On this day in 1863 William Randolph Hearst was born. Hearst was one of the most powerful media moguls of his day. He used his network of newspapers to push a populist agenda that included whipping the country into a fury over Spanish rule of Cuba which led to the Spanish American War in 1898. He also used the power of his papers to push the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 which effectively outlawed marijuana. It was alleged by the American Ambassador to German that Hearst ordered his papers to support Adolph Hitler and print German propaganda after he struck a deal to receive $400,000 a year from the Nazi government. He severed as the model for Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.
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