Richard_Nixon,_official_bw_photo,_head_and_shouldersOn this date in 1994, Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States died. Nixon’s paranoia led to the misuse of the FBI for domestic spying and the creation of the “White House Plumbers Unit” to find and destroy his political “enemies”. The subsequent scandal became known as Watergate after the name of the office complex where their most famous burglary took place. His domestic spying scandals erupted in the press in 1971 when Senator Edmund Muskie revealed FBI documents detailing surveillance of the first Earth Day which took place on this day in 1970. He was forced to resign office in 1974 and pardoned by his successor Gerald Ford. Find out more about Nixon and the first Earth Day from the Christian Science Monitor.

 

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