A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators at the expense of their victims ".
The Millerites were the followers of the teachings of William Miller, who in 1831 first shared publicly his belief that the Second Advent of Jesus Christ would occur in roughly the year 1843–1844. Coming during the Second Great Awakening, his beliefs were taken as predictions, spread widely, and believed by many, leading to the Great Disappointment.
James Smith Bush was an American attorney, Episcopal priest, religious writer, and an ancestor of the Bush political family. He was the father of business magnate Samuel Prescott Bush, grandfather of former U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, great-grandfather of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush and great-great-grandfather of former Texas Governor and President George W. Bush and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
Cornelius Conway Felton was an American educator. He was regent of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as professor of Greek literature and president of Harvard University.
Armando Valladares Perez is a Cuban-American poet, diplomat and human rights activist.
Andrew Jackson Donelson was an American diplomat. He served in various positions as a Democrat and was the Know Nothing nominee for US Vice President in 1856.
The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, first published in New York on April Fool's Day 1857, is the ninth book and final novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book was published on the exact day of the novel's setting.
George Parkman, a Boston Brahmin and a member of one of Boston's richest families, was a prominent physician, businessman, and philanthropist, as well the victim in the sensationally gruesome Parkman–Webster murder case, which shook Boston in 1849–1850.
The Jerry Rescue occurred on October 1, 1851, and involved the public rescue of a fugitive slave who had been arrested the same day in Syracuse, New York, during the anti-slavery Liberty Party's state convention. The escaped slave was William Henry, a 40-year-old cooper from Missouri who called himself "Jerry."
Washington Goode was an African-American sailor who was hanged for murder in Boston in May 1849. His case was the subject of considerable attention by those opposed to the death penalty, resulting in over 24,000 signatures on petitions for clemency to Massachusetts governor George N. Briggs.
Derastus Clapp was head of the first city detective bureau in the United States, located in Boston, Massachusetts. He was appointed to the office of constable by the elderly Mayor Josiah Quincy in 1828, and was reappointed every succeeding year to 1874. In 1848, he was promoted to be one of the first detectives in the city. Clapp is most noted for his role in the arrest and prosecution of John White Webster for the murder of George Parkman.
William Henry Sheppard was one of the earliest African Americans to become a missionary for the Presbyterian Church. He spent 20 years in Africa, primarily in and around the Congo Free State, and is best known for his efforts to publicize the atrocities committed against the Kuba and other Congolese peoples by King Leopold II's Force Publique.
The 1845 United States Senate special election in New York was held on January 18, 1845 by the New York State Legislature to elect two U.S. Senators to represent the State of New York in the United States Senate. The regular 1845 United States Senate election in New York was held on February 4, 1845, to elect a U.S. Senator to represent the State of New York in the United States Senate.
The 1857 United States Senate election in New York was held on February 3, 1857, by the New York State Legislature to elect a U.S. Senator to represent the State of New York in the United States Senate.
The United States Senate elections of 1856 and 1857 were elections which had the young Republican Party assume its position as one of the United States's two main political parties. The Whigs and Free Soilers were gone by the time the next Congress began.
The United States Senate elections of 1854 and 1855 were elections which saw the final decline of the Whig Party and the continuing majority of the Democrats. Those Whigs in the South who were opposed to secession ran on the "Opposition Party" ticket, and were elected to a minority. Along with the Whigs, the Senate roster also included Free Soilers, Know Nothings, and a new party: the Republicans. Only five of the twenty-one Senators up for election were re-elected.
Daniel Clarke Eddy was a U.S. clergyman, hymn writer, politician, and author, who in 1855 served as a member, and as the Speaker, of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
Bristol Bill was an Anglo-American burglar and counterfeiter. His most well known crimes include the 1845 Poughkeepsie Barge Robbery, involvement in the 1849 Drury Torpedo Case, and the 1850 stabbing of Vermont State's Attorney Bliss N. Davis at a sentencing hearing on counterfeiting charges.
The Christiana Riot, also known as Christiana Resistance, Christiana Tragedy, or Christiana incident, was the armed resistance by free Blacks and escaped slaves to a raid led by a federal marshal. The raid took place in the early morning hours of September 11, 1851, at the house in Christiana, Pennsylvania, of William Parker, himself an escaped slave. This took place after the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 increased penalties for assisting escaped slaves and required law enforcement, even in free states, to assist in the recapture of slaves. Pennsylvania was a free state.
