The Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956 was an Act of Congress passed to improve mental health care in the United States territory of Alaska. Introduced in the House of Representatives by Alaska Congressional Delegate Bob Bartlett in January 1956, it became the focus of a major political controversy. The legislation was opposed by a variety of far-right, anti-Communist and fringe religious groups, prompting what was said to have been the biggest political controversy seen on Capitol Hill since the early 1940s. Prominent opponents nicknamed it the "Siberia Bill" and asserted that it was part of an international Jewish, Roman Catholic or psychiatric conspiracy intended to establish United Nations-run concentration camps in the United States. With the sponsorship of the conservative Republican senator Barry Goldwater, a modified version of the Act was approved unanimously by the United States Senate in July 1956 after only ten minutes of debate.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

929: Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III of Cordoba declared himself caliph, thereby establishing the Caliphate of Córdoba. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba)

1909: The Nimrod Expedition led by Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton reached the approximate location of the South Magnetic Pole. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton)

1969: Student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in Prague to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia one year earlier. He died three days later from the third-degree burns he suffered. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Palach)

2006: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as President of Liberia, becoming Africa's first female elected head of state. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Johnson-Sirleaf)

_____________________ Wiktionary's Word of the day:

epenthesis: (linguistics) The insertion of a phoneme, letter, or syllable into a word, usually to satisfy the phonological constraints of a language or poetic context. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/epenthesis)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

I don't want to express alienation. It isn't what I feel. I'm interested in various kinds of passionate engagement. All my work says be serious, be passionate, wake up. -- Susan Sontag (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag)