Stupid American History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions

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Book Description:

America is the home of the brave and, apparently, the stupid and gullible. Satirist Leland Gregory teaches us a lesson in historical hilarity with Stupid American History.

From Columbus to George W. Bush (that's a lot of material, people), Leland leads us through American history's mythconceptions, exposing idiocy and inanity along the time line. He reeducates by informing us about myths. For example, Samuel Prescott actually was the guy to alert us that the British were coming and not that Paul Revere dude.

Move over Colbert and Stewart; satire has finally found its rightful place in American history.

Excerpt from the Book:

"John Tyler was on his knees playing marbles when he was informed that Benjamin Harrison had died and he was now president of the United States. At that time marbles was a very popular game for both children and grown-ups."

For reasons still unknown, Texas congressman Thomas Lindsay Blanton, a Presbyterian Sunday school teacher and prohibitionist, inserted dirty words into the Congressional Record in 1921. His colleagues overwhelmingly censured him on October 24, 1921, by a vote of 293-0."

About the Author:

Leland Gregory has authored more than a dozen humor titles including What's The Number for 911?, Stupid History, and the New York Times best-sellers America's Dumbest Criminals and Stupid American History. A tireless promoter, he has made hundreds of radio and television appearances, including multiple appearances on NBC's Today show. Leland lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Wounded Knee, South Dakota

The massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota was on this day December 29 in 1890, the U. S. 7th Calvary gunning down hundreds of unarmed Lakota Indian warriors and their families. As framed in Dee Brown's influential, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the massacre represented not only the culmination of the Indian Wars but the mindset which began to form with the arrival of Columbus. Dee's first chapter quotes from a letter which Columbus wrote home to the King and Queen of Spain describing the Indian tribes in what appears to be glowing terms:

So tractable, so peaceable, are these people, that I swear to your Majesties there is not in the world a better nation. They love their neighbors as themselves, and their discourse is ever sweet and gentle, and accompanied with a smile; and though it is true that they are naked, yet their manners are decorous and praiseworthy.

Columbus's point turns out to be that the Indians and their nation should be easy pickings, with only a firm hand needed to make the natives "work, sow and do all that is necessary and to adopt our ways." Brown's book then traces the centuries of abuse, his last chapter describing the Wounded Knee killings, his last paragraph describing the transport of the fifty-one wounded Indian survivors to shelter in a nearby Episcopal mission:

It was the fourth day after Christmas in the Year of Our Lord 1890. When the first torn and bleeding bodies were carried into the candlelit church, those who were conscious could see Christmas greenery hanging from the open rafters. Across the chancel front above the pulpit was strung a crudely lettered banner: PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TO MEN.

Thanks for TodayInLiterature

Rules For Capitalization in Titles

I used to think there were only two ways to use capitalization in a title: (1) Capitalize only the first word in the title (except for proper nouns), which I learned working for a local newspaper; and (2) Capitalize the principal and longer words and lowercase the minor, shorter words, which I learned was wrong.

I also came to learn that the rules for capitalization in titles—like the rules for other areas of English grammar—are not set in stone; style guides and grammarians disagree on which words to capitalize in a title.

In fact, there are really only two rules that are consistent across the board:

• Capitalize the first word of the title
• Capitalize all proper nouns

Sentence case, or down style, is one method, preferred by many print and online publications and recommended by the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. The only two rules are the two rules mentioned above: Capitalize the first word and all proper nouns. Everything else is in lowercase. For example:

Why it's never too late to learn grammar (all words lowercased except "Why"—first word in title)

Another method is to capitalize all words in a title. This one is considered simple because there's no struggle trying to remember which words to capitalize and which ones to lowercase; they're all capitalized. However, one could argue it's the lazy man's method or that it's not very aesthetic. For example:

Why It's Never Too Late To Learn Grammar (all words capitalized)

Title case, or up style, is another method. Whether or not you capitalize a word in a title depends on its part of speech. According to most style guides that use title case, the basic rules are as follows:

• Capitalize the first and last word in a title, regardless of part of speech
• Capitalize all nouns (baby, country, picture), pronouns (you, she, it), verbs (walk, think, dream), adjectives (sweet, large, perfect), adverbs (immediately, quietly), and subordinating conjunctions (as, because, although)
• Lowercase "to" as part of an infinitive
• Lowercase all articles (a, the), prepositions (to, at, in, with), and coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or)

For example:

Why It's Never Too Late to Learn Grammar (all words capitalized except "to," a preposition)

That last rule for title case is upheld by some style guides, but not all. The Chicago Manual of Style follows that rule (except in cases in which an article, preposition, or coordinating conjunction is the first or last word in a title). However, The Associated Press would have you capitalize prepositions and conjunctions if they are four or more letters long. For others, the magic number is five rather than four. So, according to some guides, you have to worry not only about the part of speech, but also about the length of the words.

There is another common—but incorrect—"method" of using capitalization in titles. I used to follow it myself (see my first paragraph). May writers mistakenly believe that in a title, you should capitalize the principal and longer words and lowercase the minor, shorter words.

For example, writers often lowercase all two- or three-letter words in a title because they're short, and many articles, prepositions, and conjunctions—most of which should be lowercased—are short, as well. However, short words can be nouns, pronouns, and verbs, etc., which should be capitalized. Part of speech is more important than length when it comes to determining capitalization in titles. For example:

Why it's Never too Late to Learn Grammar (wrong)

"It's" is a contraction of "it," a pronoun, and "is," a verb, both of which should be capitalized; "too" is an adverb, which should also be capitalized.

Regardless of which convention you'd prefer to follow (except for the last example), you need to be consistent. Pick one (or follow the style guide of your employer, school, or clients) and stick with it.

Thanks for Daily Writing Tips

5 Tips to Understand Hyphenated Words

The complexity of rules about those little dashes that separate many words for various reasons causes so much misunderstanding that many writers just leave them out of the recipe or spill them randomly into the mixing bowl. But your compositional cuisine need not be so undisciplined. The rules may seem complicated at first, but soon you'll be able to put hyphens in their place.

1. Adjectives

Hyphenate two adjectives united to modify a noun: "a well-trained writer." But do so only before the noun: "a writer who is well trained." Keep in mind, though, a convention that has arisen in which permanent open compounds, words that have been bonded together to form perpetual concepts, like "income tax" or "ice cream," don't take a hyphen even in phrases like "income tax records" and "ice cream cone."

How do you know which compounds have bonded and which remain free agents? If an open compound is listed in the dictionary, it's permanent.

2. Adverbs

But notice that these rules apply to adjectives but not to a similar-looking class of words; adverbs ending in "-ly" aren't hyphenated to the verbs they modify: "a brightly colored shirt," "a quickly memorized poem." But most other adverbs are ("little-known fact," "best-kept secret"); compounds with "least," "less," "most," and "more" are exceptions.

3. Nouns

Nouns are usually compounded, too, of course ("footstep," "mountaintop") but some, like "life-form" and "mind-set," resist the closure that most of their like have accepted. Compounds that can be used as verbs and nouns alike differ in that the former are often hyphenated ("I had to jump-start his car") and the latter aren't ("He asked me for a jump start"). Another example is "fast track": "We fast-tracked the project," but "It's on the fast track.")

4. Multiword Coumpounds

Multiword compounds like "right-of-way," "back-to-back," and "up-to-date" always include hyphens. Beware, though: "Head to toe," although a common expression, does not appear in the dictionary with or without hyphens, so omit them (unless the phrase modifies a noun: "a head-to-toe inspection"). Familiar word strings that modify nouns are usually hyphenated before and after: "next-to-last person in line," "the reply was matter-of-fact."

5. Confusing Words

Some words in which you wouldn't expect a hyphen to persist remain to avoid confusion with a similar word with a different meaning ("re-cover," as opposed to "recover"; "re-creation" instead of "recreation").

Had enough? We haven't even covered every hyphen rule yet, but I'll save some for later. The bottom line about this floating line, though, is: "When in doubt, look it up."

Thanks to Daily Writing Tips

10 Writing Exercises to Tighten Your Writing

Writing projects can be like children. You love them dearly, but sometimes they irritate you to the point that you just need a break. Working on something fresh and new can invigorate your mind and give you a new approach to your work. These exercises can work for any genre of writing, fiction and non-fiction alike.

1. Free Association

This is probably the most popular writing exercise to get the juices flowing. Pull up a new Word document, take a deep breath and just write whatever comes to mind. Dig as deep as you can into your subconscious and don't worry about what comes out. Sometimes there's a mental blockage with something that's been bothering you, so it helps to write it down and get it out of your system.

2. Think Outside the Box

Think of something you're passionate about, like a hobby or a love interest, and write everything you know about it. Sometimes writing slumps happen and it helps to write about something you love. Even if you just write a paragraph, it's better to write something that's not your current project. This will rejuvenate you to re-start on your current project.

3. Sharpen the Saw

Something I love to do when I'm stuck is read another author's work, especially an author who writes in the same style or format as my current project. If you're writing fantasy, read some Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. If you're writing a biography, try taking a look at some biographies of your favorite actors or writers. Escaping into someone else's world for a bit can relax you enough to delve into your own imaginary world again.

4. Use the Musical Muse

Writers feel their work, and when you can quite describe what you're feeling on paper, it can be frustrating. Get out your ipod or computer, put on your earphones and find some songs that appeal to you and the scene or piece you're working on. Grooveshark.com and Pandora.com are two websites that offer free, instant music streaming to get those juices flowing.

5. Mad Libs

Choose one noun, adjective and verb. Make them as random as possible. Write a story using these words in context. You can also do this exercise with a fellow writer and give each other your noun, adjective and verb to see what you both come up with.

6. Eavesdropper

This is a wonderful exercise if you struggle to write natural dialogue between your characters. Sit in a public place like a park or at your local college campus and listen to the things people say as they walk by. Take copious notes and share them with other writers. This exercise is also great if you need a laugh.

7. Use Writing Prompts

A writing prompt is simply a topic around which you start jotting down ideas. The prompt could be a single word, a short phrase, a complete paragraph or even a picture, with the idea being to give you something to focus upon as you write. 8. Person, Place, Event

If you're in the middle of coming up with some new ideas, this exercise can help. Get a piece of paper and a pen and draw two lines down the middle to form three columns. In the first column, list every type of person you can think of, such as the police, firemen, grandparents, your spouse, a princess or whatever comes to mind. Next, think of a variety of places. It can range from the grocery store to Ireland. In the last column, list a time period or famous historical event like the Battle of Gettysburg or the year 1492. Combine a person, place and event and experiment with writing about that particular situation. You can try as many as you like!

9. Research Rendezvous

Select a random topic, like the African Bush or squids and look it up on as many reference sites as you can find. Dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, Wikipedia.org and about.com are some research sites you can begin with. Learn as much as you can about this new topic. Keep a file for research notes.

10. A New Point of View

Pick a genre or point of view you have never tried before and write a short story with it. If you normally use third-person point of view, switch to first-person. If you normally focus on non-fiction, branch out and write some fiction. If you normally write sappy romances, give action/adventure a try. It's scary to leave your comfort zone, but you'd be surprised the kind of inspiration you get when you switch perspective.

Thanks to Daily Writing Tips

10 New Year's Resolutions For The 21st Century Leader

"I'm going to be a better leader" It's that time of year again, where the calendar marks an end, and the approach of a new beginning – a time of much self-evaluation, and from those thoughts, the annual New Year's Resolutions. For leaders, these proclamations can certainly be helpful as a jump start, but these days, simply declaring we want to be "better" just isn't enough. There's a new dynamic at work that's creating the new leaders of the 21st Century, and the better we can understand it, and adapt our "resolutions" to it in very specific ways, the greater our chances to find and stay on that road to leadership greatness. Recently I read a great piece in the New York Times written by David Segal that addressed this evolving leadership paradigm entitled "In Pursuit of the Perfect Brainstorm". In it, Dev Patnaik of Jump Associates cites the rapid advance of technology as the catalyst, and compares the current leadership challenges to what painters faced in the late 19th Century, when photography pushed them to change: "Then painters said: 'Well, wait, you can tell what is but you can't tell me my impression of what is. Here's how it looks to me, like Seurat. Or the Cubists who said, 'You can't capture what is going on from multiple angles.' " Technology forced painters to re-evaluate, which transformed their work. Something similar has happened in corporate America. As Patnaik puts it, "We're in the abstract-expressionist era of management." Technology has evened the playing field in the corporate world with an amazing swiftness,  and leaders who recognize the "new" differentiators, and like the painters, develop new techniques to take advantage of them, will be the ones who thrive and get to the top of the heap. And yes, they are more "abstract".   They are about people. And as we all know, people have a much higher level of complexity than any process, policy, income statement or balance sheet they can produce. So our resolutions for the coming year need to be pointed towards people  – recognizing that THEY are the ones that will make or break you. And because of the complexity, there must be more to these resolutions than "I will be better", or "I will learn to adapt". Here are 10 that I believe form an excellent foundation for excelling as a 21st Century leader: I will enable my teammates by giving them the freedom to make decisions on their own, and not disable them by micro-managing. I will inspire, every single day, by leading with real purpose, and with my heart as well as my head. My actions will match my words as to how our company values are represented, for I know that my integrity is vitally important. I will eliminate fear from the workplace by encouraging open dialogues and the flow of bad news as well as the good. I will enthusiastically, and not scornfully, seize all opportunities to learn and improve from our mistakes. I will encourage creativity by not dominating discussions or "pre-judging" any ideas – no suggestions are dumb suggestions. I will treat my leadership as service to my teammates, not the other way around. I will listen, and listen more, and then, listen a little more. I will show compassion, tolerance, empathy, and if I really want to embrace this new paradigm, I will not fear putting love into my leadership as well. And most of all, the joy I have in leading, and being a leader, and the sense of enjoyment and fun that I bring to the workplace, will spread like a virus to all who cross my path. For this new year, let's embrace our inner Picasso, and indeed be resolute in embracing (and thriving in) the new world of the 21st Century leader.

 

Thanks to Terry Starbucker

Language Lovers Unite!

Kathryn McCary has asked for a post on when to use a and when to use an.

Her request was prompted by the following passage she read in a piece of professionally produced corporate publicity:

Since the HLB is a secured lender, all of our credit products require collateral to maintain our positions [sic] as a accessible and cost effective source of credit for members."

Says Kathryn,

HLB is the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, part of a system of banks chartered by the Federal Government in 1932–you would think they could hire writers who know REALLY BASIC English usage rules!

This post is not going to explain the uses of a and an. You'll find no fewer than four posts on the indefinite article in the DWT archives:

Give Me an A
Using "A" and "An" Before Words
When to Use "an"
A Historic" or "An Historic" Event?

The kindest thing we can say about the lapse in the bank copy is that it may have been a simple typo. It happens to the most conscientious writers. We proof an article twenty times, and as soon as the piece is published, the dratted error leaps out at us.

But let's say that it wasn't a typo. Let's say that the writer didn't see anything amiss with writing "a accessible." That's not a reflection on the writer's professional education so much as an indictment of U. S. elementary education.

It's not just professional writers who should know "really basic English usage rules" like when to use "a" and when to use "an."

Any English speaker educated in an English-speaking country should have a form of basic standard usage down by the age of 13. As much of the content of this blog reflects, many high school and college graduates manage to get by without mastering the basics.

So, what's to be done, other than to tear our hair?

I think that a possible answer is for language lovers to put their money where their mouths are.

Improvement in the teaching of basic English skills is not to be hoped for from the current flurry of education reform. The emphasis is all on math, science, and computer skills.

Thanks to the ubiquitous computer keyboard, handwriting has already become a despised skill. Spelling instruction is on the way out because spellcheck programs are seen by many as a substitute for knowledge of the English sound code.

Something that might help delay or reverse the decline of basic literacy skills would be a grassroots movement spearheaded by language lovers: people who respond to blogs like this one, and language zealots who go around painting out unnecessary apostrophes and correcting misspelled words on signs.

Language lovers could get together on a local level and sponsor contests for handwriting, basic grammar, and spelling. (And by spelling, I don't mean the kind of oral exhibition that rewards overachievers for their ability to memorize words few people use. I mean competitions in which children write down words like February and definite from dictation.)

Local groups and individuals could organize contests for children ages 6-13 through youth clubs and county fairs. Aspiring novelists could be recruited to sponsor contests in which children demonstrate an acquaintance with books. After all, there's not much point in writing books if the audience for literature continues to dwindle. Prize money could be minimal, anything from a dollar to $25.

Who knows, if such contests got started at a local level, a corporation might come along to offer a national contest with big bucks in prize money. A 13-year-old Brooklyn girl just won $50,000 from a manufacturer of mobile phones for her ability to text quickly and accurately.

Perhaps the answer to declining literacy skills lies outside the classroom.

Thanks to Daily Writing Tips

Triple Filter Test for Truth

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?"

"Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. That's why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said, "Actually I just heard about it and..."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "You want to tell me something bad about him, but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because there's one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really..."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "If what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"

 

Thanks to PravsWorld

This Week In History - From Dec 27 To Jan 02

December 27, 1971
 
Vietnam Veterans Against the War staged a peace protest at historic Betsy Ross House, Philadelphia. 

 

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December 27, 2002
 
North Korea ordered U.N. nuclear inspectors to leave the country and said it would restart the Yongbyon plutonium Plant to meet the fuel needs of its nuclear power reactor. The plant had been shut down and sealed by the U.N. in 1994 in exchange for shipments of fuel oil. When it was discovered that the North Korean had been pursuing a uranium-based weapons program, the U.S. and Japan, South Korea and the European Union suspended the fuel shipments.

 

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December 28, 1869
 
The (Noble and Holy Order of the) Knights of Labor, a labor union formed by tailors in Philadelphia, held the first Labor Day ceremonies in American history. Led by Uriah S. Stephens, they advocated and end to child and convict labor, equal pay for women, a progressive income tax and cooperative ownership of mines and factories by management and workers. They organized among the growing mass of industrial workers, their motto, "An Injury to One Is the Concern of All."
 
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December 28, 1968
 
An anti-draft conference launched a "Don't Register" campaign to resist Australia's conscription system.

 

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December 28, 1973
 
 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956," was published in Paris in the original Russian. The book is a brutal and uncompromising first-hand description of political repression and terror in the Soviet Union and its forced-labor prison camp system, where the author spent eight years. He dedicated it to "to all those who did not live to tell it." Solzhenitsyn was again arrested and forced into exile within two months of publication.

 

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December 28, 1981
 
A peace camp was set up at the Molesworth Royal Air Force base in Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom. Led by men and women from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and inspired by the encampment at Greenham Common, it was set up to protest the siting of 64 U.S. ground-launched nuclear-armed cruise missiles at the base.

 

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December 28, 1996
 
Three were arrested at the Capitol Hill Post Office in Seattle for refusing to leave after attempting to mail humanitarian supplies to Iraq in defiance of the U.S.-led embargo.

 

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December 29, 1890
 
The U.S. Army killed approximately 300 Oglala Sioux at Wounded Knee, in the new state of South Dakota. The 7th Cavalry (Custer's old command) fired their artillery amidst mostly unarmed women, children, and fleeing men. The Wounded Knee Massacre was the final major military battle in the genocide against Native Americans. 18 soldiers received Congressional Medals of Honor for their "bravery."

 

Encroaching white settlement after gold was found in 1874 on Sioux lands led to conflicts. The Great Sioux Agreement of 1889 established reservations for the native inhabitants and encouraged further white settlement on Indian land.  

 

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December 29, 1996
 
War-weary guerrilla and government leaders in Guatemala signed an accord ending 36 years of civil conflict.

 

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December 30, 1936
 
Members of the United Automobile Workers sat down at a General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan. GM, the world's largest corporation at the time, had refused to recognize or negotiate with the union, despite passage of the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) in 1935 which promised unions the right to organize. The local's membership adopted a tactic developed by French workers. Instead of picketing outside a factory only to be ignored or forcibly cleared away, the sit-down strike enabled workers to halt production and seize the plant "from the inside." The strike began just days after the end of a successful sit-down at Ford supplier Kelsey-Hayes.

 

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December 30, 1971
 
Daniel Ellsberg, a Defense Department analyst, and his colleague Anthony Russo were indicted by a federal grand jury for releasing the Pentagon Papers to the news media. The papers were part of a 7000-page, top-secret government history of the United States' political and military involvement in the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1971, and described air strikes over Laos, raids along the coast of North Vietnam, and offensive actions taken by U.S. Marines well before the American public had been told that such actions had occurred. 
 
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December 30, 1972
 
Pres. Richard Nixon ordered an end to U.S. bombing of North Vietnam. The most recent air strikes had been retaliation for North Vietnam's walking out of the peace negotiations in Paris and pressure to force it to submit to U.S. terms. Bombing of strategic targets and Hanoi (the North's capital) and Haiphong lasted for eight days with a 36-hour break for Christmas. The 20,000 tons (18.1 million kg) of bombs killed just over 1600 North Vietnamese, and a dozen B-52s were lost. North Vietnam agreed to return to the bargaining table.

 

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December 31, 1915
 
The U.S. branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) was founded.

 

FOR's Mission Statement:- The Fellowship of Reconciliation seeks to replace violence, war, racism and economic injustice with nonviolence, peace and justice. We are an interfaith organization committed to active nonviolence as a transforming way of life and as a means of radical change. We educate, train, build coalitions, and engage in nonviolent and compassionate actions locally, nationally, and globally. 

 

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December 31, 1970
 
The U.S. Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which in 1964 authorized an increase in U.S. military involvement in Vietnam as a response to a reported attack on U.S. naval forces patrolling close to the North Vietnamese border. The reports of the attacks were later revealed to be fictitious. The resolution was used as the basis for the entire war which lasted until 1974 and took the lives of millions of Vietnamese and over 58,000 Americans.  

 

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January 1, 1831
 
William Lloyd Garrison first published The Liberator (four hundred copies printed in the middle of the night using borrowed type), which became the leading abolitionist paper in the United States. He labeled slave-holding a crime and called for immediate abolition.

 

From the first issue: "I will be harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation.
William Lloyd Garrison "Assenting to the 'self-evident truth' maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, 'that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights—among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population." ~~~ January 6, 1832 

 

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January 1, 1847
 
Michigan became the first state – the first government in the English-speaking world – to abolish capital punishment (for all crimes except treason). This was done by a vote of the legislature, and was not a part of the state's constitution until 1964.

 

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January 1, 1989 

 

 Kees Koning, a former army chaplain and priest, and Co van Melle, a medical doctor working with homeless people and illegal refugees, entered the Woensdrecht airbase (for a second time), and began the "conversion" of NF-5B fighter airplanes by beating them with sledgehammers into ploughshares. The Dutch planned to sell the NF-5B to Turkey, for use against the Kurdish nationalists as part of a NATO aid program which involved shipping 60 fighter planes to Turkey. Koning and van Melle were charged with trespass, sabotage and $350,000 damage; they were convicted, and both sentenced to a few months in jail.

 

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January 1, 1991 

 

Early in the morning Moana Cole, a Catholic Worker from New Zealand, Ciaron O'Reilly, a Catholic Worker from Australia, and Susan Frankel and Bill Streit, members of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker community in Washington, D.C., calling themselves the ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand and U.S.) Peace Force Plowshares, entered the Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York.

 

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January 2, 1905 
 
The Conference of Industrial Unionists in Chicago formed the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), frequently known as The Wobblies. The IWW mission was to form "One Big Union" among industrial workers.

 

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January 2, 1920 

 

U.S. Attorney General Alexander Palmer, in what were called the Palmer or Red raids, ordered the arrest and detention without trial of 6,000 Americans, including suspected anarchists, communists, unionists and others considered radicals, including many members of the IWW.
 
 This followed a mass arrest of thousands two months earlier based on Palmer's belief that Communist agents from Russia were planning to overthrow the American government.

 

A suicide bomber had blown off the front door of the newly appointed Palmer the previous June, one in a series of coordinated attacks that day on judges, politicians, law enforcement officials, and others in eight cities nationwide. Palmer put a young lawyer, J. Edgar Hoover, in charge of investigating the bombings, collecting information on potentially violent anarchists, and coordinating the mass arrests.

 

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January 2, 1975 

 

A U.S. Court ruled that John Lennon and his lawyers be given access to Department of Immigration and Naturalization files regarding his deportation case, to determine if the government case was based on his 1968 British drug conviction, or his anti-establishment comments during the years of the Nixon administration.

 

On October 5, 1975, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the order to deport Lennon, and he was granted permanent residency status.
 
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January 2, 1996 
 
Khaleda Zia An estimated 100,000 Bangladeshi women traveled from the countryside to attend a rally in Dacca, the capital, to protest Islamist clerics' attacks on women's education and employment.

 

Khaleda Zia, the country's first female prime minister, had introduced compulsory free primary education, free education for girls up to class ten, a stipend for the girl students, and food for the education program.

 

Credit / Link to www.peacebuttons.info