On September 20, 1881, Chester Arthur was inaugurated, making him the third person to serve as president that year . The year 1881 commenced with Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in office. He served out his first and only term and officially handed the reins of government to his friend James A. Garfield in March. Just four months into his term, on July 2, Garfield was shot by a deranged assassin named Charles Guiteau, who claimed to have killed Garfield because he failed to grant him a a political appointment. Garfield sustained wounds to his abdomen and back and struggled to recover that summer. Though it seemed he'd pull through in early September, the autopsy report showed that the internal bullet wound contributed to an aneurysm that ultimately killed Garfield on September 19. The next day, Vice President Chester Arthur was sworn in as president. Garfield’s assassin wrote to the new president from jail, taking credit for propelling Arthur into the White House. Arthur ser...

On this day in 1693, The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, received its charter, thereby becoming the second institution of higher learning in the United States (after Harvard University). The original plans for William & Mary stretch back to 1618 -- decades before Harvard -- but were tabled by an "Indian uprising." James Blair traveled to Britain to advocate for a college on behalf of his fellow Virginians. On February 8, 1693, King William III and Queen Mary II of England signed the charter for a "perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and other good Arts and Sciences" to be founded in the Virginia Colony. Just like that, William & Mary was born. Workers commenced construction on the Sir Christopher Wren Building, then known as the College Building in 1695, before the town of Williamsburg even existed. Over the next two centuries, the Wren Building would catch fire on three separate occasions, each time being re-...