IN: Robert Dale Owen (November 7, 1801 - June 24, 1877) was a Scottish-born social reformer who immigrated to the United States in 1825, became a U.S. citizen, and was active in Indiana politics as member of the Democratic Party in the Indiana House of Representatives (1835-39 and 1851-53) and represented Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives (1843-47). As a member of Congress, Owen successfully pushed through the bill that established Smithsonian Institution and served on the Institution's first Board of Regents. Owen also served as a delegate to the Indiana Constitutional Convention in 1850 and was appointed as U.S. charge d'affaires (1853-58) to Naples. Owen was a knowledgeable exponent of the socialist doctrines of his father, Robert Owen, and managed the day-to-day operation of New Harmony, Indiana, the socialistic utopian community he helped establish with his father in 1825.

After his first term in the Indiana legislature and two unsuccessful campaigns for election to the U.S. Congress in 1838 and in 1840, Owen was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1842. He served from 1843 to 1847 in the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Congresses. Owen was chairman of the Committee on Roads and Canals during the Twenty-eighth Congress. He was also involved in the debates about the annexation of Texas and an Oregon boundary dispute in 1844 that led to the establishment of the U.S-British boundary at the 49th parallel north, the result of the Oregon Treaty (1846). While serving as a member of Congress, Owen introduced and helped to secure passage of the bill that founded the Smithsonian Institution in 1846. Owen was appointed to the Smithsonian Institution's first Board of Regents and chaired its Building Committee, which oversaw the construction of the Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington, D.C., and recommended James Renwick, Jr. as architect, James Dixson and Gilbert Cameron as the contractors, and the Seneca Quarry for its distinct, dark-red sandstone. Owen, his brother David Dale Owen, and architect Robert Mills, were involved in developing preliminary plans for the Smithsonian Building. These early plans influenced Renwick's choice of the Romanesque Revival architectural style (sometimes referred to as Norman-style architecture) and his three-story design for the building, which was finally selected, although not without controversy. Owen's book Hints on Public Architecture (1849) argued the case for the suitability of Renwick's Romanesque Revival (Norman) architectural style for public buildings such as the Smithsonian "Castle," which he discussed in detail. Seven full-page illustrations and details of the building's architectural elements were prominently featured in the book, leading some to criticize Owen for his bias toward Renwick and his preference for Norman-style architecture over other popular styles.

Did Robert Dale Owen write any papers or bills while in Congress?

OUT: Owen introduced and helped to secure passage of the bill that founded the Smithsonian Institution in 1846.

IN: Richard was born on 2 October 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle, the twelfth of thirteen children of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville at the beginning of what has traditionally been labelled the "Wars of the Roses", a period of "three or four decades of political instability and periodic open civil war in the second half of the fifteenth century", between supporters of Richard's father (a potential claimant to the throne of King Henry VI from birth)--"Yorkists"--in opposition to the regime of Henry VI and his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and those loyal to the crown ("Lancastrians"). When his father and the Nevilles were forced to flee to Ludlow in 1459, Richard and his older brother, George (later Duke of Clarence), were placed in the custody of the Duchess of Buckingham, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. When his father and elder brother Edmund, Earl of Rutland, were killed at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460, Richard, who was eight years old, and George were sent by his mother, the Duchess of York, to the Low Countries. They returned to England following the defeat of the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton and participated in the coronation of Richard's eldest brother as King Edward IV in June 1461.

In 1483, a conspiracy arose among a number of disaffected gentry, many of whom had been supporters of Edward IV and the "whole Yorkist establishment". The conspiracy was nominally led by Richard's former ally and first cousin once removed Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, although it had begun as a Woodville-Beaufort conspiracy (being "well under way" by the time of the duke's involvement). Indeed, Davies has suggested that it was "only the subsequent parliamentary attainder that placed Buckingham at the centre of events", in order to blame a single disaffected magnate motivated by greed, rather than "the embarrassing truth" that those opposing Richard were actually "overwhelmingly Edwardian loyalists". It is possible that they planned to depose Richard III and place Edward V back on the throne, and that when rumours arose that Edward and his brother were dead, Buckingham proposed that Henry Tudor should return from exile, take the throne and marry Elizabeth of York, elder sister of the Tower Princes. However, it has also been pointed out that as this narrative stems from Richard's own parliament of 1484, it should probably be treated "with caution". For his part, Buckingham raised a substantial force from his estates in Wales and the Marches. Henry, in exile in Brittany, enjoyed the support of the Breton treasurer Pierre Landais, who hoped Buckingham's victory would cement an alliance between Brittany and England. Some of Henry Tudor's ships ran into a storm and were forced to return to Brittany or Normandy, while Henry himself anchored off Plymouth for a week before learning of Buckingham's failure. Buckingham's army was troubled by the same storm and deserted when Richard's forces came against them. Buckingham tried to escape in disguise, but was either turned in by a retainer for the bounty Richard had put on his head, or was discovered in hiding with him. He was convicted of treason and beheaded in Salisbury, near the Bull's Head Inn, on 2 November. His widow, Catherine Woodville, later married Jasper Tudor, the uncle of Henry Tudor, who was in the process of organising another rebellion. Richard made overtures to Landais, offering military support for Landais's weak regime under Duke Francis II of Brittany in exchange for Henry. Henry fled to Paris, where he secured support from the French regent Anne of Beaujeu, who supplied troops for an invasion in 1485. The French government, recalling Richard's effective disowning of the Treaty of Picquigny and refusal to accept the accompanying French pension, would not have welcomed the accession of one known to be unfriendly to France.

what was the rebellion about?

OUT:
In 1483, a conspiracy arose among a number of disaffected gentry, many of whom had been supporters of Edward IV and the "whole Yorkist establishment".