Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 7

Do you remember the good old days? Shop staff were rude and unhelpful, and if you absolutely had to talk to a stranger you approached them with a frigid "Excuse me..." I do prefer today's friendly "Hello!", and cheerful shop staff.

“There’s still plenty of discrimination,” said Zachary. “But what’s changed was changed by law.” “And how does law get changed?” said Daffodil. “Social pressure.” (Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour)

1315 France prohibits slavery by royal edict
1794 French revolutionary government abolishes slavery
1802 Napoleon brings it back
1848 France abolishes slavery again

1822 Chinese Emperor Dao Guang bans acupuncture and moxibustion

1869 Tax on hair powder repealed

1885 Sir Nathaniel Rothschild made the first Jewish peer

1919 American women get the vote

1943 Nazi Germany demanded that Bulgaria deport its Jewish and Roma population to Nazi concentration camps. Tsar Boris III, then King of Bulgaria, refused, thus saving the lives of Bulgaria’s Roma and Jewish communities. (via Pipopotamus/Philip Borev)

1970s White Australia policy ended

1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act outlaws gin traps and killing wildlife with a bow and arrow

1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child “the right to survival; to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life. The four core principles of the Convention are non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child.” Unicef has the details.

1989 Law against fortune telling repealed (Part of the Vagrancy Act of 1824)

1990 Checkpoint Charlie dismantled

1990 Capital punishment abolished in Ireland
2002 Constitutional ban on death penalty in Ireland

LESS THAN CHEERFUL

1503 James IV and Margaret Tudor are married. A Treaty of Everlasting Peace between Scotland and England lasts ten years. (@Suburbman/Hamish Thompson)

1965 Catholic cardinals cease to wear the galero (an elaborate red trilby)

2013 Putin outlaws gays, gay activists and “religion insulters”

Part 6 here, and links to the rest.