This Day In History May 20



January

• 1

  January 1

  1. 1700 Mourning And Black Edged Stationery
  2. 1700 When Vice Presidents Become President
  3. 1780 Jewish Union Soldiers Who Fought In The American Civil War By Place Of Birth
  4. 1819 The Bicentennial of Herman Melville’s Birth
  5. 1836 Simon Wolf: Patriot, Activist, and Statesman
  6. 1839 A Radio Play Script: Cresson and the Dove, by Yaacov Shavit
  7. 1845 Map of Illinois, 1845
  8. 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, the Jews, and the American Civil War
  9. 1850 Abraham Lincoln and the Jews
  10. 1852 Mark Twain and the Adams Colony
  11. 1859 Enlistment Locations Of Jewish Soldiers Who Fought For the Union In The American Civil War
  12. 1859 Manuscripts Related To Jewish American Civil War Soldiers
  13. 1860 Religion in the Civil War: The Jewish High Holidays
  14. 1860 When Historic Figures Throw Shade
  15. 1860 Jewish Medal Of Honor Recipients From The Civil War
  16. 1860 The Most Common Surnames Of Jewish Civil War Soldiers In the Union
  17. 1860 By Regiment: Jewish Union Soldiers In The Civil War
  18. 1860 Unique Service Occupations: Jewish Union Soldiers In The American Civil War
  19. 1861 International Man of Mystery — Colonel Frederick George d’Utassy
  20. 1861 1st Lieutenant Ferdinand Linz: Honoring His Contribution to Our Society
  21. 1865 John F. Kennedy and Service
  22. 1865 American Tourists in the Holy Land, 1865-1900
  23. 1867 How Mark Twain Became Famous: Speak Your Truth
  24. 1882 Western Gambler “Ike” Isaacs’ Tombstone Gaming License Signed By Sheriff Johnny Behan
  25. 1887 Read Across America Day – Mark Twain Lists His Favorite Books For Children, and Himself
  26. 1911 Theodore Roosevelt and the 1912 Election: What Happened & Why Did Roosevelt Run?
  27. 1918 The 1918 Flu Pandemic, Pres. Woodrow Wilson, and the Paris Peace Conference
  28. 1920 The Centennial of the Women’s Right to Vote: The Presidential Election of 1920
  29. 1940 Franklin Roosevelt and the End of American Isolationism
  30. 1953 Harry Truman’s Post-Presidential Recollections
  31. 1980 Jimmy Carter, 39th US President
  32. 2018 Dankmar Adler: Courage, Architecture, and the American Dream
  33. 2018 Brother Against Brother: Abraham Jonas’s Sons
  34. 2018 Lost in Hebrew Translations
  35. 2018 Hiding in Plain Sight – Why Some Jewish American Soldiers Served Under an Alias
  36. 2018 Lincoln Reunites Immigrant Son with His Family
  37. 2019 August Bondi, Jewish Soldier and Fighter for Freedom
  38. 2020 Shapell Roster Contributor, Richard Kane of Wisconsin
  39. 2020 My Three Soldiers: Eliza Heilbrun’s Quest for a Pension
  40. 2020 Only 15-Years-Old and Anchors Aweigh: Lee Rothschild’s Escape Into the US Navy
  41. 2020 Little Phil: the Unseen Heroism and Struggles of a Civil War Soldier
  42. 2021 VIDEO: History Lessons – Working with Original Manuscripts in the Contemporary Classroom
  43. 2022 Video Series: Introduction and Overview – The Shapell Roster of Jewish Service in the American Civil War
  44. 2022 Video Series: Soldier-Sailor Page, Part I – Overview and Military Service Section
  45. 2022 Video Series: Soldier-Sailor Page, Part II – Documentation and Sources Section
  46. 2022 Field Trip: Research On Site At Jewish Cemeteries With The Shapell Roster Research Team
  47. 2022 President Hayes’s Lifelong Friendship With a Jewish Soldier
  48. 2022 VIDEO: In Discussion with Professors Deborah Dash Moore and Adam D. Mendelsohn – Discoveries from the Shapell Roster
  49. 2022 Marcus Spiegel: From Conservative Democrat to “Strong Abolitionist”
  50. 2022 Edmund Louis Gray Zalinski: Soldier, Scholar, Inventor
  51. 2022 Memorial Day 2022
  52. 2022 A New Book By Adam D. Mendelsohn – “Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: The Union Army”
• 2

  January 2

  1. 1907 Presidential Checks
• 3

  January 3

  1. 1919 A Final Roar: In One of His Last Letters, Theodore Roosevelt Blasts Woodrow Wilson
• 4

  January 4

  1. 1853 Early Variant of Executive Mansion Card Signed by American President Millard Fillmore
• 5

  January 5

  1. 1892 William McKinley Invites Old Friend to Go with Him to His Gubernatorial Inauguration: “Don’t fail me.”
  2. 1895 The Alfred Dreyfus Degradation Ceremony – Paris, France
  3. 1909 Mark Twain Excoriates Theodore Roosevelt as a Butcher, a Ruffian and a Bully
  4. 1984 President Ronald Reagan on Challenges: “The Best Days Are Always the Ones that Lie Ahead.”
• 6
• 7
• 8

  January 8

  1. 1864 Abraham Lincoln Carte-de-Visite Photo By Mathew Brady of Which Lincoln Said “I Look Most Like That One”
  2. 1864 Abraham Lincoln Signed Photo: The “Solitary Pine Pose,” From the January 8, 1864 Sitting
  3. 1865 Lincoln Interjects Himself Into a Case of Two Jewish Merchants Charged With Selling Goods to Blockaders
  4. 1868 Mark Twain on His Book “Innocents Abroad;” His Lectures, and Awful Photos of Him
  5. 1904 An Early and Rare Account by Orville Wright of the First Flight at Kitty Hawk
  6. 1956 Ben-Gurion: Had a Jewish State Been Established in 1937, Millions of Jews Would Not Have Died in the Holocaust
• 9

  January 9

  1. 1845 President-Elect James K. Polk Anxiously Queries His Tailor About New Clothes for His Inauguration
  2. 1898 Olivia Clemens Quotes “Mr. Clemens” – Mark Twain – About a Phrase in “Following the Equator”
  3. 1922 A Very Rare President Warren G. Harding Signed Check
  4. 1953 President Harry Truman Says “It Will Be a Relief to Get Out of Washington” At the End of His Term
• 10

  January 10

  1. 1919 Exceptional Association Copy: Simon Wolf’s “Presidents I Have Known” Inscribed to Robert Todd Lincoln
  2. 1939 Franklin D. Roosevelt Thanks His Secretary of War for a “Delightful Old Book of Abraham Lincoln’s Debates”
• 11
• 12

  January 12

  1. 1861 Benjamin Mordecai, Jewish Benefactor of Confederate Cause Honored by the Famed Palmetto Riflemen
  2. 1921 President-Elect Harding Refers to His Upcoming Term as “Imprisonment in the White House”
• 13

  January 13

  1. 1743 Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday: JFK on Jefferson
  2. 1910 Alfred Dreyfus Writes to Emile Zola’s Widow to Commemorate the Anniversary of the Publication of “J’Accuse”
  3. 1919 The 100th Commemoration of the Death of Theodore Roosevelt
  4. 1955 At the End of His Life, Albert Einstein Writes Check to His Beloved Hebrew University
• 14

  January 14

  1. 1864 Abraham Lincoln Recommends a Franklin Pierce White House Appointee to General Benjamin Butler
  2. 1895 From Prison, a Defiant Alfred Dreyfus Writes to his Family Swearing to Clear His Name
  3. 1932 Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Tells Emanuel Hertz He Will Always Try to Justify His Good Opinion
• 15

  January 15

  1. 1921 A Wyatt Earp Autograph Letter Signed: An Incredible Rarity
• 16

  January 16

  1. 1953 Truman Accepts the Resignation of His “Good Right Hand,” Dean Acheson
• 17

  January 17

  1. 1886 Mark Twain Can’t Remember Recent Things But Vividly Recalls His Hannibal Courier Co-Workers
• 18

  January 18

  1. 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte Authorizes a Soldier to Join the Egyptian Campaign in Syria
  2. 1898 Camille Pissarro Protests Alfred Dreyfus’s Conviction
• 19

  January 19

  1. 1865 Lincoln Asks General Grant as a Friend, for a Favor: Find a Place for His Son, Robert, on His Staff
  2. 1865 Lincoln Asks Grant, Not As President But As a Friend, For a Favor: Find a Place For His Son, Robert, on His Staff
  3. 1897 Mourning Daughter Susy, Mark Twain Describes His Family Life as Adrift, Indifferent, and Derelict
• 20

  January 20

  1. 1887 Mark Twain Lists His Favorite Books For Children – And Himself
  2. 1890 William T. Sherman Recalls His Trip to the Levant, and Teases His Lady Friend About Harem Life
  3. 1961 A New Presidency: The First 100 Days
• 21

  January 21

  1. 1941 Third Term President Roosevelt Writes to Harry Woodring: “Our Democratic Way Of Life Is At Stake”
  2. 1946 Einstein on Zionism: He is for a Jewish Homeland, But Not a Separate State
  3. 1961 On His First Day in Office, “Jack” Kennedy Thanks His Predecessor, Eisenhower, for a Smooth Transition
• 22

  January 22

  1. 1885 Herman Melville “Disinters,” a Rare Copy of “Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land” to Send it to an Admirer
  2. 1898 President William McKinley’s Appointment of the Antisemitic Selah Merrill as Consul at Jerusalem
  3. 1959 Harry Truman, From His Place of “Terrible Responsibility,” Analyzes the Press
• 23

  January 23

  1. 1886 President Cleveland Supports Washington’s Leading Jewish Charitable Organization’s “Israelites Fair” – An Affair Headed by Simon Wolf
  2. 1936 Einstein: “Jewish Smarts Serve One Well”
  3. 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt Adjudicates an Intergovernmental Turf War
  4. 1941 Chaim Weizmann to Lorna Wingate on the Jewish Brigade: “There is No Shortcut to Jerusalem”
• 24

  January 24

  1. 1865 Abraham Lincoln Exercises Clemency: “Let This Boy Be Discharged”
• 25

  January 25

  1. 1878 Grant Finds Egypt More Interesting Than Any Other Place He Has Visited
  2. 1936 Albert Einstein Disagrees with Louis Brandeis; Argues that Palestine is Not the Key to Jewish Survival
  3. 1978 Autograph Letter of Astronaut Judy Resnik-Killed in the Challenger Disaster-About Autographs
• 26

  January 26

  1. 1861 President-Elect Lincoln Grows His Beard: This Second Photograph, Signed, Depicts the Progress
• 27

  January 27

  1. 1956 David Ben-Gurion Compares, Favorably, the Fledgling IDF to George Washington’s Revolutionary Army
• 28

  January 28

  1. 1868 Jewish General Edward S. Salomon Accepts an Invitation to Meet With His Old Comrades-in-Arms
  2. 1906 Famous Mark Twain Aphorism About Deserving Honors
  3. 1986 The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
• 29

  January 29

  1. 1898 President William McKinley Signs Executive Mansion Card on His 55th Birthday
• 30

  January 30

  1. 1925 Scarce President Calvin Coolidge Autographed Letter Signed as President
  2. 1933 The Holocaust
• 31

  January 31

  1. 1868 Twain Asks His Young “Quaker City” Shipmate & Favorite, Emma Beach, For Help With His Articles About the Voyage
  2. 1967 The Anniversary of the Funeral of the Apollo I Astronauts
  3. 1967 Lyndon B. Johnson on the Death of an Astronaut in the Apollo I Fire
  4. 1967 Lyndon B. Johnson Writes to the Parents of Astronaut Gus Grissom, Killed in the Apollo I Fire

February

• 1

  February 1

  1. 1752 Presidential Military Service
  2. 1861 Jewish Confederates: Letter Regarding Benjamin Mordecai’s Support of a Commission for Jacob Valentine
• 2

  February 2

  1. 1848 Congressman Lincoln Praises Future Vice President of Confederacy for his Opposition to the Mexican War
  2. 1849 David Roberts Sends Sketches of Holy Land to Archaeologist to Refute Famous Argument About Temple Mount
  3. 1881 Senator Benjamin Harrison on Writing about the “Illustrious Lincoln”
• 3

  February 3

  1. 1887 Mark Twain, on the Heroic Writing, and Fantastic Success, of Ulysses S. Grant’s Memoirs
  2. 1913 Edith Roosevelt on Her Husband’s Recovery from an Assassination Attempt and the Bullet Left Inside Him
  3. 1975 Six Months After His Resignation, a Rare Richard Nixon Comment on Watergate: He Took One for the Team
• 4

  February 4

  1. 1837 President Andrew Jackson’s Big Cheese Tasting
  2. 1861 John Tyler, as President of the 1861 Washington Peace Convention, Certifies a Delegate From Massachusetts
  3. 1861 John Tyler, as President of the 1861 Washington Peace Convention, Certifies a Vermont Delegate
  4. 1874 Mark Twain Mourns an “Innocents Abroad” Companion
• 5

  February 5

  1. 1869 Mary Surratt’s Daughter Petitions Andrew Johnson for the Return of Her Mother’s Remains
  2. 1913 Theodore Roosevelt Comments On, and Then Annotates, a Manuscript Detailing the Attempt Made on His Life
• 6

  February 6

  1. 1876 John Wild Bets the Black Hills Gold Rush – Set Off by Custer’s Discovery of Gold There in 1864 – is a Bust
• 7

  February 7

  1. 1887 Hannibal Hamlin Calls for Making Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday a National Day of Observance
  2. 1899 Theodor Herzl, Hustling and Bustling, Sends Thanks for a Joke
• 8
• 9

  February 9

  1. 1865 Booth Plans Ahead
  2. 1865 John Wilkes Booth Letter, Written Eight Weeks Before Lincoln’s Assassination, Mentions Ford’s Theatre
  3. 1895 “Truth,” Mark Twain Instructs, “Is the Most Precious Thing We Have. Economise It.”
  4. 1948 Palestine, Truman Says, is a “Matter of Considerable Disturbance” to be Determined by U.N.
• 10
• 11

  February 11

  1. 1874 Dr. Jacob de Silva Solis Cohen: A Scarce Civil War Autograph
  2. 1895 Mark Twain Inquires if Alfred Dreyfus Was Struck in the Face With the Hilt of a Sword
• 12

  February 12

  1. 1809 The Jewish Friends of Abraham Lincoln
  2. 1809 Abraham Lincoln’s Jewish Connections
  3. 1865 Abraham Lincoln “Pardons” Misbehaving Boys, Allowing Them to Return to School
• 13
• 14
• 15
• 16

  February 16

  1. 1865 Hugh McCulloch Confides That He Would Reluctantly Accept an Appointment as Treasury Secretary
• 17
• 18
• 19

  February 19

  1. 1905 The Road to the Inauguration: 1905
  2. 1905 Theodore Roosevelt, Readying for His Inauguration, Complains of Bad Tailoring
• 20

  February 20

  1. 1851 A Handsome Autograph Sentiment from Millard Fillmore as President
  2. 1857 James Buchanan, Ill With Dysentry Before His Inauguration, Declines Jefferson Davis’s Invitation to Dine
  3. 1865 Abraham Lincoln’s Check to His Son, Robert Lincoln, to Equip Him For Service Under Grant
  4. 1893 Grover Cleveland Worries He Cannot Bring His Baby Into Recently Quarantined White House After His Inauguration
  5. 1923 President Warren G. Harding Acclaims Abraham Lincoln the Apogee of the Golden Age of American Statesmanship
  6. 1949 Chaim Weizmann Thanks Clark Clifford for His Help In Getting President Truman to Recognize Israel
• 21

  February 21

  1. 1861 The Baltimore Plot and Attempted Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
  2. 1880 Rutherford B. Hayes Signed Photograph as President
• 22

  February 22

  1. 1732 George Washington’s Birthday
  2. 1862 Alexander Hart’s Civil War Sword and Scabbard, Presented Upon His Promotion to Captain
• 23
• 24

  February 24

  1. 1862 Lincoln, Four Days After Son Willie’s Death, Tells Sumner Mary Lincoln Needs His Help – “Can You Come?”
  2. 1921 Winston Churchill Thanks Ormsby-Gore for Accepting Post to the Permanent Mandates Commission
• 25

  February 25

  1. 1847 Abraham Lincoln Arranges for the Anonymous Publication of His Famous Poem “My Childhood Home I See Again”
  2. 1888 30-Year-Old Theodore Roosevelt Declares His Affinity for the West, and His Identification with its Heroes
  3. 1901 Herzl Directs U.S. Zionists to Force McKinley to Protest Turkish Discrimination of Jews in Palestine
  4. 1914 Woodrow Wilson Explains That He Wouldn’t, and Couldn’t, Pardon Atlantic City Boss Kuehnle
• 26
• 27
• 28

  February 28

  1. 1930 Orville Wright Sets the Record Straight About the First Flight
• 29

March

• 1

  March 1

  1. 1848 A Rare Abraham Lincoln Quote from Shakespeare’s Othello
  2. 1961 The Beginning of the Peace Corps
• 2

  March 2

  1. 1861 On His Penultimate Day in Office, President James Buchanan Pardons a Judge
  2. 1865 Abraham Lincoln: A December 8 Oath of Allegiance
  3. 1877 On His Penultimate Day in Office, President Ulysses S. Grant Announces His Intention to Travel the Globe
• 3

  March 3

  1. 1820 The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854: States’ Rights and Slavery
  2. 1825 On His Last Day In Office, James Monroe Writes His Bank, Trying To Make Sense Of His Account
  3. 1853 On His Last Day in Office, the Bibliophilic Millard Fillmore Sends Thanks for a Book
  4. 1862 Millard Fillmore on Civil War: Abolitionists Pervert Cause and Lincoln Tempts Tyranny
  5. 1864 In Refusing a Parole, Lincoln Notes That Federal Prisoners Are Being “Frozen and Starved” in Libby Prison
• 4

  March 4

  1. 1849 President for a Day
  2. 1861 Abraham Lincoln’s Inaugural Ball , 1861: Invitation Printed By, and Naming as a Ball Manager, Adolphus S. Solomons
  3. 1865 Lincoln’s Last Days
  4. 1865 At the behest of President Lincoln, General Grant Decline’s Lee’s Suggestion of Armistice Negotiations
  5. 1865 Both Parties Deprecated War: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address Quote, In Autograph
  6. 1865 Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address Transcript & With Malice Toward None Quote in Autograph
  7. 1942 Roosevelt Advises Scapegoated Woodring On How To Handle Negative Press Following Pearl Harbor
• 5

  March 5

  1. 1898 Camille Pissarro’s Autographed Letter in Support of Emile Zola Amidst the Dreyfus Affair
  2. 1901 On the First Day of His Second Term, William McKinley Promotes a War Hero
• 6

  March 6

  1. 1845 Martin van Buren, Just Two Days Into James K. Polk’s Term, Prepares to Write His Political Antagonist
  2. 1861 Young Benjamin Harrison Writes President Lincoln About “Spoils” Due Indiana
  3. 1881 Former President Rutherford Hayes Expresses Satisfaction with Himself, His Successor, and John Sherman
  4. 1899 Beset By an Ally-Turned-Detractor, Theodor Herzl Says It’s a “Miracle” He Hasn’t Become an Antisemite
  5. 2016 The Death and Funeral of Nancy Reagan
• 7

  March 7

  1. 1865 Lincoln Requests a “Map or Two” For His Youngest Son, Tad
• 8

  March 8

  1. 1900 President William McKinley Writes to the Widow of His Vice President and Dear Friend, Mrs. Hobart
  2. 1948 Einstein on the Holocaust: He Never Forgot, Never Forgave
• 9

  March 9

  1. 1854 President Franklin Pierce Warmly Endorses the Kansas-Nebraska Act as “Demonstrably Right and Patriotic”
  2. 1864 Jewish Confederate Hero Alexander Hart Grants Leave to Officers During a Brief Lull in the Civil War
  3. 1878 Ulysses S. Grant Comments on the Refugees Who Have Fled to Constantinople
  4. 1889 One of Benjamin Harrison’s First Personal Checks as President
• 10

  March 10

  1. 1841 The Ultimate Presidential Rarity: An Autographed Letter of the Sick, Soon to Die, William Henry Harrison
  2. 1863 Abraham Lincoln’s Appointment of Benjamin F. Isherwood, the Creator of the Steam Navy
• 11

  March 11

  1. 1909 Former President Theodore Roosevelt Writes About Taking Books on His Upcoming Safari to Africa
• 12

  March 12

  1. 1862 Former President Millard Fillmore: Abraham Lincoln’s Election Caused the War
• 13

  March 13

  1. 1864 Abraham Lincoln Suggests Suffrage for Some Louisiana Blacks: The “Very Intelligent” and Union Veterans
  2. 1944 Praising the United Jewish Appeal, FDR Mentions Suffering Brought on by the Nazis
  3. 1962 President John F. Kennedy Recalls Happy Palm Beach Memories With an Old Irish Friend
  4. 1978 President Gerald Ford Writes About His Admiration of Abraham Lincoln
• 14

  March 14

  1. 1872 General Custer Wants Brother Who Would Die With Him at Little Bighorn Appointed a Second Lieutenant
  2. 1885 Check of Jewish-Owned Cochise County Bank in Tombstone Sends Money to and from Jewish Merchants
• 15

  March 15

  1. 1943 Einstein On His Anti-Nazi Work: “Had Those Fellows” Listened, “These Horrors Would Not Have Existed”
• 16

  March 16

  1. 1927 Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Looks Forward to Receiving Books on Judaism
• 17

  March 17

  1. 1864 Dr. Jacob Da Silva Solis Cohen Certifies the 1864 Death of a “Contraband” in Philadelphia
  2. 1913 Woodrow Wilson, on the Ninth Day of His Presidency, Signs a White House Card
• 18

  March 18

  1. 1906 California Earthquakes: “The Spirit of Humanity” and Mark Twain
  2. 1935 Albert Einstein Advises a Young Refugee From Germany, Then Controlled By What He Called “The Hitler Gang”
• 19

  March 19

  1. 1849 Former President Tyler Tells His Son He is Hard Pressed to Support His Family
• 20

  March 20

  1. 1849 Zachary Taylor Invites Relatives to the White House, Where He Will Die of “Too Many Cherries & Too Much Cold Milk”
• 21
• 22

  March 22

  1. 1907 Max Nordau Accepts Invitation to Contribute His “Literary Might” to a Book
• 23

  March 23

  1. 1841 Rare Letter of John Tyler as Vice President Recommending a Consul to Galveston, Texas
  2. 1909 President William Howard Taft Praises President Grover Cleveland To Mrs. Cleveland
  3. 1927 Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Has Received Jewish Books and is Reading Them With “the Greatest of Interest.”
• 24

  March 24

  1. 1862 Former President Franklin Pierce Defends Himself Against Treason Charges Brought by William H. Seward
  2. 1913 Abraham Lincoln Biographer Ida Tarbell Praises Isaac Markens’s “Abraham Lincoln and the Jews”
  3. 1944 The 75th Commemoration of the Death of Orde Wingate
  4. 1945 Hiding Two Deadly Illnesses, Franklin D. Roosevelt Dreams of a World Organization for Peace: The UN
• 25

  March 25

  1. 1939 Albert Einstein Tells Cyril Clemens He Consents to Having a Street Named After Him – But That’s All
• 26

  March 26

  1. 1926 Chief Justice William Howard Taft Comments on an Abraham Lincoln Address by Emanuel Hertz
• 27
• 28

  March 28

  1. 1933 Albert Einstein Renounces German Citizenship;”I Will Not Be Returning to Germany, Perhaps Never Again”
  2. 1958 Harry Truman Muses on Presidential Succession and Disability
• 29
• 30
• 31

April

• 1

  April 1

  1. 1789 George Washington Dreads Assuming the Presidency: He Feels as if He’s Being Led to His Execution
  2. 1953 Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day
• 2
• 3

  April 3

  1. 1865 “I Will Take Care of Myself,” Abraham Lincoln Wires Stanton as He Follows the Troops
  2. 1959 Important People, Hoover Explains, Don’t Have Time to Write Longhand – Or Like Their Letters Being Sold
• 4

  April 4

  1. 1835 The Mortal Presidency
  2. 1841 John Tyler Becomes the First Vice President to Assume the Presidency
  3. 1841 William Henry Harrison’s Secretary Announces Harrison’s Impending Death
  4. 1889 Benjamin Harrison: The Earliest Known Example of a Typewritten Presidential Letter
  5. 1889 The First Presidential Typed Letter
  6. 1948 Young John F. Kennedy Condemns Harry Truman’s Reversal to Support the Partition of Palestine
• 5

  April 5

  1. 1861 Abraham Lincoln Corrects His Presidential Salary Payment, Which Credits Him With Days Not Worked
  2. 1865 Map of Richmond, VA
• 6

  April 6

  1. 1913 William Howard Taft Confesses He’s “Struggling to Get into a New Trade… Fading Away into Obscurity”
  2. 1917 The United States Enters First World War
• 7

  April 7

  1. 1916 Theodore Roosevelt: “What a Dreadful Creature Wilson is!”
• 8

  April 8

  1. 1852 Millard Fillmore, Perusing “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852, Prophesizes About Civil War
  2. 1929 Albert Einstein on the “Bumpy” Creation and Beautiful “Dream” of the Hebrew University
  3. 1957 Harry Truman Looks at the Potsdam Conference 12 Years Later: An Astonishing Appraisal of What Went Wrong
• 9

  April 9

  1. 1854 Franklin Pierce on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the Prelude to Civil War
  2. 1865 As Lee Surrenders, Abraham Lincoln Happily Grants a Favor to the Captain of the Riverboat Queen
  3. 1912 Major Archibald Butt, Military Aide to Roosevelt and Taft, Writes the Day Before Boarding the Titanic
• 10

  April 10

  1. 1846 James Buchanan Teasingly Laments His “Usual Hard Fate” With Ladies
  2. 1848 Abraham Lincoln Explains Why He Supports Zachary Taylor For President in 1848: Political Pragmatism
  3. 1886 Mark Twain on Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Grammar is Like Gravel in Bread
  4. 1914 “Big Bill” Taft, Happily Golfing, Relates His Post-Presidential Loss of Eighty Pounds
• 11

  April 11

  1. 1865 Three Days Before He is Assassinated, Abraham Lincoln Orders the Discharge of a Sickly Boy from the Army
  2. 1882 President James Garfield’s Assassin, Charles Guiteau, Convicted and in Jail, Declares He is Not a Lunatic
  3. 1912 Titanic Postcard: Rare Postcard From the Titanic – Sent at Beginning of Voyage; Ship “A Peach,” In NY “Next Tuesday”
  4. 1927 Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Lists Favorite Parts from “A Book of Jewish Thought”
• 12

  April 12

  1. 1945 Read Across America Day: It Was His Boyhood Reading, Truman Recalls, That Prepared Him for When His “Terrible Trial Came”
  2. 1945 Harry Truman Letter Written as Vice-President But Signed as President with “Terrible Responsibilities”
• 13

  April 13

  1. 1865 On the Last Full Day of His Life, Abraham Lincoln Makes an Important Appointment
  2. 1951 Two Days After Unleashing a Tempest by Firing MacArthur, President Truman Writes to a Journalist
• 14

  April 14

  1. 1865 The Anniversary of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
  2. 1865 The Day He Dies, Lincoln Writes a Pass to Richmond for Wife of the Doctor Who Would Attend His Death-Bed
  3. 1865 The Night of Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination
  4. 1865 The Jewish Doctor at Lincoln’s Deathbed
  5. 1865 Gideon Welles is Summoned to Abraham Lincoln’s Last, and Prophetic, Cabinet Meeting
  6. 1865 Lincoln Assassination at Ford’s Theatre: First Responder Reports
  7. 1865 A Millard Fillmore Letter Written on the Day of President Lincoln’s Assassination
  8. 1865 Unused Ticket for Ford’s Theatre April 14, 1865 – The Night Lincoln Was Assassinated There
  9. 1951 Shortly After Firing General MacArthur, President Truman Writes of His “Trials and Tribulations”
• 15

  April 15

  1. 1865 Rutherford B. Hayes Responds to Lincoln’s Assassination: Now He is “The Darling of History”
  2. 1865 Abraham Lincoln’s Final Hours, Death, and Autopsy Report Documented by Dr. Robert Stone
  3. 1912 The Sinking of the RMS Titanic
  4. 1945 Eisenhower’s Trip to Ohrdruf Concentration Camp: “I Never Dreamed… It Was Horrible.”
  5. 1948 A Rueful Harry Truman on the 3rd Anniversary of his Presidency: “I don’t know whether I need congratulations or commiseration”
• 16

  April 16

  1. 1846 Edgar Allan Poe Details His Literary Life and Says “The Raven and “The Valdemar Case” Are His Best Work
• 17

  April 17

  1. 1890 Theodore Herzl Writes a Condolence Letter, Seemingly in Connection With Anti-Semitic Attacks
  2. 1961 Harry Truman Reads John Nicolay and John Hay on Abraham Lincoln, As He Tries to Write History of Presidency
• 18

  April 18

  1. 1846 Abraham Lincoln Poem “My Childhood Home I See Again”
  2. 1846 Abraham Lincoln’s Scarce Reference to Deaths of Mother and Sister, With Accompanying Poem About Memory
  3. 1860 Pierce Defends the Democratic Party as Non-Sectional, Wonders About the Outcome of the 1860 Election
  4. 1906 The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
  5. 1906 Secretary of War William H. Taft Reports That San Francisco is Almost Destroyed in the Earthquake
• 19

  April 19

  1. 1799 Napoleon’s Siege of Acre
  2. 1861 “Honest Abe” Lincoln, Annoyed About an Unpaid Bill, Orders It Paid – On the Day He Effectively Declares War
  3. 1865 Pass to President Abraham Lincoln’s Funeral in the East Room of the Executive Mansion
  4. 1912 President Taft’s Eulogy for his Aide, Archibald Butt, Who Went Down with the Titanic Just Days Before
• 20

  April 20

  1. 1863 Lincoln Card: “Submitted to the Sec. of War”
  2. 1865 A Union Officer in the Field Describes the Reaction to News of Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination
  3. 1967 Reagan, Arguing for Capital Punishment, Discusses the Rabbinic Interpretation of the Sixth Commandment
• 21
• 22

  April 22

  1. 1873 Governor Hayes Responds to Having a Jewish Namesake
  2. 1888 Rutherford B. Hayes Discusses, At Length, the Disputed Election of 1876
• 23

  April 23

  1. 1963 President John F. Kennedy Plans a Pleasure Trip to His Ancestral Home, Ireland
• 24

  April 24

  1. 1865 Lincoln Assassination Eyewitness Recalls Running to Fetch Dr. Liebermann Who Attended Lincoln’s Deathbed
• 25
• 26

  April 26

  1. 1866 Young Mark Twain, in Maui, Sets Out to “Discover” Hawaii
  2. 1886 Grover & Frances Cleveland: Cleveland Writes To His Bride-To-Be About Their Wedding
  3. 1980 Jimmy Carter Condolence Letter To Widow Of Marine Killed In Failed 1980 Iranian Hostage Rescue
• 27

  April 27

  1. 1881 Rare President James A. Garfield Letter in Office
• 28
• 29

  April 29

  1. 1925 Chief Justice William Howard Taft: “The Fame of Lincoln Has Spread to Every Land”
• 30

  April 30

  1. 1893 Dr. Cyrus Adler Lectures in 1893 On His Presidentially-Mandated Tour of the Levant
  2. 1894 Mark Twain on the French: No Humor, No Depth, No Compass, No Balance, No…
  3. 1906 Mark Twain on the San Francisco Earthquake and a Picture He Cannot Get Out of His Mind
  4. 1945 Harry Truman Writes General Hap Arnold About FDR’s Death, Two and a Half Weeks Before, as “The Greatest Blow”

May

• 1

  May 1

  1. 1858 1858 Senate Report Regarding the “Outrages at Jaffa” – The Rape and Murder of the Dickson Family Colony
  2. 1862 Abraham Lincoln’s Quote About His Mother: “All That I am or Hope Ever to be I Get From My Mother”
• 2

  May 2

  1. 1944 Chaim Weizmann Writes to Orde Wingate’s Widow About Wingate’s Death and Memorial
• 3

  May 3

  1. 1928 Frank Lloyd Wright, Infuriated by His “Obituaries,” Declares a Comeback
  2. 1947 Truman, About to Implement the Truman Doctrine in Greece, Calls Greek-American Politicians “Connivers”
  3. 1967 Reagan Stirringly Defends His Decision Not to Stop a Cop-Killer’s Execution
• 4

  May 4

  1. 1896 Theodor Herzl Sets Out to Establish the First Zionist Congress and Vows “the Jews Will Get Palestine!”
  2. 1970 The 50th Anniversary of the Shootings at Kent State
  3. 1981 Five Weeks After Having Been Shot and Almost Killed, Ronald Reagan is Pleased with Recovery
• 5
• 6

  May 6

  1. 1970 Rare Letter to Bereaved: President Nixon’s Response to the Kent State Shooting
• 7

  May 7

  1. 1864 Lincoln is “Not in a Sentimental Mood” Having Heard Reports of the Bloody Battle of the Wilderness
  2. 1971 David Ben Gurion on Anwar Sadat’s Wanting Peace in 1971: He Isn’t Convinced
• 8

  May 8

  1. 1842 President John Tyler Says the Presidency is a Prison
  2. 1847 James K. Polk Gives Orders for a Fireproof Celebration for the Battle of Cerro Gordo in Washington
  3. 1851 President Fillmore Arranges to Attend Opening of the Railroad Line from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes
  4. 1863 “Doomed to the Gallows” By Public Opinion, James Buchanan Says History Will Vindicate Him
  5. 1945 Victory in Europe Day
• 9

  May 9

  1. 1849 Polk, Exhausted, Says He’s Feeling Better Now That He’s Out of Office, Then Dies a Month Later
  2. 1948 Harry Truman Declares “in Spite of Palestine,” he had a “Grand Birthday”
• 10
• 11
• 12

  May 12

  1. 1921 An Early, and Uncommon, Warren G. Harding White House Card Signed, “Good Wishes!”
• 13

  May 13

  1. 1876 While “Driving Out” Indians From Little Bighorn, Custer Envisions the Mining Fortunes to be Made There
  2. 1948 An Invitation to hear the Israel Declaration of Independence, May 14 1948
• 14

  May 14

  1. 1948 Truman Recognizes Israel: The Anniversary of Israel’s Founding
  2. 1948 The Anniversary of the Founding of the State of Israel
• 15

  May 15

  1. 1889 Benjamin Harrison Names Solomon Hirsch Minister to Turkey, the Third Jew to Hold That Diplomatic Rank
  2. 1906 Jack London, Hit Hard By the San Francisco Earthquake, Concentrates on Building His Yacht, “The Snark”
• 16

  May 16

  1. 1862 Contemporary Copy of Chase’s Letter to Abraham Lincoln in Support of General Hunter’s Emancipation Order
  2. 1864 Abraham Lincoln Appoints Henry Ernest Goodman as Surgeon of Civil War Union Volunteer Army
  3. 1961 John F. Kennedy: National Security and Future of the Space Program Depend on Ending Labor Strife Delays
• 17

  May 17

  1. 1948 Truman on the Recognition of the Jewish State and the “very dark” situation in Palestine
• 18
• 19

  May 19

  1. 1863 Millard Fillmore Asks Lincoln for a Favor; On the Back of the Letter, Lincoln Takes Steps to Oblige Him
  2. 1864 Franklin Pierce Describes Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Last Night Alive on Their Trip to New England
  3. 1864 The Death of Nathaniel Hawthorne
  4. 1905 Theodore Roosevelt Inscribes Photo of His 1905 Inaugural Address With His Keystone “Square Deal” Credo
  5. 1934 Chaim N. Bialik on the Jewish Persecutions in the Diaspora and the Determination to Make a Home in Zion
  6. 1944 Rare, Seemingly Singular Evidence, That John F. Kennedy Knew How to Fly: His 1944 Flight Logbook
• 20
• 21

  May 21

  1. 1860 Abraham Lincoln’s Prayer To “The Almighty” For Himself And The Nation – A Singular Letter
• 22

  May 22

  1. 1861 “Occident” Subscriber Begs Rabbi Leeser to Write Abraham Lincoln and Convince Him to Stop the Civil War
  2. 1895 Simon Wolf’s Original Contract For the Book “The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier, and Citizen”
  3. 1961 The Beginning of the Peace Corps: President Kennedy Welcomes the First Volunteers
• 23

  May 23

  1. 1881 James A. Garfield’s Appointment of the Anti-Semitic Selah Merrill as Consul at Jerusalem
  2. 1886 Grover Cleveland, the Only President to Be Married in the White House, Writes His Bride About Wedding
  3. 1890 President Benjamin Harrison Appoints a Commissioner for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago
• 24

  May 24

  1. 1847 Confined for Two Years to the White House, President James K. Polk Tries to Plan an Out of Town Visit
• 25

  May 25

  1. 1852 President Fillmore Makes an Appointment to See Governor Gibbs
  2. 1892 President Benjamin Harrison Discusses a Letter Written by his Grandfather, William Henry Harrison
  3. 1945 General Eisenhower Approves a Soldier’s Request to Shoot Captured Reich Marshal Goering -“The Fat ____”
• 26

  May 26

  1. 1860 Lincoln Declares He is Not a “Man of Great Learning, or a Very Extraordinary One in Any Respect”
  2. 1860 Lincoln Names Himself “The Humblest of All Whose Names Were Before the Convention” to Defeated Rival Cassius Clay
• 27
• 28

  May 28

  1. 1865 The Eyewitness Account of Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination by the Physician Who Treated Him at the Scene
  2. 1886 Grover Cleveland, First President to Marry in the White House, Handwrites an Invitation to His Wedding
• 29

  May 29

  1. 1797 Presidents’ Day: Newly Retired George Washington’s Daily Routine
  2. 1797 George Washington Describes His Daily Routine At Mount Vernon After 8 Years Of Neglect During His Presidency
  3. 1844 Dark Horse Candidate James K. Polk Receives the Democratic Nomination
  4. 1871 Governor Hayes, Five Years Away From the Presidency, Tells His Jewish Confidant that He is Quitting Public Life Forever
  5. 1873 President Grant Stays an Execution of African-American Who Murdered a Jewish Peddler
  6. 1917 The John F. Kennedy Centenary
• 30

  May 30

  1. 1865 Lincoln’s Jewish Friend from Springfield, Julius Hammerslough, Appeals to Rabbi Leeser to Help Fundraise for a Lincoln Memorial
• 31

  May 31

  1. 1786 George Washington Argues for a “Professional Man” to Supply Technical Guidance on Canal Infrastructure

June

• 1

  June 1

  1. 1838 American Travelers to the Holy Land in the 19th Century
  2. 1849 Campaigning for General Land Office Commissioner, Lincoln Asks Congressman to Write to “Old Zach” About Him
  3. 1865 Father’s Day
  4. 1867 Map of Mark Twain’s “Great Pleasure Excursion” to Europe and the Holy Land
  5. 1908 Father’s Day: Mark Twain to Daughter, Jean
  6. 1912 Presidential Enmity and Amity
  7. 1963 Kennedy on His Ireland Trip: “Couldn’t Have Been Better. We Loved It”
• 2

  June 2

  1. 1880 1880 Republican National Convention
  2. 1967 Ronald Reagan Declares that JFK Was Much More “Intelligent and Perceptive” Than President Johnson
• 3

  June 3

  1. 1801 Thomas Jefferson Describes the White House as “Really a Pleasant Country House”
  2. 1867 Rare Receipt for Passage on the 1867 “Quaker City” Excursion to the Holy Land
  3. 1938 FDR’s 1938 Plan to Settle Jewish and “White” Refugees in the Unexplored Highlands of Venezuela
• 4

  June 4

  1. 1901 President McKinley’s Secretary Cancels McKinley’s Engagements “Owing to Mrs. McKinley’s Serious Illness”
• 5

  June 5

  1. 1901 McKinley’s Last Tour: Cortelyou Thanks the Mayor of San Francisco for His Help
  2. 1962 President John F. Kennedy Polishes a Letter Declining to Write a Book on Thomas Jefferson
  3. 1962 President John F. Kennedy Says He’s Tempted to Write About Thomas Jefferson but His Current Job Takes Up All His Time
  4. 1967 The Anniversary of the Six-Day War
  5. 1968 The Assassination & Funeral of Robert F. Kennedy
  6. 1968 Ronald Reagan Offers Ethel Kennedy His Help as Robert F. Kennedy, Shot in Los Angeles, Lay Dying
  7. 2004 The Death of Ronald Reagan
• 6

  June 6

  1. 1967 Ben-Gurion Predicts Victory Under Dayan in 6-Day War; Discusses How Many Arabs Equal One Israeli Soldier
  2. 1967 David Ben-Gurion Asks a Manuscript Collector About a 1945 Photograph, At the Start of the Six-Day War
• 7

  June 7

  1. 1854 Pierce on His Favorite Portrait of Himself, That of His Dead Son, and Those of the First Five Presidents
  2. 1923 President Harding, About to Leave on the Trip During Which He’ll Die, Makes Plans to Meet a King
  3. 1967 Jerusalem Day: The Reunification of Jerusalem
• 8

  June 8

  1. 1844 Polk, Surprised at His Candidacy, Declares the Presidency Too Important an Office to be Sought or Declined
  2. 1867 Mark Twain’s Last Day in New York Before Leaving on the “Quaker City,” Spent Drinking With Writers
• 9
• 10
• 11

  June 11

  1. 1901 Secretary of Navy Long: President William McKinley, “Acute and Wise,” Will Not Seek Third Term
  2. 1917 Theodore Roosevelt Lambasts Woodrow Wilson for Refusing to Let Him Lead a Division in World War I
  3. 1923 President Warren G. Harding: He Won’t “Overdo” It on What Would Be His Last Trip
• 12

  June 12

  1. 1861 Abraham Lincoln Appoints the Arabist Edward Joy Morris as Minister Resident to Turkey
  2. 1878 Young Congressman McKinley Regrets He is Unable to Attend Wedding of Simon Wolf’s Daughter: Mrs. McKinley Is Ill
  3. 1963 JFK’s Drafted Letter to Medgar Evers’ Widow, Myrlie, on Evers’ Assassination
  4. 1987 Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” Speech
• 13

  June 13

  1. 1906 Theodore Roosevelt: “My Great Hero is Abraham Lincoln”
• 14

  June 14

  1. 1922 Oliver Wendell Holmes: At Fort Stevens, Abraham Lincoln Was Forced to Duck From Enemy Fire
  2. 1923 Warren G. Harding Thanks a Young Girl for a Four-Leaf Clover, Just as His Luck was Running Out
• 15

  June 15

  1. 1821 President James Monroe on Purchase of Florida and John Adams’s Recommendation of Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse
• 16
• 17

  June 17

  1. 1852 President Millard Fillmore Acknowledges the Gift of “a Beautiful Picture of ‘Ancient Jerusalem'”
  2. 1929 President Herbert Hoover, on the Lessons to be Drawn from Abraham Lincoln’s Life
  3. 1972 Nixon on Watergate: He Took One for the Team
• 18

  June 18

  1. 1860 Lincoln in Indiana: A Rare Mention of His Childhood There
  2. 1860 Republican Nominee Abraham Lincoln Mentions His Childhood Friends of Spencer County to Former Employer William Jones
• 19

  June 19

  1. 1903 Theodore Roosevelt Praises Jewish leader Simon Wolf, During the Kishinev Pogrom Crisis, “As Good an American Citizen as is to be Found”
  2. 1908 Mark Twain On His House “Innocence At Home,” President Grover Cleveland, and God
  3. 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt Fires His Isolationist Secretary of War During WWII
• 20

  June 20

  1. 1923 President Warren G. Harding: Possibly the Last Letter He Wrote from the White House
  2. 1937 Chaim Weizmann Analyzes British Partition Plans and Prerequisites for Statehood; Blasts American Jewry
  3. 1940 Secretary of War Woodring’s Handwritten Draft of His Controversial Resignation Letter to FDR
  4. 1940 President Roosevelt Accepts With “Regret” Secretary Of War Woodring’s Resignation
  5. 1940 FDR Assures Fired, and Fired Up, Isolationist Secretary of War: No War Unless Monroe Doctrine is Breached
• 21

  June 21

  1. 1865 Rabbi Sabato Morais Sends His Synagogue’s Contribution to the Lincoln Monument
  2. 1915 Theodore Roosevelt on the sinking of the Lusitania
  3. 1915 Theodore Roosevelt’s Damning Charge: Wilson’s Weakness Made the Sinking of the Lusitania Possible
  4. 1984 President Ronald Reagan Defends George Custer Against Charges of Negligence at Little Bighorn
• 22
• 23

  June 23

  1. 1912 Taft Declares That Denying Roosevelt the Presidency Again is Victory Enough
• 24

  June 24

  1. 1983 President Ronald Reagan, Burdened by Budget Crisis, Happily Escapes Washington for a Day
• 25

  June 25

  1. 1864 Rare Signed Copy of Lincoln’s Jewish Chiropodist and Spy, Dr. Issachar Zacharie’s Book
  2. 1876 Custer’s Last Stand – June 25, 1876
  3. 1876 The Battle of the Little Bighorn
  4. 1901 Thedore Herzl Considers an American Lecture Tour
  5. 1940 Roosevelt Responds To Woodring Amidst The Intense Congressional Interest In Woodring’s Resignation
• 26

  June 26

  1. 1873 Statesman, Political Exile, Attorney, and Queen’s Counsel, Judah Benjamin Arranges a Meeting
  2. 1942 In 1942, Ensign J.F. Kennedy Requests Sea Duty on a PT Vessel: “Recommendation Approved”
• 27

  June 27

  1. 1966 Fifteen Years as Prime Minister is Enough, David Ben-Gurion Says: Now He’s Writing the History of Israel
• 28
• 29

  June 29

  1. 1954 Rare Eisenhower Autograph as President, Praising the Utica Public Library
  2. 1961 Vice President Johnson Quotes JFK’s Famous “Ask Not What Your Country Can Do for You” Challenge
• 30

  June 30

  1. 1940 Following His Resignation, Former Secretary of War Woodring Writes A Curt Rebuttal To Roosevelt

July

• 1

  July 1

  1. 1863 The Battle of Gettysburg
  2. 1875 General Custer Signs Off on the Tobacco Allotment for Enlisted Men Who Died With Him at Little Bighorn
  3. 1880 James A. Garfield Writes: a “Streak of Sadness” in his Presidential Nomination
  4. 1893 The Birth of a Precedent: Cleveland’s Great Deception, His Secret Cancer Surgery
  5. 1894 Grover Cleveland Celebrates a Great Deception: The One Year Anniversary of His Secret Cancer Surgery
• 2

  July 2

  1. 1860 Abraham Lincoln in 1860: “Just Now, The Skies Look Bright. What Clouds May Hereafter Rise, We Know Not.”
  2. 1881 The Garfield Assassination
  3. 1890 President Rutherford B. Hayes Quotes Abraham Lincoln on Equal Opportunities for All
  4. 1912 Theodore Roosevelt on the “Treacherous Injustice at Chicago” and His New Bull Moose Party
• 3

  July 3

  1. 1880 An Eerie Prescience: James Garfield Finds a “Streak of Sadness” in His Nomination as President
• 4

  July 4

  1. 1844 Dark-Horse James K. Polk Expresses Surprise at His “Wholly Unexpected” Nomination
  2. 1863 Letter From Gettysburg Battlefield, July 4th, 1863: Union Soldier Hopes “This Battle Will End the War”
  3. 1956 The United States of America’s Independence Day: A Surprising Parallel 180 Years Later
• 5
• 6

  July 6

  1. 1863 Union Soldier After Gettysburg: “We Will Whip Lee’s Army So That He Will Not be Fit to Do Anything More”
  2. 1922 Woodrow Wilson on the Emotional Impact WWI Has Had on Him – Which Led to His Devastating Stroke
  3. 1962 Harry Truman Seeks to Protect His Legacy
• 7

  July 7

  1. 1863 Abraham Lincoln’s Order That Sparked the New York City Draft Riots of 1863
  2. 1865 Lincoln Assassination Conspirator Mary Surratt Becomes the First Woman Executed by the Federal Government
  3. 1924 Calvin Coolidge Jr.’s Death
  4. 1930 Einstein on the Proposal to Create a Jewish Homeland in Peru
• 8

  July 8

  1. 1963 After His “Ich Bin Ein Berliner” Speech, JFK Thanks the Overseas Military for Making His Visit a Success
• 9

  July 9

  1. 1963 President John F. Kennedy On His Historic Trip to Ireland: “It Couldn’t Have Been Better. We Loved It.”
• 10

  July 10

  1. 1863 Fresh From His Capture of Vicksburg, Ulysses S. Grant Reports From Gettysburg: “Meade Whipped Lee Badly”
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 14

  July 14

  1. 1860 President James Buchanan, Strained in the Summer of 1860, Writes He Hasn’t Time for His Friends
  2. 1913 President Gerald R. Ford’s Birthday
• 15

  July 15

  1. 1858 Abraham Lincoln, in a Prelude to the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Agrees to Follow Douglas to Bloomington
  2. 1861 Abraham Lincoln Appoints Edward Joy Morris Minister to the Ottoman Empire – and by Extension, Palestine
  3. 1864 President Abraham Lincoln Thanks a Jewish Philadelphian for the Gift of a Suit
• 16

  July 16

  1. 1892 President Benjamin Harrison is “Lonesome” in the White House
  2. 1969 Anniversary of Apollo 11, the Mission That First Put a Man on the Moon
• 17

  July 17

  1. 1851 In 1851, Rabbi Gotthelf’s Louisville Congregation Votes to Send $100 Per Year for Jerusalem’s Poor
• 18

  July 18

  1. 1850 Having Ascended to the Presidency Just a Week Before, Millard Fillmore Orders a New Black Hat
  2. 1906 Calling Himself a “Wandering Jew” Chaim Weizmann Dreams of a Jewish University “Of Our Own” In Jerusalem
• 19

  July 19

  1. 1829 President Andrew Jackson Writes of His Loneliness in the White House
  2. 1898 Theodore Roosevelt Decries the Deprivations Suffered by His Rough Riders After Battle of San Juan Hill
  3. 1919 Woodrow Wilson Lobbies for Ratification of the Treaty of Versailles – A Matter of Gravest Consequence
  4. 1950 A Historic Memo: Harry Truman Salutes Dean Acheson’s Crucial Role in Going to War With Korea
  5. 1967 David Ben-Gurion on the Pioneer Generations and the Need for U.S. Immigration
• 20

  July 20

  1. 1933 Einstein, Working to Save Jews from Hitler, Discusses “Brown Book of Hitler Terror” and Personal Risk
• 21
• 22

  July 22

  1. 1971 David Ben-Gurion on God’s Promises to His People: Strength and Peace – One Given, the Other, Coming
• 23

  July 23

  1. 1799 Horatio Nelson Rejoices at the Raising of the Siege of Acre – And Napoleon’s Fleeing
  2. 1852 Millard Fillmore in Defeat: “I Would Rather be Right Than President”
  3. 1885 Mark Twain Eulogizes General Grant, Whose Memoirs He Would Publish
• 24

  July 24

  1. 1885 Rutherford B. Hayes Announces He Will Attend Ulysses S. Grant’s Funeral
  2. 1904 Theodore Roosevelt: a Condolence Letter on the Death of a Friend’s Father
• 25
• 26

  July 26

  1. 1877 President Rutherford B. Hayes Salutes Service of U.S. Commissioner of Education John Eaton
  2. 1904 Heartsick, Max Nordau Writes About the Death of Theodor Herzl
• 27

  July 27

  1. 1899 Theodor Herzl Writes of a Matter Unknown, He Says, Even to His Editor, Amidst the Dreyfus Affair
  2. 1918 With World War I Still Raging, Theodore Roosevelt Mourns His Fallen Son
  3. 1953 The Korean War Armistice
• 28
• 29

  July 29

  1. 1892 President Benjamin Harrison: Celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the Discovery of America
• 30

  July 30

  1. 1901 The McKinley Assassination Plot
  2. 1901 Incredibly Rare Czolgosz Letter – 5 Weeks Before He Assassinated McKinley – as “Fred Nobody”
• 31

August

• 1

  August 1

  1. 1828 John Quincy Adams Writes About John Adams
  2. 1861 A Fateful Appointment: Abraham Lincoln Makes William T. Sherman a General
  3. 1881 A Look at Presidential Vacations
  4. 1885 President Cleveland Love Letter to his Young Bride-to-Be
  5. 2022 International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies Conference
• 2

  August 2

  1. 1853 Jane Pierce, Recalling Her Deceased Child, is Haunted by Happier Times
  2. 1954 Back to School
  3. 1954 Life’s Lessons: John F. Kennedy Advises a College Student What Classes to Take for a Life in Politics
• 3
• 4

  August 4

  1. 1882 Simon Wolf Writes President Arthur About Getting His Old Job, as Justice of the Peace, Back
  2. 1904 Chaim Weizmann on the Assassination of Russian Pogrom Organizer Plehve: A Pity He Didn’t Die Years Ago
  3. 1967 Ronald Reagan Describes Himself as a “Crier of Doom”– And Claims Not to Aspire To the Presidency
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8

  August 8

  1. 1905 Jack London on “Call of the Wild” and Alleged Jewish Ancestry
• 9

  August 9

  1. 1882 Chester A. Arthur Laments the “Never Ending and Still Beginning Pressure” of the Presidency
• 10

  August 10

  1. 1861 President Abraham Lincoln Appoints Jewish West Pointer Alfred Mordecai Jr. Second Lieutenant
• 11

  August 11

  1. 1885 Twain: Monuments Disappear, But Great Cities – and Reputations – Survive
  2. 1945 President Harry Truman Defends Atomic Bombing of Japan as “the Only Language” a “Beast” Can Understand
• 12

  August 12

  1. 1799 Napoleon, Failing To Conquer Palestine, Orders The Ransoming Of Prisoners: August 1799
  2. 1924 Calvin Coolidge Mourns the Death of His Son, Calvin Jr.
  3. 1967 David Ben Gurion Predicts That the Six Day War Will Not Be Israel’s Last
• 13

  August 13

  1. 1915 President Woodrow Wilson: Lonely in the White House
• 14

  August 14

  1. 1861 Samuel Clemens – Mark Twain – Arrives in Nevada
  2. 1868 Ulysses S. Grant Tries to Lose the Anti-Semite Label Engendered to Him by His Infamous “Jew Order”
  3. 1883 General Charles “Chinese” Gordon Discusses His Discovery of “Calvary in Jerusalem”
  4. 1918 Theodore Roosevelt Bitterly Regrets Being Forced to Sit Through WWI At Home “In Comfort and Safety”
  5. 1963 President John F. Kennedy on the Death of His Infant Son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy
• 15
• 16

  August 16

  1. 1945 Harry Woodring Seeks Reappointment As Secretary Of War
  2. 1985 Christa McAuliffe, a Teacher, Writes About Her Excitement Going Into Space on the Ill-Fated Challenger
• 17
• 18

  August 18

  1. 1864 Lincoln Appoints Jewish Officer, E.M. Joel, to Serve on General Blair’s Staff
  2. 1887 Grover Cleveland Complains of an Avalanche of Unwelcome Invitations, As He Plans a Pleasure Trip Out of Town
• 19

  August 19

  1. 1922 T.E. Lawrence on Palestine: No One Trusts the British for More Than Two Minutes
• 20

  August 20

  1. 1863 General Meade: Lee is Just 15 Miles Away and “May at Any Time Force Action on Us.”
• 21

  August 21

  1. 1849 Mordecai Manuel Noah and Isaac Leeser Propose Relief for the Poor Jews of Palestine
  2. 1858 The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• 22

  August 22

  1. 1901 Document Signed by President William McKinley Close to His Assassination
  2. 1902 Theodore Roosevelt: the First President to Ride in an Automobile
  3. 1921 President Warren G. Harding’s Love Letters: Released by the Library of Congress
  4. 1968 Reagan Promises To Work for Foe Nixon in ’68 : “We Haven’t Too Many More Chances in This Land of Ours”
• 23

  August 23

  1. 1881 Mark Twain Says He Cannot Deliver a “Light and Nonsensical Speech” While President Garfield is Dying
• 24
• 25
• 26

  August 26

  1. 1960 Harry Truman, “Blue as Indigo,” Declares “Immature” Kennedy the Lesser of Evils Over “Impossible” Nixon
• 27
• 28

  August 28

  1. 1903 Theodor Herzl Signed Photograph, Taken in Basel, Switzerland
  2. 1963 The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963
• 29

  August 29

  1. 1861 Robert E. Lee’s Famous Letter Declining to Furlough, As a Rule, Jewish Confederate Troops for the High Holidays
  2. 1863 Account of Execution of Deserters at Beverly Ford Mentions Rabbi Praying With One of the Condemned Men
  3. 1863 The Executions at Beverly Ford
  4. 1897 The Anniversary of the First Zionist Congress
• 30
• 31

September

• 1

  September 1

  1. 1867 Mark Twain in Jerusalem and the Holy Land
  2. 1881 Robert Todd Lincoln, Witness to Presidential Assassinations
  3. 1939 World War II
  4. 1944 Early John F. Kennedy Letter About the Death of His Brother Joe, Which Would Propel Him Into Politics
• 2

  September 2

  1. 1899 President William McKinley Wires Ailing Vice President Garret Hobart
  2. 1963 Notes Written by President John F. Kennedy Aboard Air Force One
• 3

  September 3

  1. 1863 Breathtaking Detailed Eyewitness Account of the Execution of Deserters at Beverly Ford
• 4

  September 4

  1. 1860 Abraham Lincoln Reviews His Won-Lost Record in Electoral Politics Up to 1849
  2. 1900 Former President Benjamin Harrison Explains That Former Presidents Should Be Seen and Not Heard
  3. 1929 President Herbert Hoover Silent on 1929 Hebron Massacre
• 5

  September 5

  1. 1986 Richard Nixon, Loathed by Harry Truman, Speaks Well of Him
• 6

  September 6

  1. 1901 The Assassination of President William McKinley
  2. 1901 The McKinley Assassination
  3. 1901 Leon Czolgosz’s Incredibly Rare Confession to the Assassination of President William McKinley
• 7

  September 7

  1. 1853 President Franklin Pierce Sets in Motion the Recall of the American Minister Resident in Turkey
  2. 1867 Joshua Chamberlain and William Seward Assist the Jaffa-Adams Colonists in 1867
  3. 1901 Extraordinary Eyewitness Account of the Assassination of President McKinley-Dated One Day After
  4. 1917 T.E. Lawrence Wants to “Clear Up” The “Jewish Section” of Palestine in 1917
• 8

  September 8

  1. 1932 Einstein on the Tragedy of Herzl’s Son: “A Warning to All Jews Against Defection From Their People”
  2. 1961 Kennedy and the Arts: His Unprecedented Invitation of Scholars, Artists, Writers, and Thinkers to His Inauguration
• 9

  September 9

  1. 1864 Writing to Gideon Welles, Abraham Lincoln Attends to a Request From Jewish Congressman Leonard Myers
  2. 1901 Theodore Roosevelt Confidently Reports that the Mortally Wounded President McKinley is Doing Well
• 10

  September 10

  1. 1944 Prime Minister Winston Churchill on Orde Wingate: A Man of Genius Who Might Have Become a Man of Destiny
• 11

  September 11

  1. 1923 President Calvin Coolidge Writes to a Jewish American About the Book “Jewish Thoughts”
• 12

  September 12

  1. 1856 Millard Fillmore On the Fugitive Slave and Kansas-Nebraska Acts: “You Can Not Reason With Fanaticism”
• 13
• 14

  September 14

  1. 1901 Newly Sworn-in Theodore Roosevelt Reacts with Foreboding: a Heavy and Painful Task Has Fallen Upon Him
  2. 1901 On the Day of President McKinley’s Death, Asst. Secretary of State Cridler Writes of His Horror and Fury
  3. 1901 The Death of McKinley and the Presidency of Roosevelt
  4. 1951 Frank Lloyd Wright on “Rampant” Hitlerism and Stalinism
• 15
• 16
• 17

  September 17

  1. 1863 John Wilkes Booth Writes to John Ford to Arrange His Performance in a Play Which Lincoln Was to Attend
• 18
• 19

  September 19

  1. 1854 Very Rare Printed Presidential Check Signed by Franklin Pierce: He Purchases Coal for the White House
• 20

  September 20

  1. 1862 Abraham Lincoln on Issachar Zacharie, His Mysterious Jewish Foot Doctor and Personal Spy
  2. 1901 Days After William McKinley’s Death, Theodore Roosevelt Swears to Do His Best
• 21
• 22

  September 22

  1. 1862 Lincoln’s Second Testimonial for Issachar Zacharie, His Mysterious Jewish Chiropodist – And Personal Spy
• 23

  September 23

  1. 1952 President Harry Truman Refers to Life in the White House as “Jail”
  2. 1968 Ronald Reagan Writes About Vietnam in 1968: A Change of Policy is Needed
• 24
• 25

  September 25

  1. 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt Plans for Life After the White House: His African Safari
  2. 1949 Former President Herbert Hoover, at Seventy-Five, Confesses His Hope to Make Ninety – Which He Did
  3. 1961 He’s “Young, Inexperienced and Hopeful. Let’s Hope the Hopeful Works.” – Truman on Kennedy
• 26

  September 26

  1. 1863 Harper’s Weekly With Illustrated Story About Five Union Soldiers, Including a Jew, Executed for Desertion
• 27

  September 27

  1. 1852 Candidate Franklin Pierce Writes About Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Campaign Biography of Him
  2. 1861 Buchanan Approves Abraham Lincoln’s Ordering Fremont to Rescind His Emancipation Proclamation
  3. 1901 First Lady Edith Roosevelt, Two Weeks After McKinley’s Death: “Life Does Not Seem Very Simple Just Now”
  4. 1907 Theodore Roosevelt Writes “Bully For You”
• 28

  September 28

  1. 1881 Robert Lincoln Witnesses Assassinations of Three Presidents
• 29

  September 29

  1. 1898 Theodore Roosevelt Arranges a Dramatic Presentation About the Rough Riders
• 30

  September 30

  1. 1944 Chaim Weizmann on the Jewish Brigade and Jewish State in 1944

October

• 1

  October 1

  1. 1860 “In Our Hands”: A Look at Lincoln’s Use of a Phrase
• 2

  October 2

  1. 1864 Abraham Lincoln Reacts to Attempted Jail-Break of Confederate POWs on Johnson Island
• 3

  October 3

  1. 1861 Abraham Lincoln’s Inscription on a Photograph to Lucy Speed, Who Had Gifted Him a Bible
• 4

  October 4

  1. 1836 Andrew Jackson Predicts Martin van Buren Will Win with a Greater Majority Than Any Since Washington
• 5

  October 5

  1. 1948 Harry Truman Presents Supreme Court Chief Justice Vinson With a Gavel Having “Historical Connections”
• 6

  October 6

  1. 1892 A Scarce Signed Photograph of Benjamin Harrison as President
• 7

  October 7

  1. 1868 Mark Twain Names His Lecture Tour About Holy Land Trip: “The American Vandal Abroad”
• 8

  October 8

  1. 1869 The Death of President Franklin Pierce
  2. 1876 Libbie Custer Makes a Secret Plea to Aid the Widows of Captain Yates, Lt. Calhoun, and Enlisted Men
  3. 1905 Theodore Roosevelt Expresses His Dislike of the Motor Car
• 9

  October 9

  1. 1918 Woodrow Wilson on How the Bodies of America’s WWI Dead Are Handled Prior to Eventual Re-Burial in the US
• 10
• 11
• 12

  October 12

  1. 1840 Edward Robinson Writes to His Publisher to Inquire About His “Biblical Researches in Palestine”
  2. 1860 Abraham Lincoln: “The Government is About to Fall Into Our Hands”
  3. 1912 Famous Painting by John Falter of the 1912 Attempted Assassination of Theodore Roosevelt
  4. 1938 Carl Sandburg: Walt Whitman “Strolls In and Out of the Pages Regularly” of His Lincoln Biography
  5. 1962 Former PresidentHarry Truman on President John F. Kennedy’s Handling of Racial Violence and the Cuban Missile Crisis
• 13

  October 13

  1. 1860 On the Eve of Rebellion, Pierce Still Defends the Kansas-Nebraska Act
  2. 1860 Abraham Lincoln Declares He is Not a “Man of Great Learning, or a Very Extraordinary one in Any Respect”
  3. 1929 Benjamin Cardozo Expresses His “Sure Interest” In Essays Written About Lincoln
  4. 1961 President Kennedy Sends General Maxwell Taylor to South Vietnam to Appraise the Situation
• 14
• 15

  October 15

  1. 1885 President Cleveland Appoints Nageeb Arbeely to Replace Anti-Semitic Selah Merrill as Consul at Jerusalem
• 16

  October 16

  1. 1946 The Nuremberg Trial Executions
• 17

  October 17

  1. 1861 Abraham Lincoln’s Celebrated “Wanting to Work” Letter
  2. 1955 Harry Truman on Margaret, His Memoirs, and “Buck Passing”
• 18

  October 18

  1. 1943 Secretary of Interior on Campaign to Stop German Annihilation of Jews -The Holocaust- During WWII
  2. 1963 Harry Truman Tells How He Learned He Became the President: FDR’s Death, He Says, Was a Complete Surprise
• 19

  October 19

  1. 1863 Lincoln Would be Glad to See General Milroy but knows “…He Wishes to Ask for What I Have Not to Give”
  2. 1896 Theodor Herzl, Hurt and Frustrated, Considers Quitting-in 1896, the First Year of the Zionist Movement
  3. 1912 Despite Being Shot, Theodore Roosevelt is, Reportedly, “Hearty as a Bull Moose”
• 20

  October 20

  1. 1856 President Franklin Pierce Appoints the First United States Consul to Serve in Jerusalem
  2. 1964 Herbert Hoover, the 31st President, Dies at Age 90
• 21

  October 21

  1. 1856 Rare Abraham Lincoln Letter to His Dear Friend Abraham Jonas – He is “Hobbled” by a Troublesome Nephew
• 22

  October 22

  1. 1879 The Electric Light Bulb is Invented
  2. 1879 Thomas Edison: “I Am Busily Engaged On the Electric Light”
  3. 1907 Max Nordau Praises the Juvenile Poetry of “E. Babette Deutsch” and Predicts an Exceptional Future
• 23

  October 23

  1. 1846 Passport for the Early Explorer of Jerusalem, the Reverend Eli Smith, Signed by James Buchanan
  2. 1862 General Benjamin Butler: The Jews “Betrayed Their Savior & Also Have Betrayed Us”
  3. 1902 “The American Historian of Joan of Arc Makes His Best Compliments,” But Unable to Meet French Ambassador
• 24

  October 24

  1. 1912 Woodrow Wilson Suspends His Campaign on Account of Theodore Roosevelt Assassination Attempt
• 25
• 26

  October 26

  1. 1975 Saul Bellow on Kissinger, Sadat, and Writing “To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account”
• 27

  October 27

  1. 1944 Chaim Weizmann to Orde Wingate’s Widow About a Memorial for Wingate at Hebrew University in Jerusalem
• 28

  October 28

  1. 1901 A Contemporary Account of the William McKinley Assassination by a 15 Year-Old Girl
• 29

  October 29

  1. 1854 Abraham Lincoln: He’ll Speak Where it will do Good – Not as a Compliment to Himself
  2. 1856 Millard Fillmore, Looks Forward, With Relief, To the End of the 1856 Election
  3. 1881 President Arthur Appoints Simon Wolf, the Foremost American Jewish Activist of the 19th Century, to the Ambassadorship of Egypt
• 30
• 31

  October 31

  1. 1881 The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
  2. 1898 Theodor Herzl Sends Postcard From Jerusalem to Menachem Ussishkin Ahead of Meeting With Kaiser Wilhelm
  3. 1912 Taft, Running for President Against Theodore Roosevelt, Calls Him a “General Menace” To the Country
  4. 1917 The Anniversary of the Battle of Beersheba

November

• 1
• 2

  November 2

  1. 1862 William Tecumseh Sherman Vents Anti-Semitic Prejudices, Discusses Runaway Slaves, & Sketches Total War
  2. 1950 President Harry Truman Writes about the Assassination Attempt on His Life Just the Day Before
• 3

  November 3

  1. 1898 Herzl Signed Photo Commemorating His Visit in Jerusalem With Kaiser Wilhelm II
• 4

  November 4

  1. 1856 1856 Poll Book Certifying Abraham Jonas, Lincoln’s Intimate Jewish Friend, an Elector
  2. 1862 “We Have Not Yet Appointed a Hebrew”
  3. 1862 Abraham Lincoln, Noting “We Have Not Yet Appointed a Hebrew,” Names C.M. Levy an Assistant Quartermaster
  4. 1888 Mark Twain to French Jewish Writer Marcel Schwob: “I Do Commit Crimes, But They Are Not of This Grade”
• 5

  November 5

  1. 1944 Chaim Weizmann Agrees to Stand as Godfather to Orde Wingate’s Son
  2. 1964 Reagan Worries That the Left Wants Conservatives in Concentration Camps and Says LBJ is a Bum
• 6

  November 6

  1. 1866 Custer’s Aide, Frederick Benteen, Takes the Oath of Office as Captain in the 7th Calvary
  2. 1976 Rare Gerald Ford Presidential Letter Written After His “Tough and Traumatic” Defeat By Jimmy Carter
• 7

  November 7

  1. 1855 President Pierce Invites a Famous Presbyterian Divine to Visit the White House
• 8

  November 8

  1. 1921 Vice President Calvin Coolidge: His New Job is of Little Responsibility But He’s Kept Busy All the Same
  2. 1936 In 1936, As Hitler Closes In, Freud Acts to Help a Colleague’s Son Who Has Been Charged With High Treason
• 9

  November 9

  1. 1905 Alfred Dreyfus Thanks Senator Leopold Thezard Who Challenged the Refusal to Allow His Wife to Join Him in Exile
  2. 1938 Kristallnacht
• 10

  November 10

  1. 1860 “All is Over and Lincoln Elected,” John Tyler Writes, “As Confidence Between Man and Man is Giving Way”
  2. 1880 Vice President-Elect Chester A. Arthur Accepts Congratulations on Winning His First and Last Election
  3. 1896 Theodore Herzl Admits to Exhaustion But Swears to Continue “The Great Campaign…As Long as I am Able”
• 11

  November 11

  1. 1927 President Calvin Coolidge Declares His Abiding Interest in Abraham Lincoln
  2. 1953 Sen. John F. Kennedy Declines McCarthyite Alvin Owsley’s Invitation to Visit Texas; Invites Him to Lunch
• 12
• 13

  November 13

  1. 1942 Einstein Discusses an Understanding With the Arabs and Zionist Politics in 1942
• 14
• 15
• 16

  November 16

  1. 1858 And This Too Shall Pass Away
  2. 1858 Abraham Lincoln Comforts His Campaign Manager After Losing the Senate Race: “And This Too Shall Pass”
  3. 1880 James Garfield on Assassination: “It Can No More Be Guarded Against Than Death By Lightning”
  4. 1880 President-Elect Garfield Turns Down a Loan to Tide Him Over Until Assuming the Presidency
  5. 1899 McKinley is Comforted to Learn That His Gravely-Ill Vice President is Improving – 5 Days Before Hobart Dies
  6. 1906 Theodore Roosevelt Writes From “The Canal Zone” to Panama’s President Amador
• 17
• 18
• 19

  November 19

  1. 1881 Lucretia Garfield On How Her Husband’s Portents at Chicago Convention Foreshadowed His “Fateful Ending”
  2. 1919 Former President William Howard Taft Rejoices in Averting Another Run: “I Have Served My Time”
  3. 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt, as President-Elect, Recognizes the “Grave Responsibility” He is About to Undertake
  4. 1935 Josephine Earp, Wyatt Earp’s Jewish Widow, Admits Her Destitution to Earp’s Biographer
• 20
• 21

  November 21

  1. 1899 President William McKinley Orders Seal Affixed to His Proclamation on the Death of Vice President Hobart
  2. 1960 Harry Truman: “The Campaign is Ended and We Have a Catholic for President”
  3. 1969 Age Is Not an Impediment to Visiting Israel, David Ben-Gurion Argues
• 22

  November 22

  1. 1963 Rare Ticket to “Texas Welcome Dinner” for President Kennedy, November 22, 1963, at 7:30 PM
  2. 1963 The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
  3. 1963 A Last Thing Signed: John F. Kennedy Autographs a Dallas Newspaper on the Morning of His Murder There
• 23

  November 23

  1. 1884 Ulysses S. Grant Says Mark Twain Has Offered Him “More Favorable Terms” To Publish His Memoirs
  2. 1963 “Kennedy Slain on Dallas Street” – The Dallas Morning News November 23, 1963 Edition
• 24

  November 24

  1. 1809 President James Madison Tracks Down His Shipment, Seized in the Embargo, of 114 Gallons of Brandy
• 25

  November 25

  1. 1852 John Tyler: His Cabinet Problems, Franklin Pierce’s Election, and Presidential Etiquette
  2. 1856 President James Buchanan Trusts Providence to Help Him Choose a Cabinet
  3. 1901 Physician of Assassinated President William McKinley Quotes McKinley’s Last Words
• 26

  November 26

  1. 1963 John F. Kennedy Letter, Post-Dated November 26, 1963, Signed Before He Left for Dallas
• 27
• 28

  November 28

  1. 1952 President-Elect Eisenhower Thanks Mary Lincoln’s Niece for the Gift of a “Truly Historic Memento”
• 29

  November 29

  1. 1947 The UN General Assembly Adopts the Partition Plan
  2. 1947 The Anniversary of the United Nations Resolution Creating a Jewish State
• 30

  November 30

  1. 1800 Presidents Who Lost Children While in the White House
  2. 1835 The Birth of Humorist Mark Twain, Née Samuel L. Clemens
  3. 1908 President-Elect Howard Taft Qualifies the Thought of a Four Year Term: “If I Live”

December

• 1

  December 1

  1. 1860 Abraham Lincoln’s Famous Civil War Condolence Letter to Young Fanny McCullough
  2. 1862 James Buchanan Defends His “Public Conduct” Prior to the Outbreak of the Civil War
• 2

  December 2

  1. 1861 Jewish Civil War Union Surgeon Morris Asch Rules on Another Surgeon’s Exorbitant Bill
• 3

  December 3

  1. 1911 Rare William Howard Taft Autograph Letter as President: He’s Happy to Meet After His Daily (Golf) Game
  2. 1917 Lincoln Family Friend Edward Jonas Recalls Abraham Lincoln and the Lincoln-Douglas Debates
• 4

  December 4

  1. 1827 Excessively Rare Presidential Check Signed by Zachary Taylor
  2. 1901 Former First Lady Frances Cleveland Reports Ailing Grover Cleveland is “Breaking Up Generally”
  3. 1909 Max Nordau Exchanges Photos, in English, With an Admirer
  4. 1919 Extraordinary Orville Wright Letter Discussing the Birth of Manned Flight at Kitty Hawk
• 5

  December 5

  1. 1899 Signed Etching of Max Nordau
  2. 1970 David Ben-Gurion on Eisenhower: “I Never Met a Better Friend of the Jews”
• 6

  December 6

  1. 1861 Abraham Lincoln Endorses the Appointment of a Jewish Sutler, Henry Rice
• 7

  December 7

  1. 1793 George Washington And Thomas Jefferson Signed Document: Trilingual Ships Papers
• 8
• 9
• 10

  December 10

  1. 1898 A Rare Signed Photo of Theodore Herzl
  2. 1943 Chaim Weizmann in 1943: “Nothing Short of a Miracle if We Do Get Something Out of this War”
• 11

  December 11

  1. 1857 Andrew Johnson Writes His “Humble History” in Two Pages
  2. 1882 General Charles “Chinese” Gordon Reveals He is Going to Palestine
  3. 1917 Signed Photo of Edmund Allenby Entering Jerusalem
  4. 1964 President Lyndon Johnson Salutes Sir Winston Churchill’s Commitment to Zionism
• 12

  December 12

  1. 1868 Mark Twain and Olivia Langdon: Twain Writes Ecstatically On The Pursuit Of His Future Wife
  2. 1874 General Custer Gives an Order to His Loyal Adjutant Cooke, Who Would Die Next to Him at Little Bighorn
  3. 1928 1861 Col. Max Friedman Cameroon Dragoons Patriotic Cover
  4. 2022 Live Event: Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War Book Launch & Panel Discussion
• 13

  December 13

  1. 1862 Lincoln Directs His “Loyal and Sensible” Jewish Friend, Abraham Jonas to Review a Case of Disloyalty
  2. 1867 Mark Twain Discovers His Newfound Celebrity Status Upon his Return from His “Quaker City” Voyage
  3. 1878 An Autograph Innovation: President Rutherford B. Hayes Signs an Executive Mansion Card
  4. 1885 About to Marry, President Grover Cleveland Longs to Live Away from the White House “Like Other People”
• 14

  December 14

  1. 1943 Chaim Weizmann Thanks British Zionist Leader for a Copy of His Book, “The Jews, the War and After”
  2. 2022 The Jewish Experience In The American Civil War – With The Haberman Institute
• 15

  December 15

  1. 1908 Theodore Roosevelt Pens Congratulatory Letter on White House Card: Lauds Utica Public Library
• 16

  December 16

  1. 1960 Eisenhower & Kennedy: Eisenhower Writes JFK a Chilly Letter After Losing the 1960 Election
• 17

  December 17

  1. 1862 The Publication of Jonathan Sarna’s “When General Grant Expelled the Jews”
  2. 1893 Grover Cleveland, Recovering From Secret Cancer Surgery, Reports He is “Getting to be Quite a Drunkard”
  3. 1903 The Wright Brothers: Inventing the First Successful Airplane
• 18

  December 18

  1. 1918 General Edmund Allenby Commemorates His Victorious Entrance Into Jerusalem One Year Later
  2. 1962 It Was His Boyhood Reading, Harry Truman Recalls, That Prepared Him for When His “Terrible Trial Came”
• 19

  December 19

  1. 1863 Custer: “Libbie Bacon is the Fortunate, or Unfortunate Person…Who Will Unite Her Destinies With Mine.”
  2. 1932 Rare Herbert Hoover Letter as President: “One Per Annum”
• 20

  December 20

  1. 1860 “Union is Dissolved!” – South Carolina Secession Ordinance Poster
  2. 1860 “The Union is Dissolved!”
  3. 1863 Lincoln Swears to Uphold the Emancipation Proclamation
  4. 1863 Abraham Lincoln Swears That He Shall Not Retract or Modify the Emancipation Proclamation
  5. 1865 Robert E. Lee, Charmingly, and Piously, Responds to a Young Girl’s Gift of Socks in 1865
  6. 1962 Harry Truman Refers to Himself as an “Old Man Who – By Accident Became President of the United States”
• 21
• 22

  December 22

  1. 1904 Teddy Roosevelt’s Inauguration: TR Accepts a Gift For His 1905 Inauguration Day Suit
  2. 1937 National Handwriting Day: Herbert Hoover’s “One per Annum” Autograph Letter
  3. 1937 Herbert Hoover Explains, In Autograph, His Antipathy to Writing Holograph Letters
• 23

  December 23

  1. 1862 Abraham Lincoln’s Famous Civil War Condolence Letter to Young Fanny McCullough About Loss and Memory
• 24

  December 24

  1. 1861 Abraham Lincoln Sends His Autograph as a Favor to His Jewish Friend Sigismund Kaufmann
  2. 1883 Robert Todd Lincoln is Gratified That His Father’s Name is Still Current and His Memory Respected
• 25

  December 25

  1. 1953 Winter Holidays
• 26

  December 26

  1. 1899 President William McKinley Commissions a Second Lieutenant
  2. 1900 Alfred Dreyfus Reviews Case Against Him, Proclaims His Innocence, and Demands Another Trial
  3. 1943 Homesick General Eisenhower Writes of a WWII Visit to Jerusalem and Levant at Christmas
  4. 1953 Truman on the Press
• 27
• 28

  December 28

  1. 1869 Mark Twain Promotes his “Quaker City” Roommate to His Publisher as a Promoter of The Innocents Abroad
• 29

  December 29

  1. 1908 Theodore Roosevelt on Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: “One of the Great Classics of Human Eloquence”
• 30

  December 30

  1. 1880 President Rutherford B. Hayes Gives Recipe for Allegedly “Non-Alcoholic” Punch
  2. 1880 Holiday Merry Making in the White House
  3. 1895 Cleveland: Wolf’s Book on American Jewry “Challenges Fairness and Justice, For a Class of Our Citizens to Whom They Have Not Always Been Accorded”
• 31

  December 31

  1. 1999 The 20th Anniversary of the Transfer of the Panama Canal