Louisiana Purchase Treaty
In this transaction with France, signed on April 30, 1803, the United States purchased 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. For roughly 4 cents an acre, the United States doubled its size, expanding the nation westward.
Marine receiving first aid before being sent to hospital in rear of trenches. Toulon Sector, France., 03/22/1918
Escape and Evasion Case File for Flight Officer Charles (Chuck) E. Yeager, 03/05/1944
On March 5, 1944, future test pilot Chuck Yeager’s P-51 Mustang was shot down while on a mission to Bordeaux, France and he was forced to bailout over Nazi-occupied France. His harrowing account details how he was nearly shot while descending helplessly in a parachute and narrowly escaped capture with the help of the French Resistance.
Dated February 28th, 1946, this telegram was sent from Ho Chi Minh to President Harry S. Truman, requesting the assistance of the United States government in the negotiations with France.
Letter from Ho Chi Minh to President Harry S. Truman, 02/28/1946
Dated February 13, 1804, this acknowledges the receipt of $7,500,000 in stock certificates by James Leonard to be used towards the purchase of Louisiana.
Read more at Prologue…
The American Colonies and France signed this military treaty on February 6, 1778. Believing that they would benefit militarily by allying themselves with a powerful nation, the revolutionary colonies formed an alliance with France against Great Britain. According to this first military treaty of the new nation, the United States would provide for a defensive alliance to aid France should England attack, and neither France nor the United States would make peace with England until the independence of the United States was recognized.
Treaty of Alliance, 02/06/1778
The YMCA in Paris for the amusement of enlisted men, gives a dance every Tuesday evening at 73 Rue de Notre Dame de Nazareth.
Dated February 5, 1919
On January 26, 1945, 2nd Lieutenant Audie Murphy climbed atop a burning tank destroyer and held 2 companies of German infantry and 6 tanks at bay, with only a mounted machine gun and field telephone to direct artillery fire, until a counter attack could be mounted. This is just one of several narratives describing his actions which earned him the Medal of Honor.
Just six months earlier then-Sergeant Murphy had earned the Distinguished Service Cross.
French Architect and engineer Gustave Eiffel died on this day in 1923.
December 15, 1832 – December 27, 1923
WWII: Europe: France; “American soldiers watch as the Tricolor flies from the Eiffel Tower again”, ca. 08/25/1944
October 20, 1803 - When Thomas Jefferson’s envoys agreed to purchase Louisiana Territory from France on April 30, 1803, they did so without his direct approval. While Jefferson debated the constitutionality of the acquisition, French ruler Napoleon Bonaparte become impatient and threatened to void the treaty. Jefferson was forced to push for ratification, and received the consent of the Senate on October 20 by a vote of twenty-four to seven. The next day in Washington, the Americans and the French envoy exchanged ratified copies of the treaty.
Senate resolution of advice and consent to Louisiana Purchase Treaty, 10/20/1803; General Records of the U.S. Government
August 29, 1945 - Soliders Listening Attentively
The original caption:
A portion of the 10,000 GI’s who were on hand to witness the showing of the Copacabana All Girl Review, listen attentively while the girls trio sing from the stage of the Glenn Miller Theater, near Marseilles, France.
August 25 - Liberation of Paris
After an uprising by the French Resistance and days of street fighting, Paris was liberated by Allied forces from the Germans on August 25, 1944.
August 22, 1944 - Scene from ruins of Notre Dame des Voeux, Cherbourg, France
…in that instant a discharge from the Bastille killed 4 people of those nearest to the deputies. The deputies retired, the people rushed against the place, and almost in an instant were in possession of a fortification, defended by 100 men, of infinite strength, which in other times had stood several regular sieges & had never been taken.
Letter from Thomas Jefferson, U.S. Minister to France, to John Jay, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, July 19, 1789, reporting on the events in Paris, page 538
Appointed U.S. Minister to France in 1785, Thomas Jefferson was in Paris in July 1789 when the French people rose up against their rulers and the first blood was shed in the opening days of the French Revolution. In his letter to Secretary of Foreign Affairs John Jay, Jefferson recounts how a mob stormed the Bastille, took the stash of arms, freed the prisoners, and seized the “Governor” of the Bastille who was then killed and beheaded in the city streets.
