Louisiana Purchase
President Jefferson was faced with a serious question upon entering office. The French were in desperate need of money offered us the entire Louisiana Territory. Realizing the enormity of this opportunity he agreed and the United States more than doubled its size.

Century of Lawmaking: The Louisiana Purchase Legislative Timeline ...
A brief historical background of American Memory Collection, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation.
 

Lewis and Clark
Jefferson commission a team lead by Lewis and Clark to investigate and map the new Louisiana Territory from St Louis to the Pacific Ocean.

Andrew Jackson
"My friends, circumstances render it impossible that you can flourish in the midst of a civilized community. You have but one remedy within your reach, and that is to remove to the west. And the sooner you do this, the sooner you will commence your career of improvement and prosperity." Andrew Jackson on The Trail of Tears
"I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades. And in the chill of a drizzling rain on an October morning I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred and forty-five wagons and started toward the west....On the morning of November the 17th we encountered a terrific sleet and snow storm with freezing temperatures and from that day until we reached the end of the fateful journey on March the 26th 1839, the sufferings of the Cherokees were awful. The trail of the exiles was a trail of death. They had to sleep in the wagons and on the ground without fire. And I have known as many as twenty-two of them to die in one night of pneumonia due to ill treatment, cold and exposure..."
Private John G. Burnett
Captain Abraham McClellan's Company,
2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry
Cherokee Indian Removal 1838-39
Quotes from: Quotations from The Trail Where They Cried