Browse Items (38 total)
Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon, Photograph, 11 September 2001
On the morning of September 11, 2001 four flights were hijacked by members of the Islamic extremist group, al- Qaeda, in coordinated attack against the United States. All four hijacked planes were scheduled to be cross-country flights from the East…
Cuban Missile Crisis—Strategic Consideration, October 1962
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major event of the Cold War that took place during John F. Kennedy’s presidency. In October 1962, a United States spy plane captured evidence of the Soviet Union (present day Russia) moving nuclear weapons into Cuba…
Edmund Bradford Seeks a Pardon, 1865
The power of the president to pardon those who commit offenses against the United States is enumerated in the Article Two of the U. S. Constitution. A presidential pardon is an executive order granting clemency for a conviction of a crime, with the…
Letter Notifying the Governor that Virginia Representatives were Readmitted to Congress, 1870
The American Civil War was fought between 1861 and 1865. The war began after eleven southern states, including Virginia, seceded from the United States in the months after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in November 1860. After four years of…
President Andrew Johnson Pardons Confederate John C. Shelton, 1866
The power of the president to pardon those who commit offenses against the United States is enumerated in the Article Two of the U. S. Constitution. A presidential pardon is an executive order granting clemency for a conviction of a crime, with the…
Confederate Parole Pass, 1865
On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. The surrender effectively ended the American Civil War in Virginia, although fighting continued in…
Gettysburg Centennial Postage Stamp, Broadside, 1963
The 5-cent Battle of Gettysburg commemorative stamp is the third in a series of five stamps marking the Civil War Centennial from the U.S. Postal Service. Sales of the stamp began at the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania post office on July 1, 1963.According…
War of 1812 Caricatures
After the American Revolution, relations between the United States and Great Britain remained strained. In its long war with France, Britain imposed a blockade on neutral countries, including the United States, that disrupted shipping and trade.…
Mary Willing Byrd, Portrait, circa 1773
This portrait of Mary Willing Byrd (1740–1814) was painted early in the 1770s by artist Matthew Pratt. Born in Philadelphia, she was the daughter of a wealthy merchant and a god-daughter of Benjamin Franklin. In 1761 she married William Byrd…
An Act Freeing Enslaved Peoples Who Served as Soldiers, 1783
By 1775, approximately half a million enslaved Americans were living in the thirteen colonies. During the American Revolution, thousands of Black Americans participated. Some joined the British, while others fought with the Americans depending on who…