Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 91.djvu/1814

 91 STAT. 1780

PROCLAMATION 4542—DEC. 9, 1977

The achievement of the two brothers, almost unnoticed at the time, has since been recognized as one of history's most significant accomplishments. Trips that once took months now take a few hours and all the peoples of the earth have become neighbors. It is particularly appropriate to remember this first powered flight during 1977, the 50th anniversary of Charles A. Lindbergh's solo, nonstop trans-Atlantic flight on a plane, the "Spirit of St. Louis", which was powered by a Wright Whirlwind engine. To commemorate the historic achievements of the Wright brothers, the Congress, by a joint resolution of December 17, 1963 (77 Stat. 402, 36 U.S.C. 169), designated the seventeenth day of December of each year as Wright Brothers Day and requested the President to issue annually a proclamation inviting people of the United States to observe that day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

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NOW, THEREFORE, I, JIMMY CARTER, President of the United States of America, do hereby call upon the people of this Nation, and their local and national government officials, to observe Wright Brothers Day, December 17, 1977, with appropriate ceremonies and activities, both to recall the accomplishments of the Wright brothers and to provide a stimulus to aviation in this country and throughout the world. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and second. JIMMY CARTER

Proclamation 4542

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December 9, 1977

Bill of Rights Day Human Rights Day and Week, 1977

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation This month marks the anniversaries of two great events in the long struggle for u s e prec. title 1. the rights of human beings: the ratification of the American Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791, and the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948.

u s e prec. title 1.

The Bill of Rights culminated the Founders' efforts to create for their new country a national life grounded in liberty and respect for individual rights. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Constitution formed a "more perfect Union" in which those rights could be fulfilled. And the first ten amendments to the new Constitution placed the keystone on this new edifice of human rights. The immediate application of those rights extended only to one country, and only to some of the people in it. But because those rights were proclaimed as the natural birthright of all human beings, the documents that embodied them were rightly seen to have a profound and universal significance.

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