Each day of the calendar has seen several incidents over the years. Among them, some certainly deserve a place in history. The same goes for today, 22 January too. On this day in 1973, the US Supreme Court established the Roe v. Wade law, terming state restrictions on abortion “unconstitutional.” On the same day in 1992, Dr Roberta Bondar became the first female astronaut from Canada to travel to space on NASA’s Discovery. On 22 January 1998, the Unabomber- one of the most notorious criminals in US history- was given a life sentence. On that very day in 2006, Evo Morales became the first indigenous person to hold office as the President of Bolivia.
22 January- Historic Events:
Roe v. Wade law; 1973:
On 22 January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered one of its most significant rulings- Roe v. Wade. According to the Roe v. Wade decision, strong state restrictions on abortion were unconstitutional. The Court found that a set of Texas laws criminalising abortion in most cases violated a woman’s constitutional right to privacy, which it found to be inherent in the freedom guaranteed by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Harry A. Blackmun wrote the majority opinion. However, Roe v. Wade was later overturned by the US Supreme Court in 2022.
First neurologist in space; 1992:
On 22 January 1992, Dr Roberta Bondar launched from Earth aboard NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery as the first neurologist in space as well as the first female astronaut from Canada. She carried out more than 40 advanced experiments for 14 countries as a representative of the international scientific community. Dr Bondar and her team of researchers studied data collected from astronauts on 24 space missions once they had returned to Earth in order to comprehend the mechanisms underlying the body’s capacity to recover after exposure to space. She received multiple honours for her work in space medicine and was later appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Unabomber’s imprisonment; 1998:
On 20 January 1998, Theodore Kaczynski, infamously known as Unabomber, was given a prison sentence amounting to four life terms and was taken to an isolated cell in a Supermax prison in Colorado. He was found guilty of murdering three people and injuring 22 during as many as 16 attacks between the period of 1979 and 1995. Investigators detained Kaczynski on 3 April 1996 and searched his cabin. They discovered one live bomb among the 40,000 handwritten diary pages that contained information on the Unabomber’s crimes and experiments with manufacturing bombs.
First Indian President of Bolivia; 2006:
On 20 January 2006, Evo Morales, a part of the Aymara group, took oath as the president of Bolivia, winning 54 percent of the vote and becoming the country’s first indigenous president. He was also the first Bolivian president since 1982 to win a majority of the national vote. At his inauguration ceremony, Morales vowed to battle corruption, renationalize the country’s energy sector, loosen restrictions on coca farmers, eliminate poverty among the indigenous peoples of the nation, and raise taxes on the wealthy. In the early 2009 election, Morales easily secured a second five-year term as president thanks to the continuous backing of the indigenous majority.
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