A Canadian citizen who became President of the United States of America…?

Recently the Associated Press published a very interesting story about President Chester Arthur. In American history, Chester Arthur is known as the “accidental president.” He became President after President James Garfield was assassinated. Anyways, while the Garfield-Arthur ticket campaigned for 1880 election rumors began to spread that Chester Arthur was indeed not an American citizen.

SAY WHAT?

This story gets better. Since 1880 he has been accused of being a Canadian citizen. Historians and Vermonters (Chester Arthur has also been believed to be born in Vermont) have argued that the rumors about Arthur being a Canadian citizen is political slander. Republicans demanded proof but he never went through with their request. The Democratic Party went as far as hiring a lawyer to investigate Arthur. The lawyer concluded that Arthur was indeed a Canada citizen. According to the article, the lawyer’s conclusion was due to records that stated Arthur’s young brother was born in Canada and not Chester Arthur.

Sadly both Arthur supporters and anti-supporters can not win this battle for the truth. According to the article, “The State of Vermont didn’t begin receiving birth records until 1857, according to state archivist Gregory Sanford. The birth records at the Town of Fairfield go back no further, Town Clerk Amanda Forbes said. Maybe in 100 years someone will be writing about the battle for the truth on the subject of President Obama’s birth certificate.

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it"- Sir Winston Churchill

Beware: The first few lines are boring but the rest of this blog is fun and full of adventure…well I hope it is.

My name is Phillip Butehorn. I am a 22 year old senior at SUNY Plattsburgh, majoring in history and minoring in political science. Ok, enough of this useless information. There is an actual purpose to this blog. The subject of history is extremely important to me. I tend to believe that history is plainly ignored by a majority of our population. Politicians always want to fund math and science. Yet, no one ever wants to fund history. Why not? History is a very important key to our children’s education. Students need to be aware of how math and science have developed and why. If they are not aware, students will barely appreciate what they have learned. If we don’t appreciate history, we will never truly learn the truth about our world, our heritage, and our lives.

Every time I mention history in the news, a friend of mine always asks “What’s new in old?” It’s a question that’s lingered in my mind. For the past few months, I have been an intern for the History News Network. As an intern, my job is to locate articles on news websites. Every day there are almost 10 + articles with history trends in the news. These articles are written, published, and then interns locate them and publish them on the History News Network. That’s the end.

TIME OUT!!

Is that enough?

Ok, maybe I was being too dramatic. Actually, I am being too dramatic, but I am a history nerd and I wish history was appreciated more. Anyway, back to the purpose of this blog. As I mentioned above the interns publish the article and then that’s it. Now that will change thanks to this blog. Usually no one ever talks about the articles after they are published. I am finally going to do what every other nerd has wanted. I am going to talk about the articles. I am going to analyze the article, attempt to make jokes that won’t be funny. The most important objective of this blog is to make history interesting and fun.