1965 US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, prohibiting voting discrimination against minorities.
Month: August 2025
HOW THE REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC PARTIES GOT THEIR ANIMAL SYMBOLS
The origins of the Democratic donkey can be traced to the 1828 presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson when his opponents called him a jackass. Jackson was amused by this and included an image of the animal in his campaign posters. In the 1870s political cartoonist Thomas Nast helped popularize the donkey as a symbol for the entire Democratic Party.
The elephant was featured as a Republican symbol in a few cartoons during the Civil War, it took hold when Thomas Nast used it in an 1874 Harper’s Weekly cartoon titled “The Third-Term Panic.”
By Elizabeth Nix, https://tinyurl.com/y3tdw3dn
THE HISTORY OF ‘UNCLE SAM’
“The origin of the term Uncle Sam, though disputed, is usually associated with a businessman from Troy, New York, Samuel Wilson, known affectionately as “Uncle Sam” Wilson. The barrels of beef that he supplied the army during the War of 1812 were stamped “U.S.” to indicate government property. That identification is said to have led to the widespread use of the nickname Uncle Sam for the United States, and a resolution passed by Congress in 1961 recognized Wilson as the namesake of the national symbol” (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Uncle-Sam).
