Happy Birthday, America!!

My friend Tina gave me a stack of vintage postcards! Some of them portray a few events in U. S. history depicted in paintings hung at our nation's capitol.



"LANDING OF COLUMBUS ON SAN SALVADOR, OCT. 12, 1492" "Painting by Venderlyn, in the Rotunda of the Capitol Washington"



"DE SOTO'S DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, MAY, 1541" "Painting by W. H. Powell, in the Rotunda of the Capitol, Washington"



"EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS, FROM DELFT HAVEN, JULY 22, 1620" "Painting by Weir, in the Rotunda of the capitol, Washington."



"DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, U.S. CAPITOL." "Painting by John Trumbull, in the Rotunda of the Capitol, Washington. John Hancock, President of the Congress, is seated at the table, and in front of him stand the Committee of Five - Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert L. Livingston."



"SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS, U.S. CAPITOL." "Painting by John Trumbull, in the Rotunda of the Capitol, Washington. The picture represents the officers of the British Army, passing the American and French guards and entering between the two lines of victors."




"RESIGNATION OF GEN. WASHINGTON, ANNAPOLIS, DEC. 23, 1783" "Painting by John Trumbull, in the rotunda of the Capitol, Washington. Washington's surrendered commission as Commander-in-Chief is preserved in the State Department."




"WESTWARD HO!" "Painting by Emanuel Leutze, in the Capitol, Washington. Pictures an immigrant train in the Rocky Mountains. Below is Bierstad's Golden Gate, Harbor of San Francisco."



"PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION, U.S. CAPITOL." "Above the first landing, house corridor, East Entrance, hangs Frank B. Carpenter's picture of the First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet, Sept. 22, 1862. The portraits, beginning at the left, are: Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War; Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; Abraham Lincoln, President; Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy; William H. Seward, (seated). Secretary of State; Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior; Montgomery Blair, Postmaster-General; Edward Bates, Attorney-General. The picture was presented to the United States by Mrs. Mary Elisabeth Thompson in 1878. Alex H. Stephens, ex-Vice-President of the Confederacy, and then a Member of the House, was one of the orators of its reception."