On this day in ...... 1968 (40 years ago today), with the U.S. national anthem playing at the Mexico City Olympics, 200-meter gold and bronze medalwinners, both African-Americans, "stood with their heads bowed and a black-gloved hand raised." Tommie Smith and John Carlos were members of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, whose badge the Australian silver medalist later wore to show his support for Smith and Carlos. Nevertheless, after U.S. media called them "'Nazi-like'" and "'storm troopers,'" "the two athletes were suspended from their national team, expelled from the Olympic village and sent home to America." (credit for photo (c) Associated Press)
... 1973 (35 years ago today), with approval from the world's largest producer, Saudi Arabia, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries launched an oil embargo "meant to punish the West for its support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War." The withholding of oil, which lasted nearly 1/2 a year, "led to long lines at U.S. gas pumps" and "represented a major change in the political power of the OPEC nations." Oil-power-politics remains in the fore 3-1/2 decades later, as is evident in IntLawGrrl Christiana Ochoa's post above.
