May 28, 1980: The Library of Congress Opens the James Madison Memorial Building

May 28, 1980: The Library of Congress opens a new building, the James Madison Memorial Building. It is a complement to its main building, named the Thomas Jefferson Building; and its original annex, the John Adams Building.

NOTE: My cutoff date for this project is 1869, the year of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the 1st openly professional baseball team, and the 1st American football game. I had managed to work in references to most pre-1869 Presidents. This was the only way I could think of to do it for Madison.

The Madison Building is to the south of the Jefferson Building, across Independence Avenue, and is also bounded by 1st, 2nd and C Streets SE. It is not only larger than the Jefferson and Adams Buildings, it is, at 2.1 million square feet, the 3rd-largest public building in the D.C. area, behind The Pentagon and the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the headquarters of the FBI.

A prominent lawyer in Virginia, and a protégé of Thomas Jefferson, Madison was a Delegate to the Congress of the Confederation, and then to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He did most of the writing of the actual Constitution, and came up with many of the ideas in it, earning him the name "The Father of the Constitution." Writing The Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton, he was also a major force in getting the States to ratify the Constitution.

He was elected to the 1st Congress, serving Virginia from 1789 to 1797. When Jefferson was elected President in 1800, he appointed Madison as his Secretary of State. That made Madison the heir apparent, and he was elected the 4th President, in 1808 and 1812. He nearly lost the country in the War of 1812, but military victories turned the war around, and he was beloved when he left office in 1817. He died in 1836, the last surviving Signer of the Constitution.

Since he was Jefferson's Secretary of State, and Jefferson was widowed, Madison's wife, the former Dolley Payne Todd, served as White House hostess, through 4 full terms, a record unlikely ever to be broken (especially now that Presidents are limited to 2 terms, although "White House hostesses" are not). Dolley Madison is regarded as one of the greatest First Ladies ever, and not just because she was one of the first people to serve ice cream in America, doing so as Jefferson's hostess. (A brand of ice cream was named for her.) She lived until 1849, and was the earliest First Lady to be photographed.

There is a James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, about 50 miles west of his mansion, Montpelier, in Orange, itself only about 30 miles from Jefferson's Monticello and Ash Lawn-Highland, the home of another Jefferson protégé, Madison's own Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and the 5th President, James Monroe. There are James Madison High Schools in Brooklyn, the Virginia suburbs of Washington, Florida, Milwaukee, Dallas, San Antonio and San Diego. From 1963 to 1992, a submarine named the USS James Madison was in service.

Statue, in the Madison Memorial Building

U.S. Route 301 in Virginia is named the James Madison Parkway. Madison Avenue and Madison Square in Manhattan are named for him, as is the capital city of Wisconsin. Many towns and Counties are named for him. In New Jersey, there is a Madison Borough in Morris County, and there was a Madison Township, next-door to a Monroe Township, in Middlesex County. In 1975, to stop the confusion with the Morris County town, the one in Middlesex took the name of a locality in adjoining East Brunswick (my hometown), and renamed themselves Old Bridge.

In 1928 and 1934, the federal government issued gold certificates with Madison's portrait, with a face value of $5,000. It has not issued a bill with a value over $100 since.

Madison has been played by Burgess Meredith in Magnificent Doll (with Ginger Rogers as Dolley) in 1946, Ken Kercheval in The Adams Chronicles in 1976, Guy Paul in George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation in 1986, and Craig Wasson in A More Perfect Union in 1989.

The last surviving member of Madison's Cabinet was Richard Rush, who served as the United States Attorney General, and lived until 1859. He also turned out to be the last surviving member of James Monroe's Cabinet.

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May 28, 1980 was a Wednesday. The European Cup Final was played at Estadio Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid, Spain. Nottingham Forest, of England's East Midlands, managed by Brian Clough, made it back-to-back titles, defeating German team Hamburger SV, 1-0. John Robertson scored the goal in the 20th minute. This makes them the only team in Europe to win the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League more times than they've won their domestic league, 2-1.

And these Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 6-3 at Yankee Stadium. Jack Morris outpitched Ron Guidry. Bobby Murcer hit a home run, and he and Bucky Dent each got 3 hits, but the rest of the Yankees combined only got 4, including an 0-for-4 with 2 strikeouts by Reggie Jackson. Dave Stegman hit a home run for the Tigers.

* The New York Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-5 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. The Mets scored 6 runs in the top of the 8th inning, on a double, 2 singles, and 5 walks.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Boston Red Sox, 4-1 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-3 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Willie Stargell did not play.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Baltimore Orioles, 10-6 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Rick Waits outpitched Jim Palmer. Joe Charboneau, on his way to a Rookie of the Year season (before flaming out the next year), hit a home run. Eddie Murray went 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-2 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Former Yankee Chris Chambliss singled Larvell Blanks home with the winning run in the bottom of the 12th inning.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Seattle Mariners, 7-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Bill Travers pitched 6 innings of 1-hit ball, and Reggie Cleveland completed a 3-hit shutout. Robin Yount went 1-for-4 with 2 RBIs. Paul Molitor went 3-for-4 with a walk.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox, 6-4 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Diego Padres, 1-0 at the Astrodome in Houston. Nolan Ryan pitched a 2-hit shutout. Who got the 2 hits? Oddly enough, one game from the opposing starter, Rick Wise, who once pitched a no-hitter and hit 2 home runs in the same game. The other came from the weak-hitting Ozzie Smith.

* The California Angels beat the Texas Rangers, 7-6 at Anaheim Stadium (later Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Rod Carew went 1-for-2 with 2 walks and 2 RBIs. The Angels scored 4 runs in the bottom of the 8th, and the Rangers almost came back in the 9th, but were held to 3 runs.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-3 at the Oakland Coliseum. George Brett went 1-for-4 with 2 RBIs. Rookie Rickey Henderson went 0-for-4, but drew a walk, and was then caught stealing. The A's got 7 stolen bases from 6 different players (Dwayne Murphy had 2), but Henderson was not one of them.

* The Montreal Expos and the Chicago Cubs were tied 3-3 in the top of the 11th inning at Wrigley Field, when the game was called due to darkness. It was resumed on August 8. Each team scored a run in the 12th. The Cubs loaded the bases in the bottom of the 14th, and Cliff Johnson hit a grand slam to win it, 8-4.

* And the Cincinnati Reds and the Los Angeles Dodgers were not scheduled.

March 3, 1931: The National Anthem

The actual "Star-Spangled Banner" described in the song

March 3, 1931: In its final meeting of the term, Congress ratifies Francis Scott Key's poem "The Star-Spangled Banner" as America's National Anthem.

Key had written it, under the title of "Defence of Fort M'Henry," while on a British ship stationed outside Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where he, then a 35-year-old lawyer from Frederick, Maryland, was trying to negotiate the release of American prisoners.

It was September 13, 1814, the height of what became known as the War of 1812, and he saw ships of Britain's Royal Navy shell the fort, as part of their attempt to take the important port city of Baltimore, just 18 days after their Army had burned the national capital of Washington, D.C., including the Capitol Building and the White House.

In the morning, the British realized they weren't going to win this battle, and backed off. The Fort's commanding officer, Major George Armistead, ordered the flag raised. At the time, federal law said that the American Flag should have as many stars and as many stripes as there were States in the Union. At the time, there were 18 States, but most American Flags had 15 stars and 15 stripes, as had been the case since 1795, following the admission to the Union of Vermont and Kentucky. The flag that Key saw flying from Fort McHenry had 15 and 15. In 1818, a new law was passed, limiting the stripes to 13, honoring the 1st 13 States, while adding a new star for each State.

When Key's poem was published, it was set to the tune of, oddly enough, an English drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven," composed by John Stafford Smith. Since that song was already familiar in America, the song caught on, especially after the War of 1812 concluded with the Battle of New Orleans the following January 8.

Key's 1st verse is the only one that is usually sung. There are 4 verses, and the 3rd contains pro-slavery words: "No refuge could save the hireling and slave, from the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave." So, even America's National Anthem is tinged with slavery, "America's original sin." Smith died in 1836, Key in 1843.

The flag remained in Armistead's family, which became the Appleton family through a daughter of Armistead's, and was displayed on special occasions. Some pieces of the flag, including one of the stars, were given away as souvenirs, resulting in the flag being much shorter than it originally was.

In 1912, the Appleton family donated the flag to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, which renovated it in 1914, and again in 2008. It is now at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, at 1300 Constitution Avenue NW in Washington. It is now on display in a two-story display chamber that allows it to lie at a 10-degree angle in dim light, to protect it. The Flag House, where the flag was sewn in 1813 by Mary Young Pickersgill (1776-1857), is at 844 East Pratt Street.

In 1889, the U.S. Navy officially adopted "The Star-Spangled Banner." In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered that the song be played at military and other appropriate occasions. During the 7th inning stretch of Game 1 of the 1918 World Series at Comiskey Park in Chicago -- the White Sox let the Cubs use it because it seated more than Wrigley Field -- a band played the song, as a tribute to the troops then fighting in World War I, and the fans stood up and sang along. It began to be played before every Major League Baseball game in 1942, the 1st season of World War II, and has been played before American sporting events ever since.

Also in 1918, Representative John Charles Linthicum, whose Maryland district included Fort McHenry, introduced a bill to officially recognize "The Star-Spangled Banner" as America's National Anthem. He continued to reintroduce the bill, but it went nowhere, until 1930, when the Veterans of Foreign Wars presented a petition with 5 million signatures recommending the adoption. Congress finally passed the bill, and President Herbert Hoover signed it into law.

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March 3, 1931 was a Tuesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 3 games played in the NHL:

* The Boston Bruins beat the New York Rangers, 4-1 at the Boston Garden.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Philadelphia Quakers, 5-1 at the Philadelphia Arena.

* And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Ottawa Senators, 1-0 at the Ottawa Auditorium.