens Secretary Krug dated Edith Bouvier Beale.
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Julius Albert Krug
Julius Albert Krug (November 23, 1907 – March 26, 1970) was a U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President Harry Truman.
A native of Madison, Wisconsin, Krug graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1929. His first notable jobs were with the Tennessee Valley Authority, where he worked as chief power engineer, and then manager of power. In 1941, Krug was promoted to chief of the power branch of the Office of Production Management. After the beginning of World War II, this office became the War Production Board. Krug was promoted to director of the Office of War Utilities in 1943.
In April 1944, Krug enlisted in the United States Navy. He was recalled that August to serve as chairman of the War Production Board, where he served until the board's dissolution in November 1945. President Truman nominated Krug for the position of Secretary of the Interior on February 26, 1946. Krug took office on March 18.
As Secretary, Krug opposed lumber companies' efforts to gain logging rights to huge forests in Washington state, and opposed the building of unnecessary dams. As the administrator of coal mines in the United States, he led failed negotiations between John L. Lewis and mine owners in an attempt to end a nationwide strike by the United Mine Workers of America. According to Grey Gardens Secretary Krug dated Edith Bouvier Beale.
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Julius Nyerere
Julius Kambarage Nyerere (13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999) was a Tanzanian politician who served as the first President of Tanzania and previously Tanganyika, from the country's founding in 1961 until his retirement in 1985.
Born in Tanganyika to Nyerere Burito (1860–1942), Chief of the Zanaki, Nyerere was known by the Swahili name Mwalimu or 'teacher', his profession prior to politics. He was also referred to as Baba wa Taifa (Father of the Nation). Nyerere received his higher education at Makerere University in Kampala and the University of Edinburgh. After he returned to Tanganyika, he worked as a teacher. In 1954, he helped form the Tanganyika African National Union.
In 1961, Nyerere was elected Tanganyika's first Prime Minister, and following independence, in 1962, the country's first President. In 1964, Tanganyika became politically united with Zanzibar and was renamed to Tanzania. In 1965, a one-party election returned Nyerere to power. During the first years Nyerere created a single-party system and used "preventive detention" to eliminate trade unions and opposition.
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János Kádár
János Kádár (26 May 1912 – 6 July 1989) was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, presiding over the country from 1956 until his retirement in 1988. His thirty-two year term as General Secretary makes Kádár the longest ruler of the People's Republic of Hungary. During Kádár's rule, Hungary was stabilized and liberalized to an extent never before seen in any Eastern Bloc country until Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary. Due to his age and declining health, he decided to retire as Secretary-General of the party in 1988, and a younger generation consisting mostly of reformers took over.
Kádár was born in Fiume to a poor family, his father left his mother and him when he was very young, and he never met his father. After living in the countryside for some years, Kádár and his mother moved to Budapest. After quitting school, Kádár joined the Communist Party of Hungary's youth organisation, KIMSZ. Kádár would go on to become a notable figure of the pre-World War II communist party, even becoming First Secretary. As leader he dissolved the party, and reorganised it as the Peace Party. This new party failed to win any popular support for the communist cause, and he would later be accused, of dissolving the Hungarian communist party. With the German invasion of Hungary, the Peace Party tried again to win support from the Hungarian populace, but failed. At the time of the Soviet occupation, the communists led by Kádár were very small in size.
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Kathleen Byerly
Kathleen M. Byerly (born ca. 1944) is known for being one of the women named by Time magazine Time Person of the Year in 1975, representing American women (at the height of the feminist movement). She was in the first female officer in the United States Navy to be appointed flag secretary and aide to an admiral.
Byerly graduated from Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1966. Following graduation, she joined the U.S. Navy. In 1975 she held the rank of Lieutenant Commander and was a Navy executive and aide to Rear Admiral Allen Hill.
"A Dozen Who Made a Difference – Kathleen Byerly: Confident Commander". Time. 5 January 1976. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947599-5,00.html. Retrieved 2008-02-14.
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Ken Starr
Kenneth Winston "Ken" Starr (born July 21, 1946) is an American lawyer and educational administrator who has also been a federal judge. He is best known for his investigation of figures during the Clinton administration.
Starr served as a federal Court of Appeals judge and also at another time as Solicitor General. He received the most publicity for his tenure as Independent Counsel while Bill Clinton was U.S. president. Starr was initially appointed to investigate the suicide death of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster and the Whitewater real estate investments of Bill Clinton. The three-judge panel charged with administering the Independent Counsel Act later expanded the inquiry into numerous areas including an extramarital affair that Bill Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky. After several years of investigation Starr filed the Starr Report which alleged that Bill Clinton had lied about existence of the affair during a sworn deposition. The allegation opened the door for the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the five-year suspension of Clinton's law license.
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Kenneth C. Royall
Kenneth Claiborne Royall (July 24, 1894 – May 25, 1971) was a United States Army general and the last person to hold the office of Secretary of War. That position was abolished in 1947, and Royall served as the first Secretary of the Army (a successory position) from 1947 to 1949.
A native of Goldsboro, North Carolina, Royall graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and Harvard Law School before serving in World War I. He then practiced law and was elected to the North Carolina Senate. At the beginning of World War II, he became a colonel in the U.S. Army.
According to a 2006 newspaper column by Jack Betts, "When eight Nazis bent on mayhem came ashore on Long Island in 1942, they were soon caught and ordered to stand trial in a secret military tribunal. President Roosevelt appointed Royall to defend them, but the president didn't want any foolishness. He wanted the Nazis executed, the sooner the better. Royall's orders were to stay away from civilian courts. Royall wrote Roosevelt that he didn't think the president had authority to convene a secret court to try his clients, and asked the president to change his order. Roosevelt refused—whereupon Royall appealed to the U.S. District Court, arguing the secret tribunal was unconstitutional.
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Kenneth M. Curtis
Kenneth Merwin Curtis (born February 8, 1931) is an American lawyer and former politician. He is currently a principal in the law firm of Curtis Thaxter Stevens Broder & Micoleau Limited Liability Company, P.A.
Curtis was born in Leeds, Maine and graduated with a Bachelor of Science from Maine Maritime Academy in 1952 and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy.[citation needed] He received his law degree from Portland University in Maine (now part of the University of Maine). Curtis received an LL.D. from Bates College in 1981.
Curtis, a member of the Democratic Party, was the Secretary of State of Maine from 1965–1966, before becoming the 68th Governor in 1967. He held that office until 1975. Curtis served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1977 to 1978 and Ambassador to Canada from 1979 to 1981.[citation needed]
Curtis served as President of Maine Maritime Academy. He was also Chairman of the Environmental Task Force of the National Governors' Conference in the early 1970s. He is a Protestant.
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Kim Campbell
Avril Phædra Douglas "Kim" Campbell, PC CC OBC QC (born March 10, 1947) is a Canadian politician, lawyer, university professor, diplomat, and writer. She served as the 19th Prime Minister of Canada, from June 25, 1993 to November 4, 1993. Campbell was the first and to date the only female Prime Minister of Canada, the first baby boomer to hold that office, and the only PM to have been born in British Columbia.
Campbell was born in Port Alberni, British Columbia to George Thomas Campbell (1920–2002) and Phyllis "Lisa" Cook. Her mother left the family when Campbell was 12, leaving Kim and her sister Alix to be raised by their father. As a teenager, Campbell permanently nicknamed herself Kim, perhaps for actress Kim Novak.
While in her pre-teens, Campbell was a host and reporter on the CBC children's program Junior Television Club.
Campbell and her family moved to Vancouver, where she attended Prince of Wales Secondary School, and was a top student. She became the school's first female student president, and graduated in 1964.
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Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung (15 April 1912 – 8 July 1994) was the leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly referred to as "North Korea", from its establishment in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death. He was also the leader of the Workers' Party of Korea from 1949 to 1994 (titled as chairman from 1949 to 1966 and as general secretary after 1966).
His tenure as leader of North Korea has often been described as autocratic, and he established an all-pervasive cult of personality. From the mid-1960s, he promoted his self-developed Juche variant of communist national organization, which later replaced Marxism-Leninism as the ideology of the state in 1972. In the Library of Congress Country Study on North Korea in 2009, he was described as "one of the most intriguing figures of the twentieth century". He outlived Joseph Stalin by four decades, Mao Zedong by two, and remained in power during the terms of office of six South Korean presidents, 7 Soviet leaders, ten U.S. presidents, and twenty-one Japanese prime ministers.
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Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 1912–11 May 1988) was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a double agent before defecting to the Soviet Union. He served as both an NKVD and KGB operative.
In 1963, Philby was revealed to be a member of the spy ring now known as the Cambridge Five, the other members of which were Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviet Union. His activities were moderated only by Joseph Stalin's fears that he was secretly on Britain's side. Philby was an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from 1946 to 1965.
Philby was born at Ambala in the Punjab while it was a province of British India. His father, St. John Philby, a well-known author, orientalist, and convert to Islam, was a member of the Indian Civil Service and later a civil servant in Mesopotamia and advisor to King Ibn Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia.
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Kit Bond
Christopher Samuel "Kit" Bond (born March 6, 1939) is a former United States Senator from Missouri and a member of the Republican Party. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, he defeated Democrat Harriett Woods by a margin of 53%-47%. He was re-elected in 1992, 1998, and 2004. On January 8, 2009, he announced that he would not seek re-election to a fifth term in 2010, and was succeeded by current Senator Roy Blunt on January 3, 2011. Following his retirement from the Senate, Bond became a partner at Thompson Coburn.
Before his career in the U.S. Senate, Bond served two terms as Governor of Missouri, from 1973 to 1977 and from 1981 to 1985. He was previously State Auditor of Missouri from 1971 to 1973.
A sixth-generation Missourian, Bond was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Elizabeth (née Green) and Arthur D. Bond. His father was captain of the 1924 Missouri Tigers football team and a Rhodes Scholar. His maternal grandfather, A.P. Green, founded A.P. Green Industries, a fireclay manufacturer and a major employer for many years in Bond's hometown Mexico, Missouri. Kit Bond graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1956, Princeton University in 1960, and the University of Virginia School of Law in 1963. From 1963 to 1964, Bond served as a law clerk to the Honorable Elbert Tuttle, then Chief Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia. From 1964 to 1967, Bond practiced law at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.
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Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (German pronunciation: [ˈkɔnʁaːt ˈhɛɐman ˈjoːzɛf ˈaːdənaʊɐ]; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman. As Chancellor of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963, he led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that forged close relations with old enemies France and the United States. In his years in power Germany achieved prosperity, democracy, stability and respect. He was the first chancellor (head of government) of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, called West Germany), 1949–63. He was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a coalition of Catholics and Protestants that under his leadership became and has since remained the most dominant in Germany.
Adenauer, dubbed "Der Alte" ("the old one"), belied his age as the oldest elected leader in world history by his intense work habits and his uncanny political instinct. He displayed a strong dedication to a broad vision of democracy, capitalism, and anti-Communism. A shrewd politician, Adenauer was deeply committed to a Western-oriented foreign policy and restoring the position of West Germany on the world stage. He worked to restore the West German economy from the destruction in World War II to a central position in Europe, rebuilt its army and came to terms with France, helped make possible Western European unification, opposed rival East Germany, and made his nation a member of NATO and a firm ally of the United States.
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Konstantin Chernenko
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko (24 September 1911 – 10 March 1985) was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death thirteen months later, on 10 March 1985. Chernenko was also Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 11 April 1984 until his death.
Chernenko was born to a poor family in the village of Bolshaya Tes (now in Novosyolovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai). His father, Ustin Demidovich (of Ukrainian origin),[citation needed] worked in copper and gold mines while his mother took care of the farm work.
Chernenko joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in 1929, and became a full member of the Communist Party in 1931. From 1930 to 1933, he served in the Soviet frontier guards on the Soviet-Chinese border. After completing his military service, he returned to Krasnoyarsk as a propagandist. In 1933 he worked in the Propaganda Department of the Novosyolovsky District Party Committee. A few years later he was promoted head of the same department in Uyarsk Raykom. Chernenko then steadily rose through the Party ranks, becoming the Director of the Krasnoyarsk House of Party Enlightenment then in 1939, the Deputy Head of the AgitProp Department of Krasnoyarsk Territorial Committee and finally, in 1941 he was appointed Secretary of the Territorial Party Committee for Propaganda. It was in the 1940s that Chernenko established a close-knit relationship with Fyodor Kulakov. In 1945, he acquired a diploma from a party training school in Moscow, and in 1953 he finished a correspondence course for schoolteachers.
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Korean War
The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁 or 조선전쟁, Hanja: 韓國戰爭 or 朝鮮戰爭; 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was a war between the Republic of Korea (supported primarily by the United States of America, with contributions from allied nations under the aegis of the United Nations) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (supported by the People's Republic of China, with military and material aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The Korean War was primarily the result of the political division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II. The Korean Peninsula was ruled by the Empire of Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. Following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in September 1945, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel, with U.S. military forces occupying the southern half and Soviet military forces occupying the northern half.
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Kwame Nkrumah
The Rt. Hon. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 – 27 April 1972), P.C., was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1951 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana. An influential 20th-century advocate of Pan-Africanism, he was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and was the winner of the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963.
Kwame Nkrumah was born in 1909 to Madam Nyaniba in Nkroful, Gold Coast. Nkrumah trained to be a teacher at Achimota School in Accra from 1927 to 1930 . For the following 5 years he worked as a teacher in several schools in the Gold Coast including a Catholic school in Axim, whilst saving money to continue his education in the USA. In 1935 he sailed from Takoradi, the Gold Coast's main port, to Liverpool in England, and made his way to London where he obtained his student visa from the US Embassy. It was while he was in London in late 1935 thet he heard the news of Fascist Italy's invasion of Abyssinia, an event that outraged the young Nkrumah and influenced his political development. In October 1935 Nkrumah sailed from Liverpool to the United States and enrolled in Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He graduated with a BA in 1939, and received a Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1942. Nkrumah earned a Master of Science in education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942, and a Master of Arts in philosophy the following year. While lecturing in political science at Lincoln he was elected president of the African Students Organization of America and Canada. As an undergraduate at Lincoln he participated in at least one student theater production and published an essay on European government in Africa in the student newspaper, The Lincolnian.
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Larry O'Brien
Lawrence Francis "Larry" O'Brien, Jr. (July 7, 1917 – September 28, 1990) was one of the United States Democratic Party's leading electoral strategists for more than two decades. He served as Postmaster General in the cabinet of President Lyndon Johnson.
He also served as commissioner of the National Basketball Association from 1975 to 1984.
O'Brien, son of Irish immigrants, was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. When he wasn't working in politics, O'Brien managed his family's real-estate and worked in public relations.
O'Brien learned about politics at a young age. His father, a local leader of the Democratic Party, recruited him at 11-years-old to serve locally as a volunteer in the 1928 presidential campaign of Al Smith. O'Brien became a passionate Democrat and soon earned a bachelor's degree in law in 1942 at Northeastern University - a Springfield Division now known as the Western New England College School of Law.
He was appointed in 1946, 1948, and 1950 by his friend Foster Furcolo to serve locally as the director of the U.S. House of Representatives election campaigns.
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Le Duan
Lê Duẩn (7 April 1907 – 10 July 1986) was a Vietnamese communist politician. He rose in the party hierarchy in the late 1950s, and was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam at the 3rd Party Congress. Le Duan continued Hồ Chí Minh's policy of ruling through collective leadership. From 1958 until his death in 1986, Le Duan was the top decision-maker in Vietnam.
Born into a lower class family in Quảng Trị province, French Indochina, little is known about Le Duan's family and childhood; his birthname remains unknown. He first came in contact with Marxist literature in the 1920s through his work as a railway clerk. Le Duan was a founding member of the Indochina Communist Party (the future Communist Party of Vietnam) in 1930, but was arrested the following year, in 1931. He spent six years in jail until he was released in 1937. From 1937 to 1939 he worked himself up the party ladder; but he was rearrested in 1939, this time for fomenting an uprising in the South. Le Duan was released from jail following the successful communist-led August Revolution.
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Lech Wałęsa
Lech Wałęsa (commonly rendered Walesa) (Polish: [ˈlɛx vaˈwɛ̃sa] ( listen), English: /ˌlɛk vəˈwɛnsə/ or /wɔːˈlɛnsə/; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish politician, trade-union organizer, and human-rights activist. A charismatic leader, he co-founded Solidarity (Solidarność), the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland between 1990 and 1995.
Wałęsa was an electrician by trade, with no higher education. Soon after beginning work at the Gdańsk (then, "Lenin") Shipyards, he became a trade-union activist. For this he was persecuted by the Polish communist government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976, and arrested several times. In August 1980 he was instrumental in negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government, and he became a co-founder of the Solidarity trade-union movement. Arrested again after martial law was imposed and Solidarity was outlawed, upon release he continued his activism and was prominent in the establishment of the 1989 Round Table Agreement that led to semi-free parliamentary elections in June 1989 and to a Solidarity-led government.
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Leonel Brizola
Leonel de Moura Brizola (January 22, 1922 – June 21, 2004) was a Brazilian politician. Launched in politics by Getúlio Vargas, Brizola was the only politician to serve as governor of two different states in the whole history of Brazil. In 1959 he was elected governor of Rio Grande do Sul, and in 1982 and 1990 he was elected governor of Rio de Janeiro. He was also vice-president of the Socialist International, as well as Honorary President of that organization for a few months, from October 2003 until his death. Brizola and his party (Democratic Labour Party) preached and practiced a kind of social democratic left-wing policy.
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Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (Russian: Леони́д Ильи́ч Бре́жнев; IPA: [lʲɪɐˈnʲid ɪlʲˈjitɕ ˈbrʲeʐnʲɪf] ( listen); Ukrainian: Леоні́д Іллі́ч Бре́жнєв, 19 December 1906 (O.S. 6 December) – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in length. During Brezhnev's rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time, but his tenure as leader has often been criticised for marking the beginning of a period of economic stagnation in which serious economic problems were overlooked, problems which eventually led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Brezhnev was born in Kamenskoe into a Russian worker's family. After graduating from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum, he became a metallurgical engineer in the iron and steel industry, in Ukraine. He joined Komsomol in 1923, and in 1929 became an active member of the Communist Party. He was drafted into immediate military service during World War II and left the army in 1946 with the rank of Major General. In 1952 Brezhnev became a member of the Central Committee, and in 1964, Brezhnev succeeded Nikita Khrushchev as First Secretary. Alexei Kosygin succeeded Khrushchev in his post as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.
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Leopoldo Galtieri
Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri Castelli (July 15, 1926 – January 12, 2003) was an Argentine general and President of Argentina from December 22, 1981 to June 18, 1982, during the last military dictatorship (known officially as the National Reorganization Process). The death squad Intelligence Battalion 601 directly reported to him. He was removed from power soon after the British retook the Falklands Islands, whose invasion he had ordered.
Galtieri was the child of working class parents who were poor Italian immigrants. At 17 he enrolled at the National Military Academy to study civil engineering, and his early military career was as an officer in the engineering branch.
In 1975, after more than 25 years as a combat engineer, he became commander of the Argentine engineering corps. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the military coup that started the self-styled National Reorganisation Process in 1976 and rose further, becoming a major general in 1977, and commander-in-chief in 1980 with the rank of lieutenant general.
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Leslie Coffelt
Leslie William "Les" Coffelt (August 15, 1910 – November 1, 1950) was an officer of the White House Police Force who was killed while defending U.S. President Harry S. Truman against an armed attack at Blair House.
Coffelt was wounded by one of the would-be presidential assailants during the assassination attempt, in which Puerto Rican nationalists targeted President Truman while he was residing in the Blair House on November 1, 1950. Though mortally wounded by three bullets, Coffelt returned fire moments later and killed one of the two assailants with a single shot to the head.
Coffelt was born to Will Coffelt and Effie Keller in the Shenandoah Valley town of Oranda, Virginia. As a boy, he was called "Etts" because his younger sister could not pronounce the name "Leslie." His siblings were Harry, Hollis, Norman, and Mildred, called "Midge."
As a boy, Coffelt grew up hunting and handling firearms. Coffelt was the second in his family to graduate from high school, and he was described by those who knew him as an expert sharpshooter. He was a quiet, good-humored man who was well liked by everyone.
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Lester B. Pearson
Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson, PC, OM, CC, OBE (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian professor, historian, civil servant, statesman, diplomat, and politician, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis. He was the 14th Prime Minister of Canada from 22 April 1963 to 20 April 1968, as the head of two back-to-back minority governments following elections in 1963 and 1965.
During Pearson's time as Prime Minister, his minority government introduced universal health care, student loans, the Canada Pension Plan, the Order of Canada, and the current Canadian flag. During his tenure, Prime Minister Pearson also convened the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. With these accomplishments, together with his ground-breaking work at the United Nations and in international diplomacy, Pearson is generally considered among the most influential Canadians of the 20th century.
Pearson was born in the town of Newtonbrook (now part of Toronto), the son of Annie Sarah (née Bowles) and Edwin Arthur Pearson, a Methodist (later United Church of Canada) minister. He was brother to Vaughan Whitier Pearson and Marmaduke Pearson. He graduated from Hamilton Collegiate Institute in Hamilton, Ontario in 1913 at the age of 16. Later that same year, he entered Victoria College at the University of Toronto, where he lived in residence in Gate House and shared a room with his brother Duke. While at the University of Toronto, he joined the Delta Upsilon Fraternity. He was subsequently elected to the Pi Gamma Mu social science honour society's chapter at the University of Toronto for his outstanding scholastic performance in history and sociology.
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Leverett Saltonstall
Leverett A. Saltonstall (September 1, 1892 – June 17, 1979) was an American Republican politician who served as the 55th Governor of Massachusetts (1939–1945) and as a United States Senator (1945–1967).
Saltonstall was born in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts and was a longtime summer resident of Vinalhaven, Maine. As an adult he spent winters on his family estate in Dover, Massachusetts, where he liked to farm. His father was Richard Middlecott Saltonstall, a lawyer; his mother, Eleanor Brooks Saltonstall, was the daughter of a multimillionaire, Peter C. Brooks. He married Alice Wesselhoeft (1893–1981) in 1916, and together they had six children, including Emily (1920–2006), at one time the daughter-in-law of Richard Byrd and a former WAVE; Peter Brooks Saltonstall, killed in action on Guam on August 13, 1944; William L. Saltonstall (1927–2009), a former member of the Massachusetts Senate; and Susan (1930–1994), a horse breeder.
Part of the Boston Brahmin Saltonstall family, he was able to trace his ancestral roots to the Mayflower, the Pilgrims and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Saltonstall was the tenth generation in direct descent to graduate from Harvard and the great-grandson of a U.S. Congressman of the same name.
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Levi P. Morton
Levi Parsons Morton (May 16, 1824 – May 16, 1920) was a Representative from New York and the 22nd Vice President of the United States (1889–1893). He also later served as the 31st Governor of New York.
Morton was born in Shoreham, Addison County, Vermont. His parents were the Rev. Daniel Oliver Morton (1788–1852), a Congregationalist minister of old New England stock, and Lucretia Parsons (1789–1862). His older brother, David Oliver Morton (1815–1859), was Mayor of Toledo, Ohio from 1849 to 1850.
He left school early and worked as a clerk in a general store in Enfield, Massachusetts, taught school in Boscawen, New Hampshire, engaged in mercantile pursuits in Hanover, New Hampshire, moved to Boston, entered the dry-goods business in New York City, and engaged in banking there. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1876 to the 45th Congress, but he was appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes to be an honorary commissioner to the Paris Exhibition of 1878.
Morton was elected, as a Republican, to the 46th and 47th Congresses. He served from March 4, 1879, until his resignation, effective March 21, 1881. The 1880 Republican presidential nominee, James A. Garfield, asked Morton to be his vice presidential running mate, but Morton declined the offer. If he had accepted and history continued on the same course, Morton would have become the 21st President, instead of Chester A. Arthur, after Garfield's assassination.
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Lewis Cass
Lewis Cass (October 9, 1782 – June 17, 1866) was an American military officer and politician. During his long political career, Cass served as a governor of the Michigan Territory, an American ambassador, a U.S. Senator representing Michigan, and co-founder as well as first Masonic Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Michigan. He was the losing nominee of the Democratic Party for president in 1848. Cass was nationally famous as a leading spokesman for the controversial Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, which would have allowed voters in the territories to determine whether to make slavery legal instead of having Congress decide.
Cass was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, where he attended Phillips Exeter Academy. His parents were Major Jonathan Cass and Molly Gilman. In 1800 he moved with his family to Marietta, Ohio. On May 26, 1806, he married the former Elizabeth Spencer. Interested in "passing knowledge forward" Cass joined the Freemasons on May 7, 1804 and was later elected as the third Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ohio on January 4, 1808. Later he went on to co-found the Grand Lodge of Michigan being elected as its first Grand Master on July 21, 1826.
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Lewis F. Linn
Lewis Fields Linn (November 5, 1796 – October 3, 1843) was a Jacksonian Democratic U.S. Senator for the state of Missouri born in Kentucky. He served in that role from 1833 to 1843. Four states have counties named after him: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Oregon. Linneus, Missouri, West Linn, Oregon, and Linnton, Oregon were also named after the ex-senator. He died on October 3, 1843.
Linn was the brother-in-law of James Hugh Relfe, half brother of Henry Dodge and uncle of his son Augustus C. Dodge. He was to support his nephew William Pope McArthur in his efforts to get Naval appointments as McArthur was to become the first surveyor the Pacific Coast.
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Lewis V. Bogy
Lewis Vital Bogy (April 9, 1813 – September 20, 1877) was a United States Senator from Missouri. Born in Ste. Geneviève, he attended the public schools, was employed as clerk in a mercantile establishment, studied law in Illinois, graduated from Transylvania University (Lexington, Kentucky in 1835 and commenced practice in St. Louis. He served in the Black Hawk War, was a member of the board of aldermen of St. Louis in 1838, and was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives in 1840–1841 and 1854–1855. He was Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1867 and 1868 and president of the city council of St. Louis in 1872. Bogy was one of the founders of the St. Louis Iron Mountain Railway, acting as president for two years.
Bogy was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate and served from March 4, 1873, until his death in St. Louis in 1877; interment was in Calvary Cemetery section 1.
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Linus Pauling
Linus Carl Pauling (February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century. Pauling was among the first scientists to work in the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology.
Pauling is one of only four individuals to have won more than one Nobel Prize. He is one of only two people awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields (the Chemistry and Peace prizes), the other being Marie Curie (the Chemistry and Physics prizes), and the only person awarded two unshared prizes.
Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, as the first-born child of Herman Henry William Pauling (1876–1910) and Lucy Isabelle "Belle" Darling (1881–1926). He was named "Linus Carl," in honor of Lucy's father, Linus, and Herman's father, Carl. Herman and Lucy – then 23 and 18 years old, respectively – had met at a dinner party in Condon. Six months later, the two were married.
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Lloyd Bentsen
Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Jr. (February 11, 1921 – May 23, 2006) was a four-term United States senator (1971–1993) from Texas and the Democratic Party nominee for Vice President in 1988 on the Michael Dukakis ticket. He also served in the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1955. In his later political life, he was Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the U.S. Treasury Secretary during the first two years of the Clinton administration.
Bentsen was born in Mission in Hidalgo County in south Texas; his parents were Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Sr., a first-generation Danish American, and the former Edna Ruth Colbath. Bentsen was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He attended Sharyland High School. He graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1942 where he was a member of the Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity and the Texas Cowboys. Upon graduation, he served in the United States Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945. On November 27, 1943, he married Beryl Ann Longino, a fashion model, whom he first met in college.[citation needed]
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Louis A. Johnson
Louis Arthur Johnson (January 10, 1891 - April 24, 1966) was the second United States Secretary of Defense, serving in the cabinet of President Harry S. Truman from March 28, 1949 to September 19, 1950.
Born in Roanoke, Virginia, he earned a law degree from the University of Virginia. After graduation he practiced law in Clarksburg, West Virginia; his firm, Steptoe & Johnson, PLLC eventually opened offices in Charleston, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.. Elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1916, he served as majority floor leader and chairman of the Judiciary Committee. During World War I, Johnson saw action as an Army Captain in France, where he compiled a long report to the War Department on Army management and materiel requisition practices. After the war he resumed his law practice and was active in veterans' affairs, helping to found the American Legion and serving as its national commander in 1932-33.
As Assistant Secretary of War from 1937 to 1940, Johnson advocated Universal Military education and training, rearmament, and expansion of military aviation. He feuded with isolationist Secretary of War Harry Hines Woodring over the sending of armaments to Great Britain. In mid-1940, after Woodring's resignation and the fall of France revealed the precarious state of the nation's defenses, Franklin D. Roosevelt bypassed Johnson for the position of Secretary of War, instead choosing Henry Stimson. Having aspired to the position of Secretary, which he felt he had earned, Johnson felt betrayed by Roosevelt.
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Louis Arthur Johnson
Louis Arthur Johnson (January 10, 1891 - April 24, 1966) was the second United States Secretary of Defense, serving in the cabinet of President Harry S. Truman from March 28, 1949 to September 19, 1950.
Born in Roanoke, Virginia, he earned a law degree from the University of Virginia. After graduation he practiced law in Clarksburg, West Virginia; his firm, Steptoe & Johnson, PLLC eventually opened offices in Charleston, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.. Elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1916, he served as majority floor leader and chairman of the Judiciary Committee. During World War I, Johnson saw action as an Army Captain in France, where he compiled a long report to the War Department on Army management and materiel requisition practices. After the war he resumed his law practice and was active in veterans' affairs, helping to found the American Legion and serving as its national commander in 1932-33.
As Assistant Secretary of War from 1937 to 1940, Johnson advocated Universal Military education and training, rearmament, and expansion of military aviation. He feuded with isolationist Secretary of War Harry Hines Woodring over the sending of armaments to Great Britain. In mid-1940, after Woodring's resignation and the fall of France revealed the precarious state of the nation's defenses, Franklin D. Roosevelt bypassed Johnson for the position of Secretary of War, instead choosing Henry Stimson. Having aspired to the position of Secretary, which he felt he had earned, Johnson felt betrayed by Roosevelt.
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Louis St. Laurent
Louis Stephen St. Laurent, PC, CC, QC (Saint-Laurent or St-Laurent in French, baptized Louis-Étienne St-Laurent), (1 February 1882 – 25 July 1973) was the 12th Prime Minister of Canada from 15 November 1948, to 21 June 1957.
Louis St-Laurent (French pronunciation: [lwi sɛ̃ loʁɑ̃]) was born on 1 February 1882 in Compton, Quebec, a village in the Eastern Townships to Jean-Baptiste-Moïse Saint-Laurent, a French-Canadian, and Mary Anne Broderick, an Irish-Canadian. He grew up fluently bilingual. His English had a noticeable Irish brogue, while his gestures (such as a hunch of the shoulders) were French.
He received degrees from St. Charles Seminary (B.A. 1902) and Université Laval (LL.L. 1905). He was offered, but declined, a Rhodes Scholarship upon this graduation from Laval in 1905. In 1905 he married Jeanne Renault (1886–1966) with whom he had two sons and three daughters.
St-Laurent worked as a lawyer from 1905 to 1941, also becoming a professor of law at Université Laval in 1914. St-Laurent practised corporate and constitutional law in Quebec and became one of the country's most respected counsels. He served as President of the Canadian Bar Association from 1930 to 1932.
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Lucius D. Clay
General Lucius Dubignon Clay (April 23, 1897 – April 16, 1978) was an American officer and military governor of the United States Army known for his administration of Germany immediately after World War II. Clay was deputy to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1945; deputy military governor, Germany (U.S.) 1946; commander in chief, U.S. Forces in Europe and military governor of the U.S. Zone, Germany, 1947–49. He retired in 1949. Clay is considered the "father" of the Berlin Airlift (1948–1949).
Clay was born in Marietta, Georgia, the sixth and last child of Alexander Stephens Clay, who served in the U.S. Senate from 1897 to 1910, but contrary to popular belief, this branch of the Clay family is not at all closely related to the famous statesman Henry Clay. Lucius Clay graduated from West Point in 1918 and held various civil and military engineering posts during the 1920s and 1930s, including teaching at West Point, directing the construction of dams and civilian airports, and by 1942 rising to the position of the youngest brigadier general in the Army. All the while he acquired a reputation for bringing order and operational efficiency out of chaos, and for being an exceptionally hard and disciplined worker, going long hours and refusing to even stop to eat during his workdays.
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Luís Carlos Prestes
Luís Carlos Prestes (January 3, 1898 – March 7, 1990) was a leader of the 1920s tenente rebellion and the Communist opposition to the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas in Brazil.
Known as the "Knight of Hope" - title of a biography written by Jorge Amado - Prestes helped organize the failed tenente rebellion of 1922, a revolt by the largely middle class officer corps and poor conscripted servicemen against the agrarian oligarchies that dominated Brazil's Old Republic (1889–1930). As he was sick with typhoid fever, he was not able to fight on the day of the rebellion. From 1924 Prestes was one of the leaders of the insurrectionary movement, leading the Coluna Prestes Prestes' column on a 25,000 km (15,534 mi) march through the rural Brazilian countryside, aiming not to defeat the enemy forces of the Federal government, but keep the column in being and continue to threaten the enemy.
The tenente revolt heralded the end of the politics of coffee and milk and coronelism and the beginning of social reforms. Years later, in 1930 the Revolution of 1930 would bring down the Old Republic. Joined by many moderate tenentes, but not Prestes, the Revolution of 1930 installed Getúlio Vargas as provisional president. Although the tenentes sympathized with him, Vargas was a far more conservative figure. As the tenentes wanted Prestes to join Vargas, Prestes decided to meet him in Porto Alegre and explained his idea of socialist revolution for around two hours. Vargas was highly impressed by him, and even donated 800 contos de réis, around 400,000 USD, but Prestes viewed Vargas as the leader of a bourgeois revolution, and decided to donate most of the money to the Latin American branch of the Comintern, which financed the group for a few years. Another part of the money was given to the tenente Siqueira Campos, who died in a plane crash while flying from Argentina to Brazil. His body was discovered three days later, but the money was never found.
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Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States (1963–1969), a position he assumed after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States (1961–1963). He is one of only four people who served in all four elected federal offices of the United States: Representative, Senator, Vice President, and President. Johnson, a Texas Democrat, served as a United States Representative from 1937–1949 and as a Senator from 1949–1961, including six years as United States Senate Majority Leader, two as Senate Minority Leader and two as Senate Majority Whip. After campaigning unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 1960, Johnson was asked by John F. Kennedy to be his running mate for the 1960 presidential election.
Johnson succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, completed the rest of Kennedy's term and was elected President in his own right, winning by a large margin in the 1964 election. Johnson was greatly supported by the Democratic Party and as President, he was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation that included laws that upheld civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, and his "War on Poverty." He was renowned for his domineering personality and the "Johnson treatment," his coercion of powerful politicians in order to advance legislation.
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Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The term generally excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
There are two terms in Chinese for "mainland". Namely, Dalu (simplified Chinese: 大陆; traditional Chinese: 大陸), which means "continent", and Neidi (内地 / 內地), literally "inner land". In the PRC, the usage of the two terms are generally interchangeable and there is no prescribed method of reference in any jurisdiction. To emphasize "equal footing" in cross-strait relations, the term is used in official contexts with reference to Taiwan, with the PRC referring to itself as "the mainland side" (as opposed to "the Taiwan side"). But in its relations with Hong Kong and Macau, the PRC government refers to itself as "the Central People's Government".
By 1949, the Communist Party of China's (CPC) People's Liberation Army had largely defeated the Kuomintang (KMT)'s National Revolutionary Army in the Chinese Civil War on the mainland. This forced the Kuomintang to relocate the Government and institutions of the Republic of China to the relative safety of Taiwan, an island which was placed under the control of the Republic of China after the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, the CPC-controlled government saw itself as the sole legitimate government of China, competing with the claims of the Republic of China, whose authority is now limited to Taiwan and other islands. This has resulted in a situation in which two co-existing governments compete for international legitimacy and recognition as the "government of China".
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Manuel Noriega
Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno (Spanish pronunciation: [maˈnwel noˈɾjeɣa]; born February 11, 1934) is a former Panamanian politician and soldier. He was military governor of Panama from 1983 to 1989.
In the 1989 invasion of Panama by the United States he was removed from power, captured, detained as a prisoner of war, and flown to the United States. Noriega was tried on eight counts of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering in April 1992. Noriega's U.S. prison sentence ended in September 2007; pending the outcome of extradition requests by both Panama and France, for convictions in absentia for murder in 1995 and money laundering in 1999. France was granted its extradition request in April 2010. He arrived in Paris on April 27, 2010, and after a re-trial as a condition of the extradition, he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in jail in July 2010. A conditional release was granted on September 23, 2011 for Noriega to be extradited to serve 20 years in Panama. He arrived in Panama on December 11, 2011.
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Manvel H. Davis
Manvel Humphrey Davis (April 7, 1891 – February 10, 1959) was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives and Missouri State Senate. Davis, a Republican, challenged Harry S. Truman in the United States Senate elections, 1940 for re-election after the collapse of the big city machine of Truman’s patron Tom Pendergast.
Truman had squeaked through the Democratic primary when his opponents Lloyd Stark and Maurice Milligan who had campaigned against Pendergast both entered the race splitting the anti-Pendergast vote (the two combined had more votes than Truman).
During the General Election Truman was named Grand Master (Masonic) of the Grand Lodge of Freemasonry in Missouri in September 1940.
Truman was to say later that the election to become Grand Master was to be the deciding factor in the election over Davis:
Davis was born in Greensburg, Kansas. He died in Kansas City, Kansas and is buried in Mount Washington Cemetery in Kansas City.
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Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung listen (help·info), and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949, and held authoritarian control over the nation until his death in 1976. His theoretical contribution to Marxism–Leninism, along with his military strategies and brand of policies, are collectively known as Maoism.
Mao rose to power by commanding the Long March, forming a Second United Front with Kuomintang (KMT) during the Second Sino-Japanese War to repel a Japanese invasion, and leading the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War. After solidifying the reunification of China through his Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, Mao enacted sweeping land reform, by using violence and terror to overthrow the feudal landlords before seizing their large estates and dividing the land into people's communes. During the years when Mao was China’s 'Great Helmsman', a range of positive changes came to China. These included promoting the status of women, improving popular literacy, doubling the school population, providing universal housing, abolishing unemployment and inflation, increasing health care access, and dramatically raising life expectancy. In addition, China's population almost doubled during the period of Mao's leadership (from around 550 to over 900 million). As a result, Mao is still officially held in high regard by many in China as a great political strategist, military mastermind, and savior of the nation. Maoists further promote his role as a theorist, statesman, poet, and visionary, while anti-revisionists continue to defend most of his policies.
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Marcelo Caetano
Marcelo José das Neves Alves Caetano, GCTE, GCC, also spelled Marcello Caetano (Portuguese pronunciation: [mɐɾˈsɛlu kɐiˈtɐnu]; Lisbon, 17 August 1906 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 26 October 1980), was a Portuguese politician and scholar, who was the last prime minister of the Estado Novo regime, from 1968 until his overthrow in the Carnation Revolution of 1974.
He was a son of José Maria de Almeida Alves Caetano and his first wife Josefa Maria das Neves. Graduated as a Licentiate and later a Doctorate in Law, Caetano was a Cathedratic Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, where he graduated and of which he would also become the 9th Dean or Rector. An ultraconservative politician and a self-proclaimed reactionary in his youth, Caetano started his political career in the 1930s under the authoritarian regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. He soon became an important figure in the "Estado Novo" government, and in 1940 was appointed chief of the Portuguese Youth organisation. Caetano progressed in his academic career at the university, publishing several works and lecturing law. While in jail due to political causes, Álvaro Cunhal, law student, the future leader and founder of the Portuguese Communist Party, submitted his final thesis on the topic of abortion before a faculty jury that included Marcelo Caetano. Between 1944 and 1947 Caetano was Minister of the Colonies and since 1947 President of the Executive Board of the National Union. He served as President of the Corporative Chamber between 1949 and 1955.
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Marcos Pérez Jiménez
Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez (Michelena, Táchira, April 25, 1914 – Alcobendas, Spain, September 20, 2001) was a Venezuelan military and general officer of the Army of Venezuela, engineer and politician.
His period in charge of the country is characterized by a marked improvement and development, with the rise of oil prices due to conflicts like the Korean War, its ambitious policy of public works and building could be executed to perfection. Also achieved an imminent development of industries such as hydropower, mining, steel, real estate sector and of course the building itself, all these bases, the high level of economic prosperity that is lived in the country.
Not go unnoticed, the progress in the military, which included the final professionalization of the armed forces, and increased sophistication of equipment, raising the level of armaments, and in general, the modernized undertaken in the area, while in with regard to domestic policy, the country experienced a state of order, high safety standards, but the negative side, said highly repressive character, with the National Security (Seguridad Nacional, secret police), as the spearhead and the almost complete concentration of power in his hands, turning his presidency into a dictatorial regime.
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Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, née Roberts (born 13 October 1925) is a British politician and the longest-serving (1979–1990) British prime minister of the 20th century, and the only woman ever to have held the post. A Soviet journalist nicknamed her the "Iron Lady", which later became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As prime minister, she implemented conservative policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.
Originally a research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975 Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election and became Leader of the Opposition, as well as the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She became prime minister after winning the 1979 general election.
After entering 10 Downing Street, Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives to reverse what she perceived as Britain's precipitous national decline. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher's popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and high unemployment, until economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983. Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987, but her Community Charge (popularly referred to as "poll tax") was widely unpopular and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership.
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Margaret Truman
Mary Margaret Truman Daniel (February 17, 1924 – January 29, 2008), also known as Margaret Truman or Margaret Daniel, was an American singer who later became a successful writer. The only child of US President Harry S. Truman, she was "a witty, hard-working Midwestern girl with singing talent who was neither particularly pretty nor terribly plain."
Born in Independence, Missouri, she was christened Mary Margaret Truman (for her aunt Mary Jane Truman and maternal grandmother Margaret Gates Wallace) but was called Margaret from early childhood.
She attended school in Independence until her father's 1934 election to the U.S. Senate, after which her education was split between schools in Washington, D.C. and Independence. In 1942, she matriculated at George Washington University, where she was a member of Pi Beta Phi and earned a B.A. in History in 1946. In June 1944, she christened the battleship USS Missouri at Brooklyn Navy Yard; in 1986 she spoke at the ship's recommissioning.
On April 21, 1956, Truman married New York Times reporter (and later editor) Clifton Daniel in Independence; he died in 2000. They had four sons:
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Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of four co-founders of the social networking site Facebook, of which he is chairman and chief executive.
Zuckerberg was born and raised in a Jewish household in New York state. While still in middle school in his early teens, he took up writing software programs as a hobby, beginning with BASIC, with help from his father. His father then hired a tutor to help his son develop his programming skills further. Zuckerberg's enjoyment in writing programs led him to developing computer games, writing a music player, and setting up a primitive home network he called "ZuckNet." His private tutor calls him a "prodigy." In high school he excelled in classic literature and science, while becoming proficient in four other languages. He was also captain of the school's fencing team.
He later enrolled in Harvard, majoring in computer science and sociology. In his sophomore year he wrote a program called Facemash as a "fun" project, letting students on the college's network vote on other students' photo attractiveness. It was shut down within days, but would become a template for his writing Facebook, a program he launched from his dormitory room. With the help of friends, including roommate Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook went national on other campuses, and they moved to Palo Alto, California. By 2010, the site had an estimated 500 million users worldwide. Zuckerberg and Facebook have since been involved in various legal disputes initiated by others who have claimed a share of the company's profits due to their help in setting it up. Zuckerberg is the largest individual shareholder with 28.4 percent of the common stock and controls 56.9 percent of the voting power. As of 2012[update], his personal wealth was estimated at more than $19.1 billion, making him one of the world's youngest billionaires. Zuckerberg is one of the 30 richest people on Earth.
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Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren (Dutch: Maarten van Buren; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the eighth President of the United States (1837–1841). Before his presidency, he was the eighth Vice President (1833–1837) and the tenth Secretary of State, under Andrew Jackson (1829–1831).
Van Buren was a key organizer of the Democratic Party, a dominant figure in the Second Party System, and the first president not of British or Irish descent—his family was Dutch. He was the first president to be born an American citizen, his predecessors having been born British subjects before the American Revolution. He is also the only president not to have spoken English as his first language, having grown up speaking Dutch, and the first president from New York.
As Andrew Jackson's Secretary of State and then Vice President, Van Buren was a key figure in building the organizational structure for Jacksonian democracy, particularly in New York State. As president, he did not want the United States to annex Texas, an act which John Tyler would achieve eight years after Van Buren's initial rejection. Between the bloodless Aroostook War and the Caroline Affair, relations with Britain and its colonies in Canada also proved to be strained.
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Mary Margaret Truman
Mary Margaret Truman Daniel (February 17, 1924 – January 29, 2008), also known as Margaret Truman or Margaret Daniel, was an American singer who later became a successful writer. The only child of US President Harry S. Truman, she was "a witty, hard-working Midwestern girl with singing talent who was neither particularly pretty nor terribly plain."
Born in Independence, Missouri, she was christened Mary Margaret Truman (for her aunt Mary Jane Truman and maternal grandmother Margaret Gates Wallace) but was called Margaret from early childhood.
She attended school in Independence until her father's 1934 election to the U.S. Senate, after which her education was split between schools in Washington, D.C. and Independence. In 1942, she matriculated at George Washington University, where she was a member of Pi Beta Phi and earned a B.A. in History in 1946. In June 1944, she christened the battleship USS Missouri at Brooklyn Navy Yard; in 1986 she spoke at the ship's recommissioning.
On April 21, 1956, Truman married New York Times reporter (and later editor) Clifton Daniel in Independence; he died in 2000. They had four sons:
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Maurice J. Tobin
Maurice Joseph Tobin (May 22, 1901 – July 19, 1953) was a Mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, the 56th Governor of the U.S. state of Massachusetts, and U.S. Secretary of Labor.
Tobin was born in Mission Hill, Boston, Massachusetts to James Tobin, a carpenter, and Margaret Daly. He was the eldest of four children including Timothy F. (b.1902), Margaret M. (b.1905) and James G. (b. 1907). He graduated from Boston College and worked for Conway Leather and New England Telephone, before entering politics as a protege of the legendary James Michael Curley. Tobin was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives at the age of 25, serving from 1927 to 1929. In November 1932 he married Helen Noonan of Brighton, Massachusetts, with whom he had three children. He served on the Boston School Committee from 1931 to 1937, before shocking the political establishment by defeating Curley in the 1937 race for Mayor of Boston.
He served as Mayor from 1938 to 1945, during which time he advocated the Fair Employment Practices Bill, which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, creed, and national origin in hiring or promotion practices. During his tenure as mayor, the Cocoanut Grove fire occurred in Boston. Prior to the fire, club owner Barney Welansky boasted that that club had not needed to adhere to fire codes because Tobin would not permit his club to be closed. Welansky was convicted of manslaughter, and Tobin himself only narrowly escaped indictment. Four years into Welansky's sentence, now-Governor Tobin pardoned him. In 1944, Tobin was elected Governor, and served two years from 1945 to 1947. His administration was marked by efforts to increase the benefits of unemployment insurance and workers compensation. He is also credited with the creation of Massport. In 1946, he was defeated for re-election by his Lieutenant Governor, Robert F. Bradford.
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Maurice M. Milligan
Maurice Morton Milligan (1884 - 1959), a U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, is most famous for the successful 1939 prosecution of Kansas City boss Tom Pendergast.
Milligan was a federal prosecutor from 1934 to 1945. After toppling Pendergast, Milligan ran in 1940 for the U.S. Senate seat held by Harry S. Truman. He and Missouri Governor Lloyd C. Stark split the anti-Pendergast vote in the Democratic primary and Truman won.
Truman had defeated Milligan's brother, Jacob "Tuck" Milligan, in the Democratic primary for Truman's first Senate term in 1934. Maurice Milligan began his assault on the Pendergast machine following the 1936 election and he got convictions on 259 of 278 defendants.
Milligan's case against Pendergast centered on a $750,000 insurance payoff scam and failure to pay federal income taxes from 1927 to 1937. Pendergast ultimately pled guilty to two charges of income tax evasion and was fined $10,000 and sentenced to 15 months in federal prison.
In 1948 Milligan wrote a book about his exploits: Missouri Waltz, The Inside Story of the Pendergast Machine by the Man Who Smashed It (ISBN 1-299-19592-X).
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Melinda Gates
Melinda French Gates (born Melinda Ann French; August 15, 1964) is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She is the wife of Bill Gates. She is the co-founder and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a former unit manager for several Microsoft products such as Publisher, Microsoft Bob, Encarta, and Expedia.
Melinda was born in Dallas, Texas. She was the second of four children born to Raymond Joseph French, Jr., an engineer, and Elaine Agnes Amerland, a homemaker. She has an older sister and two younger brothers. Gates, a Roman Catholic, attended St. Monica Catholic School, where she was the top student in her class year. She graduated as valedictorian from Ursuline Academy of Dallas in 1982. Gates earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and economics from Duke University in 1986 and an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business in 1987.
Shortly thereafter, she joined Microsoft and participated in the development of many of Microsoft’s multimedia products including Publisher, Microsoft Bob, Encarta, and Expedia.
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Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin (help·info) (Hebrew: מְנַחֵם בֵּגִין, Polish: Mieczysław Biegun, Arabic: مناحيم بيغن Munahayyim Beeghin, Russian: Менахем Вольфович Бегин Menakhem Vol'fovich Begin, 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. As head of the Irgun, he targeted the British in Palestine.
Begin was elected to the first Knesset, as head of Herut, the party he founded, and was at first on the political fringe, embodying the opposition to the Mapai-led government and Israeli establishment. He remained in opposition in the eight consecutive elections (except for a national unity government around the Six-Day War), but became more acceptable to the political center. His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labour Party political dominance. He probably served as Opposition Leader longer than anyone in the history of modern democratic politics.
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Michael Dukakis
Michael Stanley Dukakis (/dʉˈkɑːkɨs/; born November 3, 1933) served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving governor in Massachusetts history. He was the second Greek American governor in U.S. history after Spiro Agnew.
Dukakis's father Panos (1896–1979) was a Greek from Adramytio, in Asia Minor, who settled in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1912, and graduated from Harvard Medical School twelve years later, subsequently working as an obstetrician. His mother Euterpe (née Boukis) (1903–2003) was a Greek immigrant from Larissa of Vlach-Aromanian descent; she and her family emigrated to Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1913. She was a graduate of Bates College.
Dukakis attended Brookline High School in his hometown. He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1955, served in the U.S. Army 1955–1957, stationed in Korea, and then received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1960. Dukakis is also an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America.
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Michel Aflaq
Michel Aflaq (Arabic: ميشيل عفلق, Damascus, 1910 – Paris, 23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociologist and Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he is considered by several Ba'athists to be the principal founder of Ba'athist thought. He published various books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Battle for One Destiny (1958) and The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution (1975).
Born into a middle class family in Damascus, Syria, Aflaq studied at the Sorbonne, where he met his future political companion Salah al-Din al-Bitar. He returned to Syria in 1932, and began his political career in communist politics. Aflaq became a communist activist, but broke his ties with the communist movement when the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party supported France's colonial policies. Later in 1940 Aflaq and al-Bitar established the Arab Ihya Movement (later renaming itself the Arab Ba'ath Movement, taking the name from Zaki al-Arsuzi's group by the same name). The movement proved successful, and in 1947 the Arab Ba'ath Movement merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath organisation to establish the Arab Ba'ath Party. Aflaq was elected to the party's executive committee and was elected "'Amid" (meaning the party's leader).
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Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Russian: Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв, tr. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov; IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil sʲɪrˈɡʲejəvʲɪtɕ ɡərbɐˈtɕof] ( listen); born 2 March 1931) is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the Soviet Union, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. He was the only general secretary in the history of the Soviet Union to have been born during the Communist rule.
Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family, and in his teens operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and soon became very active within it. In 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the deaths of Soviet Leaders Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo in 1985. Before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level.
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Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the 13th President of the United States (1850–1853) and the last member of the Whig Party to hold the office of president. As Zachary Taylor's Vice President, he assumed the presidency after Taylor's death.
Fillmore opposed the proposal to keep slavery out of the territories annexed during the Mexican–American War in order to appease the South and so supported the Compromise of 1850, which he signed, including the Fugitive Slave Act ("Bloodhound Law") which was part of the compromise. On the foreign policy front, he furthered the rising trade with Japan and clashed with the French over Napoleon III's attempt to annex Hawaii and with the French and the British over the attempt of Narciso López to invade Cuba. After his presidency, he joined the Know-Nothing movement; throughout the Civil War, he opposed President Abraham Lincoln and during Reconstruction supported President Andrew Johnson. He is consistently included in the bottom 10 of historical rankings of Presidents of the United States.
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Mobutu Sese Seko
Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (born Joseph-Desiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997), commonly known as Mobutu or Mobutu Sese Seko ( /məˈbuːtuː ˈsɛseɪ ˈsɛkoʊ/), was the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (also known as Zaire for much of his rule) from 1965 to 1997. While in office, he formed an authoritarian regime, amassed vast personal wealth, and attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence, while also maintaining an anti-communist stance.
Mobutu, a member of the Ngbandi ethnic group, was born in Lisala, Belgian Congo. Mobutu's mother Marie Madeleine Yemo, was a hotel maid who fled to Lisala to escape the harem of a local village chief. There she met and married Albéric Gbemani, a cook for a Belgian judge. Shortly she gave birth to Mobutu. The name "Mobutu" was selected by an uncle. Gbemani died when Mobutu was eight.
The wife of the Belgian judge took a liking to Mobutu and taught him to speak, read and write fluently. Yemo relied on the help of relatives to support her four children, and the family moved often. Mobutu's earliest studies were in Léopoldville, but his mother eventually sent him to an uncle in Coquilhatville, where he attended the Christian Brothers School, a Catholic mission boarding school. A physically imposing figure, he dominated school sports. He also excelled in academics and ran the class newspaper. He was also known for his pranks and impish sense of humor. A classmate recalled that when the Belgian priests, whose first language was Dutch, misspoke in French, Mobutu would leap to his feet in class and point out the mistake. In 1949 Mobutu stowed away aboard a boat to Léopoldville and met a girl. The priests found him several weeks later, and at the end of the school year he was sent to the Force Publique (FP), the Belgian Congolese army. Enlistment, which came with a seven-year commitment, was a punishment for rebellious students.
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Mohammad Hatta
Mohammad Hatta (help·info) (12 August 1902 – 14 March 1980) was born in Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). He was Indonesia's first vice president, later also serving as the country's Prime Minister. Known as "The Proclamator", he and a number of Indonesians, including the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno, fought for the independence of Indonesia from the Dutch. Despite his efforts to gain Indonesian independence, he studied in the Netherlands from 1921 until 1932. Moreover, after his early education, he studied in Dutch schools in Indonesia.
Mohammad Hatta is often remembered as Bung Hatta ('Bung' is an affectionate title used to address colleagues, popular in the early 1900s and is still used by Indonesians).
Hatta was born in Bukittinggi on 12 August 1902 into a prominent and strongly Islamic family. His grandfather was a respected ulema in Batuhampar, near Payakumbuh. His father, Haji Mohammad Djamil, died when he was eight months old and he was left with his six sisters and his mother. As in the matrilineal society of Minangkabau tradition, he was then raised in his mother's family. His mother's family was wealthy, and Hatta was able to study Dutch as well as finishing Qur'an after school.
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Mohammad Mosaddegh
Mohammad Mosaddegh or Mosaddeq (Persian: محمد مصدق, IPA: [mohæmˈmæd(-e) mosædˈdeɣ] ( listen)*), also spelled Mossadegh, Mossadeq, Mosadeck, or Musaddiq (16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967), was the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 until being overthrown in a coup d'état in 1953.
His administration introduced a wide range of social and political reforms but is most notable for its nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC/AIOC) (later British Petroleum or BP).
Mosaddegh was removed from power in a coup on 19 August 1953, organised and carried out by the United States CIA at the request of the British MI6 which chose Iranian General Fazlollah Zahedi to succeed Mosaddegh.
The coup is sometimes known as the TPAJAX Project after its CIA cryptonym, however, in Iran it is referred to as the 28 Mordad 1332 coup, after its date on the Iranian calendar., which is incorrect as the Operation's proper name was TPAjax (TP standing for Tudeh Party of Iran the Russian backed communist party of Iran} Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three years, then put under house arrest until his death.
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Mohammad Najibullah
Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai (February 1947 – 28 September 1996), better known mononymously as Najibullah or Najib, was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War. Najibullah was born in Gardiz and educated at Kabul University, after which he began his career in the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). He became a member of the Parcham faction led by Babrak Karmal. Following the Saur Revolution Najibullah was a low profile bureaucrat, who was sent into exile during Hafizullah Amin's rise to power as Afghan ambassador to Iran. He returned to Afghanistan following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan which toppled Amin's rule, and placed Karmal as head of state, party and government. During Karmal's rule, Najibullah became head of the KHAD, the Afghan equivalent to the Soviet KGB.
During Najibullah's tenure as KHAD head, it became one of the most efficient governmental organs. Because of this he gained the attention of several leading Soviet officials, such as Yuri Andropov, Dmitriy Ustinov and Boris Ponomarev. In 1981, Najibullah was appointed to the PDPA Politburo. Because of its efficiency, the KHAD was turned into the Ministry of State Security in 1985. On 21 September 1985 Najibullah stepped down as state security minister to focus on PDPA politics; he had just recently been appointed to the PDPA Secretariat. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was able to get Karmal to step down as PDPA General Secretary on 4 May 1986, and replace him with Najibullah. From then, until November, Najibullah was locked in a power struggle against Karmal, who still retained his post of Chairman of the Revolutionary Council. Najibullah accused Karmal of trying to wreck his policy of National Reconciliation.
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Mozambican Civil War
The Mozambican Civil War began in 1977, two years after the end of the war of independence. The ruling party, Front for Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and the national armed forces FAM (Armed Forces of Mozambique), was violently opposed from 1977 by the Rhodesian- and (later) South African-funded Mozambique Resistance Movement (RENAMO). About 1 000 000 people died in fighting and from starvation, five million civilians were displaced, many were made amputees by landmines, a legacy from the war that continues to plague Mozambique. Fighting ended in 1992 and the country's first multi-party elections were held in 1994.
Mozambican resistance began to surface, as some groups within the Mozambican society eventually started to blame the Portuguese authorities for centuries of exploitation, oppression and neglect.[citation needed] After a successful wave of independence movements in other African territories, cold war powers and the international community started to suggest that Portugal should leave its territories in Africa. Sentiment for Mozambique's own national independence developed and on 25 June 1962 several Mozambican anti-Portuguese political groups formed the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania.
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Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (Arabic: معمر محمد أبو منيار القذافي) (June 1942 – 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi /ˈmoʊ.əmɑr ɡəˈdɑːfi/ (Arabic: مُعَمَّر القَذَّافِي Muʿammar al-Qaḏḏāfī audio (help·info)) or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. Gaddafi seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1969 and served as the country's head of state until 1977, when he stepped down from his official executive role as Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of Libya, and claimed subsequently to be merely a symbolic figurehead. He styled himself as "Leader of the Revolution"; in 2008 a meeting of traditional African rulers bestowed on him the title "King of Kings". A leading advocate for a United States of Africa, he served as Chairperson of the African Union (AU) from 2 February 2009 to 31 January 2010.
Gaddafi replaced the Libyan Constitution of 1951 with laws based on the political ideology he had formulated, which he called the Third International Theory and published in The Green Book. After establishing the Jamahiriya (جماهيرية, "state of the masses") system in 1977, he officially stepped down from power and after that time held a largely symbolic role within the country's official governance structure. Rising oil prices and extraction in Libya led to increasing revenues. By exporting as much oil per capita as Saudi Arabia and through various welfare programs, Libya achieved the highest living standards in Africa; Libya remained debt-free.
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Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (Punjabi, Urdu: محمد ضياء الحق; August 12, 1924 – August 17, 1988), was the 4th Chief Martial Law Administrator and the sixth President of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988. Distinguished by his role in the Black September in Jordan military operation in 1970, he was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto after Bhutto forcefully retired seven senior lieutenant-generals who were tainted with their role in the East-Pakistan war in order to bring and promote Zia to four star rank. After widespread civil disorder, he planned and overthrew ruling Prime Minister Bhutto in a bloodless coup d'état on July 5, 1977, code name Fair Play, and became the state's third military ruler to impose martial law. Zia's idea of religious conservatism in Pakistan became the primary line of his military government. Throughout the 1980s, Zia managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups in Pakistan.
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Mário Soares
Mário Alberto Nobre Lopes Soares, GColTE, GCC, GColL, KE (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈmaɾiu suˈaɾɨʃ]; born 7 December 1924), Portuguese politician, served as Prime Minister of Portugal from 1976 to 1978 and from 1983 to 1985, and subsequently as the 17th President of Portugal from 1986 to 1996.
Soares is the son of João Lopes Soares (Leiria, Arrabal, 17 November 1878 - Lisbon, Campo Grande, 31 July 1970), Founder of the Colégio Moderno in Lisbon, Minister and then anti-fascist republican activist who had been a Priest for some time before marrying Elisa Nobre Baptista (Santarém, Pernes, 8 September 1887 - Lisbon, Campo Grande, 28 February 1955), Mário Soares's mother, at the 7th Conservatory of the Civil Register of Lisbon on 5 September 1934. His father also had another son by an unknown mother named Tertuliano Lopes Soares. His mother had previously been married and had two children, J. Nobre Baptista and Cândido Nobre Baptista. Mário Soares was raised as a Roman Catholic, but came to identify himself as a laic, agnostic and atheist.
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Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi (March 9, 1892 – February 5, 1971) was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born Mátyás Rosenfeld in present-day Serbia. He was the de facto ruler of communist Hungary between 1945 and 1956 — first in his capacity as General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party (1945–1948) and later as General Secretary of the Hungarian Working People's Party (1948–1956). His rule was aligned with USSR politics during Joseph Stalin's government.
Rákosi was born in Ada, a village in Bács County in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Vojvodina, Serbia). Born into a Jewish family, the fourth son of a grocer (his mother would give birth to seven more children) he later repudiated religion and totally repudiated Judaism.
He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War and was captured on the Eastern Front. After returning to Hungary, he participated in the communist government of Béla Kun; after its fall he fled, eventually to the Soviet Union. After returning to Hungary in 1924 he was imprisoned, and was released to the Soviet Union in 1940, in exchange for the Hungarian revolutionary banners captured by the Russian troops at Világos in 1849. In the Soviet Union, he became leader of the Comintern. He returned to Debrecen, Hungary, on January 30, 1945, sent by Soviet leadership, to organize the Communist Party.
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Ne Win
Ne Win (Burmese: နေဝင်း IPA: [nè wɪ́ɴ]; born on 24 May or 14 May 1911 or 10 July 1910 – 5 December 2002) was a Burmese politician and military commander. He was Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974 and also head of state from 1962 to 1981. He also was the founder and from 1962 to 1988 the chairman of the Burma Socialist Programme Party, which from 1964 until 1988 was the sole political party in the Burmese nation state.
Ne Win's date of birth is not known with certainty. The English language publication Who's Who in Burma published in 1961 by People's Literature House, Rangoon, stated that Ne Win was born on 24 May 1911. Dr. Maung Maung stated in the Burmese version of his book Burma and General Ne Win, also published in English, that Ne Win was born on 14 May 1911. However, in a book written in Burmese titled The Thirty Comrades, the author Kyaw Nyein gave Ne Win's date of birth as 10 July 1910.
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Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979) was an American businessman, philanthropist, public servant, and politician. He served as the 41st Vice President of the United States (1974–1977), serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York (1959–1973). He also served the Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions. A member of the Rockefeller family, he was also a noted art collector.
Rockefeller, a Republican, was politically moderate. In his time, moderates in the Republican party were called "Rockefeller Republicans". As Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 his achievements included the expansion of the State University of New York, efforts to protect the environment, the building of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany, increased facilities and personnel for medical care, and creation of the New York State Council on the Arts. After unsuccessfully seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968, he served as Vice President (under the 25th Amendment) from 1974 to 1977 under President Gerald R. Ford. Ford ascended to the presidency following the August 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon, over the Watergate Scandal, and Ford selected Rockefeller as his own replacement. But Rockefeller did not join the 1976 Republican national ticket with President Ford, marking his retirement from politics.
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Ngo Dinh Diem
Ngô Đình Diệm ( listen; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was the first president of South Vietnam (1955–1963). In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a 1955 plebiscite that was widely considered fraudulent. A Roman Catholic, Diệm pursued biased and religiously oppressive policies against the Republic's Montagnard natives and its Buddhist majority, epitomized in Malcolm Browne's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức in 1963.
Amid religious protests that garnered worldwide attention, Diệm lost the backing of his U.S. patrons and was assassinated, along with his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu by Nguyễn Văn Nhung, the aide of ARVN General Dương Văn Minh on 2 November 1963, during a coup d'état that deposed his government.
Diệm was born in Huế, the original capital of the Vietnamese Nguyễn Dynasty. His family originated in the central Vietnamese village of Phú Cẩm. Portuguese missionaries had converted his family to Roman Catholicism in the 17th century, so Diệm was given a saint's name at birth, following the custom of the Catholic Church. His full name was Jean Baptiste Ngô Đình Diệm. He would often claim that he had descended from a blue-blooded family of mandarins who were so revered that people believed that it was a great honour and good luck to be buried alongside his ancestors. Most historians dismiss this as false and believe that his family were of low rank until his father passed the imperial examinations.[citation needed]
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Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceauşescu (Romanian pronunciation: [nikoˈla.e t͡ʃe̯a.uˈʃesku]; 26 January 1918 – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's last Communist leader. He was also the country's head of state from 1967 to 1989.
His rule was marked in the first decade by an open policy towards Western Europe and the United States, which deviated from that of the other Warsaw Pact states during the Cold War. He continued a trend first established by his predecessor, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, who had tactfully coaxed the Soviet Union into withdrawing its troops from Romania in 1958.
Ceauşescu's second decade was characterized by an increasingly brutal and repressive regime—by some accounts, the most Stalinist regime in the Soviet bloc. It was also marked by an ubiquitous personality cult, nationalism and a deterioration in foreign relations with the Western powers as well as the Soviet Union. Ceauşescu's government was overthrown in the December 1989 revolution, and he and his wife were executed following a televised and hastily organised two-hour court session.
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Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 15 [O.S. April 3] 1894, – September 11, 1971) led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the early Soviet space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Khrushchev's party colleagues removed him from power in 1964, replacing him with Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin as Premier.
Khrushchev was born in the Russian village of Kalinovka in 1894, close to the present-day border between Russia and Ukraine. He was employed as a metalworker in his youth, and during the Russian Civil War was a political commissar. With the help of Lazar Kaganovich, he worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy. He supported Joseph Stalin's purges, and approved thousands of arrests. In 1939, Stalin sent him to govern Ukraine, and he continued the purges there. During what was known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War (Eastern Front of World War II), Khrushchev was again a commissar, serving as an intermediary between Stalin and his generals. Khrushchev was present at the bloody defense of Stalingrad, a fact he took great pride in throughout his life. After the war, he returned to Ukraine before being recalled to Moscow as one of Stalin's close advisers.
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Norman Edward Mack
Norman Edward Mack (July 24, 1858 - December 26, 1932) was editor and publisher of the Buffalo Daily Times. He was also chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1908 through 1912.
He was born July 24, 1855, in West Williams, Ontario. He was editor and publisher of the Buffalo Daily Times. He sold his paper in 1929 to Scripps-Howard for $6,000,000.
He retired in 1931 and died on December 26, 1932 in Buffalo, New York.
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Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
Thomas was the oldest of six children, born November 20, 1884 in Marion, Ohio to Emma Williams Mattoon and Weddington Evans Thomas, a Presbyterian minister. Thomas had an uneventful midwestern childhood and adolescence, helping to put himself through Marion High School as a paper carrier for Warren G. Harding's Marion Daily Star. Like other paper carriers, he reported directly to Florence Kling Harding. "No pennies ever escaped her," said Thomas. The summer after he graduated from high school his father accepted a pastorate at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, which allowed Norman to attend Bucknell University. He left Bucknell after one year to attend Princeton University, the beneficiary of the largesse of a wealthy uncle by marriage. Thomas graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1905.
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Nur Misuari
Nur Misuari (Bahasa Sūg: Nūr Miswāri) (born in 1942 in Jolo, Sulu, Philippines) is a Moro politician and former leader of the Moro National Liberation Front. He completed his education through academic scholarships at the University of the Philippines and became a student activist. Misuari was a lecturer at the University of the Philippines in political science and in the 1960s, he established the Mindanao Independence Movement which aimed to organize an independent state in southern Philippines. The Mindanao Independence Movement formed the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) that sought political reforms from the Government of the Philippines. Unable to gain reforms, the MNLF engaged in military conflict against the Philippine government and its supporters between 1972 to 1976 under the leadership of Misuari. The military resistance to the government of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos did not produce autonomy for the Moro people. He departed to Saudi Arabia in exile. He returned to the Philippines after Marcos was removed from office during the People Power Revolution in 1986.
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Nur Muhammad Taraki
Nur Muhammad Taraki (15 July 1917, or 1913 – 14 September 1979) was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War. Taraki was born near Kabul and educated at Kabul University, after which he started his political career as a journalist. He later became one of the founding members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and was elected as the party's General Secretary at its first congress. He ran as a candidate in the 1965 Afghan parliamentary election but failed to secure himself a seat. In 1966 he published the first issue of Khalq, a party newspaper, but it was closed down shortly afterwards by the Afghan Government. The assassination of Mir Akbar Khyber led Taraki, along with Hafizullah Amin (the organiser of the revolution) and Babrak Karmal, to initiate the Saur Revolution and establish the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
The presidency of Taraki, albeit short-lived, was marked by controversies from beginning to end. Taraki launched a land reform on 1 January 1978 which proved to be highly unpopular and, along with his government's other reforms, led to a popular backlash which initiated the Afghan civil war. Despite repeated attempts throughout his reign, Taraki proved unable to persuade the Soviet Union to intervene in support of the restoration of civil order.
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Omar Torrijos
Omar Efraín Torrijos Herrera (February 13, 1929 – July 31, 1981) was the Commander of the Panamanian and National Guard and the de facto leader of Panama from 1968 to 1981. Torrijos was never officially the president of Panama, but instead held titles including "Maximum Leader of the Panamanian Revolution" and "Supreme Chief of Government." Although he was considered a leftist dictator, he simultaneously had the support of the United States as he opposed communism. His politics were based instead on progressivism.
Torrijos is best known for negotiating the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties that eventually gave Panama full sovereignty over the Panama Canal, at noon on December 31, 1999. His son Martín Torrijos was elected president and served from 2004 to 2009.
Torrijos was born in Santiago in the province of Veraguas, the sixth of twelve children. His father, José Maria Torrijos, was originally from Colombia, and was employed as a teacher. He was educated at the local Juan Demóstenes Arosemena School and won a scholarship to the military academy in San Salvador. He graduated with a commission as a second lieutenant. He joined the Panamanian army, the National Guard (Guardia Nacional), in 1952. He was promoted to captain in 1956 and took a cadet course at the School of the Americas in 1965.
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Oscar Collazo
Oscar Collazo (January 20, 1914 – February 21, 1994), was one of two Puerto Ricans who attempted to assassinate U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
Collazo (birth name: Oscar Collazo López ) was born in what is now Florida, Puerto Rico. In 1920, Collazo's father died and his mother sent him to live with his brother in Jayuya. His brother was a member of the Liberal Party which had independence beliefs. When Collazo was 14 years old, he participated in a student demonstration, which was considered illegal, commemorating the birth of José de Diego. In 1932, when Collazo was 18 years old, he again participated in another demonstration commemorating José de Diego. This time however, the main speaker was Pedro Albizu Campos, the president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. That day he was so impressed by Albizu Campos' leadership that he joined the Nationalist Party.
In 1941, Collazo moved to New York City where he met and married Rosa Cortez, a divorcee. Rosa had two daughters and Collazo had one daughter, both from a previous marriages. Collazo worked in a metal polishing factory and led a normal life. He met and became friends with Albizu Campos when the latter was hospitalized at the Columbus Hospital. Collazo became the secretary and later president of the New York branch of the Nationalist Party. Collazo met Griselio Torresola in New York and they soon became friends.
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Oscar L. Chapman
Oscar Littleton Chapman (October 22, 1896–February 8, 1978) was the United States Secretary of the Interior during the last three years of the Truman administration.
Chapman was born in Omega, Virginia. He attended the University of Denver, where he earned his LL.D. at Westminster Law School, and the University of New Mexico.
From 1918 to 1920, Chapman served in the United States Navy Medical Corps.
Chapman was the manager of Edward P. Costigan's U.S. Senate campaign in 1930, and the Alva B. Adams Senate campaign in 1932. After Roosevelt's election in 1932, he was appointed as an Assistant Secretary in the Department of the Interior.
In 1939, Chapman was an early victim of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, as then-chairman Martin Dies Jr. published a list of government employees who were members of a Communist-controlled organization (Chapman was considered a member because there was a record that he had contributed two dollars to the American League for Peace and Democracy which was raising money for the loyalists during the Spanish Civil War).
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Owen D. Young
Owen D. Young (October 27, 1874 – July 11, 1962) was an American industrialist, businessman, lawyer and diplomat at the Second Reparations Conference (SRC) in 1929, as a member of the German Reparations International Commission.
He is best known for his SRC diplomacy and for founding the Radio Corporation of America. Young founded RCA as a subsidiary of General Electric in 1919; he became its first chairman and continued in that position until 1929.
Owen D. Young was born in 1874 in Stark, Herkimer County, New York. An 1894 graduate of St. Lawrence University, he completed the three-year law course at Boston University in two years, graduating cum laude in 1896. After graduation he joined lawyer Charles H. Tyler and ten years later became a partner in that Boston law firm. They were involved in litigation cases between major companies. He became a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity while at college (Sigma Tau chapter).
Young represented Stone and Webster in a successful case against GE around 1911 and through that case came to the attention of Charles A. Coffin, the first president of General Electric. After the death of GE's General Counsel Hinsdill Parsons in April 1912, Coffin invited Young to become the company's Chief Counsel and Young moved to Schenectady. He became GE's president in 1922 and then in the same year was appointed inaugural chairman, serving in that position until 1939. Under his guidance and teaming with president Gerard Swope, GE shifted into the extensive manufacturing of home electrical appliances, establishing the company as a leader in this field and speeding the mass electrification of farms, factories and transportation systems within the US.
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Palmiro Togliatti
Palmiro Togliatti (Italian pronunciation: [palˈmiro toʎˈʎatti]; 26 March 1893 - 21 August 1964) was an Italian politician and leader of the Italian Communist Party from 1927 until his death.
Born in Genoa to a middle class family, Togliatti began his political life in the Italian Socialist Party prior to the First World War. He served as a volunteer officer during the war, and was wounded in action and sent home for illness. Returning at the end of the conflict, he was a part of the group around Antonio Gramsci's L'Ordine Nuovo paper in Turin, while working as a tutor.
He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I, later PCI) and, after Gramsci was jailed by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, he became the senior leader of the PCd'I until his death, for which he also directed Il Comunista.
When the party was banned by the Italian Fascist government in 1926, Togliatti was one of few leaders not to be arrested, as he was attending a meeting of the Comintern in Moscow. In exile during the late 1920s and the 1930s, he organized clandestine meetings of the PCd'I at Lyon (1926) and Cologne (1931). In 1927 he took the position of Secretary of the party.
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Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only twelve weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis. He was subsequently imprisoned and executed by firing squad, an act that was committed with the assistance of the government of Belgium, for which the Belgian government officially apologized in 2002.
Lumumba was born in Onalua in the Katakokombe region of the Kasai province of the Belgian Congo, a member of the Tetela ethnic group. Raised in a Catholic family as one of four sons, he was educated at a Protestant primary school, a Catholic missionary school, and finally the government post office training school, passing the one-year course with distinction. He subsequently worked in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) and Stanleyville (now Kisangani) as a postal clerk and as a travelling beer salesman. In 1951, he married Pauline Opangu. In 1955, Lumumba became regional head of the Cercles of Stanleyville and joined the Liberal Party of Belgium, where he worked on editing and distributing party literature. After traveling on a three-week study tour in Belgium, he was arrested in 1955 on charges of embezzlement of post office funds. His two-year sentence was commuted to twelve months after it was confirmed by Belgian lawyer Jules Chrome that Lumumba had returned the funds, and he was released in July 1956. After his release, he helped found the broad-based Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) in 1958, later becoming the organization's president. Lumumba and his team represented the MNC at the All-African Peoples' Conference in Accra, Ghana, in December 1958. At this international conference, hosted by influential Pan-African President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Lumumba further solidified his Pan-Africanist beliefs.
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Paul Butler (lawyer)
Paul Mulholland Butler (1905 – 1961) was a U.S. lawyer and, more significantly, chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1955 until 1960.
After being active in Indiana Democratic Party politics, Butler was named to the Democratic National Committee in 1952, when he was a staunch ally of Adlai Stevenson. He later became DNC chairman and used the post to articulate policy positions in opposition to the Eisenhower administration. Butler's liberal ideology was opposed by conservative and moderate Democrats. Never a close ally of John F. Kennedy, he was dropped as DNC chairman after Kennedy's 1960 general election victory. Butler died the next year.
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Paul G. Kirk
Paul Grattan Kirk, Jr. (born January 18, 1938) is an American politician and lawyer who served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts from 2009 to 2010, having been appointed to fill the vacancy created by the death of Ted Kennedy. From 1985 to 1989, he served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). He has also served as the co-chairman of the Commission on Presidential Debates, the chairman of the board of directors of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, and a member of the board of directors of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.
Kirk, one of five children, was born in Newton, Massachusetts. He is the son of Josephine Elizabeth (O’Connell) and Judge Paul Grattan Kirk, Sr., an associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. His father was of Irish and English descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. He attended The Roxbury Latin School and graduated from St. Sebastian's School in 1956, Harvard College in 1960, and Harvard Law School in 1964, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1965. In 1974, he married Gail Loudermilk. The couple have no children. They reside in Marstons Mills Village, Barnstable County, Massachusetts. Kirk is a great-nephew of the late Cardinal William O'Connell.
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Paul Hume
Paul Chandler Hume (December 13, 1915, in Chicago, Illinois – November 27, 2001) was the music editor for the Washington Post from 1946 to 1982.
In addition to his role as the Post music editor, Hume hosted a long-running classical music program on WGMS radio in Washington, D.C., and was guest commentator for the New York Metropolitan Opera intermission broadcasts. He was also a professor of music at Georgetown University from 1950 to 1977 and adjunct professor of music at Yale University from 1975 to 1983. He was a member of the American Association of University Professors, the Music Critics Association, and the Cosmos Club. He received a Peabody Award in 1977 for his outstanding achievement in music criticism, and received honorary degrees from Thiel College, Rosary College, and Georgetown University. In addition, he published several books, including Catholic Church Music (1956) and a biography of Verdi (1977).
In honor of Hume's great influence on American music, on October 20, 1979 he was awarded the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit. Established in 1964, this award sought "to bring a declaration of appreciation to an individual each year that has made a significant contribution to the world of music and helped to create a climate in which our talents may find valid expression."
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Peaceful coexistence
Peaceful coexistence was a theory developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of its ostensibly Marxist–Leninist foreign policy and was adopted by Soviet-influenced "Communist states" that they could peacefully coexist with the capitalist bloc (i.e., non-communist states). This was in contrast to the antagonistic contradiction principle that Communism and capitalism could never coexist in peace. The Soviet Union applied it to relations between the western world and in particular, the United States and NATO countries and the nations of the Warsaw Pact.
Debates over differing interpretations of peaceful coexistence were one aspect of the Sino-Soviet split in the 1950s and 1960s. During the 1960s and early 1970s, the People's Republic of China under the leadership of its founder, Mao Zedong, argued that a belligerent attitude should be maintained towards capitalist countries, and so initially rejected the peaceful coexistence theory as essentially Marxist revisionism. However, their decision in 1972 to establish a trade relationship with the United States also saw China cautiously adopting a version of the theory to relations between itself and non-socialist countries in the developing world. From that point through to the early 1980s and Socialism with Chinese characteristics, China increasingly extended its own peaceful coexistence concept to include all nations. Enver Hoxha also denounced this and turned against China as a result of China growing closer ties to the West such as 1972 Nixon visit to China and today Hoxhaist parties continue to denounce the concept of peaceful coexistence.
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Peter Ueberroth
Peter Victor Ueberroth (/ˈjuːbərɒθ/; born September 2, 1937) is an American executive. He served as the sixth Commissioner of Major League Baseball from 1984 to 1989. He was recently the chairman of the United States Olympic Committee; he was replaced by Larry Probst in October 2008.
Although Ueberroth was born in Evanston, Illinois, he grew up in northern California. While attending Fremont High School, Ueberroth excelled in football, baseball, and swimming. After graduating from high school, Ueberroth attended San Jose State University on an athletic scholarship. While attending San Jose State he joined Delta Upsilon. He competed in the 1956 United States Olympic water polo trials but failed to make the team. Ueberroth ultimately graduated from San Jose State in 1959 with a degree in business.
After college, Ueberroth became a vice president and shareholder in Trans International Airlines (he was 22 years old at the time). Ueberroth worked at Trans International until 1963, when he founded his own travel company, which would become First Travel Corporation. By the time he sold First Travel in 1980, it was the second largest travel business in North America.
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Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ laval]; 28 June 1883 – 15 October 1945) was a French politician. He was four times President of the council of ministers of the Third Republic, twice consecutively.
Following France's surrender and Armistice with Germany in 1940, he served twice in the Vichy Regime as head of government. He signed orders permitting the deportation of foreign Jews from French soil to the Nazi death camps.
After Liberation (1945), Laval was arrested by the French government under General Charles de Gaulle, found guilty of high treason, and executed by firing squad. The controversy surrounding his political activities has generated a dozen biographies.
Laval was born 28 June 1883 at Châteldon, Puy-de-Dôme, in the northern part of Auvergne. His father worked in the village as a café proprietor, butcher and postman; he also owned a vineyard and horses. Laval was educated at the village school in Châteldon. At age 15, he was sent to a Paris lycée to study for his baccalauréat. Returning south to Lyon, he spent the next year reading for a degree in zoology.
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Pierre Trudeau
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau CC, CH, PC, QC, FSRC ( /truːˈdoʊ/; French pronunciation: [tʁydo]; October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.
Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals, but he eventually joined the Liberal Party of Canada when he entered federal politics in the 1960s. He was appointed as Lester Pearson's Parliamentary Secretary, and later became his Minister of Justice. From his base in Montreal, Trudeau took control of the Liberal Party and became a charismatic leader, inspiring "Trudeaumania". From the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, he dominated the Canadian political scene and aroused passionate reactions. "Reason before passion" was his personal motto. He retired from politics in 1984, and John Turner succeeded him as Prime Minister.
Admirers praise the force of Trudeau's intellect and they salute his political acumen in preserving national unity against Quebec separatists, suppressing a violent revolt, and establishing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms within Canada's constitution. Critics accuse him of arrogance, economic mismanagement, and unduly favouring the federal government relative to the provinces, especially in trying to control the oil wealth of the Prairies.
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Ping Pong Diplomacy
Ping pong diplomacy refers to the exchange of table tennis (ping-pong) players between the United States and People's Republic of China (PRC) in the early 1970s. The event marked a thaw in U.S.–China relations that paved the way to a visit to Beijing by President Richard Nixon.
The U.S. Table Tennis team was in Nagoya, Japan in 1971 for the 31st World Table Tennis Championship on April 6 when they received an invitation to visit China. From the early years of the People's Republic, sports had played an important role in diplomacy, often incorporating the slogan "Friendship First, Competition Second". On April 10, 1971, the team and accompanying journalists became the first American sports delegation to set foot in the Chinese capital since 1949. The meeting was facilitated by the National Committee on United States – China Relations. Prior to the visit by the American table tennis players, eleven Americans were admitted into the PRC for one week because they all professed affiliation with the international Black Panther Party and China viewed the international organization as an organization fighting for human equality. This was unusual, given that high-profile American citizens such as Senator Eugene McCarthy expressed interest in visiting China after the 1968 presidential election, but even he could not have a trip arranged for him despite his office.
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Pol Pot
Saloth Sar (19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998), better known as Pol Pot (Khmer: ប៉ុល ពត), was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1963 to 1981, he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea. From 1976 to 1979, he also served as the prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea. Pol Pot became leader of Cambodia on April 17, 1975. During his time in power he imposed agrarian socialism, forcing urban dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects. The combined effects of forced labor, malnutrition, poor medical care, and executions resulted in the deaths of approximately 21% of the Cambodian population. In all, an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people (out of a population of slightly over 8 million) died as a result of the policies of his three-year premiership.
In 1979, after the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, Pol Pot fled to the jungles of southwest Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge government collapsed. From 1979 to 1997, he and a remnant of the old Khmer Rouge operated near the border of Cambodia and Thailand, where they clung to power, with nominal United Nations recognition as the rightful government of Cambodia. Pol Pot died in 1998 while under house arrest by the Ta Mok faction of the Khmer Rouge. Since his death, rumours that he was poisoned have persisted.
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Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan Paweł II), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (Polish: [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛf vɔjˈtɨwa]; 18 May 1920, Wadowice, Republic of Poland – 2 April 2005, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City), reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was the second-longest serving Pope in history and the first non-Italian since 1523.
John Paul II was acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century. He was instrumental in ending communism in his native Poland and eventually all of Europe. John Paul II significantly improved the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. Though criticised by progressives for upholding the Church's teachings against artificial contraception and the ordination of women, and by traditionalists for his support of the Church's Second Vatican Council and its reform, he was also widely praised for his firm, orthodox Catholic stances.
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Pope John XXIII
Blessed Pope John XXIII (Latin: Ioannes PP. XXIII; Italian: Giovanni XXIII), born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (25 November 1881 – 3 June 1963), headed the Catholic Church and ruled Vatican City from 1958 until his death.
Pope John was elected on 28 October 1958. He called the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) but did not live to see it to completion. He died in 1963, only four-and-a-half years after his election, and two months after the completion of his final encyclical, Pacem in Terris. He was beatified, along with Pope Pius IX, on 3 September 2000.
Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born in Sotto il Monte, a small country village in the Bergamo province of the Lombardy region of Italy. He was the first-born son of Giovanni Battista Roncalli (1854–1935) and his wife Marianna Giulia Mazzolla (1854–1939), and fourth in a family of 13, including: Angelo Giuseppe, Alfredo (1889–??), Maria Caterina (1877–1883), Teresa (1879–1954), Ancilla (1880–1953), Domenico Giuseppe (22 February 1888 – 14 March 1888), Francesco Zaverio (1883–1976), Maria Elisa (1884–1955), Assunta Casilda (1886–??), Giovanni Francesco (1891–1956), Enrica (1893–1918), Giuseppe Luigi (1894–??) and Luigi (1896–1898). His family worked as sharecroppers as did most of the people of Sotto il Monte – a striking contrast to that of his predecessor, Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII), who came from an ancient aristocratic family, long connected to the Papacy. However, he was still a descendant of an Italian noble family, from a secondary and impoverished branch.
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Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961.
Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing his undergraduate work 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 Nixon, moved to Washington to work for the federal government in 1942. He subsequently served in the United States Navy during World War II. Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950. His pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election. Nixon served for eight years as vice president. He waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California in 1962. In 1968, he ran again for the presidency and was elected.
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Richard Russell, Jr.
Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. (November 2, 1897 – January 21, 1971) was an American politician from Georgia. A member of the Democratic Party, he briefly served as Governor of Georgia (1931–33) before serving in the United States Senate for almost 40 years, from 1933 until his death in 1971. As a Senator, he was a candidate for President of the United States in the 1952 Democratic National Convention, coming in second to Adlai Stevenson.
Russell was a founder and leader of the conservative coalition that dominated Congress from 1937 to 1963, and at his death was the most senior member of the Senate. He was for decades a leader of Southern opposition to the civil rights movement.
Russell was born in Winder, Georgia, the fourth child (and first son) of fifteen children of Richard Brevard Russell, Sr., a prominent lawyer and later chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. The younger Russell graduated in 1914 from the Seventh District Agricultural and Mechanical School in Powder Springs, Georgia, and from Gordon Institute in Barnesville, Georgia, the following year. Russell then enrolled in the University of Georgia School of Law in 1915 and earned a Bachelor of Laws (B.L.) degree in 1918. While at UGA, he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society.
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Riley A. Bender
Riley Alvin Bender (July 8, 1890 – March 6, 1973) was a United States businessman and political candidate.
Born in Chicago, Illinois to Edward Bender and Josephine David Bender, he was a lifelong resident of his native city. Bender was an entrepreuer in the areas of hotel and music store management. He was also a prize fighter.
He ran in the Democratic primary for the Illinois Senate (11th district) in 1938 and lost.
Bender is perhaps best known for his three bids for Republican Party Presidential nomination in the elections of 1944, 1948 and 1952. In all three occasions he appeared only in his native Illinois ballot.
Although he was never a major candidate in these races, he won 1948 Illinois primary in landslide, winning 96.90% (324,029) of votes against Douglas MacArthur (6,672 votes and 2.00%) and other well-known figures such as Harold Stassen, Thomas E. Dewey and Robert Taft.
Bender, who had German and Irish heritage, died in Chicago's Central Hospital and was buried in Onarga Cemetery.
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Robert E. Hannegan
Robert Emmet Hannegan (June 30, 1903–October 6, 1949) was a St. Louis, Missouri politician who served as Commissioner of Internal Revenue from October 1943 to January 1944. He also served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1944 to 1947 and United States Postmaster General from 1945 to 1947. After his political career, in 1947, Hannegan and partner Fred Saigh purchased the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball. But Hannegan, ill with heart disease, sold his share in the team to Saigh a few months before his death.
Hannegan earned an LL.B. from Saint Louis University School of Law in 1925.[citation needed]
A power broker in the St. Louis Democratic Party allied with Senator Bennett Clark, Hannegan helped save the political career of Harry S. Truman in 1940 following the tax fraud conviction of Truman's ally, Kansas City boss Tom Pendergast. Hannegan supported Truman for re-election to the U.S. Senate when he was challenged in the Democratic primary by Governor Lloyd C. Stark and Maurice M. Milligan, who both sought credit for bringing down Pendergast. Truman re-won the seat with increased support in St. Louis, particularly from Catholic neighborhoods in which Hannegan wielded considerable influence. In his second term, Truman achieved national prominence by chairing a Senate committee investigating government waste in defense contracts.
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Robert H. Ferrell
Robert H. Ferrell (born May 8, 1921, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American historian and author of several books on Harry S. Truman and the diplomatic history of the United States. He served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during the Second World War and was an intelligence analyst in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He received a B.S. in Education from Bowling Green State University in 1946 and a PhD from Yale University in 1951, where he worked under the direction of Samuel Flagg Bemis and his dissertation won the John Addison Porter Prize.
He taught for many years at Indiana University in Bloomington, starting as an Assistant Professor in 1953 and rising to Distinguished Professor of History in 1974. He has made several notable visiting professorships, including Yale University in 1955 and the Naval War College in 1974. During his career, he supervised thirty-five PhD. students from 1961 to 1988.
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Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara (June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. Following that, he served as President of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981. McNamara was responsible for the institution of systems analysis in public policy, which developed into the discipline known today as policy analysis.
Prior to public service, McNamara was one of the "Whiz Kids" who helped rebuild Ford Motor Company after World War II, and briefly served as Ford's President before becoming Secretary of Defense.
Robert McNamara was born in San Francisco, California. His father was Robert James McNamara, sales manager of a wholesale shoe company. His mother was Clara Nell Strange McNamara. His father's family was Irish and in about 1850, following the Great Irish Famine, had emigrated to Massachusetts and later to California. He graduated from Piedmont High School in Piedmont, California in 1933 where he was president of the Rigma Lions boys club and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1937 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics with minors in mathematics and philosophy. He was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa his sophomore year and earned a varsity letter in crew. He was also a member of the UC Berkeley's Order of the Golden Bear which was a fellowship of students and leading faculty members formed to promote leadership within the student body. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1939.
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Robert P. Patterson
Robert Porter Patterson (Sr.) (February 12, 1891 - January 22, 1952) was the United States Under Secretary of War under President Franklin Roosevelt and the United States Secretary of War under President Harry S. Truman from September 27, 1945 to July 18, 1947.
Patterson was born in Glens Falls, New York on February 12, 1891. He graduated from both Union College and Harvard Law School. He practiced law in New York City. He served in the United States Army during World War I, reaching the rank of major, and received the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in France. In February 2012, The World War I Memoirs of Robert P. Patterson: A Captain in the Great War, edited by J. Garry Clifford, was published by the University of Tennessee Press.
In 1930, President Herbert Hoover appointed Patterson as a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promoted Patterson to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where he sat with judges including Learned Hand, Augustus Hand, and Thomas Walter Swan.
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Robert Taft
Robert Alphonso Taft (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953), of the Taft political family of Cincinnati and the son of President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft, was a Republican United States Senator and a prominent conservative statesman. As the leading opponent of the New Deal in the Senate from 1939 to 1953, he led the successful effort by the conservative coalition to curb the power of labor unions, and was a major proponent of the foreign policy of non-interventionism. However, he failed in his quest to win the presidential nomination of the Republican Party in 1940, 1948 and 1952. From 1940 to 1952 he battled New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, the leader of the GOP's moderate "Eastern Establishment" for control of the Republican Party. In 1957, a Senate committee chaired by John F. Kennedy named Taft as one of the five greatest senators in American history, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Robert La Follette.
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Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( /ˈrɒnəld ˈwɪlsən ˈreɪɡən/; February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. Prior to that, he was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and a radio, film and television actor.
Born in Tampico, Illinois and raised in Dixon, Reagan was educated at Eureka College, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and sociology. After his graduation, Reagan moved first to Iowa to work as a radio broadcaster and then in to Los Angeles in 1937 where he began a career as an actor, first in films and later television. Some of his most notable films include Knute Rockne, All American, Kings Row, and Bedtime for Bonzo. Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and later as a spokesman for General Electric (GE); his start in politics occurred during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, his positions began shifting rightward in the late 1950s, and he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After delivering a rousing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and general election in 1980, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter.
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Roscoe C. Patterson
Roscoe Conkling Patterson (September 15, 1876 – October 22, 1954) was a United States Representative and Senator from Missouri.
Born in Springfield, Missouri, he attended public and private schools, Drury College, (Springfield) and the University of Missouri in Columbia. He graduated from the law department of Washington University (St. Louis) in 1897, was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Springfield. He was prosecuting attorney of Greene County from 1903 to 1907, and was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-seventh Congress, serving from March 4, 1921 to March 4, 1923. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1922 to the Sixty-eighth Congress and resumed the practice of law in Springfield.
He was a presidential elector on the Republican ticket in 1924, and in 1925 he moved to Kansas City, Missouri. From 1925 to 1929 he was United States district attorney for the western district of Missouri; he resigned in 1929 and was elected to the U.S. Senate, serving from March 4, 1929, to January 3, 1935. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1934. He was defeated by Harry S. Truman, who later became President of the United States. While in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Mines and Mining (Seventy-second Congress).
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Roy Blunt
Roy D. Blunt (born January 10, 1950) is the junior United States Senator from Missouri. He is a member of the Republican Party. His Senate seat was previously held by Republican Kit Bond, until his retirement.
Blunt served as the United States Representative from Missouri's 7th congressional district from 1997 to 2011. The district contains most of Southwest Missouri, the most conservative part of the state, anchored in the city of Springfield, as well as cities such as Joplin, Carthage, and Neosho. The popular tourist destination of Branson also lies in the district. In January 2011, Blunt was succeeded in the House by Billy Long.
Blunt was the House Minority Whip during the 110th Congress but after the 2008 general elections announced that he would step down from the position. After House Majority Leader Tom DeLay stepped down upon criminal indictment in Texas, Blunt served as interim House Majority Leader from September 29, 2005, to February 2, 2006, when John Boehner of Ohio was elected as DeLay's permanent replacement. In 2011, Blunt was elected Vice-Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.
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Roy Romer
Roy R. Romer (born October 31, 1928 in Garden City, Kansas, United States) was the 39th Governor of Colorado and served as the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2001 to 2006.
Romer grew up in the southeastern Colorado town of Holly. Romer received a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics from Colorado State University in 1950, where he served for one year as President of the Associated Students of Colorado State University. He later received a law degree from the University of Colorado School of Law in 1952. He also studied ethics at Yale University, and was a legal officer in the U.S. Air Force. He and his wife, Bea, have seven children and 19 grandchildren and one greatgrandchild. His son Paul Romer is an economist, and his son Chris Romer, was elected to a Colorado State Senate seat from Denver in November 2006.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Romer was an attorney in Denver. He was also active in the management of his family's agricultural operations throughout Colorado. Romer has continued and is also the owner, with one of his sons, of a chain of John Deere equipment stores in Colorado, Virginia and Florida. He helped develop Colorado's Centennial Airport, ran a flying school and owned and operated a ski area.
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Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani ( /ˈruːdi ˌdʒuːliˈɑːni/; born May 28, 1944) is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001.
A Democrat and Independent in the 1970s, and a Republican since the 1980s, Giuliani served in the United States Attorney's Office, for the Southern District of New York, eventually becoming U.S. Attorney. He prosecuted a number of high-profile cases, including ones against organized crime and Wall Street financiers.
Giuliani served two terms as Mayor of New York City, having run on the Republican and Liberal lines. He was credited with initiating improvements and with a reduction in crime pressing the city's quality of life initiatives. He ran for the United States Senate in 2000 but withdrew due to being diagnosed with prostate cancer and revelations about his personal life. Giuliani gained international attention for his leadership during and after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. For those actions, he received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 2002.
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Ruhollah Khomeini
Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini (روحاللّه مصطفوی موسوی خمینی, Persian pronunciation: [ruːholˈlɑːhe muːsæˈviːje xomeiˈniː], 22 or 24 September 1902 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. Following the revolution, Khomeini became the country's Supreme Leader — a position created in the constitution as the highest ranking political and religious authority of the nation – until his death.
Khomeini was a marja ("source of emulation") in Twelver Shi'a Islam, author of more than forty books, but is primarily known for his political activities. He spent more than 15 years in exile for his opposition to the last Shah. In his writings and preachings he expanded the Shi'a Usuli theory of velayat-e faqih, the "guardianship of the jurisconsult (clerical authority)" to include theocratic political rule by the Islamic jurists. This principle (though not known to the wider public before the revolution) was installed in the new Iranian constitution after being put to a referendum.
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Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was the 19th President of the United States (1877–1881). As president, he oversaw the end of Reconstruction and the United States' entry into the Second Industrial Revolution. Hayes was a reformer who began the efforts that led to civil service reform and attempted, unsuccessfully, to reconcile the divisions that had led to the American Civil War fifteen years earlier.
Born in Delaware, Ohio, Hayes practiced law in Lower Sandusky (now Fremont) and was city solicitor of Cincinnati from 1858 to 1861. When the Civil War began, Hayes left a successful political career to join the Union Army. Wounded five times, most seriously at the Battle of South Mountain, he earned a reputation for bravery in combat and was promoted to the rank of major general. After the war, he served in the U.S. Congress from 1865 to 1867 as a Republican. Hayes left Congress to run for Governor of Ohio and was elected to two consecutive terms, serving from 1867 to 1871. After his second term had ended, he resumed the practice of law for a time, but returned to politics in 1875 to serve a third term as governor.
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Rómulo Betancourt
Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello (22 February 1908 – 28 September 1981), known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was President of Venezuela from 1945 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1964, as well as leader of Accion Democratica, Venezuela's dominant political party in the 20th century. He survived an assassination attempt ordered by Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic. Betancourt, one of Venezuela's most important political figures, led a tumultuous and highly controversial career in Latin American politics. Periods of exile brought Betancourt in contact with various Latin American countries as well as the United States, securing his legacy as one of the few real international leaders to emerge from 20th-century Latin America. Scholars credit Betancourt as the Founding Father of modern democratic Venezuela.
Rómulo Betancourt was born in Guatire, a town near Caracas, son of Luis Betancourt Bello (from Canary origins) and Venezuelan Virginia Bello Milano, being the middle brother between his older sister Teresa and younger sister Helena. Living along with his maternal grandmother Maria Milano Bello and his uncle Luis Bello Milano.
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Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Maǧīd al-Tikrītī; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organisation Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region, which espoused ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup, later referred to as the 17 July Revolution, that brought the party to long-term power of Iraq.
As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam nationalized oil and other industries. The state-owned banks were put under his control, leaving the system eventually insolvent mostly due to the Iran–Iraq War, the Gulf War, and UN sanctions. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as oil money helped Iraq's economy to grow at a rapid pace. Positions of power in the country were filled with Sunnis, a minority that made up only a fifth of the population.
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Salah Jadid
Salah Jadid (1926 – 19 August 1993, Arabic: صلاح جديد) was a Syrian general and political figure in the Arab Socialist Baath Party in Syria, and the country's de facto leader from 1966 until 1970.
Jadid was born in 1926 in the village of Duwayr B'abda, near the coastal city of Jableh, which in turn was close to Lattakia, to a Alawite family. He studied at the Homs Military Academy, and entered the Syrian Army in 1946. Jadid was originally a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), but later became a member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, in the 1950s through an associate of Akram al-Hawrani. Even so, Jadid remained close to the SNPP; his brother, Ghassan, was one of its most prominent members in Syria. He changed allegiance again in the 1950s, when he became a member of the Arab Liberation Movement, a party supporting Gamal Abdel Nasser's ideological beliefs. Jadid supported Syria's ascension into the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union republic consisting of Egypt and Syria.
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Salgueiro Maia
Fernando José Salgueiro Maia, GOTE, GCL (born July 1, 1944 in Castelo de Vide, Portugal; died April 4, 1992 in Santarém), commonly known just by Salgueiro Maia (Portuguese pronunciation: [saɫˈɡɐjɾu ˈmajɐ]) was a captain of the Portuguese army. He made a significant contribution to the Carnation Revolution, which resulted in the fall of the then ruling dictatorship.
Salgueiro Maia was one of the captains of the Portuguese Army who led the revolutionary forces during the Carnation Revolution. He was a son of Francisco da Luz Maia, a railway worker, and Francisca Silvéria Salgueiro. He attended the Primary School in São Torcato, Coruche, and would later relocate to Tomar where he studied at Colégio Nun'Álvares, but would finish his Secondary School education in the National Liceu of Leiria. Maia later graduated in Social and Political Sciences and Ethnological and Anthropological Sciences.
In 1983 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Liberty; in 1992, posthumously, the degree of Grand Officer of the Military Order of the Tower and of the Sword, of Valour, Loyalty and Merit; and in 2007, the Gold Medal of the city of Santarém.
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Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens (Spanish pronunciation: [salβaˈðoɾ aˈʝende ˈɣosens]; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America.
Allende's involvement in Chilean political life spanned a period of nearly forty years. As a member of the Socialist Party, he was a senator, deputy and cabinet minister. He unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in the 1952, 1958, and 1964 elections. In 1970, he won the presidency in a close three-way race, formally elected by Congress as no candidate had gained a majority.
Allende adopted the policy of nationalization of industries and collectivization. On 11 September 1973 the military, citing a call by the Chilean Congress to end his presidency, staged a coup against Allende. As the armed forces surrounded La Moneda Palace, Allende gave his last speech vowing not to resign, and committed suicide thereafter. After Allende's ouster, Chile was led by a military junta, and then as a dictatorship by General Augusto Pinochet.
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Sam Rayburn
Samuel Taliaferro "Sam" Rayburn (January 6, 1882 – November 16, 1961) was a Democratic lawmaker from Bonham, Texas, who served as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives for 17 years, the longest tenure in U.S. history.
Rayburn was born in Roane County, Tennessee, and was baptized by Elder H.G. Ball in the Primitive Baptist Church, also known as Old Line Baptist or Hard Shell Baptist Church. Rayburn graduated from Mayo College (now Texas A&M University-Commerce) in Commerce, which was located in northeast Texas. He attended the University of Texas School of Law while teaching school, and was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1908. Just after being admitted to the bar, he won election to the Texas House of Representatives, beginning his first term in 1909. During his second two-year term in the Texas House, he was elected Speaker of the House at the age of twenty-nine. The next year, he won election to the United States House of Representatives in District 4. He entered Congress in 1913 at the beginning of Woodrow Wilson's presidency and served in office for almost 49 years (more than 24 terms), until the beginning of John F. Kennedy's presidency.
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Samuel J. Tilden
Samuel Jones Tilden (February 9, 1814 – August 4, 1886) was the Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency in the disputed election of 1876, one of the most controversial American elections of the 19th century. He was the 25th Governor of New York. A political reformer, he was a Bourbon Democrat who worked closely with the New York City business community, led the fight against the corruption of Tammany Hall, and fought to keep taxes low. Tilden was the first candidate for the Presidency of the United States not to be elected despite receiving an absolute majority of the votes.
Tilden was born in New Lebanon in New York State. He was descended from Nathaniel Tilden, an early English settler who came to America in 1634. He studied law at Yale, then transferred to New York University where he graduated in 1837. He was admitted to the bar in 1841, becoming a skilled corporate lawyer, with many railroad companies as clients in the shaky railroad boom decade of the 1850s. His legal practice, combined with shrewd investments, made him rich.
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Sargent Shriver
Robert Sargent Shriver, Jr., known as Sargent Shriver, R. Sargent Shriver, or, from childhood, Sarge, (/ˈsɑrdʒənt ˈʃraɪvər/; November 9, 1915 – January 18, 2011) was an American statesman and activist. As the husband of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, he was part of the Kennedy family, serving in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Shriver was the driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps, founded the Job Corps, Head Start and other programs as the "architect" of Johnson's "War on Poverty" and served as the United States Ambassador to France. During the 1972 U.S. presidential election, he was George McGovern's running mate as the Democratic Party's nominee for U.S. Vice President, replacing Thomas Eagleton who had resigned from the ticket.
Shriver was born in Westminster, Maryland, to Robert Sargent Shriver, Sr., and his wife Hilda Shriver. Of partial German ancestry, Shriver was a descendant of David Shriver, who signed the Maryland Constitution and Bill of Rights at Maryland's Constitutional Convention of 1776. He spent his high school years at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, which he attended on a full scholarship. He was in Canterbury's baseball, basketball, and football team, became the editor of the school's newspaper, and participated in choral and debating clubs. After he graduated in 1934, Shriver spent the summer in Germany as part of the Experiment in International Living, returning in the fall of 1934 to enter Yale University. He received his bachelor's degree in 1938, having been a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter) and the Scroll and Key Society. He was chairman of the Yale Daily News. Shriver then attended Yale Law School, earning an LL.B. degree in 1941.
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Schuyler Colfax
Schuyler Colfax, Jr. ( /ˈskaɪlər ˈkoʊlfæks/; March 23, 1823 – January 13, 1885) was a United States Representative from Indiana (1855–1869), Speaker of the House of Representatives (1863–1869), and the 17th Vice President of the United States (1869–1873). To date, he is one of only two Americans (John Nance Garner in the 20th century being the other) to have served as both House speaker and vice president.
President Ulysses S. Grant and Colfax, 46 and 45 respectively at the time of their inauguration, were the youngest Presidential team until the inauguration of Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1993.
Colfax was born in New York City to Schuyler Colfax, Sr. and Hannah Stryker. His grandfather, William Colfax, had served in George Washington's Life Guard during the American Revolution, became a general in the New Jersey militia and married Hester Schuyler, a cousin of general Philip Schuyler.
In 1836, Colfax moved with his mother and stepfather to New Carlisle, Indiana. As a young man, Colfax contributed articles on Indiana politics to the New York Tribune and formed a friendship with the editor, Horace Greeley. He established a reputation as rising young Whig and at 19 became the editor of the pro-Whig South Bend Free Press. In 1845, Colfax purchased the newspaper and changed its name to the St. Joseph Valley Register.
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Selden P. Spencer
Selden Palmer Spencer (September 16, 1862 – May 16, 1925) was a United States Senator from Missouri. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, he attended the public schools there and graduated from Yale College in 1884 and from the law school of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1886. He was admitted to the bar, commencing practice in St. Louis; he was a professor of medical jurisprudence in the Missouri Medical College at St. Louis in 1886, and was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives in 1895-1896. From 1897 to 1903 he was a judge of the United States circuit court of appeals at St. Louis. He and future governor Forrest Donnell formed the law firm of Spencer & Donnell. He was a captain in the Missouri Home Guard and a chairman of a draft board in 1917-1918.
Spencer was elected, on November 5, 1918, as a Republican to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William J. Stone; he was reelected in 1920 and served from November 6, 1918, until his death. While in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Claims (Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh Congresses) and a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs (Sixty-seventh Congress) and the Committee on Privileges and Elections (Sixty-seventh through Sixty-ninth Congresses). He died at Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C., in 1925; interment was in Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis.
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Sherman Minton
Sherman "Shay" Minton (October 20, 1890 – April 9, 1965) was a Democratic United States Senator from Indiana and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
After attending college and law school, he served as a captain in World War I, following which he launched a legal and political career. In 1930, after multiple failed election attempts, and serving as a regional leader in the American Legion, he became a utility commissioner under the administration of Indiana Governor Paul V. McNutt. Four years later, Minton was elected to the United States Senate. During the campaign, he defended New Deal legislation in a series of addresses in which he suggested it was not necessary to uphold the Constitution during the Great Depression crisis. Minton's campaign was denounced by his political opponents, and he received more widespread criticism for an address that became known as the "You Cannot Eat the Constitution" speech. As part of the New Deal Coalition, the fiercely partisan Minton championed President Franklin D. Roosevelt's unsuccessful court packing plans in the Senate and became one of his top Senate allies.
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Siad Barre
Mohamed Siad Barre (Somali: Maxamed Siyaad Barre, Arabic: محمّد زياد بري) (October 6, 1919 – January 2, 1995) was the military dictator and President of the Somali Democratic Republic from 1969 to 1991. During his rule, he styled himself as Jaalle Siyaad ("Comrade Siad").
At the time of independence in 1960, Somalia was touted in the West as the model of a democracy in Africa. However, clanism and extended family loyalties and conflicts were social problems the civilian government failed to eradicate and eventually succumbed to itself.
The Barre-led military junta that came to power after a coup d'état in 1969 said it would adapt scientific socialism to the needs of Somalia. It drew heavily from the traditions of China. Volunteer labour harvested and planted crops, and built roads and hospitals. Almost all industry, banks and businesses were nationalised, and cooperative farms were promoted. The government forbade clanism and stressed loyalty to the central authorities. A new writing script for the Somali language was also adopted. To spread the new language and the methods and message of the revolution, secondary schools were closed in 1974 and 25,000 students from fourteen to sixteen years of age and an additional 3,000 military and civil service employees were sent to rural areas to educate their nomadic relatives.
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Sino-Albanian split
The Sino-Albanian split (Chinese: 中阿破裂; pinyin: Zhōng-Ā pòliè) in 1978 saw the parting of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and People's Socialist Republic of Albania, which was the only Eastern European nation to side with the PRC in the Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s.
The relations between Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Party of Labour of Albania (PPSh) had stagnated by 1970. When China began to reemerge from isolation in the early 1970s, Mao Zedong and other Communist Chinese leaders reassessed their commitment to Albania. In response, Tirana, led by Enver Hoxha, began broadening its international position. Albania opened trade negotiations with France, Italy and the newly independent Asian and African states, and later in 1971 it normalized relations with Yugoslavia and Greece. Albania's leaders abhorred the PRC's rapprochement with the United States in the early 1970s. Tirana press and radio ignored President Richard Nixon's trip to Beijing in 1972. Nevertheless, Albania proposed the key resolution in the UN General Assembly which enabled the PRC to replace the Republic of China in the United Nations.
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Sino-Indian War
The Sino-Indian War (Hindi: भारत-चीन युद्ध Bhārat-Chīn Yuddh), also known as the Sino-Indian Border Conflict (simplified Chinese: 中印边境战争; traditional Chinese: 中印邊境戰爭; pinyin: Zhōng-Yìn Biānjìng Zhànzhēng), was a war between China and India that occurred in 1962. A disputed Himalayan border was the main pretext for war, but other issues played a role. There had been a series of violent border incidents after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when India had granted asylum to the Dalai Lama. India initiated a Forward Policy in which it placed outposts along the border, including several north of the McMahon Line, the eastern portion of a Line of Actual Control proclaimed by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1959.
Unable to reach political accommodation on disputed territory along the 3,225-kilometer-long Himalayan border, the Chinese launched simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line on 20 October 1962, coinciding with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Chinese troops advanced over Indian forces in both theatres, capturing Rezang la in Chushul in the western theatre, as well as Tawang in the eastern theatre. The war ended when the Chinese declared a ceasefire on 20 November 1962, and simultaneously announced its withdrawal from the disputed area.
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Sino-Vietnamese War
The Sino–Vietnamese War (Vietnamese: Chiến tranh biên giới Việt-Trung), also known as the Third Indochina War, known in the PRC as Chinese: 对越自卫反击战; pinyin: duì yuè zìwèi fǎnjī zhàn; literally "Defensive Counterattack against Vietnam" and in Vietnam as Chiến tranh chống bành trướng Trung Hoa (War against Chinese expansionism), was a brief but bloody border war fought in 1979 between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The PRC launched the offensive in response to Vietnam's 1978 invasion and occupation of Cambodia, which ended the reign of the PRC-backed Khmer Rouge.
The Chinese invaded Northern Vietnam and captured some of the northernmost cities in Vietnam. On March 6 China declared that the gate to Hanoi was open and that their punitive mission had been achieved and retreated back to China. Both China and Vietnam claimed victory in the last of the Indochina Wars of the 20th century; as Vietnamese troops remained in Cambodia until 1989 it can be said that the PRC failed to achieve the goal of dissuading Vietnam from involvement in Cambodia. China achieved its strategic objective of reducing the offensive capability of Vietnam along the Sino-Vietnam border by implementing a scorched earth policy. China also achieved another strategic objective of demonstrating to its Cold War foe, the Soviet Union, that they were unable to protect their Vietnamese ally. As many as 1.5 million Chinese troops were stationed along China's borders with the USSR at the time and were prepared for a full-scale war.
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Soong May-ling
Soong May-ling or Soong Mei-ling, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Madame Chiang (traditional Chinese: 宋美齡; simplified Chinese: 宋美龄; pinyin: Sòng Měilíng; March 5, 1898 – October 23, 2003) was a First Lady of the Republic of China (ROC), the wife of Generalissimo and President Chiang Kai-shek. She was a politician, painter and the chairman of Fu Jen Catholic University. The youngest and the last surviving of the three Soong sisters, she played a prominent role in the politics of the Republic of China and was the sister-in-law of Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the Republic of China preceding her husband.
She was born in Hongkou District, Shanghai, China, on March 5, 1898, but some biographies use the year 1897 because Chinese tradition considers everyone to be one year old at birth. She was the fourth of six children of Ni Kwei-tseng and Charlie Soong, a wealthy and connected businessman and former Methodist missionary from Hainan. May-ling's siblings were: Eldest sister Ai-ling, her older sister Ching-ling, her older brother T. V. and her younger brothers T.L. and T.A.
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Spiro Agnew
Spiro Theodore Agnew (pronunciation: /ˈspɪroʊ ˈæɡnjuː/; November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th Vice President of the United States (1969–1973), serving under President Richard Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland (1967–1969). He was the first Greek American to hold these offices.
During his fifth year as Vice President, in the late summer of 1973, Agnew was under investigation by the United States Attorney's office in Baltimore, Maryland, on charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery and conspiracy. In October, he was formally charged with having accepted bribes totaling more than $100,000, while holding office as Baltimore County Executive, Governor of Maryland, and Vice President of the United States. On October 10, 1973, Agnew was allowed to plead no contest to a single charge that he had failed to report $29,500 of income received in 1967, with the condition that he resign the office of Vice President. Nixon replaced him by appointing by then House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford to the office of Vice President.
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Stanley Forman Reed
Stanley Forman Reed (December 31, 1884 – April 2, 1980) was a noted American attorney who served as United States Solicitor General from 1935 to 1938 and as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1938 to 1957. He was the last Supreme Court Justice who did not graduate from law school (though Justice Robert H. Jackson who served from 1941-1954 was the last such justice appointed to the Supreme Court).
Stanley Reed was born in the small town of Minerva in Mason County, Kentucky, on the last day of 1884 to John and Frances (Forman) Reed. His father was a wealthy physician and a Protestant who adhered to no particular organized church. The Reeds and Formans traced their history to the earliest colonial period in America, and these family heritages were impressed upon young Stanley at an early age.
Reed attended Kentucky Wesleyan College and received a B.A. degree in 1902. He then attended Yale University as an undergraduate, and obtained a second B.A. in 1906. He studied law at the University of Virginia (where he was a member of St. Elmo Hall) and Columbia University, but did not obtain a law degree. Reed married the former Winifred Elgin in May 1908. The couple had two sons, John A. and Stanley Jr., who both became attorneys. In 1909 he traveled to France and studied at the Sorbonne, where he obtained his auditeur bénévole.
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Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen Arnold Douglas (23 April 1813 – 3 June 1861) was an American politician from Illinois. He was a U.S. Representative, a U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee for President in the 1860 election, losing to Republican Abraham Lincoln. Douglas had previously defeated Lincoln in a Senate contest, noted for the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. He was nicknamed the "Little Giant" because though short in physical stature, he was a forceful and even dominant figure in politics.
Douglas was well known as a resourceful party leader, and an adroit, ready, skillful tactician in debate and passage of legislation. He was a leading proponent of democracy, and believed in the principle of popular sovereignty: that the majority of citizens should decide contentious issues such as slavery and territorial expansion. As chairman of the Committee on Territories, Douglas dominated the Senate in the 1850s. He was largely responsible for the Compromise of 1850 that apparently settled slavery issues. However, in 1854 he reopened the slavery question with the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened some previously prohibited territories to slavery under popular sovereignty. Opposition to this led to the formation of the Republican Party.
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Stephen Ambrose
Stephen Edward Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a long time professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many best selling volumes of American popular history. Beginning late in his life and continuing after his death, however, evidence and reports have continued to surface documenting long time patterns of plagiarism, falsification, and inaccuracies in many of his published writings and other work. In response to one of the early reports, Ambrose said he was not "out there stealing other people's writings."
Ambrose was born in Lovington, Illinois to Rosepha Trippe Ambrose and Stephen Hedges Ambrose. His father was a physician who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Ambrose was raised in Whitewater, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Whitewater High School. His family also owned a farm in Lovington, Illinois and vacation property in Marinette County, Wisconsin. He attended college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity and played on the University of Wisconsin football team for three years.
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Strom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond (December 5, 1902 – June 26, 2003) was an American politician who served for 48 years as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrat) candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes. Thurmond later represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 until 2003, at first as a Democrat and after 1964 as a Republican. He switched out of support for the conservatism of Republican presidential candidate and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who shared his opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He left office as the only senator to reach the age of 100 while still in office and as the oldest-serving and longest-serving senator in U.S. history (although he was later surpassed in the latter by Robert Byrd). Thurmond holds the record for the longest-serving Dean of the United States Senate in U.S. history at 14 years.
He conducted the longest filibuster ever by a lone senator, in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length, nonstop. In the 1960s, he continued to fight against civil rights legislation. He always insisted he had never been a racist, but was merely opposed to excessive federal authority. However, he infamously said that "all the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, into our schools, our churches and our places of recreation and amusement", while attributing the movement for integration to Communism. Starting in the 1970s, he moderated his position on race, but continued to defend his early segregationist campaigns on the basis of states' rights in the context of Southern society at the time, never fully renouncing his earlier viewpoints.
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Stuart Symington
William Stuart Symington (pronounced /ˈsaɪmɪŋtən/; June 26, 1901 – December 14, 1988) was a businessman and political figure from Missouri. He served as the first Secretary of the Air Force from 1947 to 1950 and was a Democratic United States Senator from Missouri from 1953 to 1976.
Symington was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Yale University in 1923. At Yale he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter), the Elihu senior society, and served on the board of the Yale Daily News. During World War I, Symington enlisted in the United States Army at the age of 17 and was later commissioned as a second lieutenant and discharged at that same rank.
In 1923, Symington went to work for an uncle in the shops of the Symington Company of Rochester, New York, manufacturers of malleable iron products. Two years later he formed Eastern Clay Products but in 1927 returned to the Symington Company as executive assistant to the President.
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Suharto
Suharto (help·info) (8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was the second President of Indonesia, having held the office for 31 years from 1967 following Sukarno's removal until his resignation in 1998.
Suharto was born in a small village, Kemusuk, in the Godean area near Yogyakarta, during the Dutch colonial era. He grew up in humble circumstances. His Javanese peasant parents divorced not long after his birth, and he was passed between foster parents for much of his childhood. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, Suharto served in Japanese-organised Indonesian security forces. Indonesia's independence struggle saw him joining the newly formed Indonesian army. Suharto rose to the rank of Major General following Indonesian independence. An attempted coup on 30 September 1965 was countered by Suharto-led troops and was blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party. The army subsequently led an anti-communist purge, and Suharto wrested power from Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno. He was appointed acting president in 1967 and President the following year. Support for Suharto's presidency was strong throughout the 1970s and 1980s but eroded following a severe financial crisis that led to widespread unrest and his resignation in May 1998. Suharto died in 2008.
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Sukarno
Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo (6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was the first President of Indonesia.
Sukarno was the leader of his country's struggle for independence from the Netherlands and was Indonesia's first President from 1945 to 1967. He was replaced by one of his generals, Suharto (see Transition to the New Order), and remained under house arrest until his death.
The spelling "Sukarno" is frequently used in English as it is based on the newer official spelling in Indonesia since 1947 but the older spelling Soekarno, based on Dutch orthography, is still frequently used, mainly because he signed his name in the old spelling. Official Indonesian presidential decrees from the period 1947–1968, however, printed his name using the 1947 spelling. The Soekarno–Hatta International Airport which serves near Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia for example, still uses the older spelling.
Indonesians also remember him as Bung Karno or Pak Karno. Like many Javanese people, he had only one name; in religious contexts, he was occasionally referred to as "Achmed Sukarno". The name Soekarno means "Good Karna" in Javanese.
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Susan Brownmiller
Susan Brownmiller (born February 15, 1935) is an American feminist, journalist, author, and activist. She is best known for her pioneering work on the politics of rape in her 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, Brownmiller argues that rape had been hitherto defined by men rather than women; and that men use, and all men benefit from the use of, rape as a means of perpetuating male dominance by keeping all women in a state of fear. The book received criticism from Angela Davis, who thought Brownmiller disregarded the part that black women played in the anti-lynching movement and that Brownmiller's discussion of rape and race became an "unthinking partnership which borders on racism". In 1995 The New York Public Library selected Against Our Will as one of 100 most important books of the Twentieth Century.
Brownmiller also participated in civil rights activism, joining CORE and SNCC during the sit-in movement and volunteering for Freedom Summer in 1964, where she worked on voter registration in Meridian, Mississippi. Returning to New York, she began writing for The Village Voice and became a network TV newswriter at the American Broadcasting Company, a job she held until 1968. She first became involved in the Women's Liberation Movement in New York City in 1968, by joining a consciousness-raising group in the newly formed New York Radical Women organization. Brownmiller went on to co-ordinate a sit-in against Ladies' Home Journal in 1970, began work on Against Our Will after a New York Radical Feminists speak-out on rape in 1971, and co-founded Women Against Pornography in 1979. She continues to write and speak on feminist issues, including a recent memoir and history of Second Wave radical feminism. In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (1999).
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Susie Sharp
Susie Marshall Sharp (July 7, 1907 – March 1, 1996) was an American jurist who served as the first female Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. She was not the first woman to head the highest court in a U.S. state, but is believed to be the first woman elected to such a post in a state, like North Carolina, in which the position is elected by the people separately from that of Associate Justice. In 1965, Lorna E. Lockwood became the first chief justice of a state supreme court, but in Arizona, the Supreme Court justices elect their chief justice.
Sharp was born in 1907 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina but spent most of her life in Rockingham County, North Carolina. In 1926 she entered law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the only woman in her class. In 1929, Sharp went into private practice with her father, James, in the firm of Sharp & Sharp.
In 1949, Governor Kerr Scott appointed her a state Superior Court judge, making her the first female judge in the history of the state. After Sharp became a Superior Court judge, Tom Bost of the Greensboro Daily News questioned "what would happen if Sharp was faced with trying a case of rape? Wouldn't that be too much for a woman?" Judge Sharp wrote back that "In the first place, there could have been no rape had not a woman been present, and I consider it eminently fitting that one be in on the 'pay-off'."
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Syngman Rhee
Syngman Rhee or Yi Seungman (Hangul: 이승만; Hanja: 李承晩; Korean pronunciation: [i sɯŋman]; March 26, 1875 – July 19, 1965) was the first president of South Korea. His presidency, from August 1948 to April 1960, remains controversial, affected by Cold War tensions on the Korean peninsula and elsewhere.
Rhee was regarded as an anti-Communist and a strongman, and he led South Korea through the Korean War. His presidency ended in resignation following popular protests against a disputed election. He died in exile in Hawaii.
Syngman Rhee was born on March 26, 1875 into a rural family of modest means in Hwanghae Province, Korea. Rhee was the youngest of five siblings, though his elder brothers died prematurely. Rhee's family traced its lineage back to the third king of the Chosŏn Dynasty. When Rhee was two years old, the family moved to Seoul. His early education involved primarily classic Chinese literature; though he attempted civil service examinations, he failed them multiple times. When reforms abolished traditional systems of education, Rhee enrolled in Paejae School, an institution which had been established by a missionary from the United States. Rhee learned English and began a school newspaper, Maeil Sinmun.
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Taiwan
Taiwan (i/ˌtaɪˈwɑːn/ TY-WAHN; Chinese: 臺灣 or 台灣; pinyin: Táiwān; see below), officially the Republic of China (ROC; Chinese: 中華民國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó), is a state in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China now governs the island of Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa), which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and other minor islands. Neighboring states include the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east and northeast, and the Philippines to the south. Taipei is the capital city and economic and cultural centre of the country, and New Taipei is the most populous city.
The earliest evidence of inhabitation of Taiwan dates back to the late Paleolithic era. The island of Taiwan was mainly inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines before being colonized in the 17th century by the Dutch and the Spanish Empire. The first Han Chinese polity on Taiwan began when Koxinga's troops defeated Dutch forces and established the Kingdom of Tungning. The island was subsequently ruled by the Qing Dynasty after the kingdom's defeat in the Battle of Penghu in 1683, a period that lasted for over 200 years. Following Japan's victory over the Qing Dynasty in the first Sino-Japanese war, Taiwan was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.
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Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III (born November 19, 1938) is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television. As a philanthropist, he is known for his $1 billion gift to support UN causes, which created the United Nations Foundation, a public charity to broaden support for the UN. Turner serves as Chairman of the United Nations Foundation board of directors.
Turner's media empire began with his father's billboard business, which he took over at 24 after his father's suicide. The business, Turner Outdoor Advertising, was worth $1 million when Turner took it over in 1963. Purchase of an Atlanta UHF station in 1970 began the Turner Broadcasting System. Cable News Network revolutionized news media, covering the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Turner turned the Atlanta Braves baseball team into a nationally popular franchise and launched the charitable Goodwill Games. He helped reinvent interest in professional wrestling when he owned one of the most popular wrestling companies of the middle to late 1990s known as World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The Monday night show that it put on was the highest rated on cable and helped boost Turner's channels of TNT and WTBS.
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Terry McAuliffe
Terence Richard "Terry" McAuliffe (pronounced /mɨˈkɔːlɨf/; born February 9, 1957) is a longtime leader and political advisor for the United States Democratic Party. He served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005. He served as Co-Chairman of President Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign and also served as chairman of the 2008 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. He unsuccessfully ran for the 2009 Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
McAuliffe grew up in Syracuse, New York and graduated from Bishop Ludden Junior/Senior High School in 1975. His father was treasurer of the local Democratic organization. He started his first business, McAuliffe Driveway Maintenance, at the age of 14. In 1979, he received a bachelors degree from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. After graduation, McAuliffe took a job in the 1980 presidential reelection campaign of Jimmy Carter, and at the age of 22 became the national finance director. It was during this campaign that McAuliffe wrestled an eight-foot, 260-pound alligator for a $15,000 contribution. After the campaign, McAuliffe enrolled in law school at Georgetown University Law Center. He received a Juris Doctor degree in 1984. McAuliffe then served as Chairman of the Federal City National Bank by the age of 30.
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Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt ( /ˈroʊzəvɛlt/ ROH-zə-velt; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th President of the United States of America (1901–1909). He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity. He was a leader of the Republican Party and founder of the short-lived Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party of 1912. Before becoming President, he held offices at the city, state, and federal levels. Roosevelt's achievements as a naturalist, explorer, hunter, author, and soldier are as much a part of his fame as any office he held as a politician. Roosevelt was 42 years old when sworn in as President of the United States in 1901, making him the youngest president ever; he beat out the youngest elected president, John F. Kennedy, by only one year. Roosevelt was also one of only three sitting presidents to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, the other two being Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama.
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Thomas A. Hendricks
Thomas Andrews Hendricks (September 7, 1819 – November 25, 1885) was an American politician who served as a Representative and a Senator from Indiana, the 16th Governor of Indiana (1873–1877), and the 21st Vice President of the United States (1885). The first Democratic governor to be elected in the Northern United States following the American Civil War, and having defended the Democratic position in the Senate during the war, Hendricks quickly grew in popularity among the national party. After two previous failed attempts to win election to the governor's office, his term was marked by the Panic of 1873, which consumed most of his energies. He was opposed by a strong Republican majority in the Indiana General Assembly, and was unable to enact any significant legislation. Hendricks was the unsuccessful candidate for Vice President on the Democratic ticket with Samuel Tilden in the controversial presidential election of 1876. Despite his poor health, he accepted his party's second nomination to run for Vice President in the election of 1884 as Grover Cleveland's running mate, and served in that office until his death only eight months later.
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Thomas Dewey
Thomas Edmund Dewey (March 24, 1902 – March 16, 1971) was the 47th Governor of New York (1943–1954). In 1944 and 1948, he was the Republican candidate for President, but lost both times. He led the liberal faction of the Republican Party, in which he fought conservative Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft. Dewey was an advocate for the professional and business community of the Northeastern United States, which would later be called the "Eastern Establishment". This organization accepted the majority of New Deal social-welfare reforms enacted during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It consisted of internationalists who were in favor of the United Nations and the "Cold War" fight against communism and the Soviet Union. In addition, he played a large part in the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President in 1952. Dewey's successor as leader of the liberal Republicans was Nelson Rockefeller, who became governor of New York in 1959. The New York State Thruway is named in Dewey's honor.
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Thomas E. Dewey
Thomas Edmund Dewey (March 24, 1902 – March 16, 1971) was the 47th Governor of New York (1943–1954). In 1944 and 1948, he was the Republican candidate for President, but lost both times. He led the liberal faction of the Republican Party, in which he fought conservative Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft. Dewey was an advocate for the professional and business community of the Northeastern United States, which would later be called the "Eastern Establishment". This organization accepted the majority of New Deal social-welfare reforms enacted during the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It consisted of internationalists who were in favor of the United Nations and the "Cold War" fight against communism and the Soviet Union. In addition, he played a large part in the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President in 1952. Dewey's successor as leader of the liberal Republicans was Nelson Rockefeller, who became governor of New York in 1959. The New York State Thruway is named in Dewey's honor.
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Thomas Eagleton
Thomas Francis Eagleton (September 4, 1929 – March 4, 2007) was a United States Senator from Missouri, serving from 1968–1987. He is best remembered for briefly being the Democratic vice presidential nominee under George McGovern in 1972. After his public service he became adjunct professor of public affairs at Washington University.
Eagleton was the son of another St. Louis politician, Mark D. Eagleton (who had run for mayor), and Zitta Swanson.
He graduated from St. Louis Country Day School, served in the U.S. Navy for two years, and graduated from Amherst College in 1950, where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Sigma Chapter). He then attended Harvard Law School.
Eagleton married Barbara Ann Smith of St. Louis on January 26, 1956. A son, Terence, was born in 1959, and a daughter, Christin, was born in 1963.
He was elected circuit attorney of the City of St. Louis in 1956. During his tenure, he appeared on the TV show What's My Line? (episode #355) as "District Attorney of St. Louis". (He stumped the panel.) He was elected Missouri Attorney General in 1960, at the age of 31 (the youngest in the state's history). He was elected the 38th Lieutenant Governor of Missouri in 1964, and won a U.S. Senate seat in 1968 unseating incumbent Edward V. Long in the Democratic primary and narrowly defeating Congressman Thomas B. Curtis in the general election.
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Thomas Ewing, Jr.
Thomas Ewing, Jr. (August 7, 1829 – January 21, 1896) was an attorney, the first chief justice of Kansas and leading free state advocate, Union Army general during the American Civil War, and two-term United States Congressman from Ohio, 1877-1881. He narrowly lost the 1880 campaign for Ohio Governor.
Ewing was born in Lancaster, Ohio. His father, Thomas Ewing, was a very successful lawyer and Whig politician at the national level. Although Ewing Sr. was an Irish Protestant, his mother, Maria Wills Boyle, converted the family to Roman Catholicism. The younger Ewing was a foster brother of William T. Sherman and became his brother-in-law when Sherman married his sister, Ellen Ewing Sherman. Two other brothers were also Civil War generals—Charles Ewing and Hugh Boyle Ewing. Thomas Ewing Jr.'s relationship with Sherman was close throughout their lives.
Thomas Ewing, Jr., began his education at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He left Brown University to become private secretary to President Zachary Taylor from 1849 to 1850 (concurrent with his father's term in Taylor's Cabinet). He then studied and practiced law from 1852 to 1856 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from Cincinnati Law School in 1855.
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Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743 O.S.) – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and the third President of the United States (1801–1809). At the beginning of the American Revolution, Jefferson served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia. He then served as a wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781). Just after the war ended, from mid-1784 Jefferson served as a diplomat, stationed in Paris, initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties. In May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France. He was the first United States Secretary of State (1790–1793) during the administration of President George Washington. Upon resigning his office, with his close friend James Madison he organized the Democratic-Republican Party. Elected Vice-President in 1796, under his opponent John Adams, Jefferson with Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.
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Thomas R. Marshall
Thomas Riley Marshall (March 14, 1854 – June 1, 1925) was an American Democratic politician who served as the 28th Vice President of the United States (1913–1921) under Woodrow Wilson. A prominent lawyer in Indiana, he became an active and well known member of the Indiana Democratic Party by stumping across the state for other candidates and organizing party rallies that later helped him win election as the 27th Governor of Indiana. In office, he proposed a controversial and progressive state constitution and pressed for other progressive era reforms. The Republican minority used the state courts to block the attempt to change the constitution.
His popularity as governor, and Indiana's status as a critical swing state, helped him secure the Democratic vice presidential nomination on a ticket with Wilson in 1912 and win the subsequent general election. An ideological rift developed between the two men during their first term, leading Wilson to limit Marshall's influence in the administration, and his brand of humor caused Wilson to move Marshall's office away from the White House. During Marshall's second term he delivered morale-boosting speeches across the nation during World War I and became the first vice president to hold cabinet meetings, which he did while Wilson was in Europe. While he presided in the United States Senate, a small number of anti-war senators kept it deadlocked by refusing to end debate. To enable critical wartime legislation to be passed, Marshall had the body adopt its first procedural rule allowing filibusters to be ended by a two-thirds majority vote—a variation of this rule remains in effect.
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Thomas Taggart
Thomas Taggart (November 17, 1856 – March 6, 1929) was a U.S. political figure, serving as mayor of Indianapolis and influential in state and national politics.
Born in County Monaghan, Ireland, Taggart immigrated with his parents to the United States in 1861. The family settled in Xenia, Ohio, where young Taggart got a job working the lunch counter at the railroad depot. At age 18, he was sent by his employer to manage the depot restaurant and hotel in Garrett, Indiana, where he met his future wife Eva Bryant. They married in 1878.
Taggart moved to Indianapolis in 1877 to run the restaurant at Union Depot.
Taggart became active in local politics in Indianapolis. He served as auditor of Marion County from 1886 to 1894. In 1895 he was elected mayor of Indianapolis, and served until 1901. He founded the city's park system during his tenure.
He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1904 until 1908. Taggart played a key role in ensuring the nomination of Thomas Riley Marshall as the Democratic nominee for Indiana Governor in 1908, and again in securing the Vice Presidential nomination for Marshall in 1912 at the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore.
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Tim Kaine
Timothy Michael "Tim" Kaine (born February 26, 1958) is a Virginia politician. Kaine served as the 70th Governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010, and was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011. He was elected governor in 2005, after serving as the 38th Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and Mayor of Richmond, Virginia.
Kaine was considered as a possible running mate for Barack Obama in 2008, but was not chosen.
On April 5, 2011, after weeks of speculation, Kaine announced his candidacy for the United States Senate seat in Virginia that would be opened up by the announced retirement of Jim Webb at the end of his term.
Kaine was born at Saint Joseph's Hospital in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Mary Kathleen (née Burns) and Albert A. Kaine, a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop. Kaine grew up in the Kansas City area and graduated from Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Missouri.
Kaine graduated from the University of Missouri with a B.A. in economics in 1979. Kaine was a Coro Foundation fellow in Kansas City in 1978. He attended Harvard Law School, taking a year-long break during law school to work with the Jesuit order as a Catholic missionary in Honduras. Kaine is fluent in Spanish as a result of his year in Honduras. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1983 with a Juris Doctor, and was admitted to the Virginia Bar. In 1984, Kaine married former Richmond Juvenile Court Judge Anne Holton. Holton is the daughter of former Virginia governor A. Linwood Holton, Jr. Kaine and Holton have three children, Nat, Woody, and Annella.
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Todor Zhivkov
Todor Hristov Zhivkov (Bulgarian: Тодор Христов Живков); IPA: [ˈtɔdɔr ˈxristɔf ˈʒifkɔf]) (7 September 1911 – 5 August 1998) was the communist president of the People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB) from March 4, 1954 until November 10, 1989.
He became First Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1954 and remained on this position for 35 years, until 1989, thus becoming the longest-serving leader of any Eastern Bloc nation, and one of the longest ruling non-royal leaders in history. His rule marked a period of unprecedented political and economic stability for Bulgaria, marked both by complete submission of Bulgaria to Soviet rule and a desire for expanding ties with the West. His rule remained unchallenged until the deterioration of East-West relations in the 1980s, when a stagnating economic situation, a worsening international image and growing careerism and corruption in the BCP weakened his positions. He resigned on November 10, 1989, under pressure by senior BCP members due to his refusal to recognize problems and deal with public protests. Only two months later, in January 1990, the People's Republic of Bulgaria and its Communist system ceased to exist.
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Tom Pendergast
Thomas Joseph Pendergast (July 22, 1873 – January 26, 1945) controlled Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri as a political boss from approximately 1925 to 1939. "Boss Tom" Pendergast gave workers jobs and helped elect politicians, becoming wealthy in the process. He was eventually convicted of income tax evasion and served 15 months in a Federal prison.
Pendergast was a patron of the early political career of Harry S Truman, a fact that caused some controversy after Truman became Vice-President and then President.
Thomas Joseph Pendergast, also known to close friends as "TJ" was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1873. He was raised Catholic and had nine brothers and sisters. The family's name is misspelled as Pendergest in the 1880 census and is listed accordingly:
It has been claimed that Pendergast attended St. Mary's College, a boarding school for boys as young as nine and as old as eighteen, conducted by the Jesuits in St. Mary's, Kansas, but records of the school, kept in the Jesuit archives in St. Louis, disprove this claim. (St. Mary's College was not connected in any way to the girls school of the same name in Leavenworth, Kansas, conducted by the Sisters of Charity.) It is sometimes claimed that he earned a football scholarship to St. Mary's College, but that also is untrue. There were no athletic scholarships awarded at that time, and there were no intramural games.[citation needed]
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Toshiki Kaifu
Toshiki Kaifu (海部 俊樹, Kaifu Toshiki?, born 2 January 1931) is a Japanese politician who was the 76th and 77th Prime Minister of Japan from 1989 to 1991.
He was born in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture, and was educated at Chuo University and Waseda University. A member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Kaifu ran successfully for the Diet in 1960 and served for sixteen terms totaling 49 years. He was education minister before rising to lead the party after the resignations of Takeshita Noboru and Sōsuke Uno, elected on the platform of "clean leadership." Kaifu became the 76th Prime Minister of Japan in August 1989, but his faction was too small to push through the reforms Kaifu sought, and the continuing repercussions of the Sagawa Express scandal caused problems. He resigned in February 1991 and was replaced by Kiichi Miyazawa.
In 1994, he left the LDP to become head of the newly founded Shinshinto (New Frontier Party). He left Shinshinto in 1998, then returned to LDP in 2003. He was defeated in the election of 2009 by DPJ candidate Mitsunori Okamoto, which witnessed the end of almost uninterrupted LDP dominance since 1955. At the time of his defeat, he was the longest-serving member of the lower house of the Diet, and he was also the first former prime minister to be defeated at a re-election since 1963.
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Trusten Polk
Trusten Polk (May 29, 1811 – April 16, 1876) served as both the 12th Governor of Missouri in 1857 and U.S. Senator from 1857 to 1862.
Polk was born in Bridgeville, Delaware. A Democrat, he served as Governor of Missouri from January 5, 1857, until February 27 when he resigned to become a U.S. Senator. Hancock Lee Jackson succeeded him as governor until the election of Robert Marcellus Stewart.
Polk was expelled from the U.S. Senate January 10, 1862, for his support of the South in the American Civil War. He was appointed as a colonel in the Confederate States Army, and later served as a judge in the military courts of the Department of Mississippi in 1864 and 1865.
After the war, Polk was a lawyer in St. Louis, Missouri. He is buried there in Bellefontaine Cemetery.
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Tuck Milligan
Jacob Le Roy Milligan (March 9, 1889 - March 9, 1951) was a U.S. Representative from Missouri.
Born in Richmond, Missouri, Milligan attended the public schools and the law department of the University of Missouri 1910-1914.
He was admitted to the bar in 1913 and commenced practice in Richmond, Missouri, in 1914. During the First World War he enlisted in the Sixth Regiment, Missouri Infantry, on April 8, 1917. He served as captain of Company G, One Hundred and Fortieth Infantry Regiment, Thirty-fifth Division, from August 4, 1917, to May 15, 1919. He received the Purple Heart and Silver Star. He returned April 28, 1919.
Milligan was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-sixth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Joshua W. Alexander and served from February 14, 1920, to March 3, 1921. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1920 to the Sixty-seventh Congress. He served as delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1928.
Milligan was elected to the Sixty-eighth and to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1923-January 3, 1935). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1934, but was an unsuccessful candidate for nomination for United States Senator. He and fellow congressman John J. Cochran were defeated by Harry S. Truman. Jacob Milligan's brother Maurice M. Milligan challenged Truman in the Democratic primary for his reelection campaign in 1940.
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Tucker P. Smith
Tucker Powell Smith was an economics professor from Olivet, Michigan. In 1948, Smith was selected as the Socialist vice presidential candidate to run along with Norman Thomas. The 1948 Socialist ticket garnered 139,569 votes. In 1930 Tucker was the Socialist candidate for U.S. Representative from New York 2nd District. Tucker finished third of four candidates with 6,144 votes for 3.8% of the total vote.
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U Nu
U Nu (Burmese: ဦးနု; pronounced: [ʔú nṵ]; also Thakin Nu; 25 May 1907 – 14 February 1995) was a leading Burmese nationalist and political figure of the 20th century. He was the first Prime Minister of Burma under the provisions of the 1947 Constitution of the Union of Burma, from 4 January 1948 to 12 June 1956, again from 28 February 1957 to 28 October 1958, and finally from 4 April 1960 to 2 March 1962.
He was born to U San Tun and Daw Saw Khin of Wakema, Myaungmya District, British Burma. He attended Myoma High School in Yangon. In 1929 he got a B.A. from Rangoon University. In 1935 he married Mya Yi while entering the exam of LLB.
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Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th President of the United States (1869–1877) following his dominant role in the second half of the Civil War. Under Grant, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and effectively ended the war with the surrender of Robert E. Lee's army at Appomattox. As president he led the Radical Republicans in their effort to eliminate all vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery; he effectively destroyed the Ku Klux Klan in 1871. His reputation was marred by his repeated defense of corrupt appointees, and by the deep economic depression (called the "Panic of 1873") that dominated his second term. Although his Republican Party split in 1872 with reformers denouncing him, Grant was easily reelected. By 1874 the opposition was gaining strength and as he left the White House in March 1877, conservative white Southerners, as federal troops were withdrawn, regained control of every state in the South and Reconstruction ended on a note of failure as the civil rights of blacks were not secure.
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Urho Kekkonen
Urho Kaleva Kekkonen (Finnish pronunciation: [urhɔ kɑlɛʋɑ kekːɔnɛn] ( listen); 3 September 1900 - 31 August 1986), was a Finnish politician who served as Prime Minister of Finland (1950–1953, 1954–1956) and later as the eighth and longest-serving President of Finland (1956–1982). Kekkonen continued the “active neutrality” policy of his predecessor President Juho Kusti Paasikivi, a doctrine which came to be known as the “Paasikivi–Kekkonen line”. Under it, Finland retained its independence while being able to trade with both NATO members and those of the Warsaw Pact.
The son of Juho Kekkonen and Emilia Pylvänäinen, Kekkonen was born in Pielavesi, in the Savo region of Finland and spent his childhood in Kainuu. His family were farmers (though not poor tenant farmers, as some of his supporters later claimed). His father was originally a farm-hand and forestry worker who rose to become a forestry manager and stock agent at Halla Ltd. Claims made that Kekkonen's family had lived in a rudimentary farmhouse with no chimney were later proved to be false—a photograph of Kekkonen's childhood home had been retouched to remove the chimney. His school years did not go smoothly. During the Finnish Civil War, Kekkonen fought for the White Guard (Kajaani chapter), fighting in Kuopio, Varkaus, Mouhu and Viipuri, and taking part in mop-up operations, including leading a firing squad in Hamina. He later admitted to having killed a man in battle, but wrote in his memoirs that he was randomly selected by his company commander to follow a squad escorting ten prisoners, where the squad turned out to be a firing squad, and then to give the actual order to aim and fire.
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Vance C. McCormick
Vance Criswell McCormick (June 19, 1872 – June 16, 1946) was an American politician and prominent businessman from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He served as mayor of Harrisburg from 1902 to 1905 and as United States Democratic National Committee chairman from 1916 to 1919. He was appointed chair of the American delegation at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, under President Woodrow Wilson.
Vance Criswell McCormick, born in 1872 to Henry McCormick and Annie Criswell. He attended Harrisburg Academy and Phillips Andover before completing a civil engineering course at Yale University. Vance graduated from Yale's Sheffield Scientific School in 1893, and was given an honorary MA degree by the university in 1907. While at Yale he was a member of St. Anthony Hall. A born athlete and leader, he became captain of the class football and baseball teams his freshman year and was on the university football team his junior and senior years. Vance was named to Walter Camp's All American Team as the first team quarterback. He served as president of Intercollegiate Football Association his senior year and garnered other university honors and awards, as well, including class deacon. Following graduation, he visited the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to help organize their first team.
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Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist countries. The Viet Cong (also known as the National Liberation Front, or NLF), a lightly armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. The Vietnam People's Army (North Vietnamese Army) engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes.
The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. The North Vietnamese government and Viet Cong viewed the conflict as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. American military advisors arrived in what was then French Indochina beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned international borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. American involvement in the war peaked in 1968, at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were gradually withdrawn as part of a policy known as Vietnamization. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued.
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Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин; IPA: [vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪr vɫɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ ˈputʲɪn] (
listen); born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician who has been the President of Russia since 7 May 2012. Putin previously served as President from 2000 to 2008 and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000, and again from 2008 to 2012. Putin also serves as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when president Boris Yeltsin resigned in a surprising move. Putin won the 2000 presidential election; in 2004 he was re-elected for a second term lasting until 7 May 2008.
Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third consecutive presidential term. After his successor Dmitry Medvedev won the 2008 presidential election, Putin was nominated by Medvedev to be Russia's Prime Minister; Putin took office on 8 May 2008 and a period of so-called "tandemocracy" followed. In September 2011, Putin and Medvedev agreed he should seek a third, non-consecutive term in the 2012 presidential election, which he won in the first round on 4 March 2012.
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Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (Russian: Вячесла́в Миха́йлович Мо́лотов; 9 March [O.S. 25 February] 1890 – 8 November 1986) was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium (Politburo) of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev. He served as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Premier) from 1930 to 1941, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1939 to 1949 and from 1953 to 1956. Molotov served for several years as First Deputy Premier in Joseph Stalin's cabinet. He retired in 1961 after several years of obscurity.
Molotov was the principal Soviet signatory of the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939 (also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), after Britain and France repeatedly failed to join the Soviets in an anti-Nazi alliance, was involved in post-war negotiations where he became noted for his diplomatic skills, and knew of the Katyn massacre committed by the Soviet authorities. Following the aftermath of World War II (Great Patriotic War) Molotov kept his place, until 1949, as a leading Soviet diplomat and politician. In March 1949, after losing Stalin's favour, he lost the foreign affairs ministry to Andrei Vyshinsky. Molotov's relationship with Stalin deteriorated further, with Stalin complaining about Molotov's mistakes in a speech to the 19th Party Congress. However, after Stalin's death in 1953 Molotov was staunchly opposed to Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation policy. He defended his policies and the legacy of Stalin until his death in 1986, and harshly criticized Stalin's successors, especially Nikita Khrushchev.
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W. Averell Harriman
William Averell Harriman (November 15, 1891 – July 26, 1986) was an American Democratic Party politician, businessman, and diplomat. He was the son of railroad baron E. H. Harriman. He served as Secretary of Commerce under President Harry S. Truman and later as the 48th Governor of New York. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952, and again in 1956 when he was endorsed by President Truman but lost to Adlai Stevenson. Harriman served President Franklin D. Roosevelt as special envoy to Europe and served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union and U.S. Ambassador to Britain. He served in numerous U.S. diplomatic assignments in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
William Averell Harriman was born in New York City, the son of railroad baron Edward Henry Harriman and Mary Williamson Averell, and brother of E. Roland Harriman. Harriman was a close friend of Hall Roosevelt (brother of Eleanor Roosevelt).
During the summer of 1899, Harriman's father organized the Harriman Alaska Expedition, a philanthropic-scientific survey of coastal Alaska and Russia that attracted twenty-five of the leading scientific, naturalist and artist luminaries of the day, including John Muir, John Burroughs, George Bird Grinnell, C. Hart Merriam, Grove Karl Gilbert, and Edward Curtis, along with 100 family members and staff, aboard the steamship George Elder. Young Harriman would have his first introduction to Russia, a nation that he would spend a significant amount of attention on in his later life in public service.
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Waldo P. Johnson
Waldo Porter Johnson (September 16, 1817 – August 14, 1885) was a United States Senator from Missouri, and later a member of the Confederate Congress during the American Civil War.
Born in Bridgeport, Virginia, he attended public and private schools, graduated from Rector College (Pruntytown, Virginia) in 1839. He studied law and was admitted to the bar, commencing practice in Harrison County, Virginia in 1841. He moved to Osceola, Missouri in 1842 and continued the practice of law, and served in the Mexican-American War as a member of the First Missouri Regiment of Mounted Volunteers. In 1847 he was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives and was elected circuit attorney in 1848 and judge of the seventh judicial circuit in 1851. He resigned in 1852 and resumed the practice of law.
Johnson was a member of the peace convention of 1861 held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war; he was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate and served from March 17, 1861, to January 10, 1862, when he was expelled from the Senate for disloyalty to the government. He served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel of the Fourth Missouri Infantry, and was appointed a member of the Senate of the Confederate States to fill a vacancy.
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Wallis Simpson
Wallis Simpson, later the Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield; 19 June 1896 – 24 April 1986), was an American socialite whose third husband, Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom and the Dominions, abdicated his throne to marry her.
Wallis's father died shortly after her birth, and she and her widowed mother were partly supported by their wealthier relatives. Her first marriage, to U.S. naval officer Win Spencer, was punctuated with periods of separation and eventually ended in divorce. In 1934, during her second marriage to Ernest Simpson, she allegedly became the mistress of Edward, Prince of Wales. Two years later, after Edward's accession as King, Wallis divorced her second husband and Edward proposed to her.
The King's desire to marry a woman with two living ex-husbands threatened to cause a constitutional crisis in the United Kingdom and the Dominions, and ultimately led to the King's abdication in December 1936 to marry "the woman I love". After the abdication, the former king was created Duke of Windsor by his brother George VI. Edward married Wallis six months later, after which she was formally known as the Duchess of Windsor, without the style "Her Royal Highness".
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Walter Chrysler
Walter Percy Chrysler (April 2, 1875 – August 18, 1940) was an American automotive industry executive and founder of the Chrysler Corporation.
Chrysler was born in Wamego, Kansas and grew up in Ellis, Kansas. A Freemason, Chrysler began his career as a machinist and railroad mechanic.
Chrysler apprenticed in the railroad shops at Ellis as a machinist and railroad mechanic. He then spent a period of years roaming the west, working for various railroads as a roundhouse mechanic with a reputation of being good at valve-setting jobs. Some of his moves were due to restlessness and a too-quick temper, but his roaming was also a way to become more well-rounded in his railroad knowledge. He worked his way up through positions such as foreman, superintendent, division master mechanic, and general master mechanic.
From 1905-1906, Chrysler worked for the Fort Worth and Denver Railway in Childress, a West Texas city considered the "Gateway to the Texas Panhandle." He later lived and worked in Oelwein, Iowa, at the main shops of the Chicago Great Western where there is a small park dedicated to him.
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Walter Hallstein
Walter Hallstein (17 November 1901 – 29 March 1982) was a German politician and professor.
He was one of the key figures of European integration after World War II, becoming the first President of the Commission of the European Economic Community, serving from 1958 to 1967. He famously defined his position as "a kind of Prime Minister of Europe". His name is associated with the Hallstein Doctrine, a key doctrine in West German foreign policy during the Cold War.
Hallstein was born in Mainz, Germany, the son of a government building officer. He studied law in Bonn, Munich and Berlin and graduated in 1925 with a doctoral dissertation on the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles with regard to insurance policies. From 1926 he worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign Private and International Private Law in Berlin. In 1930, at the age of 28, he was appointed professor for private law and company law at the University of Rostock (Rostock), where he remained until 1941. During Nazism Hallstein was a member of National Socialist People's Welfare and national socialist professional associations for lawyers and judges. In 1941 he was appointed professor of civil law at the University of Frankfurt (Frankfurt am Main). He was also, at the same time, director of the university's Institute for Comparative Law and Commercial Law.
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Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (born January 5, 1928) is an American Democratic Party politician who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States (1977–1981) under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator from Minnesota (1964–1976). He was the Democratic Party's presidential candidate in the United States presidential election of 1984.
Mondale was born in Ceylon, Minnesota and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1951. He then served in the US Army in the Korean War before earning a law degree in 1956. He married Joan Adams in 1955. Working as a lawyer in Minneapolis, Mondale was elected to the position of attorney general in 1960. He was appointed US Senator in late 1964 as a member of the Democratic Party upon the resignation of Hubert Humphrey, and held that post until 1976. In the Senate, he supported fair housing, tax reform and the desegregation of schools.[not verified in body] He opposed United States involvement in the Vietnam War.[not verified in body]
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Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht (30 June 1893 – 1 August 1973) was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 (and then Honorary "Chairman" until his death), he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later (spending the years of Nazi rule in exile in the Soviet Union) in the early development and establishment of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). From President Wilhelm Pieck's death in 1960 he was the East German head of state until his own death in 1973.
Ulbricht was born in Leipzig, Saxony, where his father worked as a tailor. He spent eight years in primary school (Volksschule). After leaving school, he trained to be a joiner. Both his parents worked actively for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Walter Ulbricht joined the party in 1912.
Ulbricht served in World War I from 1915 to 1917 in Galicia on the Eastern Front, and in the Balkans. He deserted in 1917, as he had opposed the war from the beginning. Imprisoned in Charleroi, in 1918 he was released during the German Revolution of 1918–1919. In 1917 he became a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) after it split off from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) over support of Germany's participation in World War I. During the German Revolution he became a member of the soldier's soviet of his army corps and later a member of the KPD in 1920, joining its Central Committee in 1923. Ulbricht attended the International Lenin School of the Comintern in Moscow in 1924/1925. The electors subsequently voted him into the regional parliament of Saxony (Sächsischer Landtag) in 1926. He became a Member of the Reichstag for South Westphalia from 1928 to 1933 and served as KPD chairman in Berlin from 1929.
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Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th President of the United States (1921–1923). A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate (1899–1903), as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio (1904–1906) and as a U.S. Senator (1915–1921). He was also the first incumbent United States Senator and the first newspaper publisher to be elected President.
His conservativism, affable manner, and "make no enemies" campaign strategy made Harding the compromise choice at the 1920 Republican National Convention. During his presidential campaign, in the aftermath of World War I, he promised a return of the nation to "normalcy". This "America first" campaign encouraged industrialization and a strong economy independent of foreign influence. Harding departed from the progressive movement that had dominated Congress since President Theodore Roosevelt. In the 1920 election, he and his running mate, Calvin Coolidge, defeated Democrat and fellow Ohioan James M. Cox in the largest presidential popular vote landslide in American history (60.36% to 34.19%) since popular vote totals were first recorded in 1824.
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Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance (1955–1991), more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty between eight communist states of Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. The founding treaty was established under the initiative of the Soviet Union and signed on 14 May 1955, in Warsaw. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the regional economic organization for the communist states of Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was a Soviet military response to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955, per the Paris Pacts of 1954.
In the West, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance; abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Elsewhere, in the former member states, the Warsaw Treaty is known as:
The Warsaw Treaty’s organization was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in Warsaw, Poland. Furthermore, the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was also a First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, and the head of the Warsaw Treaty Combined Staff also was a First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces.
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Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie (/ˈwɛndl[unsupported input] ˈl[unsupported input]ɨs ˈwɪlki/; February 18, 1892 – October 8, 1944) was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and anti-business. Willkie, an internationalist, needed the votes of the large isolationist element, so he waffled on the bitterly debated issue of America's role in World War II, losing support from both sides. His opponent Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1940 election with 55% of the popular vote and 85% of the electoral vote.
Afterward, Roosevelt found Willkie to be compatible politically with his plans and brought him aboard as an informal ambassador-at-large. Willkie criss-crossed the globe on the former army bomber The Gulliver, bringing home a vision of "One World" freed from imperialism and colonialism. "One World" was Willkie's travelogue of his travels and meetings of the then-Allies heads of state, as well as ordinary citizens and soldiers in regions such as Russia and Iran. His liberalism lost him supporters in the GOP and he dropped out of the 1944 race, then died of a heart attack. He never held political office.
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Westbrook Pegler
Francis James Westbrook Pegler (August 2, 1894 – June 24, 1969) was an American journalist and writer. He was a popular columnist in the 1930s and 1940s famed for his opposition to the New Deal and labor unions. Pegler criticized every president from Herbert Hoover to FDR ("moosejaw") to Harry Truman ("a thin-lipped hater") to John F. Kennedy. He also criticized the Supreme Court, the tax system, and labor unions. In 1962, he lost his contract with King Features Syndicate, owned by the Hearst Corporation, after he started criticizing Hearst executives. His late writing appeared sporadically in publications that included the John Birch Society's American Opinion.
Pegler was born August 2, 1894, in Minneapolis, Minnesota where his father, Arthur James Pegler, was a newspaper editor.
The Roman Catholic Pegler married Julia Harpman, a onetime New York Daily News crime reporter from a Jewish family in Tennessee. Later he married his secretary Maude Wettje.
Westbrook was the youngest American war correspondent during World War I, working for United Press. He became a sports columnist after the war but soon wrote general interest articles. He moved in 1925 to the Chicago Tribune and in 1933 to the Scripps Howard syndicate, where he worked closely with his friend Roy Howard. He built up a large readership for his column 'Mister Pegler' and elicited this observation by Time magazine in its October 10, 1938 issue:
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Willard Libby
Willard Frank Libby (December 17, 1908 – September 8, 1980) was an American physical chemist noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating, a process which revolutionized archaeology.
Libby was born in Grand Valley, Colorado. He received his B.S. in 1931 and Ph.D. in 1933 in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, where he then became a lecturer and later assistant professor. Libby spent the 1930s building sensitive geiger counters to measure weak natural and artificial radioactivity. In 1941 he joined Berkeley's chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma.
Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, he spent most of 1941 at Princeton University. After the start of World War II, he worked on the Manhattan Project at Columbia University with Nobel laureate chemist Harold Urey. Libby was responsible for the gaseous diffusion separation and enrichment of the uranium-235 which was used in the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
In 1945 he became a professor at the University of Chicago. In 1954, he was appointed to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. In 1959, he became Professor of Chemistry at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a position he held until his retirement in 1976. He taught honors freshman chemistry from 1959 to 1963 (in keeping with a University tradition that senior faculty teach this class). He was Director of the University of California statewide Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) for many years including the lunar landing time. In 1966 he married his second wife Leona Woods Marshall, an original experimenter on the world's first nuclear reactor and a UCLA professor of environmental engineering. He also started the first Environmental Engineering program at UCLA in 1972.
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William A. Wheeler
William Almon Wheeler (June 30, 1819 – June 4, 1887) was a Representative from New York and the 19th Vice President of the United States (1877–1881).
Wheeler was born in Malone, New York, and attended Franklin Academy and the University of Vermont, although monetary concerns forced him to drop out without graduating. He was admitted to the bar in 1845, practiced law in Malone, and served as district attorney for Franklin County from 1846 to 1849. He became a member of the New York State Assembly in 1850 and 1851 and member of the state Senate from 1858 to 1860. He was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-seventh United States Congress (March 4, 1861 – March 4, 1863). He was President of the New York State Constitutional Convention of 1867-68, and was elected to the Forty-first and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1869 – March 4, 1877).
Wheeler was also President of the New York Northern Railroad.
When Congress voted a pay raise in 1873 and made it retroactive for five years, Wheeler not only voted against the raise, but returned his salary adjustment to the Treasury department.
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William Anders
William Alison Anders (born October 17, 1933) is a former United States Air Force officer, NASA astronaut, businessman, and engineer. He is, along with Apollo 8 crewmates Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, one of the first three persons to have left Earth orbit and traveled to the Moon (of only 24 people to date).
Anders was born to US Navy Lt. Arthur F. Anders and Muriel Adams Anders in Hong Kong and was active in the Boy Scouts of America where he achieved its second-highest rank, Life Scout. Anders attended St. Martin's Academy and Grossmont High School in La Mesa, California. He was born and raised Roman Catholic. However according to one article his outlook on religion changed profoundly after his participation in the Apollo 8 mission. He found his experience of space made a mockery of his beliefs and he gave up religion.
He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1955 and a Master of Science degree in nuclear engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, in 1962. Anders completed the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program in 1979.
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William Daniel Leahy
Fleet Admiral William Daniel Leahy (May 6, 1875 – July 20, 1959) was an American naval officer, building his reputation through administration and staff work. As Chief of Naval Operations (1937–39) he was the senior officer in Navy, overseeing the preparations for war. After retiring from the Navy he was appointed by his close friend President Franklin D. Roosevelt as Governor of Puerto Rico and, in his most controversial role, as Ambassador to Vichy France, which was an ally of Nazi Germany, 1940-42.
Leahy was recalled to active duty as the personal Chief of Staff to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 and served in that position throughout World War II, and continued under President Harry S. Truman until finally retiring in 1949. In effect, though not in title, he was the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; he also presided over the American delegation to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. In these multiple roles he was at the center of all major American military decisions in World War II. As Fleet Admiral Leahy was the first U.S. naval officer ever to hold a five-star rank in the U.S. Armed Forces.
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William F. Harrity
William Francis Harrity (b. 19 October 1850, Wilmington, Delaware – d. April 1912) was an American politician and lawyer. Harrity is most well known as chairperson of the Democratic National Committee from 1892 to 1896. He also served as Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania between 1891 through 1895.
William Francis Harrity is the son of Michael and Jane A. Harrity, natives of County Donegal, Ireland. He began his education in public schools—graduating from Clarkson Taylor's academy and St. Mary's College. In 1870, Harrity graduated at the top of his class at La Salle College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania earning a law degree. He completed one year as a tutor of Latin and mathematics at La Salle while gaining his master of arts degree. On 27 December 1873, Harrity completed the bar exam and worked as a lawyer for others and himself until 1884.
By 1882, Harrity had established himself and his law practice at 608 Chestnut St. in the Philadelphia community.and became the chairman of the City of Philadelphia's Democratic Party executive committee. His leadership attributed to the many Democratic candidates being elected at the local and state level including Robert E. Pattison as Pennsylvania Governor in 1883. His success led to an appointment a Pennsylvania delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1884 and as Postmaster General for Philadelphia between 1885 to 1889 before he retired his post to become chief executive ,and President of the Equitable Trust Company, 624 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia." Receives Deposits, Makes Loans, Executes Trusts, Insures Titles, Becomes Surety". Capital $ 1,000,000 in 1890.
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William H. Woodin
William Hartman Woodin (May 27, 1868 – May 3, 1934) was a U.S. industrialist. He served as the Secretary of Treasury under Franklin Roosevelt in 1933.
Woodin was closely involved in Jackson and Woodin Manufacturing Company. His father, Clement Woodin, preceded him in the presidency of the company and his grandfather, also named William Hartman Woodin, was an early partner in the company. Jackson & Woodin grew under this combined leadership to become the largest railroad freight car builder in the eastern United States, and was one of the 13 companies that merged in 1899 to form American Car and Foundry Company (ACF). Woodin stayed on with ACF for a while after the merger. Woodin worked up through ACF management to become president in 1916. He was a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1927 through 1932.
Woodin resigned as Secretary of the Treasury at the end of 1933 and died in May 1934.
Woodin, a Republican businessman, was a major contributor to Roosevelt's campaign in 1932. He served as Treasury Secretary from March 1933 until he resigned effective December 31, 1933. Because of his poor health, for much of his tenure, Under Secretary Dean Acheson served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury.
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William Henry Barnum
William Henry Barnum (September 17, 1818 – April 30, 1889) was a United States politician, serving as a state representative, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and finally as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He was known as Seven Mule Barnum.
Though born in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Barnum moved to Lime Rock, Connecticut and served in the state house of representatives from 1851 to 1852. He then served in the United States House of Representatives for Connecticut's 4th District from March 4, 1867 to May 18, 1876, until the death of Senator Orris S. Ferry. Barnum then became a United States Senator, serving until March 4, 1879. He was chairman of the DNC from 1877 to 1889. He died in Lime Rock on April 30, 1889 and is buried in Lime Rock Cemetery.
In addition to Barnum's political attainments — which also include defeating his third cousin, the famous showman P. T. Barnum, for Congress, and notably being the longest-serving chair of the Democratic National Committee — Barnum was a prominent industrialist. The Barnum Richardson Company, of which he was chief executive, was headquartered in Lime Rock (now a neighborhood of Lakeville) CT, was the leading company in the Salisbury iron district of that time, owning or controlling iron mines, charcoal production resources, limestone quarries, and rail transportation. Barnum Richardson Company was also the preeminent manufacturer of railroad car wheels at a time when the railroad industry held a place in the economy analogous to the computer industry today.
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William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) was the 27th President of the United States (1909–1913) and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States (1921–1930). He is the only person to have served in both of these two offices.
Before becoming President, Taft was selected to serve on the Ohio Superior Court in 1887. In 1890, Taft was appointed Solicitor General of the United States and in 1891 a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 1900, President William McKinley appointed Taft Governor-General of the Philippines. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Taft Secretary of War in an effort to groom Taft, then his close political ally, into his handpicked presidential successor. Taft assumed a prominent role in problem solving, assuming on some occasions the role of acting Secretary of State, while declining repeated offers from Roosevelt to serve on the Supreme Court.
Riding a wave of popular support for fellow Republican Roosevelt, Taft won an easy victory in his 1908 bid for the presidency.
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William J. Stone
William Joel Stone (May 7, 1848 – April 14, 1918) was a Democratic politician from Missouri who represented his state in the United States House of Representatives from 1885 to 1891, and in the U.S. Senate from 1903 until his death; he also served as the 28th Governor of Missouri from 1893 to 1897.
Stone was born near Richmond in Madison County, Kentucky on May 7, 1848, and attended Richmond's public schools as a child; he graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1867, whereupon he began the study of law. Admitted to the bar in 1869, he began practice that year in Bedford, Indiana. Soon he moved back to Columbia, where he was the city attorney for a time in 1870. Later that year he moved to Nevada, Missouri, and continued his practice, becoming the Vernon County prosecuting attorney from 1873 to1874 and was a presidential elector for the Democratic ticket in 1876.
In 1884 Stone was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served until 1891; he did not seek renomination in 1890. In his time there he served as the chairman of the Committee on War Claims. From 1893 to 1897 he served as Missouri's governor, moving to Jefferson City in 1893. Beginning in 1896 he served as a member of the Democratic National Committee, serving in this capacity until 1904; he was the committee's vice-chairman from 1900 until his departure. In 1897 Stone moved to St. Louis, where he continued his practice; he returned to Jefferson City in 1903. In 1902 he was elected to the Senate, being reelected in 1908 and serving until his death.
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William M. Boyle
William Marshall Boyle Jr. (February 2, 1903 – August 30, 1961) was a Democratic political activist from Kansas. Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1949 to 1951, he was a friend of President Harry S. Truman and is credited with engineering Truman's upset victory over Governor Thomas Dewey in the 1948 Presidential election.
Boyle was born in Leavenworth, Kansas in 1903; he became politically active as a youth. His activities came to the attention of Kansas City, Missouri political boss Thomas Pendergast, who made Boyle a precinct captain before his 21st birthday. Boyle's parents were friends of Harry and Bess Truman; when Harry Truman learned of young Boyle's political interest, the future president took him under his wing.
Boyle practiced law and served in Democratic politics in Kansas City until 1941, when he moved to Washington to take a job as counsel to a committee Senator Truman chaired. When Truman's assistant went into the Army, Boyle took the job. He helped manage Truman's 1944 Vice-presidential campaign. In 1948, he persuaded Truman to conduct a whistle stop tour of the Midwest, which won the President the states needed for his reelection.
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William McKinley
William McKinley Jr. (January 29, 1843 – September 14, 1901) was the 25th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897, until his death. McKinley led the nation to victory in the Spanish–American War, raised protective tariffs to promote American industry, and maintained the nation on the gold standard in a rejection of inflationary proposals. McKinley's administration ended with his assassination in September 1901, but his presidency began a period of over a third of a century dominated by the Republican Party.
McKinley served in the Civil War and rose from private to brevet major. After the war, he settled in Canton, Ohio, where he practiced law and married Ida Saxton. In 1876, he was elected to Congress, where he became the Republican Party's expert on the protective tariff, which he promised would bring prosperity. His 1890 McKinley Tariff was highly controversial; controversy over it, together with a Democratic redistricting aimed at gerrymanderinging him out of office, led to his defeat in the Democratic landslide of 1890. He was elected Ohio's governor in 1891 and 1893, steering a moderate course between capital and labor interests. With the aid of his close adviser Mark Hanna, he secured the Republican nomination for president in 1896, amid a deep economic depression. He defeated his Democratic rival, William Jennings Bryan, after a front-porch campaign in which he advocated "sound money" (the gold standard unless altered by international agreement) and promised that high tariffs would restore prosperity.
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William O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 – January 19, 1980) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court. In 1975, a Time article called Douglas "the most doctrinaire and committed civil libertarian ever to sit on the court."
During that time, he also established the records for the most opinions written, the most dissents written, the most speeches given, and the most books authored by any member of the Supreme Court. None of his successors has surpassed these records.
Douglas was born in Maine Township, Otter Tail County, Minnesota, the son of an itinerant Scottish Presbyterian minister from Pictou County, Nova Scotia. His family moved to California, and then to Cleveland, Washington. His father died in Portland, Oregon, in 1904, when Douglas was only six years old. After moving from town to town in the West, his mother, with three young children, settled the family in Yakima, Washington. William, like the rest of the Douglas family, worked at odd jobs to earn extra money, and a college education appeared to be unaffordable. Though not the valedictorian, Douglas did well enough in high school to earn a scholarship to Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.
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William R. King
William Rufus DeVane King (April 7, 1786 – April 18, 1853) was an American politician and diplomat. He was the 13th Vice President of the United States for about six weeks in 1853 before his death. Earlier he had been elected as a U.S. Representative from North Carolina and a Senator from Alabama. He also served as Minister to France.
A Democrat, he was a Unionist and his contemporaries considered him to be a moderate on the issues of sectionalism, slavery, and westward expansion that contributed to the American Civil War. He helped draft the Compromise of 1850. He is the only United States executive official to take the oath of office on foreign soil. King died of tuberculosis after 45 days in office. With the exceptions of John Tyler and Andrew Johnson—both of whom succeeded to the Presidency—he is the shortest-serving Vice President.
King was born in Sampson County, North Carolina, to William King and Margaret deVane. His family was large, wealthy and well-connected. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1803. Admitted to the bar in 1806 after reading the law with an established firm, he began practice in Clinton, North Carolina.
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William Shockley
William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. Along with John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, Shockley co-invented the transistor, for which all three were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new transistor design in the 1950s and 1960s led to California's "Silicon Valley" becoming a hotbed of electronics innovation. In his later life, Shockley was a professor at Stanford and became a staunch advocate of eugenics.
Shockley was born in London, England to American parents, and raised in his family's hometown of Palo Alto, California, from age three. His father, William senior, was a mining engineer who speculated in mines for a living, and spoke eight languages. His mother, Mary, grew up in the American West, graduated from Stanford University, and became the first female US Deputy mining surveyor.
He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1932. While still a student, Shockley married Iowan Jean Bailey in August 1933. In March 1934 Jean had a baby girl, Alison; she also had a son, Richard (Dick) who also became a physicist. Shockley was awarded his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1936. The title of his doctoral thesis was Electronic Bands in Sodium Chloride, and was suggested by his thesis advisor, John C. Slater. After receiving his doctorate, he joined a research group headed by Clinton Davisson at Bell Labs in New Jersey. The next few years were productive ones for Shockley. He published a number of fundamental papers on solid state physics in Physical Review. In 1938, he got his first patent, "Electron Discharge Device" on electron multipliers.
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William Westmoreland
William Childs Westmoreland (March 26, 1914 – July 18, 2005) was a United States Army General, who commanded US military operations in the Vietnam War at its peak (1964–68), during the Tet Offensive. He adopted a strategy of attrition against the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese Army. He later served as U.S. Army Chief of Staff from 1968 to 1972.
William Westmoreland was born in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, to Eugenia Talley Childs and James Ripley Westmoreland. His upper-middle-class family was involved in the local banking and textile industries. William was an Eagle Scout at Troop 1 Boy Scouts and became an Eagle Scout at the age of 15, and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and Silver Buffalo from the Boy Scouts of America as a young adult. After spending a year at The Citadel in 1932 he was appointed to attend the West Point Military Academy. His motive for entering West Point was "to see the world." He was a member of a distinguished West Point class that also included Creighton Abrams and Benjamin O. Davis Jr.. Westmoreland graduated as first captain - the highest graduating rank - and received the Pershing Sword, which is given to the most able cadet at the academy. Westmoreland also served as the Superintendent of the Protestant Sunday School Teachers. Following graduation in 1936, he became an artillery officer and served in several different commands. In World War II he saw combat in Tunisia, Sicily, France and Germany. He reached the temporary wartime rank of colonel, and on October 13, 1944, was appointed the chief of staff of the 9th Infantry Division.
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Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt (born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; German pronunciation: [ˈvɪli ˈbʁant]; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 1964–1987.
Brandt's most important legacy was Ostpolitik, a policy aimed at improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. This policy caused considerable controversy in West Germany, but won Brandt the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.
In 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.
Willy Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in the Free City of Lübeck (German Empire) to Martha Frahm, an unwed mother who worked as a cashier for a department store. His father was an accountant from Hamburg named John Möller, whom Brandt never met. As his mother worked six days a week, he was mainly brought up by his mother's stepfather Ludwig Frahm and his second wife Dora.
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Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, Hon. RA (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British Conservative politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century, he served as Prime Minister twice (1940–45 and 1951–55). A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer, and an artist. He is the only British prime minister to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.
Churchill was born into the aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer; his mother, Jenny Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Sudan, and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns.
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Wojciech Jaruzelski
Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski (pronounced [ˈvɔi̯t͡ɕɛx jaruˈzɛlskʲi] ( listen); born 6 July 1923) is a retired Polish military officer and Communist politician. He was the last Communist leader of Poland from 1981 to 1989, Prime Minister from 1981 to 1985 and the country's head of state from 1985 to 1990. He was also the last commander-in-chief of the Polish People's Army (LWP). He resigned from power after the Polish Round Table Agreement in 1989 led to democratic elections in Poland.
Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski was born on 6 July 1923 in Kurów, into a family of gentry. He was raised on the family estate near Wysokie (in the vicinity of Białystok). He was educated in a Catholic school during the 1930s.
On 1 September 1939, the September Campaign started when Poland was invaded by Germany, with the latter country aided by another invasion begun sixteen days later by the Soviet Union. The invasions resulted in the defeat of Poland by the following month, and its partition between Soviet and German control. Jaruzelski and his family fled to Lithuania and stayed with some friends there. However, a few months later, after Lithuania and the other Baltic states were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, Jaruzelski and his family were captured by the army of the Soviet Union, and deported to Siberia. In 1940 at the age of sixteen, Jaruzelski was sent to the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, where he performed forced labour in the Karaganda coal mines. During his labour work, having experienced snow blindness, developed permanent damage to his eyes and back. The damage to his eyes forced him to wear dark sunglasses most of the time, which became his trademark.
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Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. Running against Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt and Republican candidate William Howard Taft, Wilson was elected President as a Democrat in 1912.
In his first term as President, Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass major progressive reforms. Historian John M. Cooper argues that, in his first term, Wilson successfully pushed a legislative agenda that few presidents have equaled, and remained unmatched up until the New Deal. This agenda included the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission Act, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and an income tax. Child labor was curtailed by the Keating–Owen Act of 1916, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1918. He also had Congress pass the Adamson Act, which imposed an 8-hour workday for railroads. Wilson, after first sidestepping the issue, became a major advocate for the women's suffrage.
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Władysław Gomułka
Władysław Gomułka (Polish pronunciation: [vwaˈdɨswaf ɡɔˈmuwka]; 6 February 1905, Krosno – 1 September 1982, Konstancin) was a Polish Communist leader. He was the de facto leader of Poland from 1945 to 1948, and again from 1956 to 1970.
Gomułka was a member of the Communist Party of Poland (Komunistyczna Partia Polski, KPP) starting in 1926.
In 1934 Gomułka went to Moscow, where he lived for a year. Upon his return to Poland he was arrested and spent most of his time in prison until the beginning of World War II. During the war, Gomułka became an influential Polish Communist and in 1943 convinced Stalin to allow the reformation of the local Communist party under the name Polish Workers' Party (Polska Partia Robotnicza). He was a Deputy Prime Minister in the Provisional Government of Republic of Poland - Rząd Tymczasowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, from January to June 1945, and in the Provisional Government of National Unity (Tymczasowy Rząd Jedności Narodowej), from 1945 to 1947. Using his position in the government, he crushed all meaningful resistance to the Communists. He also helped the Communists in winning the 3 x Tak (3 Times Yes) referendum of 1946. A year later, he played a key role in the 1947 parliamentary elections, which saw the Communists and their allies win an overwhelming majority. It later emerged that the Communists had only won both of these votes through massive fraud.
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Xenophon P. Wilfley
Xenophon Pierce Wilfley (pronounced /ˈzɛnəfɒn ˈwɪlfliː/; March 18, 1871 – May 4, 1931) was a Democratic Party politician who represented the state of Missouri in the U.S. Senate for five months in 1918.
Wilfley was born near Mexico, Missouri, and attended local country schools in his youth. An 1891 graduate of Clarksburg College, he graduated from Central Methodist College in Fayette, Missouri in 1894, teaching there for one year and at Sedalia High School in Sedalia, Missouri, for three. In 1899 he graduated from Washington University law school and began the practice of law in St. Louis. From 1917 to 1918 he was the chairman of the city's board of election commissioners; in 1918 he was appointed to the Senate as a Democrat to fill out the term of William J. Stone, who had died on April 14, 1918. Wilfley served from April 30 to November 5, and was the chairman of the Committee on Industrial Expositions. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat, being defeated by Joseph Folk, who in turn lost to Republican Selden P. Spencer in November. After leaving the Senate, Wilfley resumed the practice of law, becoming president of the Missouri Bar Association in 1925. He died in St. Louis and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.
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Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini (Arabic: محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني; 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat (Arabic: ياسر عرفات) or by his kunya Abu Ammar (Arabic: أبو عمار, 'Abū `Ammār), was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and leader of the Fatah political party, which he founded in 1959. Arafat spent much of his life fighting against Israel in the name of Palestinian self-determination. Originally opposed to Israel's existence, he modified his position in 1988 when he accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242. Arafat and his movement operated from several Arab countries. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Fatah faced off with Jordan in a brief civil war. Forced out of Jordan and into Lebanon, Arafat and Fatah were major targets of Israel's 1978 and 1982 invasions of that country.
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Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin (help·info) (Hebrew: יִצְחָק רַבִּין IPA: [jitsˈχak ʁaˈbin]; March 1, 1922 – November 4, 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995.
In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat. He was assassinated by right-wing Israeli radical Yigal Amir, who was opposed to Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords. Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel, the only prime minister to be assassinated and the second to die in office after Levi Eshkol.
Rabin was born in Jerusalem, British Mandate of Palestine to Nehemiah and Rosa (née Cohen), two immigrants of the Third Aliyah, the third wave of Jewish immigration to Israel from Europe. Nehemiah Rubitzov was born in the Ukrainian village Sydorovychi near Ivankiv in 1886. His father died when he was a child, and he worked to support his family from a young age. At the age of 18, he emigrated to the United States, where he joined the Poale Zion party and changed his surname to Rabin. In 1917, Nehemiah went to the British Mandate of Palestine with a group of volunteers from the Jewish Legion.
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Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (Russian: Ю́рий Влади́мирович Андро́пов, tr. Yuriy Vladimirovich Andropov; IPA: [ˈjʉrʲɪj vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ ɐnˈdropəf]; 15 June [O.S. 2 June] 1914 – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.
Andropov was the son of a railway official Vladimir Konstantinovich Andropov, who was a member of a Don Cossack noble family. His mother was Yevgenia Karlovna Fleckenstein, a daughter of a wealthy Moscow businessman, Karl Franzovich Fleckenstein, a German Russian from Vyborg. Andropov was educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College.
Andropov joined the Komsomol in 1930. He became a member of the Communist Party in 1939 and was First Secretary of the Central Committee of Komsomol in the Soviet Karelo-Finnish Republic from 1940 to 1944.
During World War II, Andropov took part in partisan guerrilla activities in Finland. From 1944 onwards, he left Komsomol for Communist Party work. In 1947, he was elected Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR.
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Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was the 12th President of the United States (1849–1850) and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass. He was a planter and slaveholder based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Known as "Old Rough and Ready," Taylor had a 40-year military career in the United States Army, serving in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, and the Second Seminole War. He achieved fame leading American troops to victory in the Battle of Palo Alto and the Battle of Monterrey during the Mexican–American War.
As president, Taylor angered many Southerners by taking a moderate stance on the issue of slavery. He urged settlers in New Mexico and California to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood, setting the stage for the Compromise of 1850.
Taylor died July 9, 1850, 16 months after his inauguration; the third-shortest tenure of any President. He is thought to have died of gastroenteritis. President Taylor was succeeded by his Vice President, Millard Fillmore.
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Zhao Ziyang
Zhao Ziyang (pronounced [tʂɑ̂ʊ tsɨ̀jɑ̌ŋ]; 17 October 1919 – 17 January 2005) was a high-ranking politician in the People's Republic of China (PRC). He was the third Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1987 to 1989.
As a senior government official, Zhao was critical of Maoist policies and instrumental in implementing free-market reforms, first in Sichuan, subsequently nationwide. He emerged on the national scene due to support from Deng Xiaoping after the Cultural Revolution. He also sought measures to streamline the bureaucracy and fight corruption, which was severely affecting the Party's legitimacy in the 1980s. Zhao Ziyang was also an advocate of the privatization of state-owned enterprises, the separation of the Party and the state, and general market economic reforms. Many of these views were shared by then-General Secretary Hu Yaobang.
His economic reform policies and sympathies to student demonstrators during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 placed him at odds with some members of the party leadership, including Premier Li Peng. Zhao also began to lose favour with paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. In the aftermath of the events, Zhao was purged politically and effectively placed under house arrest for the next 15 years. He died in Beijing in 2005, but because of his political fall from grace he was not given the funeral rites generally accorded to senior Chinese officials.
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Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (pinyin: Zhōu Ēnlái; Wade-Giles: Chou En-lai; IPA: [tʂóʊ ə́nlǎɪ]; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Mao Zedong and was instrumental in consolidating the control of the Communist Party's rise to power, forming foreign policy, and developing the Chinese economy.
A skilled and able diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. Advocating peaceful coexistence with the West after the stalemated Korean War, he participated in the 1954 Geneva Conference and helped orchestrate Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China. He helped devise policies regarding the bitter disputes with the U.S., Taiwan, the Soviet Union (after 1960), India and Vietnam. Zhou is best known as the long-time top aide to Mao Zedong, specializing in foreign policy. Their contrasting personalities made them an effective team, according to Henry Kissinger, the American diplomat who had extensive dealings with both men:
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Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Urdu: ذوالفقار علی بھٹو, Sindhi: ذوالفقار علي ڀُٽو, IPA: [zʊlfɪqɑːɾ ɑli bʱʊʈːoː]) (5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979) was 9th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977, and prior to that, 4th President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973. Bhutto was the founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and served as its chairman until his execution in 1979. His elder daughter, Benazir Bhutto, later also served as Prime Minister, while his son Murtaza Bhutto served as member of Parliament of Pakistan.
Educated at the University of Southern California and University of California, Berkeley in the United States and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, Bhutto was noted for his progressive economic initiatives, industrialisation, education, and foreign policy, and his intellectualism. In addition to national security issues, Bhutto promoted his policies on nationalisation, health care, and social reforms. Under his premiership, Pakistan's Parliament gave approval and passed unanimously the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan, a supreme law that provides a parliamentary system to Pakistan, strengthened Sino-Pakistani and Saudi-Pakistani relations, recognised East-Pakistan as Bangladesh, and hosted the second Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1974 where he delegated and invited leaders from the Muslim world to Lahore, Punjab Province of Pakistan. In July 1972, Bhutto successfully proceeded the Shimla treaty, signed with Indira Gandhi of India, brought 93,000 Prisoners of War back to Pakistan, and secured 5,000 sq mi (13,000 km2) held by India. In 20 January 1972, weeks after the Indo-Pakistani 1971 winter war, Bhutto orchestrated, authorised, and administrated the scientific research on nuclear weapons; for this, he is colloquially known in the world as "Father of the Pakistan's nuclear deterrent programme".
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Álvaro Cunhal
Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, who used the name Álvaro Cunhal (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈaɫvɐɾu kuˈɲaɫ]; Sé Nova, Coimbra, 10 November 1913 — Lisbon, 13 June 2005), was a Portuguese politician. He was one of the major opponents of the dictatorial regime of Estado Novo. He served as secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) from 1961 to 1992. He was one of the most pro-Soviet of all western Europe communist leaders, often supporting USSR world policies, including the intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Cunhal was born in Coimbra, the third child of Avelino Henriques da Costa Cunhal (Seia, Seia, October 28, 1887 – Coimbra, Sé Nova, December 19, 1966) and wife (m. Coimbra, Sé Nova, August 22, 1908) Mercedes Simões Ferreira Barreirinhas (Coimbra, Sé Nova, May 5, 1888 – Lisbon, September 12, 1971). His father was a lawyer in Coimbra and Seia, and later on in Lisbon, and came from a family of rural bourgeoisie, related to a rich and more aristocratic family, the Cunhal Patrício. His mother was a devout Catholic who wished her son had also become one. He also studied Law at the University of Lisbon, where he joined the PCP, then an illegal organization, in 1931. The deaths of his younger sister Maria Mansueta Barrerinhas Cunhal (Coimbra – Seia, January 13, 1921) and of his older brother António José Barreirinhas Cunhal (Coimbra, 1910 – Lisbon, 1932) struck the grief of both his parents and brothers, but specially of his mother and Álvaro, of whom they had always been close. He visited the Soviet Union for the first time in 1935 to attend the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in Moscow. He joined the Central Committee of the PCP in 1936 at the age of 24. His first arrest occurred in 1937.
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Truman, Harry S. Filmography
- Hubert H Humphrey: The Art of the Possible (2010)
- The Flying Scissors (2009)
- I Know What I Saw (2009)
- Crime Wave: 18 Months of Mayhem (2008)
- Superpower (2008)
- History of the National Security State (2008)
- A President to Remember (2008)
- White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (2007)
- Pride Against Prejudice: The Larry Doby Story (2007)
- Nuremberg: A Vision Restored (2007)
- Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles (2005)
- X Day: The Invasion of Japan (2005)
- Hiroshima (2005)
- Why We Fight (2005)
- The Presidents (2005)
- Inside the U.S. Secret Service (2004)
- Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic (2004)
- The Doomsday Clock (2004)
- The Conscientious Objector (2004)
- Strip Search (2004)
- Yalta: Peace, Power and Betrayal (2003)
- The Corporation (2003)
- UFO Invasion at Rendlesham (2003)
- The Burning Wall (2002)
- Out of the Blue (2002)
- Roots of the Cuban Missile Crisis (2001)
- Korean War Stories (2001)
- War Crimes and Trials (2001)
- The 20th Century: A Moving Visual History (1999)
- The Second World War in Colour (1999)
- The Korean War: Fire and Ice (1999)
- ABC 2000: The Millennium (1999)
- Dynasty: The Nehru-Gandhi Story (1998)
- Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream (1998)
- Secrets of the CIA (1998)
- Our Time in Hell: The Korean War (1997)
- The Wall (1997)
- The Speeches of Malcolm X (1997)
- The Long Way Home (1997)
- On the Brink: Doomsday (1997)
- 100 Years of Olympic Glory (1996)
- Bob Hope: Laughing with the Presidents (1996)
- Gore Vidal's American Presidency (1996)
- The Churchills (1996)
- Nuremberg: Tyranny on Trial (1995)
- Enola Gay and the Atomic Bombing of Japan (1995)
- The Last Days of World War II (1995)
- Nixon (1995)
- Blood & Iron: The Story of the German War Machine (1995)
- Truman (1995)
- Hiroshima (1995)
- Xie rou chang cheng (1995)
- Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped (1995)
- The Speeches of Harry S. Truman (1995)
- The Century of Warfare (1994)
- One on One: Classic Television Interviews (1993)
- Stalking the President: A History of American Assassins (1992)
- Portraits of Presidents: Presidents of a World Power (1901-) (1992)
- Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (1991)
- The Complete Churchill (1991)
- The Speeches Collection: John F. Kennedy (1990)
- Bye Bye Blues (1989)
- 11-22-63: The Day the Nation Cried (1989)
- Kinkyû UFO genchi shuzai tokuhô: Bei seifu ga uchûjin to kôshiki kaiken! Kyôfu no himitsu kyôtei wo musundeita!? (1989)
- The Speeches of Winston Churchill (1988)
- The 1940's: Music, Memories & Milestones (1988)
- The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis (1987)
- Korea: The Forgotten War (1987)
- Inside the CIA (1987)
- Backstage at the Whitehouse (1985)
- Seeing Red (1983)
- If You Love This Planet (1982)
- The Atomic Cafe (1982)
- The Day After Trinity (1981)
- Canciones para después de una guerra (1976)
- McCarthy: Death of a Witch Hunter (1975)
- Brother Can You Spare a Dime (1975)
- Follow Me, Boys! (1966)
- A Trip Down Memory Lane (1965)
- Franco: ese hombre (1964)
- Four Days in November (1964)
- Decision: The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman (1964)
- The Victors (1963)
- The Clouded Dawn (1962)
- Committee on UnAmerican Activities (1962)
- It's Always Fair Weather (1955)
- Bis fünf nach zwölf - Adolf Hitler und das 3. Reich (1953)
- Battle for China (1953)
- The Hoaxters (1952)
- Uppdrag i Korea (1951)
- Red Cross Fund Program (1951)
- Go for Broke! (1951)
- Näin syntyi nykypäivä 1900-1950 (1951)
- My Country 'Tis of Thee (1950)
- Fifty Years Before Your Eyes (1950)
- Universal Newsreel (1945)
- Hitler Lives (1945)
Truman, Harry Filmography
- The Special Relationship (2010)
- Landslide: A Portrait of President Herbert Hoover (2009)
- Up from the Ashes (1990)
karaoke
what the - what the - what the - ow
smoke my guns - i kill your peoples
i said "i'll do it sir"
smoke my crack - i kill your babies
he said "i'll do it sir"
every single day i got the white man working for me
harry truman
every single day i got the white man working for me
harry truman
shuffle the deck for me baby
shuffle the deck for me man
am i crazy - am i crazy - totally insane
John Wayne was always bald
And he had a woman's name
Valentino was a momma's boy
He cried in his tent all night long
And Harry Truman finally dropped the bomb
So they could go to sleep at night
So they could go to sleep at night
I got a plaque up on the wall
And an office in the sky
I give birth to major deals
Lookin' down on the passersby
I pass the torch, I follow the code
I'm steerin' straight ahead, I don't stray from the road
To be a warrior with a king
To put your hand in the flame without burning
And go to sleep at night
And go to sleep at night
And go to sleep at night
John Wayne was always bald
And he had a woman's name
Valentino was a momma's boy
I cried in my tent all night long
And Harry Truman finally dropped the bomb3
So I could go to sleep at night
So I could go to sleep at night
Now, go to sleep...
America needs you
Harry Truman
Harry could you please come home?
Things are lookin' bad
I know you would be mad
To see your favorite men
Prevail upon the land you love
America's wondering
How we got here
Harry all we get is lies
We're gettin' safer cars
Rocket ships to mars
From men who'd sell us out
To get themselves a piece of power
We'd love to hear you speak your mind
In plain and simple ways
Call a spade a spade
Just like you did back in the days
You would play piano
Each mornin' walk a mile
Speak of what was goin' down
With honesty and style
America's calling
Harry Truman
Harry you know what to do
The world is turnin' round and losin' lots of ground
Oh Harry is there somethin'
We can do to save the land we love?
Oh whoa whoa whoa
America's calling
Harry Truman
Harry you know what to do
The world is turnin' 'round
And losin' lots of ground
Harry is there somethin'
We can do to save the land we love
Oh, Harry is there somethin'
We can do to save the land we love
Harry
Harry is there somethin'
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Harry Truman in Philadelphia 1948
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:43
- Updated: 08 Nov 2012
Harry gives the Republicans hell in Philadelphia at the Democratic Convention in 1948.
http://wn.com/Harry_Truman_in_Philadelphia_1948
President Truman 1949 Inauguration
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 17:55
- Updated: 10 Nov 2012
www.c-spanarchives.org Newsreel footage of President Truman's first inaugural address on January 20, 1949.
http://wn.com/President_Truman_1949_Inauguration
Biography of Harry S. Truman: Atomic Bombs, Communism, Korean War
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:52
- Updated: 14 Nov 2012
The buck stopped with him. www.WatchMojo.com learns more about the life and accomplishments of the 33rd President of the United States, Harry S. Truman.
http://wn.com/Biography_of_Harry_S_Truman_Atomic_Bombs,_Communism,_Korean_War
Death of Harry S. Truman
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:22
- Updated: 21 Nov 2012
As reported when the former President died in 1972.
http://wn.com/Death_of_Harry_S_Truman
Harry Truman: The Upset
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:12
- Updated: 09 Nov 2012
Everybody thought Harry would lose except Harry. Narrated by Jason Robards.
http://wn.com/Harry_Truman_The_Upset
Truman Warns Japs To Give Up 1945/06/07
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:42
- Updated: 26 Nov 2012
"In a speech to Congress, President states that Japan faces the same complete destruction that was visited upon Germany. To that end, millions of troops, and their implements of war, are being transferred more than half way around the earth. The President adds that though many key industries have already been leveled by US air attack, all of Japan's industries will be completely destroyed unless Japan surrenders." (partial newsreel)
http://wn.com/Truman_Warns_Japs_To_Give_Up_1945_06_07
David Brinkley on playing poker with Harry Truman and WInston Churchill- EMMYTVLEGENDS
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:00
- Updated: 07 Nov 2012
Full interview at www.emmytvlegends.org
http://wn.com/David_Brinkley_on_playing_poker_with_Harry_Truman_and_WInston_Churchill_EMMYTVLEGENDS
LYNDON JOHNSON TAPES: Harry Truman over for Lunch
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:07
- Updated: 20 Nov 2012
Harry S Truman & LBJ April 1964 (WH 6404_12 3128) White House Telephone President Lyndon Johnson invites President Harry S. Truman over for lunch and a couple of drinks. The conversation begins with Truman talking to the White House operator. After a pause, the two presidents speak. Truman had called to let Johnson know that he had arrived back in Washington after representing Johnson and the United States at the funeral of the King of Greece. (Photo: Presidents Lyndon Baines Johnson and Harry Truman (Vice President Hubert Humphrey is to the right).)
http://wn.com/LYNDON_JOHNSON_TAPES_Harry_Truman_over_for_Lunch
CHICAGO- HARRY TRUMAN
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:06
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
WELCOME TO RADIO ALY! Now Playing- 'Harry Truman" by Chicago from the album Chicago VIII...
http://wn.com/CHICAGO_HARRY_TRUMAN
Harry Truman - hypocrisy World Peace Speech
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:32
- Updated: 10 Oct 2012
Harry Truman - hypocrisy World Peace Speech. Hypocrisy!... Why? Find out here: www.truthdig.com
http://wn.com/Harry_Truman_hypocrisy_World_Peace_Speech
Harry Truman Outtakes
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:34
- Updated: 21 Nov 2012
In 2003, KMBC's Micheal Mahoney reported on the Truman Library's release of outtakes taken during the filming of a documentary film series in the 1960s. On The Web: www.trumanlibrary.org
http://wn.com/Harry_Truman_Outtakes
Harry Truman Decision Series Outtakes: Stalin
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:28
- Updated: 11 Apr 2012
Late in 1964, Harry Truman began appearing in a TV series called "Decision: The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman." Twenty-six episodes aired in which Truman talked at length about his life and presidency. Here, Truman discusses his relationship with the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
http://wn.com/Harry_Truman_Decision_Series_Outtakes_Stalin
Harry Truman announces victory over Germany WWII
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:31
- Updated: 18 Nov 2012
Truman announces end of WWII and defeat of German forces. Discusses freed Europe, unification and victory of the west., www.myfootage.com
http://wn.com/Harry_Truman_announces_victory_over_Germany_WWII
Harry S. Truman — Homecoming
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:10
- Updated: 06 Nov 2012
There was a bit of scandal between Harry S. Truman and the newly-minted President Eisenhower as Harry left the White House. But from the Washington, DC, train station, all the way back to Independence, Missouri, Harry was greeted with the smiling faces of grateful Americans. At the end, Harry and Bess stand side by side as Harry addresses the Missourians who came to pay their respects. Transcript (PDF): archives.gov Read the letters between Harry and Bess side-by-side for the first time in the new issue of Prologue Magazine, available for purchase soon at bookstores in Washington, DC, or online at www.scribd.com Footage provided courtesy of Columbia Pictures' 1964 "Decision: The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman."
http://wn.com/Harry_S_Truman_—_Homecoming
May 18 Mt St Helen's HARRY TRUMAN Tribute
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:05
- Updated: 12 Nov 2012
I said good bye to a great 20th century American character, Harry Truman of Spirit Lake Washington. I took the last photos from the lake and was the fisrt tv crew in the air on the day the mountain roared to life.
http://wn.com/May_18_Mt_St_Helen's_HARRY_TRUMAN_Tribute
Nationalist Party Assassination Attempt on President Truman
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:50
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Puerto Rican Nationalist Party assassination attempt on President Truman during the 1950's. Independence defenders jailed for attacking Puerto Rico 1898 invaders.
http://wn.com/Nationalist_Party_Assassination_Attempt_on_President_Truman
Reagan Campaigns for Truman in 1948
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:13
- Updated: 30 Oct 2012
Ronald Reagan - then a liberal Democrat - campaigns on the radio for President Truman in 1948. He also supports Hubert Humphrey for Senator from Minnesota and opposes the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 which had been passed by the Republican congress over Truman's veto.
http://wn.com/Reagan_Campaigns_for_Truman_in_1948
Harry S. Truman — The Lobster Story
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:59
- Updated: 22 Oct 2012
In this vintage footage from Columbia Pictures' 1964 "Decision: The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman," Harry relates a story about the first political speech he ever heard involving a lobster and a bowl of soup. Transcript (PDF): www.archives.gov
http://wn.com/Harry_S_Truman_—_The_Lobster_Story
President Truman reads the Japanese Surrender 1945
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:08
- Updated: 08 Nov 2012
Japanese Surrender 1945 WW2 President Truman reads the Japanese Surrender 1945
http://wn.com/President_Truman_reads_the_Japanese_Surrender_1945
WWII President Truman warned Japan to surrender
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:43
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
President Truman warned Japan to surrender WWII American President states that Japan faces the same complete destruction that was visited upon Germany. To that end, millions of troops, and their implements of war, are being transferred more than half way around the earth. The President adds that though many key industries have already been leveled by US air attack, all of Japan's industries will be completely destroyed unless Japan surrenders."
http://wn.com/WWII_President_Truman_warned_Japan_to_surrender
Harry Truman by Headgear
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:13
- Updated: 20 Oct 2012
Promo Video for the song 'Harry Truman' by Irish act Headgear directed by Eugene O'Connor.
http://wn.com/Harry_Truman_by_Headgear
Disney The American Presidents: Harry S. Truman
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:45
- Updated: 25 Nov 2012
American history is so much more than dates and documents — it's the dynamic story of the real men and women, immigrants and Native Americans, who together built our country. Disney's The American Presidents is a fresh and relevant narrative (developed with a former producer of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report) about the men who led this country through change and the lives they affected, from an early idea of democracy, to our first African American President. Each DVD includes short-form Presidential biographies, era overviews for historical context, and thematic segments such as The Making of the Presidency and We the People. The DVD content is based on National Curriculum Standards and features interviews with political luminaries such as Sam Donaldson, Wesley Clark, Paul Begala, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, and many more. Try the interactive whiteboard content on every DVD — it's an exciting, competitive game that uses video clips, photographs and quotes to test students' understanding of the Presidents, their political positions, and why they matter in the American story. www.dep-store.com For more information, go to www.DisneyEducation.com.
http://wn.com/Disney_The_American_Presidents_Harry_S_Truman
The War Ends In Europe (1945)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:42
- Updated: 26 Nov 2012
National Archives and Records Administration - ARC 38936, LI 208-UN-29A - Series: Motion Picture Films from "United News" Newsreels, compiled 1942 - 1945. Crowds in Times Square celebrate news of VE Day and people pray in churches. Pres. Truman announces the German surrender. US and Russian troops meet at the Elbe. Shows Gen. Emil Reinhardt. Shows scenes of Nazi headquarters in Nuremberg.
http://wn.com/The_War_Ends_In_Europe_1945
photo: AP / Jerome Delay
27 Nov 2012
M23 rebels controlling the eastern city of Goma in the DR Congo have said they are not about to withdraw as demanded by regional leaders. The rebels said on Tuesday there were still in charge of Goma, just hours after General Aronda Nyakairima, the head of the Ugandan military, was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying that their leader, Sultani Makenga, had told him he would pull out of Goma and Sake....(size: 17.7Kb)
photo: AP / Henry Griffin
26 Nov 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling "In our opinion and from our experience," declared John Kerry in 1971, "there is nothing in South Vietnam which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom..is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy..." ... The U.S....(size: 6.4Kb)
photo: UN / Jan Golinski
27 Nov 2012
Permafrost covers nearly a quarter of the northern hemisphere. Photograph: Francis Latreille/Corbis
The United Nations sounded a stark warning on the threat to the climate from methane in the thawing permafrost as governments met for the second day of climate change negotiations in Doha, Qatar. ... The next IPCC report will be published in several parts from next year. ... The talks will continue until the end of next week. ....(size: 5.3Kb)
photo: AP / George Osodi
25 Nov 2012
Twin suicide car bombs exploded Sunday at a church inside one of Nigeria's top military bases, killing at least 11 people and wounding another 30 in an embarrassing attack showing the continued insecurity that haunts Africa's most populous nation. ... This attack in Jaji on Sunday, however, happened inside a barracks home to the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, one of the country's most important military colleges. ... Gen. ... ....(size: 4.1Kb)
photo: AP
26 Nov 2012
This town of 19,000 nestled in an idyllic mountain pass of impossibly green pastures and golden autumn trees is on the front lines of Turkey's rapidly escalating guerrilla war. In a struggle for autonomy as well as independent language and education rights, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has waged a low-grade conflict in Turkey for decades. ... 4 just as a Turkish army tank rolled by. ... "The violence is getting worse....(size: 8.8Kb)
The Examiner
28 Nov 2012
The Los Angeles Times
28 Nov 2012
The U.S. Navy's new bat-winged experimental drone has been delivered to an aircraft carrier to undergo handling tests aboard the ship. The Navy said that sailors aboard the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman took delivery of the drone Monday from Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland, where it had been undergoing tests. Truman is the first aircraft carrier to conduct test operations for an unmanned aircraft. ... 11/27/2012, 4:54 p.m....(size: 31.0Kb)
The Star
28 Nov 2012
Although Beijing controls the pace at which the yuan can rise, the U.S. ... It has been 18 years since the U.S. Treasury has designated any country a manipulator. ... Ted Truman, a Treasury official under former President Bill Clinton, said it was important to keep a watchful eye on China's currency policy. "We have the aftermath of 10 years of misbehaviour," said Truman, who is now with the Peterson Institute for International Economics. ... ....(size: 4.6Kb)
Reuters
28 Nov 2012
* Yuan up 12.6 pct in real terms vs dollar since June 2010
* U.S. ... Although Beijing controls the pace at which the yuan can
rise, the U.S. ... Ted Truman, a Treasury official under former President Bill
Clinton, said it was important to keep a watchful eye on China's
currency policy. "We have the aftermath of 10 years of misbehavior," said
Truman, who is now with the Peterson Institute for International
Economics. ... During the U.S. ... Many U.S. ... ....(size: 4.8Kb)
Antiwar
28 Nov 2012
peace deal with North Vietnam, because he promised to give them
a better deal after he won the election. A peace deal ending the
Vietnam War would have been a big boost to Humphrey. ... Gregory D. ... Thus, such efforts are merely a
continuation of the president’s spurious constitutional
claim — first used by Harry Truman in the Korean War — that the
executive can take the country into an offensive war without congressional
approval....(size: 8.6Kb)
Antiwar
28 Nov 2012
I wanted to
like Oliver Stone’s new documentary, The Untold History
of the United States, really I did. ... I should have known
better. ... Stone cites, with clear disapproval, none other than Harry
Truman wishing aloud that the Nazis and Soviets would kill each
other off. I didn’t know Truman ever said that, but such
sentiment was even more clearly expressed by such conservative
opponents of FDR as Col. Robert R....(size: 17.2Kb)
Celebrity Café
28 Nov 2012
If you were wondering what else Neil Patrick Harris could possibly do, then add a web series with puppets to the list. Harris teamed up with Nerdist and Chris Hardwick to create Neil's Puppet Dreams, which premiered Tuesday. ... And although there are puppets, Harris says it's more PG-13 than family friendly. ... Harris revealed he always planned on having Burtka be part of the project....(size: 2.0Kb)
my SA
28 Nov 2012
Larry Harris, a founder of the Mason Dixon Polling & Research firm, testified about polling done in three property-wealthy school districts for the Texas School Coalition, which is one of six groups involved in a lawsuit against the state. ... That is nearly insurmountable,” Harris told Lacy Lawrence, an attorney for the Texas School Coalition, which represents mostly property-wealthy schools....(size: 5.1Kb)
The Charlotte Observer
28 Nov 2012
Lincoln Harris wanted to build a Walgreens and an office building, which would have required the demolition of several buildings, including a Tudor-style apartment building from the 1920s. ... Walter Fields, a prominent land-use attorney who represented Lincoln Harris, said the neighborhoodâs organization was important. ... Lincoln Harris is one of the cityâs most prominent developers....(size: 7.2Kb)
LA Daily News
28 Nov 2012
The last of the Black Friday victims have been sutured up and are back in action at the malls. ... Just like last year and the year before that. ... Bean, Harry & David, Brookstone, Hammacher Schlemmer, The Vermont Country Store, Signals, Mrs. Beasley's, Wireless, Harry & David, Harry & David and Restoration Hardware. Wait, I just found another Harry & David....(size: 1.7Kb)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
28 Nov 2012
"We are absolutely going to court," Mr. ... Council President Darlene Harris and Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak, who in September introduced legislation authorizing the billboard tax, said they're looking out for a struggling city and its 300,000 residents. ... Rudiak said. ... Harris and Ms. Rudiak for sponsoring a measure that, Mr. ... On Monday, Mr. ... Harris said many pieces of legislation invite legal challenges. ... Harris said....(size: 2.3Kb)
The Himalayan
28 Nov 2012
He is the main accused in the grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka in 2004, where 24 people died. ... There was an Interpol red corner notice for him. ... They arrested nearly a dozen of them, including dreaded criminals like Tanvirul Islam Joy and Harris Ahmed Harris. ... But like Joy and Harris, he was also released after a few months and fled to Nepal. ... Joy is now in Canada and Harris is reportedly in Italy. ... ....(size: 4.7Kb)
The Examiner
28 Nov 2012
Announcer: Harry Von Zell. ... Writers: Fred Allen, Harry Tugend. ... Cast: Mary Livingstone, Eddie Anderson, Phil Harris, Kenny Baker. ... Music: Phil Harris and his Orchestra, Kenny Baker. ... Music: Walter Scharf, Phil Harris Orchestra. ... Additional cast: Virginia Gregg, Harry Bartell....(size: 10.6Kb)
This article is about the United States president. For other uses of the name, see Harry Truman (disambiguation).
| Harry S. Truman | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 33rd President of the United States | |
| In office April 12, 1945 – January 20, 1953 |
|
| Vice President | None (1945-1949) Alben W. Barkley (1949-1953) |
| Preceded by | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
| Succeeded by | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| 34th Vice President of the United States | |
| In office January 20, 1945 – April 12, 1945 |
|
| President | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
| Preceded by | Henry A. Wallace |
| Succeeded by | Alben W. Barkley |
| United States Senator from Missouri |
|
| In office January 3, 1935 – January 17, 1945 |
|
| Preceded by | Roscoe Patterson |
| Succeeded by | Frank Briggs |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1884-05-08)May 8, 1884 Lamar, Missouri, U.S. |
| Died | December 26, 1972(1972-12-26) (aged 88) Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Bess Wallace |
| Children | Margaret |
| Profession | Haberdasher Farmer |
| Religion | Southern Baptist[1] |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Service/branch | Missouri National Guard United States Army United States Army Reserve |
| Years of service | 1905–1911 1917–1919 1920–1953 (Reserve) |
| Rank | Major Colonel (Reserve) |
| Commands | Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, 60th Brigade, 35th Infantry Division |
| Battles/wars | World War I • Western Front |
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953). As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States (1945), he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his unprecedented fourth term.
During World War I, Truman served in combat in France as an artillery officer in his National Guard unit. After the war, he joined the Democratic Party political machine of Tom Pendergast in Kansas City, Missouri. He was elected a county official and in 1934 United States senator. After he had gained national prominence as head of the wartime Truman Committee, Truman replaced vice president Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944.
Truman faced many challenges in domestic affairs. The disorderly postwar reconversion of the economy of the United States was marked by severe shortages, numerous strikes, and the passage of the Taft–Hartley Act over his veto. He confounded all predictions to win election in 1948, helped by his famous Whistle Stop Tour of rural America. After his election, he passed only one of the proposals in his liberal Fair Deal program. He used executive orders to end racial discrimination in the armed forces and created loyalty checks that dismissed thousands of communist supporters from office.
Truman's presidency was also eventful in foreign affairs, with the defeat of Nazi Germany and his decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan, the founding of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Truman Doctrine to contain communism, the beginning of the Cold War, the Berlin Airlift, the creation of NATO, the Chinese Civil War, and the Korean War. Corruption in Truman's administration, which was linked to certain members in the cabinet and senior White House staff, was a central issue in the 1952 presidential campaign and helped cause Adlai Stevenson, Truman's successor for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, to lose to Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential election.
Truman, in sharp contrast to the imperious Roosevelt who kept personal control of all major decisions, was a folksy, unassuming president who relied on his cabinet. He popularized such phrases as "The buck stops here" and "If you can't stand the heat, you better get out of the kitchen."[2] His approval ratings in the polls started out very high, then steadily sank until he was one of the most unpopular men to leave the White House.[3][4] Popular and scholarly assessments of his presidency eventually became more positive after his retirement from politics. Truman's legendary upset victory in 1948 over Thomas E. Dewey is routinely invoked by underdog presidential candidates.
Contents
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[edit] Personal life
Harry S. Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri, the oldest child of John Anderson Truman (1851–1914) and Martha Ellen Young Truman (1852–1947). His parents chose the name Harry after his mother's brother, Harrison Young (1846–1916), Harry's uncle.[5] His parents chose "S" as his middle initial to please both of Harry's grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. The initial did not stand for anything, a common practice among the Scots-Irish.[6][7] A brother, John Vivian (1886–1965), soon followed, along with sister Mary Jane Truman (1889–1978).[8]
In his autobiography, Truman stated, "I was named for ... Harrison Young. I was given the diminutive Harry and, so that I could have two initials in my given name, the letter S was added. My Grandfather Truman's name was Anderson Shippe [sometimes also spelled 'Shipp'][9] Truman and my Grandfather Young's name was Solomon Young, so I received the S for both of them." He once joked that the S was a name, not an initial, and it should not have a period, but official documents and his presidential library all use a period.[7] The Harry S. Truman Library has numerous examples of the signature written at various times throughout Truman's lifetime where he uses a period after the S. The Associated Press Stylebook has called for a period after the S since the early 1960s, when Truman indicated he had no preference.[10]
His father John Truman was a farmer and livestock dealer. The family lived in Lamar until Harry was ten months old. They then moved to a farm near Harrisonville, then to Belton, and in 1887 to his grandparents' 600-acre (240-ha) farm in Grandview.[11] When Truman was six, his parents moved the family to Independence, so he could attend the Presbyterian Church Sunday School. Truman did not attend a traditional school until he was eight.[12]
As a young boy, Truman had three main interests: music, reading, and history, all encouraged by his mother, to whom he was very close. As president, he solicited political as well as personal advice from her.[13] He got up at five every morning to practice the piano, which he studied twice a week until he was fifteen.[14] Truman was a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention at Convention Hall in Kansas City.[15]
After graduating from Independence High School (now William Chrisman High School) in 1901, Truman worked as a timekeeper on the Santa Fe Railroad, sleeping in "hobo camps" near the rail lines;[16] he then worked at a series of clerical jobs. He worked briefly in the mailroom of the Kansas City Star. Truman decided not to join the International Typographical Union. He returned to the Grandview farm in 1906 where he remained until entering the army in 1917.[17] During this period, he courted Bess Wallace and proposed to her in 1911. She turned him down. Truman said that before he proposed again, he wanted to be earning more money than a farmer did.[18]
World War I[link]
Truman enlisted in the Missouri Army National Guard in 1905, and served until 1911. At his physical in 1905, his eyesight had been an unacceptable 20/50 in the right eye and 20/40 in the left.[19] Reportedly, he passed by secretly memorizing the eye chart.[20]
With the onset of American participation in World War I, Truman rejoined the Guard. Before going to France, he was sent to Camp Doniphan, near Lawton, Oklahoma for training. He ran the camp canteen with Edward Jacobson, a Kansas City clothing store clerk. At Fort Sill he also met Lieutenant James M. Pendergast, nephew of Thomas Joseph (T.J.) Pendergast, a Kansas City politician. Both men were to have a profound influence on Truman's later life.[21][22][23][24]
Truman became an officer, and then battery commander in an artillery regiment in France. His unit was Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, 60th Brigade, 35th Infantry Division, known for its discipline problems.[25] During a sudden attack by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains, the battery started to disperse; Truman ordered them back into position using profanities that he had "learned while working on the Santa Fe railroad."[25] Shocked by the outburst, his men reassembled and followed him to safety. Under Captain Truman's command in France, the battery did not lose a single man.[25] His battery also provided support for George S. Patton's tank brigade during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.[26] On November 11, 1918 his artillery unit fired some of the last shots of World War I into German positions after the armistice was signed at 5 am but before the ceasefire took effect at 11 am. In a letter he wrote, "It is a shame we can't go in and devastate Germany and cut off a few of the Dutch kids' hands and feet and scalp a few of their old men".[27] The war was a transformative experience that brought out Truman's leadership qualities; he later rose to the rank of Colonel in the Army Reserves,[28] and his war record made possible his later political career in Missouri.[25]
Family, education and early business career[link]
At the war's conclusion, Truman returned to Independence as a captain and married his girlfriend, Bess Wallace, on June 28, 1919.[29] The couple had one child, Mary Margaret (February 17, 1924 – January 29, 2008).[30]
Truman was the only president who served after 1897 without a college degree: poor eyesight prevented him from applying to West Point (his childhood dream). When his high school friends went off to the state university in 1901, Truman instead enrolled in Spalding's Commercial College, a Kansas City business school, but only lasted a semester. In 1923–25 he took night courses toward a law degree at the Kansas City Law School (now the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law), but dropped out after losing his government job.[31]
A month before Truman married, he and Jacobson opened a haberdashery at 104 West 12th Street in downtown Kansas City. After a few successful years, the store went bankrupt during the recession of 1921.[13] Truman worked to pay off the debts until 1934. As he was about to enter the U.S. Senate, banker William Thornton Kemper, Sr. retrieved the note during the sale of a bankrupt bank and allowed Truman to pay it off for $1,000. At the same time, Kemper made a $1,000 contribution to Truman's campaign.[32] Jacobson and Truman remained close friends, and Jacobson's advice to Truman on Zionism later played a critical role in the US government's decision to recognize Israel.[33]
Freemasonry[link]
On February 9, 1909, Harry Truman was initiated into Freemasonry in the Belton Lodge, Missouri.[34] In 1911, he helped establish the Grandview Lodge, and he served as its first Worshipful Master. In 1940, Harry Truman was elected the 97th Grand Master of the Masons of Missouri. In 1945, he was made a 33° Sovereign Grand Inspector General and an Honorary Member of the supreme council at the Supreme Council A.A.S.R. Southern Jurisdiction Headquarters in Washington D.C. In 1959, he was awarded the 50-year award.[35]
Hereditary memberships[link]
Truman was a member of Sons of the American Revolution (SAR)[36] and a card-carrying member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.[37] Two of his relatives were Confederate soldiers.[38] Truman's grandmother Harriet (Gregg) Young was put in a "prison camp" due to Gen. Thomas Ewing's General Order No. 11 and his mother remembered her home's being burned when she was a child, following Order #11.[39]
Politics[link]
Jackson County judge[link]
In 1922, with the help of the Kansas City Democratic machine led by boss Tom Pendergast, Truman was elected as a judge of the County Court of the eastern district of Jackson County — an administrative, not judicial, position similar to county commissioners elsewhere.[13]
In 1922, Truman gave a friend $10 for an initiation fee for the Ku Klux Klan, but later asked to get his money back; he was never initiated, never attended a meeting, and never claimed membership.[40][41][42] Though Truman at times expressed anger towards Jews in his diaries, his business partner and close friend Edward Jacobson was Jewish.[43][44][45] Tales of the abuse, violence, and persecution suffered by many African American veterans upon their return from World War II infuriated Truman, and were a major factor in his decision to issue Executive Order 9981, in July 1948, to back civil rights initiatives and require equal opportunity in the armed forces.[46]
He was not reelected in 1924, but in 1926 was elected the presiding judge for the court, and was reelected in 1930. In 1930 Truman coordinated the "Ten Year Plan," which transformed Jackson County and the Kansas City skyline with new public works projects, including an extensive series of roads, construction of a new Wight and Wight-designed County Court building, and the dedication of a series of 12 Madonna of the Trail monuments honoring pioneer women.[47][48]
In 1933 Truman was named Missouri's director for the Federal Re-Employment program (part of the Civil Works Administration) at the request of Postmaster General James Farley as payback to Pendergast for delivering the Kansas City vote to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election. The appointment confirmed Pendergast's control over federal patronage jobs in Missouri and marked the zenith of his power. It was also to create a relationship between Truman and Harry Hopkins and assure avid Truman support for the New Deal.[49]
U.S. Senator[link]
First term[link]
After serving as judge, Truman wanted to run for Governor or Congress, but Pendergast rejected these ideas. In 1934, Pendergast's aides suggested Harry Truman as a candidate for Senator; after three other men turned him down, Pendergast reluctantly backed Truman as the candidate for the 1934 U.S. Senate election for Missouri.[50] During the Democratic primary, Truman defeated John J. Cochran and Tuck Milligan, the brother of a federal prosecutor Maurice M. Milligan. Truman then defeated the incumbent Republican, Roscoe C. Patterson, by nearly 20%.[50][51]
Truman assumed office as "the senator from Pendergast." He gave patronage decisions to Pendergast but always maintained he voted his conscience. Truman always defended the patronage by saying that by offering a little, he saved a lot.[51][52]
In his first term as a U.S. Senator, Truman spoke out against corporate greed and the dangers of Wall Street speculators and other moneyed special interests attaining too much influence in national affairs.[53] He was largely ignored by President Roosevelt, who did not take him seriously at this stage, and had difficulty getting White House secretaries to return his calls.[51][54]
1940 election[link]
In 1940, both Stark and Maurice Milligan challenged him in the Democratic primary for the Senate. Truman's organization was a loose-knit network of old friends, prominent Masons, Army buddies, and National Guard activists, combined with old Pendergast allies in the Kansas City and St. Joseph areas. Truman was especially weak in the St. Louis area, where Robert E. Hannegan controlled the party.[55] Hannegan decided to support Truman; he would go on to broker the 1944 deal that put Truman on the vice presidential ticket for Roosevelt. In the end, Stark and Milligan split the anti-Pendergast vote in the Democratic primary, and Truman won by 8000 votes. In the November election, Truman trailed Roosevelt slightly, but defeated the Republican Manvel H. Davis by a margin of 51% to 49%.[56]
In September 1940, during the general election campaign, Truman was elected Grand Master of the Missouri Grand Lodge of Freemasonry.[57] Truman said later that the Masonic election assured his victory in the general election.[58]
Foreign policy[link]
On June 23, 1941, the day after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Senator Truman declared: "If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. Neither of them thinks anything of their pledged word."[59] Although the sentiment was in line with what many Americans felt at the time, it was regarded by later biographers as both inappropriate and cynical.[60][61]
Truman Committee[link]
Truman gained national visibility by fighting waste and mismanagement in the war effort through his committee (popularly known as the "Truman Committee"). The Roosevelt administration had initially feared the Truman Committee would hurt war morale, and Undersecretary of War Robert P. Patterson wrote to the president declaring it was "in the public interest" to suspend the committee. Truman replied that the committee was "100 percent behind the administration" and did not intend to criticize the military conduct of the war.[62] The committee is reported to have saved at least $15 billion and thousands of lives.[63][64] Truman's advocacy of common-sense[65] cost-saving measures for the military attracted much attention. In 1943, he appeared on the cover of Time. He would eventually appear on nine Time covers and would be named the magazine's Man of the Year for 1945 and 1948.[66] After years as a marginal figure in the Senate, Truman was cast into the national spotlight after the success of the Truman Committee.[67]
Vice presidency[link]
Following months of uncertainty over whether Vice President Henry Wallace would continue as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944, Truman was ultimately selected to replace him as the vice presidential candidate in a deal worked out by Hannegan, who was Democratic National Chairman that year. Roosevelt's physical condition had deteriorated sharply by mid-1944. Key FDR advisers, including outgoing Democratic National Committee Chairman Frank C. Walker, incoming Chairman Robert Hannegan, party treasurer Edwin W. Pauley, strategist Ed Flynn, and lobbyist George E. Allen wanted to keep Wallace off the ticket.[68] They considered Wallace too liberal and "realized that the man nominated to run with Roosevelt would in all probability be the next President. . ."[69]
After meeting personally with the party leaders, FDR agreed to replace Wallace however Roosevelt left the final selection of his running mate until the end of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Before the convention began, Roosevelt wrote a note saying he would accept either Truman or Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. State and city party leaders strongly preferred Truman, but Truman himself did not campaign for the number two spot and later maintained he had not wanted the job of vice president. Roosevelt devised a plan to pressure him to accept the vice presidency and on July 19, the party bosses summoned Truman to a suite in the Blackstone Hotel to listen in on a phone call that, unknown to the senator, they had rehearsed in advance with the president. During the conversation, FDR asked the party bosses whether Truman would accept the position. When they said no, FDR angrily accused Truman of disrupting the unity of the Democratic Party in the middle of a war, then hung up. Feeling that he had no choice, Truman reluctantly agreed to become Roosevelt's running mate.[70]
Truman's candidacy was humorously dubbed the second "Missouri Compromise" at the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and his broad appeal contrasted with that of the liberal Wallace and the conservative James F. Byrnes. His nomination was well received, and the Roosevelt–Truman ticket went on to a 432–99 electoral-vote victory in the 1944 presidential election, defeating Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York and Governor John Bricker of Ohio. Truman was sworn in as vice president on January 20, 1945, but was to serve less than three months.
Truman's brief vice-presidency was relatively uneventful. Roosevelt rarely contacted him, even to inform him of major decisions, and they met infrequently. In one of his first acts as vice president, Truman dismayed many when he attended the funeral of his disgraced patron Tom Pendergast a few days after taking office. He brushed the criticism aside, saying simply, "He was always my friend and I have always been his."[13]
On the afternoon of April 12, 1945, Truman was presiding over the Senate in his capacity as president of the chamber. He had just adjourned the session for the day and was preparing to have a drink in House Speaker Sam Rayburn's office when he received an urgent message to go immediately to the White House. Truman assumed that President Roosevelt, who he knew was in Warm Springs, Georgia, had returned earlier than expected and wanted to meet with him, but upon his arrival, Eleanor Roosevelt informed him that the president had died after suffering a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Truman's first concern was for Mrs. Roosevelt. He asked if there was anything he could do for her, to which she replied, "Is there anything we can do for you? You are the one in trouble now!"[71]
Presidency 1945–1953[link]
First term (1945–1949)[link]
Assuming office[link]
Truman had been vice president for only 82 days when President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. He had rarely discussed world affairs or domestic politics with Roosevelt and was uninformed about major initiatives relating to the war and the top secret Manhattan Project, which was about to test the world's first atomic bomb.[72]
Shortly after taking the oath of office, Truman said to reporters:
- "Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don't know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."[73][74]
Upon assuming the presidency, Truman asked all the members of FDR's cabinet to remain in place, told them that he was open to their advice, but laid down a central principle of his administration: he would be the one making decisions, and they were to support him.[75] On May 8, 1945, the Allies achieved victory in Europe.
Atomic bomb[link]
For more details on this topic, see Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.
— Harry Truman, writing about the atomic bomb in his diary, [76]
Truman, who had not known of it beforehand, was briefed on the ultra secret Manhattan Project by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson on the day Roosevelt died, following his first Cabinet meeting as President.[77] While in Europe for the Potsdam Conference, he learned the news that the Trinity test of the first atomic bomb on July 16 had been successful. He hinted to Joseph Stalin that the U.S. was about to use a new kind of weapon against the Japanese. Though this was the first time the Soviets had been officially given information about the atomic bomb, Stalin was already aware of the bomb project, having learned about it (through espionage) long before Truman himself did.[78][79][80][81]
In August, after the Japanese government refused the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, Truman authorized the use of atomic weapons against Japan.[82][83]
On Sunday morning, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 am local time, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped a uranium-fueled atomic bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima.[84] Two days later, after Truman's broadcast warning of further attacks, yet having heard nothing further from the Japanese government, the U.S. military executed its plan to drop a second atomic bomb. On August 9, Nagasaki was devastated using a plutonium implosion-type atomic bomb, Fat Man, dropped by the B-29 bomber Bockscar.[85] The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945,[86] with roughly half of those deaths occurring on the days of the bombings. Truman received news of the bombing while aboard the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) on his way back to the U.S. after the Potsdam Conference. The Japanese surrender came on August 14.[87]
Supporters of Truman's decision argue that, given the tenacious Japanese defense of the outlying islands, the bombings saved hundreds of thousands of lives that would have been lost in an invasion of mainland Japan. In 1954, Eleanor Roosevelt said that Truman had "made the only decision he could," and that the bomb's use was necessary "to avoid tremendous sacrifice of American lives."[88] Others have argued that the use of nuclear weapons was unnecessary and inherently immoral.[89] Truman himself wrote later in life that, "I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war ... I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again."[90]
Strikes and economic upheaval[link]
The end of World War II was followed by an uneasy transition from war to a peacetime economy. The president was faced with the renewal of labor-management conflicts that had lain dormant during the war years, severe shortages in housing and consumer products, and widespread dissatisfaction with inflation, which at one point hit 6% in a single month.[91] In this polarized environment, there was a wave of destabilizing strikes in major industries, and Truman's response to them was generally seen as ineffective.[91] In the spring of 1946, a national railway strike, unprecedented in the nation's history, brought virtually all passenger and freight lines to a standstill for over a month. When the railway workers turned down a proposed settlement, Truman seized control of the railways and threatened to draft striking workers into the armed forces.[92] While delivering a speech before Congress requesting authority for this plan, Truman received word that the strike had been settled on his terms.[92] He announced this development to Congress on the spot and received a tumultuous ovation that was replayed for weeks on newsreels. Although the resolution of the crippling railway strike made for stirring political theater, it actually cost Truman politically: his proposed solution was seen by many as high-handed; and labor voters, already wary of Truman's handling of workers' issues, were deeply alienated.[91]
United Nations, Marshall Plan and the Cold War[link]
As a Wilsonian internationalist, Truman strongly supported creation of the United Nations, and included Eleanor Roosevelt on the delegation to the UN's first General Assembly.[93] Faced with Communist abandonment of commitments to democracy made at the Potsdam Conference, and with Communist advances in Iran, Greece (leading to the Greek Civil War) and in Turkey, Truman and his foreign policy advisors took a hard line against the Soviets.[94][95][96]
Although he claimed no personal expertise on foreign matters, Truman won bipartisan support for both the Truman Doctrine, which formalized a policy of containment, and the Marshall Plan, which aimed to help rebuild postwar Europe.[94][97] To get Congress to spend the vast sums necessary to restart the moribund European economy, Truman used an ideological argument, arguing that Communism flourishes in economically deprived areas.[98] As part of the U.S. Cold War strategy, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 and reorganized military forces by merging the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (later the Department of Defense) and creating the U.S. Air Force. The act also created the CIA and the National Security Council.[99]
Fair Deal[link]
Main article: Fair Deal
After many years of Democratic majorities in Congress and two Democratic presidents, voter fatigue with the Democrats delivered a new Republican majority in the 1946 midterm elections, with the Republicans picking up 55 seats in the House of Representatives and several seats in the Senate. Although Truman cooperated closely with the Republican leaders on foreign policy, he fought them bitterly on domestic issues. He failed to prevent tax cuts or the removal of price controls. The power of the labor unions was significantly curtailed by the Taft–Hartley Act, which was enacted by overriding Truman's veto.[100]
As he readied for the 1948 election, Truman made clear his identity as a Democrat in the New Deal tradition, advocating national health insurance,[101] the repeal of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, and an aggressive civil rights program. Taken together, it all constituted a broad legislative agenda that came to be called the "Fair Deal."
Truman's proposals were not well received by Congress, even after Democratic gains in the 1948 election. Only one of the major Fair Deal bills, the Housing Act of 1949, was ever enacted.[102][103] On the other hand the major New Deal programs still in operation were not repealed, and there were minor improvements and extensions in many of them.[104]
Recognition of Israel[link]
Truman made the decision to recognize the establishment of the State of Israel over the objections of Secretary of State George Marshall, who feared it would hurt relations with the Arab states.[105] At a meeting in the White House on November 10, 1945, he told envoys to Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt: "I am sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism: I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents."[106]
Rejecting Arab, British, and U.S. State Department warnings that Jewish immigration to Palestine and a Jewish state would destabilize the Middle East, Truman and Congress continued to support the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people.[107] American policy makers in 1947–48 agreed that the highest foreign policy objective was containment of Soviet expansion as the Cold War unfolded. From Washington's perspective, Palestine was secondary to the goal of protecting the "Northern Tier" of Greece, Turkey, and Iran from Communism, as promised by the Truman Doctrine. Truman set three goals for the region: a peaceful solution, unwillingness to send US troops, and the need to prevent Soviet penetration.[108]
According to George Lenczowski, Truman's policy on Palestine was influenced by Jewish lobbyists.[109] In his memoirs, Truman wrote that top Jewish leaders in the United States put pressure on him to promote Jewish aspirations in Palestine.[110] At the urging of the British, a special UN committee, UNSCOP, recommended the immediate partitioning of Palestine into two states. With Truman's support, the plan was approved by the General Assembly on November 29, 1947. Secretary of State George Marshall and foreign affairs experts continued to oppose the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.[111][112] When Truman agreed to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the Secretary of State objected but did not publicly dispute his decision. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal warned about the perils of arousing Arab hostility, which might result in denial of access to petroleum resources in the area,[113] and about "the impact of this question on the security of the United States."[114] Truman recognized the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, eleven minutes after it declared itself a nation.[115][116]
Truman wrote:
Hitler had been murdering Jews right and left. I saw it, and I dream about it even to this day. The Jews needed some place where they could go. It is my attitude that the American government couldn't stand idly by while the victims [of] Hitler's madness are not allowed to build new lives.[117]
Berlin Airlift[link]
For more details on this topic, see Berlin Blockade.
On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked access to the three Western-held sectors of Berlin. The Allies had never negotiated a deal to guarantee supply of the sectors deep within the Soviet-occupied zone. The commander of the American occupation zone in Germany, General Lucius D. Clay, proposed sending a large armored column across the Soviet zone to West Berlin with instructions to defend itself if it were stopped or attacked. Truman believed this would entail an unacceptable risk of war. He approved a plan to supply the blockaded city by air. On June 25, the Allies initiated the Berlin Airlift, a campaign that delivered food and other supplies, such as coal, using military airplanes on a massive scale. Nothing remotely like it had ever been attempted before, and no single nation had the capability, either logistically or materially, to have accomplished it. The airlift worked; ground access was again granted on May 11, 1949. The airlift continued for several months after that. The Berlin Airlift was one of Truman's great foreign policy successes as president; it significantly aided his election campaign in 1948.[118]
[edit] Defense cutbacks
Truman adopted a strategy of rapid demobilization after World War II, mothballing ships and sending the veterans home. The reasons for this strategy, which persisted through Truman's first term and well into his second, were largely financial. To fund domestic spending requirements, Truman had advocated a policy of defense program cuts for the U.S. armed forces at the end of the war. The Republican majority in Congress, anxious to enact numerous tax cuts, approved of Truman's plan to "hold the line" on defense spending.[119] In addition, Truman's experience in the Senate left him with lingering suspicions that large sums were being wasted in the Pentagon.[120] In 1949, Truman appointed Louis A. Johnson as Secretary of Defense. Impressed by U.S. advances in atomic bomb development, Truman and Johnson initially believed that the atomic bomb rendered conventional forces largely irrelevant to the modern battlefield. This assumption eventually had to be revisited, however, as the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic weapon in the same year.[121]
Nevertheless, reductions continued, adversely affecting U.S. conventional defense readiness.[122][123] Both Truman and Johnson had a particular antipathy to Navy and Marine Corps budget requests.[123][124] Truman proposed disbanding the Marine Corps entirely as part of the 1948 defense reorganization plan but the idea was abandoned after a letter-writing campaign and the intervention of influential Marine veterans.[123][124]
By 1950, many Navy ships were sold to other countries or scrapped. The U.S. Army, faced with high turnover of experienced personnel, cut back on training exercises, and eased recruitment standards. Usable equipment was scrapped or sold off and ammunition stockpiles were cut.[123][125] The Marine Corps, its budgets slashed, was reduced to hoarding surplus inventories of World War II-era weapons and equipment.[122][123][124] It was only after the invasion of South Korea by the North Koreans in 1950 that Truman sent significantly larger defense requests to Congress — and initiated what might be considered the modern period of defense spending in the United States.[126]
1948 election[link]
For more details on this topic, see United States presidential election, 1948.
The 1948 presidential election is best remembered for Truman's stunning come-from-behind victory.[127] In the spring of 1948, Truman's public approval rating stood at 36%,[128] and the president was nearly universally regarded as incapable of winning the general election. The "New Deal" operatives within the party — including FDR's son James — tried to swing the Democratic nomination to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a wildly popular figure whose political views — and party affiliation — were totally unknown. Eisenhower emphatically refused to accept, and Truman outflanked opponents to his nomination.[127]
File:Deweytruman12.jpg
Truman was so widely expected to lose the 1948 election that the Chicago Tribune ran this incorrect headline.
At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Truman attempted to calm turbulent domestic political waters by placing a tepid civil rights plank in the party platform; the aim was to assuage the internal conflicts between the northern and southern wings of his party. Events overtook the president's efforts at compromise, however. A sharp address given by Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis — as well as the local political interests of a number of urban bosses — convinced the Convention to adopt a stronger civil rights plank, which Truman approved wholeheartedly. All of Alabama's delegates, and a portion of Mississippi's, walked out of the convention in protest.[129] Unfazed, Truman delivered an aggressive acceptance speech attacking the 80th Congress and promising to win the election and "make these Republicans like it."[130]
Within two weeks, Truman issued Executive Order 9981, racially integrating the U.S. Armed Services.[131][132][133] Truman took considerable political risk in backing civil rights, and many seasoned Democrats were concerned that the loss of Dixiecrat support might destroy the Democratic Party. The fear seemed well justified — Strom Thurmond declared his candidacy for the presidency and led a full-scale revolt of Southern "states' rights" proponents. This revolt on the right was matched by a revolt on the left, led by former Vice President Henry A. Wallace on the Progressive Party ticket. Immediately after its first post-FDR convention, the Democratic Party found itself disintegrating. Victory in November seemed a remote possibility indeed, with the party not simply split but divided three ways.
There followed a remarkable 21,928-mile (35,290 km) presidential odyssey,[134] an unprecedented personal appeal to the nation. Truman and his staff crisscrossed the United States in the presidential train; his "whistlestop" tactic of giving brief speeches from the rear platform of the observation car Ferdinand Magellan came to represent the entire campaign. His combative appearances, such as those at the town square of Harrisburg, Illinois, captured the popular imagination and drew huge crowds. Six stops in Michigan drew a combined half-million people;[135] a full million turned out for a New York City ticker-tape parade.[136]
The large, mostly spontaneous gatherings at Truman's depot events were an important sign of a critical change in momentum in the campaign, but this shift went virtually unnoticed by the national press corps, which continued reporting Republican Thomas Dewey's apparent impending victory as a certainty. One reason for the press' inaccurate projection was polls conducted primarily by telephone in a time when many people, including much of Truman's populist base, did not own a telephone.[137] This skewed the data to indicate a stronger support base for Dewey than existed, resulting in an unintended and undetected projection error that may well have contributed to the perception of Truman's bleak chances. The three major polling organizations also stopped polling well before the November 2 election date — Roper in September, and Crossley and Gallup in October — thus failing to measure the very period when Truman appears to have surged past Dewey.[138][139]
In the end, Truman held his progressive Midwestern base, won most of the Southern states despite his civil rights plank, and squeaked through with narrow victories in a few critical "battleground" states, notably Ohio, California, and Illinois. The final tally showed that the president had secured 303 electoral votes, Dewey 189, and Thurmond only 39. Henry Wallace got none. The defining image of the campaign came after Election Day, when an ecstatic Truman held aloft the erroneous front page of the Chicago Tribune with a huge headline proclaiming "Dewey Defeats Truman."[140] Truman did not have a vice president in his first term.[141] His running mate, and eventual vice president for the term that began January 20, 1949, was Alben W. Barkley.
Second term (1949–1953)[link]
Truman's inauguration was the first ever televised nationally."[142] His second term was grueling, in large measure because of foreign policy challenges connected directly or indirectly to his policy of containment. He quickly had to come to terms with the end of the American nuclear monopoly. With information provided by its espionage networks in the United States, the Soviet Union's atomic bomb project progressed much faster than had been expected and they exploded their first bomb on August 29, 1949. On January 7, 1953, Truman announced the detonation of the first U.S. hydrogen bomb.[143]
NATO[link]
Truman was a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which established a formal peacetime military alliance with Canada and many of the democratic European nations that had not fallen under Soviet control following World War II. Truman successfully guided the treaty through the Senate in 1949 and appointed Dwight D. Eisenhower as the first commander. NATO's stated goals were to contain Soviet expansion in Europe and to send a clear message to communist leaders that the world's democracies were willing and able to build new security structures in support of democratic ideals. The United States, Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Iceland, and Canada were the original treaty signatories; Greece and Turkey joined in 1952.[144]
Chinese Civil War[link]
On December 21, 1949, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) and his National Revolutionary Army left mainland China, fleeing to Taiwan in the face of successful attacks by Mao Zedong's communist army during the Chinese Civil War. In June 1950, Truman ordered the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent further conflict between the communist government at the China mainland and the Republic of China on Taiwan. Truman also called for the ROC not to make any further attacks on the mainland.[145]
Soviet espionage and McCarthyism[link]
Throughout his presidency, Truman had to deal with accusations that the federal government was harboring Soviet spies at the highest level. Testimony in Congress on this issue garnered national attention, and thousands of people were fired as security risks. Truman was dubious about reports of potential Communist or Soviet penetration of the U.S. government, and his oft-quoted response was to dismiss the allegations as a "red herring."[146]
In August 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a former spy for the Soviets and a senior editor at Time magazine, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and presented a list of what he said were members of an underground communist network working within the United States government in the 1930s. One was Alger Hiss, a senior State Department official. Hiss denied the accusations.[147][148]
Chambers' revelations led to a crisis in American political culture, as Hiss was convicted of perjury, in a controversial trial. On February 9, 1950, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy accused the State Department of having communists on the payroll, and specifically claimed that Secretary of State Dean Acheson knew of, and was protecting, 205 communists within the State Department.[149] At issue was whether Truman had removed all the subversive agents that had entered the government during the Roosevelt years. McCarthy insisted that he had not.
By spotlighting this issue and attacking Truman's administration, McCarthy quickly established himself as a national figure, and his explosive allegations dominated the headlines. His claims were short on confirmable details, but they nevertheless transfixed a nation struggling to come to grips with frightening new realities: the Soviet Union's nuclear explosion, the loss of U.S. atom bomb secrets, the fall of China to communism, and new revelations of Soviet intelligence penetration of other U.S. agencies, including the Treasury Department.[146] Truman, a pragmatic man who had made allowances for the likes of Tom Pendergast and Stalin, quickly developed an unshakable loathing of Joseph McCarthy.[150] He counterattacked, saying that "Americanism" itself was under attack by elements "who are loudly proclaiming that they are its chief defenders. ... They are trying to create fear and suspicion among us by the use of slander, unproved accusations and just plain lies. ... They are trying to get us to believe that our Government is riddled with communism and corruption. ... These slandermongers are trying to get us so hysterical that no one will stand up to them for fear of being called a communist. Now this is an old communist trick in reverse. ... That is not fair play. That is not Americanism."[149] Nevertheless, Truman never shook his image among the public of being unable to purge his government of subversive influences.[146]
Korean War[link]
For more details on this topic, see Korean War.
On June 25, 1950, the North Korean People's Army under the command of Kim Il-sung invaded South Korea, precipitating the outbreak of the Korean War. Poorly trained and equipped, without tanks or air support, the South Korean Army was rapidly pushed backwards, quickly losing the capital, Seoul.[151]
Truman called for a naval blockade of Korea, only to learn that due to budget cutbacks, the U.S. Navy no longer possessed a sufficient number of warships to enforce such a measure.[152] Truman promptly urged the United Nations to intervene; it did, authorizing armed defense for the first time in its history. The Soviet Union, which was boycotting the United Nations at the time, was not present at the vote that approved the measure. However, Truman decided not to consult with Congress, an error that greatly weakened his position later in the conflict.[153]
In the first four weeks of the conflict, the American infantry forces hastily deployed to Korea proved too few and were under-equipped. The Eighth Army in Japan was forced to recondition World War II Sherman tanks from depots and monuments for use in Korea.[123][154]
Giving Them More Hell
"I fired him [MacArthur] because he wouldn't respect the authority of the President ... I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail."[155]
Harry S. Truman, quoted in Time magazine
Responding to criticism over readiness, Truman fired his much-criticized Secretary of Defense, Louis A. Johnson, replacing him with retired General George Marshall. Truman (with UN approval) decided on a rollback policy — that is, conquest of North Korea.[156] UN forces led by General Douglas MacArthur led the counterattack, scoring a stunning surprise victory with an amphibious landing at the Battle of Inchon that nearly trapped the invaders. UN forces then marched north, toward the Yalu River boundary with China, with the goal of reuniting Korea under UN auspices.[157]
China surprised the UN forces with a large-scale invasion in November. The UN forces were forced back to below the 38th parallel, then recovered;[158] by early 1951 the war became a fierce stalemate at about the 38th parallel where it had begun. UN and U.S. casualties were heavy. Truman rejected MacArthur's request to attack Chinese supply bases north of the Yalu, but MacArthur promoted his plan to Republican House leader Joseph Martin, who leaked it to the press. Truman was gravely concerned that further escalation of the war might draw the Soviet Union further into the conflict: it was already supplying weapons and providing warplanes (with Korean markings and Soviet fliers). On April 11, 1951, Truman fired MacArthur from all his commands in Korea and Japan.[159]
The Dismissal of General Douglas MacArthur was among the least politically popular decisions in presidential history. Truman's approval ratings plummeted, and he faced calls for his impeachment from, among others, Senator Robert Taft. The Chicago Tribune called for immediate impeachment proceedings against Truman:
President Truman must be impeached and convicted. His hasty and vindictive removal of Gen. MacArthur is the culmination of series of acts which have shown that he is unfit, morally and mentally, for his high office. . . . The American nation has never been in greater danger. It is led by a fool who is surrounded by knaves. . . .[160]
Fierce criticism from virtually all quarters accused Truman of refusing to shoulder the blame for a war gone sour and blaming his generals instead. Many prominent citizens and officials, including Eleanor Roosevelt however supported and applauded Truman's decision. MacArthur meanwhile, returned to the United States to a hero's welcome, and made a famous address to Congress. Truman didn't listen to it; he met with the Secretary of State and then took a nap. When he woke up he read what MacArthur had said and called it "a bunch of damn bullshit."[161]
The war remained a frustrating stalemate for two years, with over 30,000 Americans killed, until an armistice ended the fighting.[162] In the interim, the difficulties in Korea and the popular outcry against Truman's sacking of MacArthur helped to make the president so unpopular that Democrats started turning to other candidates. In the New Hampshire primary on March 11, 1952, Truman lost to Estes Kefauver, who won the preference poll 19,800 to 15,927 and all 8 delegates. Truman was forced to cancel his reelection campaign.[163] In February 1952, Truman's approval mark stood at 22% according to Gallup polls, which was, until George W. Bush in 2008, the all-time lowest approval mark for an active American president. However, it did not last beyond March.[164]
Indochina[link]
For more details on this topic, see First Indochina War.
United States' involvement in Indochina widened during the Truman administration. On V-J Day 1945, Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh declared independence from France, but the U.S. announced its support of restoring French power. In 1950, Ho again declared Vietnamese independence, which was recognized by Communist China and the Soviet Union. Ho controlled a remote territory along the Chinese border, while France controlled the remainder. Truman's "containment policy" called for opposition to Communist expansion, and led the U.S. to continue to recognize French rule, support the French client government, and increase aid to Vietnam. However, a basic dispute emerged: the Americans wanted a strong and independent Vietnam, while the French cared little about containing China but instead wanted to suppress local nationalism and integrate Indochina into the French Union.[165]
NSC-68[link]
Main article: NSC-68
The escalation of the Cold War was highlighted by Truman's approval of NSC-68, a secret statement of foreign policy. It called for tripling the defense budget, and the globalization and militarization of containment policy whereby the U.S. and its NATO allies would respond militarily to actual Soviet expansion. The document was drafted by Paul Nitze, who consulted State and Defense officials; it was formally approved by President Truman as official national strategy after the war began in Korea. It called for partial mobilization of the U.S. economy to build armaments faster than the Soviets. The assumption was the takeover of China, the invasion of South Korea and threats to Vietnam demonstrated a drive for world dominance by the Soviet Union and its Communist allies. A three-part response was called for to strengthen Europe; weaken the Soviet Union economically; and to strengthen the United States both militarily and economically.[166]
White House renovations[link]
In 1948, Truman ordered a controversial addition to the exterior of the White House: a second-floor balcony in the south portico that came to be known as the "Truman Balcony." The addition was unpopular.[167]
Not long afterwards, engineering experts concluded that the building, much of it over 130 years old, was in a dangerously dilapidated condition. That August, a section of floor collapsed and Truman's own bedroom and bathroom were closed as unsafe. No public announcement about the serious structural problems of the White House was made until after the 1948 election had been won, by which time Truman had been informed that his new balcony was the only part of the building that was sound. The Truman family moved into nearby Blair House; as the newer West Wing, including the Oval Office, remained open, Truman found himself walking to work across the street each morning and afternoon. In due course, the decision was made to demolish and rebuild the whole interior of the main White House, as well as excavating new basement levels and underpinning the foundations. The famous exterior of the structure, however, was buttressed and retained while the renovations proceeded inside. The work lasted from December 1949 until March 1952.[168]
Assassination attempt[link]
For more details on this topic, see Truman assassination attempt.
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Newsreel scenes in English of the assassination attempt on U.S. President Harry S Truman |
On November 1, 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate Truman at Blair House. On the street outside the residence, Torresola mortally wounded a White House policeman, Leslie Coffelt. Before he died, the officer shot and killed Torresola. Collazo, as a co-conspirator in a felony that turned into a homicide, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1952. Truman later commuted his sentence to life in prison. Acknowledging the importance of the question of Puerto Rican independence, Truman allowed for a plebiscite in Puerto Rico to determine the status of its relationship to the United States. The attack, which could easily have taken the president's life, drew new attention to security concerns surrounding his residence at Blair House. He had jumped up from his nap, and was watching the gunfight from his open bedroom window until a passerby shouted at him to take cover.[169][170]
Steel and coal strikes[link]
For more details on this topic, see 1952 steel strike.
In response to a labor/management impasse arising from bitter disagreements over wage and price controls, Truman instructed his Secretary of Commerce, Charles W. Sawyer, to take control of a number of the nation's steel mills in April 1952. Truman cited his authority as Commander in Chief and the need to maintain an uninterrupted supply of steel for munitions to be used in the war in Korea. The Supreme Court found Truman's actions unconstitutional, however, and reversed the order in a major separation-of-powers decision, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer. The 6–3 decision, which held that Truman's assertion of authority was too vague and was not rooted in any legislative action by Congress, was delivered by a Court composed entirely of Justices appointed by either Truman or Roosevelt. The high court's reversal of Truman's order was one of the notable defeats of his presidency.[171] After coal miners went on strike in the spring of 1946, Truman threatened to draft the miners into the Army if they did not return to work, or use members of the Army to replace the workers.[172][173][174]
Scandals and controversies[link]
In 1950, the Senate, led by Estes Kefauver, investigated numerous charges of corruption among senior Administration officials, some of whom received fur coats and deep freezers for favors. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was involved. In 1950, 166 IRS employees either resigned or were fired,[175] and many were facing indictments from the Department of Justice on a variety of tax-fixing and bribery charges, including the assistant attorney general in charge of the Tax Division. When Attorney General Howard McGrath fired the special prosecutor for being too zealous, Truman fired McGrath.[176] Historians agree that Truman himself was innocent and unaware, with one exception. In 1945, Mrs. Truman received a new, expensive, hard-to-get deep freezer. The businessman who provided the gift was the president of a perfume company and, thanks to Truman's aide and confidante General Harry Vaughan, received priority to fly to Europe days after the war ended, where he bought new perfumes. On the way back he "bumped" a wounded veteran from a flight back to the U.S. Disclosure of the episode in 1949 humiliated Truman. The President responded by vigorously defending Vaughan, an old friend with an office in the White House. Vaughan was eventually connected to multiple influence-peddling scandals.[177]
Truman pardoned a Louisiana political figure, George A. Caldwell, a building contractor from Baton Rouge who had been imprisoned in the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta for income tax evasion and accepting kickbacks.[178] He also similarly pardoned the controversial Texas political boss, George Parr of Duval County, the political benefactor of Lyndon B. Johnson, winner of a contested 1948 U.S. Senate election, which ultimately catapulted Johnson into the presidency.[179]
Charges that Soviet agents had infiltrated the government bedeviled the Truman Administration and became a major campaign issue for Eisenhower in 1952.[180] In 1947, Truman issued Executive Order 9835 to set up loyalty boards to investigate espionage among federal employees.[181] Between 1947 and 1952, "about 20,000 government employees were investigated, some 2500 resigned 'voluntarily,' and 400 were fired."[182] He strongly opposed mandatory loyalty oaths for governmental employees, a stance that led to charges that his Administration was soft on Communism.[183] In 1953, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr. claimed that Truman had known Harry Dexter White was a Soviet spy when Truman appointed him to the International Monetary Fund.[184][185]
On December 6, 1950, music critic Paul Hume wrote a critical review of a concert by Margaret Truman: "Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality ... (she) cannot sing very well ... is flat a good deal of the time — more last night than at any time we have heard her in past years ... has not improved in the years we have heard her ... (and) still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish."[186]
In response, Truman wrote a scathing response: I've just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an "eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay." It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work. Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below! Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you'll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.[186] Truman was criticized by many for the letter. However, he pointed out that he wrote it as a loving father and not as the president.[187][188][189]
Civil rights[link]
Further information: President's Committee on Civil Rights
A 1947 report by the Truman administration titled To Secure These Rights presented a detailed ten-point agenda of civil rights reforms. In February 1948, the president submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress that proposed creating several federal offices devoted to issues such as voting rights and fair employment practices. This provoked a storm of criticism from Southern Democrats in the run up to the national nominating convention, but Truman refused to compromise, saying: "My forebears were Confederates ... but my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten."[40] In retirement however, Truman was less progressive on the issue. He described the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches as silly, stating that the marches would not "accomplish a darned thing."[190]
Instead of addressing civil rights on a case-by-case need, Truman wanted to address civil rights on a national level. Truman made three executive orders that eventually became a structure for future civil rights legislation. The first executive order, Executive Order 9981[191] in 1948, is generally understood to be the act that desegregated the armed services. This was a milestone on a long road to desegregation of the Armed Forces. After several years of planning, recommendations and revisions between Truman, the Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity and the various branches of the military, Army units became racially integrated. This process was also helped by the pressure of manpower shortages during the Korean War,[192] as replacements to previously segregated units could now be of any race.
The second, also in 1948, made it illegal to discriminate against persons applying for civil service positions based on race. The third executive order, in 1951, established Committee on Government Contract Compliance (CGCC). This committee ensured that defense contractors to the armed forces could not discriminate against a person because of their race.[193][194][195]
Administration and cabinet[link]
All of the cabinet members when Truman became president in 1945 had been previously serving under Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Judicial appointments[link]
Supreme Court[link]
Main article: Harry S. Truman Supreme Court candidates
Truman appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
- Harold Hitz Burton — 1945
- Fred M. Vinson (Chief Justice) — 1946
- Tom C. Clark — 1949
- Sherman Minton — 1949
Truman's judicial appointments have been called by critics "inexcusable."[196] A former Truman aide confided that it was the weakest aspect of Truman's presidency.[197] The New York Times condemned the appointments of Tom C. Clark and Sherman Minton in particular as examples of cronyism and favoritism for unqualified candidates.[197]
The four justices appointed by Truman joined with Justices Felix Frankfurter, Robert H. Jackson, and Stanley Reed to create a substantial seven-member conservative bloc on the Supreme Court.[197] This returned the court for a time to the conservatism of the Taft era.[197]
Other courts[link]
Main article: Harry S. Truman judicial appointments
In addition to his four Supreme Court appointments, Truman appointed 27 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 101 judges to the United States district courts.
1952 election[link]
For more details on this topic, see United States presidential election, 1952.
In 1951, the U.S. ratified the 22nd Amendment, making a president ineligible to be elected for a third time, or to be elected for a second time after having served more than two years of a previous president's term. The latter clause would have applied to Truman in 1952, except that a grandfather clause in the amendment explicitly excluded the current president from this provision.[198] However, Truman decided not to run for reelection.
At the time of the 1952 New Hampshire primary, no candidate had won Truman's backing. His first choice, Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, had declined to run; Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson had also turned Truman down; Vice President Barkley was considered too old; and Truman distrusted and disliked Senator Estes Kefauver, whom he privately called "Cowfever."[199][200]
Truman's name was on the New Hampshire primary ballot but Kefauver won. On March 29, Truman announced his decision not to run for re-election.[201] Stevenson, having reconsidered his presidential ambitions, received Truman's backing and won the Democratic nomination.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, now a Republican and the nominee of his party, campaigned against what he denounced as Truman's failures regarding "Korea, Communism and Corruption" and the "mess in Washington,"[202] and promised to "go to Korea."[203] Eisenhower defeated Stevenson decisively in the general election, ending 20 years of Democratic rule. While Truman and Eisenhower had previously been good friends, Truman felt betrayed that Eisenhower did not denounce Joseph McCarthy during the campaign.[204]
| Harry S. Truman's Farewell Address | |
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| Harry S. Truman's speech on leaving office, and returning home to Independence, Missouri. (January 15, 1953) | |
Post-presidency[link]
[edit] Truman Library, Memoirs, and life as a private citizen
Truman returned to Independence, Missouri, to live at the Wallace home he and Bess had shared for years with her mother.[205] Four months after leaving office, Truman was invited to address the Reserve Officers Association in Philadelphia. Refusing official transportation, Truman instead drove his brand-new Chrysler New Yorker, with Bess accompanying him in the passenger seat. The trip, which included stops in Washington, D.C., New York City, and smaller towns, caused a media sensation, especially when the former President was pulled over by a policeman for driving too slowly in a passing lane.[206]
Truman's predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had organized his own presidential library, but legislation to enable future presidents to do something similar had not been enacted. Truman worked to garner private donations to build a presidential library, which he donated to the federal government to maintain and operate — a practice adopted by all of his successors.[207]
Once out of office, Truman quickly decided that he did not wish to be on any corporate payroll, believing that taking advantage of such financial opportunities would diminish the integrity of the nation's highest office. He also turned down numerous offers for commercial endorsements. Since his earlier business ventures had proved unsuccessful, he had no personal savings. As a result, he faced financial challenges. Once Truman left the White House, his only income was his old army pension: $112.56 per month.[208] Former members of Congress and the federal courts received a federal retirement package; President Truman himself ensured that former servants of the executive branch of government received similar support. In 1953, however, there was no such benefit package for former presidents.[209]
He took out a personal loan from a Missouri bank shortly after leaving office, and then set about establishing another precedent for future former chief executives: a book deal for his memoirs of his time in office. Ulysses S. Grant had overcome similar financial issues with his own memoirs, but the book had been published posthumously, and he had declined to write about life in the White House in any detail. For the memoirs, Truman received only a flat payment of $670,000, and had to pay two-thirds of that in tax; he calculated he got $37,000 after he paid his assistants.[210]
Truman's memoirs were a commercial and critical success;[211][212] they were published in two volumes in 1955 and 1956 by Doubleday (Garden City, N.Y) and Hodder & Stoughton (London): Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Year of Decisions and Memoirs by Harry S. Truman: Years of Trial and Hope.
Truman was quoted in 1957 as saying to then-House Majority Leader John McCormack, "Had it not been for the fact that I was able to sell some property that my brother, sister, and I inherited from our mother, I would practically be on relief, but with the sale of that property I am not financially embarrassed."[213]
In 1958, Congress passed the Former Presidents Act, offering a $25,000 yearly pension to each former president, and it is likely that Truman's financial status played a role in the law's enactment.[209] The one other living former president at the time, Herbert Hoover, also took the pension, even though he did not need the money; reportedly, he did so to avoid embarrassing Truman.[214] Hoover may have been remembering an old favor: shortly after becoming President, Truman had invited Hoover to the White House for an informal chat about conditions in Europe. This was Hoover's first visit to the White House since leaving office, as the Roosevelt administration had shunned Hoover. The two remained good friends for the remainder of their lives.[215]
Later life and death[link]
File:Trumanfuneral1972.jpg
Guards of honor folding the U.S. flag during interment of Truman's remains at his presidential library in Independence, Missouri.
In 1956, Truman traveled to Europe with his wife. In Britain, he received an honorary degree in Civic Law from Oxford University and met with Winston Churchill. On returning to the U.S., he supported Adlai Stevenson's second bid for the White House, although he had initially favored Democratic Governor W. Averell Harriman of New York.[216]
Upon turning 80, Truman was feted in Washington and to address the United States Senate, as part of a new rule that allowed former presidents to be granted privilege of the floor.[217] He also campaigned for senatorial candidates. After a fall in his home in late 1964, his physical condition declined. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare bill at the Truman Library and gave the first two Medicare cards to Truman and his wife Bess to honor his fight for government health care as president.[218]
On December 5, 1972, he was admitted to Kansas City's Research Hospital and Medical Center with lung congestion from pneumonia. He developed multiple organ failure and died at 7:50 am on December 26 at the age of 88. His wife died nearly ten years later, on October 18, 1982.[205] They are buried at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. Bess Truman opted for a simple private service at the library for her husband rather than a state funeral in Washington. A week later, foreign dignitaries and official Washington attended a memorial service at Washington National Cathedral.[219][220]
Legacy[link]
When he left office in 1953, Truman was one of the most unpopular chief executives in history. His job approval rating of 22% in the Gallup Poll of February 1952 was lower than Richard Nixon's was in August 1974 at 24%, the month that Nixon resigned. American public feeling toward Truman grew steadily warmer with the passing years, and the period shortly after his death consolidated a partial rehabilitation among both historians and members of the public. As early as 1962, a poll of 75 distinguished historians conducted by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. ranked Truman among the "near great" presidents.[221] Since leaving office, Truman has fared well in polls ranking the presidents among Americans. He has never been listed lower than ninth, and most recently was fifth in a C-SPAN poll in 2009.[222]
Truman has been honored on two U.S. postage stamps, the first issued in 1973 and the second stamp in 1984.[223]
He has also had his critics. After a review of information available to Truman on the presence of espionage activities in the U.S. government, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan concluded that Truman was "almost willfully obtuse" concerning the danger of American communism.[224] As early as the late 1960s, revisionist historians began attacking Truman.[225] In 2010, historian Alonzo Hamby concluded that "Harry Truman remains a controversial president."[226]
Truman died during a time when the nation was consumed with crises in Vietnam and Watergate, and his death brought a new wave of attention to his political career.[155] In the early and mid-1970s, Truman captured the popular imagination much as he had in 1948, this time emerging as a kind of political folk hero, a president who was thought to exemplify an integrity and accountability many observers felt was lacking in the Nixon White House. Truman has been portrayed on screen many times, several in performances that have won wide acclaim, and the pop band Chicago recorded a nostalgic song, "Harry Truman" (1975).
Due to Truman's critical role in the U.S. government's decision to recognize Israel, the Israeli village of Beit Harel was renamed Kfar Truman.[227]
Despite Truman's attempt to curtail the naval carrier arm, which led to the 1949 Revolt of the Admirals,[228] the navy decided to name an aircraft carrier after him. The USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) was christened on September 7, 1996. The ship, sometimes known as the 'HST', was authorized as USS United States, the same as the carrier that Truman had cancelled in 1949, but her name was changed before the keel laying.[229]
129th Field Artillery Regiment is designated "Truman's Own" in recognition of Truman's service as commander of its D Battery during World War I.[230]
The Truman Scholarship, a federal program that seeks to honor U.S. college students who exemplified dedication to public service and leadership in public policy, was created in 1975.[231] The President Harry S. Truman Fellowship in National Security Science and Engineering, a distinguished postdoctoral three-year appointment at Sandia National Laboratories was created in 2004.[232] The University of Missouri established the Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs to advance the study and practice of governance.[233] The university's Missouri Tigers athletics programs have an official mascot named Truman the Tiger. To mark its transformation from a regional state teachers' college to a highly selective liberal arts university and to honor the only Missourian to become president, Northeast Missouri State University became Truman State University on July 1, 1996. A member institution of the City Colleges of Chicago, Harry S Truman College in Chicago, Illinois is named in honor of the president for his dedication to public colleges and universities. The headquarters for the United States Department of State, built in the 1930s but never officially named, was dedicated as the Harry S Truman Building in 2000.[234]
In 1991, Truman was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians, and a bronze bust depicting him is on permanent display in the rotunda of the Missouri State Capitol. Thomas Daniel, grandson of the Trumans accepted a star on the Missouri Walk of Fame in 2006 to honor his late grandfather. John Truman, Truman's nephew, accepted a star for Bess Truman in 2007. The Walk of Fame is in Marshfield, Missouri, a city Truman visited in 1948.[235]
He was honored by the United States Postal Service with a 20¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
Historic sites[link]
- Harry S. Truman National Historic Site includes the Wallace House at 219 N. Delaware in Independence and the family farmhouse at Grandview, Missouri (Truman sold most of the farm for Kansas City suburban development including the Truman Corners Shopping Center).
- Harry S. Truman Birthplace State Historic Site is the house where Truman was born and spent 11 months in Lamar, Missouri.[236]
- Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum — The Presidential library in Independence
- Harry S. Truman Little White House — Truman's winter getaway at Key West, Florida
See also[link]
- Electoral history of Harry S. Truman
- Liberal coalition
- National Mental Health Act
- Truman Day
- List of Presidents of the United States
- US Presidents on US postage stamps
References[link]
- ^ "About Us". First Baptist Church of Grandview. http://www.fbcgrandview.org/about-us. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
- ^ McCullough, David (1992). Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster. p. 717. ISBN 0-671-86920-5. http://books.google.com/?id=8fp1A2s6aQwC.
- ^ "Bush Job Approval Highest in Gallup History". Gallup.com. September 24, 2001. http://www.gallup.com/poll/4924/Bush-Job-Approval-Highest-Gallup-History.aspx. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
- ^ "Bush: Job Ratings". Pollingreport.com. http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
- ^ McCullough, pp. 24, 37.
- ^ McCullough, p. 37.
- ^ a b "Use of the Period After the "S" in Harry S. Truman's Name". Harry S. Truman's Library and Museum. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/speriod.htm. Retrieved August 14, 2007.
- ^ McCullough, p. 27, 37.
- ^ McCullough, p. 19.
- ^ Goldstein, Norm (2003). Associated Press Stylebook 2003. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. p. 256. ISBN 0-465-00489-X.
- ^ "Birthplace of Harry S. Truman". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/kids/birthpla.htm. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
- ^ McCullough, p. 37, 77, 1112.
- ^ a b c d Oshinsky, David M. (2004). "Harry Truman". In Brinkley, Alan; Dyer, Davis. The American Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 365–380. ISBN 0-618-38273-9.
- ^ McCullough, p. 38.
- ^ Ferrell, Robert Hugh (1996). Harry S. Truman: A Life. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. p. 87. ISBN 0-8262-1050-3.
- ^ "Drugstore Clerk at 14 His First Job". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/trumanfile/drugstorearticle1.htm. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ McCullough, p. 67, 99.
- ^ McCullough, pp. 78–79.
- ^ McCullough, p. 105.
- ^ "Harry Truman joins Battery B of the Missouri National Guard". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/anniversaries/nationalguard.htm. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ "Chronological Record of the 129th Field Artillery 1917–1919". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/ww1/129chronology.shtml.
- ^ McCullough, pp. 105–110.
- ^ Giangreco, D.M.. "Capt. Harry Truman & Battery D, 129th Field Artillery In Action in the Argonne". World War I – Trenches on the Web. http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/truman2.htm.
- ^ Marks, Ted (1962). "Oral History Interview with Ted Marks". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/markst.htm. Retrieved August 13, 2008.
- ^ a b c d Gilwee, William J. (2000). "Capt. Harry Truman, Artilleryman and Future President". Doughboy Center: The Story of the American Expeditionary Forces. Worldwar1.com Magazine. Archived from the original on June 14, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080614200949/http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/truman.htm. Retrieved June 14, 2010.
- ^ Giangreco, D.M (April 7, 2002). "Soldier from Independence: Harry S. Truman and the Great War". U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/truman.htm. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
- ^ Truman, Harry (November 11, 1918). "WWI Letter from Harry to Bess". http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/personal/large/ww1_letters/pg13_txt.htm. Retrieved July 16, 2010.
- ^ "Military Personnel File of Harry S. Truman". Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/rg407.htm. Retrieved January 1, 2009.
- ^ Southern, Col. William (June 28, 1919). "Wedding of Bess Wallace and Capt. Harry S. Truman". The Examiner. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/weddingarticle.htm. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
- ^ Goldstein, Steve (January 31, 2008). "First Daughter". Obit-mag. http://www.obit-mag.com/articles/first-daughter. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
- ^ Hamby, Man of the people pp. 17–8, 135
- ^ McCullough, pp. 63–64, 68.
- ^ Hamby, Man of the people pp. 410, 412
- ^ "The Masonic Presidents Tour — Harry Truman — Thirty-third President". The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania. http://www.pagrandlodge.org/mlam/presidents/truman.html. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
- ^ "Harry S Truman (1884–1972) Thirty-third President (1945–1952)". The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania. 2002. http://www.pagrandlodge.org/mlam/presidents/truman.html. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
- ^ "Harry S. Truman Post-Presidential Papers". Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. January 8, 2010. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/hstpaper/postpres.htm. Retrieved January 8, 2010.
- ^ "The Missouri Partisan Ranger — Harry S. Truman". The Missouri Partisan Ranger. http://www.rulen.com/partisan/truman.htm. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
- ^ Eakin, Joanne C.; Hale, Donald R., eds. (1995). Branded as Rebels. p. 71.
- ^ "Harry S. Truman". The Missouri Partisan Ranger. 1995. http://www.rulen.com/partisan/truman.htm. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
- ^ a b Truman, Margaret (1973). Harry S. Truman. William Morrow and Co. p. 429.
- ^ Hamby, Alonzo L. (1995). Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504546-7.
- ^ Fuchs, James R. (March 15, 1962). "Oral History Interview with Edgar G. Hinde". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/hindeeg.htm. Retrieved October 6, 2008.
- ^ "Harry S. Truman 1947 Diary". Truman Library. July 21, 1947. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/diary/page21.htm. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
- ^ Foxman, Abraham H. (July 18, 2003). "Harry Truman, My Flawed Hero". Anti-Defamation League. http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/oped_truman.asp. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
- ^ Dana, Rebecca; Carlson, Peter (July 11, 2003). "Harry Truman's Forgotten Diary". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A40678-2003Jul10¬Found=true. Retrieved August 16, 2007.
- ^ Richard Kirkendall, The Harry S. Truman encyclopedia (1989) pp 10-11
- ^ "A Man, a Plan, and a Lot of Concrete". Kansas City Library. http://www.kclibrary.org/blog/month-kansas-city-history/man-plan-and-lot-concrete. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ Barr, Cameron W. (December 11, 2004). "Listing Madonna Rescued in Bethesda". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56501-2004Dec10.html. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ Savage, Sean J. (1991). Roosevelt: The Party Leader, 1932–1945. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. p. 65. ISBN 0-8131-1755-0. http://books.google.com/?id=J7QlafgkrnUC. Retrieved July 27, 2007.
- ^ a b "Harry S. Truman, 34th Vice President (1945)". United States Senate. http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Harry_Truman.htm. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ a b c Winn, Kenneth H.. "It All Adds Up: Reform and the Erosion of Representative Government in Missouri, 1900–2000". Missouri Secretary of State. http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/pubs/article/article.asp. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ "The Presidency: The World of Harry Truman". Time. January 8, 1973. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910501-3,00.html. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ McCullough, p. 232.
- ^ McCullough, p. 230.
- ^ Hamby Man of the People pp 234-6
- ^ Hamby Man of the People pp 236-47
- ^ "Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) Masonic Record". The Masonic Presidents Tour. The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania. http://www.pagrandlodge.org/mlam/presidents/truman.html. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ "The Wonderful Wastebasket". Time: 3. March 24, 1952. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,816178-1,00.html. Retrieved August 17, 2007.
- ^ "Anniversary Remembrance". Time. July 2, 1951. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,815031,00.html. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ McCullough, p. 262.
- ^ Donovan, Robert J. (1996). Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry Truman, 1945–1948. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. p. 36. ISBN 0-8262-1066-X.
- ^ Fleming, Thomas (2002). The New Dealers' War: F.D.R. And the War within World War II. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02465-3.
- ^ McCullough, pp. 337–338.
- ^ "Senator: Truman Committee Hearings". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/lifetimes/senate.htm. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- ^ Video: Give-'em-Hell-Harry. The Open Mind. 1992. http://www.archive.org/details/openmind_ep923. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
- ^ "Truman on Time Magazine Covers". Time. March 3, 1923. http://search.time.com/results.html?N=46&Nty=1&Ns=p_date_range%7C1&Ntt=truman&x=0&y=0. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ "Harry S. Truman: His Life and Times: Senator". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/lifetimes/senate.htm. Retrieved August 9, 2007.
- ^ McCullough, p. 293.
- ^ McCullough, p. 295.
- ^ "PBS's American Experience Harry Truman". Pbs.org. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/video/truman_09.html#v166. Retrieved June 17, 2010.
- ^ "Eleanor and Harry: The Correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/eleanor/. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ "America in the Second World War: The Manhattan Project". U.S. History. http://www.ushistory.org/us/51f.asp. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- ^ McCullough, p. 436.
- ^ "Thoughts Of A President, 1945". Eye Witness To History. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tru.htm. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- ^ McCullough, p. 348.
- ^ Hiroshima arguments rage 60 years on, BBC News, August 3, 2005
- ^ Harry S. Truman, Memoirs 1, pp. 10–11.
- ^ "Atomic Bomb Chronology: 1945–1946". Tokyo Physicians for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. http://www.ask.ne.jp/~hankaku/english/np7y.html. Retrieved July 28, 2007. "H. Truman told Y. Stalin about A-bomb experiment. Stalin was already informed by spy of Trinity but never revealed it."
- ^ "Interview Transcripts: The Potsdam Conference". The American Experience. PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/filmmore/it_3.html. Retrieved July 26, 2007. "Truman approached Stalin at the Potsdam conference and very carefully said to Stalin that he had this new weapon."
- ^ Truman, Harry S. (1955). Year of Decisions. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. p. 416. ISBN 1-56852-062-X. "Stalin hoped we would make 'good use of it against the Japanese.'"
- ^ David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939–1956 (Yale University Press, 1994).
- ^ Some historians argue the Japanese were waiting for a clarification of the seeming conflict between the Potsdam Declaration and the Atlantic Charter, as Alperovitz and Hasegawa point out.
- ^ "The Manhattan Project: An Interactive History". U.S. Department of Energy. http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/potsdam_decision.htm. Retrieved July 14, 2008.
- ^ Carter, Kit; Robert Mueller. "The Army Air Forces in World War II". Office of Air Force History, Washington, D.C. 1973: 685.
- ^ "The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki". Atomicarchive.com. http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/MED/med_chp10.shtml. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ "Frequently Asked Questions No. 1". Radiation Effects Research Foundation. http://www.rerf.or.jp/general/qa_e/qa1.html. Retrieved September 18, 2007.
- ^ "The answer reached the President at five minutes past four that afternoon, Tuesday, August 14. Japan had surrendered." McCullough, p. 461.
- ^ Tenuth, Jeff (August 3, 2001). "Truman on Trial: Not Guilty". History News Network. http://hnn.us/articles/182.html. Retrieved April 7, 2010.
- ^ "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb: Gar Alperovitz and the H-Net Debate". Hiroshima: Was it Necessary?. Doug-long.com. http://www.doug-long.com/debate.htm. Retrieved July 27, 2007.
- ^ Letter from Harry S. Truman to Chicago columnist Irving Kupcinet (unsent), (August 5, 1963), from The Papers of Harry S. Truman: Post-Presidential Papers, Harry S. Truman Library (digitized and online at National Archives Archival Research Catalog, ARC Identifier 201504).
- ^ a b c Grubin, David (1997). "The American Experience: Truman". PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/. Retrieved August 3, 2007.
- ^ a b ""Word Has Just Been Received": Truman Speaks on the Railroad Strike: 1948–1952". History Matters. George Mason University. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5137/. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ "Reading 2: Goodwill Ambassador to the World". National Park Service. http://www.nps.gov/history/NR/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/26roosevelt/26facts2.htm. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ a b Freeland, Richard M. (1970). The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of McCarthyism. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.. pp. g. 90.
- ^ Spalding, Elizabeth Edwards (2006). The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism. The University Press of Kentucky. p. 64.
- ^ Kennan, George (1947). "The Sources of Soviet Conduct". Lectures on 20th Century Europe. History Guide. http://www.historyguide.org/europe/kennan.html.
- ^ Geoffrey Roberts (December 2000). "Historians and the Cold War". History Today. http://www.historytoday.com/MainArticle.aspx?m=14080&amid=14080. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ Holsti, Ole (1996). Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. p. 214. ISBN 978-0-472-06619-3.
- ^ "USAF Established". National Museum of the United States Air Force. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1845. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ "Taft-Hartley: How It Works and How It Has Worked". Time. October 19, 1959. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,869269,00.html. Retrieved July 19, 2007.
- ^ "President Truman Addresses Congress on Proposed Health Program, Washington, D.C". This Day in Truman History. Truman Library & Museum. November 19, 1945. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/anniversaries/healthprogram.htm. Retrieved August 13, 2008.
- ^ Binning, William C.; Larry E. Esterly and Paul A. Sracic (1999). Encyclopedia of American Parties, Campaigns, and Elections. Westport, CT: Greenwood. p. 417. ISBN 0-8131-1755-0. http://books.google.com/?id=fYs1RZ6NbFMC. Retrieved July 29, 2007.
- ^ "The Art of the Possible". "Time". June 6, 1949. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,801882,00.html. Retrieved July 19, 2007.
- ^ Richard E. Neustadt, "Congress and the Fair Deal: A Legislative Balance Sheet," Public Policy, 5 (1954): 349-81, reprinted in Alonzo L. Hamby ed., Harry S. Truman and the Fair Deal (1974) pp 15, 29
- ^ Michael T. Benson, Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel (Praeger, 1997), p. ix.
- ^ Eddy, FDR Meets Ibn Saud, p. 37. The envoys were William A. Eddy, minister to Saudi Arabia; S. Pinkney Tuck, minister to Egypt; George Wadsworth, minister to Syria and Lebanon; and Lowell C. Pinkerton, general counsel in Jerusalem.
- ^ Jason Kendall Moore, "Destabilizing the Middle East: US Policy toward Palestine, 1943–1949," Journal of Church & State, Winter 2001, Vol. 43 Issue 1, pp. 115–34.
- ^ Michael Ottolenghi, "Harry Truman's Recognition of Israel," Historical Journal, Dec 2004, Vol. 47 Issue 4, pp. 963–88.
- ^ George Lenczowski, (1990), American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 27
- ^ Harry S. Truman, Memoirs 2, p. 153.
- ^ McCullough, pp. 614–20.
- ^ Clifford, Clark; Richard Holbrooke (1991). Counsel to the President. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-56995-4.
- ^ Lenczowski, p. 25.
- ^ Walter Millis, ed. Forrestal Diaries, p. 322.
- ^ Lenczowski, p. 26.
- ^ Truman, Harry (May 14, 1948). "Memo recognizing the state of Israel". Truman Presidential Museum & Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/israel/large/documents/index.php?documentdate=1948-05-14&documentid=48&studycollectionid=ROI&pagenumber=1. Retrieved April 2, 2007.
- ^ Quoted from footage of Truman speaking, presented in the film The 50 Years War. A slightly different quotation appears in the book, Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel, by Michael T. Benson. 1997, p. 64.
- ^ Giangreco, D. M.; Robert E. Griffin (1988). "The Airlift Begins: Airbridge to Berlin — The Berlin Crisis of 1948, its Origins and Aftermath". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/BERLIN_A/PAGE_11.HTM. Retrieved August 4, 2007.
- ^ LaFeber, Walter (1993). America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–1980 (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
- ^ McCullough, p. 741.
- ^ Peslyak, Alexander (August 31, 2009). "Russia: building a nuclear deterrent for the sake of peace (60th anniversary of the first Soviet atomic test)". RIA Novosti. http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20090831/155977682.html. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
- ^ a b Hess, Jerry N. (November 21, 1972). "Oral History Interviews with Karl R. Bendetsen: General Counsel, Department of the Army, 1949; Assistant Secretary of the Army, 1950–52; Under Secretary of the Army, 1952". Oral Archives. Truman Presidential Library. http://www.korean-war.com/miakia.html. Retrieved July 29, 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f Blair, Clay (2003). The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950–1953. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-075-7.
- ^ a b c Krulak, Victor H. (Lt. Gen.) (1999). First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-464-4.
- ^ Lane, Peter J., Steel for Bodies: Ammunition Readiness During the Korean War, Master's Thesis: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (2003)
- ^ Donaldson, Gary A.. "Truman". State of New Jersey. http://www.state.nj.us/military//korea/biographies/truman.html. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
- ^ a b "The greatest upset in American political history: Harry Truman and the 1948 election". White House Studies 2006 (Winter).
- ^ Burnes, Brian (2003). Harry S. Truman: His Life and Times. Kansas City, MO: Kansas City Star Books. p. 137. ISBN 0-9740009-3-0.
- ^ McCullough, p. 640.
- ^ "Truman's Democratic Convention Acceptance Speech". Presidential Links. PBS. 1948. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/character/links/truman_speech.html. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ "Chapter 12: The President Intervenes". Center of Military History. U.S. Army. http://www.history.army.mil/books/integration/IAF-12.htm. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ "Executive Order 9981, Establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, Harry S. Truman". Federal Register. 1948. http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/1948.html. Retrieved July 27, 2007.
- ^ "Desegregation of the Armed Forces". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/deseg.htm. Retrieved July 27, 2007.
- ^ McCullough, p. 654.
- ^ McCullough, p. 657.
- ^ McCullough, p. 701.
- ^ Curran, Jeanne; Takata, Susan R. (2002). "Getting a Sample Isn't Always Easy". Dear Habermas. California State University — Dominguez Hills. http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/sampling01.htm. Retrieved July 28, 2007. "(E)lection polls have found, that the use of telephone surveys doesn't include lots of people who don't have telephones. That can lead to disastrous results, as it did in the Dewey-Truman election in 1948."
- ^ Bennett, Stephen Earl. "Restoration of Confidence: Polling's Comeback from 1948". Public Opinion Pros. http://www.publicopinionpros.norc.org/from_field/2007/jan/bennett_printable.asp. Retrieved April 6, 2010. "Roper finished polling in September, Crossley’s last poll was October 18, and Gallup stopped polling after October 28."
- ^ Strout, Richard L.. "Oral History Interview with Richard L. Strout". Truman Presidential Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/strout.htm. Retrieved April 6, 2010. "Roper quit polling on September the ninth."
- ^ "The Story Behind "Dewey Defeats Truman"". Historybuff.com. http://www.historybuff.com/library/reftruman.html. Retrieved July 28, 2007.
- ^ "U.S. Constitution: Twenty-Fifth Amendment". FindLaw. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment25/. Retrieved July 28, 2007. Until the ratification of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1967, there was no provision for filling a mid-term vacancy in the office of vice president.
- ^ "Inauguration of the President: Fact & Firsts". senate.gov. http://inaugural.senate.gov/history/factsandfirsts/index.cfm. Retrieved August 25, 2007.
- ^ "Truman announces U.S. has developed hydrogen bomb". History.com. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/truman-announces-us-has-developed-hydrogen-bomb. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
- ^ Lawrence S. Kaplan, The Long Entanglement: NATO's First Fifty Years (1999)
- ^ "First Taiwan Strait Crisis Quemoy and Matsu Islands". Global Security. July 18, 2005. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/quemoy_matsu.htm. Retrieved April 3, 2010.
- ^ a b c Fried, Richard M. (1990). Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504361-8. http://books.google.com/?id=pVatMuvNTsoC. Retrieved July 30, 2007.
- ^ Chambers, Whittaker (1952). Witness. New York: Random House. p. 799. LCCN 52005149. http://lccn.loc.gov/52005149.
- ^ Tanenhaus, Sam (1998). Whittaker Chambers. New York: Modern Library. ISBN 0-375-75145-9.
- ^ a b "McCarthyism v. "Trumanism"". Time. August 27, 1951. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,815218-1,00.html. Retrieved July 27, 2007.
- ^ "Telegram, Joseph McCarthy to Harry S. Truman, February 11, 1950, with Truman's draft reply; McCarthy, Joseph; General File; PSF; Truman Papers". Truman Presidential Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/exhibit_documents/index.php?pagenumber=1&titleid=203&tldate=1950-02-11&collectionid=mccarthy&PageID=-1&groupid=3435. Retrieved July 28, 2007.
- ^ Appleman, Roy E. (1992). South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (June–November 1950). Washington, DC: Center of Military History, U.S. Army. ISBN 0-16-035958-9. http://www.history.army.mil/books/korea/20-2-1/toc.htm. Retrieved April 6, 2010.
- ^ "Memorandum of Information for the Secretary — Blockade of Korea". Truman Presidential Library — Archives. July 6, 1950. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/korea/large/week2/kw_78_1.jpg. Retrieved July 28, 2007.
- ^ Kepley, David R. (1988). The Collapse of the Middle Way: Senate Republicans and the Bipartisan Foreign Policy, 1948–1952. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-25784-1.
- ^ Summers, Harry G. (1996). "The Korean War: A Fresh Perspective". Rt66.com. http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/24thID.htm. Retrieved July 28, 2007.
- ^ a b "Historical Notes: Giving Them More Hell". Time. December 3, 1973. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908217,00.html. Retrieved April 12, 2010.
- ^ Matray, James I. (September 1, 1979). "Truman's Plan for Victory: National Self-determination and the Thirty-eighth Parallel Decision in Korea". Journal of American History 66 (2): 314–333. DOI:10.2307/1900879. ISSN 00218723. JSTOR 1900879.
- ^ Stokesbury, James L. (1990). A Short History of the Korean War. New York: Harper Perennial. pp. 81–90. ISBN 0-688-09513-5.
- ^ Cohen, Eliot A; Gooch, John (2006). Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War. New York: Free Press. pp. 165–195. ISBN 0-7432-8082-2.
- ^ Stokesbury, James L. (1990). A Short History of the Korean War. New York: Harper Perennial. pp. 123–129. ISBN 0-688-09513-5.
- ^ Strout, Lawrence N. (1999). "Covering McCarthyism: How the Christian Science Monitor Handled Joseph R. McCarthy, 1950–1954". Journal of Political and Military Sociology 2001 (Summer): 41.
- ^ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcript/truman-transcript/
- ^ "U.S. Military Korean War Statistics". Korean-war.com. http://www.korean-war.com/miakia.html. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ David, Paul T. (1954). Presidential Nominating Politics in 1952 Vol. 1. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press. pp. 33–40.
- ^ "Job Performance Ratings for President Truman". Public Opinion Archives. Roper Center. 2010. http://webapps.ropercenter.uconn.edu/CFIDE/roper/presidential/webroot/presidential_rating_detail.cfm?allRate=True&presidentName=Truman. Retrieved April 7, 2010.
- ^ Duiker, William J. (1994). U.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. (Untitled review (PDF) of this book by Christopher Jesperson, Journal of Conflict Studies, Fall 1995. Retrieved April 7, 2010.
- ^ Samuel F. Wells, Jr., "Sounding the Tocsin: NSC 68 and the Soviet Threat" International Security, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Autumn, 1979), pp. 116-158 in JSTOR
- ^ "Truman Reconstruction : 1948–1952". White House Museum. http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/special/renovation-1948.htm. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ McCullough, pp. 593, 652, 725, 875ff.
- ^ Hunter, Stephen; John Bainbridge, Jr. (2005). American Gunfight: The Plot To Kill Harry Truman — And The Shoot-Out That Stopped It. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 4, 251. ISBN 0-7432-6068-6.
- ^ Ayoob, Massad (2006). "Drama at Blair House: the attempted assassination of Harry Truman". American Handgunner (March–April 2006). http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BTT/is_180_30/ai_n16034729/pg_3/?tag=artBody;col1. Retrieved April 1, 2010.
- ^ Higgs, Robert (March 1, 2004). "Truman's Attempt to Seize the Steel Industry". The Freeman. The Independent Institute. http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1394. Retrieved August 3, 2007.
- ^ McCullough, pp. 605–606.
- ^ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 41. ISBN 0-465-04195-7.
- ^ "Word Has Just Been Received": Truman Speaks on the Railroad Strike. George Mason University. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5137/.
- ^ Smaltz, Donald C. (July 1998). "Independent Counsel: A View from Inside". The Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 86, No. 6.
- ^ Smaltz, Donald C. (January 29, 1996). "Speech Delivered by Donald C. Smaltz". University of North Texas Libraries. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/oic/SMALTZ/speeches/gonzag.htm. Retrieved August 3, 2007.
- ^ Donovan 1982, pp. 116–117.
- ^ "Caldwell, George A". Louisiana Historical Association, A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography (lahistory.org). http://www.lahistory.org/site20.php. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
- ^ ""Texas: The Land of Parr," February 15, 1954". Time. February 15, 1954. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,936166,00.html. Retrieved December 21, 2010.
- ^ "The Corruption Issue: A Pandora's Box, referencing 1952 campaign, article 9/24/56". Time. September 24, 1956. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867099-3,00.html. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ "Truman Loyalty Oath, 1947". Matrix. 1947. http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst203/documents/loyal.html. Retrieved July 19, 2007.
- ^ Boyer, Paul (1994). By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-8078-4480-9.
- ^ Newman, Roger K. (1997). Hugo Black: A Biography. New York: Fordham University Press. p. 382. ISBN 0-8232-1786-8. "HST's stated desire to "keep something worse from happening" by implementing his loyalty check program"
- ^ "The White Case Record". Time Magazine. November 30, 1953. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,823119,00.html. Retrieved October 3, 2006.
- ^ Moynihan, et al., Daniel Patrick (1997). Chairman's Foreword, Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Congress, U.S. Government Printing Office. http://www.gpo.gov/congress/commissions/secrecy/index.html. Retrieved August 3, 2007. [dead link]
- ^ a b "FAQ: Is the letter on display that Truman wrote in defense of his daughter's singing?". Truman Library. December 6, 1950. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/trivia/letter.htm. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- ^ Barnes, Bart (January 29, 2008). "Margaret Truman Daniel Dies at Age 83". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/29/AR2008012901321_2.html. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- ^ Giglio, James N. (2001). Truman in cartoon and caricature. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press. p. 112. ISBN 0-8138-1806-0. http://books.google.com/?id=kWO65gqmpEYC&pg=PA112.
- ^ Smith, J. Y. (November 28, 2001). "Paul Hume: Music Critic Who Panned Truman Daughter's Singing and Drew Presidential Wrath". Pitssburgh Post-Gazette via The Washington Post. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=20011128&id=vDAxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=inADAAAAIBAJ&pg=5454,6640005. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- ^ "The Civil Rights Movement". University of Virginia, Virginia Center for Digital History. 2005. http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/solguide/VUS13/vus13b08.html. Retrieved April 1, 2010.
- ^ "Full text of original copy of the order at the Truman library". Trumanlibrary.org. July 26, 1948. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/9981.htm. Retrieved December 12, 2010.
- ^ Integration of the Armed Services 1940–1965. Washington, DC: Center of Military History. 1981. pp. 312–315, 376–378, 457–459.
- ^ "Executive Order 9981, Desegregation of the Armed Forces, July 26, 1948". Public Broadcasting System. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/psources/ps_order.html. Retrieved April 1, 2010.
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- ^ Eisler, Kim Isaac (1993). A Justice for All: William J. Brennan, Jr., and the decisions that transformed America. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 76. ISBN 0-671-76787-9.
- ^ a b c d Eisler, p. 76.
- ^ "U.S. Constitution: Twenty-second Amendment". Find Law. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment22/. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- ^ McCullough p. 887.
- ^ Ambrose, Stephen E. (1983). Eisenhower: 1890–1952. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 515. ISBN 0-671-44069-1. "Journalist Arthur Krock was told by a third party that in 1951 Truman privately offered the top spot on the Democratic ticket to Dwight D. Eisenhower, but Eisenhower, who turned out to be a Republican, supposedly declined. Truman and Eisenhower both denied the story"
- ^ McCullough, pp. 887–893.
- ^ "The Way West, article 9/15/52". Time. September 15, 1952. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,816934-1,00.html. Retrieved July 26, 2007.
- ^ Hurwood, Burnhardt J.; Frank Gosfield (1969). Korea: Land of the 38th Parallel. New York: Parents Magazine Press. p. 123. http://www.bookbase.com/search;jsessionid=9D7150910EE9F9A087C77897586EA9DB?dealer_login=gunvilles&bookId=032761&method=POST. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
- ^ Gibbs, Nancy (November 10, 2008). "When New President Meets Old, It's Not Always Pretty". TIME. http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1857862,00.html.
- ^ a b "Biographical sketch of Mrs. Harry S. Truman". Truman Presidential Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/bwt-bio.htm. Retrieved July 28, 2007.
- ^ Algeo, Matthew. Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip. Chicago Review Press. ISBN 1-55652-777-2
- ^ Burnes, Brian (2003). Harry S. Truman: His Life and Times. Kansas City, MO: Kansas City Star Books. pp. 217–218. ISBN 0-9740009-3-0. http://books.google.com/?id=ZKk2Nuc20dQC&pg=PA218. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ Vaccaro, Ernest B. (January 15, 1953). "Truman Puts in Busy Day as Term Comes to Close". The Victoria Advocate. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=EwNkAAAAIBAJ&pg=5680,1184625. Retrieved April 4, 2010. [dead link]
- ^ a b Smith, Stephanie (March 18, 2008). "Former Presidents: Federal Pension and Retirement Benefits" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. U.S. Senate. http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/98-249.pdf. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ Ferrell, p. 387.
- ^ "The Man of Spirit". Time. August 13, 1956. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,865421,00.html. Retrieved July 29, 2007.
- ^ McCullough p. 949; quoting Allan Nevins writing for The New York Times Book Review 11/6/55, called Year of Decisions a "volume of distinction"
- ^ McCullough, p. 963.
- ^ Martin, Joseph William (1960). My First Fifty Years in Politics as Told to Robert J. Donovan. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 249.
- ^ McCullough, pp. 389–90.
- ^ "U.S. Domestic Politics in the Early Cold War Era, 1947–1961". The Ohio State University. http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/childs1/HIS565PoliticalChronology1947-61.htm. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ McCullough, p. 983
- ^ "President Lyndon B. Johnson Signs Medicare Bill". Truman Library. http://www.trumanlibrary.org/anniversaries/medicarebill.htm. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ "Services Following Deaths of American Presidents". Washington National Cathedral. http://www.nationalcathedral.org/about/presidentialFunerals.shtml. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ Wooten, James T. (January 6, 1973). "Truman Honored By World Notables At Cathedral Rites". The New York Times: p. 1.
- ^ "Truman and the Historians: The Reconstruction of Postwar American History". The Wisconsin Magazine of History 59 (1): pp. 20–47. Autumn, 1975.
- ^ "C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership". http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/Overall-Ranking.aspx. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
- ^ Scotts Specialized catalogue of U.S. Stamps
- ^ Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. "Chairman's Foreword". Moynihan Library. http://fas.org/sgp/library/moynihan/foreword.html. Retrieved August 13, 2008.
- ^ "Truman and the Historians: The Reconstruction of Postwar American History". The Wisconsin Magazine of History 50 (3): pp. 261–264. Spring, 1967.
- ^ Hamby, Alonzo. "Presidency: How Do Historians Evaluate the Administration of Harry Truman?". http://hnn.us/articles/442.html. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
- ^ "Kfar Truman". Jewish Sightseeing. http://www.jewishsightseeing.com/israel/kfar_truman/kfar_truman.htm. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
- ^ "Armed Forces: Revolt of the Admirals". TIME. October 17, 1949. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,853921,00.html. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
- ^ "USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75)". Navy Source. http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/75.htm. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ "Army National Guard Special Designation Listing". US Army. http://www.history.army.mil/html/forcestruc/spdes-abc-arng.html. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
- ^ "Our History: A Living Memorial". Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. http://truman.gov/about-us/our-history. Retrieved April 7, 2010.
- ^ "Truman Fellowship". Sandia National Laboratories. http://www.sandia.gov/careers/fellowships.html#truman. Retrieved April 7, 2010.
- ^ "Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs". http://truman.missouri.edu. Retrieved June 18, 2008.
- ^ "State Department headquarters named for Harry S. Truman". Associated Press. CNN.com. September 22, 2000. Archived from the original on December 8, 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20041208101632/http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/22/truman.building.ap/index.html. Retrieved April 4, 2010. [dead link]
- ^ "Hall of Famous Missourians". Missouri House of Representatives. http://www.house.mo.gov/famous.aspx?fm=display. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
- ^ "Harry S. Truman Birthplace State Historic Site". Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites. http://www.mostateparks.com/trumansite.htm. Retrieved August 18, 2008.
Bibliography[link]
Main article: Bibliography of Harry S. Truman
- Bernstein, Barton J. "America In War and Peace: The Test of Liberalism" in Bernstein, ed., Towards A New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History" (1969), 289-291, reprinted in Hamby (1974) pp 52-68; sharp attack from the New Left
- Dallek, Robert. Harry S. Truman (2008), short biography by leading scholar
- Donovan, Robert J. Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (1977); Tumultuous Years: 1949–1953 (1982) detailed 2-vol political history
- Ferrell, Robert H. Harry S. Truman: A Life (1994)
- Fleming, Thomas J. Harry S. Truman, President (1993) for middle school audience.
- Gosnell, Harold Foote. Truman's Crises: A Political Biography of Harry S. Truman (1980)
- Graff, Henry F., ed. The Presidents: A Reference History. 2nd ed. New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan, 1996, ISBN 0-684-80471-9, pp 443-58
- Hamby, Alonzo L. Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman (1995)
- Hamby, Alonzo L. ed. Harry S, Truman and the Fair Deal (1974) articles by scholars and some primary sources
- Kirkendall, Richard S. Harry S. Truman Encyclopedia (1990), short articles by experts
- McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. ISBN 0-671-86920-5 best-selling biography
- Neustadt, Richard E. "Congress and the Fair Deal: A Legislative Balance Sheet," Public Policy, 5 (1954): 349-81, reprinted in Alonzo L. Hamby ed., Harry S. Truman and the Fair Deal (1974) pp 15-42
Primary sources[link]
- Bernstein, Barton J. (ed.) (1970). Politics and Policies of the Truman Administration (Second ed.). Franklin Watts. ISBN 0-531-06328-3.
- Miller, Merle (1974). Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman. Putnam Publishing Group. ISBN 0-399-11261-8.
External links[link]
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- Harry S. Truman at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- Harry Truman's cabinet
- Medical and health history of Harry Truman
- C-SPAN's Presidential Libraries: Harry S. Truman
- PBS American Experience Video Biography of Harry Truman
- White House biography
- Harry S. Truman’s Homes - slideshow by The New York Times
- Harry S. Truman: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
- Truman Tapes Presidential Recording Project Miller Center of Public Affairs
- The American Presidency Project at UCSB: The Most Comprehensive Resource on the Web
- 'The American Presidency: Transformation and Change — Harry Truman', lecture by Professor Vernon Bogdanor at Gresham College, January 29, 2008 [available for free audio, video and text download]
- Harry Truman and Independence, Missouri: "This is Where I Belong," a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan
- President Harry S. Truman American President: An Online Reference Resource. Miller Center of Public Affairs
- Harry Truman at C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits
- The short film Harry Truman, President of the U.S. is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
- The short film Truman: A Self-Portrait (1984) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
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| Persondata | |
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| Name | Truman, Harry S. |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | thirty-third President of the United States |
| Date of birth | May 8, 1884 |
| Place of birth | Lamar, Missouri |
| Date of death | December 26, 1972 |
| Place of death | Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Korean War | |
|---|---|
| Hangul | 한국전쟁 or 조선전쟁 |
| Hanja | 韓國戰爭 or 朝鮮戰爭 |
| Revised Romanization | Hanguk Jeonjaeng or Joseon Jeonjaeng |
| McCune–Reischauer | Han’guk Chŏnjaeng or Chosŏn Chŏnjaeng |
The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁 or 조선전쟁, Hanja: 韓國戰爭 or 朝鮮戰爭; 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953[10][a]) was a war between the Republic of Korea (supported primarily by the United States of America, with contributions from allied nations under the aegis of the United Nations) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (supported by the People's Republic of China, with military and material aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The Korean War was primarily the result of the political division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II. The Korean Peninsula was ruled by the Empire of Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. Following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in September 1945, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th parallel, with U.S. military forces occupying the southern half and Soviet military forces occupying the northern half.[12]
The failure to hold free elections throughout the Korean Peninsula in 1948 deepened the division between the two sides; the North established a communist government, while the South established a capitalist one. The 38th parallel increasingly became a political border between the two Korean states. Although reunification negotiations continued in the months preceding the war, tension intensified. Cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel persisted. The situation escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950.[13] It was the first significant armed conflict of the Cold War.[14] In 1950 the Soviet Union boycotted the United Nations security council, in protest at representation of China by the Kuomintang / Republic of China government, which had taken refuge in Taiwan following defeat in the Chinese Civil War. In the absence of a dissenting voice from the Soviet Union, who could have vetoed it, the United States and other countries passed a security council resolution authorizing military intervention in Korea.
The United States of America provided 88% of the 341,000 international soldiers which aided South Korean forces in repelling the invasion, with twenty other countries of the United Nations offering assistance. Suffering severe casualties, within two months the defenders were pushed back to a small area in the south of the Korean Peninsula, known as the Pusan perimeter. A rapid U.N. counter-offensive then drove the North Koreans past the 38th Parallel and almost to the Yalu River, when the People's Republic of China (PRC) entered the war on the side of North Korea.[13] Chinese intervention forced the Southern-allied forces to retreat behind the 38th Parallel. While not directly committing forces to the conflict, the Soviet Union provided material aid to both the North Korean and Chinese armies. The active stage of the war ended on 27 July 1953, when the armistice agreement was signed. The agreement restored the border between the Koreas near the 38th Parallel and created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a 2.5-mile (4.0 km)-wide fortified buffer zone between the two Korean nations. Minor outbreaks of fighting continue to the present day.
With both North Korea and South Korea sponsored by external powers, the Korean War was a proxy war. From a military science perspective, it combined strategies and tactics of World War I and World War II: it began with a mobile campaign of swift infantry attacks followed by air bombing raids, but became a static trench war by July 1951.
Contents
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Background[link]
Terminology[link]
In the United States of America, the war was initially described by President Harry S. Truman as a "police action" as it was conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.[15] Colloquially, it has been referred to in the United States as The Forgotten War or The Unknown War because the issues concerned were much less clear than in previous and subsequent conflicts, such as World War II and the Vietnam War.[16][17]
In South Korea the war is usually referred to as "625" or the 6–2–5 Upheaval (yug-i-o dongnan), reflecting the date of its commencement on 25 June.[18] In North Korea the war is officially referred to as the Fatherland Liberation War (Choguk haebang chǒnjaeng). Alternatively, it is called the "Chosǒn War" (Chosǒn chǒnjaeng).[19] In the People's Republic of China the war is officially called the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (simplified Chinese: 抗美援朝战争; traditional Chinese: 抗美援朝戰爭; pinyin: Kàngměiyuáncháo zhànzhēng),[20][21] although the term "Joseon War" (simplified Chinese: 朝鲜战争; traditional Chinese: 朝鮮戰爭; pinyin: Cháoxiǎn zhànzhēng) is also used in unofficial capacity.
Japanese rule (1910–1945)[link]
Main article: Korea under Japanese rule
Upon defeating the Qing Dynasty in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–96), the Empire of Japan occupied the Korean Empire – a peninsula strategic to its sphere of influence.[22] A decade later, defeating Imperial Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), Japan made Korea its protectorate with the Eulsa Treaty in 1905, then annexed it with the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910.[23]
Korean nationalists and the intelligentsia fled the country, and some founded the Provisional Korean Government in 1919, which was headed by Syngman Rhee in Shanghai. This government-in-exile was recognized by few countries. From 1919 to 1925 and beyond, Korean communists led and were the primary agents of internal and external warfare against the Japanese.[24][25]
Korea under Japanese rule was considered to be part of the Empire of Japan as an industrialized colony along with Taiwan, and both were part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In 1937, the colonial Governor-General, General Jirō Minami, commanded the attempted cultural assimilation of Korea's 23.5 million people by banning the use and study of Korean language, literature, and culture, to be replaced with that of mandatory use and study of their Japanese counterparts. Starting in 1939, the populace was required to use Japanese names under the Sōshi-kaimei policy. In 1938, the Colonial Government established labor conscription.[citation needed]
In the People's Republic of China, the National Revolutionary Army and the Communist People's Liberation Army helped organize refugee Korean patriots and independence fighters against the Japanese military, which had also occupied parts of China. The Nationalist-backed Koreans, led by Yi Pom-Sok, fought in the Burma Campaign (December 1941 – August 1945). The Communists, led by Kim Il-sung, fought the Japanese in Korea and Manchuria.[citation needed]
During World War II, the Japanese used Korea's food, livestock, and metals for their war effort. Japanese forces in Korea increased from 46,000 soldiers in 1941 to 300,000 in 1945. Japanese Korea conscripted 2.6 million forced laborers controlled with a collaborationist Korean police force; some 723,000 people were sent to work in the overseas empire and in metropolitan Japan. By 1942, Korean men were being conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army. By January 1945, Koreans comprised 32% of Japan's labor force. In August 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, around 25% of those killed were Koreans.[25] At the end of the war, other world powers did not recognize Japanese rule in Korea and Taiwan.
Meanwhile, at the Cairo Conference (November 1943), Nationalist China, the United Kingdom, and the United States decided "in due course Korea shall become free and independent".[26] Later, the Yalta Conference (February 1945) granted to the Soviet Union European "buffer zones"—satellite states accountable to Moscow—as well as an expected Soviet pre-eminence in China and Manchuria, in return for joining the Allied Pacific War effort against Japan.[27]
Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945)[link]
Main article: Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945)
Toward the end of World War II, as per a US-Soviet agreement, the Soviet Union declared war against Japan on 9 August 1945.[25][28] By 10 August, the Red Army occupied the northern part of the Korean peninsula as agreed, and on 26 August halted at the 38th parallel for three weeks to await the arrival of US forces in the south.[29]
On 10 August 1945, with the 15 August Japanese surrender near, the Americans doubted whether the Soviets would honor their part of the Joint Commission, the US-sponsored Korean occupation agreement. A month earlier, Colonel Dean Rusk and Colonel Charles H. Bonesteel III divided the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel after hurriedly deciding that the US Korean Zone of Occupation had to have a minimum of two ports.[30][31][32][33]
Explaining why the occupation zone demarcation was positioned at the 38th parallel, Rusk observed, "even though it was further north than could be realistically reached by US forces, in the event of Soviet disagreement ... we felt it important to include the capital of Korea in the area of responsibility of American troops", especially when "faced with the scarcity of US forces immediately available, and time and space factors, which would make it difficult to reach very far north, before Soviet troops could enter the area."[27] The Soviets agreed to the US occupation zone demarcation to improve their negotiating position regarding the occupation zones in Eastern Europe, and because each would accept Japanese surrender where they stood.[34]
Chinese Civil War (1945–1949)[link]
Main article: Chinese Civil War
After the end of Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Communists and the Chinese Nationalists. While the Communists were struggling for supremacy in Manchuria, they were supported by the North Korean government with materiel and manpower.[35] According to Chinese sources, the North Koreans donated 2,000 railway cars worth of material while thousands of Korean "volunteers" served in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the war.[36] North Korea also provided the Chinese Communists in Manchuria with a safe refuge for non-combatants and communications with the rest of China.[35]
The North Korean contributions to the Chinese Communist victory were not forgotten after the creation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. As a token of gratitude, between 50,000 to 70,000 Korean veterans that served in the PLA were sent back along with their weapons, and they would later play a significant role in the initial invasion of South Korea.[35] China promised to support the North Koreans in the event of a war against South Korea.[37] The Chinese support created a deep division between the Korean Communists, and Kim Il-Sung's authority within the Communist party was challenged by the Chinese faction led by Pak Il-yu, who was later purged by Kim.[38]
After the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese government named the Western nations, led by the United States, as the biggest threat to its national security.[39] Basing this judgment on China's century of humiliation beginning in the early 19th century,[40] American support for the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War,[41] and the ideological struggles between revolutionaries and reactionaries,[42] the Chinese leadership believed that China would become a critical battleground in the United States' crusade against Communism.[43] As a countermeasure and to elevate China's standing among the worldwide Communist movements, the Chinese leadership adopted a foreign policy that actively promoted Communist revolutions throughout territories on China's periphery.[44]
Korea divided (1945–1949)[link]
See also: Division of Korea
At the Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945), the Allies unilaterally decided to divide Korea—without consulting the Koreans—in contradiction of the Cairo Conference.[45][46][47][48]
On 8 September 1945, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge of the United States arrived in Incheon to accept the Japanese surrender south of the 38th parallel.[31] Appointed as military governor, General Hodge directly controlled South Korea via the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK 1945–48).[49] He established control by restoring to power the key Japanese colonial administrators and their Korean police collaborators.[14] The USAMGIK refused to recognise the provisional government of the short-lived People's Republic of Korea (PRK) because he suspected it was communist. These policies, voiding popular Korean sovereignty, provoked civil insurrections and guerrilla warfare.[23] On 3 September 1945, Lieutenant General Yoshio Kozuki, Commander, Japanese Seventeenth Area Army, contacted Hodge, telling him that the Soviets were south of the 38th parallel at Kaesong. Hodge trusted the accuracy of the Japanese Army report[31]
In December 1945, Korea was administered by a United States–Soviet Union Joint Commission, as agreed at the Moscow Conference (1945). The Koreans were excluded from the talks. The commission decided the country would become independent after a five-year trusteeship action facilitated by each régime sharing its sponsor's ideology.[50][51] The Korean populace revolted; in the south, some protested, and some rose in arms;[23] to contain them, the USAMGIK banned strikes on 8 December 1945 and outlawed the PRK Revolutionary Government and the PRK People's Committees on 12 December 1945.
On 23 September 1946 an 8,000-strong railroad worker strike began in Pusan. Civil disorder spread throughout the country in what became known as the Autumn uprising. On 1 October 1946, Korean police killed three students in the Daegu Uprising; protesters counter-attacked, killing 38 policemen. On 3 October, some 10,000 people attacked the Yeongcheon police station, killing three policemen and injuring some 40 more; elsewhere, some 20 landlords and pro-Japanese South Korean officials were killed.[52] The USAMGIK declared martial law.
The right-wing Representative Democratic Council, led by nationalist Syngman Rhee, opposed the Soviet–American trusteeship of Korea, arguing that after 35 years (1910–45) of Japanese colonial rule most Koreans opposed another foreign occupation. The USAMGIK decided to forego the five year trusteeship agreed upon in Moscow, given the 31 March 1948 United Nations election deadline to achieve an anti-communist civil government in the US Korean Zone of Occupation.
On 3 April what began as a demonstration commemorating Korean resistance to Japanese rule ended with the Jeju massacre of as many as 60,000 citizens by South Korean soldiers.[53]
On 10 May, South Korea convoked their first national general elections that the Soviets first opposed, then boycotted, insisting that the US honor the trusteeship agreed to at the Moscow Conference.[54][55]
North Korea held parliamentary elections three months later on 25 August 1948.[56]
The resultant anti-communist South Korean government promulgated a national political constitution on 17 July 1948, elected a president, the American-educated strongman Syngman Rhee on 20 July 1948. The elections were marred by terrorism and sabotage resulting in 600 deaths.[57] The Republic of Korea (South Korea) was established on 15 August 1948. In the Russian Korean Zone of Occupation, the Soviet Union established a Communist North Korean government[54] led by Kim Il-sung.[58] President Rhee's régime expelled communists and leftists from southern national politics. Disenfranchised, they headed for the hills, to prepare for guerrilla war against the US-sponsored ROK Government.[58]
As nationalists, both Syngman Rhee and Kim Il-Sung were intent upon reunifying Korea under their own political system.[59] With Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong fighting over the control of the Korean Peninsula,[60] the North Koreans gained support from both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. They escalated the continual border skirmishes and raids and then prepared to invade. South Korea, with limited matériel, could not match them.[59] During this era, at the beginning of the Cold War, the US government assumed that all communists, regardless of nationality, were controlled or directly influenced by Moscow; thus the US portrayed the civil war in Korea as a Soviet hegemonic maneuver.[61]
In October 1948, South Korean left-wing soldiers rebelled against the government's harsh clampdown in April on Jeju island in the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion.[62]
The Soviet Union withdrew as agreed from Korea in 1948. U.S. troops withdrew from Korea in 1949, leaving the South Korean army relatively ill-equipped. On 24 December 1949, South Korean forces killed 86 to 88 people in the Mungyeong massacre and blamed the crime on communist marauding bands.[63][64]
Course of the war[link]
The conflict begins (June 1950)[link]
In April 1950 Kim Il-sung travelled to Moscow and secured Stalin's support for a policy to unify Korea under his authority. Although agreeing with the invasion of South Korea in principle, Stalin refused to become directly involved in Kim's plans, and advised Kim to enlist Chinese support instead. In May 1950 Kim visited Beijing, and succeeded in gaining Mao's endorsement. At the time, Mao's support for Kim was largely political (he was contemplating the invasions of Taiwan and Tibet), and was unaware of Kim's precise intentions or the timing of Kim's attack. When the Korean war broke out, the Chinese were in the process of demobilizing half of the PLA's 5.6 million soldiers.[65]
On 7 June 1950, Kim Il-sung called for an election in whole Korea on 5–8 August 1950 and a consultative conference in Haeju on 15–17 June 1950. On June 11, the North sent three diplomats to the South, who were later arrested by the South. Fourteen days later on 25 June 1950, the North Korean People's Army (KPA) crossed the 38th parallel border and invaded South Korea.
Under the guise of counter-attacking a South Korean provocation raid, the KPA crossed the 38th parallel behind artillery fire at dawn on Sunday 25 June 1950.[66] The KPA said that Republic of Korea Army (ROK Army) troops, under command of the régime of the "bandit traitor Syngman Rhee", had crossed the border first, and that they would arrest and execute Rhee.[31] Both Korean armies had continually harassed each other with skirmishes and each continually staged raids across the 38th parallel border.
On 27 June, Rhee evacuated from Seoul with government officials. Rhee ordered the Bodo League massacre, which started on 28 June.[67][68][69]
On 28 June, South Korea bombed the bridge across the Han River to stop the North Korean army.[70]
Early on in the fighting, South Korea put its forces under the authority of the United Nations Command (Korea).[71]
Factors in U.S. intervention[link]
The Truman Administration was caught at a crossroads. Before the invasion, Korea was not included in the strategic Asian Defense Perimeter outlined by Secretary of State Acheson.[72] Military strategists were more concerned with the security of Europe against the Soviet Union than East Asia. At the same time, the Administration was worried that a war in Korea could quickly widen into another world war should the Chinese or Soviets decide to get involved as well.
One facet of the changing attitude toward Korea and whether to get involved was Japan. Especially after the fall of China to the Communists, "...Japan itself increasingly appeared as the major East Asian prize to be protected". U.S. East Asian experts saw Japan as the critical counterweight to the Soviet Union and China in the region. While there was no United States policy that dealt with South Korea directly as a national interest, its proximity to Japan pushed South Korea to the fore. "The recognition that the security of Japan required a non-hostile Korea led directly to President Truman's decision to intervene... The essential point... is that the American response to the North Korean attack stemmed from considerations of US policy toward Japan."[73] The United States wanted to shore up Japan to make it a viable counterweight against the Soviet Union and China, and Korea was seen as integral to that end.
The other important part of committing to intervention lay in speculation about Soviet action in the event that the United States intervene. The Truman administration was fretful that a war in Korea was a diversionary assault that would escalate to a general war in Europe once the US committed in Korea. At the same time, "[t]here was no suggestion from anyone that the United Nations or the United States could back away from [the conflict]".[74] In Truman's mind, this aggression, if left unchecked, would start a chain reaction that would destroy the United Nations and give the go ahead to further Communist aggression elsewhere. Korea was where a stand had to be made, the difficult part was how. The UN Security council approved the use of force to help the South Koreans and the US immediately began using air and naval forces in the area to that end. The Administration still refrained from committing on the ground because some advisors believed the North Koreans could be stopped by air and naval power alone.[75]
Also, it was still uncertain if this was a clever ploy by the Soviet Union to catch the US unawares or just a test of US resolve. The decision to commit ground troops and to intervene eventually became viable when a communiqué was received on 27 June from the Soviet Union that alluded it would not move against US forces in Korea. "This opened the way for the sending of American ground forces, for it now seemed less likely that a general war—with Korea as a preliminary diversion—was imminent".[76] With the Soviet Union's tacit agreement that this would not cause an escalation, the United States now could intervene with confidence that other commitments would not be jeopardized.
United Nations Security Council Resolutions[link]
On 25 June 1950, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the North Korean invasion of the Republic of Korea, with United Nations Security Council Resolution 82. The Soviet Union, a veto-wielding power, had boycotted the Council meetings since January 1950, protesting that the Republic of China (Taiwan), not the People's Republic of China, held a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.[77] After debating the matter, the Security Council, on 27 June 1950, published Resolution 83 recommending member states provide military assistance to the Republic of Korea. On 27 June President Truman ordered US air and sea forces to help the South Korean régime. On 4 July the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister accused the US of starting armed intervention on behalf of South Korea.[78]
The Soviet Union challenged the legitimacy of the war for several reasons. The ROK Army intelligence upon which Resolution 83 was based came from US Intelligence; North Korea was not invited as a sitting temporary member of the UN, which violated UN Charter Article 32; and the Korean conflict was beyond UN Charter scope, because the initial north–south border fighting was classed as a civil war. The Soviet representative boycotted the UN to prevent Security Council action, and to challenge the legitimacy of the UN action; legal scholars posited that deciding upon an action of this type required the unanimous vote of the five permanent members.[79][80]
Comparison of military forces[link]
By mid-1950 North Korean forces numbered between 150,000 and 200,000 troops, organized into 10 infantry divisions, one tank division, and one air force division, with 210 fighter planes and 280 tanks who captured scheduled objectives and territory, among them Kaesong, Chuncheon, Uijeongbu, and Ongjin. Their forces included 274 T-34-85 tanks, some 150 Yak fighters, 110 attack bombers, 200 artillery pieces, 78 Yak trainers, and 35 reconnaissance aircraft.[31] In addition to the invasion force, the North Korean KPA had 114 fighters, 78 bombers, 105 T-34-85 tanks, and some 30,000 soldiers stationed in reserve in North Korea.[31] Although each navy consisted of only several small warships, the North Korean and South Korean navies fought in the war as sea-borne artillery for their in-country armies.
In contrast, the ROK Army defenders were vastly unprepared, and the political establishment in the south, while well aware of the threat to the north, were unable to convince American administrators of the reality of the threat. In South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (1961), R.E. Appleman reports the ROK forces' low combat readiness as of 25 June 1950. The ROK Army had 98,000 soldiers (65,000 combat, 33,000 support), no tanks (they had been requested from the US military, but requests were denied), and a 22–piece air force comprising 12 liaison-type and 10 AT6 advanced-trainer airplanes. There were no large foreign military garrisons in Korea at invasion time, but there were large US garrisons and air forces in Japan.[31]
Within days of the invasion, masses of ROK Army soldiers—of dubious loyalty to the Syngman Rhee régime—were either retreating southwards or were defecting en masse to the northern side, the KPA.[24]
United Nations response (July – August 1950)[link]
Despite the rapid post–Second World War Allied demobilizations, there were substantial US forces occupying Japan; under General Douglas MacArthur's command, they could be made ready to fight the North Koreans.[81] Only the British Commonwealth had comparable forces in the area.
On Saturday, 24 June 1950, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson informed President Truman by telephone, "Mr. President, I have very serious news. The North Koreans have invaded South Korea."[82][83] Truman and Acheson discussed a US invasion response with defense department principals, who agreed that the United States was obligated to repel military aggression, paralleling it with Adolf Hitler's 1930s aggressions, and said that the mistake of appeasement must not be repeated.[84] In his autobiography, President Truman acknowledged that fighting the invasion was essential to the American goal of the global containment of communism as outlined in the National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) (declassified in 1975):
Communism was acting in Korea, just as Hitler, Mussolini and the Japanese had ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores. If the Communists were permitted to force their way into the Republic of Korea without opposition from the free world, no small nation would have the courage to resist threat and aggression by stronger Communist neighbors.[85]
President Truman announced that the US would counter "unprovoked aggression" and "vigorously support the effort of the [UN] security council to terminate this serious breach of peace."[83] In Congress, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Omar Bradley warned against appeasement, saying that Korea was the place "for drawing the line" against communist expansion. In August 1950, the President and the Secretary of State obtained the consent of Congress to appropriate $12 billion to pay for the military expenses.[83]
Per State Secretary Acheson's recommendation, President Truman ordered General MacArthur to transfer materiel to the Army of the Republic of Korea while giving air cover to the evacuation of US nationals. The President disagreed with advisors who recommended unilateral US bombing of the North Korean forces, and ordered the US Seventh Fleet to protect the Republic of China (Taiwan), whose Nationalist Government asked to fight in Korea. The US denied the Nationalist Chinese request for combat, lest it provoke a communist Chinese retaliation.[86] Because the US had sent the Seventh Fleet to "neutralize" the Taiwan Strait, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai criticized both the UN and US initiatives as "armed aggression on Chinese territory."[87]
The Battle of Osan, the first significant American engagement of the Korean War, involved the 540-soldier Task Force Smith, which was a small forward element of the 24th Infantry Division.[88] On 5 July 1950, Task Force Smith attacked the North Koreans at Osan but without weapons capable of destroying the North Koreans' tanks. They were unsuccessful; the result was 180 dead, wounded, or taken prisoner. The KPA progressed southwards, pushing back the US force at Pyongtaek, Chonan, and Chochiwon, forcing the 24th Division's retreat to Taejeon, which the KPA captured in the Battle of Taejon;[89] the 24th Division suffered 3,602 dead and wounded and 2,962 captured, including the Division's Commander, Major General William F. Dean.[89] Overhead, the KPAF shot down 18 USAF fighters and 29 bombers; the USAF shot down five KPAF fighters.[citation needed]
By August, the KPA had pushed back the ROK Army and the Eighth United States Army to the vicinity of Pusan, in southeast Korea.[90] In their southward advance, the KPA purged the Republic of Korea's intelligentsia by killing civil servants and intellectuals.[91] On 20 August, General MacArthur warned North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung that he was responsible for the KPA's atrocities.[91] By September, the UN Command controlled the Pusan perimeter, enclosing about 10% of Korea, in a line partially defined by the Nakdong River.
Although Kim's early successes had led him to predict that he would end the war by the end of August, Chinese leaders were more pessimistic. To counter the possibility of American invasion, Zhou Enlai secured a Soviet commitment to have the Soviet Union support Chinese forces with air cover, and deployed 260,000 soldiers along the Korean border, under the command of Gao Gang. Zhou commanded Chai Chengwen to conduct a topographical survey of Korea, and directed Lei Yingfu, Zhou's military advisor in Korea, to analyze the military situation in Korea. Lei concluded that MacArthur would most likely attempt a landing at Incheon. After conferring with Mao that this would be MacArthur's most likely strategy, Zhou briefed Soviet and North Korean advisers of Lei's findings, and issued orders to Chinese army commanders deployed on the Korean border to prepare for American naval activity in the Korea Strait.[92]
Escalation (August – September 1950)[link]
In the resulting Battle of Pusan Perimeter (August–September 1950), the US Army withstood KPA attacks meant to capture the city at the Naktong Bulge, P'ohang-dong, and Taegu. The United States Air Force (USAF) interrupted KPA logistics with 40 daily ground support sorties that destroyed 32 bridges, halting most daytime road and rail traffic. KPA forces were forced to hide in tunnels by day and move only at night.[93]To deny materiel to the KPA, the USAF destroyed logistics depots, petroleum refineries, and harbors, while the US Navy air forces attacked transport hubs. Consequently, the over-extended KPA could not be supplied throughout the south.[94]
Meanwhile, US garrisons in Japan continually dispatched soldiers and materiel to reinforce defenders in the Pusan Perimeter.[95] Tank battalions deployed to Korea directly from the United States mainland from the port of San Francisco to the port of Pusan, the largest Korean port. By late August, the Pusan Perimeter had some 500 medium tanks battle ready.[96] In early September 1950, ROK Army and UN Command forces outnumbered the KPA 180,000 to 100,000 soldiers. The UN forces, once prepared, counterattacked and broke out of the Pusan Perimeter.[22][97]
Battle of Inchon (September 1950)[link]
Main article: Battle of Inchon
Against the rested and re-armed Pusan Perimeter defenders and their reinforcements, the KPA were undermanned and poorly supplied; unlike the UN Command, they lacked naval and air support.[98] To relieve the Pusan Perimeter, General MacArthur recommended an amphibious landing at Inchon, well over 100 miles (160 km) behind the KPA lines.[99] On 6 July, he ordered Major General Hobart R. Gay, Commander, 1st Cavalry Division, to plan the division's amphibious landing at Incheon; on 12–14 July, the 1st Cavalry Division embarked from Yokohama, Japan to reinforce the 24th Infantry Division inside the Pusan Perimeter.[100]
Soon after the war began, General MacArthur had begun planning a landing at Incheon, but the Pentagon opposed him.[99] When authorized, he activated a combined United States Army, United States Marine Corps, and ROK Army force. The X Corps, led by General Edward Almond, Commander, consisted of 40,000 men of the 1st Marine Division, the 7th Infantry Division and around 8,600 ROK Army soldiers.[101] By the 15 September attack date, the amphibious assault force faced few KPA defenders at Incheon: military intelligence, psychological warfare, guerrilla reconnaissance, and protracted bombardment facilitated a relatively light battle. However, the bombardment destroyed most of the city of Incheon.[102]
After the Incheon landing the 1st Cavalry Division began its northward advance from the Pusan Perimeter. "Task Force Lynch"—3rd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, and two 70th Tank Battalion units (Charlie Company and the Intelligence–Reconnaissance Platoon)— effected the "Pusan Perimeter Breakout" through 106.4 miles (171.2 km) of enemy territory to join the 7th Infantry Division at Osan.[100] The X Corps rapidly defeated the KPA defenders around Seoul, thus threatening to trap the main KPA force in Southern Korea,[103].
On 18 September Stalin dispatched General H.M. Zakharov to Korea to advise Kim Il-sung to halt his offensive around the Pusan perimeter and to redeploy his forces to defend Seoul. Chinese commanders were not briefed on North Korean troop numbers or operational plans. As the overall commander of Chinese forces, Zhou Enlai suggested that the North Koreans should attempt to eliminate the enemy forces at Inchon only if they had reserves of at least 100,000 men; otherwise, he advised the North Koreans to withdraw their forces north.[104]
On 25 September Seoul was recaptured by South Korean forces. American air raids caused heavy damage to the KPA, destroying most of its tanks and much of its artillery. North Korean troops in the south, instead of effectively withdrawing north, rapidly disintegrated, leaving Pyongyang vulnerable.[104] During the general retreat only 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers managed to rejoin the Northern KPA lines.[105][106] On 27 September Stalin convened an emergency session of the Politburo, in which he condemned the incompetence of the KPA command and held Soviet military advisers responsible for the defeat.[104]
UN forces cross partition line (September – October 1950)[link]
Main article: UN Offensive, 1950
On 27 September, MacArthur received the top secret National Security Council Memorandum 81/1 from Truman reminding him that operations north of the 38th parallel were authorized only if "at the time of such operation there was no entry into North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist forces, no announcements of intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militarily..."[107] On 29 September MacArthur restored the government of the Republic of Korea under Syngman Rhee.[104] On 30 September, Defense Secretary George Marshall sent an eyes-only message to MacArthur: "We want you to feel unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed north of the 38th parallel."[107] During October, the ROK police executed people who were suspected to be sympathetic to North Korea.[108]
On 30 September Zhou Enlai warned the United States that it was prepared to intervene in Korea if the United States crossed the 38th parallel. Zhou attempted to advise North Korean commanders on how to conduct a general withdrawal by using the same tactics which had allowed Chinese communist forces to successfully escape Chiang Kai-shek's Encirclement Campaigns in the 1930s. North Korean commanders did not utilize these tactics effectively.[109]
By 1 October 1950, the UN Command repelled the KPA northwards, past the 38th parallel; the ROK Army crossed after them, into North Korea.[110] MacArthur made a statement demanding the KPA's unconditional surrender.[111] Six days later, on 7 October, with UN authorization, the UN Command forces followed the ROK forces northwards.[112] The X Corps landed at Wonsan (in southeastern North Korea) and Riwon (in northeastern North Korea), already captured by ROK forces.[113] The Eighth United States Army and the ROK Army drove up western Korea and captured Pyongyang city, the North Korean capital, on 19 October 1950.[114] The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team ("Rakkasans") made their first of two combat jumps during the Korean War on 20 October 1950 at Sunchon and Sukchon. The missions of the 187th were to cut the road north going to China, preventing North Korean leaders from escaping from Pyongyang; and to rescue American prisoners of war. At month's end, UN forces held 135,000 KPA prisoners of war.
Taking advantage of the UN Command's strategic momentum against the communists, General MacArthur believed it necessary to extend the Korean War into China to destroy depots supplying the North Korean war effort. President Truman disagreed, and ordered caution at the Sino-Korean border.[115]
China intervenes (October – December 1950)[link]
File:China Crosses Yalu.jpg
Chinese forces cross the Yalu River.
On 27 June 1950, two days after the KPA invaded and three months before the Chinese entered the war, President Truman dispatched the United States Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait, to prevent hostilities between the Nationalist Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China (PRC).[116][117] On 4 August 1950, with the PRC invasion of Taiwan aborted, Mao Zedong reported to the Politburo that he would intervene in Korea when the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Taiwan invasion force was reorganized into the PLA North East Frontier Force.
On 20 August 1950, Premier Zhou Enlai informed the United Nations that "Korea is China's neighbor... The Chinese people cannot but be concerned about a solution of the Korean question". Thus, via neutral-country diplomats, China warned that in safeguarding Chinese national security, they would intervene against the UN Command in Korea.[115] President Truman interpreted the communication as "a bald attempt to blackmail the UN", and dismissed it.[118]
1 October 1950, the day that UN troops crossed the 38th parallel, was also the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. On that day the Soviet ambassador forwarded a telegram from Stalin to Mao and Zhou requesting that China send five to six divisions into Korea, and Kim Il-sung sent frantic appeals to Mao for Chinese military intervention. At the same time, Stalin made it clear that Soviet forces themselves would not directly intervene.[111]
In a series of emergency meetings that lasted from 2–5 October, Chinese leaders debated whether to send Chinese troops into Korea. There was considerable resistance among many leaders, including senior military leaders, to confronting the United States in Korea. Mao strongly supported intervention, and Zhou was one of the few Chinese leaders who firmly supported him. After General Lin Biao refused Mao's offer to command Chinese forces in Korea (citing poor health), Mao called General Peng Dehuai to Beijing to hear his views. After listening to both sides' arguments, Peng supported Mao's position, and the Politburo agreed to intervene in Korea.[119] Later, the Chinese claimed that US bombers had violated PRC national airspace while en route to bomb North Korea before China intervened.[120] On 8 October 1950, Mao Zedong redesignated the PLA North East Frontier Force as the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA).[121]
In order to enlist Stalin's support, Zhou traveled to Stalin's summer resort on the Black Sea on 10 October. Stalin initially agreed to send military equipment and ammunition, but warned Zhou that the Soviet Union's air force would need two or three months to prepare any operations. In a subsequent meeting, Stalin told Zhou that he would only provide China with equipment on a credit basis, and that the Soviet air force would only operate over Chinese airspace, and only after an undisclosed period of time. Stalin did not agree to send either military equipment or air support until March 1951.[122] Mao did not find Soviet air support especially useful, as the fighting was going to take place on the south side of the Yalu.[123] Soviet shipments of materiel, when they did arrive, were limited to small quantities of trucks, grenades, machine guns, and the like.[124]
Immediately on his return to Beijing on 18 October 1950, Zhou met with Mao Zedong, Peng Dehuai, and Gao Gang, and the group ordered two hundred thousand Chinese troops to enter North Korea, which they did on 25 October. After consulting with Stalin, on 13 November, Mao appointed Zhou the overall commander and coordinator of the war effort, with Peng as field commander. Orders given by Zhou were delivered in the name of the Central Military Commission.[125]
UN aerial reconnaissance had difficulty sighting PVA units in daytime, because their march and bivouac discipline minimized aerial detection.[126] The PVA marched "dark-to-dark" (19:00–03:00), and aerial camouflage (concealing soldiers, pack animals, and equipment) was deployed by 05:30. Meanwhile, daylight advance parties scouted for the next bivouac site. During daylight activity or marching, soldiers were to remain motionless if an aircraft appeared, until it flew away;[126] PVA officers were under order to shoot security violators. Such battlefield discipline allowed a three-division army to march the 286 miles (460 km) from An-tung, Manchuria to the combat zone in some 19 days. Another division night-marched a circuitous mountain route, averaging 18 miles (29 km) daily for 18 days.[31]
Meanwhile, on 10 October 1950, the 89th Tank Battalion was attached to the 1st Cavalry Division, increasing the armor available for the Northern Offensive. On 15 October, after moderate KPA resistance, the 7th Cavalry Regiment and Charlie Company, 70th Tank Battalion captured Namchonjam city. On 17 October, they flanked rightwards, away from the principal road (to Pyongyang), to capture Hwangju. Two days later, the 1st Cavalry Division captured Pyongyang, the North's capital city, on 19 October 1950.
On 15 October 1950, President Truman and General MacArthur met at Wake Island in the mid-Pacific Ocean. This meeting was much publicized because of the General's discourteous refusal to meet the President on the continental US.[127] To President Truman, MacArthur speculated there was little risk of Chinese intervention in Korea,[128] and that the PRC's opportunity for aiding the KPA had lapsed. He believed the PRC had some 300,000 soldiers in Manchuria, and some 100,000–125,000 soldiers at the Yalu River. He further concluded that, although half of those forces might cross south, "if the Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang, there would be the greatest slaughter" without air force protection.[105][129]
After secretly crossing the Yalu River on 19 October, the PVA 13th Army Group launched the First Phase Offensive on 25 October, attacking the advancing UN forces near the Sino-Korean border. After decimating the ROK II Corps at the Battle of Onjong, the first confrontation between Chinese and US military occurred on 1 November 1950; deep in North Korea, thousands of soldiers from the PVA 39th Army encircled and attacked the US 8th Cavalry Regiment with three-prong assaults—from the north, northwest, and west—and overran the defensive position flanks in the Battle of Unsan.[130] The surprise assault resulted in the UN forces retreating back to the Ch'ongch'on River, while the Chinese unexpectedly disappeared into mountain hideouts following victory. It is unclear why the Chinese did not press the attack and follow-up their victory.
The UN Command, however, were unconvinced that the Chinese had openly intervened due to the sudden Chinese withdrawal. On 24 November, the Home-by-Christmas Offensive was launched with the US Eighth Army advancing in northwest Korea, while the US X Corps were attacking along the Korean east coast. But the Chinese were waiting in ambush with their Second Phase Offensive.
On 25 November at the Korean western front, the PVA 13th Army Group attacked and over-ran the ROK II Corps at the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River, and then decimated the US 2nd Infantry Division on the UN forces' right flank.[131] The UN Command retreated; the US Eighth Army's retreat (the longest in US Army history)[132] was made possible because of the Turkish Brigade's successful, but very costly, rear-guard delaying action near Kunuri that slowed the PVA attack for two days (27–9 November). On 27 November at the Korean eastern front, a US 7th Infantry Division Regimental Combat Team (3,000 soldiers) and the US 1st Marine Division (12,000–15,000 marines) were unprepared for the PVA 9th Army Group's three-pronged encirclement tactics at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, but they managed to escape under Air Force and X Corps support fire—albeit with some 15,000 collective casualties.[133]
By 30 November, the PVA 13th Army Group managed to expel the US Eighth Army from northwest Korea. Retreating from the north faster than they had counter-invaded, the Eighth Army crossed the 38th parallel border in mid December.[134] The UN morale hit rock bottom when commanding General Walton Walker of the US Eighth Army was killed on 23 December 1950 in an automobile accident.[135] In the northeast Korea by 11 December, the US X Corps managed to cripple[136] the PVA 9th Army Group while establishing a defensive perimeter at the port city of Hungnam. The X Corps were forced to evacuate by 24 December in order to reinforce the badly depleted US Eighth Army to the south.[137][138]
During the Hungnam evacuation, about 193 shiploads of UN Command forces and materiel (approximately 105,000 soldiers, 98,000 civilians, 17,500 vehicles, and 350,000 tons of supplies) were evacuated to Pusan.[139] The SS Meredith Victory was noted for evacuating 14,000 refugees, the largest rescue operation by a single ship, even though it was designed to hold 12 passengers. Before escaping, the UN Command forces razed most of Hungnam city, especially the port facilities;[105][140] and on 16 December 1950, President Truman declared a national emergency with Presidential Proclamation No. 2914, 3 C.F.R. 99 (1953),[141] which remained in force until 14 September 1978.[b]
Fighting around the 38th parallel (January – June 1951)[link]
With Lieutenant-General Matthew Ridgway assuming the command of the U.S. Eighth Army on 26 December, the PVA and the KPA launched their Third Phase Offensive (also known as the "Chinese New Year's Offensive") on New Year's Eve of 1950. Utilizing night attacks in which U.N. Command fighting positions were encircled and then assaulted by numerically superior troops who had the element of surprise. The attacks were accompanied by loud trumpets and gongs, which fulfilled the double purpose of facilitating tactical communication and mentally disorienting the enemy. UN forces initially had no familiarity with this tactic, and as a result some soldiers "bugged out," abandoning their weapons and retreating to the south.[142] The Chinese New Year's Offensive overwhelmed UN forces, allowing the PVA and KPA to conquer Seoul for the second time on 4 January 1951.
These setbacks prompted General MacArthur to consider using nuclear weapons against the Chinese or North Korean interiors, intending radioactive fallout zones would interrupt the Chinese supply chains.[143] However, upon the arrival of the charismatic General Ridgway, the esprit de corps of the bloodied Eighth Army immediately began to revive.[144]
U.N. forces retreated to Suwon in the west, Wonju in the center, and the territory north of Samcheok in the east, where the battlefront stabilized and held.[142] The PVA had outrun its logistics capability and thus was forced to recoil from pressing the attack beyond Seoul;[145] food, ammunition, and materiel were carried nightly, on foot and bicycle, from the border at the Yalu River to the three battle lines. In late January, upon finding that the PVA had abandoned their battle lines, General Ridgway ordered a reconnaissance-in-force, which became Operation Roundup (5 February 1951)[146]. A full-scale X Corps advance gradually proceeded while fully exploiting the UN Command's air superiority,[147] concluded with the UN reaching the Han River and recapturing Wonju.[146]
In mid-February, the PVA counterattacked with the Fourth Phase Offensive and achieved initial victory at Hoengseong. But the offensive was soon blunted by the IX Corps positions at Chipyong-ni in the center.[146] Units of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and the French Battalion fought a short but desperate battle that broke the attack's momentum.[146] The battle is sometimes known as the Gettysburg of the Korean War. The battle saw 5,600 Korean, American and French defeat a numerically superior Chinese force. Surrounded on all sides, the US 2nd Infantry Division Warrior Division's 23rd Regimental Combat Team with an attached French Battalion was hemmed in by more than 25,000 Chinese Communist Forces. United Nations Forces had previously retreated in the face of large Communist forces instead of getting cut off, but this time they stood and fought at odds of roughly 15 to 1.[148]
In the last two weeks of February 1951, Operation Roundup was followed by Operation Killer, carried out by the revitalized Eighth Army. It was a full-scale, battlefront-length attack staged for maximum exploitation of firepower to kill as many KPA and PVA troops as possible.[146] Operation Killer concluded with I Corps re-occupying the territory south of the Han River, and IX Corps capturing Hoengseong.[149] On 7 March 1951, the Eighth Army attacked with Operation Ripper, expelling the PVA and the KPA from Seoul on 14 March 1951. This was the city's fourth conquest in a years' time, leaving it a ruin; the 1.5 million pre-war population was down to 200,000, and people were suffering from severe food shortages.[149][106]
On 1 March 1951 Mao sent a cable to Stalin, in which he emphasized the difficulties faced by Chinese forces and the urgent need for air cover, especially over supply lines. Apparently impressed by the Chinese war effort, Stalin finally agreed to supply two air force divisions, three anti-aircraft divisions, and six thousand trucks. PVA troops in Korea continued to suffer severe logistical problems throughout the war. In late April Peng Dehuai sent his deputy, Hong Xuezhi, to brief Zhou Enlai in Beijing. What Chinese soldiers feared, Hong said, was not the enemy, but that they had nothing to eat, no bullets to shoot, and no trucks to transport them to the rear when they were wounded. Zhou attempted to respond to the PVA's logistical concerns by increasing Chinese production and improving methods of supply, but these efforts were never completely sufficient. At the same time, large-scale air defense training programs were carried out, and the Chinese Air Force began to participate in the war from September 1951 onward.[150]
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On 11 April 1951, Commander-in-Chief Truman relieved the controversial General MacArthur, the Supreme Commander in Korea.[151] There were several reasons for the dismissal. MacArthur had crossed the 38th parallel in the mistaken belief that the Chinese would not enter the war, leading to major allied losses. He believed that whether or not to use nuclear weapons should be his own decision, not the President's.[152] MacArthur threatened to destroy China unless it surrendered. While MacArthur felt total victory was the only honorable outcome, Truman was more pessimistic about his chances once involved in a land war in Asia, and felt a truce and orderly withdrawal from Korea could be a valid solution.[153] MacArthur was the subject of congressional hearings in May and June 1951, which determined that he had defied the orders of the President and thus had violated the US Constitution.[154] A popular criticism of MacArthur was that he never spent a night in Korea, and directed the war from the safety of Tokyo.[155]
General Ridgway was appointed Supreme Commander, Korea; he regrouped the UN forces for successful counterattacks,[156] while General James Van Fleet assumed command of the US Eighth Army.[157] Further attacks slowly depleted the PVA and KPA forces; Operations Courageous (23–28 March 1951) and Tomahawk (23 March 1951) were a joint ground and airborne infilltration meant to trap Chinese forces between Kaesong and Seoul. UN forces advanced to "Line Kansas," north of the 38th parallel.[158] The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team ("Rakkasans") second of two combat jumps were on Easter Sunday, 1951 at Munsan-ni, South Korea codenamed Operation Tomahawk. The mission was to get behind Chinese forces and block their movement north. The 60th Indian Parachute Field Ambulance provided the medical cover for the operations, dropping an ADS and a surgical team and treating over 400 battle casualties apart from the civilian casualties that formed the core of their objective as the unit was on a humanitarian mission.
The Chinese counterattacked in April 1951, with the Fifth Phase Offensive (also known as the "Chinese Spring Offensive") with three field armies (approximately 700,000 men).[159] The offensive's first thrust fell upon I Corps, which fiercely resisted in the Battle of the Imjin River (22–25 April 1951) and the Battle of Kapyong (22–25 April 1951), blunting the impetus of the offensive, which was halted at the "No-name Line" north of Seoul.[160] On 15 May 1951, the Chinese commenced the second impulse of the Spring Offensive and attacked the ROK Army and the US X Corps in the east at the Soyang River. After initial success, they were halted by 20 May.[161] At month's end, the US Eighth Army counterattacked and regained "Line Kansas," just north of the 38th parallel.[162] The UN's "Line Kansas" halt and subsequent offensive action stand-down began the stalemate that lasted until the armistice of 1953.
Stalemate (July 1951 – July 1953)[link]
For the remainder of the Korean War the UN Command and the PVA fought, but exchanged little territory; the stalemate held. Large-scale bombing of North Korea continued, and protracted armistice negotiations began 10 July 1951 at Kaesong.[163] On the Chinese side, Zhou Enlai directed peace talks, and Li Kenong and Qiao Guanghua headed the negotiation team.[150] Combat continued while the belligerents negotiated; the UN Command forces' goal was to recapture all of South Korea and to avoid losing territory.[164] The PVA and the KPA attempted similar operations, and later effected military and psychological operations in order to test the UN Command's resolve to continue the war.
The principal battles of the stalemate include the Battle of Bloody Ridge (18 August – 15 September 1951),[165] the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge (13 September – 15 October 1951),[166] the Battle of Old Baldy (26 June – 4 August 1952), the Battle of White Horse (6–15 October 1952), the Battle of Triangle Hill (14 October – 25 November 1952), the Battle of Hill Eerie (21 March – 21 June 1952), the sieges of Outpost Harry (10–18 June 1953), the Battle of the Hook (28–9 May 1953) and the Battle of Pork Chop Hill (23 March – 16 July 1953).
Chinese troops suffered from deficient military equipment, serious logistical problems, overextended communication and supply lines, and the constant threat of UN bombers. All of these factors generally led to a rate of Chinese casualties that was far greater than the casualties suffered by UN troops. The situation became so serious that, on November 1951, Zhou Enlai called a conference in Shenyang to discuss the PVA's logistical problems. At the meeting it was decided to accelerate the construction of railways and airfields in the area, to increase the number of trucks available to the army, and to improve air defense by any means possible. These commitments did little to directly address the problems confronting PVA troops.[167]
In the months after the Shanyang conference Peng Dehuai went to Beijing several times to brief Mao and Zhou about the heavy casualties suffered by Chinese troops and the increasing difficulty of keeping the front lines supplied with basic necessities. Peng was convinced that the war would be protracted, and that neither side would be able to achieve victory in the foreseeable future. On 24 February 1952, the Military Commission, presided over by Zhou, discussed the PVA's logistical problems with members of various government agencies involved in the war effort. After the government representatives emphasized their inability to meet the demands of the war, Peng, in an angry outburst, shouted: "You have this and that problem... You should go to the front and see with your own eyes what food and clothing the soldiers have! Not to speak of the casualties! For what are they giving their lives? We have no aircraft. We have only a few guns. Transports are not protected. More and more soldiers are dying of starvation. Can't you overcome some of your difficulties?" The atmosphere became so tense that Zhou was forced to adjourn the conference. Zhou subsequently called a series of meetings, where it was agreed that the PVA would be divided into three groups, to be dispatched to Korea in shifts; to accelerate the training of Chinese pilots, to provide more anti-aircraft guns to the front lines; to purchase more military equipment and ammunition from the Soviet Union; to provide the army with more food and clothing; and, to transfer the responsibility of logistics to the central government.[168]
Armistice (July 1953 – November 1954)[link]
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The on again, off again armistice negotiations continued for two years,[169] first at Kaesong (southern North Korea), then relocated at Panmunjom (bordering the Koreas).[170] A major, problematic negotiation point was prisoner of war (POW) repatriation.[171] The PVA, KPA, and UN Command could not agree on a system of repatriation because many PVA and KPA soldiers refused to be repatriated back to the north,[172] which was unacceptable to the Chinese and North Koreans.[173] In the final armistice agreement, signed on 27 July 1953, a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission was set up to handle the matter.[174]
In 1952 the US elected a new president, and on 29 November 1952, the president-elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, went to Korea to learn what might end the Korean War.[175] With the United Nations' acceptance of India's proposed Korean War armistice,[citation needed] the KPA, the PVA, and the UN Command ceased fire with the battle line approximately at the 38th parallel. Upon agreeing to the armistice, the belligerents established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has since been patrolled by the KPA and ROKA, US, and Joint UN Commands.
The Demilitarized Zone runs northeast of the 38th parallel; to the south, it travels west. The old Korean capital city of Kaesong, site of the armistice negotiations, originally lay in the pre-war ROK, but now is in the DPRK. The United Nations Command, supported by the United States, the North Korean Korean People's Army, and the Chinese People's Volunteers, signed the Armistice Agreement on 27 July 1953 to end the fighting. The Armistice also called upon the governments of South Korea, North Korea, China and the United States to participate in continued peace talks. The war is considered to have ended at this point, even though there was no peace treaty.[10] North Korea nevertheless claims that it won the Korean War.[176][177]
After the war, Operation Glory (July–November 1954) was conducted to allow combatant countries to exchange their dead. The remains of 4,167 US Army and US Marine Corps dead were exchanged for 13,528 KPA and PVA dead, and 546 civilians dead in UN prisoner-of-war camps were delivered to the ROK government.[178] After Operation Glory, 416 Korean War unknown soldiers were buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (The Punchbowl), on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) records indicate that the PRC and the DPRK transmitted 1,394 names, of which 858 were correct. From 4,167 containers of returned remains, forensic examination identified 4,219 individuals. Of these, 2,944 were identified as American, and all but 416 were identified by name.[179] From 1996 to 2006, the DPRK recovered 220 remains near the Sino-Korean border.[180]
Division of Korea (1954–present)[link]
See also: Division of Korea and Korean Demilitarized Zone
The Korean Armistice Agreement provided for monitoring by an international commission. Since 1953, the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC), composed of members from the Swiss[181] and Swedish[182] Armed Forces, has been stationed near the DMZ.
In April 1975, South Vietnam's capital was captures by the North Vietnam army. Encouraged by the success of Communist revolution in Indochina, Kim Il-sung saw it as an opportunity to liberate the South. Kim visited China in April of that year, and met with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai to ask for military aids. Despite the Pyongyang's expectations, however, Beijing refused to help North Korea for another war in Korea.[183]
Since the armistice, there have been numerous incursions and acts of aggression by North Korea. In 1976, the axe murder incident was widely publicized. Since 1974, four incursion tunnels leading to Seoul have been uncovered. In 2010, a North Korean submarine torpedoed and sank the South Korean corvette ROKS Cheonan, resulting in the deaths of 46 sailors.[184] Again in 2010, North Korea fired artillery shells on Yeonpyeong island, killing two military personnel and two civilians.[185]
Characteristics[link]
Casualties[link]
According to the data from the US Department of Defense, the United States had suffered 33,686 battle deaths, along with 2,830 non-battle deaths during the Korean War and 8,176 missing in action.[186] Western sources estimate the PVA had suffered between 100,000 to 1,500,000 deaths (most estimate some 400,000 killed), while the KPA had suffered between 214,000 to 520,000 deaths (most estimate some 500,000). Between some 245,000 to 415,000 South Korean civilian deaths were also suggested, and the total civilian casualties during the war were estimated as 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 (most sources estimate some 2,000,000 killed).[187]
Data from official Chinese sources, on the other hand, reported that the PVA had suffered 114,000 battle deaths, 34,000 non-battle deaths, 340,000 wounded, 7,600 missing and 21,400 captured during the war. Among those captured, about 14,000 defected to Taiwan while the other 7,110 were repatriated to China.[188] Chinese sources also reported that North Korea had suffered 290,000 casualties, 90,000 captured and a "large" number of civilian deaths.[188] In return, the Chinese and North Koreans estimated that about 390,000 soldiers from United States, 660,000 soldiers from South Korea and 29,000 other UN soldiers were "eliminated" from the battlefield.[188]
Armored warfare[link]
Initially, North Korean armor dominated the battlefield with Soviet T-34-85 medium tanks designed during the Second World War.[189] The KPA's tanks confronted a tankless ROK Army armed with few modern anti-tank weapons,[190] including American World War II–model 2.36-inch (60 mm) M9 bazookas, effective only against the 45 mm side armor of the T-34-85 tank.[191] The US forces arriving in Korea were equipped with light M24 Chaffee tanks (on occupation duty in nearby Japan) that also proved ineffective against the heavier KPA T-34 tanks.[192]
During the initial hours of warfare, some under-equipped ROK Army border units used American 105 mm howitzers as anti-tank guns to stop the tanks heading the KPA columns, firing high-explosive anti-tank ammunition (HEAT) over open sights to good effect; at the war's start, the ROK Army had 91 howitzers, but lost most to the invaders.[193]
Countering the initial combat imbalance, the UN Command reinforcement materiel included heavier US M4 Sherman, M26 Pershing, M46 Patton, and British Cromwell and Centurion tanks that proved effective against North Korean armor, ending its battlefield dominance.[194] Unlike in the Second World War (1939–45), in which the tank proved a decisive weapon, the Korean War featured few large-scale tank battles. The mountainous, heavily forested terrain prevented large masses of tanks from maneuvering. In Korea, tanks served largely as infantry support and mobile artillery pieces.
Aerial warfare[link]
Further information: MiG Alley, USAF Units and Aircraft of the Korean War, and Korean People's Air Force
The Korean War was the first war in which jet aircraft played a central role. Once-formidable fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair, and Hawker Sea Fury[195]—all piston-engined, propeller-driven, and designed during World War II—relinquished their air superiority roles to a new generation of faster, jet-powered fighters arriving in the theater. For the initial months of the war, the P-80 Shooting Star, F9F Panther, and other jets under the UN flag dominated North Korea's prop-driven air force of Soviet Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-9s. The balance would shift with the arrival of the swept wing Soviet MiG-15 Fagot.[196][197]
The Chinese intervention in late October 1950 bolstered the Korean People's Air Force (KPAF) of North Korea with the MiG-15 Fagot, one of the world's most advanced jet fighters.[196] The fast, heavily armed MiG outflew first-generation UN jets such as the American F-80 and Australian and British Gloster Meteors, posing a real threat to B-29 Superfortress bombers even under fighter escort. Soviet Air Force pilots flew missions for the North to learn the West's aerial combat techniques. This direct Soviet participation is a casus belli that the UN Command deliberately overlooked, lest the war for the Korean peninsula expand, as the US initially feared, to include three communist countries—North Korea, the Soviet Union, and China—and so escalate to atomic warfare.[196]
The USAF moved quickly to counter the MiG-15, with three squadrons of its most capable fighter, the F-86 Sabre, arriving in December 1950.[198][199] Although the MiG's higher service ceiling—50,000 feet (15,000 m) vs. 42,000 feet (13,000 m)—could be advantageous at the start of a dogfight, in level flight, both swept wing designs attained comparable maximum speeds of around 660 mph (1,100 km/h). The MiG climbed faster, but the Sabre turned and dived better.[200] The MiG was armed with one 37 mm and two 23 mm cannons, while the Sabre carried six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns aimed with radar-ranged gunsights.
By early 1951, the battle lines were established and changed little until 1953. In summer and autumn 1951, the outnumbered Sabres of the USAF's 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing—only 44 at one point—continued seeking battle in MiG Alley, where the Yalu River marks the Chinese border, against Chinese and North Korean air forces capable of deploying some 500 aircraft. Following Colonel Harrison Thyng's communication with the Pentagon, the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing finally reinforced the beleaguered 4th Wing in December 1951; for the next year-and-a-half stretch of the war, aerial warfare continued.[201]
UN forces gained air superiority in the Korean theater after the initial months of the war and maintained it for the duration. This was decisive for the UN: first, for attacking into the peninsular north, and second, for resisting the Chinese intervention.[194] North Korea and China also had jet-powered air forces; their limited training and experience made it strategically untenable to lose them against the better-trained UN air forces. Thus, the United States and the Soviet Union fed materiel to the war, battling by proxy and finding themselves virtually matched, technologically, when the USAF deployed the F-86F against the MiG-15 late in 1952.
Unlike the Vietnam War, in which the Soviet Union only officially sent 'advisers', in the Korean aerial war soviet forces participated via the 64th Airborn Corps. 1106 enemy airplanes were officially downed by the soviet pilots, 52 of whom earned the title of 'aces' - more than 5 confirmed kills. Since the soviet system of confirming air kills erred on the conservative side - the pilot's words were never taken into account without corroboration from other witnesses, and enemy airplanes falling into the sea were not counted, perhaps the number is greater than 1106.[202]
After the war, and to the present day, the USAF reports an F-86 Sabre kill ratio in excess of 10:1, with 792 MiG-15s and 108 other aircraft shot down by Sabres, and 78 Sabres lost to enemy fire.[203] The Soviet Air Force reported some 1,100 air-to-air victories and 335 MiG combat losses, while China's People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) reported 231 combat losses, mostly MiG-15s, and 168 other aircraft lost. The KPAF reported no data, but the UN Command estimates some 200 KPAF aircraft lost in the war's first stage, and 70 additional aircraft after the Chinese intervention. The USAF disputes Soviet and Chinese claims of 650 and 211 downed F-86s, respectively. However, one unconfirmed source claims that the US Air Force has more recently cited 230 losses out of 674 F-86s deployed to Korea.[200] The differing tactical roles of the F-86 and MiG-15 may have contributed to the disparity in losses: MiG-15s primarily targeted B-29 bombers and ground-attack fighter-bombers, while F-86s targeted the MiGs.
The Korean War marked a major milestone not only for fixed-wing aircraft, but also for rotorcraft, featuring the first large-scale deployment of helicopters for medical evacuation (medevac).[204] In 1944–1945, during the Second World War, the YR-4 helicopter saw limited ambulance duty, but in Korea, where rough terrain trumped the jeep as a speedy medevac vehicle,[205] helicopters like the Sikorsky H-19 helped reduce fatal casualties to a dramatic degree when combined with complementary medical innovations such as Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals.[206] The limitations of jet aircraft for close air support highlighted the helicopter's potential in the role, leading to development of the AH-1 Cobra and other helicopter gunships used in the Vietnam War (1965–75).[204]
Bombing North Korea[link]
On 12 August 1950 the USAF dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea; two weeks later, the daily tonnage increased to some 800 tons.[207] U.S. warplanes dropped more napalm and bombs on North Korea than they did during the whole Pacific campaign of World War II.[208]
As a result, eighteen of North Korea's cities were more than 50% destroyed. The war's highest-ranking American POW, US Major General William F. Dean,[209] reported that most of the North Korean cities and villages he saw were either ruins or snow-covered wastelands.[210]
As well as conventional bombing, the Communist side claimed that the US had used biological weapons.[211]
Naval warfare[link]
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Because neither Korea had a large navy, the Korean War featured few naval battles; mostly the combatant navies served as naval artillery for their in-country armies. A skirmish between North Korea and the UN Command occurred on 2 July 1950; the US Navy cruiser USS Juneau, the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Jamaica, and the frigate HMS Black Swan fought four North Korean torpedo boats and two mortar gunboats, and sank them.
During most of the war, the UN navies patrolled the west and east coasts of North Korea and sank supply and ammunition ships to deny the sea to North Korea. Aside from very occasional gunfire from North Korean shore batteries, the main threat to US and UN navy ships was from magnetic mines the North Koreans employed for defensive purposes.
The USS Juneau sank ammunition ships that had been present in her previous battle. The last sea battle of the Korean War occurred at Inchon, days before the Battle of Incheon; the ROK ship PC 703 sank a North Korean mine layer in the Battle of Haeju Island, near Inchon. Three other supply ships were sunk by PC-703 two days later in the Yellow Sea.[212]
U.S. threat of atomic warfare[link]
On 5 April 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) issued orders for the retaliatory atomic bombing of Manchurian PRC military bases, if either their armies crossed into Korea or if PRC or KPA bombers attacked Korea from there. The President ordered the transfer of nine Mark 4 nuclear bombs "to the Air Force's Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons ... [and] signed an order to use them against Chinese and Korean targets", which he never transmitted.[213]
President Truman did not immediately threaten nuclear warfare after the October 1950 Chinese intervention, but, 45 days later, remarked about the possibility of using it after the PVA repelled the UN Command from North Korea.
In The Origins of the Korean War (1981, 1990), US historian Bruce Cumings reports that in a 30 November 1950 press conference, President Truman's allusions to attacking the KPA with nuclear weapons "was a threat based on contingency planning to use the bomb, rather than the faux pas so many assumed it to be." On 30 November 1950, the USAF Strategic Air Command was ordered to "augment its capacities, and that this should include atomic capabilities."[citation needed]
The Indian Ambassador, K. Madhava Panikkar, reports "that Truman announced that he was thinking of using the atom bomb in Korea. But the Chinese seemed totally unmoved by this threat ... The propaganda against American aggression was stepped up. The 'Aid Korea to resist America' campaign was made the slogan for increased production, greater national integration, and more rigid control over anti-national activities. One could not help feeling that Truman's threat came in very useful to the leaders of the Revolution, to enable them to keep up the tempo of their activities."[105][214][215]
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President Truman remarked that his government was actively considering using atomic weapons to end the war in Korea but that only he—the US President—commanded atomic bomb use, and that he had not given authorization. The matter of atomic warfare was solely a US decision, not the collective decision of the UN. Truman met on 4 December 1950 with UK prime minister and Commonwealth spokesman Clement Attlee, French Premier René Pleven, and Foreign Minister Robert Schuman to discuss their worries about atomic warfare and its likely continental expansion. The US's forgoing atomic warfare was not because of "a disinclination by the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China to escalate" the Korean War, but because UN allies—notably from the UK, the Commonwealth, and France—were concerned about a geopolitical imbalance rendering NATO defenseless while the US fought China, who then might persuade the Soviet Union to conquer Western Europe.[105][216]
On 6 December 1950, after the Chinese intervention repelled the UN Command armies from northern North Korea, General J. Lawton Collins (Army Chief of Staff), General MacArthur, Admiral C. Turner Joy, General George E. Stratemeyer, and staff officers Major General Doyle Hickey, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, and Major General Edwin K. Wright, met in Tokyo to plan strategy countering the Chinese intervention; they considered three potential atomic warfare scenarios encompassinging the next weeks and months of warfare.[105]
- In the first scenario: If the PVA continued attacking in full and the UN Command is forbidden to blockade and bomb China, and without Nationalist Chinese reinforcements, and without an increase in US forces until April 1951 (four National Guard divisions were due to arrive), then atomic bombs might be used in North Korea.[105]
- In the second scenario: If the PVA continued full attacks and the UN Command have blockaded China and have effective aerial reconnaissance and bombing of the Chinese interior, and the Nationalist Chinese soldiers are maximally exploited, and tactical atomic bombing is to hand, then the UN forces could hold positions deep in North Korea.[105]
- In the third scenario: if the PRC agreed to not cross the 38th parallel border, General MacArthur recommended UN acceptance of an armistice disallowing PVA and KPA troops south of the parallel, and requiring PVA and KPA guerrillas to withdraw northwards. The US Eighth Army would remain to protect the Seoul–Incheon area, while X Corps would retreat to Pusan. A UN commission should supervise implementation of the armistice.[105]
In 1951, the US escalated closest to atomic warfare in Korea. Because the PRC had deployed new armies to the Sino-Korean frontier, pit crews at the Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, assembled atomic bombs for Korean warfare, "lacking only the essential pit nuclear cores." In October 1951, the US effected Operation Hudson Harbor to establish nuclear weapons capability. USAF B-29 bombers practised individual bombing runs from Okinawa to North Korea (using dummy nuclear or conventional bombs), coordinated from Yokota Air Base in east-central Japan. Hudson Harbor tested "actual functioning of all activities which would be involved in an atomic strike, including weapons assembly and testing, leading, ground control of bomb aiming". The bombing run data indicated that atomic bombs would be tactically ineffective against massed infantry, because the "timely identification of large masses of enemy troops was extremely rare."[217][218][219][220][221]
War crimes[link]
2. It is reported that large groups of civilians, either composed of or controlled by North Korean soldiers, are infiltrating US positions.
3. The army has requested we strafe all civilian refugee parties approaching our positions.
4. To date, we have complied with the army request in this respect.
War crimes against civilians[link]
Civilian deaths and massacres[link]
Further information: No Gun Ri Massacre, Geochang massacre, Sancheong-Hamyang massacre, and Ganghwa massacre
In occupied areas, North Korean Army political officers purged South Korean society of its intelligentsia by executing every educated person—academic, governmental, religious—who might lead resistance against the North; the purges continued during the NPA retreat.[222] Immediately after the invasion in June 1950 the South Korean Government ordered the nation-wide "pre-emptive apprehension" of politically suspect or disloyal citizens.
The military police and right-wing paramilitary (civilian) armies executed thousands of left-wing and communist political prisoners at Daejeon Prison and in the Jeju Uprising (1948–49).[223] The Americans on the island documented the events, but never intervened.[53]
U.S. diplomat Gregory Henderson, then in Korea, calculates some 100,000 pro-North political prisoners were killed and buried in mass graves.[224] The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission has compiled reports of hundreds of thousands of civilian killings before and during the war.[225]
In addition to conventional military operations, North Korean soldiers fought the U.N. forces by infiltrating guerrillas among refugees. These soldiers disguised as refugees would approach UN forces asking for food and help, then open fire and attack. U.S. troops acted under a "shoot-first-ask-questions-later" policy against any civilian refugee approaching U.S. battlefield positions,[226] a policy that led U.S. soldiers to kill an estimated 400 civilians at No Gun Ri (26–29 July 1950) in central Korea because they believed some of the refugees killed to be North Korean soldiers in disguise.[227]
The Korean armies forcibly conscripted available civilian men and women to their war efforts. In Statistics of Democide (1997), Prof. R. J. Rummel reports that the North Korean Army conscripted some 400,000 South Korean citizens.[222] The South Korean Government reported that the North abducted some 83,000 citizens before the US recaptured Seoul in September 1950; the North says they defected.[228][229]
Bodo League anti-communist massacre[link]
Main article: Bodo League massacre
To outmaneuver a possible fifth column in the Republic of Korea, President Syngman Rhee's régime executed its "enemies of the state"—South Koreans who are allegedly communists, pro-North Korea, or leftist—by first imprisoning them for political re-education in the Gukmin Bodo Ryeonmaeng (National Rehabilitation and Guidance League, also known as the Bodo League). The true purpose of the anti–communist Bodo League, abetted by the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK), was the régime's execution of some 10,000 to 100,000 "enemies of the state" whom they dumped in trenches, mines, and the sea, before and after the 25 June 1950 North Korean invasion. Contemporary calculations report some 200,000 to 1,200,000.[clarification needed][230] USAMGIK officers were present at one political execution site; at least one US officer sanctioned the mass killings of political prisoners whom the North Koreans would have freed after conquering the peninsular south.[231]
The father of Bodo League massacre survivor Kim Jong-chol was press-ganged to work with the KPA and later executed by the Rhee Government as a collaborator; his grandparents and a seven-year-old sister also were executed. About his experience in Namyangju city, he says:
Young children or whatever, were all killed en masse. What did the family do wrong? Why did they kill the family? When the people from the other side [North Korea] came here, they didn't kill many people.—Kim Jong-chol[231]
USAMGIK officers photographed the mass killings at Daejon city in central South Korea, where the Truth Commission believe some 3,000 to 7,000 people were shot and buried in mass graves in early July 1950. Other declassified records report that a US Army Lieutenant Colonel approved the execution of 3,500 political prisoners by the ROK Army unit to which he was military advisor when the KPA reached the southern port city of Pusan.[231] US diplomats reported having urged the Rhee régime's restraint against its political opponents, and that the USAMGIK, who formally controlled the peninsular south, did not halt the mass executions.[231]
War crimes against the military[link]
Prisoners of war[link]
See also: Korean POWs detained in North Korea and Hill 303 massacre
The US reported that North Korea mistreated prisoners of war: soldiers were beaten, starved, put to forced labor, marched to death, and summarily executed.[232][233]
The KPA killed POWs at the battles for Hill 312, Hill 303, the Pusan Perimeter, and Daejeon—discovered during early after-battle mop-up actions by the UN forces. Later, a US Congress war crimes investigation, the United States Senate Subcommittee on Korean War Atrocities of the Permanent Subcommittee of the Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations reported that "... two-thirds of all American prisoners of war in Korea died as a result of war crimes".[234][235][236]
Although the Chinese rarely executed prisoners like their Korean counterparts, mass starvation and diseases swept through the Chinese run POW camps during the winter of 1950–51. About 43 percent of all US POWs died during this period. The Chinese defended their actions by stating that all Chinese soldiers during this period were suffering mass starvation and diseases due to the lack of competent logistics system. The UN POWs, however, disputed the claim by pointing out that most of the Chinese camps were located near the easily supplied Sino-Korean border, and that starvation was used to force the prisoners to accept the communism indoctrination programs, which were running in full swing after the starvation was over.[237]
The North Korean Government reported some 70,000 ROK Army POWs; 8,000 were repatriated. South Korea repatriated 76,000 Korean People's Army POWs.[238] Besides the 12,000 UN Command forces POWs dead in captivity, the KPA might have press-ganged some 50,000 ROK POWs into the North Korean military.[222] Per the South Korean Ministry of Defense, there remained some 560 Korean POWs detained in North Korea in 2008; from 1994 until 2009, some 79 ROK POWs escaped the North.[239][240]
The North Korean Government denied having POWs from the Korean War, and, via the Korean Central News Agency, reported that the UN forces killed some 33,600 KPA POWs; that on 19 July 1951, in POW Camp No. 62, some 100 POWs were killed as machine-gunnery targets; that on 27 May 1952, in the 77th Camp, Koje Island (now in Geoje), the ROK Army incinerated with flamethrowers some 800 KPA POWs who rejected "voluntary repatriation" south, and instead demanded repatriation north.[241]
Starvation[link]
See also: National Defense Corps Incident
In December 1950, National Defense Corps was founded, the soldiers were 406,000 drafted citizens.[242] In the winter of 1951, 50,000[243][244] to 90,000[245][246] South Korean National Defense Corps soldiers starved to death while marching southward under the Chinese offensive when their commanding officers embezzled funds earmarked for their food.[243][245][247][248] This event is called the National Defense Corps Incident.[243][245]
Aftermath[link]
Main article: Aftermath of the Korean War
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Mao Zedong's decision to involve China in the Korean War was a conscientious effort to confront the most powerful country in the world, undertaken at a time when the regime was still consolidating its own power after winning the Chinese Civil War. Mao primarily supported intervention not to save North Korea or to appease the Soviet Union, but because he believed that a military conflict with the United States was inevitable after UN forces crossed the 38th parallel. Mao's secondary motive was to improve his own prestige inside the communist international community by demonstrating that his Marxist concerns were international. In his later years Mao believed that Stalin only gained a positive opinion of him after China's entrance into the Korean War. Inside China, the war improved the long-term prestige of Mao, Zhou, and Peng.[249]
China emerged from the Korean War united by a sense of national pride, despite the war's enormous costs. The Chinese people were educated to believe that the war was initiated by the United States and Korea, and not by a fraternal communist state in the north. In Chinese propaganda, the Chinese war effort was portrayed and accepted as an example of China's engaging the strongest power in the world with an under-equipped army, forcing it to retreat, and fighting it to a military stalemate. These successes were contrasted with China's historical humiliations by Japan and by Western powers over the previous hundred years in order to promote the image of the PLA and the CCP. The most significant negative long-term consequence of the war (for China) was that it led the United States to guarantee the safety of Chiang Kai-shek's regime in Taiwan, effectively ensuring that Taiwan would remain outside of PRC control until the present day.[249]
The Korean War affected other participant combatants. Turkey, for example, entered NATO in 1952[250] and the foundation for bilateral diplomatic and trade relations was laid.[251]
The beginning of racial integration efforts in the U.S. military began during the Korean War, where African Americans fought in integrated units for the first time. Among the 1.8 million American soldiers who fought in the Korean War there were more than 100,000 African Americans.[252]
Post-war recovery was different in the two Koreas. South Korea stagnated in the first post-war decade, but later industrialized and modernized. Contemporary North Korea remains underdeveloped. South Korea had one of the world's fastest growing economies from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. In 1957 South Korea had a lower per capita GDP than Ghana,[253] and by 2010 it was ranked thirteenth in the world (Ghana was 86th).[254]
Korean anti-Americanism after the war was fueled by the presence and behavior of American military personnel (USFK) and U.S. support for authoritarian regime, a fact still evident during the country's democratic transition in the 1980s.[255] In a February 2002 Gallup-Korea poll, one-third of South Koreans viewed the United States favorably.[256]
In addition a large number of mixed race 'G.I. babies' (offspring of U.S. and other western soldiers and Korean women) were filling up the country's orphanages. Korean traditional society places significant weight on paternal family ties, bloodlines, and purity of race. Children of mixed race or those without fathers are not easily accepted in Korean society. Thousands were adopted by American families in the years following the war, when their plight was covered on television.[257] The U.S. Immigration Act of 1952 removed race as a limiting factor in immigration, and made possible the entry of military spouses and children from South Korea after the Korean War. With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, which substantially changed U.S. immigration policy toward non-Europeans, Koreans became one of the fastest growing Asian groups in the United States.[258]
In 2011, some former members of Chinese People's Volunteer Army, who had battled there, revisited North Korea. Afterwards they said that they were "very sad", unsatisfied with the post-war development of North Korea. "(We) liberated them, but they're still struggling for freedom", said Qu Yingkui.[259]
See also[link]
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Footnotes[link]
- ^ As per armistice agreement of 1953, the opposing sides had to "insure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved".[11]
- ^ See 50 U.S.C. S 1601: "All powers and authorities possessed by the President, any other officer or employee of the Federal Government, or any executive agency... as a result of the existence of any declaration of national emergency in effect on 14 September 1976 are terminated two years from 14 September 1976."; Jolley v. INS, 441 F.2d 1245, 1255 n.17 (5th Cir. 1971).
Citations[link]
- ^ "Cinnost CSLA za valky v Koreji... | Ross Hedvicek ... Nastenka AgitProp" (in Czech). Hedvicek.blog.cz. 27 July 1953. http://hedvicek.blog.cz/0902/cinnost-csla-za-valky-v-koreji. Retrieved 7 November 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap "Casualties of Korean War". Ministry of National Defense of Republic of Korea. http://www.imhc.mil.kr/imhcroot/data/korea_view.jsp?seq=4&page=1. Retrieved 14 February 2007.
- ^ "iii. The Netherlands Detachment United Nations (NDVN)". korean-war.com. http://www.korean-war.com/netherlands.html. Retrieved 9 March 2012.
- ^ Zhang 1995, p. 257.
- ^ a b Aug 14, 1953, 朝鲜人民军司令部和中国人民志愿军司令部联合发布战绩公报。《中国人民解放军全史》载。
- ^ Australian War Memorial Korea MIA Retrieved 17 March 2012
- ^ a b Hickey, Michael. "The Korean War: An Overview". http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/korea_hickey_04.shtml. Retrieved 31 December 2011.
- ^ Li, Xiaobing (2007). A History of the Modern Chinese Army. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-8131-2438-4.
- ^ Krivošeev, Grigorij F. (1997). Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century. London: Greenhill. ISBN 1-85367-280-7.
- ^ a b "US State Department statement regarding 'Korea: Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission' and the Armistice Agreement 'which ended the Korean War'". FAS. http://www.fas.org/news/dprk/1995/950313-dprk-usia.htm. Retrieved 4 January 2011.
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- ^ a b c d Hanley, Charles J.; Chang, Jae-Soon (6 December 2008). "Children 'executed' in 1950 South Korean killings". Associated Press. http://www.japanfocus.org/-J_S_-Chang/2979. Retrieved 4 April 2012.
- ^ Potter, Charles (3 December 1953). "Korean War Atrocities" (PDF). United States Senate Subcommittee on Korean War Atrocities of the Permanent Subcommittee of the Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations (US Government Printing Office). http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/KW-atrocities-part2.pdf. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
- ^ Carlson, Lewis H (2003). Remembered Prisoners of a Forgotten War: An Oral History of Korean War POWs. St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-31007-2.
- ^ Lakshmanan, Indira A.R (1999). "Hill 303 Massacre". http://www.rt66.com/~korteng/SmallArms/hill303.htm. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
- ^ Van Zandt, James E (February 2003). "'You are about to die a horrible death'". VFW Magazine. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LIY/is_6_90/ai_97756107. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
- ^ Skelton, William Paul (April 2002). "American Ex-Prisoners of War" (PDF). Department of Veterans Affairs. OCLC 77563074. http://www.publichealth.va.gov/docs/vhi/pow.pdf. Retrieved 31 December 2011.
- ^ Lech, Raymond B. (2000). Broken Soldiers. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. pp. 2, 73. ISBN 0-252-02541-5.
- ^ Lee, Sookyung (2007). "Hardly Known, Not Yet Forgotten, South Korean POWs Tell Their Story". AII POW-MIA InterNetwork. Archived from the original on 7 October 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071007105009/http://www.aiipowmia.com/inter27/in250107skoreapw.html. Retrieved 22 August 2007.
- ^ "Q&A about ROK POWs still in North Korea answered by ROK Ministry of Unification" (in Korean). kin.naver.com. http://kin.naver.com/qna/detail.nhn?d1id=6&dirId=60105&docId=105632421&qb=6rWt6rWw7Y+s66GcIDU2MA==&enc=utf8§ion=kin&rank=1&search_sort=0&spq=0&pid=gdTrPg331ylsstN26Mwssv--392194&sid=TQWreXOOBU0AABc2JJk.
- ^ "S Korea POW celebrates escape". BBC News. 19 January 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3409835.stm. Retrieved 22 December 2011.
- ^ "DPRK Foreign Ministry memorandum on GI mass killings". Kcna.co.jp. KCNA. http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2000/200003/news03/22.htm#14. Retrieved 22 December 2011.
- ^ ""국민방위군 수만명 한국전때 허망한 죽음" 간부들이 군수품 착 복...굶어죽거나 전염병 횡사 진실화해위, 매장지 등 확인...국가에 사과 권고" (in Korean). Hankyoreh. 7 September 2010. http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/438726.html.
- ^ a b c "국민방위군 사건" (in Korean). National Archives of Korea. http://contents.archives.go.kr/next/content/listSubjectDescription.do;jsessionid=jmfgMFYQZgWQRPYhm00vKLLpyKmGws6SWQJkqKJGB5QkdDhGTlvh!573492678?id=001465. Retrieved 20 July 2010.
- ^ "50,000 Koreans die in camps in south; Government Inquiry Confirms Abuse of Draftees—General Held for Malfeasance". New York Times (US): p. 3. 12 June 1951. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40E13FE3B5E1B7A93C1A8178DD85F458585F9. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
- ^ a b c "'국민방위군' 희생자 56년만에 '순직' 인정" (in Korean). Newsis. 30 October 2007. http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=100&oid=003&aid=0000623016. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
- ^ Roehrig, Terence (2001). The Prosecution of Former Military Leaders in Newly Democratic Nations: The Cases of Argentina, Greece, and South Korea. McFarland & Company. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-7864-1091-0.
- ^ Sandler, Stanley (1 October 1999). The Korean War: No Victors, No Vanquished. University Press of Kentucky. p. 224. ISBN 0-8131-0967-1.
- ^ "South Korean Aide Quits; Defense Minister Says He Was Implicated in Scandals.". New York Times. 4 June 1951. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60D11FC395D147B93C6A9178DD85F458585F9. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
- ^ a b Barnouin & Yu 2006, p. 150.
- ^ "Turkey". State.gov. US Department of State. 9 December 2011. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3432.htm. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
- ^ "Revue de la presse turque 26.06.2010" (in French). turquie-news.fr. 26 June 2010. http://www.turquie-news.fr/spip.php?article4494. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
- ^ Congressional Record, V. 146, Pt. 18, November 1, 2000 to January 2, 2001. US Government Printing Office. p. 27262. http://books.google.com/?id=Qqcg22LfCa8C&pg=PA27262&dq#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
- ^ "Leading article: Africa has to spend carefully". The Independent (London: INM). 13 July 2006. ISSN 0951-9467. OCLC 185201487. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/leading-article-africa-has-to-spend-carefully-407666.html. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
- ^ "Country Comparison: GDP (purchasing power parity)". The World Factbook. CIA. 2011. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html?countryName=Ghana&countryCode=gh®ionCode=afr&rank=86#gh. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
- ^ Kristof, Nicholas D. (12 July 1987). "Anti-Americanism Grows in South Korea". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7D6113FF931A25754C0A961948260. Retrieved 11 April 2008.
- ^ Shin, Gi-Wook (5 January 2003). "A new wave of anti-Americanism in South Korea". articles.sfgate.com. SFGate. http://articles.sfgate.com/2003-01-05/opinion/17472716_1_korean-market-south-koreans-grand-national-party. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
- ^ Jang, Jae-il (11 December 1998). "Adult Korean Adoptees in Search of Roots". The Korea Times. http://www.geocities.ws/Heartland/Village/5473/articles/11.html. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
- ^ Choe, Yong-Ho; Kim, Ilpyong J.; Han, Moo-Young (2005). "Annotated Chronology of the Korean Immigration to the United States: 1882 to 1952". Duke.edu. http://www.duke.edu/~myhan/kaf0501.html. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
- ^ 志愿军老兵重返朝鲜谈感受：他们水深火热 很痛心
References[link]
- Appleman, Roy E (1998) [1961]. South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu. United States Army Center of Military History. pp. 3, 15, 381, 545, 771, 719. ISBN 0-16-001918-4. http://www.history.army.mil/books/korea/20-2-1/toc.htm.
- Barnouin, Barbara; Yu, Changgeng (2006). Zhou Enlai: A Political Life. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. ISBN 962-996-280-2.
- Becker, Jasper (2005). Rogue Regime: Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-517044-X.
- Chen, Jian (1994). China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-10025-0.
- Cumings, Bruce (1997). Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History. WW Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31681-5.
- Cumings, Bruce (2005). Korea's Place in the Sun : A Modern History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-32702-7.
- Cumings, Bruce (1981). "3, 4". Origins of the Korean War. Princeton University Press. ISBN 89-7696-612-0.
- Dear, Ian; Foot, M.R.D. (1995). The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 516. ISBN 0-19-866225-4.
- Goulden, Joseph C (1983). Korea: The Untold Story of the War. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 17. ISBN 0-07-023580-5.
- Halberstam, David (2007). The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 978-1-4013-0052-4.
- Kim, Yǒng-jin (1973). Major Powers and Korea. Silver Spring, MD: Research Institute on Korean Affairs. OCLC 251811671.
- Malkasian, Carter (2001). The Korean War, 1950–1953. Essential Histories. London; Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn. ISBN 1-57958-364-4.
- Mossman, Billy C. (1990). Ebb and Flow, November 1950 – July 1951. United States Army in the Korean War. 5. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army. OCLC 16764325. http://www.history.army.mil/books/korea/ebb/fm.htm.
- Rees, David (1964). Korea: The Limited War. New York: St Martin's. OCLC 1078693.
- Stein, R. Conrad (1994). The Korean War: "The Forgotten War". Hillside, NJ: Enslow Publishers. ISBN 0-89490-526-0.
- Stokesbury, James L (1990). A Short History of the Korean War. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-688-09513-5.
- Werrell, Kenneth P. (2005). Sabres Over MiG Alley. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-933-0.
- Zhang, Shu Guang (1995), Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950–1953, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, ISBN 0-7006-0723-4
External links[link]
| Find more about Korean War on Wikipedia's sister projects: | |
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Definitions and translations from Wiktionary |
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Images and media from Commons |
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Learning resources from Wikiversity |
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News stories from Wikinews |
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Quotations from Wikiquote |
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Source texts from Wikisource |
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Textbooks from Wikibooks |
Historical[link]
- North Korea International Documentation Project
- Grand Valley State University Veteran's History Project digital collection
- The Forgotten War, Remembered – four testimonials in The New York Times
- Collection of Books and Research Materials on the Korean War an online collection of the United States Army Center of Military History
- The Korean War at History.com
- Korean-War.com
- Koreanwar-educator.org
- The short film Film No. 927 is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Media[link]
- The Korean War You Never Knew & Life in the Korean War – slideshows by Life magazine
- QuickTime sequence of 27 maps adapted from the West Point Atlas of American Wars
- Animation for operations in 1950
- Animation for operations in 1951
- US Army Korea Media Center official Korean War online image archive
- Rare pictures of the Korean War from the U.S. Library of Congress and National Archives
- Land of the Morning Calm Canadians in Korea – multimedia project including veteran interviews
- Pathé Online newsreel archive featuring films on the war
- CBC Digital Archives—Forgotten Heroes: Canada and the Korean War
Organizations[link]
- Korea Defense Veterans of America
- Korean War Ex-POW Association
- Korean War Veterans Association
- The Center for the Study of the Korean War
Memorials[link]
- UN Memorial Cemetery, Busan
- War Memorial of Korea, Seoul The War Memorial's official website
- Korean Children's War Memorial
- Chinese 50th Anniversary Korean War Memorial
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http://wn.com/Korean_War
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Guerra di Corea
http://cs.wn.com/Korejská válka
http://id.wn.com/Perang Korea
http://es.wn.com/Guerra de Corea
http://ru.wn.com/Корейская война
http://pl.wn.com/Wojna koreańska
http://fr.wn.com/Guerre de Corée
http://de.wn.com/Koreakrieg
http://hi.wn.com/कोरियाई युद्ध
http://pt.wn.com/Guerra da Coreia
http://nl.wn.com/Koreaanse Oorlog
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
For the Maryland politician, see David R. Brinkley.
| David Brinkley | |
|---|---|
| File:David Brinkley.jpg | |
| Born | David McClure Brinkley (1920-07-10)July 10, 1920 Wilmington, North Carolina |
| Died | June 11, 2003(2003-06-11) (aged 82) Houston, Texas, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Television news anchor |
| Years active | 1943–1998 |
David McClure Brinkley (July 10, 1920 – June 11, 2003) was an American newscaster for NBC and ABC in a career lasting from 1943 to 1997.
From 1956 through 1970, he co-anchored NBC's top-rated nightly news program, The Huntley–Brinkley Report, with Chet Huntley and thereafter appeared as co-anchor or commentator on its successor, NBC Nightly News, through the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, Brinkley was host of the popular Sunday This Week with David Brinkley program and a top commentator on election-night coverage for ABC News. Over the course of his career, Brinkley received ten Emmy Awards, three George Foster Peabody Awards, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[1]
He wrote three books, including the critically acclaimed 1988 bestseller Washington Goes to War, about how World War II transformed the nation's capital. This social history was largely based on his own observations as a young reporter in the city.
Contents |
Early life[link]
Brinkley was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, the youngest of five children born to William Graham Brinkley and Mary MacDonald (née West) Brinkley. He began writing for a local newspaper, the Wilmington Morning Star, while still attending New Hanover High School. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Emory University, and Vanderbilt University, before entering service in the United States Army in 1941. Following his 1943 discharge, he moved to Washington, D.C., looking for a radio job at CBS News. Instead, he took a job at NBC News, became its White House correspondent, and in time began appearing on television.
Career[link]
In 1952, Brinkley began providing Washington reporting on NBC Television's evening news program, The Camel News Caravan (the name changed over time), hosted by John Cameron Swayze. In 1956, NBC News executives considered various possibilities to anchor the network's coverage of the Democratic and Republican political conventions, and when executive J. Davidson Taylor suggested pairing two reporters (he had in mind Bill Henry and Ray Scherer), producer Reuven Frank, who favored Brinkley for the job, and NBC's director of news, Joseph Meyers, who favored Chet Huntley, proposed combining Huntley and Brinkley. NBC's top brass consented, but they had so little confidence in the team that they withheld announcing it for two months.[2] Their concern proved unfounded.
The pairing worked so well that on October 29, 1956, the two took over NBC's flagship nightly newscast, with Huntley in New York City and Brinkley in Washington, D.C., for the newly christened Huntley–Brinkley Report. Brinkley's dry wit offset the serious tone set by Huntley, and the program proved popular with audiences turned off by the incessantly serious tone of CBS's news broadcasts of that era. Brinkley's ability to write for the ear with simple, declarative sentences gained him a reputation as one of the medium's most talented writers, and his connections in Washington led CBS's Roger Mudd to observe, "Brinkley, of all the TV guys here, probably has the best sense of the city--best understands its moods and mentality. He knows Washington and he knows the people."[3] Most often described as "wry," Brinkley once suggested on the air that the best way to resolve the controversy over whether to change the name of Boulder Dam to "Hoover Dam" was to have former president Herbert Hoover change his name to "Herbert Boulder".
Another example of Brinkley's seething wryness was evinced on the third night of Chicago's infamous Democratic Convention of 1968. After continuous abuses made on the floor of the convention of NBC correspondents – namely, interference and shadowing of the media staff by supporters of Hubert Humphrey, presumably with connections to political boss Richard J. Daley – voiced a protest of Daley's behavior and his alleged interference with freedoms of the press following Senator Abraham Ribicoff's stormy nomination of George McGovern. Perhaps in reply to a control room for objectivity, referencing Daley's refusal to be interviewed by John Chancellor earlier in the evening, Brinkley can be heard over the McGovern demonstration to have scolded "Mayor Daley had his chance!"[4]
The catchphrase conclusion to each evening's broadcast, "Good night, Chet; Good night, David," entered the language, and it was followed by the beginning of the second movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, played as the program credits rolled. The Huntley–Brinkley Report was America's most popular television newscast until it was overtaken, at the end of the 1960s, by the CBS Evening News, anchored by Walter Cronkite. Brinkley and his co-anchor gained such celebrity that Brinkley was forced to cut short his reporting on Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 West Virginia primary because West Virginians were more interested in meeting Brinkley than the candidate.[5] From 1961 to 1963, Brinkley anchored a prime time news magazine, David Brinkley's Journal. Produced by Ted Yates, the program won a George Foster Peabody Award and two Emmy Awards.[6]
When Huntley retired from the anchor chair in 1970, the evening news program was renamed NBC Nightly News, and Brinkley co-anchored the broadcast with John Chancellor and Frank McGee. In 1971, Chancellor was named sole anchor and Brinkley became the program's commentator, delivering three-minute perspectives several times a week under the title David Brinkley's Journal. By 1976, though, NBC decided to revive the dual-anchor format, and Brinkley once again anchored the Washington desk for the network, until October 1979. However, the early years of Nightly News never achieved the popularity Huntley-Brinkley Report had enjoyed. For its part, NBC attempted to launch several news magazine shows during the 1970s with Brinkley as anchor; none of them succeeded. An unhappy Brinkley left NBC in 1981; NBC Magazine was his last show for that network.
Almost immediately after leaving NBC, Brinkley was offered a job at ABC. ABC News President Roone Arledge was anxious to replace ABC's Sunday morning news program, Issues and Answers, which had always lagged far behind CBS's Face the Nation and NBC's Meet the Press. Brinkley was tapped for the job, and in 1981 began hosting This Week with David Brinkley. This Week revolutionized the Sunday morning news program format, featuring not only several correspondents interviewing guest newsmakers, but also following up with an opinionated roundtable of discussion. The format proved highly successful and was soon imitated by Brinkley's NBC and CBS rivals, as well as new programs which later came into existence.
Retirement[link]
Days before his announced retirement from regular news coverage, Brinkley made a rare on-air mistake during evening coverage of the 1996 presidential election, at a moment when he thought they were on commercial break. One of his colleagues asked him what he thought of Bill Clinton's re-election. He called Clinton "a bore" and added, "The next four years will be filled with pretty words, and pretty music, and a lot of goddamn nonsense!" One of his team pointed out that they were still on the air. Brinkley said, "Really? Well, I'm leaving anyway!" Brinkley worked this mistake into a chance for an apology as part of a one-on-one interview with Clinton that followed a week or so later.
Brinkley stepped down from hosting This Week on November 10, 1996, but continued to provide small commentary pieces for the show until 1997. He then fully retired from television. He had been an electronic journalist for over fifty years and had been anchor or host of a daily or weekly national television program for just over forty years. His career lasted from the beginning of broadcast news to the information age.
During his career, he won ten Emmy Awards and three George Foster Peabody Awards. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Bush called him "the elder statesman of broadcast journalism"; but Brinkley was much more humble. In an interview in 1992, he said "Most of my life, I've simply been a reporter covering things, and writing and talking about it".
Brinkley is the father of historian and Columbia University Provost, Alan Brinkley, and of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Stanford professor, Joel Brinkley.
Brinkley died in 2003 at his home in Houston, Texas, from complications after a fall. His body is interred at Oakdale Cemetery, Wilmington, North Carolina.
Television career[link]
- 1951–56 Camel News Caravan (correspondent)
- 1956–70 NBC News/The Huntley-Brinkley Report
- 1961–63 David Brinkley's Journal, produced by Ted Yates, aired on Monday evenings.
- 1971–76 NBC Nightly News (commentator only)
- 1976–79 NBC Nightly News (co-anchor)
- 1980–81 NBC Magazine with David Brinkley
- 1981–96 This Week with David Brinkley
- 1981–98 ABC World News Tonight (commentator)
Pop culture references[link]
David Brinkley was mentioned in the Scrubs episode, #4.23, "My Faith in Humanity". There's a patient named Betty talking to her neighbor, Jake, and J.D. walks in. Jake says, "Betty even let me in on a few of her romantic trysts from her younger days. You familiar with Mr. David Brinkley?" J.D. replies with a disbelieving "No way."
David Brinkley was mentioned in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical-episode "Once More, with Feeling" in the song "I'll Never Tell". Anya says "When I get so worn and wrinkly / That I look like David Brinkley".
In the episode of the cartoon show Johnny Bravo, "The Sensitive Man", Johnny asks a park go-er he if he's "...as studly as the statue of David..." to which she responds that he's "...as studly as David... Brinkley."
References[link]
- ^ Associated Press (June 12, 2003). "David Brinkley, Legendary NBC Newsman, Dies at 82". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2003-06-12-brinkley-dies_x.htm.
- ^ Frank, Reuven. Out of Thin Air: The Brief Wonderful Life of Network News. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991, pp. 100-02.
- ^ "An Accident of Casting," The New Yorker (1968-08-03), p. 41.
- ^ http://www.museum.tv/exhibitionssection.php?page=466 part seven
- ^ "An Accident of Casting," The New Yorker (1968-08-03), p. 34.
- ^ Thomas A. Mascaro, They Beat the Clock--NBC's Innovative Newsmagazine, David Brinkley's Journal (1961-1963) Television Quarterly.
External links[link]
- David Brinkley obituary by Richard Severo, The New York Times.
- with Brinkley by Ron Steiman, (1960–1961).
- David Brinkley collection at the Wisconsin Historical Society – Over 150,000 documents covering Brinkley's career
- Booknotes interview with Brinkley on A Memoir, December 10, 1995.
- David Brinkley at Findagrave.com
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Brinkley, David |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | July 10, 1920 |
| Place of birth | Wilmington, North Carolina |
| Date of death | June 11, 2003 |
| Place of death | Houston, Texas, United States |
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Related pages:
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This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brinkley
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
"LBJ" redirects here. For other uses, see LBJ (disambiguation).
| Lyndon B. Johnson | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 36th President of the United States | |
| In office November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969 |
|
| Vice President | None (1963–1965) Hubert Humphrey (1965–1969) |
| Preceded by | John F. Kennedy |
| Succeeded by | Richard Nixon |
| 37th Vice President of the United States | |
| In office January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963 |
|
| President | John F. Kennedy |
| Preceded by | Richard Nixon |
| Succeeded by | Hubert Humphrey |
| Senate Majority Leader | |
| In office January 3, 1955 – January 3, 1961 |
|
| Deputy | Earle Clements Mike Mansfield |
| Preceded by | William F. Knowland |
| Succeeded by | Mike Mansfield |
| Senate Minority Leader | |
| In office January 3, 1953 – January 3, 1955 |
|
| Deputy | Earle Clements |
| Preceded by | Styles Bridges |
| Succeeded by | William F. Knowland |
| Senate Majority Whip | |
| In office January 3, 1951 – January 3, 1953 |
|
| Leader | Ernest McFarland |
| Preceded by | Francis J. Myers |
| Succeeded by | Leverett Saltonstall |
| United States Senator from Texas |
|
| In office January 3, 1949 – January 3, 1961 |
|
| Preceded by | W. Lee O'Daniel |
| Succeeded by | William A. Blakley |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 10th district |
|
| In office April 10, 1937 – January 3, 1949 |
|
| Preceded by | James P. Buchanan |
| Succeeded by | Homer Thornberry |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-08-27)August 27, 1908 Stonewall, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | January 22, 1973(1973-01-22) (aged 64) Stonewall, Texas, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Lady Bird Taylor |
| Children | Lynda Luci |
| Alma mater | Southwest Texas State Teachers College |
| Profession | Teacher |
| Religion | Disciples of Christ |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Service/branch |  United States Navy |
| Years of service | 1941–1942 |
| Rank |  Lieutenant commander |
| Battles/wars | World War II • Salamaua-Lae campaign |
| Awards |  Silver Star.png){kind=small} Presidential Medal of Freedom (Posthumous; 1980) |
Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States (1963–1969), a position he assumed after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States (1961–1963). He is one of only four people[1] who served in all four elected federal offices of the United States: Representative, Senator, Vice President, and President.[2] Johnson, a Texas Democrat, served as a United States Representative from 1937–1949 and as a Senator from 1949–1961, including six years as United States Senate Majority Leader, two as Senate Minority Leader and two as Senate Majority Whip. After campaigning unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 1960, Johnson was asked by John F. Kennedy to be his running mate for the 1960 presidential election.
Johnson succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, completed the rest of Kennedy's term and was elected President in his own right, winning by a large margin in the 1964 election. Johnson was greatly supported by the Democratic Party and as President, he was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation that included laws that upheld civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, and his "War on Poverty." He was renowned for his domineering personality and the "Johnson treatment," his coercion of powerful politicians in order to advance legislation.
Johnson escalated American involvement in the Vietnam War, from 16,000 American advisors/soldiers in 1963 to 550,000 combat troops in early 1968, as American casualties soared and the peace process bogged down. The involvement stimulated a large angry antiwar movement based especially on university campuses in the U.S. and abroad.[3] Summer riots broke out in most major cities after 1965, and crime rates soared, as his opponents raised demands for "law and order" policies. The Democratic Party split in multiple feuding factions, and after Johnson did poorly in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, he ended his bid for reelection. Republican Richard Nixon was elected to succeed him. Historians argue that his presidency marked the peak of modern liberalism in the United States after the New Deal era. Johnson is ranked favorably by some historians because of his domestic policies.[4][5]
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Early years[link]
Johnson was born in Stonewall, Texas, in a small farmhouse on the Pedernales River. His parents, Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr., and Rebekah Baines, had three girls and two boys: Johnson and his brother, Sam Houston Johnson (1914–78), and sisters Rebekah (1910–78), Josefa (1912–61), and Lucia (1916–97). The nearby small town of Johnson City, Texas, was named after LBJ's father's cousin, James Polk Johnson, whose forebears had moved west from Georgia. The Johnsons were of Scots-Irish and English ancestry. In school, Johnson was an awkward, talkative youth and was elected president of his 11th-grade class. He graduated from Johnson City High School (1924), having participated in public speaking, debate, and baseball.[6][7][better source needed]
Johnson was maternally descended from a pioneer Baptist clergyman, George Washington Baines, who pastored eight churches in Texas, as well as others in Arkansas and Louisiana. Baines was also the president of Baylor University during the American Civil War. George Baines was the grandfather of Johnson's mother, Rebekah Baines Johnson (1881–1958).
Johnson's grandfather, Samuel Ealy Johnson, Sr., was raised as a Baptist. Subsequently, in his early adulthood, he became a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In his later years the grandfather became a Christadelphian; Johnson's father also joined the Christadelphian Church toward the end of his life.[8] Later, as a politician, Johnson was influenced in his positive attitude towards Jews by the religious beliefs that his family, especially his grandfather, had shared with him (see Operation Texas).[9]
In 1926, Johnson enrolled in Southwest Texas State Teachers' College (now Texas State University-San Marcos). He worked his way through school, participated in debate and campus politics, and edited the school newspaper called The College Star, now known as The University Star.[10] He dropped out of school in 1927, and returned one year later, graduating in 1930. The college years refined his skills of persuasion and political organization. In 1927, Johnson taught mostly Mexican children at the Welhausen School in Cotulla, some ninety miles south of San Antonio in La Salle County. In 1930, he taught in Pearsall High School in Pearsall, Texas, and afterwards took a position as teacher of public speaking at Sam Houston High School in Houston.[11] When he returned to San Marcos in 1965, after having signed the Higher Education Act of 1965, Johnson looked back:
- "I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American."[12]
Early political career[link]
Johnson briefly taught public speaking and debate in a Houston high school, then entered politics. Johnson's father had served five terms in the Texas legislature and was a close friend of one of Texas's rising political figures, Congressman Sam Rayburn. In 1930, Johnson campaigned for Texas State Senator Welly Hopkins in his run for Congress. Hopkins recommended him to Congressman Richard M. Kleberg, who appointed Johnson as Kleberg's legislative secretary. Johnson was elected speaker of the "Little Congress," a group of Congressional aides, where he cultivated Congressmen, newspapermen and lobbyists. Johnson's friends soon included aides to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as fellow Texans such as Vice President John Nance Garner. He became a surrogate son to Sam Rayburn.
Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor (already nicknamed "Lady Bird") of Karnack, Texas on November 17, 1934, after having attended Georgetown University Law Center for several months. They had two daughters, Lynda Bird, born in 1944, and Luci Baines, born in 1947. Johnson enjoyed giving people and animals his own initials his daughters' given names are examples, as was his dog, Little Beagle Johnson.[13]
In 1935, he was appointed head of the Texas National Youth Administration, which enabled him to use the government to create education and job opportunities for young people. He resigned two years later to run for Congress. Johnson, a notoriously tough boss throughout his career, often demanded long workdays and work on weekends.[14]
He was described by friends, fellow politicians, and historians as motivated throughout his life by an exceptional lust for power and control. As Johnson's biographer Robert Caro observes, "Johnson's ambition was uncommon—in the degree to which it was unencumbered by even the slightest excess weight of ideology, of philosophy, of principles, of beliefs."[15]
Congressional career[link]
House of Representatives[link]
In 1937, Johnson successfully contested a special election for Texas's 10th congressional district, that covered Austin and the surrounding hill country. He ran on a New Deal platform and was effectively aided by his wife. He served in the House from April 10, 1937, to January 3, 1949.[16]
President Franklin D. Roosevelt found Johnson to be a welcome ally and conduit for information, particularly with regard to issues concerning internal politics in Texas (Operation Texas) and the machinations of Vice President John Nance Garner and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. Johnson was immediately appointed to the Naval Affairs Committee. He worked for rural electrification and other improvements for his district. Johnson steered the projects towards contractors that he personally knew, such as the Brown Brothers, Herman and George, who would finance much of Johnson's future career.[17][better source needed] In 1941, he ran for the U.S. Senate in a special election against the sitting Governor of Texas, radio personality W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel. Johnson lost the election.
War record[link]
After America entered World War II in December 1941, Johnson, still in Congress, became a commissioned officer in the Naval Reserve, then asked Undersecretary of the Navy James Forrestal for a combat assignment.[18] Instead he was sent to inspect the shipyard facilities in Texas and on the West Coast. In the spring of 1942, President Roosevelt needed his own reports on what conditions were like in the Southwest Pacific. Roosevelt felt information that flowed up the military chain of command needed to be supplemented by a highly trusted political aide. From a suggestion by Forrestal, President Roosevelt assigned Johnson to a three-man survey team of the Southwest Pacific.
Johnson reported to General Douglas MacArthur in Australia. Johnson and two Army officers went to the 22nd Bomb Group base, which was assigned the high risk mission of bombing the Japanese airbase at Lae in New Guinea. A colonel took Johnson's original seat on one bomber, and it was shot down with no survivors. Reports vary on what happened to the B-26 Marauder carrying Johnson. Lyndon Johnson said it was also attacked by Japanese fighters but survived, while others, including other members of the flight crew, claim it turned back because of generator trouble before reaching the objective and before encountering enemy aircraft and never came under fire, which is supported by official flight records.[19] Other airplanes that continued to the target did come under fire near the target at about the same time that Johnson's plane was recorded as having landed back at the original airbase. MacArthur awarded Johnson the Silver Star, the military's third-highest medal.[19]
Johnson reported back to Roosevelt, to the Navy leaders, and to Congress that conditions were deplorable and unacceptable. He argued the South West Pacific urgently needed a higher priority and a larger share of war supplies. The warplanes sent there, for example, were "far inferior" to Japanese planes, and morale was bad. He told Forrestal that the Pacific Fleet had a "critical" need for 6,800 additional experienced men. Johnson prepared a twelve-point program to upgrade the effort in the region, stressing "greater cooperation and coordination within the various commands and between the different war theaters." Congress responded by making Johnson chairman of a high-powered subcommittee of the Naval Affairs committee. With a mission similar to that of the Truman Committee in the Senate, he probed into the peacetime "business as usual" inefficiencies that permeated the naval war and demanded that admirals shape up and get the job done. Johnson went too far when he proposed a bill that would crack down on the draft exemptions of shipyard workers if they were absent from work too often. Organized labor blocked the bill and denounced Johnson. Still, Johnson's mission had a substantial impact because it led to upgrading the South Pacific theater and aided the overall war effort immensely. Johnson's biographer concludes, "The mission was a temporary exposure to danger calculated to satisfy Johnson's personal and political wishes, but it also represented a genuine effort on his part, however misplaced, to improve the lot of America's fighting men."[20]
Senate[link]
1948 contested election[link]
In the 1948 elections, Johnson again ran for the Senate and won. This election was highly controversial: in a three-way Democratic Party primary Johnson faced a well-known former governor, Coke Stevenson, and a third candidate. Johnson drew crowds to fairgrounds with his rented helicopter dubbed "The Johnson City Windmill". He raised money to flood the state with campaign circulars and won over conservatives by voting for the Taft-Hartley act (curbing union power) as well as by criticizing unions.
Stevenson came in first but lacked a majority, so a runoff was held. Johnson campaigned even harder this time around, while Stevenson's efforts were surprisingly poor. The runoff count took a week. The Democratic State Central Committee (not the State of Texas, because the matter was a party primary) handled the count, and it finally announced that Johnson had won by 87 votes. By a majority of one member (29–28) the committee voted to certify Johnson's nomination, with the last vote cast on Johnson's behalf by Temple, Texas, publisher Frank W. Mayborn, who rushed back to Texas from a business trip in Nashville, Tennessee. There were many allegations of fraud on both sides. Thus one writer alleges that Johnson's campaign manager, future Texas governor John B. Connally, was connected with 202 ballots in Precinct 13 in Jim Wells County that had curiously been cast in alphabetical order and just at the close of polling, with all of the people whose names appeared on the ballots being dead on election day. Robert Caro argued in his 1989 book that Johnson had stolen the election in Jim Wells County and other counties in South Texas, as well as rigging 10,000 ballots in Bexar County alone.[21] An election judge, Luis Salas, said in 1977, that he had certified 202 fraudulent ballots for Johnson.[22]
The state Democratic convention upheld Johnson. Stevenson went to court, but—with timely help from his friend Abe Fortas—Johnson prevailed. Johnson was elected senator in November and went to Washington tagged with the ironic label "Landslide Lyndon," which he often used deprecatingly to refer to himself.
Freshman senator[link]
Once in the Senate, Johnson was known among his colleagues for his highly successful "courtships" of older senators, especially Senator Richard Russell, Democrat from Georgia, and the leader of the Conservative coalition and arguably the most powerful man in the Senate. Johnson proceeded to gain Russell's favor in the same way that he had "courted" Speaker Sam Rayburn and gained his crucial support in the House.
Johnson was appointed to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and later in 1950, he helped create the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee. Johnson became its chairman and conducted investigations of defense costs and efficiency. These investigations tended to dig out old forgotten investigations and demand actions that were already being taken by the Truman Administration, although it can be said that the committee's investigations caused the changes. Johnson's brilliant handling of the press, the efficiency with which his committee issued new reports, and the fact that he ensured every report was endorsed unanimously by the committee all brought him headlines and national attention.
Johnson used his political influence in the Senate to receive broadcast licenses from the Federal Communications Commission in his wife's name.[22][23]
In 1951, Johnson was chosen as Senate Majority Whip under a new Majority Leader, Ernest McFarland of Arizona, and served from 1951 to 1953.[16]
Senate Democratic leader[link]
In the 1952 general election Republicans won a majority in both House and Senate. Among defeated Democrats that year was McFarland, who lost to then-little-known Barry Goldwater, Johnson's future presidential opponent.
In January 1953, Johnson was chosen by his fellow Democrats to be the minority leader. Thus, he became the least senior Senator ever elected to this position, and one of the least senior party leaders in the history of the Senate. One of his first actions was to eliminate the seniority system in appointment to a committee, while retaining it in terms of chairmanships. In the 1954 election, Johnson was re-elected to the Senate, and since the Democrats won the majority in the Senate, Johnson became majority leader. Former majority leader, William Knowland was elected minority leader. Johnson's duties were to schedule legislation and help pass measures favored by the Democrats. Johnson, Rayburn and President Dwight D. Eisenhower worked smoothly together in passing Eisenhower's domestic and foreign agenda.
Johnson, a 60-a-day smoker, suffered a near-fatal heart attack on July 2, 1955. He completely gave up smoking as a result, with only a couple of exceptions, and did not resume the habit until he left the White House on January 20, 1969. During the Suez Crisis Johnson supported the Anglo-French military attempt to topple the Egyptian dictator Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, and tried to prevent the US government from criticising the Israeli invasion of the Sinai peninsula.
In sharp contrast to what would become during his Presidency, Johnson was strongly opposed as Senate Majority Leader to Eisenhower's 1957 Civil Rights Act, fearful that its passage would tear his party apart. Thus with the help of the judiciary committee led by Senator James Eastland, the bill ended up being far weaker than it originally started, but it still became law and Johnson tried to give himself credit for its "passage".
Historians Caro and Dallek consider Lyndon Johnson the most effective Senate majority leader in history. He was unusually proficient at gathering information. One biographer suggests he was "the greatest intelligence gatherer Washington has ever known", discovering exactly where every Senator stood, his philosophy and prejudices, his strengths and weaknesses, and what it took to break him.[24] Robert Baker claimed that Johnson would occasionally send senators on NATO trips in order to avoid their dissenting votes.[25] Central to Johnson's control was "The Treatment",[26] described by two journalists:[27]
- The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the Johnson Ranch swimming pool, in one of Johnson's offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself — wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach.
- Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.
Vice Presidency[link]
Election[link]
Johnson's success in the Senate made him a possible Democratic presidential candidate. He was the "favorite son" candidate of the Texas delegation at the Party's national convention in 1956. In 1960, after the failure of the "Stop Kennedy" coalition he had formed with Adlai Stevenson, Stuart Symington, and Hubert Humphrey, Johnson received 409 votes on the only ballot at the Democratic convention, which nominated John F. Kennedy. Tip O'Neill, then a representative from Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts, recalled that Johnson approached him at the convention and said, "Tip, I know you have to support Kennedy at the start, but I'd like to have you with me on the second ballot." O'Neill replied, "Senator, there's not going to be any second ballot."[28]
Kennedy realized that he could not be elected without support of traditional Southern Democrats, most of whom had backed Johnson. Therefore, Johnson was offered the vice-presidential nomination. Some sources (such as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s) state that Kennedy offered the position to Johnson as a courtesy and did not expect him to accept. Others (such as W. Marvin Watson) say that the Kennedy campaign was desperate to win the 1960 election against Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and needed Johnson on the ticket to help carry Southern states. According to still other sources, Kennedy did not want Johnson as his running-mate and did not want to ask him. Kennedy's reported choice was Stuart Symington. Johnson decided to seek the Vice Presidency and with House Speaker Sam Rayburn's help pressured Kennedy to give him a spot.[29]
At the same time as his Vice Presidential run, Johnson also sought a third term in the U.S. Senate. According to Robert Caro, "On November 5, 1960, Lyndon Johnson won election for both the vice presidency of the United States, on the Kennedy-Johnson ticket, and for a third term as Senator (he had Texas law changed to allow him to run for both offices). When he won the vice presidency, he made arrangements to resign from the Senate, as he was required to do under federal law, as soon as it convened on January 3, 1961."[30] (In 1988, Lloyd Bentsen, the Vice Presidential running mate of Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, and also a Senator from Texas, took advantage of "Lyndon's law," and was able to retain his seat in the Senate despite Dukakis' loss to George H. W. Bush. The same went for Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut in 2000 after Al Gore lost to George W. Bush. In 2008, Joseph Biden of Delaware was elected Vice President and was re-elected U.S. Senator, as Johnson had done in 1960.)
Johnson was re-elected Senator with 1,306,605 votes (58 percent) to Republican John Tower's 927,653 (41.1 percent). Fellow Democrat William A. Blakley was appointed to replace Johnson as Senator, but Blakley lost a special election in May 1961 to Tower.
Office[link]
After the election, Johnson found himself powerless. He initially attempted to transfer the authority of Senate Majority Leader to the Vice Presidency, since that office made him President of the Senate, but faced vehement opposition from the Democratic Caucus, including members he'd counted as his supporters.[31] His lack of influence was thrown into relief later that year when Kennedy appointed Johnson's friend Sarah T. Hughes to a federal judgeship; whereas Johnson had tried and failed to garner the nomination for Hughes at the beginning of his vice presidency, House Speaker Sam Rayburn wrangled the appointment from Kennedy in exchange for support of an administration bill.
Despite Kennedy's efforts to keep Johnson busy, informed, and at the White House often, JFK's advisors and some members of the Kennedy family were more dismissive to Johnson. Kennedy appointed him to jobs such as head of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities, through which he worked with African Americans and other minorities. Though Kennedy may have intended this to remain a more nominal position, Taylor Branch in Pillar of Fire contends that Johnson served to push the Kennedy administration's actions for civil rights further and faster than Kennedy originally intended to go. Branch notes the irony of Johnson, who the Kennedy family hoped would appeal to conservative southern voters, being the advocate for civil rights. In particular he notes Johnson's Memorial Day 1963 speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania as being a catalyst that led to more action.
Johnson took on numerous minor diplomatic missions, which gave him limited insights into global issues. He was allowed to observe Cabinet and National Security Council meetings. Kennedy did give Johnson control over all presidential appointments involving Texas, and he was appointed chairman of the President's Ad Hoc Committee for Science. When, in April 1961, the Soviets beat the U.S. with the first manned spaceflight, Kennedy tasked Johnson with coming up with a program that would prove world leadership. Johnson knew that Project Apollo and an enlarged NASA were feasible, so he steered the recommendation towards a program for landing an American on the Moon.[32]
Johnson was touched by a Senate scandal in August 1963 when Bobby Baker, the Senate Majority Secretary and a protege of Johnson's, came under investigation by the Senate Rules Committee for allegations of bribery and financial malfeasance. One witness alleged that Baker had arranged for the witness to give kickbacks for the Vice President. Baker resigned in October, and the investigation stopped from expanding to Johnson. The negative publicity from the affair fed rumors in Washington circles that Kennedy was planning on dropping Johnson from the Democratic ticket in the upcoming 1964 presidential election.
Presidency 1963–1969[link]
Assassination of President John F. Kennedy[link]
Main article: Lyndon B. Johnson 1963 presidential inauguration
Johnson was sworn in as President on Air Force One at Love Field Airport in Dallas on November 22, 1963 two hours and eight minutes after President Kennedy was assassinated in Dealey Plaza in Dallas.[33] He was sworn in by Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes, a family friend, making him the first President sworn in by a woman. He is also the only President to have been sworn in on Texas soil. Johnson did not swear on a Bible, as there were none on Air Force One; a Roman Catholic missal was found in Kennedy's desk and was used for the swearing-in ceremony.[34] Johnson being sworn in as president has become the most famous photo ever taken aboard a presidential aircraft.[35][36]
In the days following the assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson made an address to Congress: "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the Civil Rights Bill for which he fought so long."[37] The wave of national grief following the assassination gave enormous momentum to Johnson's promise to carry out Kennedy's programs.
Johnson created a panel headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, known as the Warren Commission, to investigate Kennedy's assassination. The commission conducted hearings and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination. Not everyone agreed with the Warren Commission, and numerous public and private investigations continued for decades after Johnson left office.[38]
Johnson retained senior Kennedy appointees, some for the full term of his presidency. The late President's brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, with whom Johnson had a notoriously difficult relationship, remained in office for a few months until leaving in 1964, to run for the Senate.[39] Robert F. Kennedy has been quoted as saying that LBJ was "mean, bitter, vicious—[an] animal in many ways...I think his reactions on a lot of things are correct... but I think he's got this other side of him and his relationship with human beings which makes it difficult unless you want to 'kiss his behind' all the time. That is what Bob McNamara suggested to me...if I wanted to get along."[40]
1964 presidential election[link]
Main article: United States presidential election, 1964
On September 7, 1964, Johnson's campaign managers for the 1964 presidential election broadcast the "Daisy ad". It portrayed a little girl picking petals from a daisy, counting up to ten. Then a baritone voice took over, counted down from ten to zero and the visual showed the explosion of a nuclear bomb. The message conveyed was that electing Barry Goldwater president held the danger of nuclear war. Although it only aired one time, it became an issue during the campaign. Johnson won the presidency by a landslide with 61 percent of the vote and the then-widest popular margin in the 20th century — more than 15 million votes (this was later surpassed by incumbent President Nixon's defeat of Senator McGovern in 1972).[41] Johnson's popular vote margin of over 22 percentage points is a record that stands to this day.
In mid-1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was organized with the purpose of challenging Mississippi's all-white and anti-civil rights delegation to the Democratic National Convention of that year as not representative of all Mississippians. At the national convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey the MFDP claimed the seats for delegates for Mississippi, not on the grounds of the Party rules, but because the official Mississippi delegation had been elected by a primary conducted under Jim Crow laws in which blacks were excluded because of poll taxes, literacy tests, and even violence against black voters. The national Party's liberal leaders supported a compromise in which the white delegation and the MFDP would have an even division of the seats; Johnson was concerned that, while the regular Democrats of Mississippi would probably vote for Goldwater anyway, if the Democratic Party rejected the regular Democrats, he would lose the Democratic Party political structure that he needed to win in the South. Eventually, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Reuther and black civil rights leaders (including Roy Wilkins, Martin Luther King, and Bayard Rustin) worked out a compromise with MFDP leaders: the MFDP would receive two non-voting seats on the floor of the Convention; the regular Mississippi delegation would be required to pledge to support the party ticket; and no future Democratic convention would accept a delegation chosen by a discriminatory poll. When the leaders took the proposal back to the 64 members who had made the bus trip to Atlantic City, they voted it down. As MFDP Vice Chair Fannie Lou Hamer said, "We didn't come all the way up here to compromise for no more than we'd gotten here. We didn't come all this way for no two seats, 'cause all of us is tired." The failure of the compromise effort allowed the rest of the Democratic Party to conclude that the MFDP was simply being unreasonable, and they lost a great deal of their liberal support. After that, the convention went smoothly for Johnson without a searing battle over civil rights.[42] Despite the landslide victory, Johnson, who carried the South as a whole in the election, lost the Deep South states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina, the first time a Democratic candidate had done so since Reconstruction.
Johnson won the presidency by a majority of 61 percent, ready to fulfill his earlier commitment to "carry forward the plans and programs of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Not because of our sorrow or sympathy, but because they are right."[43]
Civil rights[link]
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 Public statement by Johnson of July 2, 1964 about the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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In conjunction with the civil rights movement, Johnson overcame southern resistance and convinced the Democratic-Controlled Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation. John F. Kennedy originally proposed the civil rights bill in June 1963.[44] In late October 1963, Kennedy officially called the House leaders to the White House to line up the necessary votes for passage.[45][46] After Kennedy's death, Johnson took the initiative in finishing what Kennedy started and broke a filibuster by Southern Democrats in March 1964; as a result, this pushed the bill for passage in the Senate.[47] Johnson signed the revised and stronger bill into law on July 2, 1964.[47] Legend has it that, as he put down his pen, Johnson told an aide, "We have lost the South for a generation", anticipating a coming backlash from Southern whites against Johnson's Democratic Party. Moreover, Richard Nixon politically counterattacked with the Southern Strategy where it would "secure" votes for the Republican Party by grabbing the advocates of segregation as well as most of the Southern Democrats.[48]
In 1965, he achieved passage of a second civil rights bill, the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in voting, thus allowing millions of southern blacks to vote for the first time. In accordance with the act, several states, "seven of the eleven southern states of the former confederacy" – Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia — were subjected to the procedure of preclearance in 1965, while Texas, home to the majority of the African American population at the time, followed in 1975.[49]
After the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, Johnson went on television to announce the arrest of four Ku Klux Klansmen implicated in her death. He angrily denounced the Klan as a "hooded society of bigots," and warned them to "return to a decent society before it's too late." Johnson was the first President to arrest and prosecute members of the Klan since Ulysses S. Grant about 93 years earlier.[50] He turned the themes of Christian redemption to push for civil rights, thereby mobilizing support from churches North and South.[51]
At the Howard University commencement address on June 4, 1965, he said that both the government and the nation needed to help achieve goals:
| “ | To shatter forever not only the barriers of law and public practice, but the walls which bound the condition of many by the color of his skin. To dissolve, as best we can, the antique enmities of the heart which diminish the holder, divide the great democracy, and do wrong — great wrong — to the children of God...[52] | ” |
In 1967, Johnson nominated civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
Immigration[link]
Johnson signed the Immigration Act of 1965,[53] which substantially changed U.S. immigration policy toward non-Europeans.[54] According to OECD, "While European-born immigrants accounted for nearly 60% of the total foreign-born population in 1970, they accounted for only 15% in 2000."[55] Immigration doubled between 1965 and 1970, and doubled again between 1970 and 1990.[22] Since the liberalization of immigration policy in 1965,[56] the number of first-generation immigrants living in the United States has quadrupled,[57] from 9.6 million in 1970, to about 38 million in 2007.[58]
Great Society[link]
The Great Society program, with its name coined from one of Johnson's speeches,[22] became Johnson's agenda for Congress in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, Medicaid, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime, and removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress, at times augmenting or amending, enacted most of Johnson's recommendations.[59]
After the Great Society legislation of the 1960s, for the first time a person who was not elderly or disabled could receive a living from the American government.[60]
Federal funding for education[link]
Johnson had a lifelong commitment to the belief that education was the cure for both ignorance and poverty, and was an essential component of the American Dream, especially for minorities who endured poor facilities and tight-fisted budgets from local taxes.[61] He made education a top priority of the Great Society, with an emphasis on helping poor children. After the 1964 landslide brought in many new liberal Congressmen, he had the votes for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. For the first time, large amounts of federal money went to public schools. In practice ESEA meant helping all public school districts, with more money going to districts that had large proportions of students from poor families (which included all the big cities).[62] For the first time private schools (most of them Catholic schools in the inner cities) received services, such as library funding, comprising about 12 percent of the ESEA budget. As Dallek reports, researchers soon found that poverty had more to do with family background and neighborhood conditions than the quantity of education a child received. Early studies suggested initial improvements for poor kids helped by ESEA reading and math programs, but later assessments indicated that benefits faded quickly and left students little better off than those not in the programs. Johnson's second major education program was the Higher Education Act of 1965, which focused on funding for lower income students, including grants, work-study money, and government loans. He set up the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, to support humanists and artists (as the WPA once did). Although ESEA solidified Johnson's support among K-12 teachers' unions, neither the Higher Education Act nor the Endowments mollified the college professors and students growing increasingly uneasy with the war in Vietnam.[63] In 1967, Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act to create educational television programs to supplement the broadcast networks.
"War on Poverty" and Medical Reform[link]
In 1964, upon Johnson's request, Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1964 and the Economic Opportunity Act, which was in association with the war on poverty. Johnson set in motion bills and acts,[64] creating programs such as Head Start, food stamps, Work Study, Medicare and Medicaid, which still exist today.
The Medicare program was established on July 30, 1965, to offer cheaper medical services to the elderly,[65] today covering tens of millions of Americans. Johnson gave the first two Medicare cards to former President Harry S. Truman and his wife Bess after signing the medicare bill at the Truman Library.
Lower income groups receive government-sponsored medical coverage through the Medicaid program.[66]
Gun control[link]
On October 22, 1968, Lyndon Johnson signed the Gun Control Act of 1968, one of the largest and most far reaching federal gun control laws in American history. Much of the motivation for this large expansion of federal gun regulations came as a response to the murders of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr..
Space Program[link]
During Johnson's administration, NASA conducted the Gemini manned space program and the Apollo program, including Apollo 7; and the first human spaceflight to the Moon, Apollo 8, in December 1968. The president congratulated the Apollo 8 crew, saying, "You've taken ... all of us, all over the world, into a new era."[67][68] On July 16, 1969, Johnson attended the Apollo 11 launch—the first former or incumbent US president to witness a rocket launch.
All US manned flights after Gemini 3 were controlled from the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, renamed for Johnson in 1973.
Urban riots[link]
Major riots in black neighborhoods caused a series of "long hot summers." They started with a violent disturbance in Harlem riots in 1964, and the Watts district of Los Angeles in 1965, and extended to 1971. The biggest wave came in April 1968, when riots occurred in over a hundred cities in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Newark burned in 1967, where six days of rioting left 26 dead, 1500 injured, and the inner city a burned out shell. In Detroit in 1967, Governor George Romney sent in 7400 national guard troops to quell fire bombings, looting, and attacks on businesses and on police. Johnson finally sent in federal troops with tanks and machine guns. Detroit continued to burn for three more days until finally 43 were dead, 2250 were injured, 4000 were arrested; property damage ranged into the hundreds of millions. Johnson called for even more billions to be spent in the cities and another federal civil rights law regarding housing, but his political capital had been spent, and his Great Society programs lost support. Johnson's popularity plummeted as a massive white political backlash took shape, reinforcing the sense Johnson had lost control of the streets of major cities as well as his party.[69]
Johnson created the Kerner Commission to study the problem of urban riots, headed by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner.[22]
Backlash against Johnson: 1966–67[link]
Johnson's problems began to mount in 1966. The press had sensed a "Credibility gap" between what Johnson was saying in press conferences and what was happening on the ground in Vietnam, which led to much less favorable coverage of Johnson.[70]
By year's end, the Democratic governor of Missouri, Warren E. Hearnes, warned that Johnson would lose the state by 100,000 votes, despite a half-million margin in 1964. "Frustration over Vietnam; too much federal spending and... taxation; no great public support for your Great Society programs; and ... public disenchantment with the civil rights programs" had eroded the President's standing, the governor reported. There were bright spots; in January 1967, Johnson boasted that wages were the highest in history, unemployment was at a 13-year low, and corporate profits and farm incomes were greater than ever; a 4.5 percent jump in consumer prices was worrisome, as was the rise in interest rates. Johnson asked for a temporary 6 percent surcharge in income taxes to cover the mounting deficit caused by increased spending. Johnson's approval ratings stayed below 50 percent; by January 1967, the number of his strong supporters had plunged to 16 percent, from 25 percent four months before. He ran about even with Republican George Romney in trial matchups that spring. Asked to explain why he was unpopular, Johnson responded, "I am a dominating personality, and when I get things done I don't always please all the people." Johnson also blamed the press, saying they showed "complete irresponsibility and lie and misstate facts and have no one to be answerable to." He also blamed "the preachers, liberals and professors" who had turned against him.[71] In the congressional elections of 1966, the Republicans gained three seats in the Senate and 47 in the House, reinvigorating the Conservative coalition and making it impossible for Johnson to pass any additional Great Society legislation.
Johnson became the first serving President to visit Australia. It proved to be a visit that provoked many demonstrations against his visit, in the context of wider anti-war protests.
Vietnam War[link]
Johnson increasingly focused on the American military effort in Vietnam. He firmly believed in the Domino Theory and that his containment policy required America to make a serious effort to stop all Communist expansion.[72] At Kennedy's death, there were 16,000 American military advisors in Vietnam.[73] As President, Lyndon Johnson immediately reversed his predecessor's order to withdraw 1,000 military personnel by the end of 1963 with his own NSAM No. 273 on November 26, 1963.[74][75][76] Johnson expanded the numbers and roles of the American military following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (less than three weeks after the Republican Convention of 1964, which had nominated Barry Goldwater for President).
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the President the exclusive right to use military force without consulting the Senate, was based on a false pretext, as Johnson later admitted.[77] By the end of 1964, there were approximately 23,000 military personnel in South Vietnam. U.S. casualties for 1964 totaled 1,278.[73] Johnson began America's direct involvement in the ground war in Vietnam.[78] By 1968, over 550,000 American soldiers were inside Vietnam; in 1967 and 1968 they were being killed at the rate of over 1,000 a month.[79]
Politically, Johnson closely watched the public opinion polls. His goal was not to adjust his policies to follow opinion, but rather to adjust opinion to support his policies. Until the Tet Offensive of 1968, he systematically downplayed the war: few speeches, no rallies or parades or advertising campaigns. He feared that publicity would charge up the hawks who wanted victory, and weaken both his containment policy and his higher priorities in domestic issues. Jacobs and Shapiro conclude, "Although Johnson held a core of support for his position, the president was unable to move Americans who held hawkish and dovish positions." Polls showed that beginning in 1965, the public was consistently 40–50 percent hawkish and 10–25 percent dovish. Johnson's aides told him, "Both hawks and doves [are frustrated with the war] ... and take it out on you.".[80]
Additionally, domestic issues were driving his polls down steadily from spring 1966 onward. A few analysts have theorized that "Vietnam had no independent impact on President Johnson's popularity at all after other effects, including a general overall downward trend in popularity, had been taken into account."[81] The war grew less popular, and continued to split the Democratic Party. The Republican Party was not completely pro or anti-war, and Nixon managed to get support from both groups by running on a reduction in troop levels with an eye toward eventually ending the campaign.
He often privately cursed the Vietnam War, and in a conversation with Robert McNamara, Johnson assailed "the bunch of commies" running The New York Times for their articles against the war effort.[82] Johnson believed that America could not afford to lose and risk appearing weak in the eyes of the world. In a discussion about the war with former President Dwight Eisenhower, Johnson said he was "trying to win it just as fast as I can in every way that I know how" and later stated that he needed "all the help I can get."[83] Johnson escalated the war effort continuously from 1964 to 1968, and the number of American deaths rose. In two weeks in May 1968 alone American deaths numbered 1,800 with total casualties at 18,000. Alluding to the Domino Theory, he said, "If we allow Vietnam to fall, tomorrow we'll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week in San Francisco."
After the Tet offensive of January 1968, his presidency was dominated by the Vietnam War more than ever. Following evening news broadcaster Walter Cronkite's editorial report during the Tet Offensive that the war was unwinnable, Johnson is reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."[84]
As casualties mounted and success seemed further away than ever, Johnson's popularity plummeted. College students and others protested, burned draft cards, and chanted, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"[72] Johnson could scarcely travel anywhere without facing protests, and was not allowed by the Secret Service to attend the 1968 Democratic National Convention, where thousands of hippies, yippies, Black Panthers and other opponents of Johnson's policies both in Vietnam and in the ghettos converged to protest.[85] Thus by 1968, the public was polarized, with the "hawks" rejecting Johnson's refusal to continue the war indefinitely, and the "doves" rejecting his current war policies. Support for Johnson's middle position continued to shrink until he finally rejected containment and sought a peace settlement. By late summer, he realized that Nixon was closer to his position than Humphrey. He continued to support Humphrey publicly in the election, and personally despised Nixon. One of Johnson's well known quotes was "the Democratic party at its worst, is still better than the Republican party at its best".[86]
Perhaps Johnson, himself, best summed up his involvement in the Vietnam War as President:
| “ | I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved—the Great Society —in order to get involved in that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs.... But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, then I would be seen as a coward and my nation would be seen as an appeaser and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe.[87] | ” |
Many political pundits and experts said that Johnson suffered "agonizing decisions" in foreign policy in the involvement in Vietnam and felt it caused divisions both in the U.S. and abroad.[88]
Johnson was afraid that if he tried to defeat the North Vietnamese regime, rather than simply try to protect South Vietnam, he might provoke the Soviets into launching a fullscale military invasion of western Europe. It was not until the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s that it was finally confirmed that the Soviets had several thousand troops stationed in North Vietnam throughout the conflict.
The Six Day War and Israel[link]
In a 1993 interview for the Johnson Presidential Library oral history archives, Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara stated that a carrier battle group, the U.S. 6th Fleet, sent on a training exercise toward Gibraltar was re-positioned back towards the eastern Mediterranean to be able to defend Israel during the Six Day War of June 1967. Given the rapid Israeli advances following their preemptive strike on Egypt, the administration "thought the situation was so tense in Israel that perhaps the Syrians, fearing Israel would attack them, or the Soviets supporting the Syrians might wish to redress the balance of power and might attack Israel". The Soviets learned of this course correction and regarded it as an offensive move. In a hotline message from Moscow, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin said, "If you want war you're going to get war."[89]
The Soviet Union supported its Arab allies.[90] In May 1967, the Soviets started a surge deployment of their naval forces into the East Mediterranean. Early in the crisis they began to shadow the US and British carriers with destroyers and intelligence collecting vessels. The Soviet naval squadron in the Mediterranean was sufficiently strong to act as a major restraint on the U.S. Navy.[91] In a 1983 interview with The Boston Globe, McNamara claimed that "We damn near had war". He said Kosygin was angry that "we had turned around a carrier in the Mediterranean".[92]
Pardons[link]
During his presidency, Johnson issued 1187 pardons and commutations,[93] granting over 20 percent of such requests.[94]
1968 presidential election[link]
Main article: United States presidential election, 1968
As he had served less than 24 months of President Kennedy's term, Johnson was not disqualified from running for a second full term under the provisions of the 22nd Amendment.[95][96] However, entering the 1968 election campaign, initially, no prominent Democratic candidate was prepared to run against a sitting president of the Democratic party. Only Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota challenged Johnson as an anti-war candidate in the New Hampshire primary, hoping to pressure the Democrats to oppose the Vietnam War. On March 12, McCarthy won 42 percent of the primary vote to Johnson's 49 percent, an amazingly strong showing for such a challenger. Four days later, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York entered the race. Internal polling by Johnson's campaign in Wisconsin, the next state to hold a primary election, showed the President trailing badly. Johnson did not leave the White House to campaign.
By this time Johnson had lost control of the Democratic Party, which was splitting into four factions, each of which despised the other three. The first consisted of Johnson (and Humphrey), labor unions, and local party bosses (led by Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley). The second group consisted of students and intellectuals who were vociferously against the war and rallied behind McCarthy. The third group were Catholics, Hispanics and African Americans, who rallied behind Robert Kennedy. The fourth group were traditionally segregationist white Southerners, who rallied behind George C. Wallace and the American Independent Party. Vietnam was one of many issues that splintered the party, and Johnson could see no way to win the war[72] and no way to unite the party long enough for him to win re-election.[97].
In addition, although it was not made public at the time, Johnson became more worried about his failing health and was concerned that he might not live through another four-year term. Therefore, at the end of a March 31 speech, he shocked the nation when he announced he would not run for re-election by concluding with the line: "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."[98] He did rally the party bosses and unions to give Humphrey the nomination at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Johnson had grown to dislike Humphrey by this time, and the President realized his position was actually closer to the Republican candidate Richard Nixon. Personal correspondences between the President and some in the Republican Party suggested Johnson tacitly supported Nelson Rockefeller's campaign. He reportedly said that if Rockefeller became the Republican nominee, he would not campaign against him (and would not campaign for Humphrey).[99] In what was termed the October surprise, Johnson announced to the nation on October 31, 1968, that he had ordered a complete cessation of "all air, naval and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam", effective November 1, should the Hanoi Government be willing to negotiate and citing progress with the Paris peace talks. In the end, Democrats did not fully unite behind Humphrey, enabling Republican candidate Richard Nixon to win the election.
Had Johnson stayed in the race, won, and served out the new term, he would have been president for nine years and two months, second only to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Coincidentally, Johnson died just two days after what would have been the end of his second full term.
Administration and Cabinet[link]
(All of the cabinet members when Johnson became President in 1963 had been serving under John F. Kennedy previously.)
| The Johnson Cabinet | ||
|---|---|---|
| OFFICE | NAME | TERM |
| President | Lyndon B. Johnson | 1963–1969 |
| Vice President | None | 1963–1965 |
| Hubert Humphrey | 1965–1969 | |
| State | Dean Rusk | 1963–1969 |
| Treasury | C. Douglas Dillon | 1963–1965 |
| Henry H. Fowler | 1965–1968 | |
| Joseph W. Barr | 1968–1969 | |
| Defense | Robert McNamara | 1963–1968 |
| Clark M. Clifford | 1968–1969 | |
| Justice | Robert F. Kennedy | 1963–1964 |
| Nicholas deB. Katzenbach | 1964–1966 | |
| Ramsey Clark | 1966–1969 | |
| Postmaster General | John A. Gronouski | 1963–1965 |
| Larry O'Brien | 1965–1968 | |
| W. Marvin Watson | 1968–1969 | |
| Interior | Stewart Lee Udall | 1963–1969 |
| Agriculture | Orville Lothrop Freeman | 1963–1969 |
| Commerce | Luther Hartwell Hodges | 1963–1965 |
| John Thomas Connor | 1965–1967 | |
| Alexander Buel Trowbridge | 1967–1968 | |
| Cyrus Rowlett Smith | 1968–1969 | |
| Labor | W. Willard Wirtz | 1963–1969 |
| HEW | Anthony Celebrezze | 1963–1965 |
| John William Gardner | 1965–1968 | |
| Wilbur Joseph Cohen | 1968–1969 | |
| HUD | Robert Clifton Weaver | 1966–1968 |
| Robert Coldwell Wood | 1969 | |
| Transportation | Alan Stephenson Boyd | 1967–1969 |
Judicial appointments[link]
Supreme Court[link]
Main article: Lyndon B. Johnson Supreme Court candidates
Johnson appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
- Abe Fortas–1965
- Fortas was also nominated to be Chief Justice of the United States in 1968, but he was filibustered by senators and never was voted upon by the full Senate.
- Thurgood Marshall–1967
- Marshall was the first African-American to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
Other courts[link]
Main article: Lyndon B. Johnson judicial appointments
In addition to his Supreme Court appointments, Johnson appointed 40 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 126 judges to the United States district courts. Johnson also had a small number of judicial appointment controversies, with one appellate and three district court nominees not being confirmed by the United States Senate before Johnson's presidency ended.
Scandals and controversies[link]
During 1973 testimony before Congress, the CEO of America's largest cooperative of milk producers said that while Johnson was President, his cooperative had leased Johnson's private jet at a "plush" price, which Johnson wanted to continue once he was out of office.[22]
Johnson continued the FBI's wiretapping of Martin Luther King, Jr. that had been previously authorized by the Kennedy administration under Attorney General Robert Kennedy.[100] As a result of listening to the FBI's tapes, remarks on King's personal lifestyle were made by several prominent officials, including Johnson, who once said that King was a "hypocritical preacher."[101] Johnson also authorized the tapping of phone conversations of others, including the Vietnamese friends of a Nixon associate.[102]
In Latin America, Johnson directly and indirectly supported the overthrow of left-wing, democratically elected president Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic and João Goulart of Brazil, maintaining US support for anti-communist, authoritarian Latin American regimes. American foreign policy towards Latin America remained largely static until election of Jimmy Carter to the presidency in 1977.
Personality and public image[link]
Johnson was often seen as a wildly ambitious, tireless, and imposing figure who was ruthlessly effective at getting legislation passed. He worked 18–20 hour days without break and was apparently absent of any leisure activities. "There was no more powerful majority leader in American history," biographer Robert Dallek writes. Dallek stated that Johnson had biographies on all the Senators, knew what their ambitions, hopes, and tastes were and used it to his advantage in securing votes. Another Johnson biography writes, "He could get up every day and learn what their fears, their desires, their wishes, their wants were and he could then manipulate, dominate, persuade and cajole them." At six foot four inches tall, Johnson had his own particular brand of persuasion, known as "The Johnson Treatment".[103] A contemporary writes, "It was an incredible blend of badgering, cajolery, reminders of past favours, promises of future favours, predictions of gloom if something doesn't happen. When that man started to work on you, all of a sudden, you just felt that you were standing under a waterfall and the stuff was pouring on you."[103]
Johnson also took on the image of the Texas cattle rancher, after buying a ranch in Texas and having himself photographed in cowboy attire.[103]
Post-presidency[link]
After leaving the presidency in January 1969, Johnson went home to his ranch in Stonewall, Texas. In 1971, he published his memoirs, The Vantage Point. That year, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum opened near the campus of The University of Texas at Austin. He donated his Texas ranch in his will to the public to form the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, with the provision that the ranch "remain a working ranch and not become a sterile relic of the past".[104]
Johnson gave Nixon "high grades" in foreign policy, but worried that his successor was being pressured into removing U.S. forces too quickly, before the South Vietnamese were really able to defend themselves. "If the South falls to the Communists, we can have a serious backlash here at home," he warned.[105]
During the 1972 presidential election, Johnson endorsed Democratic presidential nominee George S. McGovern, a Senator from South Dakota, although McGovern had long opposed Johnson's foreign and defense policies. The McGovern nomination disgusted him. Nixon could be defeated "if only the Democrats don't go too far left," he had insisted. Johnson had felt Edmund Muskie would be more likely to defeat Nixon; however, he declined an invitation to try to stop McGovern receiving the nomination as he felt his unpopularity within the Democratic party was such that anything he said was more likely to help McGovern. Johnson's protege John Connally had served as President Nixon's Secretary of the Treasury and then stepped down to head "Democrats for Nixon", a group funded by Republicans. It was the first time that Connally and Johnson were on opposite sides of a general election campaign.[106]
In March 1970, Johnson was hospitalized at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, after suffering an attack of angina. He was urged to lose considerable weight. He had grown dangerously heavier since leaving the White House, gaining more than 25 lbs and weighing around 235 lbs. The following summer, again gripped by chest pains, he embarked on a crash water diet, shedding about 15 lbs in less than a month. In April 1972, Johnson experienced a massive heart attack while visiting his daughter, Lynda, in Charlottesville, Virginia. "I'm hurting real bad," he confided to friends. The chest pains hit him nearly every afternoon – a series of sharp, jolting pains that left him scared and breathless. A portable oxygen tank stood next to his bed, and he periodically interrupted what he was doing to lie down and don the mask to gulp air. He continued to smoke heavily, and, although placed on a low-calorie, low-cholesterol diet, kept to it only in fits and starts. Meanwhile, he began experiencing severe stomach pains. Doctors diagnosed this problem as diverticulosis, pouches forming on the intestine. Also symptomatic of the aging process, the condition rapidly worsened and surgery was recommended. Johnson flew to Houston to consult with heart specialist Dr. Michael De Bakey, who decided that Johnson's heart condition presented too great a risk for any sort of surgery, including coronary bypass of two almost totally destroyed heart arteries.[107]
Death and funeral[link]
| “ | On Inauguration Day (January 20, 1969), Johnson saw Nixon sworn in, then got on the plane to fly back to Texas. When the front door of the plane closed, Johnson pulled out a cigarette—his first cigarette he had smoked since his heart attack in 1955. One of his daughters pulled it out of his mouth and said, "Daddy, what are you doing? You're going to kill yourself." He took it back and said, "I've now raised you girls. I've now been President. Now it's my time!" From that point on, he went into a very self-destructive spiral. | ” |
|
—Historian Michael Beschloss[108] |
||
Lyndon Baines Johnson died at his ranch at 3:39 p.m CST (4:39 pm EST) on January 22, 1973 at age 64 after suffering a massive heart attack. His death came the day before a ceasefire was signed in Vietnam and just a month after former president Harry S. Truman died. (Truman's funeral on December 28, 1972 had been one of Johnson's last public appearances). His health had been affected by years of heavy smoking, poor diet, and extreme stress; the former president had advanced coronary artery disease. He had his first, nearly fatal, heart attack in July 1955 and suffered a second one in April 1972, but had been unable to quit smoking after he left the Oval Office in 1969. He was found dead by Secret Service agents, in his bed, with a telephone receiver in his hand. The agents were responding to a desperate call Johnson had made to the Secret Service compound on his ranch minutes earlier complaining of "massive chest pains".[109]
Shortly after Johnson's death, his press secretary Tom Johnson telephoned Walter Cronkite at CBS; Cronkite was live on the air with the CBS Evening News at the time, and a report on Vietnam was cut abruptly while Cronkite was still on the line, so he could break the news.[110]
Johnson was honored with a state funeral in which Texas Congressman J. J. Pickle and former Secretary of State Dean Rusk eulogized him at the Capitol.[2] The final services took place on January 25. The funeral was held at the National City Christian Church in Washington, D.C., where he had often worshiped as president. The service was presided over by President Richard Nixon and attended by foreign dignitaries, led by former Japanese prime minister Eisaku Satō, who served as Japanese prime minister during Johnson's presidency.[111] Eulogies were given by the Rev. Dr. George Davis, the church's pastor, and W. Marvin Watson, former postmaster general.[112] Nixon did not speak, though he attended, as is customary for presidents during state funerals, but the eulogists turned to him and lauded him for his tributes,[112] as Rusk did the day before, as Nixon mentioned Johnson's death in a speech he gave the day after Johnson died, announcing the peace agreement to end the Vietnam War.[113]
Johnson was buried in his family cemetery (which can be viewed today by visitors to the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Stonewall, Texas), a few yards from the house in which he was born. Eulogies were given by John Connally and the Rev. Billy Graham, the minister who officiated the burial rites. The state funeral, the last until Ronald Reagan's in 2004, was part of an unexpectedly busy week in Washington, as the Military District of Washington (MDW) dealt with their second major task in less than a week, beginning with Nixon's second inauguration.[114] The inauguration had an impact on the state funeral in various ways, because Johnson died only two days after the inauguration.[2][114] The MDW and the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee canceled the remainder of the ceremonies surrounding the inauguration to allow for a full state funeral,[114] and many of the military men who participated in the inauguration took part in the funeral.[114] It also meant Johnson's casket traveled the entire length of Capitol, entering through the Senate wing when taken into the rotunda to lie in state and exited through the House wing steps due to construction on the East Front steps.[2]
Legacy[link]
The Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, was renamed the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center,[115] and Texas created a legal state holiday to be observed on August 27 to mark Johnson's birthday.[116] It is known as Lyndon Baines Johnson Day. The Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove on the Potomac was dedicated on September 27, 1974.
The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs was named in his honor, as is the Lyndon B. Johnson National Grassland.
A middle school in Melbourne Florida is named after him Lyndon B. Johnson Middle School.
Interstate 635 in Dallas is named the Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway.
Lyndon Baines Johnson Tropical Medical Center is named after the 36th President who visited American Samoa on October 18, 1966. This marked the beginning of construction of the hospital located in the village of Faga'alu, American Samoa. The facility was completed in 1968.
Runway 17R/35L at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is known as the Lyndon B. Johnson Runway.
The student center at Texas State University is named after the former president.
Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1980.
On March 23, 2007, President George W. Bush signed legislation naming the United States Department of Education headquarters after President Johnson.[117]
2008 was the celebration of the Johnson Centennial featuring special programs, events, and parties across Texas and in Washington, D.C. Johnson would have been 100 years old on August 27, 2008.
He is the only president serving during Queen Elizabeth II's reign to have never met her.
Major legislation signed[link]
- 1963: Clean Air Act of 1963[118]
- 1963: Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963[119][120]
- 1963: Vocational Education Act of 1963[121]
- 1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964
- 1964: Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964
- 1964: Wilderness Act
- 1964: Nurse Training Act of 1964[122]
- 1964: Food Stamp Act of 1964
- 1964: Economic Opportunity Act
- 1964: Housing Act of 1964[123]
- 1965: Higher Education Act of 1965
- 1965: Older Americans Act
- 1965: Social Security Act of 1965
- 1965: Voting Rights Act
- 1965: Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965
- 1966: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
- 1967: Age Discrimination in Employment Act[124]
- 1967: Public Broadcasting Act of 1967
- 1968: Architectural Barriers Act of 1968
- 1968: Bilingual Education Act
- 1968: Civil Rights Act of 1968
- 1968: Gun Control Act of 1968
In popular culture[link]
Main article: Popular cultural legacy of Lyndon B. Johnson
Electoral history[link]
Main article: Electoral history of Lyndon B. Johnson
See also[link]
- History of the United States (1945–1964)
- History of the United States (1964–1980)
- Holocaust Museum Houston
- List of facilities named after Lyndon Johnson
- List of Presidents of the United States
- Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
- Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin
- U.S. Presidents on U.S. postage stamps
References[link]
- ^ The other three people who served in all four elected offices were John Tyler, Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon.
- ^ a b c d Foley, Thomas (January 25, 1973). "Thousands in Washington Brave Cold to Say Goodbye to Johnson". Los Angeles Times: p. A1.
- ^ Barbara Epstein (1993). Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s. U. of California Press. p. 41. http://books.google.com/books?id=vYW67obBjSEC&pg=PA41.
- ^ Dallek, Robert. "Presidency: How Do Historians Evaluate the Administration of Lyndon Johnson?". Hnn.us. http://hnn.us/articles/439.html. Retrieved June 17, 2010.
- ^ "Survey of Presidential Leadership — Lyndon Johnson". C-SPAN. http://legacy.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/president/Lyndon_Johnson.aspx. Retrieved June 17, 2010.
- ^ Patty Greenbaum, Lisa Lewis, Anne Drake, Zazel Loven, ed. (1990). Yearbook. New York, NY: Dolphin. p. 89. ISBN 978-0-385-41625-2.
- ^ Caro, Robert A. Volume I
- ^ "Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum — Religion and President Johnson". http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/FAQs/Religion/religion_hm.asp.
- ^ Banta, Joseph (January 1964). "President Lyndon B. Johnson". The Christadelphian 101: 26.
- ^ "The Student Editorials of Lyndon Baines Johnson" (1968), LBJ Common Experience, Paper 1, http://ecommons.txstate.edu/lbjcomex/1
- ^ "President Lyndon B. Johnson's Biography." Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum.
- ^ "Remarks at Southwest Texas State College Upon Signing the Higher Education Act of 1965". Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/lbjforkids/edu_whca370-text.shtm. Retrieved April 11, 2006.
- ^ Steele, John (June 25, 1956). "A Kingmaker or a Dark Horse". Life: 111–124. http://books.google.com/books?id=70gEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA121. Retrieved July 20, 2010.
- ^ Woods, Randall (2006), p. 131.
- ^ Caro, Robert A. (1982). The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The path to power. New York: Knopf. p. 275. ISBN 0-394-49973-5.
- ^ a b "JOHNSON, Lyndon Baines — Biographical Information". Bioguide.congress.gov. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=J000160. Retrieved October 6, 2008.
- ^ Caro, Robert A. (1982)
- ^ Hove, Duane T. (2003). American Warriors: Five Presidents in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Burd Street Press. ISBN 978-1-57249-307-0. [1]
- ^ a b "In-Depth Specials — The story behind Johnson's Silver Star". CNN. Archived from the original on June 13, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080613123509/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/johnson.silver.star/story/storypage.html. Retrieved October 6, 2008.
- ^ Dallek, Robert. Lone Star Rising, p. 237
- ^ Woods, Randall (2006), p. 217; Caro, Robert A. (1989)
- ^ a b c d e f Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-04195-7.
- ^ Caro, Robert A. (December 18, 1989). "The Johnson Years: Buying And Selling". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1989/12/18/1989_12_18_043_TNY_CARDS_000356927.
- ^ Woods, Randall (2006), p. 262
- ^ Baker, Robert http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/video/lbj_05.html#v230
- ^ "New York Times, The Johnson Treatment: Lyndon B. Johnson and Theodore F. Green". Afterimagegallery.com. http://www.afterimagegallery.com/nytjohnson.htm. Retrieved October 6, 2008. [dead link]
- ^ Evans, Rowland; Novak, Robert (1966). Lyndon B. Johnson: The Exercise of Power. p. 104.
- ^ John A. Farrell (2001). Tip O'Neill and the Democratic Century: A Biography. Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-26049-5.
- ^ Seymour M. Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot, 1997, Chapter 12
- ^ Master of the Senate, p. 1035.
- ^ http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/lyndon_johnson.pdf
- ^ Ben Evans, Foothold in the Heavens: The Seventies (2010) p 193
- ^ "JFK Assassination Coverage – Part 2: Lyndon B. Johnson Sworn in". UPI. November 22, 1963. http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1963/Lyndon-B.-Johnson-Sworn-in/12386108698633-4/. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^ Transcript, Lawrence F. O'Brien Oral History Interview XIII, 9/10/86, by Michael L. Gillette, Internet Copy, Johnson Library. See: Page 23 at[2]
- ^ terHorst, Jerald F.; Albertazzie, Col. Ralph (1979). The Flying White House: the story of Air Force One. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. ISBN 0-698-10930-9.
- ^ Walsh, Kenneth T. (2003). Air Force One: a history of the presidents and their planes. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-0004-9.
- ^ "1963 Year In Review – Part 1: Transition to Johnson". UPI. November 19, 1966. http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1963/Transition-to-Johnson/12295509434394-3/. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^ The Assassination Records Review Board noted in 1998, that Johnson became skeptical of some of the Warren Commission findings. See: Final Report, chapter 1, footnote 17 at http://www.fas.org/sgp/advisory/arrb98/index.html
- ^ Dallek, Robert (1998). Chapter 2
- ^ Schlesinger, Arthur (1978, 2002). Robert Kennedy and His Times. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt /Mariner Books. p. 654. ISBN 0-618-21928-5.
- ^ Dallek, Robert (1998). Chapter 3
- ^ Evans and Novak (1966), pp. 451–456; Taylor Branch. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–65, pp. 444–470
- ^ "1964 Year In Review". http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1964/New-Moscow:-Khrushchev-Fired/12300651773319-2/#title.
- ^ Reeves, Richard (1993). President Kennedy: Profile of Power. pp. 521–523.
- ^ Reeves, Richard (1993). President Kennedy: Profile of Power. pp. 628–631.
- ^ Schlesinger, Arthur (1965, 2002). A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. p. 973.
- ^ a b Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. (1978, 2002). Robert Kennedy And His Times. pp. 644–645.
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- ^ Davidson, C. & Grofman, B. (1994). Quiet Revolution In The South: The Impact Of The Voting Right Act, 1965–1990. p. 3, Princeton University Press.
- ^ President Grant, on October 17, 1871 suspended Habeas Corpus in 9 South Carolina counties, sent in troops, and prosecuted the Klan in the federal district court. McFeely (2002), Grant: A Biography, pp. 369–371.
- ^ Woods, Randall (2006), pp. 759–787
- ^ Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965. Volume II, entry 301, pp. 635–640 (1966)
- ^ "1965 Immigration Law Changed Face of America". NPR: National Public Radio. May 9, 2006.
- ^ Peter S. Canellos (November 11, 2008). "Obama victory took root in Kennedy-inspired Immigration Act". The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/11/11/obama_victory_took_root_in_kennedy_inspired_immigration_act/?page=full. Retrieved November 14, 2008.
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- ^ Foner, Nancy; Fredrickson, George M. (2005). Not Just Black and White: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States. p. 120. ISBN 0-87154-270-6. http://books.google.com/?id=uHmccaV4MuAC&pg=PA120&dq&q=.
- ^ "Immigrants in the United States and the Current Economic Crisis", Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Aaron Terrazas, Migration Policy Institute, April 2009.
- ^ "Immigration Worldwide: Policies, Practices, and Trends". Uma A. Segal, Doreen Elliott, Nazneen S. Mayadas (2010). Oxford University Press US. p.32. ISBN 0-19-538813-5
- ^ Irving Bernstein, Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson (1994) ch 6–11.
- ^ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 72. ISBN 0-465-04195-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=8EUtP_lvCqIC&pg=PA72.
- ^ Bernstein, Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson (1994) pp 183–213.
- ^ Bernstein, Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson (1994) p 195
- ^ Woods, Randall (2006), pp. 563–68; Dallek, Robert (1988), pp. 196–202
- ^ Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, summary by G. David Garson. Retrieved January 19, 2010.
- ^ Medicare Celebrates 35 Years of Keeping Americans Healthy. Retrieved January 19, 2010.
- ^ Patricia P. Martin and David A. Weaver. "Social Security: A Program and Policy History," Social Security Bulletin, volume 66, no. 1 (2005), see also online version.
- ^ "Lyndon B. Johnson". Clinton White House. 1990s (specific date unknown). http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/lj36.html. Retrieved November 22, 2009.
- ^ "Lyndon B. Johnson". The White House. Original text from the 1990s (specific date unknown). http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/lyndonbjohnson. Retrieved November 22, 2009.
- ^ Woods, Randall (2006), pp. 790–795; Michael W. Flamm. Law And Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s (2005)
- ^ Rouse, Robert (March 15, 2006). "Happy Anniversary to the first scheduled presidential press conference – 93 years young!". American Chronicle. http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/6883.
- ^ Dallek, Robert. Flawed Giant, pp. 391–396; quotes on pp. 391 and 396
- ^ a b c "The Sixties". Junior Scholastic. February 11, 1994. p. 4.
- ^ a b "Vietnam War". Swarthmore College Peace Collection. http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/peace/conscientiousobjection/OverviewVietnamWar.htm.
- ^ Reeves, Richard (1993), President Kennedy: Profile of Power, p. 613.
- ^ NSAM 263, Oct. 11, 1963
- ^ NSAM 273, November 26, 1963
- ^ Fletcher, Martin (November 7, 2001). "LBJ tape 'confirms Vietnam war error". The Times.
- ^ Karnow, S. (1991), Vietnam, A History, pp. 339, 343.
- ^ "siwmfilm.net". siwmfilm.net. http://siwmfilm.net/Vietnam_War/Military_Casualty_Information.html. Retrieved December 21, 2011.
- ^ Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro. "Lyndon Johnson, Vietnam, and Public Opinion: Rethinking Realist Theory of Leadership." Presidential Studies Quarterly 29#3 (1999), p. 592
- ^ John E. Mueller. War, Presidents and Public Opinion (1973), p. 108
- ^ [3][dead link]
- ^ "LBJ Library releases telephone conversation recordings". Lbjlib.utexas.edu. Archived from the original on June 11, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080611221222/http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/Press.hom/tape_release_11_2006.shtm. Retrieved October 6, 2008.
- ^ Wicker, Tom (January 26, 1997). "Broadcast News". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/01/26/reviews/970126.26wickert.html. Retrieved May 1, 2009.
- ^ Frank Kusch, Battleground Chicago: The Police and the 1968 Democratic National Convention (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), p.62.
- ^ Gould 1993
- ^ LBJ Goes to War 1964—1968[dead link]
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- ^ "Mediterranean Eskadra". Fas.org. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/agency/mf-med.htm. Retrieved June 17, 2010.
- ^ Hattendorf, John B. (2000). Naval Strategy and Power in the Mediterranean: Past, Present and Future. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-7146-8054-0.
- ^ "McNamara: US Near War in '67", The Boston Globe, Associated Pres, September 16, 1983.
- ^ "Presidential Pardons". Jurist.law.pitt.edu. January 29, 2001. http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pardonspres1.htm. Retrieved June 17, 2010.
- ^ http://www.rvc.cc.il.us/faclink/pruckman/pardoncharts/fiscact_files/image002.gif
- ^ "Johnson Can Seek Two Full Terms". The Washington Post: p. A2. November 24, 1963.
- ^ Moore, William (November 24, 1963). "Law Permits 2 Full Terms for Johnson". The Chicago Tribune: p. 7.
- ^ Lewis L. Gould (1993). 1968: The Election that Changed America
- ^ Remarks on Decision not to Seek Re-Election (March 31, 1968) Text and audio of speech
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- ^ Garrow, David J. (2002-07/08). "The FBI and Martin Luther King". The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200207/garrow.
- ^ Sidey, Hugh (February 10, 1975). "L.B.J., Hoover and Domestic Spying". Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912799-2,00.html. Retrieved June 14, 2008.
- ^ Sanchez, Julian (March 16, 2008). "Wiretapping's true danger". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on April 20, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080420045632/http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-sanchez16mar16,0,4039194.story. Retrieved December 29, 2008.
- ^ a b c Jardine, Lisa (January 21, 2009). "Lyndon B Johnson: The uncivil rights reformer – US Presidents' Lives, News". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/presidents/lyndon-b-johnson-the-uncivil-rights-reformer-1451816.html. Retrieved September 5, 2010.
- ^ Harris, Marvin (December 1999). "Taming the wild pecan at Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park". Park Science 19 (2). http://www2.nature.nps.gov/parksci/vol19/vol19(2)/08–1harris.htm.
- ^ http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/73jul/janos.htm
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- ^ The Age, January 23, 1973, p. 1
- ^ Walter Cronkite announces the death of LBJ 1973 on YouTube
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- ^ a b Johnson, Haynes; Witcover, Jules (January 26, 1973). "LBJ Buried in Beloved Texas Hills". The Washington Post: p. A1.
- ^ Claffey, Charles (January 25, 1973). "Johnson lies in state at Capitol; burial is today at Texas ranch". The Boston Globe: p. 1.
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- ^ "President Bush Signs H.R. 584, Designates U.S. Department of Education as the Lyndon Baines Johnson Federal Building". The White House. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070323-6.html. Retrieved October 6, 2008.
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- ^ "Remarks Upon Signing the Nurse Training Act of 1964". John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=26484. Retrieved February 25, 2011.
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- ^ "Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967". Finduslaw.com. http://finduslaw.com/age_discrimination_in_employment_act_of_1967_adea_29_u_s_code_chapter_14. Retrieved June 17, 2010.
Further reading[link]
Main article: Lyndon B. Johnson bibliography
- Andrew, John A. Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society (1999) 224 pp.
- Bernstein, Irving. Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson 1994.
- Bornet, Vaughn Davis. The Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. 1983
- Brands, H. W. The Wages of Globalism: Lyndon Johnson and the Limits of American Power (1997)
- Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson (4 volumes as of 2012): The Path to Power (1982); Means of Ascent (1990); Master of the Senate (2002); The Passage of Power (2012). The most detailed biography, extends to early 1964.
- Dallek, Robert. ' Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President (2004). A 400-page abridged version of his 2 volume scholarly biography, online edition of short version.
- Schulman, Bruce J. Lyndon B. Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with Documents (1995)
- Woods, Randall. LBJ: Architect of American Ambition (2006). A highly detailed scholarly biography (1000 pages).
External links[link]
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- Lyndon B. Johnson at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
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- Works by or about Lyndon B. Johnson in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Lyndon B. Johnson collected news and commentary at The New York Times
- Lyndon B. Johnson at Find a Grave
- Lyndon B. Johnson Library
- Lyndon Baines Johnson: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
- CONELRAD's definitive history of the Daisy ad
- Lyndon B. Johnson – Presidential Recordings
- Lyndon Johnson Oral History
- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/lbj/player/ LBJ]. American Experience. PBS.
- White House biography
- Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes
- Inaugural Address of Lyndon Baines Johnson
- "White House Tapes: Eavesdropping on LBJ", NPR Weekend Edition, November 15, 2003
- "Master, or Puppet?". Texas Observer. August 1, 2002.
- Essays on Lyndon Johnson and His Administration
- Works by Lyndon B. Johnson at Project Gutenberg
- Lyndon Baines Johnson from the Handbook of Texas Online
- "Navigator's son disputes LBJ ever saw combat". CNN. July 9, 2001.
- The Presidential Recordings of Lyndon B. Johnson Digital Edition
- President Lyndon Johnson’s Life and Legacy with Charlie Rose, August 29, 2008
- A conversation with author Robert Caro about Lyndon B. Johnson with Charlie Rose, May 17, 2002
- A conversation about the feud between Lyndon Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy with Charlie Rose, October 15, 1997
- Lyndon Johnson at C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits
Related information[link]
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Johnson, Lyndon Baines |
| Alternative names | LBJ (common referent) |
| Short description | President of the United States |
| Date of birth | August 27, 1908 |
| Place of birth | Stonewall, Texas, United States |
| Date of death | January 22, 1973 |
| Place of death | Stonewall, Texas, United States |
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