November 9, 1906 - President Theodore Roosevelt travels to Panama

 On this day in history, 107 years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt took a trip to Panama that would essentially revolutionize America’s trading system in the years to follow.

Shortly after assuming the presidency in 1901, Roosevelt began working to negotiate a treaty with Columbia to construct a canal in Panama, which was, at that time, Columbian territory. When Columbia began to waver in their decision to sign over these rights, however, Roosevelt instigated a revolution between Columbia and their Panamanian subjects. Although the battle lasted less than a day, with it a new nation, Panama, was generated. Through the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, America was able to acquire all rights necessary to construct the passage that would eventually connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, for just $10 million. [1]

Several years after the initial construction began, Roosevelt traveled to the canal site to observe what progress had been made, becoming the first president of the United States to leave the country during his tenure. Roosevelt’s visit proved successful in boosting morale and interest in the Panama Canal project. Upon arrival, the president was shocked by the chaos that erupted from the project’s overall disorganization; workers suffered poor working conditions, life threatening illnesses, and an overall lack of proper nutrition. He rallied to provide a better environment for those employed at the canal, including improved medical attention and healthcare. [2]

Approximately 30,000 workers labored in ten-hour shifts in order to complete the $400 million project by 1914. The Panama Canal stretches nearly fifty miles across the diameter of the Isthmus of Panama and shortens the route from New York to San Francisco by nearly 8,000 miles. [3]

Ultimately, the construction of the canal was a massive undertaking, with massive rewards; bringing forth tremendous economic advantages to the United States. 1974 marked the canal’s first toll increase, raising prices from 90 cents to $1.08 per cargo ton; America’s ownership of the canal allowing the nation to reap all such profits. The record toll amount was set the following year by a passenger ship that was charged $42,077.88 for passage [4].

Because the route through Panama was so significantly shorter than the alternative route, America, as well as other countries involved in trade, were also able to enjoy larger profits from transported goods. Despite the economic advantages that America incurred, however, Panama received hardly any benefit at all. Panamanians were prohibited from marketing goods or services of any kind within the Canal Zone and were often refused employment on the Canal. It was not until 1977, during Jimmy Carter’s administration, that the Panama Canal Treaty was signed, promising to repeal the United States’ power over the canal by the year 2000, at which time Panama would be responsible for the defense and operation of the canal. [5]

Now, nearly 100 years after construction reached completion, the Panama Canal is still being used; allowing shipments of commercial goods to be transported more quickly and efficiently than ever before. Approximately 14,000 ships pass through the Panama Canal each day, traffic ranging from automobile shipments to military vessels [6].

It is thanks to Theodore Roosevelt’s great vision and perseverance that we are now able to enjoy the benefits of the Panama Canal, or as he called it, “This Great Enterprise.” In the words of Roosevelt himself, “The canal was by far the most important action I took in foreign affairs during the time I was president. When nobody could or would exercise efficient authority, I exercised it.” [7]

- Brittany W.




[1,3] “American President: A Reference Resource,” Miller Center University of Virginia, accessed November 1, 2013, http://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt/essays/biography/5

2 “Teddy Roosevelt travels to Panama,” On this Day in History, accessed November 1, 2013, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/teddy-roosevelt-travels-to-panama

4 “Timeline: Creating the Canal,” American Experience, accessed November 8, 2013, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/panama/2/

5 “Panama Treaty of 1977,” Council on Foreign Relations, accessed November 1, 2013, http://www.cfr.org/panama/panama-canal-treaty-1977/p12637

6 “What is the purpose of the Panama Canal?,” USA Today, accessed November 1, 2013, http://traveltips.usatoday.com/purpose-panama-canal-63793.html

7 “Teddy Roosevelt travels to Panama on Nov. 9, 1906,” Politico, accessed November 1, 2013, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6790.html

November 7, 1972 - Girls Allowed to Join New Jersey Little League Teams

Maria Pepe, 1972

Over thirty years ago, a young girl named Maria Pepe changed Little League baseball forever. She was the first girl to ever step foot on a Little League baseball field and play a game with the boys in 1972. Little did she know she was about to become the center of national attention and a legal battle that would help shape the role of women in sports around the world.[1]

Protests begin because the parents of the Hoboken community believe girls should not play in Little League baseball and the matter is sent to Williamsport, New York, home of Little League baseball. The ruling is that the Young Democrats, Marias team, can't play anymore Little League games unless they take Maria off the team. The 12-year-old Hoboken girl started three games for the Young Democrats and pitched all three games until she was kicked off by her coach.[2] Revealing the prevailing social views on girls in sports, the little league stated that, “girls’ bone strength, muscle strength and reaction time were inferior to those of boys”.[3] That ends her Little League career, but the National Organization for Women sues Little League Baseball on her behalf that it is against equal rights. On November 7, 1973 Sylvia Pressler a Hearing Examiner for the New Jersey Civil Rights Division, ruled in favor of letting girls into Little League baseball. This ruling was later upheld in the Superior Court in early 1974; once passed it was a change that eventually allowed millions of girls on a global scale to participate in the largest organized youth sports program.[4] Maria is in high school and too old to play Little League baseball, but doesn't take long for the ruling in Maria’s case to start to make a difference in 1974 when Bunny Taylor another 12 year old girl becomes the first girl to pitch a no-hitter.[5]

Women in the 1970s dealt with major hardship of still not being equal to men. One great example of none equality rights was with girls like Maria being turned away from a male sport because of gender. The National Organization for Women gets involved in this case because of the gender problem and they were looking for strives in women’s rights during the 1970s. Women were striving in the 1970s to be a part of the Women Rights movement and Maria left her footprint in Women Rights history. [6]


- Frank F.





1. “Landmark Decision Allowed Girls to Play Little League. (n.d.). MomsTeam. Retrieved October 30, 2013, from http://www.momsteam.com/sports/baseball/general/landmark-decision-allowed-girls-to-play-little-league”

2. “ESPN top 10 Women sports movment. (n.d.). ESPN. Retrieved October 30, 2013, from http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/moments/uswomen.html”

3.”ESPN top 10”

4. Settimi, Christina. "Before Title IX There Was Maria Pepe Waiting 'His Turn At Bat'." Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2012/06/24/before-title-ix-there-was-maria-pepe/2/ (accessed November 2, 2013).

5. “Women and their Roles throughout American History. (n.d.). : Women in the 1970's. Retrieved October 30, 2013, from http://womenrolehistory.blogspot.com/2011/09/women-in-1970s.html”

6. “Women and their Roles”

7. “Landmark decision Allowed”

November 5, 1968 - Richard Nixon Wins the Presidential Election

Nixon’s presidential victory relates to the factors his campaign was directed and established on. After serving as vice-president for eight years, Richard Nixon ran for president against John F. Kennedy in 1962; however, Kennedy won the majority of the popular vote by 0.17% (1). Two years after losing the presidential election, Richard Nixon ran for governor of California against Edmund G. Brown, but Brown won the election by 5% (2). However, failing again was not the end of Nixon’s political career as many political critics believed. By February 1968, Nixon’s political career recovered in the Republican Party and he announced his candidacy for president (3). Eventually in 1938, Richard Nixon won the presidential election against Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and George Wallace of the American Party (3).

Firstly, foreign policy was one of the major factors in Nixon’s election (4). Through Nixon’s diplomatic achievements during Dwight Eisenhower’s administration garnered him public trust and support, and his claim that to stop the war in Vietnam was soothing to the ears of the people who were tired of the anti-war protests and its controversy (5). Therefore, Vietnam War played a vital role in the election of 1938. It also gave Nixon the chance to direct his campaign towards the “silent majority” of the middle class and the working class (6). Unlike the Democrats, the Republican candidates were careful to craft an image of moderation and dignity, which stood in contrast to the disorder in the Democratic Party. Lyndon Johnson, the sitting president and a Democrat, lost the public relations war to the North Vietnamese, and he dropped out of the race as he struggled in the primaries. Also, Robert Kennedy (a new forerunner) was murdered in June after the primary election in California, leaving the party in disarray (7).

Richard Nixon won about 31.8 million popular votes, while Humphrey won 31.3 million votes. In the Electoral College, Nixon received 301 votes, Humphrey won 191 votes and George Wallace won 46 votes (8). According to some critics, Nixon’s victory was a result of the division in the Democratic Party, rather than to strong support for himself or his platform. He was a president by default, without a mandate or a strong constituency, and that many Americans felt they had corrected a mistake (9). From another perspective, one might conclude that perhaps Nixon won the election because of his perseverance, as Julie Andrews once said, “Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th."

- Teledalase O. and Lindsay T.




(1) “United States presidential election, 1960” Wikipedia, accessed on November 1, 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960

(2) “California gubernatorial election, 1962” Wikipedia, accessed on November 1,2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_gubernatorial_election,_1962

(3) “Richard Nixon elected President” History .com, accessed on November 1,2013 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/richard-nixon-elected-president

(4) “Nixon and Foreign Policy”, accessed on November 1, 2013, http://www.apstudynotes.org/us-history/topics/nixon-and-foreign-policy/

(5) “Nixon and Foreign Policy”

(6) “Nixon and Foreign Policy”

(7) “Richard Nixon Back Again: 1968”, accessed on November 1, 2013, http://www.examiner.com/article/richard-nixon-back-again-1968

(8) “Nixon and Foreign Policy”

(9) “Richard Nixon Back Again: 1968”

November 2, 1962 - JFK Announces USSR would Dismantle Cuban Missile Sites

On November 2, 1962 President John F. Kennedy and Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Soviet leader came to an agreement which concluded the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a conflict between The United States and Cuba when President John F. Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba due to the discovery that Soviet Nuclear Missiles were being constructed on the island. This conflict could have played a huge role in today’s everyday life had the situation not been handled cautiously. Had there been conflicting views and no reached agreements by the two parties, nuclear war was destined to occur. [1]

President Kennedy was first informed of the construction of Soviet Missiles in Cuba on October 16,1962. Speaking on the topic of missiles being constructed in Cuba; Kennedy administration officials have said that the Soviet leader acted for “global strategic reasons” and Khrushchev himself claimed that he was “primarily motivated by the desire to defend the Cuban revolution, and his ally Fidel Castro, from aggression by the United States.” [2] Then finding out about the construction of missiles, Kennedy decided to take action and place a naval blockade around Cuba. The main purpose of this blockade was to prevent the Soviets from bringing in more military supplies to Cuba. [3]

It had seemed that a satisfactory resolution for both Kennedy and Khrushchev in this crisis was becoming more and more farfetched. Khrushchev sent a letter to Kennedy demanding that the United States agree to remove its Jupiter missiles from Turkey in exchange for a Soviet removal of missiles from Cuba. Kennedy then made a bargain with Khrushchev, sending a letter assuring Khrushchev that the United States would speedily take out its missiles from Turkey, but only on the basis of a secret understanding, not as an open agreement that would appear to the public, and to NATO allies, as a concession to blackmail. [4] Many details involving the agreement to take the U.S. missiles out of Turkey remain in question to this day.

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, met in his office at the Justice Department with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to settle the discrepancy once and for all. The agreement between the two sides have raised many questions and confusion over the years. U.S. officials have mandated that neither John nor Robert Kennedy promised to withdraw the Jupiters in exchange for the removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba, but that Robert Kennedy informed Dobrynin that he had planned to remove the American missiles in any event. However, many scholars of the Cuban Missile Crisis throughout the years have strongly suspected that Robert F. Kennedy relayed a pledge from his brother to take out the Jupiters from Turkey in exchange for the Soviet removal of nuclear missiles from Cuba, so long as Moscow kept the swap secret. [4]

- Troy S. and Luke M.




[1] “JFK announces a blockade of Cuba,” The History Channel website, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jfk-announces-a-blockade-of-cuba (accessed Nov 1, 2013).
[2] Dobbs, Michael. "Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)." The New York Times, . http://www.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cuban_missile_crisis/index.html (accessed November 1, 2013).
[3] For thirteen days in October 1962 the world waited—seemingly on the brink of nuclear war—and hoped for a peaceful resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis.. working paper., John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Mueseum. http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Cuban-Missile-Crisis.aspx
[4] Hershberg, Jim. Anatomy of a Controversy . working paper., The George Washington University, 1995. The National Security Archive http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/moment.htm.

October 31, 1968 - President Johnson Ends Operation Rolling Thunder

On this day in history in the year 1968 President Johnson announced a halt to Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing operation against the North Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. The end of Operation Rolling Thunder was an attempt at peace, to hopefully stop the war between the Viet Cong and the United States. In Operation Rolling Thunder, U.S. military aircraft attacked targets throughout North Vietnam from March 1965 to October 1968. Operation Rolling Thunder lasted three years before the dissection off the halt be for it came to an end in 1968. Part of the reason for the bombing mission was to destroy North Vietnam's transportation system, industrial base, air defenses, and to cease the flow of men and materiel into South Vietnam. The U.S. didn’t want to risk thousands of troops by sending them in to fight one-on-one.

Johnson wanted to stop the bombing and the war. These were his intentions when he considered the halt. Johnson didn’t do it right a way he looked in to it to make sure no one would be affected by this. That’s why Johnson was playing it safe. He didn’t want to show that his guard was down and because we could get surprised attacked. There was no knowledge on what will happen if Johnson stopped Operation Rolling Thunder. Many people kept telling him that nothing major couldn’t happen since the Viet Cong didn’t have a big air force unit, so they wasn’t able to attack us through air support. The bombing halt of Operation Rolling Thunder made President Johnson reputation bad with the U.S citizens. Johnson already know that if he ran for president again no one would vote for him because of the bombing. Not that many were pleased of the decision he has made on the bombing halt. Johnson made a good decision because it did bring peace.

October 29, 1940 - First Peacetime Military Draft Enacted

Draft registration line at Jefferson Streetcar Barn
in Seattle on October 16, 1940

When looking at the world today, it is quite different than it was just a short time ago in 1940. Americans today are spoiled; we are currently living in one of the most peaceful times in world history. Democracy across the global has fostered a world in which many disputes can be solved with words rather than weapons. Today men and women willingly volunteer to proudly serve their country. Contrary to today, 1940 was a scary time to be a young American man, due to tensions surrounding World War II.

Prior to America’s entrance in the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 into law [i]. This act required all men between the ages 21 and 35 to register for the draft. Originally the service time was twelve months. In 1941, the term was expanded to encompass a longer term of duty and a larger population of men that could be conscripted. In total, 10,110,104 men were drafted for the war. On October 29th, 1940, the first lottery for the draft was held, officially bringing the first men into the military for World War II through conscription.[ii] 

Controversy casted a shadow over the draft during this time; this was very prevalent in minority communities. The African-American and Japanese populations were affected more harshly than any other groups. During this time over 100,000 Japanese-Americans, many of whom had little to no connection with Japan other than ancestry, were sent and imprisoned in internment camps. The other group, African-Americans, was still battling for basic rights that we all share today. Abroad, these men were fighting for freedom for their country. In their country, they were fighting for freedom for themselves. Throughout the time, most were forced to serve in segregated regiments. Of the ten million men that served in the military for WWII, over one million of them were African-Americans. Despite this blatant racial segregation and lack of equality, these two groups were asked to do the same things that whites were doing while at the same time fighting battles of their own. The draft and World War II took a serious toll on Americans of all walks of life because of the duel front that was created both by weapons abroad and hypocritical rhetoric at home.

- Nick M. and Matthew G.




[i] Andrew Glass. Politico "Congress enacts first peacetime draft law: Sept. 14, 1940." Accessed October 24, 2013. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5792.html.

[ii] David Wilma. "First peacetime draft in U.S. history takes effect on October 16, 1940.." Accessed October 24, 2013. http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5572.

October 28, 1919 - the Volstead Act passed.

October 28, on this day in history in 1919 the Volstead Act was passed. The Volstead act was passed to push the implementation of the 18th amendment. Andrew J. Volstead had the job of sponsoring the legislation, but Wayne Wheeler was the author of the bill. Prohibition was a direct result from the Volstead act.[1] It was titled "An act to prohibit intoxicating beverages, and to regulate the manufacture, production, use, and sale of high-proof spirits for other than beverage purposes, and to insure an ample supply of alcohol and promote its use in scientific research and in the development of fuel, dye, and other lawful industries."[2] The Volstead act was vetoed by Woodrow Wilson but on that same day congress over rode the veto to pass the bill. [3]

The Volstead act was an act that showed the times in America was changing. The progressive movement was in full swing during this time and the Temperance movement within it was calling for reformative legislation on alcohol laws.[4] The Volstead Act was important because not only did it show the power of the American government, by Congress overriding a Presidential veto, but it lead to an amendment to the United States constitution, that was later repealed. The constitutional amendment that was passed because of this act, the 18th, was later repealed by the 21st, showing the people that the country was able to regulate itself and fix the mistakes they made. The act was initially received greatly by the people, until the realized what they were giving up and effectively made criminals of almost the entirety of the United States population, including members of congress and the president.[5] The Volstead Act was something that will go down in history as what seemed like a good idea on paper, but that would never really pan out in reality.

- Justyn Z. and Sam K.




[1] Hanson, David J. "The Volstead Act." Alcohol Problems and Solutions. http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/Volstead-Act.html#.UmmtYqWTOfQ (accessed October 25, 2013).
[2] Hanson, David J.
[3] Hanson, David J.
[4] Hanson, David J.
[5] Hanson, David J.