Bacey J Freeman (born 1865)

In 1865, in the year that Bacey J Freeman was born, on January 31st, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was narrowly passed by the House (it was passed by the Senate over nine months earlier). The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude - the exception being for punishment for a crime.

In 1883, on February 28th, in Boston MA, the first vaudeville theater was opened by Benjamin Franklin Keith.

In 1914, in June, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by a Yugoslavian national. Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to Serbia. Other major powers took sides - and World War I began: Austria declared war on Serbia; Germany on Russia and France; Britain on Germany . . . and on it went until most of the world was embroiled in the war.

In 1947, in June, the Marshall Plan was proposed to help European nations recover economically from World War II. It passed the conservative Republican Congress in March of 1948. After World War I, the economic devastation of Germany caused by burdensome reparations payments led to the rise of Hitler. The Allies didn't want this to happen again and the Marshall Plan was devised to make sure that those conditions didn't arise again.

In 1989, on January 20th, George Herbert Walker Bush became the 41st President of the United States. Previously Ronald Regan's Vice President, he ran against Michael Dukakis and won the popular vote by 53.4% to 45.6%.