Essay
Dolley Madison: First Lady and Queen
Whatever else you can say about Dolley Payne Todd Madison (1768–1849), she was famous. She was so well known and well regarded in her lifetime that, at her death in 1849, both houses of Congress adjourned, along with the Supreme Court, to join President Zachary Taylor, escorting her coffin in the largest...


![[Dow Jones News Service ticker tape from the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated], November 22, 1963. (Gilder Lehrman Collection) [Dow Jones News Service ticker tape from the day John F. Kennedy was assassinate](http://gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/aggregate-208x148/content-images/056291.jpg)