This Week In American History

June 4 1919 The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote, is passed by Congress. By the beginning of the 20th century, the role of women in...

Three years after the end of the Civil War, on May 5, 1868, Major General John A. Logan, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army...

May 28 1935 John Steinbeck published his first successful novel, Tortilla Flat. A native Californian, Steinbeck studied writing intermittently at Stanford between 1920 and 1925, but never graduated. He moved...

May 21 1881 Humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons founded the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters. Barton worked with...

May 14 1804 One year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition left St. Louis, Missouri, on a mission to explore...

Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the and Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest...

May 7 1789 George Washington attended a ball a week after being sworn in as the first U.S. president. Him and Martha danced a minuet, captured in a drawing displayed...

April 30 1789 George Washington was sworn in as the first American president and delivers the first inaugural speech at Federal Hall in New York City. Elements of the ceremony...

April 23   1961 Judy Garland performed at Carnegie Hall in what is often called “the greatest night in showbiz history." The album won the Grammy Award for Album of...

April 16 1947 Multimillionaire and financier Bernard Baruch, in a speech given during the unveiling of his portrait in the South Carolina House of Representatives, coins the term “Cold War”...

Easter, also called Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred...

April 9 1865 In Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Robert E. Lee surrendered his 28,000 Confederate troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Forced to abandon the Confederate capital of Richmond,...