Commentaries by JURIST Editorial Board

US President William McKinley died on September 14, 1901, eight days after being shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Czolgosz was executed over McKinley's assassination on October 29, 1901. Read more about William McKinley.

On September 14, 1918, socialist and labor activist Eugene Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison for violating the Espionage Act and opposing the entry of the United States into World War I. Incarcerated in the Atlanta Penitentiary, he was still there when he ran for President as the Socialist Party candidate in the 1920 election, receiving 919,799 votes. He was pardoned by President Warren Harding in December 1921. Learn more about Eugene Debs on the website of the Debs Foundation.

On September 14 1960, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in Baghdad, Iraq. OPEC was created to promote higher crude oil prices for its members through the restriction of global supply. Learn more about the history of OPEC.