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.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act
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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)
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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)
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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)