On this day in ...... 1953 (55 years ago today), in Rosenberg v. United States, U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas vacated a stay of execution he'd issued on behalf of a wife and husband (left) convicted and sentenced to death on charges that they'd conspired to violate the Espionage Act of 1917 by communicating, in time of war, secret atomic and other military information to a foreign government. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed the same day at Sing Sing Prison in New York.
... 1912, Congress enacted a law requiring that "all contracts made on or behalf of the federal government, its territories, or the District of Columbia" limit laborers' workday to 8 hours.
