Cuba leases Guantanamo Bay to the US in perpetuity

On February 23, 1903, Cuba leased Guantanamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity” as part of the Cuban-American Treaty. The United States subsequently used the lease to establish a Naval Base at Guantanamo.

With the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, a military prison was built at Guantanamo to house prisoners of war and terrorism suspects captured by American forces, becoming the subject of much controversy over its detentions without trial.

THIS DAY @ LAW

President Johnson signed Immigration and Nationality Act into law, ending country quotas

On October 3, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson, standing in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, signed into law the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The Act ordered the elimination of the national origins quota system established in 1882 in favor of a worldwide quota blind to national origin. Immigration was redistributed by pooling unused quotas and making them available on a first-come, first-served basis to oversubscribed nations. Learn more about the 1965 Act and its aftermath.

Germany reunified

On October 3, 1990, the German Democratic Republic was absorbed by the Federal Republic of Germany, reunifying the country for the first time since the Second World War. Today, the event is marked annually by German Unity Day. Read the Unification Treaty, signed in Berlin on August 31, 1990.