Today in Legal History: Parliament Passes Tea Act, Ehrlichman Released
On this day in 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act. Enormously unpopular in America, where colonials considered its grant of a virtual tea monopoly to the East India Company a form of taxation tyranny, the legislation sparked the so-called Boston Tea Party led by radical Patriot Samuel Adams later that year. It and other expensive acts of property destruction helped pave the way toward the Revolutionary War. For more details, see this history.com Web page.
On this day in 1978, John D. Ehrlichman was released from federal prison in Arizona after serving 18 months of an eight-year sentence. A Seattle land-use lawyer, he had risen to extraordinary political heights as a top aide to President Richard M. Nixon before being convicted in 1974 and 1975 of political crimes related to the Watergate burglary in Washington, D.C. For more details, see this historylink.org Web page.
