FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, coming to office as the Civil War concluded. He favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union without protection for the former slaves. This led to conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.

Johnson was born into poverty and never attended school. He was apprenticed as a tailor and worked in several frontier towns before settling in Greeneville, Tennessee. He served as alderman and mayor there before being elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1835. After briefly serving in the Tennessee Senate, Johnson was elected to the House of Representatives in 1843, where he served five two-year terms. He became governor of Tennessee for four years, and was elected by the legislature to the Senate in 1857. In his congressional service, he sought passage of the Homestead Bill which was enacted soon after he left his Senate seat in 1862. Southern slave states seceded to form the Confederate States of America, including Tennessee, but Johnson remained firmly with the Union. He was the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who did not resign his seat upon learning of his state’s secession. In 1862, Lincoln appointed him as Military Governor of Tennessee after most of it had been retaken. In 1864, Johnson was a logical choice as running mate for Lincoln, who wished to send a message of national unity in his re-election campaign; and became vice president after a victorious election in 1864.

Johnson implemented his own form of Presidential Reconstruction, a series of proclamations directing the seceded states to hold conventions and elections to reform their civil governments. Southern states returned many of their old leaders and passed Black Codes to deprive the freedmen of many civil liberties, but Congressional Republicans refused to seat legislators from those states and advanced legislation to overrule the Southern actions. Johnson vetoed their bills, and Congressional Republicans overrode him, setting a pattern for the remainder of his presidency.^[1] Johnson opposed the Fourteenth Amendment which gave citizenship to former slaves. In 1866, he went on an unprecedented national tour promoting his executive policies, seeking to break Republican opposition.^[2] As the conflict grew between the branches of government, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act restricting Johnson’s ability to fire Cabinet officials. He persisted in trying to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, but ended up being impeached by the House of Representatives and narrowly avoided conviction in the Senate. He did not win the 1868 Democratic presidential nomination and left office the following year.

Johnson returned to Tennessee after his presidency and gained some vindication when he was elected to the Senate in 1875, making him the only former president to serve in the Senate. He died five months into his term. Johnson’s strong opposition to federally guaranteed rights for black Americans is widely criticized; he is regarded by many historians as one of the worst presidents in American history.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Question of the Day

What is lactose?Lactose is a light sweetener and carbohydrate found only in milk. Any product made with milk contains lactose. Bacteria turn lactose to lactic acid, and that’s when milk turns sour. Some people cannot tolerate lactose and must avoid milk products.

Advice of the Day

Cold remedy: Add a clove to the lemon slice for your tea.

Home Hint of the Day

A metal fireback can hide cracked bricks in the back of your fireplace. It also serves to reflect more heat into the room.

Word of the Day

BiddyA name used in calling a hen or chicken. An Irish serving woman or girl.

Puzzle of the Day

What wig cannot a barber make?An earwig

Born

• Camilla Collett (writer) – 1813
• Joseph Nathan Kane (fact-finding guru) – 1899
• Ernie Kovacs (actor) – 1919
• Chita Rivera (singer, actress, & dancer) – 1933
• Gil Gerard (actor) – 1943
• Rutger Hauer (actor) – 1944
• Richard Dean Anderson (actor) – 1950
• Princess Caroline of Monaco – 1957
• Mariska Hargitay (actress) – 1964

Died

• Anna Pavlova (ballerina) – 1931
• Samuel Barber (composer) – 1981
• Salvador Dali (artist) – 1989
• Daniel Pearl (Wall Street Journal reporter who disappeared and was later killed) – 2002
• Nell Carter (singer & actress) – 2003
• Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo) – 2004
• Helmut Newton (fashion photographer) – 2004
• Johnny Carson (comedian who dominated late-night television for 30 years as the host of The Tonight Show) – 2005

Events

• Deadliest earthquake on record killed 830,000 in China– 1556
• Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive an M.D. degree– 1849
• Envelope machine patented– 1849
• California vintner Agoston Haraszthy received 100,000 European grape vine cuttings.– 1862
• Charles Curtis first of Native American descent to be elected as U.S. senator– 1907
• Leonard Thompson received the world’s first successful insulin injection– 1922
• The movie Casablanca was copyrighted– 1943
• Duke Ellington played at New York City’s Carnegie Hall for the first time– 1943
• Fire devastated streetcar barns in Regina, Saskatchewan– 1949
• Bathyscaphe Trieste dove a record-breaking 35,800 feet– 1960
• Willie Mays elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame– 1979
• China’s giant pandas were added to the endangered species list– 1984
• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first members: Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, and Little Richard– 1986
• International Polar Bear Conservation Centre opened in Winnipeg, Manitoba– 2012
• At 12:31 am, a 7.9 earthquake struck the Gulf of Alaska, about 181 miles southeast of Kodiak, prompting a tsunami warning for coastal Alaska and British Columbia, and a tsunami watch for the rest of the U.S. West Coast. This was cancelled after several hours; a minor tsunami, less than a foot, was reported in Alaska.– 2018

Weather

• In Iroquois Falls, Ontario, the temperature reached -73°F.– 1935
• Eighty degrees below zero F at Prospect Creek, Alaska– 1971
• 13.4 inches of snow fell on Boston, the most snow the city had received in a single day since the National Weather Service began keeping records in 1892. This was from a powerful blizzard which started on January 22 and ended on the 23rd.– 2005

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