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On July 7, 1846, a contingent of Marines raised the American flag over Monterey, California, to mark a proclamation by U.S. consul Thomas Larkin that the territory was being annexed as a consequence of the war with Mexico. Much of the future state had already been taken from Mexico's nominal control by an uprising of American settlers under the Bear Flag. Victory in the Mexican War meant that the country gained Texas, California, and everything in between, comprising most of what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Next to the War of Independence and the Civil...

President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865. The assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is avenged,” as he jumped onto the stage and fled on horseback. Lincoln died the next morning. Booth, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and...

President Donald Trump faces a bevy of district court judges issuing restraining orders and injunctions blocking his executive actions, and Josh Hammer suggests the president take a leaf out of Abraham Lincoln’s book on the issue. Trump has responded to the orders with calls for Congress to impeach lower court judges or restrain them in other ways, and observers on the Left have claimed Trump’s actions are creating a constitutional crisis. Chief Justice John Roberts publicly chided Trump over the judicial impeachment call. Hogwash, says Hammer, a lawyer who clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit....

Today is the anniversary of the birth of America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all men are created equal. In 1858 Lincoln attained national prominence in the Republican Party as the result of the contest for the Senate seat held by Stephen Douglas. It was Lincoln’s losing campaign against...

Special Dispatches to the New-York Times. WASHINGTON, Wednesday, Feb. 8. The counting of the votes of the Electoral College was to-day the occasion of an imposing ceremony in Congress. Long before the appointed hour, the galleries were densely crowded, the diplomatic corps being fully represented. Mrs. LINCOLN was also present. At 1 o'clock the Senate made their appearance, and as they entered the hall the members of the House arose and remained standing until the Senators had taken the seats assigned them on the right of the Speaker, and the tellers, Mr. TRUMBULL, of the Senate, and Messrs. WILSON and...

All that was missing was Joe Scarborough looking into the camera and saying—à la his recent claim that the current Biden was the best Biden ever and f-you if you didn't believe it—that Jimmy Carter was the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln. Today's episode Morning Joe engaged in some world-class revisionism in praise of Carter. Incredibly, citing supposed Soviet views at the time, Scarborough credited Carter [and Mika's dad Zbigniew Brzezinski] more than Reagan, for the fall of the Soviet Union.Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

The process began when celebration of Washington’s Birthday moved to the third Monday in February. Around the same time, many states dropped their February celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Local governments have paired or replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day. The most recent calendar change is the addition of Juneteenth

In the wake of the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump, authorities are still trying to determine a motive for the shooter, a 20-year-old man from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. But the lack of publicly verifiable information about the gunman has not stopped rampant speculation about his political leanings. In a viral Facebook post, comedian and podcaster Terrence K. Williams asserted that “the Democrats” are responsible for a long line of assassinations and assassination attempts throughout American history, including the killings or attempted killings of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and former presidents Abraham Lincoln,...

Explanation: It was a night of 100,000 meteors. The Great Meteor Storm of 1833 was perhaps the most impressive meteor event in recent history. Best visible over eastern North America during the pre-dawn hours of November 13, many people -- including a young Abraham Lincoln -- were woken up to see the sky erupt in streaks and flashes. Hundreds of thousands of meteors blazed across the sky, seemingly pouring out of the constellation of the Lion (Leo). The featured image is a digitization of a wood engraving which itself was based on a painting from a first-person account. We know...

He is perhaps best known for his honesty — but a lesser-known fact about Abraham Lincoln is that the 16th president of the United States battled severe depression during his lifetime. Dr. Chris Tuell, a clinical psychotherapist and a chemical and behavioral addiction specialist at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, has studied Lincoln’s mental health struggles extensively. "Though the history books play a significant role in our perception and understanding of the ‘rail splitter’ from Illinois, it often becomes easy for us to forget that Abraham Lincoln was very human," Tuell told Fox News Digital. "Lincoln led this...

by Jeff ChildersThe New York Times ran (another) deep post-election analysis over the weekend headlined, “How Democrats Lost Their Base and Their Message.” It described what is gaining speed to potentially become the Democrats’ worst-case scenario. The article began by contrasting Trump’s 2016 and 2024 strategies. In 2016, Trump won using an electoral “Moneyball” approach, surprising Democrats by gaming out exactly which handful of key counties were needed to win the Electoral College. The 2020 election proved the Democrats learned their lesson and weren’t about to let Republicans win again through cherry-picking. During his 2020-2024 wilderness years, amidst fending off...

We meet this evening not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender of the principal insurgent army, give hope of a righteous and speedy peace, whose joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the midst of this, however; He from whom all blessings flow must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be duly promulgated. Nor must those whose harder part give us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked. Their honors must not be Parceled out with others. I myself was near the front, and...

Is there anyone more twisted and disgraceful than the ogres over at Project Lincoln? It’s quite telling that even after being ousted from polite society over grooming accusations, they’re still cheered on and funded by Biden supporters. It says a lot about the “NeverTrump” movement, right? But just when you think they’ve hit rock bottom, they manage to dig even deeper. In a bizarre attempt to take a “victory lap,” the Lincoln Project shared a clip glorifying prison shower rape in a twisted and feeble attempt to smear Steve Bannon, who was politically targeted and imprisoned by the regime. But...

There's nothing new in historians claiming that Abraham Lincoln was bisexual or gay. The "theory" took root in the 1970s during the gay awakening and has hung around on the fringes of historical scholarship ever since. Now, a serious documentary purports to "prove" the point using newly unearthed letters, documents, and photographs. Abraham Lincoln slept in the same bed with men — a common practice in 1840s America where a judicial circuit rider like Lincoln would have been forced to share a bed with other travelers while practicing law — and also wrote "passionately" about male friends and acquaintances. What...

War on a Thousand FrontsWe are a nation divided over a hundred issues, bristling over a thousand fronts, erupting on countless great and small battlefields among us, as we are becoming a nation of diametric opposites.Early in his political career, Abraham Lincoln made a very observant comment on America’s unique geo-political circumstances in the world when he noted: “All the armies of Europe and Asia…could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. … If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be...

Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann appeared to "hope" that former President Trump would be assassinated in a recent X post that prompted calls for his banishment from the social media platform. Olbermann was referring to the Biden-Harris HQ X account flagging a clip of Trump saying he had been persecuted worse than any president in history, including Abraham Lincoln. "Trump says he has been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated," the Biden campaign account posted on Saturday. "There's always the hope," Olbermann wrote, linking to the post. ...

Joe Biden attended a black-tie event at the White House, for governors who were in town for the National Governors Association Winter Meeting. But his confusion seems to be increasing. Even when he has a teleprompter, the speeches are becoming more rambling and disconnected. He spoke to the governors about working together to get things done and he referenced a quote from "the man behind me here." He claimed politics has gotten "too bitter." He made an attempt to quote Abraham Lincoln's "better angels of our nature" remark. It did not go well, and I wonder if he even forgot...

Abraham Lincoln didn’t just free the slaves and preserve the Union. America’s 16th (and arguably greatest-ever) president also pardoned the current chief executive’s paternal great-great-grandfather after he was sentenced to hard labor at a military prison, newly unearthed documents show. President Biden’s ancestor, Moses Robinette, was put in the dock after he came to blows with one John Alexander, a fellow civilian employee of the Union Army, on March 21, 1864, according to records found by the Washington Post. Alexander, a brigade wagon master, was left bloodied by wounds that came from Robinette’s pocket knife and the presidential forebear was...

Remember Lincoln for his courage and his political perseverance in saving the Union, but also remember the source of his courage.Not long ago, the Bible was considered a foundational book for American society — a work that stood alongside the Declaration of Independence for its contributions to American politics. However, few American presidents have been shaped by their reading of the Bible as Abraham Lincoln was. From a skeptic and deist to a daily reader who made more than 200 references to Scripture in his speeches and other writings, Lincoln’s transformation as an inspirational leader coincided with his transformed relationship...

Documents discovered at the National Archives in Washington show that former President Abraham Lincoln pardoned the great-great-grandfather of President Joe Biden, a Union Army civilian employee named Moses Robinette, The Washington Post reported Monday. Joseph Robinette Biden's ancestral line has long been known and includes Moses Robinette among his paternal ancestors from western Maryland, but little has been chronicled about the man until his court-martial records were discovered. The story dates to March 21, 1864 during the Civil War, when a fight broke out in one of the mess tents near Beverly Ford, Virginia, between Robinette and Union Army civilian...