Left: a cowboy supper on the Texas open range, c. 1908. Right: Floyd Stillings, the best bronco rider on the rodeo circuit during the 1920s and ‘30s.
The London residence of Ben Franklin, the American colonies’ chief diplomat, at 36 Craven Street. Franklin lived here during the years 1757 to 1775. The residence is the only former home of Franklin which survives. A nonprofit group recently acquired the building and is developing it as a museum. [first photo by Mball93]
Left: Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower, July 30, 1954. The next year, during his third year in office, Eisenhower suffered a serious heart attack and was unable to perform his presidential duties for four months. Yet, he was reelected to the presidency in 1956. Right: the Eisenhowers with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans at grandson David’s birthday party, March 1956.
Left: President Kennedy and his brother-in-law, Peter Lawford, aboard the US Coast Guard yacht “Manitou” off the coast of Johns Island, Maine, August 12, 1962. Right: Lawford, the husband of Patricia Kennedy, stands with the Kennedy family at the President’s burial service in Arlington Cemetery, Nov. 25, 1963.
Left: Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, February 1868. Radical Republicans had mounted several efforts to impeach Johnson over his refusal to support their Reconstruction agenda. Johnson was acquitted in the Senate in what was the first impeachment trial of a US president. Right: Vote tally on the House motion to impeach Trump for the second time, Jan. 13, 2021. Its passage made Trump the first US president to be impeached twice.
Rep. Barbara Jordan (1936-1996), a junior member of the House Judiciary Committee conducting hearings on Nixon’s impeachment, delivered her opening remarks on live television at 9:00 PM — prime time — on July 25, 1974. The speech catapulted her to national prominence. Later, poor health would cause Pres. Clinton to reluctantly pass over Jordan for a seat on the Supreme Court. From Jordan’s speech: “My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total..I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution…A president is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution…If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offense charged here [Nixon’s], then perhaps that 18th century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th century paper shredder.” Nixon on the insignificance of Watergate and related crimes: “Well, a ‘little Watergate’ ought to be very small. What—you look at Watergate and all that was involved. What was it? A crappy little thing. A crappy little thing. There’s nothing there—they [the Watergate burglars] didn’t get anything.” June 1973. Right: Jordan addresses the House, Sept. 25, 1974.
Left: Paul Manafort with Pres. Reagan and V.P. Bush, 1982. Center: Manafort upon entry into the Alexandria federal jail, 2018. Manafort served time in a federal prison following his 2018 conviction on federal tax and bank fraud charges arising over lobbying activities on behalf of foreign entities. The Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee concluded in August 2020 that Manafort's ties to individuals connected to Russian intelligence while he was Trump's campaign manager "represented a grave counterintelligence threat" by creating opportunities for "Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign.” Trump pardoned Manafort on Dec. 23, 2020. Right: President Reagan greets Donald and Ivana Trump at a White House state dinner, February 11, 1985.
Left: Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin at the Los Angeles premiere of Chaplin’s film, “City Lights,” February 2, 1931. Right: Winston Churchill attends Chaplin’s after-party for the film’s London premiere on February 27, 1931. Churchill and Chaplin had become friends during Churchill’s 1929 US lecture tour and Churchill had visited the film's set.
Civil War veterans of the Union Army parade through Washington on Memorial Day, 1920. Buses will take them to Arlington Cemetery where a memorial to Confederate veterans is unveiled and a new amphitheater is dedicated.
Robin Williams (1951 – 2014) plays the lead in the 1993 film “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
