This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America’s national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders similar to this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.

Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to have the “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She explained, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”

Prior to this, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times, mainly in New England and other Northern states. President Lincoln responded to Mrs. Hale’s request immediately, unlike several of his predecessors, who ignored her petitions altogether. In her letter to Lincoln she mentioned that she had been advocating a national thanksgiving date for 15 years as the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book. George Washington was the first president to proclaim a day of thanksgiving, issuing his request on October 3, 1789, exactly 74 years before Lincoln’s.

The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln’s secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting.

On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary how he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler et al.

Birthday – The first African American on the U.S. Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Nominated by President Johnson, he began his 24-year career on the High Court in 1967.

Chief Justice Earl Warren swears in Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. As chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1940s and ’50s, Marshall was the architect and executor of the legal strategy that ended the era of official racial segregation.

The great-grandson of a slave, Marshall was born in Baltimore,  July 2,  Maryland, in 1908. After being rejected from the University of Maryland Law School on account of his race, he was accepted at all-black Howard University in Washington, D.C. At Howard, he studied under the tutelage of civil liberties lawyer Charles H. Houston and in 1933 graduated first in his class. In 1936, he joined the legal division of the NAACP, of which Houston was director, and two years later succeeded his mentor in the organization’s top legal post.

As the NAACP’s chief counsel from 1938 to 1961, he argued more than a dozen cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, successfully challenging racial segregation, most notably in public education. He won nearly all of these cases, including a groundbreaking victory in 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregation violated the equal rights clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and was thus illegal. The decision served as a great impetus for the civil rights movement and ultimately led to the abolishment of segregation in all public facilities and accommodations.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals, but his nomination was opposed by many Southern senators, and he was not confirmed until the following year. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson appointed Marshall to be solicitor general of the United States. In this position, he again successfully argued cases before the Supreme Court, this time on behalf of the U.S. government.

On June 13, 1967, Johnson nominated Marshall to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark. Of his decision to appoint Marshall, Johnson said it was “the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man, and the right place.” After a heated debate, the Senate confirmed Marshall’s nomination by a vote of 69 to 11 on August 30. Marshall was officially sworn in to the nation’s highest court at the opening ceremony of the Supreme Court term on October 2.

During his 24 years on the high court, Associate Justice Marshall consistently challenged discrimination based on race or sex, opposed the death penalty, and vehemently defended affirmative action. He supported the rights of criminal defendants and defended the right to privacy. As appointments by a largely Republican White House changed the ideology of the Supreme Court, Marshall found his liberal views increasingly in the minority. He retired in 1991 because of declining health and died in 1993.

resource: history.com

 

939 Battle at Andernach: King Otto & Hermann of Zwaben beat Eberhard of France & Giselbert of Lutherans

• 976 Hisham II appointed kalief of Cordoba
• 1134 Storm flood ravages Zeeland county
• 1187 Sultan Saladin captures Jerusalem from Crusaders
• 1263 The battle of Largs fought between Norwegians and Scots.
• 1492 – King Henry VII of England invaded France.1780 – British army major John Andre was hanged as a spy. He was carrying information about the actions of Benedict Arnold.1835 – The first battle of the Texas Revolution took place near the Guadalupe River when American settlers defeated a Mexican cavalry unit.

  1836 – Charles Darwin returned to England after 5 years of acquiring knowledge around the world about fauna, flora, wildlife and geology. He used the information to develop his “theory of evolution” which he unveiled in his 1859 book entitled The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

  1869 – Mahatma (Mohandas) K Gandhi was born. He was known for his advocacy of non-violent resistance to fight tyranny.

  1870 – Rome was made the capital of Italy.

  1876 – The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas opened. It was the state’s first venture into public higher education. The school was formally dedicated 2 days later by Texas Gov. Richard Coke.

  1889 – The first international Conference of American States began in Washington, DC.

  1908 – Addie Joss of Cleveland pitched the fourth perfect game in major league baseball history.

  1919 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.

  1920 – The Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates played the only triple-header in baseball history. The Reds won 2 of the 3 games.

  1924 – The Geneva Protocol adopted the League of Nations.

  1925 – Scottish inventor John Logie Baird completed the first transmission of moving images.

  1929 – “The National Farm and Home Hour” debuted on NBC radio.

  1933 – “Red Adams” debuted on NBC radio.

  1937 – Warner Bros. released “Love Is on the Air.” Ronald Reagan made his acting debut in the motion picture. He was 26 years old.

  1941 – Operation Typhoon was launched by Nazi Germany. The plan was an all-out offensive against Moscow.

  1944 – The Nazis crushed the Warsaw Uprising.

  1947 – The Federatino Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) formally established Formula One racing in Grand Prix competition.

  1948 – The first automobile race to use asphalt, cement and dirt roads took place in Watkins Glen in New York. It was the first road race in the U.S. following World War II.

  1949 – “The Aldrich Family” debuted on NBC-TV.

  1950 – “Peanuts,” the comic strip created by Charles M. Schulz, was published for the first time in seven newspapers.

  1953 – “Person to Person” debuted on CBS-TV.

  1955 – “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” debuted on CBS-TV.

  1958 – Guinea, the French colony in West Africa, proclaimed its independence. Sekou Toure was the first president of the Republic of Guinea.

  1959 – “The Twilight Zone” debuted on CBS-TV. The show ran for 5 years for a total of 154 episodes.

  1962 – U.S. ports were closed to nations that allowed their ships to carry arms to Cuba, ships that had docked in a socialist country were prohibited from docking in the United States during that voyage, and the transport of U.S. goods was banned on ships owned by companies that traded with Cuba.

  1967 – Thurgood Marshall was sworn in. He was the first African-American member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

  1988 – Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered free elections.

  1989 – In Leipzig, East Germany a protest took place demanding the legalization of opposition groups and the adoption of democratic reforms.

  1990 – The Allies ceded their rights to areas they occupied in Germany.

  1993 – Opponents of Russian President Boris Yeltsin fought police and set up burning barricades.

  1998 – Hawaii sued petroleum companies, claiming state drivers were overcharged by about $73 million a year in price-fixing.

  1998 – About 10,000 Turkish soldiers crossed into northern Iraq and attacked Kurdish rebels.

  2001 – The U.S. Postmaster unveiled the “Tribute to America” stamp. The stamp was planned for release the next month.

  2001 – NATO, for the first time, invoked a treaty clause that stated that an attack on one member is an attack on all members. The act was in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

RM

Ryan Mattimore

These African American heroes battled the Nazis, but were still treated as second-class citizens in their home country.

In October of 1944, the 761st tank battalion became the first African American tank squad to see combat in World War II. And, by the end of the war, the Black Panthers had fought their way further east than nearly every other unit from the United States, receiving 391 decorations for heroism. They fought in France and Belgium, and were one of the first American battalions to meet the Russian Army in Austria. They also broke through Nazi Germany’s Siegfried line, allowing General George S. Patton‘s troops to enter Germany.

During the war, the 761st participated in four major Allied campaigns including the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German World War II campaign on the Western Front. Germany’s defeat in this battle is widely credited with turning the tide of the war towards an Allied victory.

Source: history.com for the complete article