Suez Canal inauguration oil Painting with Ottoman Turkish, Egyptian and French Flags.

The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red seas,
was inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony attended by French
Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. 

In 1854, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the former French consul to Cairo, secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build
a canal 100 miles across the Isthmus of Suez. An international team
of engineers drew up a construction plan, and in 1856 the Suez
Canal Company was formed and granted the right to operate the
canal for 99 years after completion of the work.

Construction began in April 1859, and at first digging was done by
hand with picks and shovels wielded by forced laborers. Later,
European workers with dredgers and steam shovels arrived.

Rare actual photo of the Suez Canal November 16, 1869

On January 20, 1961, on the newly renovated east front of the
United States Capitol, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was inaugurated
as the 35th president of the United States.

The ceremony began with a religious invocation and prayers, and then 
African American opera singer Marian  Anderson sang “The Star-
Spangled Banner,” and Robert Frost recited his poem “The Gift
Outright.” Kennedy was administered the oath of office by 
Chief Justice Earl Warren.

During his famous inauguration address, Kennedy, the youngest candidate
ever elected to the presidency and the country’s first Catholic president, 
declared  that “the torch has been passed to a new generation of 
Americans” and appealed to Americans to “ask not what your
country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

TIM MAGUIRE

SANDY KOZEL

Analysts have argued the election of 1968 was a major realigning election
as it permanently disrupted the New Deal Coalition that had dominated
presidential politics for 36 years.

On this day in 1925, Mrs. Nellie Tayloe Ross was sworn in as 
governor of Wyoming She was the first female governor in
the United States.

Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross seated at her desk (right) in the
Governor’s Office, Wyoming State Capitol Building.

U.S. Representative and former singer-songwriter Salvatore Phillip
“Sonny” Bono died on this day in 1998. He hit a tree while skiing at
Heavenly Mountain Resort near South Lake Tahoe, California. The
results of an autopsy showed no drugs or alcohol in his body.

Sonny Bono and Cher

Sonny Bono’s headstone in Desert Memorial Park, Cathedral City, CA.