| Year | Event
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| 1598 | The English Parliament is dissolved, having enacted a Poor Law statute whose basic tenets are followed until 1834. Parish tithes for the relief of destitution through the institution of workhouses and the appointment of "Guardians of the Poor" complement regularized punishments for “undeserving” so-called “Sturdy Beggars.” (The Encarta® 2000 New World Timeline © Copyright 1998, Helicon Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.) [Modern efforts to solve this ancient problem have proven to be disastrous.]
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| 1769 | To discipline recalcitrant Americans, the British Parliament reinstates a statute that sanctions the removal of colonial treason trials to England.
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| 1861 | Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Alabama.
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| 1909 | The first national legislation designed to regulate narcotics distribution, the 1909 "Act to Prohibit Importation and Use Of Opium" barred the importation of opium at other than specified ports and for other than medicinal use.
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| 1942 | Daylight-saving time goes into effect in the United States.
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| 1950 | In a speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, Senator Joseph McCarthy (R) begins his campaign to roust the Communists from the US.
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| 2007 | Brave whistleblower's (former employees) comes to naught -- Iraq contractor gets off scott free. A federal judge has dismissed a civil case against Custer Battles, a military contractor, accused of improperly billing Iraq reconstruction authorities for tens of millions of dollars worth of security services that it did not provide. Charles Tiefer, a government-contracting professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, said the judge's ruling "means that taxpayers are going to have great trouble recovering any of the money lost by contractor abuses in Iraq."
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