Congress recognized Pledge of Allegiance

On December 28, 1945, Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance and encouraged its recitation in schools.

The Pledge was supposedly written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus Day. The words “under God” were added by Congress in 1954. The revised version of the Pledge was the subject of litigation before the United States Supreme Court originally brought by Michael Newdow, a parent who unsuccessfully objected to his daughter’s school district policy requiring daily recitation of the Pledge. The court ruled that Newdow had no standing.

THIS DAY @ LAW

FDR proposed 'court-packing' plan

On February 5, 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, frustrated with the US Supreme Court's treatment of some of his economic reforms, proposed a plan to add judges to that and other federal courts whenever a sitting judge reached the age of seventy but declined to retire. Critics accused Roosevelt of indulging in autocracy and "court-packing." Review the text of Roosevelt's "fireside chat" on the proposal from March 9, 1937. Roosevelt eventually dropped the initiative but was nonetheless able to fill seven vacancies on the Court over the next four years, achieving his goal indirectly.

Panamanian dictator Noriega indicted

On February 5, 1988, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was indicted on charges of drug smuggling and money laundering. The following year, he was extradited to the United States and later sentenced to 30 years in US federal prison. In 1999, the French government requested that Noriega be extradited to France, where he had been convicted of money laundering. In that same year, the government of Panama also requested the extradition of Noriega, as a result of his 1995 conviction in absentia on murder charges.