Blog

Washington, D.C. is not a state, and it has no admission date the way the fifty states do. Its founding traces instead to July 16, 1790, when President George Washington signed the Residence Act, authorizing a permanent federal capital on the Potomac River. Establishing the District The Constitution, ratified the year before, called for a federal district under the exclusive control of Congress, separate from any state. The Residence Act put that into practice: Maryland and Virginia ceded land a …

California became the 31st state on September 9, 1850, admitted directly as a free state under the Compromise of 1850, without ever passing through territorial status — one of the few states in the country to skip that step entirely. The admission came just four years after the Bear Flag Revolt, the short-lived 1846 uprising in Sonoma that first raised the flag California still flies today. From Bear Flag to Statehood In June 1846, a group of American settlers in Mexican California, distru …

Texas became the 28th state on December 29, 1845, admitted directly from an independent republic, without ever passing through territorial status — the same unusual path California would take five years later. Texas is one of only two states that were sovereign nations before joining the Union. From Republic to Annexation Texas declared independence from Mexico on March 2, 1836, and won it that April at the Battle of San Jacinto. For nearly a decade afterward it governed itself as the Repu …