John Hanson was the descendent of a slave. An early Hanson immigrant to Maryland was the John Hanson who was this John's grandfather. Like many, he arrived as an indentured servant, bound by contract to a farm owner. In 1661, his first master, William Plumley, sold his contract to Edward Keene and recorded the contract with the court of Calvert County, Maryland. These same kinds of court records were also used to transfer title to land and slaves. But, in six years, the immigrant John had worked his way out of debt. A few years after he purchased his own first small farm. Source: Dick Gregory (The column can be seen at [2].)
According to the Smithsonian Institute, "On August 11, 1827, John Hanson arrived in Monrovia [Liberia, Africa which the US created] aboard the brig Doris. A former slave who had purchased his freedom, Hanson was thirty-six years old when he left Baltimore and immigrated to Liberia. Settling in Grand Bassa County, he engaged in commerce and in time joined the ranks of Liberia's influential merchant class. In December 1840, Hanson won election to the newly created Colonial Council, Liberia's first popularly elected legislative body. Seven years later, when the independent Republic of Liberia held its first elections, Hanson was one of two senators elected from Grand Bassa County. He served several terms in the Liberian Senate and took a keen interest in his nation's economic development. When Hanson died in 1860, President Stephen Allen Benson mourned him as "a faithful and patriotic servant" whose loss was "very severely felt in Liberia." Source: National Portrait Gallery
The Two Dollar Bill
Who is the black man on the back of the $2.00 bill in the position of honor?
John Trumbull's painting, Declaration of Independence, is the source of the picture on the reverse of the Series 2003A two-dollar bill.
Because the Declaration was debated and signed over a period of time when membership in Congress changed, the men in the painting had never all been in the same room at the same time. Mr. Trumbull also decided to depict several participants in the debate who did not sign the document.
Two unknown figures are superimposed in the engraving in between Samuel Chase and Lewis Morris and between James Wilson and Francis Hopkinson, bringing the total number of figures on the reverse of the two-dollar bill to 42. Could John Hanson be one of the unknown figures on the back of this bill?
Note: The video above inaccurately states the $2.00 bill has been discontinued, a common misconception. However, the Treasury states, "The $2 bill remains one of our circulating currency denominations"...in 2005 alone, 61 million $2 bills were printed by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
Black or White
The majority opinion is John Hanson that was President of the United States was a white man.
Curiously, both John Hanson's:
1) Were from Maryland
2) Lived during the time at issue
3) Grew up under a farmer/planter
4) Were indentured servants, or children of, who continued their tradition as planters, extending and improving their holdings
5) Ultimately served in politics
But if the white John Hanson's father, Samuel Hanson, was a "planter who owned more than 1,000 acres" as the Wikipedia states, why did this John Hanson have "no extended formal education while growing up in Maryland" as the Wikipedia entry also states. Not logical for a family of that affluence.
Washington Not The First
However, one fact does appear certain. George Washington was not the first, but the 8th President of the United States.
The first President of the United States, under the Articles of Confederation [which led to the Constitution] was John Hanson, his term lasting from 1781-1782.
The new country was actually formed on March 1, 1781 with the adoption of The Articles of Confederation which are still on display in the White House today. This document was actually proposed on June 11, 1776, but not agreed upon by Congress until November 15, 1777. Maryland refused to sign this document until Virginia and New York ceded their western lands (Maryland was afraid that these states would gain too much power in the new government from such large amounts of land).
Once the signing took place in 1781, a President was needed to run the country.
John Hanson was chosen unanimously by Congress (which included George Washington). In fact, all the other potential candidates refused to run against him, as he was a major player in the revolution and an extremely influential member of Congress. As the first President, Hanson had quite the shoes to fill. No one had ever been President and the role was poorly defined...
Americans have been celebrating the recognition of Black History Month since 1926 when historian, Dr. Carter G. Woodson started "Negro History Week". Black history had barely begun to be studied or even documented when the tradition originated.
Enrolled in high school at age twenty, Dr. Woodson was born to parents who were former slaves and spent his childhood working in the Kentucky coal mines. He graduated from high school within two years and later went on to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard.
The scholar was disturbed to find in his studies that history books largely ignored the black American population-and when blacks did figure into the picture, it was generally in ways that reflected the inferior social position they were assigned at the time.
He established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now called the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History) in 1915, and a year later founded the widely respected Journal of Negro History
In 1926, he launched Negro History Week as an initiative to bring national attention to the contributions of black people throughout American history. Woodson chose the second week of February for Negro History Week because it marks the birthdays of two men who greatly influenced the black American population, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
Remember when rap music, like rock, was looked down upon with disdain by many, but the fans loved it and supported the artists anyway...
Before rock and rap became multi-billion dollar industries with glitzy music awards shows.
Well, who decided it would be a good idea or business model to take music videos away from the fans who shaped the industry and force every fan in the world onto a handful of monopolized portals controlled by the Internet elite? Music video views will be waaayyy down!
Lest we forget Flo Rida set sales records [downloads via itunes] during a time when music videos were proliferating across the web like jack rabbits in the springtime via countless uploads on many websites...pre-VEVO!
When fans like a song, they will buy the ringtones, the CDs and/or go to the concerts. This is why you do not want to limit access to the music and is exactly why you want as many people to see music videos across the globe as possible.
Music videos by their very nature and intent are viral creations.
Is this truly about record comanies protecting against copyright infringement or is it more about controlling the music product and thus controlling the fans?
Big name artists who embrace this shift of the music away from the people in this coordinated overreaction may find their fans turning to new, unknown underground artists who need, appreciate and thirst for the publicity and exposure because...HELLO...fans like to share music videos.
Saturday, November 21, 2009, 10:25 PM PST
[General]
The Treaty of Lisbon is an international agreement that will make Europe one big superstate similar to the United States if not more powerful. Signed in Lisbon on Dec 13, 2007 the treaty will enter into force on Dec 1, 2009. The treaty is designed to change the workings of the European Union (EU) and has been ratified by all EU member states. The treaty will amend the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community. The following CNN video Rise of the Euro Superstate (2007) provides additional information:
Opponents of the Treaty of Lisbon, such as the British think tank Open Europe and former Danish Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Jens-Peter Bonde, argued that it would centralise the EU, and weaken democracy by moving power away from national electorates.
Negotiations to modify EU institutions began in 2001, resulting first in the European Constitution, which failed due to rejection by French and Dutch voters in 2005. The Constitution's replacement, the Lisbon Treaty, was originally intended to have been ratified by all member states by the end of 2008. This timetable failed, primarily due to the initial rejection of the Treaty in 2008 by the Irish electorate, a decision which was reversed in a second referendum in 2009.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 09:41 AM PST
[General]
(CNN) -- Thirty-two planets have been discovered outside Earth's solar system through the use of a high-precision instrument installed at a Chilean telescope, an international team announced Monday.
The existence of the so-called exoplanets -- planets outside our solar system -- was announced at the European Southern Observatory/Center for Astrophysics, University of Porto conference in Porto, Portugal, according to a statement issued by the observatory.
The announcement was made by a consortium of international researchers, headed by the Geneva Observatory, who built the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, or HARPS. The device can detect slight wobbles of stars as they respond to tugs from exoplanets' gravity. That tactic, known as the radial velocity method, "has been the most prolific method in the search for exoplanets," according to the European Southern Observatory statement.
The instrument detects movements as small as 3.5 km/hr (2.1 mph), a slow walking pace, the observatory said.
Two of the "Super-Earths" - thought to be rocky planets like Earth and not gas giants - orbit stars like our sun, and the other two orbit smaller "M" class stars, dimmer and redder than the sun.
So "we have yet to find firm evidence for a habitable, Earth-mass planet," Boss says. But he says the Super-Earth detections suggest that upcoming planet hunts, including NASA's Kepler spacecraft, should find "lots of Earths."
