On this day in ...... 1918 (90 years ago today), 6 months before World War I would come to an end, the United States adopted the Sedition Act, which made speaking against the government, among other utterances deemed to harm the war effort, a crime punishable by up to $10,000 and 20 years' imprisonment. Following criticism like that in the 1920 political cartoon at left, the Act was repealed in 1921. (image credit)
... 1957, in the high altitude over Christmas Island, Britain "exploded its first hydrogen bomb as part of a series of tests in the Pacific, the Ministry of Supply has announced." Tests would prove successful in November of the same year, with the explosion of 'Hurricane," the bomb at right. According to
the BBC, the resulting public furor led to establishment a year later of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the still-in-operation NGO about which we've posted. (photo credit)
