April 22, 2026
SWAT Team Retrieves Elián González from Relatives in Miami (2000)
In late 1999, 5-year-old Elián González and his mother left Cuba on a boat with a dozen other people seeking asylum in the US. Elián's mother and several others died during the voyage, and Elián was found on an inner tube by fishermen off the coast of Florida. He was released into the custody of his uncle in Miami, but his father in Cuba pressed for his return. The custody dispute ended in an armed raid on the Miami house, and Elián returned to Cuba with his father. What has he said since?
April 21, 2026
The Principality of Hutt River Secedes from Australia (1970)
In the late 1960s, Australian farmer Leonard Casley protested government wheat quotas he considered unfair. Unsuccessful, he turned to Commonwealth law and styled himself a monarch—His Majesty Prince Leonard I of Hutt—and founded The Principality of Hutt River. His pronouncement of sovereignty was never successfully challenged by the Australian government, and he is now considered a non-resident of Australia for income tax purposes. What legal quirks allowed him to start his own micronation?
April 20, 2026
The Ludlow Massacre (1914)
In the spring of 1914, the Colorado National Guard machine-gunned and torched a tent colony in Ludlow, where striking coal miners and their families had been living after being evicted from their company-owned homes some months earlier. Nineteen people, most of them women and children, were killed. For the next 10 days, the strikers attacked nearby mines and battled mine guards and militia. Federal troops were needed to put an end to the violence. Which side eventually prevailed in the strike?
