In 1973 Sheikh Mujib Rahman became the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Bangladesh was a fairly new country having become the Independent State of Bangladesh two years earlier. After British rule of the Indian subcontinent ended in 1947, the area now known as Bangladesh had been claimed by Pakistan, despite the region being separated from Pakistan by over a thousand miles of Indian Territory. Pakistan still considered the area to be ‘East Pakistan’ and sent troops from ‘West Pakistan’ to suppress the uprising. Pakistani forces killed over a million Bengalis and many more fled to India. In December 1971 India sent in forces to remove Pakistani troops and after securing the country, Rhaman was released from a Pakistan prison and returned to Bangladesh and assumed the post of Prime Minister. Elections held by the Bengali people voted for Rahman to remain Prime Minister on this day in 1973.

 

In 1965 White and Black demonstrators, marching to the state capital of Montgomery for black rights as registered voters in Dallas, were attacked by police. Governor George Wallace gave the order to stop the march under the grounds of public safety and police began to assault the group of 500 demonstrators, fracturing skulls and limbs, and using tear gas on them. The incident became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’ left 17 people in hospital and was instrumental in the signing of the new ‘Voting Rights Act’ in august of the same year.  President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the act banning discrimination of voters based on colour or race. 

 

In 1876 Scottish inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, receives the patent for the Telephone. Alexander bell spent much of his life working to improve the life of the deaf. He worked in London, England with his dad on a written system to teach speaking to the deaf, and after the bells moved to Boston,  U.S. in early 1870 he began teaching his fathers machine to teacher’s of the deaf. He fell in love with and married one of his students Mabel Hubbard and became fascinated with the idea of transmitting speech through wires. The telegraph had already been invented and Bell wanted to create a “harmonic telegraph” and he set to work with his assistant Thomas A. Watson.