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On this day in history – May, 20th , 1862
On this day, May 20, 1862, the Homestead Act was signed into action by President Abraham Lincoln. This act worked to foster settlers to move west of the Mississippi River by giving American citizens 160 acres of land if they were willing to pay a small fee and work on the land to improve it. The act opened up a large amount of American land for ownership, leading to about 10 percent of the total land mass of the United States to be privatized by 1934.
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On this day – September 26th, 1960
On September 26th, 1960, Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy faced off in the first televised presidential debate in United States’ history. The debate attracted about 60-70 million total viewers. It was also followed by a series of further debates, which are now known as “the Great Debates.”
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On this day – January 23rd, 1997
On January 23rd, 1997, Madeleine Albright was sworn in as the first female Secretary of State. Madeleine Albright gained governmental power after Bill Clinton’s election as president when she was appointed as US ambassador to the United Nations. She had many great impacts as Secretary of State, some of which include expanding the reach of NATO to former Soviet bloc nations as well as expanding free-market democratization.
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A US soldier’s escape to North Korea and other examples
On the morning of July 18th, 2023, I woke up to a notification from the New York Times that stated North Korea Detains US Citizen After Unauthorized Border Crossing. A quick read of the article brought me some knowledge of the situation. An American citizen had illegally crossed the border into North Korea after being on a tour of the Joint Security Area. Updates later in the day revealed that the man was an American soldier: Private Travis T. King. The soldier was set to be sent to Fort Bliss, Texas after he had been arrested in South Korea on assault charges. Rather than boarding his plane at the airport,…