NewsInHistory is continually adding more content to our historical newspapers archive—titles new to our collection as well as expanding the date ranges and number of issues for titles already in our archive. New titles are indicated by an asterisk (*). This current addition involves 79 newspapers from 23 states and the District of Columbia. A total of 42,529 issues have been added in this release! Here are the details:
Alabama
Mobile Register (Mobile). 1364 issues: 1858 to 1869 read more...
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There have been thousands of books and movies produced about the American Civil War, hundreds of thousands of eager visitors flock to Civil War battlefields every year, and the nation is in the midst of commemorating the sesquicentennial of this great and tragic conflict that caused more than a million casualties. With all this interest and knowledge, however, there are many Civil War stories that remain little known to this day. read more...
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On Jan. 26, 1837, Michigan was admitted into the Union as the 26th state, doubling the nation’s original total of 13. Michigan’s admission did not come without opposition, however. The powerful senator from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun, strongly objected to the political machinations that occurred during the application of Michigan Territory for statehood. read more...
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On Jan. 20, 1801, in the waning days of a lame duck administration, President John Adams committed one of the most significant acts in American history when he nominated his Secretary of State, John Marshall, to be the next chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice Marshall began his tenure on Feb. 4 and served until he died on July 6, 1835. read more...
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On May 13, 1846, Congress declared war on Mexico, beginning the two-year Mexican-American War. From the Mexican perspective, the war was purely an act of American aggression, flimsily based on a pretext that Mexico began the hostilities. Mexico regarded Texas as a renegade province even after the Texas Revolution established the Republic of Texas, and warned the United States not to annex the territory. read more...
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When John Fitzgerald Kennedy was inaugurated as the nation’s 35th president on Jan. 20, 1961, he delivered a stirring inaugural address brimming with confidence, while at the same time acknowledging the dangerous tensions in a world dominated by the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. On the day of his inauguration the Seattle Daily Times’ editorial page reflected these themes, as shown in the following three editorials. read more...
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The inauguration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy as the nation’s 35th president on Jan. 20, 1961, included several notable achievements. For one, Kennedy at 43 was (and remains) the youngest elected president in American history. He was the first (and, to date, only) Roman Catholic elected president. Perhaps his most significant achievement on that cold, raw day in 1961were his words: he delivered one of the most famous inauguration speeches the nation has ever heard, exhorting his follow Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” read more...
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Billionaire Howard Hughes died in 1976 a 70-year-old eccentric recluse, whose strange behavior stemmed from a severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. During the last few years of his life he only cut his hair and trimmed his nails once a year, and avoided contact with people. As a young man, however, Hughes was an enormously successful film producer, industrialist, engineer and aviator. read more...
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On Jan. 13, 1865, Military Governor Andrew Johnson of Tennessee (who became Lincoln’s vice president on March 4) sent a message to President Lincoln announcing that a state convention of more than 500 delegates had adopted an amendment to the state constitution forever abolishing slavery in Tennessee. Johnson remarked in his message: “Thank God that the tyrant’s rod has been broken.”
The 500 delegates passed the following two amendments “without a single dissenting voice”: read more...
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The United States reached a milestone on Jan. 12, 1932, when Hattie W. Caraway became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate, representing the state of Arkansas. When her husband of 29 years, Senator Thaddeus H. Caraway, died in 1931 Arkansas Governor Harvey Parnell appointed her to the vacant seat, and she was sworn into office Dec. 9. Arkansas held a special election in January 1932 to fill the remainder of Senator Thaddeus Caraway’s term, and Hattie Caraway won easily. read more...
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I understand that when writing a blog, it’s necessary to show a picture and say a few words about yourself, so that people don’t think a nameless, faceless committee or advisory board is running the show. Here I am, a real person. My name is Tony Pettinato, and I live in Deerfield, Mass. I did my undergraduate studies in English at Oberlin College, my graduate work in Journalism at UC Berkeley, and have been a reporter for six newspapers. For the past fourteen years I have worked at NewsBank, six of those as a managing editor for the U.S. Congressional Serial Set project – NewsBank’s acclaimed effort that digitized and indexed twelve million pages of primary source documents – that gratified my lifelong interest in American history. And that led me to editing this history blog!
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