George Rhodes (born 1843)

In 1843, in the year that George Rhodes was born, on May 22nd, an estimated 700 to 1,000 pioneers set out from Missouri on the Oregon Trail. Called "The Great Migration of 1843", the wagon train often had to build roads or float down rivers.

In 1860, on February 26th, near Eureka California, white settlers attacked a tribe of Wiyot Indians on Indian Island. Over 60 women, children and older people died. Bret Harte - a writer and friend of Mark Twain - reported the news about the massacre to the papers in San Francisco.

In 1933, on December 5th, the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. The 21st Amendment said "The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed." Alcohol was legal again! It was the only amendment to the Constitution approved for the explicit purpose of repealing a previously existing amendment. South Carolina was the only state to reject the Amendment.

In 1954, from April 22 through June 17th, the Army v. McCarthy hearings were held. The U.S. Army accused Roy Cohn (chief counsel to Senator McCarthy and later trusted mentor of Donald Trump) of blackmail. McCarthy and Cohn accused the U.S. Army of harboring communists. The Army allegations were found to be true. The U.S. Senate later censured McCarthy.

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%.