CAMILLE  BOHANNON      

In an evening televised address on August 8, 1974, President
Richard M. Nixon announced his intention to become the first
president in American history to resign. With impeachment
proceedings underway against him for his involvement in the
Watergate affair, Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from
the public and Congress to leave the White House. 

“By taking this action,” he said in a solemn address from the
Oval Office, “I hope that I will have hastened the start of the
process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.”

Just before noon the next day, Nixon officially ended his term
as the 37th president of the United States. Before departing
with his family in a helicopter from the White House lawn, he
smiled farewell and enigmatically raised his arms in a victory
or peace salute. The helicopter door was then closed, and the
Nixon family began their journey home to San Clemente,
California. Minutes later, Vice President Gerald R. Ford was
sworn in as the 38th president of the United States in the East
Room of the White House.

SANDY KOZEL

President Lyndon Johnson signs Medicare Bill into law as former President Harry Truman watches.

On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson 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 was
enrolled as Medicare’s first beneficiary and received 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 Roosevelt (left) with his Cabinet.

On July 26, 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 
was born when U.S. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte (below) 
orders a group of newly hired federal investigators to report to
Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch of the Department of Justice.

One year later, the Office of the Chief Examiner was renamed
the Bureau of Investigation, and in 1935 it became the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.

  
Charles Joseph Bonaparte 
(June 9, 1851 – June 28, 1921)

Stanley Wellington Finch
(July 20, 1872 – 22 November 1951)

The Bureau’s first home, the Department of Justice building
at 1435 K Street in N.W. Washington, D.C.