On this day in 1985 Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev becomes the Soviet Union’s leader. Gorbachev, born on the 2nd of March 1931 became the seventh and final General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He served in this role from 1985 to 1991 and was the final head of state for the Union [...]
In 1933, during the Great Depression, the Emergency Banking Act (officially named the Emergency Banking Relief Act) was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The act allowed a plan that would close down insolvent banks and reorganize and reopen those banks strong enough to survive. The Act was introduced during a joint session of Congress [...]
On February 3, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution is sworn in. It prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (i.e., slavery). This a pretty cool thing… Section 1. The right [...]
It’s Groundhog Day and, again, this might not be about politics but who really wants to hear about national debt and all that kind of boring stuff. Instead let’s talk about Groundhog Day. It’s celebrated every 2nd of February in Canada and the United States – they even made a movie about it with Bill [...]
This isn’t exactly political in nature but it did happen on this day in 2003. It was the second Space Shuttle Disaster and the first shuttle lost on landing. There was shock around the world over the tragedy. Space Shuttle Columbia was launched on January 16th, 2003 at 9.39am. Columbia was on a 16-day science [...]
On January 30, 1985, Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but fails and is subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen. This is quite the story: Lawrence worked as a painter and there is speculation that exposure to the chemicals in his paints may have contributed to his derangements. By the early 1830s [...]
No this isn’t something on Star Trek. This is a real treaty that was signed on January 29, 1967. The Outer Space Treaty represents the basic legal framework of international space law. Among its principles, it bars States Parties to the Treaty from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit [...]
At the time, this was big news… The Lewinsky Scandal was a political sex scandal emerging from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by [...]
The League was an organization that was founded after the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919–1920. It later became the United Nations. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. The League’s primary goals as stated in its Covenant included preventing war through collective security, disarmament, [...]
January 2008 was an especially volatile month in world stock markets, with a surge in implied volatility measurements of the US-based S&P 500 index, and a sharp decrease in non-U.S. stock market prices on Monday, January 21, 2008 (continuing to a lesser extent in some markets on January 22). Some headline writers and a general [...]
Since 1933, Inauguration Day has occurred on January 20 thanks to the 1933 ratification of the Twentieth Amendment which changed the date. The inauguration of the President of the United States occurs upon the commencement of a new term of a President of the United States. The only inauguration element mandated by the United States [...]
I’m going to focus on specific events from now on rather than going on about a bunch of different political events so today I’ll discuss the first major battle of the Finnish Civil War which took place on January 19, 1918. In the March of 1917 there weren’t really any army forces or police to [...]
Gordon Brown went on and on about David Cameron’s airbrushed photos the other day. Does he not have better things to do right now?! Anyway, the kind folks at MyDavidCameron.com decided to post a non-airbrushed version just to get the PM to be quiet for a bit. Here it is… Check out the rest of [...]
In 888 Odo, Count of Paris becomes King of the Franks . Later in 1547, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey is sentenced to death. In 1733 James Oglethorpe and 130 colonists arrive in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1832 President Andrew Jackson writes to Vice President Martin Van Buren expressing his opposition to South Carolina’s defiance of [...]
Breaking news this hour: David Cameron has stepped up his talk from yesterday when he said he would make time for his family unlike Gordon Brown by announcing that he would also make time for Brown’s wife and children. Mr Cameron said he believed it was possible to be a “good father” and “good husband” [...]
