The president's entire cabinet resigned - with one exception - On This Day in 1841. Officers were angry that John Tyler vetoed a second bill for the establishment of a National Bank of the United States
After four New York-bound jets were hijacked, an outraged president launched the federal sky marshalls program. 2001? No - it was Richard Nixon On This Day in 1970. The weeklong hijacking crisis played out in Europe and the Middle East
On This Day. 2001: George W. Bush vowed revenge after Islamic terrorists hijacked four U.S. passenger jets and used them to attack New York and Washington. Nearly 3,000 people were killed - the second-bloodiest single day in U.S. history
/1
The Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks ended America's post-Cold War complacency, sparked massive security changes and led to the two longest wars in U.S. history - which were fought simultaneously. One war, in Afghanistan, is about to enter its 18th year - with no end in sight
I happened to see the attacks on the World Trade Center unfold from my office (at the time) on the 36th floor of a Manhattan skyscraper. Days later, volunteering for the Red Cross at Ground Zero, I scooped up this debris - a daily reminder of what was lost
/2
Working on a new project concerning the electoral college. Worth remembering how delusional @realDonaldTrump is about his win. He claimed it was a “landslide,” in fact, he boasted in a Feb. 2017 news conference, it was “the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.” /1
/2
.@RealDonaldTrump got 306 electoral votes, the biggest EV win in (drumroll) 4 years. Not since Obama way back in 2012 has a POTUS racked up so many EVs. Obama got 332. In 2008? 365. So if Trump calls his 306 a “landslide,” what does he call Obama’s bigger back-to-back margins?
/3
In percentage terms, Trump won 57% of the electoral college, ranking 46th out of 58 elections. In terms of popular vote margin, he ranks 47th out of the last 49 elections. Yet there are those who automatically believe - and never question - his claims of a "landslide" ##
On This Day, 1942: President Roosevelt vowed to try Nazis for war crimes. Learning of atrocities against Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe—the Holocaust—FDR said “the ringleaders responsible for organized murder” would be held accountable /1
Roosevelt died before World War II ended, of course, but the Nuremberg Trials—a series of military tribunals—prosecuted 22 top Nazi officials. Roosevelt was later criticized by some for not doing more to stop the direct extermination of Jews /2
/3
Critics said FDR could have bombed railroad tracks that led to death camps, but FDR thought the fastest way to stop the Holocaust was to win the war as quickly as possible—by bombing Germany itself (Here: reconaissance photo of Auschwitz w/smoke from burning bodies)
Age of Supreme Court Justices:
Five conservatives: Avg. age 61, Median age 63
Four liberals: Avg. age 71, Median age 71
You may think that #Kavanaugh replacing Kennedy (who was considered the "swing vote" on the Supreme Court) will result in a major shift to the right. Yet it's worth noting that Kennedy - in the courts last term that ended in June - voted consistently with conservatives /1
/2
The court made 63 decisions in its last term. Of those, 19 were 5-4 rulings. "Swing vote" Kennedy voted with conservatives (Roberts, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch) 14 times. He voted with the liberal justices (RBG. Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan) zero times (SacBee analysis) ##
A commander-in-chief alright: On this day in 1794, President Washington led troops into the field - to put down the so-called "Whiskey Rebellion" - an uprising by Pennsylvania farmers who refused to pay a tax on whiskey /1
/2
The Whiskey Rebellion showed the power and ability of the new federal government to suppress violent resistance to its laws.
Arguably the greatest former president America has ever had - Jimmy Carter - was born on this day in 1924. He was the 39th president, serving between 1977-81. Naval Academy grad, engineering officer on a nuclear submarine, Georgia Gov., Nobel Peace Prize winner, humanitarian /1
With war looming in Europe, Pres. Roosevelt wrote to Adolf Hitler on this day in 1938, to express concern about Nazi threats to seize a part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudentenland. Hitler publicly ridiculed FDR, but soon grabbed the Sudentenland -and then Czechoslovakia itself
Had Lee Harvey Oswald been able to get a visa to travel to either Cuba or the Soviet Union in the Fall of 1963, he would not have been in Dallas on Nov. 22. Here: his application - on this day in 1963 - to visit Cuba, which was rejected by the Castro regime
On This Day, 1964: Ten months after President Kennedy's assassination, the Warren Commission released its 889-page report to the American people. It said that a lone gunman, 24-year old Lee Harvey Oswald, was solely responsible for the president's murder /1
On This Day, 1894: Grover Cleveland pardoned bigamists, adulterers and polygamists. The move was directed at Mormons who had previously engaged in such activity—considered illegal by the U.S. government
Headlines This Day, 1957. President Eisehower's respomse to efforts by officials in Arkansas to maintain segregation