Rare Pennies for the Penny Collector

The Year This Coin Was Minted...

The nation was careening relentlessly toward dissolution and civil war. In 1856, a harbinger of events to come was being played out in "Bleeding Kansas", where both sides of the slavery issue clashed over the admission of the Jayhawkers as a free or slave state.

Armed combatants poured into the Kansas Territory, determined to influence the outcome. "Border Ruffians" (right) from Missouri sacked Lawrence in May 1856. A group of fanatical abolitionists, led by John Brown, retaliated by murdering five pro-slavery settlers in Pottawatomie.

James Buchanan was elected the 15th President of the United States in 1856, but could do little to ward off the impending disaster.

Also in 1856, the 13.5 ton British Parliament "Big Ben" bell was cast.

The Year This Coin Was Minted...

Going into 1877, the presidential election of 1876 remained unsettled. The Democratic nominee, Samuel Tilden of New York, carried the popular vote by a margin of 250,000. He won 184 electoral votes, compared to 165 for Republican Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, but 185 votes were required to reach the White House. Twenty electoral votes, from the states of Oregon, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida were disputed. The controversy threatened to plunge the nation into violence.

A 15 member commission (8 Republicans, 7 Democrats) was named to decide the fate of the disputed electoral votes. By a straight party vote, all 20 electoral votes were awarded to the Republican. On March 5, 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes (pictured at right) was sworn in as the 19th president of the United States.

In one of his first acts, President Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South, bringing to a close the era of Reconstruction following the Civil War.

The Year This Coin Was Minted...

Nearly 15 months after it first set sail on a worldwide voyage, an American force of 16 battleships called the "Great White Fleet", named so because all the ships were painted white, returned to the U.S. on February 22, 1909. The mission had two goals: to strengthen ties with the nation's allies, and to demonstrate naval might to potential adversaries. The fleet traveled more than 46,000 miles.

William Howard Taft was inaugurated on March 4 as the 27th President of the United States.

The U.S. Army purchased its first airplane ever, the Wright Flyer, directly from the Wright Brothers.  The cost of the aircraft was $30,000. Lt. Frank Humphreys, trained by the Wrights, became the army's first solo aviator, in October, 1909.

Notable deaths in 1909 included two figures from the Old American West: artist Frederick Remington and Apache Chief Geronimo.

The Year This Coin Was Minted...

President Woodrow Wilson promised U.S. neutrality as war spread throughout Europe in 1914. For years, major European powers had been at odds with one another, but it was the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand on June 28 that finally provoked hostilities.

Mother's Day became an official annual celebration in 1914. President Wilson signed a joint resolution of Congress on May 9 to recognize the holiday.

August 15 was the opening date of the Panama Canal. In the ten years it took to construct the canal, an estimated 240 million cubic yards of earth was moved. Cost of the project was nearly $400 million. 5600 laborers died in the making of the canal, due to disease or accidents.

American scientist Robert Goddard begins his experiments in rocket science.

18 people were gunned down in Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, as they fled their burning tents.  13 of the victims were children. The violence took place in response to a miner strike against the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

The Year This Coin Was Minted...

In 1922, the U.S. Senate began investigating charges that Interior Secretary Albert Fall accepted bribes from oilmen Edward L. Doheny and Harry Sinclair, in exchange for drilling rights to Teapot Dome, a federally owned oil-rich tract of land located in Wyoming, and oilfields in California. Eventually, Secretary Fall served time in prison. The Teapot Dome scandal forever tarnished the legacy of the Warren Harding administration.

In Italy, Benito Mussolini forms a new Fascist government.

King George V opens a new 15,000 seat tennis stadium at Wimbledon.

In 1922, the Pittsburgh Observer newspaper writes: "a change for the worse during the past year in feminine dress, dancing, manners and general moral standards".

The Reader's Digest issues its first magazine on February 5, 1922.

The Year This Coin Was Minted...

By 1931, the United States was mired in the throes of the Great Depression. The prosperity of the "Golden Twenties" was a distant memory. Bank closings were rampant, as millions lost their jobs. Many Americans lost confidence in President Herbert Hoover, and were looking for a new leader to emerge in the next year's election to lead the nation out of the crisis.

Those who could spare a few cents for entertainment flocked to horror movies in 1931.  Bela Lugosi in Dracula and Boris Karloff in Frankenstein starred.

The world's tallest building, the Empire State Building in NYC, was dedicated. The 1245-ft structure had few tenants.

The great inventor Thomas Edison died in 1931. Legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne was killed in a plane crash while on a recruiting trip.