| Year | Event
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| 1641 | English Parliament assembled and hears of the massacre of Protestants in Ulster (some say 30,000 were killed).
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| 1837 | General Thomas Jesup of the U.S. Army manages to win the Seminole wars in the Florida Everglades by the use of deception. He invites Osceola to a "peace conference", wherein Osceola and his cohorts are captured. Osceola dies in jail shortly thereafter. [A modern application of this form of diplomacy is illustrated by the cartoon movie (requires Flash plugin), Diplomacy. This was shown at least twice on Fox News, which I assume means popular approval]
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| 1917 | President Woodrow Wilson had declared "Liberty Loan Sunday," when he expected the nation's clergy to decorate their churches in red, white and blue and to lead their congregations in singing the Star-Spangled Banner. The idea was to encourage congregants to buy Liberty Bonds to fund the war. One minister, Clarence Waldron, refused. He ended up being sentenced to 15 years in prison (later commuted after 1 year).
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| 1922 | U.S. rule of the Dominican Republic ends. The last marines were withdrawn on Sept. 18, 1924. A provisional government was set up.
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| 1950 | Chinese troops occupy Tibet.
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| 1967 | An estimated 150,000 Anti-war demonstrators march on the Pentagon (other cities also have similar marches) demanding an end to the Vietnam War nightmare.
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| 1980 | The "EQUAL ACCESS TO JUSTICE ACT", P.L. 96-481, becomes law. The act attempts to help private parties to defend themselves in legal disputes against the essentially unlimited power of the government.
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| 1986 | The Titanic Maritime Memorial Act of 1985, signed this date, makes it illegal for any U.S. citizen to buy, sell, or own anything that went down with the Titanic.
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| 1998 | President Clinton (D) signs into law the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) {pdf}, a measure sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission forcing Web sites to get parents permission before collecting private information from children under age 13. Sites must comply before April 21, 2000. Many children's web sites have elected to just shut down rather than comply with the bureaucratic rules and paper work.
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| 1998 | The CSPI makes another lame announcement -- which the clueless news media promote without question -- that soft drinks are bad for your health. More here
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