The Ku Klux Klan was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee, on this date. Formed under a platform of philosophized white racial superiority, the group employed intimidation, damage to property and even murder as means to halting Reconstruction-era programs in the South, especially those that elevated the rights of African-Americans. By the late 1800s, Klan activities fell into decline. However, the group’s reign of terror was revived in the 20th century: in the 1910s and 1920s as a response to immigration and in the 1950s and 1960s during the civil rights movement.

Also on this date, in 1951, Libya gained its independence from France and the United Kingdom under United Nations Trusteeship.

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