John Hay (1838–1905) was an American statesman and official whose career in government stretched over almost half a century. After graduation from Brown University in 1858, Hay read law in his uncle's office in Springfield, Illinois, adjacent to that of Abraham Lincoln. Hay worked for Lincoln's successful presidential campaign, and became his assistant private secretary. Through the American Civil War, Hay was close to Lincoln, and stood by his deathbed after Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre. In 1897, President William McKinley made him the ambassador to Britain. The following year, Hay became the U.S. secretary of state. He served almost seven years, first under McKinley before his assassination, and then under Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was responsible for the Open Door Policy in China. To clear the way for the building of the Panama Canal, he negotiated the 1901 Hay–Pauncefote Treaty with the United Kingdom, the 1903 Hay–Herrán Treaty with Colombia, and the 1903 Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty with Panama. ( Full article...)
December 31: Saint Sylvester's Day (Western Christianity)
The Survey of Palestine was the government department responsible for the survey and mapping of Palestine during the period of British Mandatory Palestine. The survey department was established in 1920 in Jaffa, and moved to the outskirts of Tel Aviv in 1931. It established the Palestine grid. In early 1948, the British mandate appointed a temporary director general of the Survey Department for the impending Jewish state; this became the Survey of Israel. The maps produced by the survey have been widely used in "Palestinian refugee cartography" by scholars documenting the 1948 Palestinian exodus, notably in Salman Abu Sitta's Atlas of Palestine and Walid Khalidi's All That Remains. This composite map of the region of Palestine was assembled from twenty-four separate 1:100,000 sheets published by the Survey for Palestine and its successor, the Survey of Israel, between 1942 and 1958. Map credit: Survey of Palestine and the Survey of Israel; assembled by DutchTreat
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