On this day in 1607, the first permanent British settlement in North America was established as men landed by the Virginia Charter Company on Jamestown Island, in what is now…
On this day in 1973, charges against Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case were dismissed, due to government misconduct. (The administration of President Richard M. Nixon was implicated in…
In all the arguing over whether U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should be asked to resign, several important facts seem to have been forgotten, a former member of Congress says.
On this day in 1886, someone among 200 or so workers at a labor rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square threw a bomb into a group of 176 police officers. Police…
On this day in 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act. Enormously unpopular in America, where colonials considered its grant of a virtual tea monopoly to the East India…
On this day in 1792, the guillotine reportedly was first used in France to execute a highwayman, Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier. At the time, despite its subsequent notoriety as a means of…
On this day in 1898, the U.S. declared war against Spain, involving America in Cuba’s struggle for independence. For details, see this Library of Congress Web…
On this day in 1800, President John Adams approved a then-hefty $5,000 appropriation to establish the Library of Congress, 20 percent of which went for law books (mainly on British…
David Halberstam, a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist whose well-known book, The Best and the Brightest, was a fascinating window for many on the elite lawyers and others wielding political power in Washington,…
It’s official—DNA evidence today has cleared a 200th wrongfully convicted person, according to The Innocence Project, a New York City-based advocacy group.
On this day in 1813, famed orator and attorney Stephen A. Douglas was born near Brandon, Vt. Perhaps best-known for his fiery debates against Abraham Lincoln during the U.S. Senate…
