Melville Fuller (February 11, 1833 – July 4, 1910) was the eighth
chief justice of the United States. Born in Augusta, Maine, he graduated
from Bowdoin College and practiced law in Chicago. In 1888, President
Grover Cleveland appointed him to the Supreme Court. Fuller gained a
reputation for collegiality and competent administrative skills. His
jurisprudence was staunchly conservative: he favored free enterprise and
opposed broad federal power. Fuller wrote the majority opinion in
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., which held that the federal income
tax was unconstitutional. He joined the majority opinion in Plessy v.
Ferguson, which upheld state-mandated racial segregation, and in
Lochner v. New York, which struck down economic regulations on the
grounds that they violated the freedom of contract. Many of his
decisions were later overruled, and the majority of scholars have been
critical of the Fuller Court's jurisprudence. He served as chief justice
until his death in 1910.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melville_Fuller>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1584:
Spanish explorer Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa founded the town of
Nombre de Jesús, the first of two short-lived colonies at the Strait of
Magellan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_colonization_attempt_of_the_Strait_of_Magellan>
1840:
La fille du régiment (audio featured), an opéra comique by
Gaetano Donizetti, premiered in Paris to highly negative reviews but
later became a success.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_fille_du_r%C3%A9giment>
1919:
Friedrich Ebert was elected the provisional president of
Germany by the Weimar National Assembly.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Ebert>
2008:
Rebel East Timorese soldiers invaded the homes of President
José Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão, seriously wounding
the former.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_East_Timorese_assassination_attempts>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
radium:
1. The chemical element (symbol Ra) with an atomic number of 88. It is a
soft, shiny and silvery radioactive alkaline earth metal.
2. (textiles, dated) A type of cloth woven from silk or synthetic yarn,
often with a shiny appearance.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/radium>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The most important step in getting a job done is the recognition
of the problem. Once I recognize a problem I usually can think of
someone who can work it out better than I could.
--Leó Szilárd
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd>