In a This Day in History video, learn that on July 23, 1984, Miss American pageant winner Vanessa Williams was forced to turn in her tiara. Williams had made history by being the first African American woman to receive the Miss America title, but when Pent House magazine published racy photos that had been taken two years earlier, Williams was asked to abdicate. Williams stated that she regretted the photos, but that she planned to focus on her future and her career; and she did.
The DSM once labeled homosexuality a mental disorder. In the 1960s, LGBTQ+ activists Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny pushed to change that, helping spur its removal from the DSM in 1973.
Louella Gallagher is not the prototypical mother of the 1950s. Her daughters Connie Ann, age 5, and Colleena Sue, age 2.5, serve as props in a knife-throwing act that would be considered a bit too risky by today's standards.