50+ Lifestyles

Historical Facts of 1820 and 1920

By Eloise Graham

Indiana University Bloomington is founded as the Indiana State Seminary in January, 1820. It was later renamed Indiana College in 1846

March 15, 1820 Maine is admitted as the 23rd state of the union

In June, delegates in St. Louis, Missouri Territory approved a proposed state constitution, proclaiming that they “do mutually agree to form and establish a free and independent republic” by the name of “The State of Missouri.”

The U. S. Supreme Court case known simply as The Antelope arises…

when a U. S. Treasury cutter captures a ship of the same name. It was transporting 281 Africans who had been captured as slaves, in violation of the 1819 law prohibiting slave trade.

Mt. Rainier erupts over what is now Seattle.

Now, 100 years later . . .

The League of Nations was established.

In an address to Congress in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson presented what he called “The Fourteen Points”. In 1920, he traveled to Paris to help negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. The Fourteen Points were enthusiastically adopted by diplomats, and became a framework for the League of Nations. In January 1920 the League held its first Executive Council.

America had a de-facto woman president.

While campaigning for the U. S. to accept the League of Nations, President Wilson suffered a blood clot that caused paralysis, partial blindness and brain damage. For the remainder of his term, First Lady Edith Wilson, stepped in and assumed his role. She controlled access to the president and made policy on his behalf.

America sustained its worst terror attack to date.

On September 16, 1920, a horse-drawn cart carrying a massive, improvised explosive was detonated on the busiest corner on Wall Street. Described as “two sheets of flame enveloping the whole width of Wall Street and as high as tenth story of tall buildings.” It was the worst terrorist in American history, unsurpassed in horror until the Oklahoma Bombing in 1995.

J. Edgar Hoover began his ascent.

As a result of numerous bombings in 1919, the Attorney General mounted a campaign to capture and deport foreign radicals. 1920 saw a spectacular raid in which thousands of accused across the country were arrested in a single swoop. The organizer of this raid was a young lawyer named J Edgar Hoover.

Women gained the right to vote.

By 1920, every state west of the Mississippi River were allowed to vote. Only nine states in the east didn’t allow women to vote. The last “yes” vote to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment was cast by Tennessee on August 18,1920.

The Constitution was twice amended in a single year.

The Eighteenth Amendment prohibiting alcohol in the United States was passed ion January 24, 1920.