Jeanette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress, from the state of Montana in 1916. Rankin was a prominent member of the female suffrage movement in the early Twentieth Century and helped achieve full voting rights for women in both Montana and Washington. Like many influential women of her time, Rankin believed that the corruption and backwardness of American politics was a result of the lack of feminine participation in government. Aside from her position as a champion of female rights, Rankin is also well known for being a dedicated pacifist—she was the only member of Congress to vote against declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Rankin actually achieved her position in Congress before women had full suffrage rights in the United States (1920). At the moment of her election, in 1916, women were voting in several different forms in the majority of American states.

Much of the respective campaigns of each party in the 1992 election centered on the state of the economy at the time and its minimal growth during the Bush administration. The Democrats were able to refer to Bush’s promises not to raise taxes, which his administration had gone back on, and a floundering economy as evidence of the Republican Party’s ineffectual leadership.

When facing a question like this, particularly regarding modern elections, if you do not know the answer it is always most prudent to guess that it was the economy that was the biggest issue. Generally speaking, people care about that which affects themselves, and the economy most obviously affects every voter. The other issues were all part of the campaign platforms of both parties, but the economic arguments made the difference. 

The Eighteenth Amendment, which ushered in the Prohibition Era with its illegal bars known as speak-easys, prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcohol.  The Amendment was repealed on December 5th, 1933 with the Twenty-First Amendment.

Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, has been the only president to resign.  He did so as a consequence of his involvement in the Watergate Scandal.

The Teapot Dome Scandal occurred during the Presidency of Warren G. Harding. Harding’s Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, leased nationalized oil reserves to private companies in exchange for bribes. In 1922 the practice was investigated by Senator Thomas Walsh and once the full details emerged the Harding administration suffered a massive drop in public support.

The Progressive Party of Theodore Roosevelt campaigned in the election of 1912. The Progressive Party was formed when Roosevelt and his supporters split from the Republican Party of President Taft. In the subsequent election, however, Roosevelt only succeeded in splitting the votes that would usually go to the Republican Party. His party gained twenty-seven percent of the popular vote, more than twenty-three percent achieved by Taft. But, less than the forty-two percent of votes that went to Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson. 

The Espionage Act of 1917 was passed during World War One. Its stated intention was to prohibit any interference with the working of the United States Army and to eliminate any assistance that might have been provided to the enemies; however, it was quickly amended to outlaw any form of dissent or protest against the war effort. It famously resulted in the arrest of Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs (as well as, much later, the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg). The Act has consistently held up in the Supreme Court despite its apparent violation of the Freedom of Speech. 

After serving seven years as President, having ascended from the Vice Presidency on the death of William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt refused to seek reelection in 1908, and handpicked William Howard Taft as his successor. During Taft's four years in office, a huge rift develop between Taft and Roosevelt. In 1912, Roosevelt attempted to get the Republican nomination for president as a liberal influence in contrast to Taft. After he was unsuccessful, he helped start the Progressive Party, colloquially known as the Bull Moose Party, and ran as its candidate for President. Woodrow Wilson, a moderate who was Governor of New Jersey, won the Democratic Party's nomination in 1912 then defeated both Roosevelt and Taft for the Presidency. Roosevelt's 27% of the vote remains the highest any third party candidate has received in an election since the Civil War.

The dropping of the atomic bombs was authorized by President Harry Truman. In the weeks leading up to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States issued warnings to the Japanese government that if they did not surrender—immediately and unconditionally—then Japan faced absolute annihilation; however, the Japanese government policy and cultural mindset at this time forbade surrender. The United States began by firebombing many Japanese cities and plans were laid for a ground invasion of Japan. Truman considered his options: he could either authorize a ground invasion of Japan, risking hundreds of thousands of American lives and many more Japanese lives, or he could attempt to end the war in one dramatic and abhorrent atomic attack. He picked the latter. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6^th, 1945—Nagasaki three days later. The devastation caused by these bombings was unprecedented in human history—they remain the only nuclear attacks the world has ever witnessed. The Japanese government realized nothing could be done in the face of this new overwhelming technology and surrendered unconditionally a few days later. Historians still debate the decision Truman made: many condemn him, while many others praise him.

By 1937 Franklin D. Roosevelt had grown weary of the Supreme Court’s older, more conservative judges. Throughout the Great Depression Roosevelt had attempted to pass massive relief and reform bills to drag the country out of depression and ensure that it did not happen again. In many ways he succeeded in this goal; however Roosevelt felt he was being hindered by the Supreme Court consistently ruling that some of his new laws were unconstitutional. In a thinly veiled attempt to assure liberal control of the Supreme Court, Roosevelt sought to expand its size by passing a bill that allowed the President to elect a new Justice for every existing one older than seventy. Unfortunately for Roosevelt, public opinion saw it as an attempt to grab at too much power. Americans generally did, and still do, revere the system of checks and balances in their Constitution, and many felt that Roosevelt was attempting to circumvent the system in a manifestly unfair manner. The Court Packing Scheme never passed Congress.