American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

St. Johns River Settlement, Florida (June 30, 1564) was established by Rene de Laudonniere, who led a group of Huguenots, French Protestant Christians from France, to colonize and build Fort Caroline near present-day Jacksonville, Florida. Rene de Laudonniere recorded: <We sang a psalm of Thanksgiving unto God, beseeching Him that it would please Him to continue His accustomed goodness towards us.> 1564SJ001 This was the first European settlement in North America. U.S Representative Charles E. Bennett sponsored a bill, September 21, 1950, establishing the Fort Caroline National Memorial. In 1989, Rep. Bennett recited the history: <The 425th anniversary of the beginning...

(Thomas) Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856-February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States, 1913-21; married Edith Bolling Galt, 1915, after death of first wife; Governor of New Jersey, 1911-13; president of Princeton University, 1902-10; professor at Princeton University, 1890-02; professor at Wesleyan University, 1888-90; instructor of history at Bryn Mawr College, 1885-88; married Ellen Louise Axson, 1885; graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, 1883-85; admitted to bar, 1882; graduated from University of Virginia Law School, 1882; and graduated from Princeton University, 1879. In 1911, at a Denver rally, Governor Woodrow Wilson remarked: <A nation which does not remember...

William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564-April 23, 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor manager, whose works have had an enduring worldwide impact. He was born and educated at Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, the son of a prosperous glover. He married Ann Hathaway in 1582, and together they had three children. Moving to London c.1589, he established himself as an actor and playwright. In 1594 he began working with Lord Chamberlain's Men, and in 1598 became a shareholding director in the Globe Theatre. During the plague of 1592-94, which cause a temporary closure of the theatre, he wrote the sonnets, Venus...

Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564-January 8, 1642) was an Italian mathematical physicist and astronomer who conceived of the idea for the isochronous pendulum, the sector-compass and developed the concept of mathematical laws governing the universe. He made the first practical use of the telescope, through which he observed sunspots; the phases of Venus; and discovered the four bright satellites of Jupiter. The first mathematician at the University of Pisa, Galileo discovered the Law of Falling Bodies and provided an alternative to Aristotelian dynamics. His work gave credence to Nicolaus Copernicus' heliocentric theory, where the sun is the center of the solar...

Sir Francis Bacon (January 22, 1561-April 9, 1626) the Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, was an English philosopher, essayist, courtier, jurist and statesman. He was Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under King James I. As Lord Chancellor of England (1618-21), he was significantly responsible for the formulation and acceptance of the scientific method, which stressed gathering data from experimentation and induction rather than through the practice of philosophical deduction promulgated by Aristotle. Sir Francis Bacon was responsible for helping to found the Royal Society of London. He wrote: <There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our...