On May 14, 1955, seven communist countries in Eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland Romania, and the USSR) signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (Warsaw Pact), a mutual defense accord created to counter NATO in the West. East Germany joined in 1959. Albania left in 1968.
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On May 13, 1966, the US federal government took its first action against violators of the desegregation guidelines of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by denying federal education funding for 12 segregated Southern school districts. Learn more about school desegregation.
On May 13, 1787, the First Fleet departed from England, carrying 780 British convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia. Led by Captain Arthur Philip, all eleven ships arrived safely in Botany Bay, New South Wales, Australia in January of 1788. Read Captain Philip’s account of his voyage on Project Gutenberg, and learn more [...]
On May 12, 1970, the Senate unanimously confirmed the appointment of Harry A. Blackmun to the United States Supreme Court. Justice Blackmun died in 1999, and was remembered on JURIST by several of his former law clerks. The Harry A. Blackmun Papers were released in 2004 by the Library of Congress.
On May 12, 1949, the Western allied powers, the United Kingdom, United States, and France, approved the Grundgesetz (Basic Law) as the legal foundation for the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). The document served as the constitution of West Germany during the Cold War and remains the governing law for the unified Germany today. [...]
On May 11, 1995, over 170 signatory nations agreed to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) indefinitely. The NPT is an agreement signed by 189 countries to control the spread of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology based on the principles of disarmament, non-proliferation, and the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The treaty was [...]
On May 10, 1994, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the first black President of South Africa. Before becoming President, Mandela was an anti-Apartheid leader in segregated South Africa. He served twenty-seven years in prison before his release in 1990, after which he was elected president of the country. Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize [...]
On May 10, 1886, the US Supreme Court ruled in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company that corporations were “persons” within the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore were due rights of equal protection under state law.
On May 9, 1901, the Parliament of Australia convened for the first time in Melbourne. The Australian Parliament also held its first meeting in the new capital of Canberra 26 years later on the same day 1927. Finally, on this day in 1988 Australian opened its new Parliament House in Canberra. Read the Constitution of [...]
On May 9, 1974, the US House Judiciary Committee chaired by Rep. Peter Rodino (D-NJ) opened hearings into the possible impeachment of President Richard Nixon in connection with the Watergate scandal. The Committee voted to impeach Nixon on three counts on July 30. Chairman Rodino died in 2005 at his home in New Jersey. He [...]
