Major Mike | Today in History 09/01 (Sally Hemings)

Painting of President Thomas Jefferson (© John Parrot/Stocktrek Images/Getty Images)

(1802) Newspaper alleges US president has an illicit relationship

Virginia’s Richmond Recorder newspaper prints a scandalous story regarding President Thomas Jefferson and a woman whom he “kept, as his concubine,” asserting that she is “one of his own slaves.” The truth of Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings will be investigated centuries later via DNA testing.

Sarah “Sally” Hemings was an enslaved woman of mixed race owned by President Thomas Jefferson of the United States. There is a “growing historical consensus” among scholars that Jefferson was the father of her five children, born after the death of his wife Martha Jefferson, and that he had a long-term relationship with her. Four children survived to adulthood. Hemings died in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1835.

Born: 1773 · Charles City County, VA
Died: 1835 · Charlottesville, VA
Nationality: American
Children: Harriet Hemings (Daughter) · Eston Hemings (Son) · Madison Hemings (Son) · Beverly Hemings (Son)
Parents: John Wayles (Father) · Betty Hemings (Mother)
Siblings: Martha Jefferson (Brother) · Mary Hemings (Sister) · John Hemings (Brother)
Highlights
1773: After John Wayles died in 1773, his daughter Martha and her husband Thomas Jefferson inherited the Hemings family among a total of 135 slaves from his estate, as well as 11,000 acres of land.

1787: Polly and Sally landed in London, where they stayed with Abigail and John Adams from June 26 until July 10, 1787.

1789: Sally Hemings remained in France for 26 months; slavery was abolished in that country after the Revolution in 1789.

1799: unnamed daughter (or possibly named Thenia after Hemings’ sister Thenia) (born in 1799 and died in infancy)

1802: Jefferson having a sexual relationship with Hemings was first reported in 1802 by one of Jefferson’s enemies, a political journalist named James T. Callender, after he noticed several light skinned slaves at Monticello.

1835: Hemings died in Charlottesville, VA, in 1835.

Caricature of Jefferson and Hemings, ca. 1804
wiki/Sally_Hemings

4.15.A18

(1802) Newspaper alleges US president has an illicit relationship.
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1939 | History’s most destructive war dawns with a massive invasion

In WWII’s opening salvo, Hitler’s armed forces descend on Poland with blitzkrieg force and, getting assistance from the Soviet Union, will decimate the country’s archaic military, controlling the nation within a month. Per their Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Germany and the USSR will divide up the conquered territory.

Today in History ^09/01/17

German tank unit after the defeat of a Polish battalion at the Brda River in Poland in 1939 (© ullstein bild/Getty Images)

(1939) History's most destructive war dawns with a massive invasion

In WWII's opening salvo, Hitler's armed forces descend on Poland with blitzkrieg force and, getting assistance from the Soviet Union, will decimate the country's archaic military, controlling the nation within a month. Per their Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Germany and the USSR will divide up the conquered territory.

The Invasion of Poland, known in Poland as the September Campaign or the 1939 Defensive War, and in Germany as the Poland Campaign or Fall Weiss, was a joint invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Free City of Danzig, and a small Slovak contingent, that marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, while the Soviet invasion commenced on 17 September following the Molotov-Tōgō agreement that terminated the Russian and Japanese hostilities in the east on 16 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty.

Start date: Sep 01, 1939
End date: Oct 06, 1939

Planned and actual divisions of Poland, according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, with later adjustments