1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from the Island of Elba. He then began his second conquest of France.

1848 – The second French Republic was proclaimed.

1863 – U.S. President Lincoln signed the National Currency Act.

1870 – In New York City, the first pneumatic-powered subway line was opened to the public. (Beach Pneumatic Transit)

1881 – S.S. Ceylon began his world-wide cruise, beginning in Liverpool, England.

1907 – The U.S. Congress raised their own pay to $7500.

1916 – Mutual signed Charlie Chaplin to a film contract.

1919 – In Arizona, the Grand Canyon was established as a National Park with an act of the U.S. Congress.

1929 – U.S. President Coolidge signed a bill creating the Grand Teton National Park.

1930 – New York City installed traffic lights.

1933 – A ground-breaking ceremony was held at Crissy Field for the Golden Gate Bridge.

1945 – In the U.S., a nationwide midnight curfew went into effect.

1952 – British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain had developed an atomic bomb.

1957 – The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award was established by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

1979 – “Flatbush” debuted on CBS-TV.

1986 – Corazon Aquino was inaugurated president of the Philippines. Long time President Ferdinand Marcos went into exile.

1987 – The Tower Commission rebuked U.S. President Reagan for failing to control his national security staff in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair.

1987 – The U.S.S.R. conducted its first nuclear weapons test after a 19-month moratorium period.

1991 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein announced on Baghdad Radio that Iraqi troops were being withdrawn from Kuwait.

1993 – Six people were killed and more than a thousand injured when a van exploded in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York City. The bomb had been built by Islamic extremists.

1995 – Barings PLC collapsed after a securities dealer lost more than $1.4 billion by gambling on Tokyo stock prices. The company was Britain’s oldest investment banking firm.

1998 – A Texas jury rejected an $11 million lawsuit by Texas cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey for price drop after on-air comment about mad-cow disease.

1998 – In Oregon, a health panel rules that taxpayers must help to pay for doctor-assisted suicides.

2001 – A U.N. tribunal convicted Bosnian Croat political leader Dario Kordic and military commander Mario Cerkez of war crimes. They had ordered the systematic murder and persecution of Muslim civilians during the Bosnian war.

2002 – In Rome, Italy, a bomb exploded near the Interior Ministry. No injuries were reported.

2009 – Former Serbian president Milan Milutinovic was acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia regarding war crimes during the Kosovo War.

2009 – The Pentagon reveresed its 18-year policy of not allowing media to cover returning war dead. The reversal allowsd some media coverage with family approval.

on-this-day.com

The primary charge against Johnson was a violation of the Tenure of Office Act

Why Was Andrew Johnson Impeached?   

Andrew Johnson was the 17th president of the United States who served from April 15, 1865, to May 5, 1869. He was impeached on February 24, 1868, after violating the Tenure of Office Act. Johnson had fired Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War, which was in violation of the law that requires the president to get Senate approval before dismissing a member of the cabinet.

Edwin M. Stanton was a radical and an influential Republican, and the Republican members of the House of Representatives sought to impeach the Democrat president three days later. Johnson had fired Stanton because of the constant clashes with members of the Republican Party concerning the treatment of the South after the end of the American Civil War. Republicans considered the president sympathetic and friendly to former slaveholders. Although the Republicans had more than the required two-thirds membership in the Senate, a small number of those members chose to support the president’s action, and Johnson ultimately survived the conviction by a single vote.

Source: the internet

On February 24, 1841, former President John Quincy Adams begins to argue the Amistad case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

A practicing lawyer and member of the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams was the son of America’s second president, founding father and avowed abolitionist John Adams. Although John Quincy Adams publicly downplayed his abolitionist stance, he too viewed the practice as contrary to the nation’s core principles of freedom and equality. After serving one term as president between 1825 and 1829, Adams was elected to the House of Representatives, in which he served until his death in 1848. During his tenure, he succeeded in repealing a rule that prevented any debate about slavery on the House floor.

In 1839, a Spanish slave ship named La Amistad appeared off the coast of New York. The captives aboard it, who were free Africans kidnapped in Africa and originally bound for sale in Cuba, had rebelled, killing the Spanish ship’s captain and cook. The African mutineers then promised to spare the lives of the ship’s crew and their captors if they took them back to Africa. The crew agreed, but then duped the slaves by sailing up the coast to New York, where they were taken into custody by the U.S. Navy.

For the complete article: history.com

Source: history.com