In one of the oddities of electoral politics and a reflection of the differences in countries the leader who guided the UK through the dark days of WWII, Winston Churchill, lost his post as Prime Minister after the 1945 general elections. The reason was that the opposition party, Labour, won the parliamentary elections by a landslide and so Churchill, the head of the Conservative Party had to yield to the head of the Labour Party to select the next Prime Minister. That is a big difference between the UK and the US where one party can control the legislative branch, Congress, and an opposite party holds the Presidency.
In the US in 1947 President Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, creating among other entities the CIA and the US Air Force. In 1948 he signed Executive Order 9981, officially desegregating the US military. And in 1990 President Bush, Sr signed into law the Americans with Disabilities Act.
American general and 4th US VP George Clinton was born in 1739. He was one of only two VPs to serve under two presidents (Jefferson and Madison) and the first VP to die while in office (1812). This date was the birthday for Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856), Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung (1875), English novelist Aldous Huxley (1894), and American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick (1928).
It was also the birthday for rockers Mick Jagger (1943) larger than life lead singer of the Stones, and Roger Taylor (1949) whose drumbeats kept Queen rocking and rolling. And who can forget American Olympic gold medal-winning figure skater Dorothy Hamill, born in 1956?
In 1925 the oratorical delivery of William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential nominee, was stilled. The polling standard of George Gallup passed from his hands in 1984. And the diplomatic prowess of W Averill Harriman ceased in 1986.
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