Wednesday, April 21 — Apparently we made it through April 19 and 420 without harm. Now if you’ll excuse us we’ll go back to working on the newsprint end of the operation ….
1999—To honor those killed at Columbine the day before, NRA president Charlton Heston says the gun lobby will cut short its Denver convention by one day.
1992—At about 3:00 a.m., Robert Alton Harris is strapped into San Quentin’s gas chamber. Twelve minutes later amid legal wrangling, he’s taken back out. At 6:00 a.m., he’s put back in and gassed.
1989—Chinese students demonstrate in Tiananmen Square.
1986—On live TV, Geraldo Rivera opens Al Capone’s vault and discovers his own credentials.
1983—In Alabama, flames and sparks fly from John Evans’ leg as “authorities” take 14 minutes and three tries to electrocute him.
1980—Newsweek quotes R. Reagan saying, inaccurately, that Vietnam vets aren’t eligible for the GI Bill because their war wasn’t declared.
1975—Nguyen Van Thieu, last president of South Vietnam, resigns after ten years of misrule and bugs out of Saigon.
1972—In El Paso, former commander of U.S. troops in Vietnam General William Westmoreland is pelted with tomatoes.
1971—In Washington, D.C., Vietnam Veterans Against the War defy the Supreme Court and stay on the National Mall. Park police decline to arrest. Tomorrow’s headline: “Vets Overrule Supreme Court.”
1954—The U.S. Air Force begins flying French reinforcements into Southeast Asia.
1918—After shooting down 80 Allied planes, Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, is shot down—by an Australian on the ground.
1910—Samuel Clemens is whisked away by the comet what brung him.
1855—In Chicago, a mob one thousand strong attacks the police in a confrontation sparked by nativist discrimination against German beer halls.