On May 16

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 Following criticism like that in the 1920 political cartoon at left, the Act was repealed in 1921.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)

On this day

On April 1, ...
... 2001, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was arrested and taken to prison in Belgrade, ending a 36-hour standoff at his home. Within months, "after US pressure," he would be "was extradited to The Hague to face the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia." His trial there began in 2002, but in 2006 he died in his ICTY prison cell before any verdict was returned.
... 1983 (25 years ago today), tens of thousands of peace demonstrators "formed a human chain stretching 14 miles" along a route in southern England that "the protesters call 'Nuclear Valley.'" Organizing the event was the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, about which we've posted. (photo credit)

50 Years of Peace (Symbol)

Thanks to our Opinio Juris colleague, Kevin Jon Heller, for alerting us to the 50th birthday this Good Friday of the peace symbol. It made its debut when "thousands of British anti-nuclear campaigners set off from London's Trafalgar Square on a 50-mile march to the weapons factory at Aldermaston," England. Among the organizers was the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which developed the symbol. Still in the nonproliferation fight, CND's planning a march to the same bomb factory this coming Easter Monday.