What does Louisiana mean? Louisiana (La Louisianne) was named by explorer RenÃ©-Robert Cavelier in the mid 1600's to honor King Louis XIV of France. President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana territory from Napoleon in 1803 (the original Louisiana territory is now divided between 13 states). Louisiana.
Reagan started it. In his 1982 State of the Union speech, Reagan did something new. Almost 200 years after George Washington gave the first annual message from the President to Congress, Reaganâs first State of the Union started a tradition by inviting Lenny Skutnik to attend.
It was 150 years ago that Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act of July 1, 1862, creating the original Union Pacific. One of America's iconic companies, today Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP), linking 23 states in the western two-thirds of the country by rail and providing freight solutions and logistics expertise to the global supply chain.