August 30, 2016 11 AM Update

On this day in 1967, Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Marshall joined a liberal Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, which aligned with Marshall’s views on politics and the Constitution. As a Supreme Court justice, Marshall consistently supported rulings upholding a strong protection of individual rights and liberal interpretations of controversial social issues. He was part of the majority that ruled in favor of the right to abortion in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, among several other cases. In the 1972 case Furman v. Georgia, which led to a de facto moratorium on the death penalty, Marshall articulated his opinion that the death penalty was unconstitutional in all circumstances.

Thurgood Marshall Biography. http://www.biography.com/people/thurgood-marshall-9400241#supreme-court-justice

Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court Justice: https://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hill/marshall.htm

And in 1974, a powerful bomb explodes at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries headquarters in Marunouchi, Tokyo, Japan. Eight are killed, 378 are injured. Eight left-wing activists are arrested on May 19, 1975 by Japanese authorities.

The bombs ripped through the lobby of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Headquarters. Eight people were killed and nearly 400 wounded in the blast that went off during lunchtime, with much of the carnage caused by glass from blown-out windows in the surrounding office buildings falling down on pedestrians. This massacre was not the intended effect. The bombing was an amateur’s affair, using far too much explosives hastily recycled from a failed bid to bomb the Emperor’s train earlier in the month. A cell member rang Mitsubishi to give them a warning but did not allow enough time. As was argued at their subsequent trials, the leaders had not wanted to murder innocent people indiscriminately. Collateral damage was to be expected but the attack was aimed squarely at the corporation itself, not the public.

August 30th, 1974: The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Headquarters Bombing. https://throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/east-asia-anti-japan-armed-front-mitsubishi-bombing/