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In 1918, in the year that Mary Ardith Whitney was born, on November 11th, an armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany, ending the fighting on the Western Front in World War I. This meant a complete defeat of Germany although Germany never formally surrendered. It took another six months of negotiations to sign an actual peace treaty between the warring parties.
In 1920, on January 1, over 6000 people were arrested and put in prison because they were suspected of being communists. . Many had to be released in a few weeks and only 3 guns were found in their homes. The U.S. Department of Justice "red hunt" netted thousands of "radicals" and suspected "communists" and aliens were deported. But the "hunt" ended after Attorney General Palmer forecast a massive radical uprising on May Day and the day passed without incident.
In 1969, on January 20th, Richard M. Nixon became the 37th President of the United States. Previously the Vice President to President Eisenhower, Nixon was the only President to resign in office - in his second term.
In 1971, on May 3rd, 10,000 federal troops, 5,100 officers of the D.C. Metropolitan Police, 2,000 members of the D.C. National Guard, and federal agents assembled in Washington DC to prevent an estimated 10,000 Vietnam War protesters from marching. President Nixon (who was in California) refused to give federal employees the day off and they had to navigate the police and protesters, adding to the confusion. By the end of a few days of protest, 12,614 people had been arrested - making it the largest mass arrest in US history.
In 1983, physicist Sally K. Ride, 32, became the first US woman astronaut in space as a crew member aboard space shuttle Challenger on June 18th. She was also the youngest (32) astronaut to go into space. Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space in 1963.
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