On this day in ...... 1935, a ceasefire was reached in the Chaco War between Bolivia (flag at right) and Paraguay (flag at left). The 3-year conflict had resulted in 100,000 casualties. In a landmark decision respecting the roles of Congress and the President, the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936), would find constitutional the government's prosecution of the defendant corporation on charges that it had illegally conspired to sell machine guns to Bolivia.
... 1963 (45 years ago today), an assassin shot civil rights activist Medgar Evers dead outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. Evers had moved there several years earlier with his wife, Myrlie, to begin work as the NAACP's 1st field secretary. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington,
D.C. Conviction for his murder finally came in 1994, decades after the defendant, Byron De La Beckwith, had avoided conviction in 2 separate trials. From 1995 to 1998 Myrlie Evers-Williams, who had pressed for the retrial, served as the 1st woman chair of the NAACP. (credit for photo of Evers family)
