The Checkers speech was an address made by United States Senator and
Republican vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon on television and
radio on September 23, 1952. Senator Nixon had been accused of
improprieties relating to a fund established by his backers to
reimburse him for his political expenses. With his place on the
Republican ticket in doubt, the senator flew to Los Angeles and
delivered a half hour television address in which he defended himself,
attacked his opponents, and urged the audience to contact the
Republican National Committee to tell it whether or not he should
remain on the ticket. During the speech, he stated that regardless of
what anyone said, he intended to keep one gift—a black-and-white dog
which was named Checkers by the Nixon children, thus giving the address
its popular name. Nixon got the idea for the Checkers reference from
Franklin Roosevelt's Fala speech. Nixon's speech led to an outpouring
of public support for him. He was retained on the ticket, which swept
to victory in November 1952, keeping Nixon on the path which would lead
to his own election as President sixteen years later. The Checkers
speech was an early example of a politician using television to appeal
directly to the electorate, but has since sometimes been mocked or
denigrated.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkers_speech>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1039:
Henry III became Holy Roman Emperor following the death of his father,
Conrad II.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_III%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor>
1792:
Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound in the Pacific
Northwest for Great Britain.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puget_Sound>
1939:
The German ocean liner SS St. Louis, carrying 963 Jewish refugees
seeking asylum from Nazi persecution, was denied permission to land in
the United States, after already having been turned away from Cuba.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_St._Louis>
1942:
The Battle of Midway , a major battle in the Pacific Theatre of World
War II, began with a massive Imperial Japanese strike on Midway Atoll.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway>
1989:
The People's Liberation Army violently cracked down on the Tiananmen
Square protests in Beijing, leaving at least 241 dead and 7,000
wounded, and causing widespread international condemnation of the
Chinese government.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
holystone (n):
(nautical) A block of soft sandstone used for scrubbing the wooden
decks of a ship
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/holystone>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
To insist on one's place in the scheme of things and to live up to that
place.
To empower others in their reaching for some place in the scheme of
things.
To do these things is to make fairy tales come true.
--Robert Fulghum
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Fulghum>