On July 2, 1964,  President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law     
the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony
at the White House.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 – 1945)

On this day in history, June 22, 1944, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt signed the GI Bill, an act of legislation designed
to compensate returning members of the armed services
for their service and efforts in World War II.

The legislation is officially known as the Servicemen’s
Readjustment Act of 1944. (History.com)

During a White House ceremony attended by James S. Brady (left) President
Bill Clinton signed the Brady handgun-control bill into law. The law requires
a prospective handgun buyer to wait five business days while the authorities
check on his or her background, during which time the sale is approved or
prohibited based on an established set of criteria.

In 1981, James Brady, who served as press secretary for President Ronald
Reagan, was shot in the head by John Hinckley, Jr., during an attempt on
President Reagan’s life outside a hotel in Washington, D.C. Reagan himself
was shot in his left lung but recovered and returned to the White House
within two weeks. Brady, the most seriously injured in the attack, was
momentarily pronounced dead at the hospital but survived and began an impressive recovery from his debilitating brain injury.

President Ronald Reagan (center) moments before he was shot in an assassination attempt, March 30, 1981.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill officially establishing the
fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

The tradition of celebrating the holiday on Thursday dates back to the early
history of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, when post-
harvest holidays were celebrated on the weekday regularly set aside as
“Lecture Day,” a midweek church meeting where topical sermons were
presented. A famous Thanksgiving observance occurred in the autumn
of 1621, when Plymouth governor William Bradford invited local Indians
to join the Pilgrims in a three-day festival held in gratitude for the bounty
of the season.

Thanksgiving became an annual custom throughout New England in the
17th century, and in 1777 the Continental Congress declared the first
national American Thanksgiving following the Patriot victory at Saratoga
and 1789, President George Washington became the first president to
proclaim a Thanksgiving holiday, when, at the request of Congress, he
proclaimed November 26, a Thursday, as a day of national thanksgiving
for the U.S. Constitution. However, it was not until 1863, when President
Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving to officially fall on the last
Thursday of November, that the modern holiday was celebrated
nationally.

Eleanor Roosevelt watched as FDR carves the Thanksgiving turkey
at their Warm Springs, Georgia home.

President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) signed Medicare, a health insurance
program for elderly Americans, into law. At the bill-signing ceremony,
which took place at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri,
former President Harry Truman (seated right) was enrolled as Medicare’s
first beneficiary receiving the first Medicare card.         

Johnson wanted to recognize Truman, who, in 1945, had become the first
president to propose national health insurance, an initiative that was
opposed at the time by Congress.

President Lyndon Johnson (left) and President Harry S. Truman
shake hands at the Medicare Bill Signing.