Video: 'The 13th Amendment'
(Wednesday, December 6, 1865) — The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude (except as punishment for a crime), was ratified today as Georgia became the 27th state to endorse it.
Video: 'Reconstruction - black codes 14th wques'
(Friday, November 24, 1865) — Mississippi today became the first Southern state to enact laws which came to be known as “Black Codes” aimed at limiting the rights of newly freed blacks. Other states of the former Confederacy soon followed.
Video: 'The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain'
(Saturday, November 18, 1865) — Mark Twain’s first literary success, the original version of his short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” was first published today in The New York Saturday Press under the title “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog.”
Video: 'Ken Burns The Civil War Episode 9 The Better Angels of Our Nature 1865 Ken Burns Docum' (Nov. 10, 1865, at 44:45)
(Friday, November 10, 1865, 10:32 a.m. local time) — Henry Wirz, a Swiss-born Confederate officer in the American Civil War best known for his command of Camp Sumter, the Confederate prisoner-of-war camp near Andersonville, Georgia, was hanged today at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington for conspiracy and murder relating to his command of the camp.
Video: 'Presidential Minute With Warren G. Harding'
(Thursday, November 2, 1865) — Warren Gamaliel Harding, the 29th President of the United States (1921-1923), was born today in Blooming Grove, Ohio.
Video: 'Whymper's first ascent Matterhorn EN'
(Friday, July 14, 1865, 1:40 p.m. local time) — The Matterhorn, straddling Italy and Switzerland, was summited today as a seven-member rope party led by British climber Edward Whymper reached the peak. Four members of the party would fall to their deaths during their descent, but Whymper and two guides would survive.
Video: 'Ken Burns The Civil War: Episode 9 The Better Angels of Our Nature (1865) |Ken Burns Docum' (July 7, 1865, at 31:48)
(Friday, July 7, 1865, 1:26 p.m. local time) — Four people, including Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, were hanged today in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary courtyard in Washington, D.C., after being convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln.
Surratt was the first woman to be executed by the U.S. federal government.
Video: 'Started by Abolitionists in 1865, The Nation Magazine Marks 150 Years of Publishing Rebel Voices'
(Thursday, July 6, 1865) — The weekly publication The Nation, the self-described “flagship of the left,” made its debut today.
Video: 'History of The United States SECRET SERVICE Documentary HD Channel Official'
(Wednesday, July 5, 1865) — With a reported one third of the currency in circulation being counterfeit at the time, the Secret Service Division of the U.S. Treasury Department was founded today in Washington D.C. with the mission of suppressing counterfeit currency.
Video: 'Ken Burns The Civil War: Episode 9 The Better Angels of Our Nature (1865) |Ken Burns Docum' (July 4, 1865 at 37:57)
(Tuesday, July 4, 1865) — Elisha Hunt Rhodes, an American soldier who served for the entire duration of the American Civil War, wrote today in Halls Hill, Virginia, about his fifth (and what would turn out to be his final) 4th of July holiday while serving in the Union Army.
