The 1996 U.S. campaign finance scandal refers to alleged efforts by the People's Republic of China to influence domestic United States politics prior to and during the Bill Clinton Administration as well as the fundraising practices of the administration itself. While questions regarding the U.S. Democratic Party's fundraising activities first arose in October 1996, China's alleged role in the affair first gained public attention after Bob Woodward and Brian Duffy of the Washington Post published a story stating that a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the fundraising activities had discovered evidence that agents of China sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee before the 1996 presidential campaign. The journalists wrote that intelligence information had showed the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. was used for coordinating contributions to the DNC in violation of U.S. law forbidding non-American citizens from giving monetary donations to U.S. politicians and political parties. Seventeen people were eventually convicted for fraud or for funneling Asian funds into the U.S. elections. A number of the convictions came against long-time Clinton-Gore friends and political appointees.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_U.S._campaign_finance_scandal

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1521: Filipino natives led by Lapu-Lapu killed Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in the Battle of Mactan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mactan)

1565: Conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi and 500 armed soldiers arrived at Cebu and established the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_L%C3%83%C2%B3pez_de_Legazpi)

1667: John Milton, blind and impoverished, sold the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton)

1865: An explosion destroyed the steamboat Sultana on the Mississippi River, killing 1,700 passengers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_%28steamboat%29)

1994: Apartheid in South Africa: The African National Congress had a landslide victory in the first non-racial elections in the history of South Africa.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Africa_in_the_apartheid_era)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." -- Edward Gibbon (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon)