World Leaders and Politicians

James A. Garfield, who would later become the 20th U.S. President, delivered the keynote address at the first major Decoration Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in 1868. At the time of the speech, he was serving as a major general and U.S. Congressman.

General John A. Logan, leader of an organization for Northern Civil War veterans, officially called for a nationwide "Decoration Day" on May 30, 1868, to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers.

The official title of the leader of the United Nations is the Secretary-General. This role serves as the chief administrative officer of the organization and spokesperson for the interests of the world's peoples. António Guterres assumed this position in 2017 as the ninth Secretary-General.

Benjamin Franklin proposed the Albany Plan of Union at the Albany Congress in 1754, famously promoting it with his 'Join, or Die' political cartoon. The plan was an early attempt to unite the colonies under a single government for defense.

Babe Ruth's real name was George Herman Ruth Jr. He acquired the nickname 'Babe' early in his professional baseball career when teammates and coaches referred to him as a young prospect.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton selected several items, including a Twinkie, to be placed in the National Millennium Time Capsule to represent American pop culture.

Richard Nixon was the 37th President of the United States and became the only president to resign from office, doing so in 1974 due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal. Other presidents like Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and George W. Bush were not involved in this 1970s political scandal.

James Meredith was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi in 1962. In 1966, he organized the 'March Against Fear' to encourage voter registration, during which he was shot and wounded by a sniper.

Thurgood Marshall, serving as the chief counsel for the NAACP, successfully argued the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case before the Supreme Court in 1954, and later became the first African American Supreme Court Justice.

Thurgood Marshall, who previously argued the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967. Sandra Day O'Connor was the first female justice, and Clarence Thomas was the second African American justice.

Martin Luther King Jr. studied Mahatma Gandhi's successful use of nonviolent resistance in India's struggle for independence. King adopted these principles of nonviolence and civil disobedience as the foundation of the American civil rights movement.

The shantytowns that appeared on the outskirts of cities during the Great Depression were called "Hoovervilles." This name was a direct, sarcastic reference to President Herbert Hoover, whom many Americans blamed for failing to alleviate the economic crisis. Other items, like "Hoover blankets" (newspapers) and "Hoover flags" (empty pockets turned inside out), also carried his name.

General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was the most notable casualty of the Battle of Chancellorsville. He was accidentally shot by his own Confederate sentries in the confusion of nightfall and died of pneumonia a few days later after his arm was amputated. His death was a severe blow to General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate war effort.

Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, known as the Gracchi brothers, were Roman tribunes who sought to address economic inequality by proposing land reforms to redistribute public land to poor citizens. Their efforts met with fierce opposition from the senatorial elite, leading to both of their violent deaths.

A young George Washington led a Virginia militia force that ambushed a French patrol at the Battle of Jumonville Glen in 1754, which helped spark the French and Indian War, a conflict that escalated into the global Seven Years' War. His actions in the Ohio River Valley set off a chain reaction of alliances and conflicts across Europe and its colonies.