On October 5, 1947, President Harry Truman (left/above) made the
first-ever televised presidential address from the White House,
asking Americans to cut back on their use of grain in order to
help starving Europeans.

At the time of Truman’s food-conservation speech, Europe was
still recovering from World War II and suffering from famine.

Truman, the 33rd commander in chief, worried that if the U.S. didn’t provide food aid, his administration’s Marshall Plan for European economic recovery would fall apart.

He asked farmers and distillers to reduce grain use and requested
that the public voluntarily forgo meat on Tuesdays, eggs and
poultry on Thursdays and save a slice of bread each day.

On October 3, 1863, expressing gratitude for a pivotal Union Army
victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announced that
the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on
November 26, 1863.

The speech, which was actually written by Secretary of State
William Seward, declared that the fourth Thursday of every
November thereafter would be considered an official U.S.
holiday of Thanksgiving.

William Henry Seward
(May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872)

On October 1, 1890, an act of Congress created Yosemite National
Park, home of such natural wonders as Half Dome and the giant
sequoia trees. Environmental trailblazer John Muir (1838-1914)
and his colleagues campaigned for the congressional action,
which was signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison and
paved the way for generations of hikers, campers and nature
lovers, along with countless “Don’t Feed the Bears” signs.

Benjamin Harrison
(August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901)

John Muir 
(April 21, 1838 – December 24, 1914)

Riding through a giant sequoia tree.

For the first time in U.S. history, a debate between major party presidential candidates was shown on 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, partly owing to his greater ease before the
camera than Nixon, who, unlike Kennedy, seemed nervous and
declined to wear makeup.

Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine
Black students entered all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas on September 25, 1957. Three weeks earlier, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had surrounded the school with National
Guard troops to prevent its federal court-ordered racial integration.

After a tense standoff, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized
the Arkansas National Guard and sent 1,000 army paratroopers to
Little Rock to enforce the court order.

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
(October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969)