Clarence Thomas (left) with President George H.W. Bush. 

After a bitter confirmation hearing, the U.S. Senate voted 52 to
48 to confirm Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In July 1991, Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to
sit on the Supreme Court, announced his retirement after 34
years.

President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas, a
43-year-old African American judge known for his conservative
beliefs, to fill the seat.

(between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506)

The first Columbus Day celebration took place on October
12, 1792, when the Columbian Order of New York, better
known as Tammany Hall, held an event to commemorate
the 300th anniversary of the historic landing.
 

In 1966, Mariano A. Lucca, from Buffalo, New York, founded
the National Columbus Day Committee, which lobbied to
make Columbus Day a federal holiday.      

These efforts were successful and legislation to create
Columbus Day as a federal holiday was signed by then
President Lyndon Johnson (below) on June 28, 1968,
to be effective beginning in 1971.       

Painting depicting the laying of the cornerstone by President George Washington.

The cornerstone was laid for a presidential residence in the
newly designated capital city of Washington, D.C. In 1800,
President John Adams became the first president to reside
in the executive mansion, which soon became known as the
“White House” because its white-gray Virginia freestone
contrasted strikingly with the red brick of nearby buildings.

The initial construction took place over a period of eight
years, at a reported cost of $232,371.83.

John Adams
(October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826)

The White House in 1800.

On October 4, 1927, sculpting began on the face of Mount
Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota.

It would take another 12 years for the granite images of four
of America’s most revered presidents—George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt 
to be completed.

The monument was the brainchild of a South Dakota historian
named Doane Robinson, who was looking for a way to attract
more tourists to his state. He hired a sculptor named Gutzon
Borglum to carve the faces into the mountain.

The Lakota Sioux people, who consider the Black Hills to be
sacred ground, strongly opposed the project. 
    
    
    
    
    
   

Jonah LeRoy "Doane" Robinson
(October 19, 1856 – November 27, 1946)

John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum
(March 25, 1867 – March 6, 1941)

On September 26, 1960, for the first time in U.S. history, a
debate between major party presidential candidates was
broadcast on live television.

The presidential hopefuls, John F. Kennedy, a Democratic
senator of Massachusetts, and Richard M. Nixon, the vice
president of the United States, met in a Chicago studio to
discuss U.S. domestic matters.

Kennedy emerged the apparent winner from this first of
four televised debates.