TODAY IN HISTORY: 18 December 2019; Donald Trump becomes third U.S. President to be impeached

On this day in 2019, after weeks of discussions among legislators, the House of Representatives voted to impeach the 45th President, Donald Trump, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The vote fell largely along party lines: 230 in favor, 197 against and 1 present. Trump became only the third president ever to be impeached, joining Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, after concerns about his alleged attempts to seek foreign interference in the 2020 election.

Some Democrats had advocated impeaching Trump since the moment of his election. After they regained control of the House of Representatives, Democrats launched multiple investigations into his business dealings and his campaign's ties to Russian hackers who targeted his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton. After an exhaustive effort failed to convince Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others that they had reason to impeach, a new scandal emerged that succeeded in doing so. 

In September 2019, the public learned of a whistleblower complaint regarding a July phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The complaint, which was corroborated by the acting Ambassador to Ukraine, stated that Trump had threatened to withhold U.S. foreign aid money until Zelensky promised to investigate Hunter Biden, son of leading Democratic 2020 candidate Joe Biden, for suspicious dealings in Ukraine.

The White House denied any "quid pro quo." Nonetheless, by late November, it was clear that the Democrats felt confident enough in their case for wrongdoing and obstruction of Congress that they would go through with impeachment. 

After both articles were approved in the House, the case then moved to a Senate trial, which began on January 16, 2020. U.S. Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts presided over the trial. On February 5, 2020, in a vote that again fell largely along party lines, the Senate voted to acquit President Trump on both charges. 

On January 13, 2021, President Trump was impeached again following the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, becoming the only U.S. president to be impeached twice. Unlike his first impeachment, 10 House Republicans joined Democrats in voting in favor of impeachment. The former president was found not guilty in the Senate trial, though seven Republican senators joined Democrats in voting to convict.

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TODAY IN HISTORY: 16 December 2010; Fuji superstar Ayinde Barrister dies at 62

On this day in year 2010, the fuji exponent Alhaji Sikiru Ololade Ayinde Balogun a.k.a. Ayinde Barrister died in a London hospital at the age of 62. The late musician is one of the founders of the popular Yoruba music Fuji and had a large followership during his days.

Doctor Sikiru Ayinde Barrister was one of Nigeria’s best known singer/songwriters that  played an essential role in the evolution of the music of his homeland. The leader of a 25-piece band, the Supreme Fuji Commanders, and a smaller group, the Africa Musical International Ambassadors, Barrister one of the leading purveyors of fuji, an exciting, amplified dance music combining juju, apala, and traditional Yoruban blues that he introduced in the late '70s.

Barrister sang most of his life. By the age of ten, he had mastered a complex, Yoruba vocal style that was traditionally performed during the holy month of Ramadan. Although he briefly attended a Muslim school in 1961, financial difficulties prevented him from continuing. Leaving school, he found employment as a stenographer.

During the Civil War that swept through Nigeria between 1967 and 1970, he served in the Army. Signed by the Nigeria-based Africa Songs, Ltd. label, Barrister recorded many groundbreaking singles during the 1970s and '80s.

With his heartfelt vocals set to a rhythmic mix of talking drums, claves, bells, shekere, drum set, and Hawaiian-style guitar, he laid the foundation for fuji, which he named after Mr. Fuji.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 15 December 2011; U.S. declares an end to the War in Iraq

On this day in 2011, in a ceremony held in Baghdad, the war that began in 2003 with the American-led invasion of Iraq officially comes to an end. Though today was the official end date of the Iraq War, violence continued and in fact worsened over the subsequent years. The withdrawal of American troops had been a priority of President Barack Obama, but by the time he left office the United States would again be conducting military operations in Iraq.

Five days after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush announced the “War on Terror,” an umbrella term for a series of preemptive military strikes meant to reduce the threat terrorism posed to the American homeland. The first such strike was the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, which began a war that continued for two decades.

Throughout 2002, the Bush Administration argued that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was allied with terrorists and developing “weapons of mass destruction.” By all accounts, Hussein was responsible for many atrocities, but there was scant evidence that he was developing nuclear or chemical weapons. Behind closed doors, intelligence officials warned the case for war was based on conjecture—a British inquiry later revealed that one report’s description of Iraqi chemical weapons had actually come from the Michael Bay-directed action movie The Rock. The governments of the U.S. and the U.K., however, were resolute in their public assertions that Hussein posed a threat to their homelands, and went ahead with the invasion.

The invasion was an immediate success insofar as the coalition had toppled Hussein’s government and occupied most of Iraq by mid-April. What followed, however, was eight years of insurgency and sectarian violence. American expectations that Iraqis would “greet them as liberators” and quickly form a stable, pluralistic democracy proved wildly unrealistic. Though the coalition did install a new government, which took office in 2006, it never came close to pacifying the country. Guerilla attacks, suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices continued to take the lives of soldiers and civilians, and militias on both sides of the Sunni-Shia divide carried out ethnic cleansings.

The American public remained skeptical of the war, and many were horrified at reports of atrocities carried out by the military and CIA. Leaked photos proved that Americans had committed human rights abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, and in 2007 American military contractors killed 17 civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. Opposition to the war became an important talking point in Obama’s bid for the presidency.

On New Year’s Day 2009, shortly before Obama took office, the U.S. handed control of the Green Zone—the Baghdad district that served as coalition headquarters—to the Iraqi government. Congress formally ended its authorization for the war in November, and the last combat troops left the following month. Even by the lowest estimates, the Iraq War claimed over 100,000 lives; other estimates suggest that the number is several times greater, with over 205,000 civilian deaths alone.

Over the next three years, ongoing sectarian violence blossomed into a full-out civil war. Many of the militias formed during the Iraq War merged or partnered with extremist groups in neighboring Syria, itself experiencing a bloody civil war. By 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which absorbed many of these groups, controlled much of Syria and Iraq. The shocking rise of ISIL led Obama to launch fresh military actions in the region beginning in June of 2014. Though ISIL has now been driven out of Iraq and appears to be very much diminished, American troops are still stationed in Iraq.

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TODAY IN HISTORY: 15 December 2010; Chief Anthony Enahoro dies in his sleep at 87

On this day in 2010, the rank of Nigeria’s founding fathers was depleted further when Nigeria's foremost journalist, anti-colonial and pro-democracy activist, Chief Anthony Eromosele Enahoro died in his sleep at age of 87.

Chief Enahoro whom many Nigerians regarded as the “Father of Nigeria State”, died after a protracted battle with diabetes at his GRA residence in Benin City, capital of Edo State Nigeria.

On November 1, 2010, Chief Enahoro was admitted at the intensive unit of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH, and was discharged two weeks later. He died in the early hours of Wednesday December 15, 2010, barely one week after the people of Edo State lost their First Lady, Mrs. Clara Oshiomhole.

The incident further compounded the sorrow of Nigerians particularly the people of Edo State. When the news circulated, several shops and businesses closed down as that was the first time in the history of Edo State that two personalities would die in just a week. Incidentally, Chief Enahoro was from the same Edo Central senatorial district where Mrs. Oshiomhole also hailed.

A family source informed the newsmen that Chief Enahoro slept without any complaint on Tuesday night but that at about 4 a.m, the children went to see him in his room after they heard his voice. It was discovered that he was not breathing well, and was struggling for breath. After they tried to help him, he informed them that he needed to rest. And shortly after that he clapped his hand like he was in deep prayers, thereafter he laid down on the bed and gave up the ghost.

Chief Enahoro, the first child of twelve siblings was born on 22nd July 1923. He made a great impact on the press, politics, civil service and the pro-democracy movement during his time. In 1953, he moved the motion for Nigeria’s independence in the floor of House of Representatives and it became a reality on October 1, 1960.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 14 December 2012; Sandy Hook school shooting by Adam Lanza claims 27 lives

On this day in 2012, Adam Lanza kills 20 first graders and six school employees at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, before turning a gun on himself. Earlier that day, he killed his mother at the home they shared.

The Sandy Hook shooting was, at the time, the second-deadliest mass shooting in the United States after the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, in which a gunman killed 32 students and teachers before committing suicide.

Shortly after 9:30 a.m., 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot through a plate-glass window next to Sandy Hook’s locked front entrance in order to gain access to the school. Hearing the noise, the school principal and school psychologist went to investigate and were shot and killed by Lanza, who was armed with a semiautomatic rifle, two semiautomatic pistols and multiple rounds of ammunition. Lanza also shot and wounded two other Sandy Hook staff members.

He then entered two first-grade classrooms, where he gunned down two teachers and 15 students in one room and two teachers and five students in the other room. The children Lanza murdered, 12 girls and 8 boys, were 6 and 7 years old. Twelve first-graders from the two classrooms survived.

When Lanza heard the police closing in on him, he killed himself in a classroom at approximately 9:40 a.m.

Police soon learned that sometime earlier that morning, before arriving at Sandy Hook, Lanza had shot and killed his 52-year-old mother at their home. She owned the weapons her son used in his deadly rampage.

Investigators determined that Lanza, who had attended Sandy Hook as a boy, acted alone in planning and carrying out the attack, but they were unable to find a motive for his actions or discover why he had targeted Sandy Hook.

In November 2013, the Connecticut State’s Attorney released a report noting that Lanza had “significant mental health issues that affected his ability to live a normal life and to interact with others.” However, mental-health professionals who had worked with him “did not see anything that would have predicted his future behavior,” according to the report.

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, President Barack Obama called for new gun-safety measures; however, his primary legislative goal, expanded background checks for gun buyers, was blocked by the U.S. Senate.

The community of Newtown, which has some 27,000 residents and is located about 45 miles southwest of Connecticut’s capital, Hartford, eventually decided to tear down Sandy Hook Elementary School. It was razed in the fall of 2013; a new school was built on the same site.

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TODAY IN HISTORY: 14 December 1939; The League of Nations expels USSR

Following the response to the Soviets’ invasion of Finland on November 30, the international peacekeeping organization formed at the end of World War I, expels the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a member of the League of Nations on this day in 1939.

Although the League of Nations was more or less the brainchild of President Woodrow Wilson, the United States, which was to have sat on the Executive Council, never joined. Isolationists in the Senate, put off by America’s intervention in World War I, which they felt was more of a European civil war than a true world war prevented American participation. While the League was born with the exalted mission of preventing another “Great War,” it proved ineffectual, being unable to protect China from a Japanese invasion or Ethiopia from an Italian one. The League was also useless in reacting to German remilitarization, which was a violation of the Treaty of Versailles, the document that formally set the peace terms for the end of World War I.

Germany and Japan voluntarily withdrew from the League in 1933, and Italy left in 1937. The true imperial designs of the Soviet Union soon became apparent with its occupation of eastern Poland in September of 1939, ostensibly with the intention of protecting Russian “blood brothers,” Ukrainians and Byelorussians, who were supposedly menaced by the Poles. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were then terrorized into signing “mutual assistance” pacts, primarily one-sided agreements that gave the USSR air and naval bases in those countries. But the invasion of Finland, where no provocation or pact could credibly be adduced to justify the aggression, resulted in worldwide reaction. President Roosevelt, although an “ally” of the USSR, condemned the invasion, causing the Soviets to withdraw from the New York World’s Fair. And finally, the League of Nations, drawing almost its last breath, expelled it.

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TODAY IN HISTORY: 14 December 1991; NEC conducts governorship election in 30 States of Nigeria

On this day in 1991, the Nigeria’s electoral umpire, National Electoral Commission (NEC) conducted governorship and states' Houses of Assembly  elections in all the 30 states of Nigeria. At the end of the elections, National Republican Convention (NRC) won 16 states and 14 states were won by the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

The 1991 governorship and states' Houses of Assembly were calm and orderly, possibly owing to increased security in the country. The government banned sales of liquor and weapons including any type of gun, bow and arrow, spear, horsewhip, cutlass, cudgel and axe.

Despite the generally orderly proceedings, it was reported in the media that the two political parties filed 18 petitions alleging malpractice during the elections.

In January 1992, the military government under General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida announced that elections for National Assembly will be held November 7, 1992 and for the presidency on December 7, 1992.

With the inauguration of civilian governors in January 1992, the Nigerian government became a “diarchy”, that is, joint governance by civilians and military. While civilians took charge of the states, the military retained ultimate control of the nation. Human rights groups are attempting to take advantage of the opening at the state level to press for a commitment by the new state governments to human rights principles.

In January 1992, the Civil Liberty Organization (CLO) sent a letter to the new civilian governors and legislators, highlighting human rights concerns such as detention without trial, extra-judicial killings and abuses against university students. This was followed up with a letter in February, asking state legislatures to “consider creating a committee on human rights and to make it one of the standing committees of the house”.

Despite criticism from sources such as human rights groups, churches, universities and individual Nigerians, it appears likely that the “open ballot” will be used throughout the duration of the transition programme, although it will apparently be slightly modified in time for the forthcoming National Assembly and Presidential elections.

In March, the NRC restated its objection to the open ballot, complaining that it does not “protect the choice of the individual voter”. And Vice President, Aikhomu announced that the secret ballot was in the process of being reexamined by the government.

The National Electoral Commission (NEC) Chairman Prof. Humphrey Nwosu continues to praise the system, inexplicably claiming that it has reduced electoral violence. He said the problem is not with the open ballot itself, but with the collation which is done in secret. To eliminate the problem, the NEC Chairman the collation would be thrown open to allow people watch it being done and to prevent manipulation. Nwosu's submission contradicts the earlier rational for the open ballot, that method of voting itself, not collation, was the problem.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 13 December, 1997; General Diya escapes bomb explosion in Abuja

Former Chief of General Staff, Major General Oladipo Diya narrowly escapes a bomb explosion on this day in 1997, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

Between January 1984 to August 1985, Diya was the Military Governor of Ogun State and was also Vice President as Chief of general Staff during Gen Sani Abacha’s military regime.

Diya had allegedly planned to overthrow the Abacha regime but was arrested and jailed alongside his cohorts in 1997 for treason. He was later sentenced to death by firing squad in 1998 by a military tribunal sitting in Jos but later commuted to a 25-year jail term.

On 3 March 1999, Major General Diya and his colleagues were reportedly released after General Abdulsalam Abubakar granted them amnesty. Major General Diya, and his colleagues including Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, Major Gen. Abdulkareem Adisa, Col. EI. Jando, Col. Yakubu Bako, Lt. Col. O.O. Akinyode, Major A.A. Fadipe, Major B.M. Mohammed and Lance Corporal Galadima Tanko, were not only released but henceforth dismissed from the service, stripped of their ranks, and reportedly prohibited from using their military titles.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 13 December 2003; Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein captured

On this day in 2003, after spending nine months on the run, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is captured. Saddam’s downfall started in 2003, when the United States led an invasion force into Iraq to topple his government, after he had controlled Iraq for more that two decades.

Born in 1937 into a poor family in Tikrit, 100 miles outside of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein joined the now infamous Baath party as a teenager which he would later lead. He took part in several coup attempts and finally helped to install his cousin, Aḥmad Ḥasan al-Bakr as a dictator of Iraq in July 1968. Saddam took over for his cousin 11 years later. During his 24 years in office, Saddam’s secret police, charged with protecting his power, terrorized the public, ignoring the human rights of the nation’s citizens. While many of his people faced poverty, he lived in incredible luxury, building more than 20 lavish palaces throughout the country. Obsessed with security, he is said to have moved among them often, always sleeping in secret locations.

In the early 1980s, Saddam involved his country in an eight-year war with Iran, which is estimated to have taken more than a million lives on both sides. He is alleged to have used nerve agents and mustard gas on Iranian soldiers during the conflict, as well as chemical weapons on Iraq’s own Kurdish population in northern Iraq in 1988. After he invaded Kuwait in 1990, a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in 1991, forcing the dictator’s army to leave its smaller neighbor, but failing to remove Saddam from power. Throughout the 1990s, Saddam faced both U.N. economic sanctions and air strikes aimed at crippling his ability to produce chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. With Iraq continuing to face allegations of illegal oil sales and weapons-building, the United States again invaded the country in March 2003, this time with the expressed purpose of ousting Saddam and his regime.

Despite proclaiming in early March 2003 that, “it is without doubt that the faithful will be victorious against aggression,” Saddam went into hiding soon after the American invasion, speaking to his people only through an occasional audiotape, and his government soon fell. After declaring Saddam the most important of a list of his regime’s 55 most-wanted members, the United States began an intense search for the former leader and his closest advisors. On July 22, 2003, Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay, who many believe he was grooming to one day fill his shoes, were killed when U.S. soldiers raided a villa in which they were staying in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Five months later, on December 13, 2003, U.S. soldiers found Saddam Hussein hiding in a six-to-eight-foot deep hole, nine miles outside his hometown of Tikrit. The man once obsessed with hygiene was found to be unkempt, with a bushy beard and matted hair. He did not resist and was uninjured during the arrest. A soldier at the scene described him as “a man resigned to his fate.”

After standing trial, he was executed on December 30, 2006. Despite a prolonged search, weapons of mass destruction were never found in Iraq.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 13 DECEMBER 2019; Swedish teen climate activist, Greta Thunberg named Time’s Person of the Year

On this day in 2019, a 16-year old climate activist, Greta Thunberg is named Time magazine's Person of the Year. The Swedish teen became the first Person of the Year to be born in the 21st century and the youngest ever to receive the honor.

Thunberg took to activism early, convincing her parents to become vegans, reduce their carbon footprint and avoid flying. In 2018, inspired by teenage gun control activists in the United States, she began a school strike that spread across Sweden and to other European countries. Before long, Thunberg was giving speeches throughout Europe and had become one of the most recognizable faces of climate activism. Thunberg delivered her message with a sense of urgency—"Our house is on fire," she said—that struck a chord with the public, particularly because it came from a child.

In August 2019, Thunberg sailed a solar-powered racing yacht across the Atlantic Ocean to promote carbon-neutral transit. After arriving in New York, she testified before the United States Congress and the U.N. Climate Action Summit, where she was characteristically blunt: "You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!"

Though Thunberg's message and mannerisms offended many on the right, her activism has made waves the world over. The Time cover announcing her as Person of the Year also touted "The Power of Youth," presaging the advent of the Sunrise Movement and other youth-led climate activism in the United States and across the world.

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TODAY IN HISTORY: 12 December 1991; Nigeria Capital relocates to Abuja

On this day 31 years ago, Nigerian military ruler, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida physically moved the seat of power from Lagos to Abuja. Lagos had functioned as Nigeria’s political and economic capital and served as the country’s center of power from 1914 to 1991.

On 3 February 1976, General Murtala Muhammed announced that the Federal Capital would in the future move to a federal territory location of about 8,000 square kilometres in the central part of the country. But the idea was not implemented until 1991, under military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.

Several nations have experimented with moving their capital cities around the globe. Brazil, for example, relocated its capital from Rio de Janeiro to the purpose-built Brasilia in 1961; Kazakhstan moved its capital from Almaty to Astana in 1997; and Cote d’Ivoire transferred its capital from Abijan to Yamoussoukro in 1983. Nigeria shifted its capital from Lagos to Abuja in 1991, joining the group of nations that had previously relocated their capital cities for various reasons.

To actualise the idea, General Murtala Mohammed’s military government, formed a 7-person panel with Dr. Akinola Aguda as its chairman to study the question of Nigeria’s future capital city. The Federal Capital Development Authority was founded by Military Decree No. 6 of 1976 to oversee the planning, designing, and development of the Federal Capital Territory at the recommendation of the panel following its study (FCT).

The unsuccessful but brutal coup of 1976 that took his life prevented the Murtala administration from finishing what it had begun. While succeeding governments made their contributions during their terms in office, it wasn’t until the military regime of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida that the ideal became a reality in 1991.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 12 December 1913; Stolen “Mona Lisa” retrieved in Florence

On this day in 1913, two years after it was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, The Mona Lisa is reclaimed inside Italian waiter Vincenzo Peruggia’s hotel room in Florence. Peruggia had previously worked at the Louvre and had participated in the heist with a group of accomplices dressed as Louvre janitors on the morning of August 21, 1911.

Leonardo da Vinci, one of the great Italian Renaissance painters, completed The Mona Lisa, a portrait of the wife of wealthy Florentine citizen Francesco del Gioconda, in 1504. The painting, also known as La Gioconda, depicts the figure of a woman with an enigmatic facial expression that is both aloof and alluring, seated before a visionary landscape.

After the recovery of The Mona Lisa, Peruggia was convicted in Italy of the robbery and spent 14 months in jail. The Mona Lisa was eventually returned to the Louvre, and remains till date, exhibited behind bulletproof glass. It is arguably the most famous painting in the world and is seen by millions of visitors every year.

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TODAY IN HISTORY: 12 December 1963; Kenya attains independence from Britain

On this day in 1963, Kenya gains long-awaited independence from Britain after nearly 80 years of British Colonial rule. The East African nation is freed from its colonial oppressors, but its struggle for democracy is far from over. 

A decade before, in 1952, a rebellion known the Mau Mau Uprising had shaken the British colony. Apart from the uprising costs British an estimated £55 million to curb the upheaval, they also carried out massacres of civilians, forced several hundred thousand Kenyans into concentration camps, and suspended civil liberties in some cities. The war ended in the imprisonment and execution of many of the rebels, but the British also understood that things had permanently changed. The colonial government introduced reforms making it easier for Kenyans to own land and grow coffee, a major cash crop previously reserved for European settlers. Kenyans were allowed to be elected to the Legislative Council beginning in 1957. With nationalist movements sweeping across the continent and with Britain no longer financially or militarily capable of sustaining its empire, the British government and representatives from the Kenyan independence movement met in 1960 to negotiate independence.

The agreement led to a 66-seat Legislative Council, with 33 seats reserved for Black Kenyans and 20 for other ethnic groups. Jomo Kenyatta, a former leader of the Kenya African National Union whom the British had imprisoned on false charges after the Mau Mau Uprising, was sworn in as Kenya’s Prime Minister on June 1, 1963, in preparation for the transition to independence. The new nation’s flag was designed on that of the Union and featured a Masai shield at its center.

Kenya’s problems did not end with independence. Fighting with ethnic Somali rebels in the north continued from the time of independence until 1969, and Kenyatta introduced a one-party rule, that led to a corrupt and autocratic government until his death in 1978. Questions about the fairness of its elections continue to plague the country, which instituted a new constitution in 2010. Kenyatta’s son, Uhuru, served as the fourth president of Kenya between 2013 and September 2022. The current president, William Ruto became fifth president on September 13, 2022.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 11th December 1969; Soviets proclaim nudity a sign of “western decadence”

On this day in 1969, the secretary of the Moscow writer’s union declares that nudity as displayed in the popular play Oh! Calcutta! is a sign of decadence in Western culture. More disturbing, he claimed, was the fact that this “bourgeois” thinking was infecting Russian youth.

Sergei Mikhailkov, best known for writing books for children in Russia, lashed out at the Broadway show (where performers were seen in their “birthday suits”), and pornography in general. Such exhibitions were “a general striptease—that is one of the slogans of modern bourgeois art.” It was unfortunate, he lamented, that even Russian youth were becoming enamored of such decadence. Mikhailkov bemoaned the fact that young people in the Soviet Union were more familiar with “the theater of the absurd and the novel without a hero and all kinds of modern bourgeois reactionary tendencies in the literature and art of the West” than with “the past and present of the literature of their fatherland.” Speaking at the end of a conference of Russian intellectuals, he also heaped scorn on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose scathing writings about the Soviet police state earned him the enmity of the Russian government. Although admitting that Solzhenitsyn was a “talented writer,” he found it sad that the novelist “did not want to understand his role of ‘special correspondent’ of so many foreign institutions and organizations.”

Beyond the unintentional humor of many of Mikhailkov’s statements, his comments revealed the impact that U.S. culture—theater, literature, music, and film—was having on the Soviet Union. In the war for hearts and minds, Western “decadence” seemed to be winning the battle.

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TODAY IN HISTORY: 11 December 1946; United Nations’ General Assembly founds UNICEF

On this day in 1946, in the aftermath of World War II, the main deliberative and policymaking organ of the United Nations, General Assembly, votes to establish the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), an organization to help provide relief and support to children living in countries devastated by the war.

After the food and medical crisis of the late 1940s passed, UNICEF continued its role as a relief organization for the children of troubled nations and during the 1970s grew into a vocal advocate of children’s rights. During the 1980s, UNICEF assisted the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. After its introduction to the U.N. General Assembly in 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child became the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, and UNICEF played a key role in ensuring its enforcement.

The United States is the only U.N. member state to have not ratified the treaty. The U.S., which was one of the original signatories of the convention, has failed to ratify the treaty because of concerns about its potential impact on national sovereignty and the parent-child relationship.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 10 DECEMBER 2009; “Avatar” gets world premiere in London

On this day in 2009, “Avatar,” a 3-D science-fiction epic helmed by “Titanic” director James Cameron, makes its world debut in London. Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver, the box-office mega-hit was praised for its state-of-the-art technology and earned nine Academy Award nominations, including best picture and best director.

Set in the year 2154, “Avatar” tells the story of disabled ex-Marine Jake Sully, who is recruited to help conquer and colonize Pandora, a faraway moon that is home to a mineral deposit coveted by people on Earth, whose energy resources are almost depleted. Pandora is inhabited by the Na’vi, a group of nature-loving, blue-skinned, half-alien/half-human creatures intent on protecting their own eco-system. (Cameron hired a linguist to create a unique language for the Na’vi.) Using an avatar to explore Pandora because the air there is toxic to humans, Jake falls in love with a Na’vi princess and goes native, eventually working to save the Na’vi from the human colonists.

Cameron wrote the script for “Avatar” in 1994; however, at that point the technology didn’t exist to produce the movie he wanted. In the meantime, he penned and directed “Titanic,” the 1997 blockbuster that garnered 11 Oscars and became the first film to gross more than $1 billion internationally. Prior to “Titanic,” Cameron helmed such hit films as “The Terminator” (1984), “Aliens” (1986) and “The Abyss” (1989), and became known for his imaginative use of special effects. In 2009, he told The New Yorker: “[‘Avatar’] integrates my life’s achievements…It’s the most complicated stuff anyone’s ever done.” Among the technologies used to make “Avatar” was performance capture, which turns an actor’s movements into a computer-generated image.

At the 82nd Academy Awards, held in March 2010, “Avatar” won Oscars for best visual effects, cinematography and art direction.

A long-awaited sequel, "Avatar: The Way of Water," was set to be released in late 2022.

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TODAY IN HISTORY: 09 DECEMBER 1890; British Journalist, Flora Shaw suggests Nigeria named after River Niger

On this day in 1890, British journalist and writer Flora Shaw, who later got married to Lord Lugard, the former governor-general of Nigeria in 1902, coined the name ‘Nigeria'.

Nigeria, the most populated black country and the number one economy on the African continent, didn’t exist until 1914 when three regions were amalgamated by the British Colonial masters.

Flora Shaw combined the words “Niger” and “Area” to form the name Nigeria. In other words, the nation’s name was gotten from its longest river, River Niger.

Over the cause of time, the word Niger Area, transformed into Nigeria. And this has been in use ever since.

However, before amalgamation took place all the various regions existed on their own, albeit with separate governments and separate names.

Nigeria is blessed and lucky to have its origin tied to Flora Shaw who was more than just a journalist. She was a pioneer for the abolition of slave trade which greatly ravaged the African continent and several parts of the world.

Lady Lugard died on the 25th of January 1929, after falling ill with pneumonia.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 09 DECEMBER 1992; British PM, John Major announces separation of Prince Charles and Diana

On this day in 1992, British Prime Minister John Major announces the formal separation of Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, and his wife, Princess Diana. Major explained that the royal couple were separating “amicably.” The report came after several years of speculation by the tabloid press that the marriage was in peril, citing evidence that Diana and Charles spent vacations apart and official visits in separate rooms.

On July 29, 1981, nearly one billion television viewers in 74 countries tuned in to witness the marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, to Lady Diana Spencer, a young English schoolteacher. Married in a grand ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in the presence of 2,650 guests, the couple’s romance was, for the moment, the envy of the world. Their first child, Prince William, was born in 1982, and their second, Prince Harry, in 1984.

Before long, however, the fairy tale couple grew apart, an experience that was particularly painful under the watchful eyes of the world’s tabloid media. Diana and Charles separated in 1992, though they continued to carry out their royal duties. In August 1996, two months after Queen Elizabeth II urged the couple to divorce, the prince and princess reached a final agreement. In exchange for a generous settlement, and the right to retain her apartments at Kensington Palace and her title of “Princess of Wales,” Diana agreed to relinquish the title of “Her Royal Highness” and any future claims to the British throne.

In the year following the divorce, the popular princess seemed well on her way to achieving her dream of becoming “a queen in people’s hearts,” but on August 31, 1997, she was killed with her companion Dodi Fayed in a car accident in Paris. An investigation conducted by the French police concluded that the driver, who also died in the crash, was heavily intoxicated and caused the accident while trying to escape the paparazzi photographers who consistently tailed Diana during any public outing.

Prince Charles got married the Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla Parker Bowles, on April 9, 2005.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 08 DECEMBER 1997; Shehu Musa Yar'Adua dies in prison at 54

On this day in 1997, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, soldier, politician, businessman and elder brother of Nigerian ex-president late Umar Musa Yar’Adua died in prison at age of 54 years.

He was convicted by Military Tribunal for coup plotting in June 1995 against the government of General Sani Abacha and was sentenced to jail.

Tens of thousands of people turned out in Katsina State, his birthplace and where he was buried to give him last respect as one of Nigeria's most prominent political prisoners, whose death in prison was proved to be a stinging embarrassment to the military Government.

Shehu Musa Yaradua, a former general and Vice President, was regarded as one of the most formidable opponents of the military ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha. Some weeks before his death, General Abacha promised he would release some of Nigeria's scores of political detainees as part of an avowed move toward elections, which he had set for 1998. 

An official statement issued by family members said he had died after a brief illness in Enugu prison.

TODAY IN HISTORY: 08 DECEMBER 1993; Bill Clinton signs NAFTA into law

On this day in 1993, the U.S. President Bill Clinton signed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) into law. President Clinton during the signing said he hoped the agreement would encourage other nations to work toward a broader world-trade pact.

NAFTA, a trade pact between the United States, Canada and Mexico, eliminated virtually all tariffs and trade restrictions between the three nations. The passage of NAFTA into law became one of Clinton’s first major victories as the first Democratic president in 12 years, though the movement for free trade in North America had begun as a Republican initiative.

During its planning stages, NAFTA was heavily criticized by Reform Party presidential candidate Ross Perot, who argued that if NAFTA was passed, Americans would hear a “giant sucking sound” of American companies fleeing the United States for Mexico, where employees would work for less pay and without benefits. The pact, which took effect on January 1, 1994, created the world’s largest free-trade zone.