Featured Documents

New York Ratification of the Bill of Rights

On September 25, 1790, by joint resolution, Congress passed 12 articles of amendment to the new Constitution, now known as the Bill of Rights.

The Treaty of Kanagawa

On March 31, 1854, the first treaty between Japan and the United States was signed. The Treaty was the result of an encounter between an elaborately planned mission to open Japan .

Whistler's Survey Etching

One of the known works completed by Whistler during his brief federal service, "Sketch of Anacapa Island," 1854.

The District of Columbia Emancipation Act

On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia. Passage of this act came 9 months before President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation.

The Emancipation Proclamation

The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Lt. Henry O. Flipper

Born into slavery in Thomasville, Georgia, on March 21, 1856, Henry Ossian Flipper was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1873.

The 19th Amendment

By 1916, almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united behind the goal of a constitutional amendment. When New York adopted woman suffrage in 1917 and President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918, the political balance began to shift.

Japanese Surrender Document

... That morning, on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the Japanese envoys Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu signed their names on the Instrument of Surrender. The time was recorded as 4 minutes past 9 o'clock.

The Marshall Plan

On June 5, 1947, in a commencement address at Harvard University, Secretary of State George C. Marshall first called for American assistance in restoring the economic infrastructure of Europe. Western Europe responded favorably, and the Truman administration proposed legislation.

The North Atlantic Treaty

This alliance created a military and political complement to the Marshall Plan for European economic recovery by establishing a mutual defense pact against possible aggression from the Soviet Union.

A Letter from Jackie Robinson

Having captured the attention of the American public in the ballpark, he now delivered the message that racial integration in every facet of American society would enrich the nation, just as surely as it had enriched the sport of baseball.

Astronaut John Glenn and the Friendship 7 Mission

With great skill, courage, and grace, Glenn piloted the spacecraft manually as the autopilot function failed, and Mission Control wondered whether the capsule's life-saving heat shield would hold while reentering the atmosphere.

Apollo 11 Flight Plan

The flight plan describes tasks to be done 102 to 103 hours into the flight. Immediately after landing, Armstrong and Aldrin reviewed their lunar contact checklist and reached a decision on "stay/no stay." Armstrong then reported to Houston: "The Eagle has landed."