Strange Sisters is one of the classics of lesbian fiction. With all the pseudonyms that were flying around in this particular genre, you’d suspect the author was a woman using a male pen name, but no—Fletcher Flora was indeed male and he used his real name for what was his first novel, written in 1954. Basically you get a woman named Kathy who has known she was gay since her teenage crush on her aunt Stella, but who as an adult forms relationships with men. This eventually goes incredibly wrong when she picks a brute and ends up killing him with an ice pick. She later gets involved with the older, confident Vera, but of course the so-far unsolved killing comes back to cause serious problems. It’s better written than we expected. The excellent art is uncredited.
1976—Gerald Ford Rescinds Executive Order 9066
U.S. President Gerald R. Ford signs Proclamation 4417, which belatedly rescinds Executive Order 9066. That Order, signed in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, established “War Relocation Camps” for Japanese-American citizens living in the U.S. Eventually, 120,000 are locked up without evidence, due process, or the possibility of appeal, for the duration of World War II.