In 1956 Civil rights leader Martin Luther King was convicted of starting an illegal bus boycott in Alabama, US. The boycott began after the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to sit at the back of the bus (the area reserved for African Americans) and give up her seat for a white passenger. King was fined $500 (£178) and ordered to pay court costs of the same value. Kings lawyer gave notice of their intention to appeal and the sentenced was changed from a fine to a 386 day prison sentence which would be suspended until the appeal hearing. The boycott lasted 382 days, ending in December 1956 after the bus companies were forced by a US Supreme court ruling that made racial segregation on transport illegal. Kings demonstrations earned him many stays in prison and fines but his efforts paid off gaining many more freedoms to African Americans and earning him the Nobel Peace Prize before his assassination in 1968.
In 1945 The Arab League was created. The Arab League was created at a meeting held in Cairo on this day in 1945 by representatives from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Transjordan (became Jordan in 1946), Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen. The League has now grown to 22 member states and 4 ‘Observers’ (countries that do not have full membership but are allowed to take part in activities). The Arab League extends across North Africa and into South-West Asia with the member states signing a mutual defence treaty and has also become a common market (since 1965).
In 1765 Britain begins the ‘Stamp Tax’ in America, which puts a tax on any official document, Newspapers and playing cards. The controversial tax was introduced to raise the money towards the 10,000 troops placed in the American frontier to defend and protect the colonies (the ‘Seven Years War’ and ‘French and Indian War’ had only ended in 1763 and Tensions still ran high between Great Britain and France). Other taxes in Britain’s colonies had been introduced by their elected representatives, but this tax had been introduced directly from Britain and not approved by an American legislator. This was seen as an insult to the Americans and many Britain’s and it implied that Americans were merely subjects with fewer rights than Britain’s. Former Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder gave a speech in Parliament in defence of America and their rights as equal citizens “This Kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. They are the subjects of the kingdom equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen. The Americans are the sons not the bastards of England.” The King also made his opposition to the tax known and within a year on the 18th of March 1776 it was repealed.
