George Mason

"In all our associations; in all our agreements let us never lose sight of this fundamental maxim - that all power was originally lodged in, and consequently is derived from, the people."

George Mason was one of the "Founding Fathers," though is largely forgotten today. He is the force behind many of the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

Born to a wealthy Virginia family near the Potomac River in 1725, Mason lost his father at an early age so he was raised by his mother and uncle. Hamlet alert! His uncle was a prominent lawyer and Mason benefited from his uncle's library of 1,500 volumes that mostly included books on history and law. Though his later works would influence governments around the world, Mason had very little formal teaching and basically taught himself using his uncle's library. This is where he formed some of his strongest opinions-that too strong a central government was dangerous and that there must be protected rights for individuals- as well as his lifelong opposition to slavery (although he was, like Thomas Jefferson, a slave owner).

Known as an intensely private man, Mason believed in public service, but had no desire for the limelight and no interest in the "babblers" of national politics (he was elected to Continental Congress in 1777 but refused the seat). Yet despite his disdain for national politics, his extensive legal knowledge, his strong beliefs in personal freedoms, and his hatred of British tyranny led him to a prominent position in the shaping of the United States.

In 1776 he was asked to write the Virginia's Declaration of Rights (assisted by James Madison). That document is widely considered to be one of the most influential and important papers in the history of modern democratic government. Along with the "pursuit of happiness," the extraordinary declaration also called for a separation of government powers, guaranteed freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and trial by a jury of one's peers. It would soon serve as a model for other state declarations, and eventually for Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, which spurred the American Revolution.

In the summer of 1787, Mason, now an elder statesman, was called out of retirement to attend the Constitutional Convention and to assist in writing the new nation's constitution. He took the job very seriously and delivered more than 136 speeches on the convention floor. But as the work progressed, Mason grew to dislike the direction in which he saw the document headed. He announced "that he would sooner chop off his right hand" than see such a constitution passed. He felt that the working constitution was flawed because it didn't contain a Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court was made too powerful, the president had excessive pardoning powers, slaves were allowed to be imported for another 20 years, and the proposed constitution threatened to "produce a monarchy or a corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy."

The Constitution was signed, and Mason was not one of the ones who did so. After having been so influential in the document's creation, he refused to sign it, and the move is said to have cost him his long friendship with George Washington. As more and more Americans read the Constitution after its initial signing, it became obvious that many people shared Mason's biggest fear: that it contained no bill of rights. In fact, many of the states ratified it only on the promise that such a bill would quickly be added. With pressure mounting from across the new nation, the anti-Bill of Rights contingent finally had to give in. In 1791, Congress made the first change to the U.S. Constitution by ratifying 10 amendments-The Bill of Rights. The First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments were all largely borrowed from Mason's Virginia declaration, sometimes using his exact wording.

George Mason died on October 7, 1792 at his home in Virginia. His refusal to sign the Constitution makes him largely unknown to modern Americans, but his place as the "Father of the Bill of Rights" and one of the most important Founding Fathers is unquestioned.

In 2002 he was finally recognized by the nation he helped found when the George Mason National Memorial was formally dedicated near the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.


Information from Uncle John's Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader, "America's Forgotten Founding Father," Pg. 211-214.

25th Anniversary: Challenger Disaster

Twenty-five years ago today, the space shuttle Challenger exploded over Cape Canaveral in Florida. This is a one of those where-were-you moments, as that's what people were doing today, looking back at that horrible day. This was actually my first where-were-you moment, since I was alive when this happened, though I was only two months old so I don't remember. I was probably sleeping, crying or loading my diaper. I was aware of the disaster at a very young age though, as my brother was really into space and astronauts and had a big picture of the Challenger crew hanging on the wall in our shared room. I didn't know the significance of the photo for awhile, just thinking it was another item in my brother's poster collection. It didn't take long for someone in my family to explain that those people weren't around anymore-that they had died being astronauts. This was one of those weird moments in my childhood, as I thought that all astronauts and firemen and other heroic people were indestructible. The photo, when I see it today, reminds me of my childhood, but not in a bad way. It was horrible what happened to those people, but the picture was part of my room and I connected it with real heroes, which is what they were.

On January 28th, 1986 it was a chilly day for a launch-going down to the 30's around launch time, which is pretty cold for Florida. The space shuttle Challenger was ready for launch, along with it's crew. This was no ordinary space trip, as it was the first to have a civilian. Along with the six astronauts, elementary school teacher Christa McAuliffe, was taking the trip with them. The crew was also the most diverse, consisting of one African-American, one Japanese-American, and two women, one of which was Jewish. As Challenger blasted off, many were watching the launch, including schoolchildren everywhere who wanted to see the first teacher in space. Seventy-three seconds after launch, Challenger suddenly exploded over Cape Canaveral. The crew compartment shot out of the fireball, intact, and continued upward another three miles before plummeting. The free fall lasted more than two minutes. There was no parachute, no escape system whatsoever. If the crew was still alive after the compartment was shot out, it must of been the longest minutes of their lives.

Stiff O-ring seals were the culprit of the explosion. Something so small caused so much anguish for the group's families and all the people watching on television. The death of a young schoolteacher, combined with NASA's refusal to share information about the accident, added to the nation's collective pain. President Ronald Reagan's poetic tribute soothed raw emotions. Most consider his speech on the Challenger disaster to be his best. Here is an excerpt:

"And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them."

The full speech can be viewed on Youtube. I was going to try and post it here, but don't quite have all the capabilities yet.

NASA placed a wreath on the Challenger Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday to commemorate the fallen heroes. We have had our share of disasters and where-were-you moments in our lifetimes, such as the similar Columbia disaster a few years back, and will not have any shortage of them in the future, but we know that America will never be pulled into despair. Though tragedy has reared it ugly head many times in our history, America has always persevered and will continue to do so.

Tecumseh

" When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home." -Tecumseh

Tecumseh is known as one of the greatest fighters for Native Americans. To this day he is still considered one of the most intelligent and greatest warriors in American/Canadian history.

Supposedly born in March 1768, Tecumseh was born at a village on the Scioto River. Tecumseh, meaning "Shooting Star," or "Panther across the Sky" was part of the Shawnee tribes. His family growing up was constantly under attack from settlers and soldiers, since the Shawnee had allied themselves with the British during the Revolutionary War. Eventually, the tribes in Ohio and Illinois decided that they would join together to stave off settler encroachment. Tecumseh had a childhood filled with violence. His family and tribe was constantly attacked, and even his father had met his end in battles. At the age of fifteen, Tecumseh started to become a warrior to help fend off the Americans.

The Americans were too strong where they were settled and Tecumseh had to move west towards what is now Greenville, Ohio. Here he joined his younger brother named Tenskwatawa, who was an extremely religious man. Tenskwatawa eventually earned the name, "The Shawnee Prophet," or just "The Prophet." The Prophet preached that the apocalypse was coming and it would destroy all the settlers who had taken any natives land. The Prophet asked his followers to give up the things of the white man, including firearms, liquor, and European type clothing. His preaching, as one might expect, made things much worse between the settlers and the Prophet's followers. After a split in sentiments between the Shawnee, some wanting to fight off the settlers, and the others trying to remain peaceful and friendly with settlers, Tecumseh and his brother moved further into the wilderness. They decided to move into Miami native territory, in a town they called Prophetstown. This was near the Wabach and Tippecanoe rivers. The Miami feared that the radical Shawnee would hurt their relationship with the Americans and warned them not to settle, but ended up not doing anything when the Shawnee set up the town anyway. The Prophet's message became very popular in the area, and they attracted many other people to their cause, many of them not Shawnee. Tecumseh was considered the leader of this new confederation, though people were drawn in by his brother's religious zeal.

Tecumseh and the confederation were upset that other tribes were giving in and signing treaties with the Americans, one being the Treaty of Greenville which ceded most of Ohio to the Americans. The last straw came when then Governor of the Indiana Territory, William Henry Harrison had native leaders from the area sign the Treaty of Fort Wayne, which ceded another three million acres to the Americans. The treaty negotiations were questionable due to the fact that the President had not authorized them and involved what some historians compared to bribery, offering large subsidies to the tribes and their chiefs, and the liberal distribution of liquor before the negotiations. Tecumseh and others at Prophetstown became angry when they realized that the other tribes were selling land without their consent. The area that had Prophetstown was part of the agreed lands to cede to the Americans. Tecumseh and the confederation were not ready to take on the Americans head on, so they decided to argue with the natives that sold the land. Tecumseh, being well known as a great orator, traveled to tribes in the area and told them that the Fort Wayne treaty was illegal. Tecumseh is quoted as saying, "No tribe has the right to sell [land], even to each other, much less to strangers.... Sell a country!? Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn't the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?" And, "....the only way to stop this evil [loss of land] is for the red man to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was first, and should be now, for it was never divided."

Tecumseh decided to challenge the man himself and took some of his men to William Henry Harrison's residence. The presence of Tecumseh and his men frightened the townspeople and the situation quickly became dangerous. When Tecumseh asked for Harrison to rescind the treaty, Harrison rejected him. Harrison argued that many tribes in the area like the treaty, and they didn't want Tecumseh around to muck everything up. Tecumseh became agitated and incited his men to kill Harrison. Harrison's men stopped Harrison from being killed and the Potawatomi chief Winnemac arose and argued against Tecumseh and asked that he leave in peace. Before leaving, Tecumseh vowed that if Harrison didn't rescind the treaty, he would ally himself with the British.

In 1811, Tecumseh decided it was time for war, and he needed to get more people. He left Prophetstown and told his brother not to fight with the Americans while he was gone. Tecumseh traveled to the five civilized tribes and made his plea, most deciding to stay with the treaties. One group that did follow him though, were the Creeks. While he was visiting the Creeks, a great comet flew across the sky. Tecumseh told the tribes that it was his namesake and it was a good omen that meant his coming. The Creeks joined the fight, which ultimately led to the Creek War. Back in Prophetstown, the Prophet didn't listen to his brother and decided to fight the Americans. Harrison, having heard that Tecumseh was far away, decided to take one thousand good men and destroy Prophetstown. Seeing that the Americans were camping nearby, the Prophet sent a messager to ask that they hold a council the next day. It was agreed and Harrison waited. The Prophet and his men surpised the Americans and attacked very early in the morning, though the Americans were able to keep their ground. In the end, the Prophet and his men had to leave the area. Harrison and his men then burned the town to the ground and returned home. This was a blow to the confederation, but also to Tecumseh's trust in his younger brother.

The War of 1812 started, and Tecumseh rallied his men to support the British. Tecumseh joined up with British Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, and they laid seige on Detroit. As Brock advanced to a point just out of range of Detroit's guns, Tecumseh had his approximately four hundred warriors parade from a nearby wood and circle around to repeat the maneuver, making it appear that his army was much larger. The fort commander surrendered in fear of a massacre should he refuse. The victory was of a great strategic value to the invaders. A year later, the Americans would take Fort Detroit back led by Commodore Perry and William Henry Harrison. The British burned every public building in Detroit and ran back to Canada, with Tecumseh and his men taking up the rear, slowing the advancing Americans.

The next general that Tecumseh worked with, Major-General Henry Proctor, disagreed with Tecumseh on tactics. Proctor wanted to withdraw into Canada and have the Americans suffer winter, and Tecumseh wanted to hit the Americans head on and finish them for good. They couldn't agree, and Tecumseh ended up taking the offensive with what troops he could muster. At the Battle of Thames, the Americans ran over the Native and British forces and Tecumseh was subsequently killed in battle. Following his death, the native confederacy surrendered to Harrison. With Tecumseh's death, there were no more large native uprisings. The confederacy and hopes to keep the white man off their land was gone.

Tecumseh today is remembered far more in Canada, as he is viewed as a defender of the country during the War of 1812. Though he met his end during the war, Tecumseh's battle to keep native lands is extremely honorable, even though he failed. Native's would keep losing thier land, culminating to the Indian Removal act of 1830 and the Trail of Tears.

H. H. Holmes

Holmes is known as the first American serial killer, having supposedly killed up to 250 people.

Born Herbert Webster Mudgett in May 1861, he would end up going by Henry Howard Holmes because his real name was extremely dorky. Holmes had a troubled childhood. His father was a violent drunk and his mother did nothing but read the Bible to him. Holmes himself claimed that, as a child, schoolmates forced him to view and touch a human skeleton after discovering his fear of the local doctor. The bullies initially brought him there to scare him, but instead he was utterly fascinated, and he soon became obsessed with death. Way to go bullies.

Holmes graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1884. while he was enrolled there, he stole bodies from the laboratory, disfigured them, and claimed that the people were killed accidentally in order to collect insurance money from policies he took out on each deceased person. After graduating he moved to Chicago to study pharmaceuticals. It was also during this time that he operated shady businesses and real estate offices under the name H.H. Holmes. From 1878 to 1894, Holmes married three different women and took on a mistress, having a child with his second wife. Don't let the mustache fool you, Holmes was considered attractive and was very smooth with women.

So, the guy is pretty crazy already, but it's about to get much worse. While in Chicago during the summer of 1886, Holmes came across Dr. E.S. Holton's drugstore. Holton was suffering from cancer while his wife minded the store. Holmes got a job there and then convinced her to sell him the store. They agreed she could still live in the upstairs apartment even after Holton died. Once Holton died, Mrs. Holton mysteriously disappeared and Holmes told people she was visiting relatives in California. As people started asking questions about her return, he told them she enjoyed California so much that she decided to live there.

Holmes purchased a lot across from the drugstore, where he built his three-story, block-long "Castle"—as it was dubbed by those in the neighborhood. It was opened as a hotel for the World's Colombian Exposition in 1893 (Also known as The White City, picture left), with part of the structure used as commercial space. The ground floor of the Castle contained Holmes's own relocated drugstore and various shops, while the upper two floors contained his personal office and a maze of over one hundred windowless rooms with doorways opening to brick walls, oddly angled hallways, stairways to nowhere, doors openable only from the outside, and a host of other strange and labyrinthine constructions. Holmes repeatedly changed builders during the construction of the Castle so only he fully understood the design of the house, thus decreasing the chance of being reported to the police.

After the completion of the hotel, Holmes selected mostly female victims from among his employees (many of whom were required as a condition of employment to take out life insurance policies for which Holmes would pay the premiums but also be the beneficiary), lovers and hotel guests, torturing and killing them. Why did the women trust him? Like I said, he had a way with women. Some were locked in soundproof bedrooms fitted with gas lines that let him asphyxiate them at any time. Some victims were locked in a huge soundproof bank vault near his office where they were left to suffocate. The victims' bodies were dropped by secret chute to the basement, where some were meticulously dissected, stripped of flesh, crafted into skeleton models, and then sold to medical schools. Holmes also cremated some of the bodies or placed them in lime pits for destruction. Holmes had two giant furnaces as well as pits of acid, bottles of various poisons, and even a stretching rack. Through the connections he had gained in medical school, he sold skeletons and organs with little difficulty.

Realizing that creditors were closing in on him, Holmes decided to leave Chicago. He reappeared in Fort Worth, Texas, where he had inherited property from two railroad heiress sisters, one of whom he had promised marriage to and both of whom he murdered. There he sought to construct another castle along the lines of his Chicago operation. However, he soon abandoned this project, finding the law enforcement climate in Texas inhospitable. He continued to move about the United States and Canada, and while it seems likely that he continued to kill, the only bodies discovered that date from this period are those of his close business associate and three of the associate's children.

Holmes was caught and incarcerated, not for murder, but for a horse swindle. He quickly made bail, but in the time he was there he hatched a plan with an inmate to fake his own death and collect from the insurance company on his own policy. The plan failed when the insurance company became suspicious and wouldn't pay out. Holmes tried the plan again, this time with an associate named Benjamin Pitezel. Pitezel would fake his own death, making it look like a laboratory explosion and having his wife get $10,000 from the policy, which would then be split among Pitezel, Holmes, and their shady lawyer. Holmes then killed Pitezel, using his real dead body for insurance fraud. Holmes then convinced Pitezel's wife to let him have custody of three of her five children. Holmes traveled across America with the children, and escorted Mrs. Pitezel too, but along a parallel route, never telling her where her children were, though they were sometimes blocks away from each other. Law enforcement on his trail eventually found the remains of the two girls in Toronto, and then the little boy in Indianapolis. Holmes had killed the boy, chopped him into pieces and threw him into the fireplace, as police found the boys teeth and parts of his bones there.

In 1894, the Pinkertons had caught up with Holmes, being tipped off by Holmes' former cellmate whom Holmes never paid for part of the suicide deal, and was held for his outstanding horse swindling charge. The custodian for the Castle came forward and claimed that Holmes never let him clean in the upper level, leading to the police finding out about all the murders that happened in the Castle. The Castle then mysteriously burned down in August, 1895, a site that is now occupied by a U.S. Post Office building. Police estimated that Holmes had at least killed 20 people, but might have killed up to 250, as evidenced from missing person reports and testimonies from neighbors who claimed that many women that went in to the castle never came out again. Also, since this was during the World's Fair, there were many people around the area, and some didn't show up back home for one reason or another. Holmes was charged with only 27, though police admit that while going through the basement, some bodies were so badly dismembered and decomposed that it was difficult to tell how many bodies there actually were.

Holmes was put on trial for the murder of Pitezel and confessed, following his conviction, to 27 murders in Chicago, Indianapolis and Toronto, and six attempted murders. Holmes was paid $7,500 ($197,340 in today's dollars) by the Hearst Newspapers in exchange for this confession. He gave various contradictory accounts of his life, claiming initially innocence and later that he was possessed by Satan.

On May 7, 1896, Holmes was hanged at the Philadelphia County Prison. Until the moment of his death, Holmes remained calm and amiable, showing very few signs of fear, anxiety or depression. Holmes's neck did not snap immediately; he instead died slowly, twitching over 15 minutes before being pronounced dead 20 minutes after the trap had been sprung. He requested that he be buried in concrete so that no one could ever dig him up and dissect his body, as he had dissected so many others. This request was granted.

On New Year's Eve, 1910, Marion Hedgepeth, who had been pardoned for informing on Holmes, was shot and killed by a police officer during a holdup at a Chicago saloon. Then, on March 7, 1914, the Chicago Tribune reported that, with the death of the former caretaker of the Murder Castle, Pat Quinlan, "the mysteries of Holmes' Castle" would remain unexplained. Quinlan had committed suicide by taking strychnine. Quinlan's surviving relatives claimed Quinlan had been "haunted" for several months before his death and could not sleep.

Holmes today remains to be one of the lesser known serial killers, though he may be one of the deadliest. Though the story was popular at the time, being covered extensively by Hearst's newspapers, Holmes' story faded until Eric Larson's The Devil in the White City, which was about the building of the World's Fair and Holmes' Murder Castle. Leonardo DiCaprio is even slated as portraying the killer in the movie adaption of the book. Holmes is a complex character, and one seemingly without conscience from a very early age. Many still wonder what drove him to kill and swindle so many.

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart is most known for being the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean solo.

Amelia Earhart was born on July 24th, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas to Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart and Amelia "Amy" Otis Earhart. The father's nickname being a tribute to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton who served under Abraham Lincoln. Amelia, or Millie to her family, grew up in a well to do household with her sister Muriel, AKA Pidge, thanks to the wealth of Amy Earhart's parents. Both girls attended private school and lived quite comfortably. The family lived in Kansas til Amelia was nine, then relocated to Des Moines, Iowa due to a change in jobs for Edwin Stanton Earhart. Amelia saw her first airplane at the Iowa State Fair, though she had little to no interest in it. She found that "it was a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting." It would be more than a decade before Amelia would actually find planes to be more than a thing of rusty wire and wood.

Things were not well in the Earhart family though. Edwin had turned to drinking and Amelia had noticed at an early age that her father was basically the local drunkard. In 1914, the family disbanded and left Edwin after he lost his job at the local railroad. Amy and the girls decided to live with friends in Chicago and Amy used a trust fund to put the girl's through the rest of school, as the money from her parents was now gone. After visiting her sister in 1917 at a college preparatory school in Canada, Amelia decided to train as a nurses aid in Toronto and served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse at a military hospital until the Armistice in November 1918. After the war, Amelia decided to enroll as a pre-med student at Columbia University, but left when news that her mother and father had gotten back together and moved to California.

Several months after her arrival in California Amelia and her father went to an "aerial meet" at Daugherty Field in Long Beach. She had become very interested in flying. The next day, given a helmet and goggles, she boarded the open-cockpit biplane for a 10 minute flight over Los Angeles. Amelia know from that moment that she wanted to be a pilot. She felt that she belonged in the sky. Amelia then sought out a female pilot instructor and started lessons with pioneer aviatrix Anita "Neta" Snook. Amelia bought her first plane, calling it "The Canary" and used it in her early years. These years yielded many accidents, though this can be attributed to the lack of reliability that came with early planes. Neta Snook still had reservations about Amelia's ability as a pilot though. By October 1922, Amelia began participating in record breaking attempts and set a women's altitude record of 14,000 feet...broken a few weeks later by Ruth Nichols.

To make ends meet, Amelia took work as a social worker after moving to Boston. In her spare time, she flew to break records and wrote to encourage other women to become pilots. All the attention on Amelia led to the Boston Globe proclaiming her "one of the best women pilots in the United States." Many seasoned pilots were offended by this and remarked on Amelia's novice flying ability and called her a intelligent and competent pilot, but not a brilliant aviator.

After Charles Lindbergh's solo Atlantic flight in 1927, Amy Guest decided she wanted to be the first woman to do so. Guest later changed her mind deciding it was too dangerous, but offered to sponsor another girl who "had the rig ht image."While at work one afternoon in April 1928, Earhart got a phone call from Capt. Hilton H. Railey, who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?" Amelia would not end up flying the plane going across the Atlantic, as she was just asked to accompany pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot Louis Gordon. Amelia would be a guest but keep the flight log. It ended up that Amelia couldn't of flown the plane if she wanted to. It was a plane flow n by "instruments," and Amelia had no training using those sort of planes. When they landed in England and people asked for her to comment, she said "Stultz did all the flying—had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes." She did claim however that she would try it solo in the future.

Amelia became an official celebrity back home, gaining the nickname "Queen of the Air." Amelia then turned to lecturing after her flight but was then asked by several companies to endorse their products. Companies used Amelia's image for luggage, Lucky Strike Cigarettes, and a clothing line . She did not just endorse some of the products, but was an active involved in the promotions. She actually made her own clothing line that had her insignia on it and everything. Amelia Earhart was now a household name.

The celebrity endorsements helped her immensely, as they gave her money to fly. She also took on the job of associate editor at Cosmopolitan magazine where she further spread word about opportunities for female pilots. During her time at the magazine, Lindbergh and her became some of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel. Amelia sought to truly make a name for herself in flying by herself and decided to make her first big solo run. In August, 1928 she became the first woman to fly solo across the North American continent and back. It was also during this time that she started flying in races and gained notoriety for her racing feats and selflessness. In 1928 , having been asked six times, Amelia agreed to marry George P. Putnam, the promoter who made Amelia a household name. Their marriage was a strange one for that time, as they both insisted on being breadwinners and Amelia had refused to take Putnam's name.

At the age of 34, Amelia attempted to be the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She set off on May 20th, 1932 in Newfoundland, planning to land in Paris. Facing strong winds and mechanic troubles, Amelia flew the plane almost fifteen hours and landed in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland. When a farm hand asked, "Have you flown far?" Amelia replied, "From America."s the first woman to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic, Amelia received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honor from the French Government and the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society from President Herbert Hoover. That wasn't enough for Amelia, as she became the first person to fly from Hawaii to California in 1935 and also took a non-stop flight from Mexico City to New York City. Between 1930-1935, Amelia had set seven women's speed and distance aviation records in a variety of aircrafts.

After joining the faculty of Purdue to be a lecturer on women careers and aviation, Amelia planned to fly solo around the world with Purdue's help. After a failed attempt to do the world flight on St. Patrick's Day, 1937, Amelia was able to get going on June 1st. Leaving Miami, she stopped in South America, Africa, the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia before landing in Lae, New Guinea on June 29th. She left Lae with the intended next stop being Howland Island. The United States Coast Guard cutter Itasca, which was stationed at Howland, was to be the ship that communicated with Amelia. This is when the confusion started. With the Itasca's and Amelia's communication time schedules off by a half an hour due to Amelia using Greenwich Civil Time and the Itasca under a Naval time zone designation, and Amelia's unfamiliarity with some of the navigation system parts, things weren't going well.

As Amelia got into the area she kept communicating to the Itasca that she couldn't hear them. With the Itasca unable to communicate with her by voice, they used Morse code, though Amelia reported that she didn't know what direction it was coming from. One of her many calls to the Itasca reported that, "We must be on you, but cannot see you—but gas is running low. Have been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet." This message made it painfully clear that things were going terribly wrong and they had to try and help her find her way to the island. Amelia reported that she thought she was there, but the Itasca saw that she was over five nautical miles away. The Itasca then used their oil-fired burners to generate smoke to catch the attention of the pilots, as Amelia was flying with Fred Noonan, her navigator. The many clouds in the area are thought to have made it hard to decipher for Amelia and Noonan, as they never saw the smoke. From that point, there were no more communications from Amelia.

A search and rescue around the island was put forth, but due to search and rescues techniques being rudimentary and fueled by usually false assumptions at that time in history, the search was eventually called off. Putnam put forth his own search party but also found nothing. There are many theories of what happened to Amelia and Noonan, some claiming they just ran out of gas and crashed into the ocean, and some claiming they landed on a nearby deserted island and lived out their days there.

Amelia today is remembered as a trail-blazer for women pilots and a has generally been regarded as a feminist icon. Her story captivates many, as she had such an inspirational life, but died in mystery.

Fun Fact!
You almost never see a picture of Amelia Earhart smiling with her teeth as she had a large gap between her two front teeth. Many photographers and companies asked her to keep her mouth shut when smiling for pictures.

Update: Researchers now believe that Earhart landed on a nearby island and survived for a few days there. It's just a theory, and apparently they haven't found anything concrete: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/24/expedition-fails-to-find-earhart-evidence?newsfeed=true

Clara Barton

Clara Barton is best known as the founder of the Red Cross and a nurse during the American Civil War.
Born on Christmas in 1821, in Oxford, Massachussetts to Stephen and Sarah Barton, Clara was the youngest of five children. Her experience with nursing came at an early age of eleven, as she tended to her older brother who fell from the rafter of an unfinished barn. In his three years of recovery, Clara stayed by his side and administered all his medicine, which included leeches. Clara continued to show a growing interest in nursing and drew inspiration from her aunt, Martha Ballard, who served as a midwife for over three decades.
At the start of the Civil War, Clara tended to wounded Massachussets soldiers who were quartered in the U.S. Senate Chamber in Washington. Then, as soon as the First Battle of Bull Run, Clara established the main agency to obtain and distribute supplies to wounded soldiers. She eventually was allowed to ride in ambulances, bring her own medical instruments to the battlefield, and go to the front lines. Most notably, she served on the front lines for the Siege of Petersburg and Richmond. Union General Benjamin Butler declared her to be the "lady in charge" of the hospitals for the Army of the James.

In 1865, President Lincoln gave her the task of finding missing Union soldiers. An Andersonville POW, Dorence Atwater sought her out and produced a list of over 13,000 dead soldiers that died inside the infamous Confederate POW camp. They traveled to Andersonville after the war and used the list to make an official report and publish the names of the dead. Without Clara and Atwater's work, thousands of soldiers would not have been identified. Her work with identifying missing bodies and on the field made her a well known figure and made nursing be seen as a skilled profession.

After the war, Clara went around the country delivering speeches on her experiences and eventually ran into Susan B. Anthony. After meeting Anthony and later Fredrick Douglass, Clara became a supporter of the Woman's Suffrage Movement and black civil rights. After her work in the Civil War, she was tired out, and her doctors recommended that she take a vacation to Europe. In her time there she saw the work of the International Red Cross during the Franco-Prussian War and decided she wanted to bring the organization to America. When she came home and lobbied for the creation of the American Red Cross, people didn't think it was necessary for they felt that there was no way that America would ever go through something as devastating as the Civil War again. She was finally able to convince Chester A. Arthur that the Red Cross could serve in other ways than in war. Clara, naturally became the leader of the Red Cross, which started on May 21, 1881. Clara and others claimed that the group would help in any instance of natural disasters and would act as good Samaritans.

Clara led one of the first relief efforts for the group to help those effected by the Thumb Fire, other wise known as the Great Fire of 1881, which occurred in the thumb area of Michigan where over five thousand were left homeless. The second major disaster that involved the Red Cross and Clara was at the Johnstown Flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1889, which ended up killing over two thousand people.

Things went back to war with the war against Spain in which Clara and the Red Cross aided the wounded and prisoners of war. In 1896, responding to the humanitarian crisis in the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the Hamidian Massacre, Clara sailed to Istanbul and after long negotiations with Abdul Hamid II, opened the first American International Red Cross headquarters in Beijing, China. Clara traveled along with five other Red Cross expeditions to the Armenian provinces in the spring of 1896. Clara also worked in hospitals in Cuba in 1898 at the age of seventy-seven. Barton's last field operation as President of the American Red Cross was the relief effort for the victims of the Galveston hurricane of September 1900. The operation established an orphanage for children of the 6,000 dead, helped to acquire lumber for rebuilding houses, and teamed with the New York World newspaper to accept contributions for the relief effort. As criticism arose of her management of the American Red Cross, plus her advancing age, Barton resigned as president in 1904, at the age of 83. On April 12, 1912 at the age of 90 she died in Glen Echo, Maryland with all her friends by her side.

The Red Cross continues to help and aid those in America and in other countries that are hit by terrible natural disasters. The Red Cross has also continued and has helped serve in America's wars to help the injured and POW's. This is all thanks to Clara Barton and her unwavering service to America and it's people.

Barack Obama

Term: 2009-???

Party: Democrat

Nickname: None

Short Bio:
Obama, our current president, won against Republican John McCain in the 2008 election on the platform of hope and change. The election was a landmark one, due to the fact that Obama is obviously the first African-American president. Obama made several promises after being elected, including that he would close Guantanamo Bay by January 2010, and would start pulling out troops from Afghanistan and Iraq and end American involvement in the near future. To start of his presidency, Obama passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which aimed at helping the struggling economy. The act included increased federal spending for health care, infrastructure, education, various tax breaks and incentives, and direct assistance to individuals, which is being distributed over the course of several years. He also started the Cash for Clunkers program which gave money to those who traded in their old junky cars for newer cars that had better mileage. This garnered mixed results as has the stimulus package. Obama then intervened in the Auto crisis, causing some car companies to restructure, be made public, or sold to foreign car companies.
Obama also made a point to get Health Care Reform passed, though it was a failure in Clinton's terms. Obama presented several versions of Health Care reform before it was passed by Congress. Currently, Republicans, having taken part of Congress back, are trying to get "Obama Care" repealed.
Two years into Obama's presidency, Guantanamo Bay is still open, the war in Afghanistan is still going, the economy hasn't quite bounced back, and though Obama officially announced that the war in Iraq is finished, there are still soldiers in the country. Many at the mid-term elections were dissatisfied with Obama, feeling that not enough change had happened and feelings that Obama was a d0 nothing president were rampant. Due to a new lack of popularity, the Democrats lost the House. But just as Clinton did his best after losing a majority in Congress, Obama was able to pass many bills in the lame duck session before the Republicans took over the House. Don't Ask Don't Tell was officially repealed, a tax deal was made to protect the unemployed, a new law regarding food safety, a nuclear weapons treaty with Russia, and the passing of the Zydroga bill, otherwise known as the 9/11 first responders act. Also in the time of the lame duck period, Tax cuts were extended for the rich, as it was the only way to get the Zydroga bill passed.
Obama has had his ups and downs so far. His popularity seems to come and go, so we'll see if he will be reelected, which seems like a sure thing unless Republicans are able to find a really great candidate. Obama has not been without controversy, as many were upset that he received a Nobel Peace Prize for not really doing anything. Others have called into question his religion and place of birth, though Obama has publicly claimed to be a Christian, coming into the religion during his 20's, and his birth certificate is openly available to view from the Department of Health in Hawaii.
I cannot give him a grade at this time, since he hasn't even finished one term yet. Is he a perfect president? Not even close, but hopefully in the next couple years we will see a fulfillment of some of the changes and promises he made on the campaign trail and hope that he isn't just business as usual. *NOTE*: Since Obama is our current president and there is so much news on him and bills passed, I probably forgot like a million things to write about, but will try to keep this article as current as possible. History tends to show us what is the most important in a person's presidency, and I don't have the luxury of seeing this from a distance, as I don't with Bush's presidency.