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1848
John Frémont (“The Pathfinder”) leaves Westport, Missouri, on his fourth Western expedition — a failed attempt to open a trail across the Rocky Mountains along the 38th parallel. Two years earlier, during the Mexican–American War, Frémont, as a major in the US Army, took control of California from the California Republic. Frémont would later settle in California and become one of the first two Senators from the new state. He was the first presidential candidate of the new Republican Party, losing to James Buchanan in the 1856 presidential election. He was born on January 21, 1813 and died on July 13, 1890, of peritonitis at home in New York. [Source: HistoryNet.com and Wikipedia.]