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A State Dinner honoring a visiting head of government or reigning monarch is one of the grandest and most glamorous of White House affairs. It is part of an official State Visit and provides the president and first lady the opportunity to honor the visiting head of state and his or her spouse. In this collection, explore the history of
No measure of Thomas Jefferson’s presidential administration captured the public imagination, and no policy approach so significantly affected the character of the nation, as did the acquiring of the Louisiana Territory.1 Yet long before his presidency, Jefferson was keenly interested in the land to the west of the Mississippi River. For example, just after the Revolution, he had heard th
Most Native American tribes during the War of 1812 sided with the British because they wanted to safeguard their tribal lands, and hoped a British victory would relieve the unrelenting pressure they were experiencing from U.S. settlers who wanted to push further into Native American lands in southern Canada and in the lower Great Lakes and the south. Although some
Timeline of Events:August 29, 1814: Faced with a British demand to surrender 21 merchant ships, naval and ordinance stores and cotton, flour, tobacco and wines from the city warehouses or face attack from a squadron of seven ships, Alexandria's mayor and council bowed to the inevitable and agreed to the British demand—for they had no reliable defenses or defenders.August 30, 1814: A wa
Jimmy Carter would say later, "No matter who was with me, we watched the big grandfather clock by the door." Time was running out, for it was Tuesday, January 20, 1981. The scene was the Oval Office. In just hours this president would leave it for good, and a new leader, Ronald Reagan, would move in. As the clock ticked the time
In the spring of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in the midst of a campaign to force the desegregation of the downtown department stores of Birmingham, Alabama. The goal was narrowly focused: persuade the city fathers to act by applying pressure through boycotts and public demonstrations. Response to that pressure, King understood, would bring a strong reaction from Eugene "
He seemed a contented man. House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford, had his niche. He had served twelve terms as a congressman, never receiving less than 60 percent of the vote from his constituents back in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Ford did not hunger to be president of the United States. As he once said, "When I first ran for the Congress
