Mon, Jan 9

2002—Future A.G. Al Gonzales writes that parts of the Geneva Conventions are “obsolete” and “quaint.”

1980—Sixty-three participants in the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque at Mecca are beheaded with swords in the public squares of eight Saudi cities.

1967—Calculations show ARVN desertions at 5.7 x the rate of the NVA.

1964—Panama suspends relations with the U.S. after U.S. troops kill 21 anti-American protesters.

1952—In Phenix City, Ala.—“Sin City” to Ft. Benning GIs—an anti-vice crusader’s home is bombed.

1939—In Missouri’s “Bootheel,” 1,700 homeless sharecroppers, Black and white, stage a sit-down strike in the middle of Highways 60 and 61.

1918—The 10th Cavalry and Yaqui Indians conduct the last battle of the Indian Wars at Bear Valley, Ariz.

1913—Richard Milhous Nixon is born in Yorba Linda, Calif.

1861—Mississippi declares it’s seceding because “none but the Black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun…[and] a blow to slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”

1811—The number of enslaved but armed Black men marching on New Orleans rises into the hundreds.

1805—Ohio passes “Black laws”—no Blacks may testify in court.

1766—A “grand mob” in Portsmouth relieves stamp master George Meserve of his commission and raises the colonies’ first “No Stamp” flag.

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