Dixie Drudge – Southern Nation News

On this date in 1973…

The US Supreme Court issued its Roe v. Wade opinion legalizing abortion-on-demand and over-ruling laws against infanticide in all Southern states. Federally endosed infanticide continued in the US for almost 50 years until June of 2022 when the Supreme Court reversed its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and returned the issue to the will of the individual states.

• 1599 – In retaliation for an ambushed patrol, Spanish soldiers attacked the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, burning most of the village and killing more than 600 Indians and enslaving 500 others.
• 1875 – D.W. Griffith, early film director and producer best known for Birth of a Nation and Intolerance was born in LaGrange, Kentucky.
• 1879 – James Shields began a term as a U.S. Senator from Missouri. He had previously served Illinois and Minnesota. He was the first Senator to serve three states
• 1961 – Wilma Rudolph, from St. Bethlehem, Tennessee set a world indoor record in the women’s 60-yard dash, 6.9 seconds.
• 1985 – A cold wave damaged 90% of Florida’s citrus crop.
• 2000 – Elian Gonzalez’s grandmothers met privately with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno as they appealed for help in removing the boy from his Florida relatives and reuniting him with his father in Cuba.
• 2001 – Authorities captured four of the “Texas 7” in a Woodland Park, Colorado convenience store with a fifth convict killed himself inside a motor home.
• 2002 – Lawyers suing Texas-based Enron Corp. asked a court to prevent further shredding of documents due to the pending federal investigation.