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The John Brownlee sex scandal occurred in 1934 in Alberta, Canada, and forced the resignation of Premier John Edward Brownlee. Brownlee was accused of seducing Vivian MacMillan, a family friend and a secretary for Brownlee's attorney-general, in 1930 when she was eighteen years old, and continuing the affair for three years. MacMillan claimed that the married premier had told her that she must have sex with him for his own sake and that of his invalid wife. She had, she testified, relented after physical and emotional pressure. Brownlee called her story a fabrication, and suggested that it was the result of a conspiracy by MacMillan, her would-be fiancé, and several of Brownlee's political opponents in the Alberta Liberal Party. MacMillan and her father sued Brownlee for seduction. After a sensational trial in June 1934, the six man jury found in favour of the plaintiffs, awarding them $10,000 and $5,000, respectively. In an unusual move, trial judge William Ives disregarded the jury's finding and dismissed the case. The Supreme Court of Canada eventually overturned the decision and awarded MacMillan $10,000 in damages. This award was affirmed by the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council, Canada's highest court of appeal at the time. All of this, however, was largely academic to Brownlee, who resigned after the jury's finding. During the next election, his United Farmers of Alberta were wiped out of the legislature, failing to retain a single seat. (more...)

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July 11: Naadam in Mongolia begins; Day of the Flemish Community of Belgium

• 1789 – French Revolution: Jacques Necker (pictured) was dismissed as Director-General of Finances of France, sparking public demonstrations in Paris that led to the Storming of the Bastille three days later.
• 1804 – U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.
• 1921 – The Irish War of Independence ended with a truce between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Irish Republican Army, resulting in negotiations that eventually led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the establishment of the Irish Free State.
• 1943 – In a massive ethnic cleansing operation, units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army attacked various Polish villages in the Volhynia region of present-day Ukraine, killing the Polish civilians and burning those settlements to the ground.
• 1960 – American author Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird, featuring themes of racial injustice and the destruction of innocence in the American Deep South, was first published.

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