The Louisiana Purchase (1803)
Early American settlers in the western territories depended on the Mississippi River's port of New Orleans for commerce. When Spain retroceded New Orleans to France in 1800, Americans feared their access to the river would be blocked, so President Thomas Jefferson sent negotiators to broker a deal for the port city. Why did Napoleon ultimately sell the entire Louisiana territory, including New Orleans, to the US for only about 4 cents per acre, or a sum total of $15 million?
And born today.
Samuel Mudd (1833)
Mudd was the physician who set the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln's assassin, just hours after Booth fled the crime scene. A Confederate sympathizer, Mudd was accused of aiding Booth's escape and tried along with Booth's other accomplices. Throughout, Mudd maintained that he had not recognized the disguised Booth, an acquaintance of his, and had been unaware of the assassination, but he was nonetheless convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Why was he pardoned in 1869?