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Today in History (1862) - The U.S. government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation. On the same day in 1865, the Confederate Congress voted to enlist 300,000 black troops, granting them freedom with the consent of their owners. Lee surrendered a few weeks later. |
Today in History (1979) - Iranian radicals, mostly students, invade the U.S. embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages, 63 of whom are American. The next year, Reagan defeats Carter by a wide margin in the presidential election. Fifteen years after that, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is mortally wounded by a right-wing Israeli assassin, after attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv's Kings Square. And happy birthday to First Lady Laura Bush.