Today includes two landmarks in transportation history. The first nuclear-powered submarine was commissioned by the US Navy on this day, a boat that went on to set a long string of records. The amazing Berlin Airlift came to an end, proving that air freight was a viable, albeit expensive, means of moving supplies. There had been a great deal of skepticism about the project, and it's possible that it would not have been attempted if anyone had thought it would continue for the fifteen months it took to convince the Soviets that the West was serious about maintaining Berlin. Three years earlier, Germany also witnessed the conclusion of one of the most carefully prosecuted and documented trials in history at Nuremberg.
The Presidential Commission on Pornography and Obscenity concluded its work on this day in 1970, after sponsoring substantial scientific investigation into the relationship between pornography and anti-social behavior. The report was not what most of the government wanted to hear, one member of the commission went so far as to secure a restraining order to prevent publication of the final report, and wrote a dissenting minority report as well. That member was Nixon's only appointee on the panel, Charles H. Keating, Jr, better known for his aggressive banking practices.
1630 - John Billington, one of the "London" or "stranger" contingent on the Mayflower (as opposed to actual members of the Leyden separatist church), was hanged, drawn, and quartered - the first person executed in the North American colonies. He was regarded by many of the Pilgrims as a troublemaker, and had shot John Newcomen with his musket in a quarrel. Most sources only include the month and year of the execution.
1889 - The Wyoming state convention approved the first constitution granting women the right to vote, making it the first state to allow women's suffrage when Wyoming was admitted to the union in 1890. Wyoming Territory had been the first to allow women voters in 1869.
1946 - After eleven months of trial before four senior jurists from France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States, the judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was handed down. Of the 22 Nazi defendants three were acquitted, seven were sentenced to prison for terms of ten years to life, and twelve were sentenced to hang. The verdicts and sentences were presented in court over two days, finishing on 1 October.
1949 - The Berlin Airlift ends after carrying 2.3 million tons of food, coal, and other supplies in 277,264 flights since the Soviets cut off ground access to the divided city on 24 June 1948. At the peak, in what was called the "Easter Parade," 12,940 tons of cargo was landed on 16 April in 1,398 flights.
1954 - USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was commissioned into the US Navy. Nautilus was the first nuclear-powered submarine and the first to navigate under the North Pole. Her reactor was designed under Captain Hyman G. Rickover, her keel was laid on 14 June 1952 at Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut by Harry Truman, she was launched on 21 January 1954, and decommissioned on 30 March 1980.
1970 - The Presidential Commission on Pornography and Obscenity, appointed by Lyndon Johnson, outrages President Nixon and much of Congress by concluding that exposure to pornography has no affect on antisocial attitudes or behavior toward women, and recommended that legislation "should not seek to interfere with the right of adults who wish to do so to read, obtain, or view explicit sexual materials."
Botswana Day, Republic of Botswana - The British protectorate of Bechuanaland, home of the Kalahari Desert, was granted independence on this day in 1966 and assumed its current name. The fortunate young nation discovered three of the world's riches diamond mines the following year.
I used often to go to America during Prohibition, and there was far more
drunkenness there then than before; the prohibition of pornography has
much the same effect.
- Bertrand Russell
Let us not be too particular: it is better to have old secondhand diamonds
than none at all.
- Mark Twain
Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.
- Malcolm Forbes
A nuclear power plant is infinently safer than eating, because 300 people
choke to death on food every year.
- Dixie Lee Ray
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