The night of March 8, 1971 is one that will never be forgotten in sports history. This was the night of an international sports spectacle. This was the night that Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier attempted to settle the controversy over the world heavyweight boxing championship at Madison Square Garden. Never before had a boxing match meant so much, cost so much, viewed so much, or edged out the My...
Speaking to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, former Army Captain John Kerry explained the atrocities and falsehoods that the soldiers on the ground were forced to carry out while serving in the Vietnam War from 1966-1970. He made it clear that the actions of the United States government and military leaders should not vanish into thin air.
According to...
The concept of prisoners being viewed as human and having rights was not widely understood or enforced until the 1960s. Before the 1960s, prison officials operated prisons in the manner they deemed acceptable with little oversight. The courts utilized a “hands off doctrine” that did not give them the jurisdiction to interfere with prison operations. Challenging the hands off doctrine, Jones...
In 1971, schools attempting to overcome segregation faced fierce opposition in the North. The year before the South passed the North in integration of schools and the North’s integration record continued to decline in the 1960s. The question facing Americans was whether the busing plans would overcome the opposition. Some cities moved forward with the forced integration via busing, but other...
“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert,” Raoul Duke began, “when the drugs began to take hold.” Duke, Hunter S. Thompson’s pseudonym, continued, “I remember saying something like ‘I feel a bit light headed; maybe you should drive…’” Then in a flash of terror, Duke’s light-headedness turned dramatically into full blown drug induced hallucination and...
Birmingham’s pollution trouble had long been a recurring theme. For years, many had simply lived with the pollution as an everyday part of life. However, in 1971 the County Health Department issued pollution alerts on two separate occasions with daily particulate counts well above national averages. These measurements collected over separate areas of the city could not be ignored any further as...
On the night of December 24, 1971, New York City mayor John V. Lindsay invited the congresswoman from Brooklyn, Shirley Chisholm, to his mansion. Progressive politicians across the country worried about the split in voters if the three potential candidates continued their campaigns for president. Lindsay took it upon himself to convince Chisholm to drop out of the race in order to not draw the black...
On February 21 1972, after a long flight to Shanghai, President Nixon arrived at Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong’s residence for a quick meeting with Mao that afternoon. The initial meeting was planed for fifteen minutes, but it lasted about an hour. The meeting included Chairman Mao, President Nixon, Prime Minister of China Zhou Enlai, Dr. Henry Kissinger, and Dr. Kissinger’s assistant...
The stereotypical superhero is handsome, is strong, has superpowers, and is white. Most comic books featured a stereotypical white hero who was stronger and was far more superior than any other. Characters such as "Superman," "Batman," and the "Green Lantern" depiect the idea of the "handosme and heroric" white comic book hero that all kids are familiar with. However, comic books began to reflect...
On July 26, 1972 The Alton Evening Telegraph, a newspaper in Alton, Illinois, released an article discussing The Department of Health Education and Welfare's investigation of the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. Although the experiment was conducted in Alabama, the news was a national story. Jean Heller, the author of the article, found this study so disturbing that she decided to...