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In which John Green teaches you about the Mexican-American War in the late 1840s, and the expansion of the United States into the western end of North America. In this episode of Crash Course, US territory finally reaches from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean. After Oregon was secured from the UK and the southwest was ceded by Mexico, that is. Famous Americans abound in this episode, including James K Polk (Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump), Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, and Winfield Scott. You'll also learn about the California Gold Rush of 1848, and California's admission as a state, which necessitated the Compromise of 1850. Once more slavery is a crucial issue. Something is going to have to be done about slavery, I think. Maybe it will come to a head next week.

In the 1950s and 1960s planners in Harrisonburg, VA implemented a federally sponsored slum clearance and urban renewal program. Seeking to compare this redevelopment effort with the urban renewal efforts in other major cities, students in James Madison University's US Urban Social History Course have begun digitizing relevant primary documents. These files are drawn from Harrisonburg's City Council minutes as well as records located at the Department of Planning and Community Development, the Harrisonburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority, and in local planner Robert Sullivan's personal collection. The files are organized by the location where the originals are currently located. Indices and summaries of relevant Daily New Record articles will be added shortly. The students who digitzed this collection of documents include: John Almquist, Alicen Brown, Alexander Carroll, Rose Anne Coates, Troy Cunningham, Eric Echelberger, John Fitzmaurice, Paul Frankel, Christopher Gray, William Hayes, Mark Hitchko, Kristin Keinz, Anna Klemm, Meaghan Leonard, Christina Lloyd-Williams, Brian Mannion, Mallory Micetich, Elizabeth Morris, Emily Neufeld, Samuel Padgett, Taylor Wood