The political career of John C. Breckinridge included service in the
governments of Kentucky, the United States, and the Confederate States
of America. Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was
inaugurated in 1857 as James Buchanan's vice president, and remains the
youngest person to ever hold the office. In 1860 he ran as the
presidential candidate of a dissident group of Southern Democrats and
won the electoral votes of most of the Southern states, but he finished
a distant second among four candidates, losing the election to the
Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln. Most Southern states seceded, but
Kentucky stayed in the Union. Previously elected to a U.S. Senate term
that began in 1861, Breckenridge fled the state, joined the Confederate
States Army, and was expelled from the Senate. Confederate President
Jefferson Davis appointed him Secretary of War in February 1865.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_career_of_John_C._Breckinridge>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1780:
Anglo-Spanish War: The Royal Navy gained their first major
naval victory over their European enemies in the war when they defeated
a Spanish squadron in the Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_St._Vincent_%281780%29>
1905:
Despite being blind in one eye, ice hockey player Frank McGee
set the record for most goals in a Stanley Cup game when he scored 14
against the Dawson City Nuggets.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_McGee_%28ice_hockey%29>
1920:
The League of Nations, the first worldwide intergovernmental
organisation with a focus on peace and security, held its first council
meeting in Paris.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations>
1964:
The musical Hello, Dolly! opened at the St. James Theatre on
Broadway, and went on to win ten Tony Awards, a record that stood for 37
years.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello,_Dolly!_%28musical%29>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
bounden:
1. Made obligatory; binding.
2. (archaic) Bound.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bounden>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The principal instances of mass violence in the world today are
those committed by governments within their own legally recognized
borders. Can we really say there is no response to this? Is it
acceptable that such slaughters be dismissed as civil wars, also known
as "age-old ethnic hatreds." (After all, anti-Semitism was an old
tradition in Europe; indeed, a good deal older than ancient Balkan
hatreds. Would this have justified letting Hitler kill all the Jews on
German territory?) Is it true that war never solved anything? (Ask a
black American if he or she thinks our Civil War didn't solve anything.)
War is not simply a mistake, a failure to communicate. There is radical
evil in the world, which is why there are just wars.
--Susan Sontag
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag>