On Jan. 28, 1917, 17-year-old Carmelita Torres, who crossed the border daily from Juarez to clean houses in El Paso, refused to take a toxic disinfectant bath. Press accounts estimated that, by noon, she was joined by several thousand demonstrators at the border bridge. The protest became known as the “Bath Riots.”

By David Dorado Romo

Mexican border crossers were not considered illegal in the United States until 1917, when a new law imposed formidable barriers to entry: a literacy test, a head tax and a prohibition against contract labor. Mexican nationals for the first time needed a passport to enter the United States. That’s also the year that the U.S. entered World War I.

The war stirred deep feelings of paranoia and anti-foreigner patriotism in this country. Americans were afraid that Germans would launch bombing raids from Mexico. As a protest against Germany, Americans changed the name of frankfurters to hot dogs and sauerkraut to “liberty cabbage.” And to protect the country from the threat of typhus, U.S. Customs agents began the mandatory delousing of Mexican border crossers at the El Paso-Juarez international bridge; 127,000 people were subjected to this procedure in 1917 alone.

All immigrants from the interior of Mexico, and those whom U.S. Customs officials deemed “second-class” residents of Juarez, were required to strip completely, turn in their clothes to be sterilized in a steam dryer and fumigated with hydrocyanic acid, and stand naked before a Customs inspector who would check his or her “hairy parts” — scalp, armpits, chest, genital area — for lice. Those found to have lice would be required to shave their heads and body hair with clippers and bathe with kerosene and vinegar.

My great-aunt, Adela Dorado, would tell our family about the humiliation of having to go through the delousing every eight days just to clean American homes in El Paso. She recalled how on one occasion the U.S. Customs officials put her clothes and shoes through the steam dryer and her shoes melted

Source: zinnedproject.org

On January 28, 1997 in South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission announces the confessions of four apartheid-era police officers to the killing two decades earlier of Stephen Biko, a leader of the South African “Black consciousness” movement. The confessions—that Mr. Biko was ”handled robustly,” but that there was never any intention to kill him—were given in exchange for political amnesty against prosecution.

In 1969, Biko, a medical student, founded an organization for South Africa’s Black students to combat the minority government’s racist apartheid policies and to promote Black identity. In 1972, he helped organize the Black People’s Convention and in the next year was banned from politics by the Afrikaner government. Four years later, in September 1977, he was arrested for subversion. While in police custody in Port Elizabeth, Biko was brutally beaten and then driven 700 miles to Pretoria, where he was thrown into a cell. On September 12, 1977, he died naked and shackled on the filthy floor of a police hospital. News of the political killing, denied by the country’s white minority government, led to international protests and a U.N.-imposed arms embargo.

Source: history.com for the complete article

521 – The Diet of Worms began, at which Protestant reformer Luther was declared an outlaw by the Roman Catholic church.

1547 – England’s King Henry VIII died. He was succeeded by his 9 year-old son, Edward VI.

1788 – The first British penal settlement was founded at Botany Bay.

1807 – London’s Pall Mall became the first street lit by gaslight.

1871 – France surrendered in the Franco-Prussian War.

1878 – The first telephone switchboard was installed in New Haven, CT.

1878 – “The Yale News” was published for the first time. It was the first, daily, collegiate newspaper in the U.S.

1902 – The Carnegie Institution was established in Washington, DC. It began with a gift of $10 million from Andrew Carnegie.

1909 – The United States ended direct control over Cuba.

1915 – The Coast Guard was created by an act of the U.S. Congress to fight contraband trade and aid distressed vessels at sea.

1916 – Louis D. Brandeis was appointed by President Wilson to the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming its first Jewish member.

1918 – The Bolsheviks occupied Helsinki, Finland.

1922 – The National Football League (NFL) franchise in Decatur, IL, transferred to Chicago. The team took the name Chicago Bears.

1935 – Iceland became the first country to introduce legalized abortion.

1945 – During World War II, Allied supplies began reaching China over the newly reopened Burma Road.

1957 – The Brooklyn Dodgers announced that circus clown Emmett Kelly had been hired to entertain fans at baseball games.

1958 – Roy Campanella (Brooklyn Dodgers) was seriously injured in an auto accident in New York. He would never return to play again.

1958 – Construction began on first private thorium-uranium nuclear reactor.

1965 – General Motors reported the biggest profit of any U.S. company in history.

1980 – Six Americans who had fled the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, on November 4, 1979, left Iran using false Canadian diplomatic passports. The Americans had been hidden at the Canadian embassy in Tehran.

1982 – Italian anti-terrorism forces rescued U.S. Brigadier General James L. Dozier. 42 days before he had been kidnapped by the Red Brigades.

1986 – The U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded just after takeoff. All seven of its crew members were killed.

1994 – In Los Angeles, Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg declared a mistrial in the case of Lyle Menendez in the murder of his parents. Lyle, and his brother Erik, were both retried later and were found guilty. They were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

1998 – In Manilla, Philippines, gunmen held at least 400 children and teachers for several hours at an elementary school.

1999 – Ford Motor Company announced the purchase of Sweden’s Volvo AB for $6.45 billion.

2002 – Toys R Us Inc. announced that it would be closing 27 Toys R Us stores and 37 Kids R Us stores in order to cut costs and boost operating profits.

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