The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of American federal legislation that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Act into law (pictured) during the height of the Civil Rights Movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended it five times. The Act allowed for a mass enfranchisement of racial minorities across the country, especially in the South. Section 2 of the Act prohibits state and local governments from imposing any voting law that has a discriminatory effect on racial or language minorities, and other provisions specifically ban literacy tests and similar discriminatory devices. Some provisions apply only to jurisdictions covered by the Act's "coverage formula", which was designed to encompass jurisdictions that engaged in egregious voting discrimination. Chiefly, Section 5 prohibits these jurisdictions from changing their election practices without first receiving approval from the federal government that the change is not discriminatory. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula as unconstitutional, reasoning that it no longer responded to current conditions.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1806:
The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by its last emperor, Francis II (pictured), during the aftermath of the War of the Third Coalition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
1890:
At Auburn Prison in Auburn, New York, US, William Kemmler became the first person to be executed in an electric chair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair
1964:
American researcher Donald Currey had a bristlecone pine tree known as Prometheus cut down, only to find that it was the oldest known non-clonal organism ever discovered, at least 4,862 years old at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree)
1991:
British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee first posted files describing his ideas for a system of interlinked, hypertext documents accessible via the Internet, to be called a "World Wide Web". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
2010:
A cloudburst and heavy overnight rains triggered flash floods, mudslides, and debris flows across a large part of Ladakh, a region of the northernmost Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, leaving at least 255 people dead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Ladakh_floods
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
Olympiad: 1. (historical) A period of four years, by which the ancient Greeks reckoned time, being the interval from one celebration of the Olympic games to another, beginning with the victory of Corbus in the foot race, which took place in the year 776 b.c.; as, the era of the olympiads. 2. An occurrence of the Olympic games. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Olympiad
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The Holy Thing is here again Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray, And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray, That so perchance the vision may be seen By thee and those, and all the world be healed. --Idylls of the King https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Idylls_of_the_King