Browsing: Politics

A Brief History On March 22, 1872, the State of Illinois became the first state to enact a law requiring equal treatment of men and women in hiring.  The rest of the United States would not find this Gender Equality under the law until Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Employment Opportunity provision that made it illegal to discriminate in employment hiring based on race, color, national origin, religion or sex.  Note: March is Women’s History Month. Digging Deeper Exactly 100 years after the ground breaking move by Illinois, the United States Congress sent the…

A Brief History On March 12, 1993, Janet Wood Reno, was sworn in as the first female Attorney General of the United States, and served as such through the entire Bill Clinton presidency, leaving office in January of 2001.  (Note: March is Women’s History Month) Digging Deeper Born in Florida in 1938, Reno was an exceptional student, earning Valedictorian honors at her high school and going on to Cornell University where she earned a BS in Chemistry.  Reno continued her education at Harvard Law School where she graduated with a JD (Juris Doctor) in 1963, as one of 16 women…

A Brief History On March 8, 1957, both houses of Georgia’s state legislature passed and Governor Marvin Griffin approved a shameful resolution known as the Georgia Memorial to Congress. Digging Deeper As part of the ongoing effort by Georgia lawmakers and politicians to fight the rising tide of the Civil Rights Movement, this resolution asked the US Congress to repeal the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, all part of an effort in the “continuing battle for segregation.” The gist of the 14th Amendment (1868) is that all citizens enjoy equal protection under the law, including equality in education. …

A Brief History On February 26, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte, aka Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, escaped from his forced exile on the island of Elba and made his way back to France, seeking to regain his throne. Digging Deeper Napoleon Bonaparte, born in Corsica, had parlayed his spectacular military successes during and immediately after the French Revolution to becoming a General by the age of 24, and seizing the opportunity to mount a coup and take virtual control of France in 1799.  Never bashful, Napoleon crowned himself L’ Empereur in 1804 and led his Empire in a series of…

A Brief History On February 9, 1825, the United States of America had the only incident (so far) of no presidential candidate winning a majority of the Electoral votes in a presidential election, forcing the House of Representatives to elect our next president. Digging Deeper The presidential election of 1824 had been contentious, which is how these things usually are!  In this election there were four major candidates instead of the usual two.  Presidential elections often have numerous obscure candidates, but only rarely does a third or fourth party candidate garner enough votes to actually win an electoral vote.  Senator…