On this day in ...... 1215, the Magna Carta (left) -- the document in which King John, in June of the same year, agreed to accord certain liberties to certain Englishmen -- was declared null and void by Pope Innocent III (below right), on the grounds that it was "an agreement exacted by force, which was shameful, demeaning illegal, unjust and derogatory to the king's rights and dignity."
... 1954, the Communist Party effectively was outlawed in the United States when the Communist Control Act went into effect. The legality vel non of the act was never reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
