On this day in 1973, the Endangered Species Act, having passed by the House of Representatives, 355 to 4, with the only opposing votes coming from Congressmen Earl Landgrebe of Indiana, H. R. Gross of Iowa, Robin Beard of Tennessee and Bob Price of Texas, was signed into law.
The Nixon Administration, now mostly remembered for Watergate, and the duplicitous end to the Vietnam War, had a remarkable record of passing environmental legislation, including this landmark example. Perhaps more remarkable, at this point in time, Wyoming's Congressman, Teno Roncolio, voted for it.
My, how things have changed.
And more amazing yet, Teno Roncalio, was a Democrat, the last Wyoming Democrat to hold that position. For that matter, one of the two Senators from Wyoming, Gale McGee, was as well. McGee is the last member of the Democratic Party to hold that office in Wyoming.
Presently to admit that the ESA is a great piece of litigation is to invite castigation in Wyoming, and the world "Democrat" is nearly slanderous in nature.
On the same day, Nixon signed the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) which provided to train workers for jobs in public service.
Whatever else may be the case about him, the country owes a debt to Nixon for legislation passed during his administration.
Solzhenitsyn's tome The Gulag Archipelago was published. The very first published edition on the horrors of the Soviet penal system were in French.
Bobby Darin (Walden Robert Cassotto) died at age 37 following a surgery to repair artificial heart valves he had received three years prior.
Darin had been a major Ameican entertainer of the 50s and 60s. Of Sicilian descent, his early life was complicated, having had a grandfather that was a member of the mafia. He was raised believing that his mother, who had borne him out of wedlock at age 17, was his sister, something she did not reveal to him until he was 32.
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