Throughout this year, New Hampshire was a state that we watched closely. On Election Day, the Granite State offered plenty of good news, but one statistic in particular caught my eye.

In addition to maintaining Democratic majorities in both the state house and state senate, the voters of New Hampshire chose to make a bit of history.

For the first time ever, women have gained the majority in a legislative chamber.

After Tuesday’s election, thirteen of the twenty-four state Senate seats in New Hampshire are now occupied by women. Peggy Gilmore (District 12), Bette Lasky (District 13) and Amanda Merrill (District 21) beat out their Republican opponents to join the eight Democratic female incumbents (and two Republican women) in the upper chamber.

This post was written by Danielle Horowtiz, a Klindt/Dye Intern for the 2008 Fall Semester.

Our office is closed in celebration of Independence Day, so I've got no legislative news to share. But I do want to relate a different kind of story altogether that I enjoyed today:

After years of searching, archaeologists have identified and excavated the boyhood home of George Washington, site of such legendary -- if perhaps apocryphal -- events as chopping down the cherry tree and throwing a coin across the Rappahannock River.

That's a fantastic piece of news for American cultural heritage on the 232nd anniversary of our birth as a nation.

God save our American states.