Tag Archives: January Peace Love Art Activism

Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

January 17, 2017 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Act 44

January 17, 1834: the Alabama State Legislature passed Act 44 as part of a series of increasingly restrictive laws governing the behavior of free and enslaved blacks within the state.

In the immediate aftermath of the infamous Nat Turner slave rebellion in Virginia (see August 21 – 22, 1831), Alabama passed a statute in 1833 that made it unlawful for free blacks to settle in Alabama. That statute provided that freed blacks found in Alabama would be given thirty days to vacate the state. After thirty days, the freed slave could be subject to a penalty of thirty-nine lashes and receive an additional twenty-day period to leave the state. After that period had expired, the free person could be sold back into slavery with proceeds of the sale going to the state and to those who participated in apprehending him.

Act 44 expanded on this legislation by specifying a series of procedures that had to be followed for a slave to be freed within the state. One of the requirements was that emancipation for an enslaved person could take effect only outside of Alabama’s borders. Further, if an emancipated slave returned to Alabama, he could be lawfully captured and sold back into slavery. In fact, Act 44 required sheriffs and other law enforcement officers to actively attempt to apprehend freed slaves who had entered Alabama for any reason. (next BH, see March 14, 1835)

Cassius Marcellus Clay

January 17, 1942: Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. born in Louisville, Kentucky. About Clay’s childhood, Ali’s younger brother, Rudy said “All the time, he used to ask me to throw rocks at him. I thought he was crazy, but he’d dodge every one. No matter how many I threw, I could never hit him.” (see Muhammad Ali for more) (next BH, see Jan 25; MA, see October 1954)

George Jackson

January 17, 1970: George Jackson was charged along with Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette for murdering Soledad prison guard John V. Mills. Mills was beaten and thrown from the third floor of Soledad’s Y wing. This was a capital offense and a successful conviction could put them in the gas chamber.

Mills was apparently murdered in retaliation for the shooting deaths of three black inmates by a Soledad officer Opie G Miller the year prior. Miller was not convicted of any crime, a grand jury ruling his actions to be justifiable homicide. (George Jackson bio from black past dot com) (BH, see Jan 26; BP, see Feb 21)

James A. Hood died

January 17, 2013: James A. Hood died in Gadsden, Ala. He was 70. Hood integrated the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963 together with his fellow student Vivian Malone after Gov. George C. Wallace capitulated to the federal government in a signature moment of the civil rights movement known as the “stand in the schoolhouse door.” (NYT obit) (see Jan 30)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

Lucy Parsons

January 17, 1915: organized and led by radical labor organizer, Lucy Parsons, more than 1,500 people march in Chicago, demanding relief from hunger and high levels of unemployment in the city. Chicago Police describe Lucy Parsons as “more dangerous than a thousand rioters.” (Lucy Parson site bio) (see Jan 19)

Federal employees organize

January 17, 1962: an order by President Kennedy allowed federal employees to organize, join unions, and bargain collectively with the government. It did not give them the right to strike. The move begins an era of public employee unionization. (public employee unions, see January 22, 2010; LH, February 10, 1963)

Recall petition

January 17, 2012: volunteers in Wisconsin submitted nearly a million signatures (double the number of signatures required) calling for a recall election of Governor Scott Walker in protest of his public fight last year to abandon the collective bargaining rights of public workers. (see Jan 30)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

Cultural Milestone

January 17, 1920: the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect and prohibition began. Section 1 read:

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. (see Aug 31)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

LSD

January 17, 1966: Ken Kesey tried for marijuana possession arrest in October 1965. He was found guilty and sentenced to six months on a work farm and three years probation. (see January 19)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear News

Bomber collision

January 17, 1966: a B-52 bomber collided with a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain’s Mediterranean coast, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and one in the sea. None explode. (see Oct 5)

Nuclear Posture Review

January 17, 2018: the Pentagon sent Nuclear Posture Review, the newly drafted United States nuclear strategy, President Trump for approval.

The NPR would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyberattacks.

For decades, American presidents had threatened “first use” of nuclear weapons against enemies in only very narrow and limited circumstances, such as in response to the use of biological weapons against the United States. The NPR the first to expand that to include attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country’s power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyberweapons. (see Jan 18)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

DEATH PENALTY

Gary Gilmore

January 17, 1977: a Utah firing squad made Gary Gilmore the first person executed in the U.S. in almost 10 years. (see June 29, 1977)

Clarence Ray Allen

January 17, 2006: California executed Clarence Ray Allen, its oldest death row inmate, minutes after his 76th birthday. The execution took place despite arguments that putting to death an elderly, blind and wheelchair-bound man was cruel and unusual punishment. Allen arranged a triple murder 25 years earlier. (see Dec 30)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

Iraq/Iran

Tow missiles/Iran-contra affair

January 17, 1986: 4,000 more Tow missiles for Iran authorized by Reagan, supplied through Israel. (see Apr 22)

Scud missiles

January 17, 1991: Iraq fired eight Scud missiles into Israel. (Jan 22)

US dead

January 17, 2004: 500 U.S. soldiers dead in Iraq since the invasion. (see Feb 4)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

January 17, 1998: William Ginsburg flew to Washington to represent Monica Lewinsky. President Clinton gave his deposition in the Jones lawsuit, in which he denied having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky. Newsweek magazine decided not to run a story by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff on the Lewinsky tapes and the alleged affair. (see Clinton for expanded story)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

North Carolina/abortion

January 17, 2014: U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles ruled that North Carolina law requiring women who want an abortion to have an ultrasound and then have a medical provider describe the image to them is a violation of constitutional free-speech rights. Eagles stated that states don’t have the power to force a health care provider to be the bearer of what she called an “ideological message in favor of carrying a pregnancy to term.” (see Feb 5)

Mississippi/abortion

January 17, 2020: on December 13, 2019, US Appeals Court Judge Patrick Higginbotham l had blocked the law as unconstitutional. Mississippi then asked the full court to reconsider the case,. On this date, a three judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request from Mississippi to reconsider a ruling striking down the state’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks.

The December ruling had made clear that Supreme Court precedent clearly protects the right to an abortion. “States may regulate abortion procedures prior to viability so long as they do not impose an undue burden on the woman’s right, but they may not ban abortions,” the court said last month. “The law at issue is a ban.” [TH article] (next WH, see Jan 20; Mississippi, see Feb 20)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

January 17, 2015: oil pumped in the Bakken formation in North Dakota and Montana leaked from a pipeline into the Yellowstone River near Glendive, Montana. The 12-inch crude line was shut, according to Bill Salvin, an outside spokesman for True Companies, whose Bridger Pipeline LLC operated the Poplar pipe system. As much as 1,200 barrels of oil leaked from the pipeline, much of which went into the Yellowstone River, said Dave Parker, spokesman for Montana Governor Steve Bullock. (see Feb 16)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

The Cold War

January 17, 2018: North and South Korea agreed to have their athletes march together under one flag at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in February and to field a joint women’s ice hockey team, the most dramatic gesture of reconciliation between the two nations in a decade. (see Apr 19)

January 17 Peace Love Art Activism

Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

January 16, 2017 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

Native Americans

Alabama disenfranchises Creek & Cherokee

January 16, 1832: the General Assembly of Alabama enacted provisions prohibiting the Creek and Cherokee from practicing customs or making laws that conflicted with Alabama law. The provision stated, “All laws, usages and customs now used, enjoyed, or practiced, by the Creek and Cherokee nations of Indians, within the limits of this State, contrary to the constitution and laws of this State, be, and the same are hereby abolished.”

This statute was created just three years after another that effectively extended the jurisdiction of Alabama into Creek territory. In response to that first law, and white settlers’ increasing unlawful encroachment into the Creek Nation, the Creek Council repeatedly – yet unsuccessfully – petitioned the federal government for assistance and protection.

Even without federal support, many Creeks refused to succumb to mounting pressure to emigrate west of the Mississippi River, and their leaders continued organizing efforts to secure their tribal lands. These efforts were frustrated by this 1832 law, which also declared it illegal for tribal leaders to “meet in any counsel, assembly, or convention” and create “any law for said tribe, contrary to the laws and constitution of this State.” Punishment for violating this law was imprisonment “in the common jail of the proper county, for not less than two, nor more than four, months.”

The 1832 law also provided that the Cherokee and Creek could only testify in court in suits involving other Cherokee and Creek, effectively ensuring that Creeks defrauded and illegally deprived of their land by white intruders would have no recourse in the Alabama courts. White settlers, speculators, and those intending to illegally occupy tribal lands were enticed by the law preventing any suit for trespass and traveled to Creek territory in Alabama to take advantage of the law. Both the Alabama and federal government’s singular goal was removal of Indians from Alabama to the Western Territory and this law furthered those aims. By 1837, 23,000 Creeks had emigrated out of the Southeast. (see Mar 24)

Grass Roots Oyate

January 16, 2000: the activist group Grass Roots Oyate began its occupation of the Red Cloud Building at the Oglala Sioux Tribal Headquarters, Pine Ridge Reservation, in protest of what they deemed the corrupt, oppressive and ineffective politics of tribal leadership. Federal officials removed financial records the following day, and the elected tribal president was suspended. The activists vowed to continue the occupation until their demands were met. (see August 2002)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

United Packinghouse Workers

January 16, 1946: the meatpacking industry in the U.S. effectively shuts down when both the United Packinghouse Workers of America and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America go on strike over wages. Just ten days into the strike, using the War Labor Disputes Act, President Harry Truman seized control of the plants and ordered the workers back to work with the greatest single wage increase ever in the industry. (see May 17)

Curt Flood

January 16, 1970: seven-time Golden Glove-winning center fielder Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals filed suit in federal court against Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, the presidents of the American and National Leagues and all 24 teams in the Major League Baseball (MLB) organization.

After the Cardinals traded Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies in October 1969, Flood wrote a letter to Kuhn in late December, protesting the league’s player reserve clause, which prevented players from moving to another team unless they were traded. Kuhn denied Flood’s request to be made a free agent, and Flood decided to sue. (LH, see Jan 22; Flood, see June 19, 1972)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

January 16 Music et al

Bob Nehart

January 16 – 22, 1961: Bob Newhart’s comedy album returns to #1 for a fourth time. It had first reached Billboard’s #1 position on August 1, 1960 and remained there for eight weeks. This last time it will remain on top for a week.

Supremes

January 16 – 22, 1965: “Come See About Me” by the Supremes #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It had already been #1 on December 19 for a week.

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam

Oplan 34A

January 16, 1964: President Johnson approved Oplan 34A, operations to be conducted by South Vietnamese forces supported by the United States to gather intelligence and conduct sabotage to destabilize the North Vietnamese regime.

Actual operations began in February and involved raids by South Vietnamese commandos operating under U.S. orders against North Vietnamese coastal and island installations. Although American forces were not directly involved in the actual raids, U.S. Navy ships were on station to conduct electronic surveillance and monitor North Vietnamese defense responses under another program called Operation De Soto.

Oplan 34A attacks would play a major role in what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (Aug 2). (next Vietnam, see Jan 22)

Youth International Party

January 16, 1968: Youth International Party (YIPPIES!) founded. (see Jan 21)

Expanded peace talks

January 16, 1969: an agreement is reached in Paris for the opening of expanded peace talks. It was agreed that representatives of the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the National Liberation Front would sit at a circular table without nameplates, flags or markings. (see Jan 25)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

Space Race

January 16, 1969: two manned Soviet Soyuz spaceships became the first vehicles to dock in space and transfer personnel. (see March 3 – 13)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

IRAN

January 16, 1979: Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran flees Iran with his family, relocating to Egypt. (History dot com article) (see Iran hostage for more)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Miami revolt

January 16, 1989: three days of violent protests began in Miami after police officer William Lozano shot Clement Lloyd, 23, while on his motorcycle with passenger Allan Blanchard, 24.

Lloyd was killed instantly by a bullet to the head; Blanchard died of injuries the next day. (LA Times article) (BH, see Feb 10; RR, see Dec 7)

Muhammad Ali

January 16, 2019: Ali’s hometown of Louisville, Ky. renamed its airport in honor of him.

The Louisville Regional Airport Authority board announced its decision to call the airport the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.

“Muhammad became one of the most well-known people to ever walk the Earth and has left a legacy of humanitarianism and athleticism that has inspired billions of people,” said Mayor Greg Fischer in a press release from the board. “It important that we, as a city, further champion The Champ’s legacy, and the airport renaming is a wonderful next step.” (see Jan 19)

Black & Shot/Laquan McDonald

January 16, 2019 : Associate Judge Domenica Stephenson acquitted Chicago police officers David March, Joseph Walsh, and Thomas Gaffney of charges that they covered up for fellow police officer Jason Van Dyke after he shot and killed Laquan McDonald, a black teenager. The verdict came as a blow to those who saw the case as a rare moment when officers might be held accountable for a longstanding pattern of defending one another.

Stephenson dismissed prosecutors’ assertions that the officers had conspired and obstructed justice.

“This court finds that the state has failed to meet its burden on all charges,” Judge Stephenson said.

Along with the three officers, the broad concept of a police “code of silence” was on trial in Chicago, a city where police have been accused for decades of covering up fellow officers’ misconduct. [NYT article] (B & S, see Jan 28; LM, see Feb 4)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

Dissolution of the USSR

January 16, 1990: in the wake of vicious fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Azerbaijan, the Soviet government sent in 11,000 troops to quell the conflict. The fighting–and the official Soviet reaction to it–was an indication of the increasing ineffectiveness of the central Soviet government in maintaining control in the Soviet republics, and of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s weakening political power. (see USSR for expanded chronology)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

IRAQ War I

January 16, 1991: Operation Desert Storm began with air strikes against Iraq. (2016 Vice News article) (see Jan 17)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

Women’s Health

January 16, 1997: Eric Rudolph bombed an abortion clinic in the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs. (see January 29, 1998)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

January 16, 1998: Whitewater Independent Counsel Ken Starr contacted Attorney General Janet Reno to get permission to expand his probe. Reno agreed and submitted the request to a panel of three federal judges. The judges agreed to allow Starr to formally investigate the possibility of subornation of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Jones case. Tripp and Lewinsky met again at the Ritz-Carlton. FBI agents and U.S. attorneys interceded and take Lewinsky to a hotel room, where they questioned her and offer her immunity. Lewinsky contacted her mother, Marcia Lewis, who traveled down from New York City by train. Marcia Lewis contacted her ex-husband, who called attorney William Ginsburg, a family friend. Ginsburg advises Monica Lewinsky not to accept the immunity deal until he learns more. (see CI for expanded chronology)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

TERRORISM

January 16, 2002: Richard Reid charged with eight criminal counts. (Wall St Journal article) (see Jan 23)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

LGBTQ

January 16, 2015: the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether all 50 states must allow gay and lesbian couples to marry. The court’s announcement made it likely that it would resolve one of the great civil rights questions of the age before its current term ends in June.

The justices ducked the issue October, refusing to hear appeals from rulings allowing same-sex marriage in five states. That surprise action delivered a tacit victory for gay rights, immediately expanding the number of states with same-sex marriage to 24 from 19, along with the District of Columbia.

Largely as a consequence of the Supreme Court’s failure to act in October, the number of states allowing same-sex marriage had grown to 36, and more than 70 percent of Americans lived in places where gay couples could marry. [NYT report] (see Jan 21)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear/Chemical News

January 16, 2018: on this date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had scheduled a workshop titled “Public Health Response to a Nuclear Detonation,” for doctors, government officials, emergency responders and others whom, if they survived, would be responsible for overseeing the emergency response to a nuclear attack.

“While a nuclear detonation is unlikely,” the C.D.C. stated on its website, “it would have devastating results and there would be limited time to take critical protection steps. Despite the fear surrounding such an event, planning and preparation can lessen deaths and illness.”

The announcement of the workshop had generated much media attention given President Trump’s recent comments regarding North Korea’s nuclear capability, although the CDS said that those comments were not related to the cancellation. . The CDC said the Nuclear workshop would be rescheduled.

A workshop regarding public health and the flu became the topic (see Jan 22)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

Cannabis

January 16, 2018: although veterans groups were pushing for the use of the drug as an alternative to opioids and anti-depressants, the Department of Veterans Affairs said it would not conduct research into whether medical marijuana could help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain. [WP report] (next Cannabis, see Jan 22 or see CCC for expanded post)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

Immigration History

January 16, 2019: according to a report by government inspectors , the Trump administration likely separated thousands more children from their parents at the Southern border than was previously believed.

The federal government had reported that nearly 3,000 children were forcibly separated from their parents under last year’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, under which nearly all adults entering the country illegally were prosecuted, and any children accompanying them were put into shelters or foster care.

But even before the administration officially unveiled the zero-tolerance policy in the spring of 2018, staff of the US Dept of Health and Human Services, the agency that oversees the care of children in federal custody, had noted a “sharp increase” in the number of children separated from a parent or guardian, according to the report from the agency’s Office of Inspector General.

As of December 2018, the department had identified 2,737 children who were separated from their parents under the policy and required to be reunified by a federal court order issued in June 2018.

But that number did not represent the full scope of family separations. Thousands of children might have been separated during an influx that began in 2017, before the accounting required by the court, the report said. [NYT article] (next IH, see Jan 19)

January 16 Peace Love Art Activism

Lynching, Music et al, Peace Love Art and Activism, Today in history

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

January 14, 2017 Woodstock Whisperer Leave a comment

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Anarchism in the US

January 14, 1910: using section 497 of the Postal Laws and Regulations Act of 1902, Mother Earth magazine was banned from the mails after Anthony Comstock complained about Emma Goldman’s essay, “The Traffic in Women.“” The issue will be released by the Post Office after Comstock is forced to withdraw his objections. (see March 26, 1910)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Technological Milestone

January 14, 1914: Henry Ford announced the newest advance in assembly line production of cars. The new continuous motion method reduced assembly time of a car from 12½ hours to 93 minutes. (see Mar 14)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

BLACK HISTORY

Raymond Gunn lynching

January 14, 1931: black residents of Maryville, Missouri fled the town after the lynching of Raymond Gunn on January 12. More than 20 percent of Maryville’s black population fled the town in fear. Despite investigations initiated by state officials, no one was ever arrested or convicted of any crime related to the lynching of Raymond Gunn. [EJI article] (next BH, see July 15, 1931; next Lynching, see April 2, 1933; see AL3 for expanded chronology of early 20th century lynching)

A. Philip Randolph

January 14, 1941: Civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph on this day proposed a march on Washington to demand equal employment opportunities for African-Americans in the defense industries. Full employment had returned to the U.S. as a result of the war in Europe.

The idea of an African-American protest march in Washington, D.C., shocked and scared many Americans –and drew more African-American support than Randolph had imagined. (BH, see Apr 18; March, see June 18)

Segregation Forever

January 14, 1963: in Nov 1962 Alabama elected George Wallace governor in a landslide victory. He took the oath of office standing on the gold star marking the spot where, 102 years earlier, Jefferson Davis was sworn in as President of the Confederate States of America. In his inaugural speech, Wallace used the line for which he is best known: In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever… Let us send this message back to Washington . . . that from this day we are standing up, and the heel of tyranny does not fit the neck of an upright man . . . that we intend to take the offensive and carry our fight for freedom across the nation, wielding the balance of power we know we possess in the Southland. . . . that WE, not the insipid bloc voters of some sections will determine in the next election who shall sit in the White House of these United States. (see Jan 20)

Lawrence Douglas Wilder

January 14, 1990: Lawrence Douglas Wilder was sworn in as the governor of Virginia by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. Wilder was the first African-American to be elected governor of a U.S. state. (see May 17)

de la Beckwith extradited

January 14, 1991: Chattanooga, TN. Judge Joe DeRisio of Hamilton County Criminal Court ordered that Byron de la Beckwith be returned to Mississippi to face a charge of first-degree murder in the 1963 slaying of Medgar Evers, but DeRisio delayed putting the extradition order into effect until January 22 to give Mr. Beckwith time to file an appeal with the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals. (see June 3, 1991)

Antwon Rose

January 14, 2019: Judge Alexander Bicket ordered that a jury be selected from another county for the trial of East Pittsburgh officer Michael Rosfeld accused in the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager 17-year-old Antwon Rose Jr.

Rosfeld is charged with homicide in the death of Rose Jr., who was shot June 19, 2018 as he fled a traffic stop.

Bicket ordered that a jury be chosen from outside Allegheny County, citing “pervasive prejudicial pre-trial publicity” that could deny Rosfeld an impartial jury. He said he expected media coverage to intensify with jury selection for a trial scheduled to begin in late February. (B & S, see Jan 16; AR see Mar 19)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Japanese Internment Camps

Proclamation No. 2537

January 14, 1942: President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation No. 2537, requiring aliens from World War II-enemy countries–Italy, Germany and Japan–to register with the United States Department of Justice. Registered persons were then issued a Certificate of Identification for Aliens of Enemy Nationality. (see JIC for expanded chronology)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

January 14 Music et al

Sgt Presley

January 14, 1960: Elvis Presley promoted to sergeant in the U.S. Army (see Mar 5)

LSD

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism — Poster for San Francisco Human Be In

January 14, 1967: the Human Be-In was held in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. It was a prelude to San Francisco’s Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture and introduced the word “psychedelic” to suburbia. (see San Francisco Human Be In for more) (LSD, see March)

John Lennon

January 14, 1970: a display of John Lennon’s erotic “Bag One” lithographs opened in London. 2 days later Scotland Yard seized prints as evidence of pornography. (see Jan 27)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Vietnam & My Lai Massacre

January 14, 1971: During his trial for charges of assault with intent to murder at least six My Lai civilians, Sergeant Charles Hutto admitted to killing a group of unarmed civilians with an M60 machine gun. Hutto’s acquittal (on the 14^th) set the precedent that “obeying orders” is a viable defense for mass murder. (see My Lai for expanded chronology; Vietnam, see Jan 18)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

The Red Scare

January 14, 1975: after 37 years of civil liberties abuses involving investigations of freedom of belief and association, almost all of which involved left-wing, labor and liberal individuals and groups, the House of Representatives on this day abolished the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). (see May 2)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Nuclear news

January 14, 1994: President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed accords in Moscow to stop aiming missiles at any nation and to dismantle the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine. (see May 31)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

CLINTON IMPEACHMENT

Monica Lewinsky

January 14, 1998: Monica Lewinsky gave Linda Tripp a document headed “Points to make in an affidavit,” coaching Tripp on what to tell Jones’ lawyers about Kathleen Willey, another former White House staffer. Willey recently had testified about alleged unsolicited sexual advances made by the president in 1993.

Opening statements

January 14, 1999: thirteen House prosecutors begin a three-day opening statement, laying out the case for the Senate to convict President Clinton and remove him from office. (see Clinton for expanded entry)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Iraq War II

January 14, 2005: Army Specialist Charles Graner Jr., the reputed ringleader of a band of rogue guards at the Abu Ghraib prison, was convicted at Fort Hood, Texas, of abusing Iraqi detainees. (see Jan 15)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

LGTBQ

January 14, 2014: U.S. District Judge Terence Kern ruled that Oklahoma’s ban on marriage equality was unconstitutional. His ruling was stayed pending appeal, meaning marriages would not occur immediately in the Sooner State.

Two plaintiff couples, Mary Bishop and Sharon Baldwin and Gay Phillips and Susan Barton, filed their case, Bishop v. Oklahoma, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma in November 2004. [NYT article] (see Jan 23; Oklahoma, see July 18)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

US Labor History

January 14, 2019: more than 30,000 Los Angeles public-school teachers began a long-planned strike, pressing demands for higher pay, smaller classes and more support staff in the schools.

The strike affected roughly 500,000 students at 900 schools in the district, the second-largest in the nation. The schools remained open staffed by substitutes hired by the city, but many parents said they would not send their children across picket lines. [NYT article] (LH, see Jan 18; strike, see Jan 22)

January 14 Peace Love Art Activism

Environmental Issues

Climate change continues

January 14, 2021: an analysis of global temperatures by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies found that 2020 was slightly warmer than 2016. But the difference was insignificant, the institute’s director, Gavin Schmidt, said in an interview.

“Effectively it’s a statistical tie,” he said.

Other analyses issued, one by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and another by Berkeley Earth, an independent research group in California, found that 2020 was slightly cooler than 2016, as did one published last week by the Copernicus Climate Change Service in Europe. But the difference was small enough to not be statistically significant.

With the 2020 results, the last seven years have been the warmest since the beginning of modern record-keeping nearly a century and a half ago, Dr. Schmidt said.

“We are now very, very clear about the underlying long-term trends,” he said. “We understand where they come from. It’s because of the greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere.”

The planet has warmed more than 1 degree Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s, when the spread of industrialization led to rising emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and the pace has accelerated in recent decades. Since 1980, warming has averaged about 0.18 degree Celsius (about 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade. [NYT article]

Electric Vehicle Study

January 14, 2021: data published by a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) showed that despite the higher sticker price, electric cars might actually save drivers money in the long-run.

o reach this conclusion, the MIT team calculated both the carbon dioxide emissions and full lifetime cost — including purchase price, maintenance and fuel — for nearly every new car model on the market.

They found electric cars were easily more climate friendly than gas-burning ones. Over a lifetime, they were often cheaper, too. [NYT article] (next EI, see Jan 19)