50 years ago in Expo history: The protest making headlines at the fair in 1974? Save the whales

Spokane students marched around Expo ’74 carrying “Save the Whales” signs – but their brochures were confiscated at the gates, because distributing brochures was prohibited.

Several students wearing 2-by-3-inch “Save the Whales” stickers were refused entrance altogether because of a policy against buttons or stickers on the fairgrounds.

The Spokane chapter of the Sierra Club criticized Expo officials for barring the students, who were “very orderly” and whose stickers contained nothing offensive.

The group was protesting the whale harvest being allowed by several countries.

From 100 years ago: Spokane set a notable record over the previous 24 hours: Not a single person was arrested for drunkenness.

This was the first day in more than three years that the police court docket did not include a drunkenness charge. Prohibition had been in effect in Washington for eight years, but it had certainly not put an end to public drunkenness.

The lack of a single drunk in the city’s drunk tank might have meant that Prohibition enforcement was becoming more effective. Just as likely, it might have meant that enforcement was becoming more lax.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1938: Sigmund Freud arrives in London, fleeing the Nazi annexation of Austria.

1944: D-Day begins as the 156,000-strong Allied Expeditionary Force lands in Normandy, France.

1968: Senator Robert F. Kennedy dies from his wounds after he was shot the previous night.