Lyndon Johnson was a long time Washington politician who had served in the Senate from 1949 until his inauguration as Vice-President in January, 1961. He had been the Senate Majority Leader and was known as the "Master of the Senate" before becoming Vice-President and he became President of the United States on November 22, 1963, following the ( Read more... )

It was 56 years ago today, on June 6, 1968 at 1:44 a.m. that Robert F. Kennedy died. He was shot just over 25 hours earlier in a kitchen adjacent to the Embassy Ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel, where he had just delivered his victory speech following his winning the 1968 California Democratic Primary. He was 42 years of age.


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Bobby Baker was one of the top political advisers to Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as a leading organizer for the Democratic Party. He was so good at what he did that he was often referred to as the "101st Senator". Baker became the Senate's Secretary to the Majority Leader. Johnson brought Baker with him to the White House in 1963, but Baker's tenure ( Read more... )

Lyndon Johnson once said of his Presidency, "That bitch of a war killed the lady I really loved, the Great Society.” That single sentence sums up Johnson's legacy pretty well. The son of a Texas legislator, Johnson was a graduate of a Texas teacher's college who once taught school to impoverished Mexican-American children. He worked as a ( Read more... )

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas, when he was shot in the head, while riding in the back seat of an open-topped convertible limousine. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and charged with Kennedy's murder, but he never went to trial for the crime. Oswald himself was shot and killed two days later in the parking ( Read more... )

John F. Kennedy emerged on the political scene almost in tandem with television. Kennedy was young, photogenic and appeared vibrant. He had a full head of thick hair, a beaming smile, and a beautiful wife. He had Hollywood good looks at a time when that was just starting to matter to the public. He stood in contrast to the aging incumbent Dwight ( Read more... )

Jack Roosevelt Robinson, better known as Jackie, was an professional baseball player who became the first African American to play Major League Baseball in the modern era. Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball when the Brooklyn Dodgers put him in the lineup at first base on April 15, 1947. When the Dodgers signed Robinson, it was the ( Read more... )

Hiram Revels was the first African-American to serve in the United States Senate. But it would be almost a century before an African-American would win election to the Senate by a popular vote, another Republican. In 1967, Massachusetts would send Edward William Brooke III to the Senate, for two full terms. He represented Massachusetts in the ( Read more... )

In 1966, the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson was going through a difficult period. Johnson had enjoyed a period of success in his domestic agenda, which he called "the Great Society." It had produced meaningful civil rights legislation and the Voting Rights Act, declared war on poverty, and major health care reform with the creation of Medicare and ( Read more... )

On June 13, 1967 President Lyndon Johnson nominated Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the first African-American justice to be a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Johnson nominated Marshall to the court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark. In announcing the nomination, Johnson said that this was "the right thing to do, the ( Read more... )