November 1 · This Day in America
The President's House is barely a house. Plaster is wet, the grand stair is missing, and laundry will soon hang to dry in the unfinished East Room. Into this damp, echoing shell rolls John Adams's carriage on November 1, 1800 — the first president ever to live here. The capital around it is a muddy clearing. The country it governs is twenty-four years old and still arguing about what it is. On his second night, by candlelight, Adams writes to Abigail a line he never meant for history: a prayer that honest and wise men should always rule under this roof. Franklin Roosevelt loved it enough to have it carved into the State Dining Room mantel, where it remains. Every president since has lived inside someone else's hope.
Source: www.whitehousehistory.org
Also on this day · 1765
On November 1, 1765, Britain's tax on every printed page in America comes into force: newspapers, contracts, even playing cards must bear a royal stamp. Instead of compliance, there is silence and shuttered courts, then organized fury. "No taxation without representation" stops being a phrase and starts being a movement. The Act is repealed within months, but the colonies have discovered they can say no together.
Source: www.loc.gov
“I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.”John Adams, 1800