Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 May 16

= May 16 =

US President Impeachments
I was shuffling through some dusty digital archive of American history and I found some sort of ticket to the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. That got me wondering, was this common practice back then, selling tickets to prominent court cases? If so, when did it stop? Many thanks, cheers  ~Helicopter  Llama~  00:56, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Did the ticket have a price on it? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:18, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think so (copies can be found all over the web). See, for example, the United States' Senate website: " Popular interest in the trial was so intense that the Senate, for the first time in its history, issued gallery passes, beginning a practice that continues to the present." (See also "Display of Gallery Passes 1890 to Present"). ---Sluzzelin talk  01:30, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * They may not have been sold, but instead awarded based on a lottery or given out as favors to prominent friends of senators and the like (or a combination thereof). The main reason to use tickets is for crowd control.  It isn't necessarily a means to raise money by selling them.  -- Jayron  32  11:12, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, the first attempt was agaist John Tyler, but there was nothing found for an impeachment trial (so the trial never started). As far as I know, these were the only attempts in the 19th century. --78.50.203.183 (talk) 18:15, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know about selling court tickets, but they handed out tickets for the Casey Anthony trial. It was basically because the trial was so high profile and crowd control and all that. I attended another high profile trial (though less high profile than the Anthony trial) and they just had a line and it was first come first serve, but no tickets. They reserved a certain number of seats for family and for the press. The rest were up for grabs by the public. When the court room was full, they just closed the doors. Bali88 (talk) 03:07, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Oldest recorded voice of a president
Which US president was the first, whose voice was recorded? As far as I know, McKinley was the first to be filmed. But the first voice recording? Theodore Roosevelt, or Woodrow Wilson? I never heard a presidential voice before FDR and Hoover. --78.50.203.183 (talk) 18:13, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Benjamin Harrison (see section I linked to) in 1889. ---Sluzzelin talk  18:24, 16 May 2014 (UTC)