As a country, the United States of America is addicted to scandals and the nation’s capital has been the epicenter for scandals since its establishment in 1800. Although scandals can sometimes be hard to define, they all have defining secretive features that tend to shock the public once the truth of the event has come to light. Many of the scandals that take place in Washington, D.C. mark major historical events in the country’s history. Two prime examples of scandals taking place during landmark moments in the city’s history are the cases of Lincoln assassination conspirator, Mary Surratt and Washington’s former Mayor Marion Barry. Surratt, as the first women to ever be executed in the United States, and Barry, as the fourth mayor of Washington and major civil rights advocate, are appropriately labelled as major Washington scandals. Assassination has and always will be a hot topic in scandal living circles but in 1865 the topic became even more volatile when Mary Surratt was found to be guilty of conspiring to kill Abraham Lincoln. Surratt, a widow of an abusive husband trying independently support …show more content…
However, her sex alone is what really made this case controversial because it symbolized the government’s willingness to look pass gender to see the crime at hand, despite how uncomfortable it may make some observers feel. According to Laura Kipnis’s How to Become a Scandal, a society’s culture needs scandals as a “social purification ritual”. They are necessary to define what a culture will or will not stand for and by scandalizing the actions of Mary Surratt the people of the United States established itself as a country who will not discriminate against murders depending on their gender. It established cultural boundaries that the country had yet to
The book Chasing Lincoln’s Killer is about the world famous story of assassinating President Abraham Lincoln. This book takes the reader into the lives and minds of the four main conspirators responsible for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the attempted assassination of the Vice President, Andrew Johnson , and the Secretary of State, William H. Seaward. Not only will the reader learn about the details of the planned assassinations but the background of all conspirators involved, each one of their motives for committing the crimes, and all the differences between the actual killings and what was supposed to happen if everything went according to plan. In this gripping novel the writer, James Swanson, takes the reader through a key point in American history in order to learn the truth of what must have happened while chasing Lincoln’s killer.
In Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, by James L. Swanson, the main characters were; John Wilkes Booth, Dr. Leale, Abraham Lincoln (even though he dies.) When John Wilkes Booth (a.k.a Booth) found out that the North had won the Civil War, he felt anger and disgust but he could do nothing. Booth had one plot that the book talked about and that was to kidnap the president and sell him to the leaders of the South but that plot never got put into action. When booth went to Ford's theatre got a letter, Booth worked at the theatre, the letter that said that the President of the United states would be visiting ford's theatre quickly he put a plot into works. First he went to get accomplices and they too would kill someone that night. When the time had come to Booth snuck into the President’s box, not even noticed he pulled out a gun and shot a bullet into the left side and under the left ear of the President's head. That didn’t kill the President, yet. When Booth tried to leave he was stopped by General Henry Rathbone, they had a knife fight while trying to stop both of them from leaving, although Booth got away jumping from the President's box and onto the stage shouting "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (Chasing Lincoln's Killer, by James L. Swanson.)
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the United States was experiencing disorder and hysteria as domestic and foreign issues; created stress and tension within the nation. In the late 1960s, when Richard Nixon was running for president, the nation saw the death of two influential people, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, brother of John F. Kennedy. Following the death of King, race riots broke out across the country. To add to the anger and tension, many students and young Americans began to protest the war in Vietnam. Nixon promised to restore order to the country if he were to be elected. Unfortunately for Nixon, the Democrats, who had control of both sides of Congress, were prepared to block many of Nixon’s initiatives. Thus, CREEP (the committee to re-elect the president) began its corrupt path towards getting Nixon into office, even going as far as to break into the Democratic Party's National Committee headquarters located in the Watergate office in the nation’s capital ("Watergate: The Scandal That Brought Down Richard Nixon"). The Watergate scandal, which led to the first resignation of a United States President, changed the political landscape of the nation through its impact on Americans' trust in the government and its employees, its effect on government ethics, and its influence on journalism and the rise in investigative reporting.
A man and woman, both soldiers, were killed in a helicopter accident in Fort Bragg, NC. The accident occurred due to an equipment malfunction that happened while the soldiers were doing maintenance work (“2 Soldiers Killed While Working on Helicopter” 7A). Meanwhile, in Texas, Karla Faye Tucker became the first woman to be executed in Texas in over 130 years. Tucker was accused of beating a man and woman to death. Although she pleaded for mercy, she was given no pity, for there was a 16-0 vote for her to be executed (Holmes 7A). In the medical world, there was a tremendous breakthrough in the treatment of AIDS. The number of patients with AIDS in the U.S. lowered 44%. This is largely due to the newest treatment of AIDS, which was benefiting all races and genders. Over 21,000 patients died of AIDS in 1996, but numbers plummeted to 12,000 by 1998 (Haney 7A). One of the most talked about happenings in the U.S. is the affair between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Monica refused to confess to the famous affair that was brought to federal courts. The judges believed that Clinton had told her to keep quiet, so the 24 year-old ex-White House intern diligently obeyed (Yost
Throughout the history of our country, there have been multiple crimes and events that have caused great havoc and tragedy to our nation. From Nine Eleven to the Boston Marathon, crimes have impacted millions of people all over. None of these events, however, have had such an impact on our nation like John Wilkes Booth. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 15th, 1975 by John Wilkes Booth. Booth had no motive to kill our great president other than the fact that he despised the union. To this day, it is still mind boggling that such a successful actor such as Booth would go out of his way to take away a great man 's life and ruin his own. After reading Dante 's Inferno, I 'm certain that Booth will be in one of the deepest circles of them all. Life long pain and torture will be bound to find its way towards the man who killed our sixteenth president.
Marion Barry had dominated the city’s political landscape in the final quarter of the 20th century, also serving for 15 years on D.C Council, whose seat he held until his death. His personal and public live was filled with high scandals and drama. He
July 7, 1865 Mary Surratt was hanged for her suspected part in the killing of Abraham Lincoln. Mary Surratt should not have been executed. Surratt had conspirators that defended her and she also maintained her innocence throughout the trial.
The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln shocked the country. During that time she became the most hated women in the country. It was all plan at Mary Surratt’s Boarding house. The boarding house was a traven, polling place, and a post office. Mary Surratt boarding house was where John Booth came to know the Surratt family. He invited John Wilkes Booth to the boarding house. That lead to many meetings held there. The event of kidnapping the President never took place. Booth had convicted John about the plot to kidnap the president was a good idea. Investigators came to her house within six hours of the assassination. Two days later Mary was arrested at her boarding house
Was Abraham Lincoln killed by a conspiracy? While Lincoln and his guests were watching “Our American Cousin” he was shot by John Wilkes Booth. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated. Lincoln had been the subject of an earlier assassination attempt by an unknown assailant in August 1864. The assassination of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, as part of a larger conspiracy in a bid to revive the Confederate cause. Booth's co-conspirators were Lewis Powell and David Herold, who was assigned to kill
On June 17, 1972 a group of several men, dressed as hippies decided to break into a Democratic National Committee located at the Watergate buildings in Washington D.C. They broke into the committee to steal documents and wiretapping the phones from the government. It was all going good until the a security guard noticed that there was duct tape over a door lock. He removed that piece of tape, left, then came back later to another piece of tape on the door lock. The security guard called the Washington D.C. Police. The cops showed up at the watergate buildings to check it out. A cop named Alfred C. Baldwin III was in a restaurant watching a horror movie and a policeman named Barrett called to tell Baldwin the situation. Baldwin did not respond until later; he asked what the suspects were dressed as and in response, the walkie talkie said they were dressed in suits and ties. Baldwin did not believe it
Everyday citizens often live unaware of their government’s inner workings. The knowing of political espionage is often too heavy of a subject to be inducted in conversation. True, prima facie, modest twists and turns of information may not be considered substantial, but this inconsideration leaves much to be uncontrolled. It is easy for political leaders to become power crazed, to not realize the massive implications that come of their actions. Only after all is said and done do the people actually realize their government is an opaque mask of deception. The Watergate Scandal substantially impacted Americans’ trust in their government.
During Richard Nixon’s presidency, there were multiple events that changed politics, the presidency, and the media forever. The Watergate Scandal was one of the biggest political events in history. Five men broke into an office building that stored thousands of confidential documents containing plans for the Democratic side of the upcoming election. This caused one of the most explosive media outbreaks in American history, and certainly changed investigative journalism and the presidency forever.
The Watergate Scandal was political problem that occurred in the United States during the 1970s. On June 17, 1972 a break in occurred at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office Complex in Washington, D.C. Nixon's administration attempted cover up of its involvement. In the morning of June 17 1972, a couple of burglars were caught and arrested inside the of the Democratic National Committee, located at the Watergate building in Washington D.C. this was no ordinary robbery. The robbers were connected to the United States president Richard Nixon re election campaign, and they were caught trying to wiretap the phones. The robbers who tried to wiretap the phones were not successful. more robbers broke into the Watergate building with a new microphone, but a guard noticed that they broke the locks on the doors. The guard called the police as soon as possible, they showed up and caught the crooks red handed and took the to jail. it was not completely clear that the crooks were connected to the president Richard Nixon. There were suspicions that they were connected to nixon because detectives found the white house phone number in the spies junk. In later came that the president was not telling the truth. a few days after the break in president nixon provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in “hush money” to the spies/burglars. Then president Nixon and his aides established a plan to instruct the Central Intelligence Agency to impede the fbi's investigation of the crime. this was a bigger crime the the break in at Watergate this was abuse of presidential power and deliberate obstruction of justice. The watergate scandal was about president nixon and a few secret agents trying to steal secret government i...
The Watergate Scandal involved a number of illegal activities that were designed to help President Richard Nixon win re-election. The scandal involved burglary, wiretapping, campaign financing violations, and the use of government agencies to harm political opponents. A major part of the scandal was also the cover-up of all these illegal actions. “Watergate, however, differed from most previous political scandals because personal greed apparently did not play an important role. Instead Watergate attacked one of the chief features of Democracy – free and open elections” (Worldbook 1).
In The Murder of Helen Jewett, Patricia Cohen uses one of the most trivial murders during the 1800’s to illustrate the sexiest society accommodations to the privileged, hypocritical tunneled views toward sexual behavior, and the exploitation of legal codes, use of tabloid journalism, and politics. Taking the fact that woman was made from taking a rib from man was more than biblical knowledge, but incorporated into the male belief that a woman’s place is determined by the man. Helen had the proper rearing a maid servant, but how did she fall so far from grace. Judge Weston properly takes credit for rearing her with the proper strictness and education. Was Helen seduced at an early age and introduced to sexual perversions that were more persuasive that the bible belt life that the Weston’s tried to live? Was Helen simply a woman who knew how to use what she had to get what she wanted? Through personal correspondence, legal documentation, census reports, paintings, and newspapers we are able to make our own determinations. Cohen provides more than enough background and history to allow any one to make their own opinion how the murder of a woman could be turned into a side show at a circus.