Jerry Voorhis (1901–1984) was a Democratic politician from California.
He served five terms in the United States House of Representatives,
representing the 12th Congressional district in Los Angeles County from
1937 to 1947. He was the first political opponent of Richard Nixon, who
defeated him for reelection in 1946 in a campaign cited as an example
of red-baiting in Nixon's political rise. Voorhis was born in Kansas,
and moved around much in his childhood. He graduated from Yale
University after being elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and secured a
master's degree from Claremont Graduate School in education. He served
in varying capacities as a young adult, becoming headmaster of
newly-founded Voorhis School for Boys in 1928, a post he retained into
his congressional career. In ten years in Congress, Voorhis compiled a
liberal voting record and was a loyal supporter of the New Deal. His
major legislative accomplishment was the Voorhis Act of 1940, requiring
registration of certain organizations controlled by foreign powers.
After four comfortable reelections, he faced Nixon in a bitter campaign
in which Voorhis's supposed endorsement by groups linked to the
Communist Party was a major issue.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Voorhis>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1521:
Pope Leo X issued the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem,
excommunicating Martin Luther from the Roman Catholic Church after
Luther refused to retract 41 of his 95 theses.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_X>
1777:
American Revolutionary War: American forces under General George
Washington defeated British troops in Princeton, New Jersey.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Princeton>
1848:
Joseph Jenkins Roberts began his term as the first President of
Liberia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Jenkins_Roberts>
1888:
The 91-cm refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory near San Jose,
California, USA, at the time the largest telescope in the world, was
used for the first time.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lick_Observatory>
1958:
Ten former British colonies in the Caribbean joined to form a new
self-governing West Indies Federation.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Indies_Federation>
1990:
United States invasion of Panama: General Manuel Noriega, the deposed
"strongman of Panama", surrendered to American forces.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
judder (v):
To spasm; to shake violently
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/judder>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
This is an ancient hallow, and ere the kings failed or the Tree
withered in the court, a fruit must have been set here. For it is said
that, though the fruit of the Tree comes seldom to ripeness, yet the
life within may then lie sleeping through many long years, and none can
foretell the time in which it will awake.
--w:Gandalf
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/w%3AGandalf>
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