Updating the history of impeachment

Plus: The March on Washington in virtual reality |

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. SUBSCRIBE to TIME Magazine December 19, 2019 By Lily Rothman On Wednesday night, American history was made as President Donald Trump became only the third U.S. President to be impeached by the House of Representatives. For a political process that has been used with such rarity, adding another example is a major shift—not just one more item on a list, but a complete reshaping of what that list looks like. With that in mind, we've updated our piece on what to know about every U.S. President to have been impeached. Click here to see where this week's vote fits in with the history of impeachment. Here's more of the history that made news this week: HISTORY ON TIME.COM He Attended the March on Washington in 1963. Now He'll Return to the Scene in Virtual Reality The March, TIME's immersive virtual-reality recreation of the March on Washington, will premiere at The Dusable Museum of African American History in Chicago in February 2020 The Impact of Virginia Woolf's Experience With Sexual Abuse "By her own account, it had a lifelong effect on her," says the author of a new biography How the Battle of the Bulge Got Its Name One of World War II's most notorious European battles began on Dec. 16, 1944 How Teachers Are Bringing LGBTQ History Into the Classroom Five states announced this year that LGBTQ history must be taught in public schools, but mechanisms for enforcement are often unclear What the New Testament Really Says About Heaven For most modern Christians, the idea of "going to heaven" is a key belief. But early Christians had very different ideas on the subject FROM THE TIME VAULT “The Vote to Impeach” “After four garrulous days, the talking stopped. The room was silent, and so, in a sense, was a watching nation. One by one, the strained and solemn faces of the 38 members of the House Judiciary Committee were focused on by the television cameras. One by one, their names were called. One by one, they cast the most momentous vote of their political lives, or of any representative of the American people in a century. Mr. Railsback. Aye. Mr. Fish. Aye. Mr. Hogan. Aye. Mr. Butler. Aye. Mr. Cohen. Aye. Mr. Froehlich. Aye. Thus six Republican Congressmen joined all 21 Democrats to recommend that the House of Representatives impeach Richard M. Nixon and seek his removal from the presidency through a Senate trial." (Aug. 5, 1974) Read the full story Today in 1977: The Cooking Craze “For a nation that has traditionally doted on T-bone steaks, beer and ice cream, this is a social, economic and aesthetic development worth pondering. And it is no passing fancy. Says Craig Claiborne, food editor of the New York Times: ‘Gourmet cooking at home is a movement that has arrived. Samuel Johnson's statement, “A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner,” is suddenly becoming true in America. People are much more serious today about the quality of their lives, and their pleasures nowadays have to do with the quality of their lives.’” (Dec. 19, 1977) Read the full story This Week in 1955: The Florida Boom “’This country,’ said General William Tecumseh Sherman, meaning Florida, ‘is not worth a damn.’ Naturalist John James Audubon reported: ‘All that is not mud, mud, mud is sand, sand, sand.’ As of today, Sherman is wrong and Audubon is for the birds. Florida, as any poolside statistician will confirm, is worth more every minute." (Dec. 19, 1955) Read the full story HIGHLIGHTS FROM AROUND THE WEB Historians on Impeachment More than 1,500 American historians—and climbing—have signed an open letter supporting Trump’s impeachment, on the grounds that his actions fit with what the Constitution’s framers had in mind when they designed the process. You can read the whole thing here. In Context Historian Beverly Gage speaks to PBS’ John Yang about how Trump’s impeachment is similar to or different from those of the past. Did It Come From Outer Space? Adam Janos at History.com attempts to sort fact from fiction in the history of UFOs and Roswell, N.M. Here She Comes At the Washington Post, historian Kimberly A. Hamlin argues that the Miss America pageant’s historical juxtaposition with the suffrage movement provides a reason to bring the tradition to an end. Living History About 500 years after its founding, “the world’s oldest social housing complex” is still operational. For Smithsonian.com, Jennifer Billock explains how the German organization survived all this time. To Unsubscribe Unsubscribe here if you do not want to receive this newsletter. Update Email Click here to update your email address. Privacy Policy Please read our Privacy Policy. TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. For Further Communication Please email history@time.com TIME USA, LLC 3 Bryant Park New York, NY 10036 Connect with TIME Find TIME on Facebook Follow TIME on Twitter Subscribe to more TIME Newsletters Get TIME on your Mobile Device Get TIME on your iPad Subscribe to RSS Feed