Civil Rights Act of 1957

On September 9, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Originally proposed by Attorney General Herbert Brownell, the Act marked the first occasion since Reconstruction that the federal government undertook significant legislative action to protect civil rights. Although influential southern congressman whittled down the bill’s initial scope, it still included a number of important provisions for the protection of voting rights. It established the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department, and empowered federal officials to prosecute individuals that conspired to deny or abridge another citizen’s right to vote. Moreover, it also created a six-member U.S. Civil Rights Commission charged with investigating allegations of voter infringement. But, perhaps most importantly, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 signaled a growing federal commitment to the cause of civil rights.

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On September 9, 2002, astronaut Buzz Aldrin—the second human to set foot on the moon—is walking outside a Beverly Hills hotel when a conspiracy theorist starts harassing him and accusing Aldrin of lying about the Apollo 11 moon landing. Incensed, Aldrin punches his heckler in the face.

“You’re the one who said you walked on the moon when you didn’t,” Bart Sibrel told Aldrin as he walked by his filming crew outside the Luxe Hotel. “Calling a kettle black …”

“Will you get away from me?” an irate Aldrin warned the man in the incident caught on video.

Sibrel responded, “You’re a coward and a liar and a … ”

Aldrin, then 72, socked Sibrel in the jaw, right when he finished the sentence with “thief.”

During the widely reported incident, Sibrel—who has badgered Apollo astronauts more than once—even shoved a Bible in Aldrin’s face and asked him to swear on it that the moon landing was real and that Aldrin actually walked on the lunar landscape. Aldrin was lured to the hotel on the pretext of an interview for a children’s television show, and then Sibrel accosted him.

Sibrel tried to press assault charges against Aldrin, but the court threw out the case and called Sibrel the instigator.

Source: history.com