A Brief History On May 27, 2015, in a surprising move, the overwhelming Republican majority in the Nebraska State Legislature joined with Democrats to overturn the Governor’s veto of the bill making Nebraska the 19th state (plus Washington, DC) to outlaw the death penalty. Digging Deeper The vote was 30-19. The governor vowed to execute the 10 inmates still on death row. Question for students (and subscribers): Should capital punishment be abolished? Please let us know in the comments section below this article. If you liked this article and would like to receive notification of new articles, please feel welcome to…
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A Brief History In early 2015, a new book made the fantastic claim that Henry VIII nearly divorced his sixth and final wife to take on a seventh one! In Henry VIII’s Last Love by David Baldwin, it is asserted that Henry was planning to divorce Catherine Parr to marry another widow, Catherine Willoughby. Digging Deeper Contrary to what one may assume, however, the title of this article does not refer to Catherine Willoughby but to Queen Catherine Parr herself. “What?!” you might ask yourself in confusion, “how could this wife be forgotten, especially since she is always portrayed in…
A Brief History On April 20, 1818, accused British murderer Abraham Thornton was set free after his accuser refused to fight him in a “trial by combat.” Digging Deeper Thornton had walked a girl home from a dance, and the next day the girl was found drowned in a pit. Thornton was charged with murder but was acquitted at trial. This is where things begin to get a bit different from the American idea of due process. As was his right based on an archaic English law, the brother of the dead girl, however, insisted that Thornton be retried. Thornton, however, invoked another medieval English law…
A Brief History On April 2, 1917, just a few months after being reelected President of the United States on a platform of “He kept us out of war,” Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany, proving that you cannot believe a word a politician says. Digging Deeper Wilson, more or less the “peace candidate” who had initially resisted involvement in World War I, had been the President of Princeton University and the Governor of New Jersey prior to being elected President of the United States in 1912. To this day, Wilson remains the only American president to have earned a…
A Brief History On March 16, 1988, Marine Lieutenant Colonel (Lt. Col.) Oliver North and National Security Adviser Vice Admiral John Poindexter were indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government. Despite legislation specifically prohibiting the aiding of the “Contra” rebels in Nicaragua (the Boland Amendment to the 1982 Appropriations Bill), North had masterminded a shell game of maneuvering funds in order to finance them. Digging Deeper As if blatant disregard for the law was not bad enough, part of the conspiracy that became known as the Iran-Contra Affair included selling weapons to Iran to fund the Contras and possibly to…
