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Plan For Establishing Uniformity In The Coinage, Weights, And Measures Of The United States
The "Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States" was a report submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives on July 13, 1790, by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. At the First United States Congress, which met in 1789 when the decimal metric system had not yet been developed in France, the system of units to be used in the U.S. was one point of discussion. Under the Constitution (article I, section 8), the Congress has the constitutional right to decide on a standard of weights and measures. On January 8, 1790, George Washington urged Congress to address the need for the uniform system of weights and measures, and on January 15, 1790, the House of Representatives requested Thomas Jefferson to draw up a plan. The decimal dollar had already been agreed upon in principle in 1785, but would not be implemented until after the enactment of the Coinage Act of 1792. After correspondence with William Waring and others, Jefferson proposed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Secretary Of State
The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Cabinet, and ranks the first in the U.S. presidential line of succession among Cabinet secretaries. Created in 1789 with Thomas Jefferson as its first office holder, the secretary of state represents the United States to foreign countries, and is therefore considered analogous to a foreign minister in other countries. The secretary of state is nominated by the president of the United States and, following a confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, is confirmed by the United States Senate. The secretary of state, along with the secretary of the treasury, secretary of defense, and attorney general, are generally regarded as the four most crucial Cabinet members because of the importance of their respective dep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Furlong
A furlong is a measure of distance in imperial units and United States customary units equal to one eighth of a mile, equivalent to 660 feet, 220 yards, 40 rods, 10 chains or approximately 201 metres. It is now mostly confined to use in horse racing, where in many countries it is the standard measurement of race lengths, and agriculture, where is it used to measure rural field lengths and distances. In the United States, some states use older definitions for surveying purposes, leading to variations in the length of the furlong of two parts per million, or about . This variation is too small to have practical consequences in most applications. Using the international definition of the yard as exactly 0.9144 metres, one furlong is 201.168 metres, and five furlongs are about 1 kilometre ( exactly). History The name ''furlong'' derives from the Old English words ' (furrow) and ' (long). Dating back at least to early Anglo-Saxon times, it originally referred to the length o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Survey Township
A survey township, sometimes called a Congressional township or just township, as used by the United States Public Land Survey System, is a nominally-square area of land that is nominally six U.S. survey miles (about 9.66 km) on a side. Each 36-square-mile (about 93.2 km2) township is divided into 36 sections of one square mile (640 acres, roughly 2.6 km2) each. The sections can be further subdivided for sale. The townships are referenced by a numbering system that locates the township in relation to a principal meridian (north-south) and a base line (east-west). For example, Township 2 North, Range 4 East is the 4th township east of the principal meridian and the 2nd township north of the base line. Township (exterior) lines were originally surveyed and platted by the US General Land Office using contracted private survey crews. Later survey crews subdivided the townships into section (interior) lines. Virtually all lands covered by this system were sold accord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Land Rush
A land run or land rush was an event in which previously restricted land of the United States was opened to Homestead Act, homestead on a first-arrival basis. Lands were opened and sold first-come or by bid, or won by lottery, or by means other than a run. The settlers, no matter how they acquired occupancy, purchased the land from the General Land Office, United States Land Office. For former Indian lands, the Land Office distributed the sales funds to the various tribal entities, according to previously negotiated terms. The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the most prominent of the land runs while the Land Run of 1893 was the largest. The opening of the former Kickapoo area in 1895 was the last use of a land run in the present area of Oklahoma. In Oklahoma After years of raids—led by the leaders of the Boomers (Oklahoma settlers), Boomers activist movement such as David L. Payne—into the central area of what would become the U.S. state of Oklahoma, Congress finally agreed to o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northwest Territory
The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Established in 1787 by the Congress of the Confederation through the Northwest Ordinance, it was the nation's first post-colonial organized incorporated territory. At the time of its creation, the territory included all the land west of Pennsylvania, northwest of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River below the Great Lakes, and what later became known as the Boundary Waters. The region was ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Paris of 1783. Throughout the Revolutionary War, the region was part of the British Province of Quebec. It spanned all or large parts of six eventual U.S. states (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the northeastern part of Minnesota). Reduced to present-day Ohio, eastern Michigan and a sliver of sout ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northwest Indian War
The Northwest Indian War (1786–1795), also known by other names, was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory fought between the United States and a united group of Native American nations known today as the Northwestern Confederacy. The United States Army considers it the first of the American Indian Wars. Following centuries of conflict for control of this region, it was granted to the new United States by the Kingdom of Great Britain in article 2 of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War. The treaty used the Great Lakes as a border between British territory and the United States. This granted significant territory to the United States, initially known as the Ohio Country and the Illinois Country, which had previously been prohibited to new settlements. However, numerous Native American peoples inhabited this region, and the British maintained a military presence and continued policies that supported their Native allies. With t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Assembly (French Revolution)
During the French Revolution, the National Assembly (french: Assemblée nationale), which existed from 17 June 1789 to 29 September 1791, was a revolutionary assembly of the Kingdom of France formed by the representatives of the Third Estate (commoners) of the Estates-General. Thereafter (until replaced by the Legislative Assembly on 30 Sept 1791), it was known as the National Constituent Assembly (), although the shorter form was favored. Background The Estates-General had been called on 5 May 1789 to manage France's financial crisis, but promptly fell to squabbling over its own structure. Its members had been elected to represent the estates of the realm: the 1st Estate (the clergy), the 2nd Estate (the nobility) and the 3rd Estate (which, in theory, represented all of the commoners and, in practice, represented the bourgeoisie). The Third Estate had been granted "double representation"—that is, twice as many delegates as each of the other feudal estates—but at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meridian (geography)
In geography and geodesy, a meridian is the locus connecting points of equal longitude, which is the angle (in degrees or other units) east or west of a given prime meridian (currently, the IERS Reference Meridian). In other words, it is a line of longitude. The position of a point along the meridian is given by that longitude and its latitude, measured in angular degrees north or south of the Equator. On a Mercator projection or on a Gall-Peters projection, each meridian is perpendicular to all circles of latitude. A meridian is half of a great circle on Earth's surface. The length of a meridian on a modern ellipsoid model of Earth (WGS 84) has been estimated as . Pre-Greenwich The first prime meridian was set by Eratosthenes in 200 BCE. This prime meridian was used to provide measurement of the earth, but had many problems because of the lack of latitude measurement. Many years later around the 19th century there were still concerns of the prime meridian. Multiple loc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Morris (financier)
Robert Morris Jr. (January 20, 1734May 8, 1806) was an English-born merchant and a Founding Father of the United States. He served as a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, the Second Continental Congress, and the United States Senate, and he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution. From 1781 to 1784, he served as the Superintendent of Finance of the United States, becoming known as the "Financier of the Revolution." Along with Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin, he is widely regarded as one of the founders of the financial system of the United States. Born in Liverpool, Morris migrated to North America in his teens, quickly becoming a partner in a successful shipping firm based in Philadelphia. In the aftermath of the French and Indian War, Morris joined with other merchants in opposing British tax policies such as the 1765 Stamp Act. By 1775 he was the richest man in America. After the outbreak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Monroe
James Monroe ( ; April 28, 1758July 4, 1831) was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was the last president of the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation; his presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings, concluding the First Party System era of American politics. He is perhaps best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas while effectively asserting U.S. dominance, empire, and hegemony in the hemisphere. He also served as governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, and the eighth Secretary of War. Born into a slave-owning planter family in Westmoreland County, Virginia, Monroe served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. After studying law u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Madison
James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. Madison was born into a prominent slave-owning planter family in Virginia. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and the Continental Congress during and after the American Revolutionary War. Unsatisfied with the weak national government established by the Articles of Confederation, he helped organize the Constitutional Convention, which produced a new constitution. Madison's Virginia Plan was the basis for the Convention's deliberations, and he was an influential voice at the convention. He became one of the leaders in the movement to ratify the Constitution, and joined Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in writing '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first United States secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795. Born out of wedlock in Charlestown, Nevis, Hamilton was orphaned as a child and taken in by a prosperous merchant. He pursued his education in New York before serving as an artillery officer in the American Revolutionary War. Hamilton saw action in the New York and New Jersey campaign, served for years as an aide to General George Washington, and helped secure American victory at the Siege of Yorktown. After the war, Hamilton served as a delegate from New York to the Congress of the Confederation. He resigned to practice law and founded the Bank of New York. In 1786, Hamilton led the Annapolis Convention to replace the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution of the United States, which he helped ratify by writing 51 of the 85 installments of ''The Federalist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
