US President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 into law on August 10, 1988, apologizing on behalf of the United States to Japanese-Americans who were interned in camps during WWII and providing $20,000 in compensation for each survivor. The law also provided $12,000 in compensation for each living displaced Aleutian Islander who [...]

Israel’s Knesset passed a law on July 30, 1980, declaring that the “complete and united Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.” The international community largely rejected the move as 1947’s UN Resolution 181 (II) intended to establish Jerusalem as a separate entity from both Israel and Palestine. US President Donald Trump issued a proclamation in [...]

On July 15, 1927, a riot erupted in Vienna over the acquittal of three conservative paramilitary members accused of firing on a group of socialists, killing war veteran Matthias Csmarits and 8-year-old Josef Grössing. The riots resulted in the burning of Vienna’s Palace of Justice, which is the seat of the country’s Supreme Court, as [...]

Democratically elected Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was overthrown in a military coup on July 3, 2013, just two years after mass protests in the country led to the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, who was president for almost 30 years. Morsi died in prison in 2019. Read a contemporary report of the coup from The Guardian.

US President Benjamin Harrison signed the landmark Sherman Antitrust Act into law on July 2, 1890. The law changed the landscape of American industry as it prohibited the establishment of trusts (agreements to restrict trade among the several states) and monopolies. John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil and the Bell System of telecommunications were two notable [...]

The Nazi purge known as the Night of the Long Knives came to an end on July 2, 1934. During the intra-party struggle, Adolf Hitler consolidated his power using his SS paramilitary to eradicate rival Nazi Ernst Röhm’s Stormtroopers (SA). The putsch resulted in over 150 killed, including Röhm, who was executed on July 1.

On July 1, 1870, the US Congress’s “Act to Establish the Department of Justice” took effect, and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) was officially founded. The Act took the existing office of the Attorney General and made it the head of the new executive department. Congress created the department due to the ongoing legal [...]

On June 23, 1946, Canada’s first Citizenship Act received royal assent, establishing Canadian citizenship as distinct from British subject status. Learn more about the Citizenship Act, 1946 from the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.  

An ABC News correspondent, Bill Stewart, was shot and killed on June 20, 1979, by a member of the Nicaraguan National Guard while on assignment in the civil-war-torn Central American country. Video of the execution-style shooting sparked outrage in the US and drastically reduced the country’s support for Nicaragua’s right-wing Somoza regime. Read a retrospective [...]

The US Senate passed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 on June 19, 1964 following months of intense debate. The act mandated the end of racial segregation in businesses and public places across the US. Segregationists such as Senator Richard Russell vociferously opposed the legislation and began a filibuster in March that lasted until [...]