Union organizer and social activist A. Philip Randolph in 1941 was so frustrated with segregation in the United States’ military and pervasive discrimination in defense industries that prohibited Blacks from benefiting from the skilled, well-paying jobs they provided that he planned a march on Washington to protest that segregation.

On June 18, in a meeting at the White House with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, NAACP secretary Walter White and the National Urban League’s T. Hill Arnold, he demanded that the president intercede. “Our people are being turned away at factory gates because they are colored,” he said. “They can’t live with this thing. Now what are you going to do about it?” Randolph insisted that the demonstration, which Roosevelt desperately wanted to avoid, would go on unless the president issued a “strongly written” executive order.

His hand forced, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, which prohibited employment discrimination in government and the defense industries and created the Fair Employment Practices Committee to monitor hiring.

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Hawley, Willis C.; Smoot, Reed Willis C. Hawley (left) and Reed Smoot in April 1929, shortly before the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives. National Photo Company Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. LC-DIG-npcc-17371)

Protectionism, a policy of protecting domestic industries against foreign competition by means of tariffs, subsidies, import quotas, or other restrictions or handicaps placed on the imports of foreign competitors. Protectionist policies have been implemented by many countries despite the fact that virtually all mainstream economists agree that the world economy generally benefits from free trade.

Government-levied tariffs are the chief protectionist measures. They raise the price of imported articles, making them more expensive (and therefore less attractive) than domestic products. Protective tariffs have historically been employed to stimulate industries in countries beset by recession or depression. Protectionism may be helpful to emergent industries in developing nations. It can also serve as a means of fostering self-sufficiency in defense industries. Import quotas offer another means of protectionism. These quotas set an absolute limit on the amount of certain goods that can be imported into a country and tend to be more effective than protective tariffs, which do not always dissuade consumers who are willing to pay a higher price for an imported good.

Hawley, Willis C.; Smoot, Reed Willis C. Hawley (left) and Reed Smoot in April 1929, shortly before the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives. National Photo Company Collection/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. LC-DIG-npcc-17371)

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Source: britannica.com

Following a seemingly routine burglary, five men were arrested at the National Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.

However, subsequent investigations revealed the burglars were actually agents hired by the Committee for the Re-election of President Richard Nixon.

A long chain of events then followed in which the president and top aides became involved in an extensive cover-up of this and other White House sanctioned illegal activities, eventually leading to the resignation of President Nixon on August 9, 1974.

Sources: britannica.com , wiki