IN: Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 - 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the 20th century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius.

On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day, five years to the day after the Staplehurst rail crash, he died at Gads Hill Place. Biographer Claire Tomalin has suggested Dickens was actually in Peckham when he suffered the stroke, and his mistress Ellen Ternan and her maids had him taken back to Gad's Hill so the public would not know the truth about their relationship. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner", he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads:  To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world.  His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down. On Sunday, 19 June 1870, five days after Dickens was buried in the Abbey, Dean Arthur Penrhyn Stanley delivered a memorial elegy, lauding "the genial and loving humorist whom we now mourn", for showing by his own example "that even in dealing with the darkest scenes and the most degraded characters, genius could still be clean, and mirth could be innocent". Pointing to the fresh flowers that adorned the novelist's grave, Stanley assured those present that "the spot would thenceforth be a sacred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of the representative of literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our English tongue."  In his will, drafted more than a year before his death, Dickens left the care of his PS80,000 estate to his longtime colleague John Forster and his "best and truest friend" Georgina Hogarth who, along with Dickens's two sons, also received a tax-free sum of PS8,000 (about PS800,000 in present terms). Although Dickens and his wife had been separated for several years at the time of his death, he provided her with an annual income of PS600 and made her similar allowances in his will. He also bequeathed PS19 19s to each servant in his employment at the time of his death.
QUESTION: What was significant about his death?
IN: Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 - October 18, 1893) was a prominent U.S. orator, abolitionist, and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged and prevented from public speaking. Stone was known for using her birth name after marriage, the custom at the time being for women to take their husband's surname.

Lucy Stone was born on August 13, 1818, on her family's farm at Coy's Hill in West Brookfield, Massachusetts. She was the eighth of nine children born to Hannah Matthews and Francis Stone; she grew up with three brothers and three sisters, two siblings having died before her own birth. Another member of the Stone household was Sarah Barr, "Aunt Sally" to the children- a sister of Francis Stone who had been abandoned by her husband and left dependent upon her brother. Although farm life was hard work for all and Francis Stone tightly managed the family resources, Lucy remembered her childhood as one of "opulence," the farm producing all the food the family wanted and enough extra to trade for the few store-bought goods they needed.  Although Stone recalled that "There was only one will in our family, and that was my father's," she described the family government characteristic of her day. Hannah Stone earned a modest income through selling eggs and cheese but was denied any control over that money, sometimes denied money to purchase things Francis considered trivial. Believing she had a right to her own earnings, Hannah sometimes stole coins from his purse or secretly sold a cheese. As a child, Lucy resented instances of what she saw as her father's unfair management of the family's money. But she later came to realize that custom was to blame, and the injustice only demonstrated "the necessity of making custom right, if it must rule."  From the examples of her mother, Aunt Sally, and a neighbor neglected by her husband and left destitute, Stone early learned that women were at the mercy of their husbands' good will. When she came across the biblical passage, "and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee," she was distraught over what appeared to be divine sanction of women's subjugation, but then reasoned that the injunction applied only to wives. Resolving to "call no man my master," she determined to keep control over her own life by never marrying, obtaining the highest education she could, and earning her own livelihood.  Kerr writes "Stone's personality was striking: her unquestioning willingness to take responsibility for other peoples actions; her "workaholic" habits; her self doubt; her desire for control."
QUESTION: What can you tell me about her early life
IN: James Buchanan Jr. was born in a log cabin in Cove Gap, Pennsylvania (now Buchanan's Birthplace State Park), in Franklin County, on April 23, 1791, to James Buchanan, Sr. (1761-1821), a businessman, merchant, and farmer, and Elizabeth Speer, an educated woman (1767-1833). His parents were both of Ulster Scottish descent, the father having emigrated from Milford, County Donegal, Ireland, in 1783. One of eleven siblings, Buchanan was the oldest child in the family to survive infancy.

In March 1860, the House created the Covode Committee to investigate the administration for evidence of offenses, some impeachable, such as bribery and extortion of representatives in exchange for their votes. The committee, with three Republicans and two Democrats, was accused by Buchanan's supporters of being nakedly partisan; they also charged its chairman, Republican Rep. John Covode, with acting on a personal grudge (since the president had vetoed a bill that was fashioned as a land grant for new agricultural colleges, but was designed to benefit Covode's railroad company). However, the Democratic committee members, as well as Democratic witnesses, were equally enthusiastic in their pursuit of Buchanan, and as pointed in their condemnations, as the Republicans.  The committee was unable to establish grounds for impeaching Buchanan; however, the majority report issued on June 17 exposed corruption and abuse of power among members of his cabinet, as well as allegations (if not impeachable evidence) from the Republican members of the Committee, that Buchanan had attempted to bribe members of Congress in connection with the Lecompton constitution. (The Democratic report, issued separately the same day, pointed out that evidence was scarce, but did not refute the allegations; one of the Democratic members, Rep. James Robinson, stated publicly that he agreed with the Republican report even though he did not sign it.)  Buchanan claimed to have "passed triumphantly through this ordeal" with complete vindication. Nonetheless, Republican operatives distributed thousands of copies of the Covode Committee report throughout the nation as campaign material in that year's presidential election.
QUESTION:
What did the committee have to do with James Buchanan?