February 2 · This Day in America
In a town just outside Mexico City, negotiators sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War. The United States pays $15 million and, with the stroke of a pen, takes roughly half of Mexico's territory. California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona and New Mexico, slices of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma all become American soil. The continent the country had imagined is suddenly the continent it possesses. But the treaty also carries a promise: the tens of thousands of Mexican citizens now living inside new borders are guaranteed their property and a path to citizenship. The line moved; the people did not. Their descendants are American still. One signature, and the nation reaches the Pacific.
Source: www.archives.gov
Also on this day · 1887
In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a small group of German-descended townsfolk gather on a hill called Gobbler's Knob to consult a groundhog about the coming of spring. It is an old Candlemas folk custom, transplanted from the Old World and given a new American mascot. Nobody present could have guessed the whole country would one day wait, every February, to hear whether a rodent saw its shadow.
Source: www.loc.gov