An Occasional Feature
May 18
By BRUCE LOWITT
In 1652, Rhode Island became the first American colony to pass a law abolishing African slavery; however, the law was apparently never enforced. “No shit!” said 10,000,000 Africans shipped to the United States.
In 1863, the Siege of Vicksburg began during the Civil War, ending July 4 with a Union victory. The Union was later renamed the Teamsters.
In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, endorsed “separate but equal” racial segregation, a concept renounced 58 years later by Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka but reinstated 63 years after that by the Republican Party.
In 1934, Congress approved, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed, the so-called “Lindbergh Act,” providing for the death penalty in cases of interstate kidnapping. Six years later Charles Lindbergh began touring the United States performing his “Lindbergh Act” promoting Nazi Germany.
In 1998, the U.S. government filed an antitrust case against Microsoft, saying the powerful software company had a “choke hold” on competitors that was denying consumers important choices about how they bought and used computers. (The Justice Department and Microsoft reached a settlement in 2001 after Justice Clarence Thomas was given 200,000 shares of Microsoft stock by Bill Gates.)
In 2015, President Barack Obama ended long-running federal transfers of some combat-style gear to local law enforcement in an attempt to ease tensions between police and minority communities, saying equipment made for the battlefield should not be a tool of American criminal justice. In 2017, President Donald Trump began distributing tanks, bazookas and flamethrowers to local law enforcement, claiming Obama had been a tool of American criminal justice.
(With thanks to The Associated Press)
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