Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [52]
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika
36. KENYA
President Daniel arap Moi
37.MOROCC0
Prime Minister Abderrahmane Youssoufi
38.PERU
President Alejandro Toledo
39. AFGHANISTAN
Mullah Mohammed Rabbari
4O.UZBEKISTAN
President Islam Karimov
4l. NEPAL
King Gyanendra, Prime Minister
Sher Bahadur Derba
42.VENEZUELA
President Hugo Chavez Frias
43. UGANDA
President Lt Gen. Yoweri Museveni
44. IRAQ
President Saddam Hussein
45. ROMANIA
President Ion Iliescu
46. TAIWAN
President Chen Shui-bian
47. SAUDI ARABIA
King Fahd bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud
48. MALAYSIA
Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir bin
Mohamed
49. NORTH KOREA
President Vim Jong Il
50. GHANA
PresidiintJohn Agyekum Kufuor
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Important Dates in History
June 19, 1865: “Juneteenth.” Although the Emancipation Proclamation had freed the slaves two years earlier, the word hadn’t gotten to everyone in the South. On this day in Galveston, Texas, a Union general arrived and officially informed the slaves of their freedom.
December 29, 1890. Massacre at Wounded Knee. As part of one last effort to quell the one remaining Indian rebellion, U.S. troops were sent out to arrest Big Foot, the chief of the Sioux Indian tribe. Members of the tribe were captured, forced to give up their arms, and moved into a camp surrounded by the U.S. troops. On the morning of December 29, the soldiers opened fire on the Indian camp and three hundred unarmed Sioux, including Big Foot, were killed. It was the last battle in the four-hundred-year campaign of genocide against the Native Americans.
May 18, 1896. In Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that inferior accommodations for blacks on railroad cars did not constitute a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision paved the way for the “separate but equal” policies that resulted in Jim Crow laws.
April 14, 1914: The Ludlow Massacre. Colorado coal miners who had been trying for years to unionize went on strike. After being kicked out of their company-owned homes, the strikers and their families set up tent colonies on
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public property. On die morning of the April 14, Colorado militiamen and other strikebreakers fired their guns into the camp and burned down the tents, killing twenty—mostly women and children.
March 22, 1947. President Truman issued Executive Order 9835 to identify the “infiltration of disloyal persons” within the government. This ushered in an era of fear and paranoia about alleged Communists that led to more than six million people being investigated and five hundred being dismissed from their jobs for “questionable loyalty.”
December 1, 1955. A tired seamstress and local civil rights activist in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. This quiet act launched the Montgomery bus boycott, which lasted for 381 days and established Martin Luther King Jr. as the movement’s leader. The boycott was ended after the Supreme Court ruled that segregation laws on public transportation were illegal.
April 30, 1975. The fall of Saigon. Although American ground troops had officially pulled out of Vietnam two years earlier, this day represents the end of the brutal war. Several weeks of chaos over the impending Communist takeover culminated in a desperate scene as the last of the U.S. rescue helicopters took off from the American embassy’s rooftop with the few refugees they could carry.
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Guide to Student Rights
As an American student you probably haven’t learned much about the U.S. Constitution or about your civil rights, so here’s a handy guide based on information from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). For more facts about student rights, on subjects including dress codes, your school records, and discrimination based on sexual orientation, contact your state chapter of the ACLU or check their Web site at www.aclu.org/students/slfree. html.
• The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to free expression and free association. And according to the United States Supreme