TIM MAGUIRE

The modern United States received its crowning star when
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation
admitting Hawaii (Native spelling: Hawai‘i) into the Union
as the 50th state (above).

On August 17, 1998, President Bill Clinton became the
first sitting president to testify before the Office of
Independent Counsel as the subject of a grand-jury
investigation.

The testimony came after a four-year investigation into
Clinton and his wife Hillary’s alleged involvement in
several scandals, including accusations of sexual
harassment, potentially illegal real-estate deals and
suspected “cronyism” involved in the firing of White
House travel-agency personnel.

The independent prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, then
uncovered an affair between Clinton and a White
House intern named Monica Lewinsky.

When questioned about the affair, Clinton denied it,
which led Starr to charge the president with perjury
and obstruction of justice, which in turn prompted
his testimony on August 17.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Social
Security Act on August 14, 1935.

FDR commended Congress for what he considered to be
a “patriotic” act.

Roosevelt had taken the helm of the country in 1932 in the
midst of the Great Depression, the nation’s worst economic
crisis.

The Social Security Act (SSA) was in keeping with his other
“New Deal” programs, including the establishment of the
Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation
Corps, which attempted to hoist America out of the Great
Depression by putting Americans back to work.

Although it was initially created to combat unemployment,
Social Security now functions primarily as a powerful safety
net for retirees and the disabled, and provides death benefits
to taxpayer dependents.

The Social Security system has remained popular and relatively unchanged since 1935.