Constitution Ratified: America's Framework Established
New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the US Constitution on June 21, 1788, providing the two-thirds majority required to put the document into effect. However, the Constitution could not function without the participation of the two largest states, Virginia and New York, both of which were sharply divided. Virginia ratified four days later by a vote of 89-79, with James Madison overcoming Patrick Henry's fierce opposition. New York ratified on July 26 by just 30-27, after Alexander Hamilton and John Jay published The Federalist Papers defending the document. The Constitution's brevity, roughly 4,500 words, makes it the shortest written national constitution still in force. It has been amended only 27 times in over 230 years.
June 21, 1788
238 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on June 21
Hannibal hid 40,000 soldiers in fog. Not metaphorical fog — literal morning mist clinging to the hills above Lake Trasimene, where Gaius Flaminius marched his a…
King Godomar II routed the Frankish forces at the Battle of Vézeronce, securing a temporary reprieve for the Burgundian Kingdom. By killing the Merovingian prin…
Belisarius had 15,000 soldiers, no maps of the African coast, and a general who'd recently been relieved of command for insubordination. Not the obvious recipe …
Külüg Khan ascended the throne as the seventh Khagan of the Mongol Empire and third Emperor of the Yuan dynasty, ending a period of succession instability. His …
France had already lost Italy once. Now they lost it again — badly. At Landriano, a small town southeast of Milan, Spanish imperial forces under Antonio de Leyv…
Oda Nobunaga was mid-tea ceremony when his own general's army surrounded the temple. Akechi Mitsuhide — trusted, decorated, given no obvious reason to betray — …
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