2003—Condoleeza Rice admits Pres. George W.[MD] Bush’s State of the Union claim that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Niger was “wrong.”
1991—Washington, D.C. hosts a “National Victory Celebration,” complete with Abrams tanks and 8,800 active duty troops. In 85° heat, the tanks wreck Constitution Ave.
1967—Israeli planes and boats attack the unarmed U.S. spy ship Liberty with rockets, machine guns, and napalm; 34 sailors are killed, 171 wounded.
1966—Over Barstow, five USAF jets fly in formation for a photo at the request of GE marketers. Two crash, including the Valkyrie, worth $5 billion in today’s money. Two pilots die.
1956—Tech. Sgt. Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr. becomes the first U.S. serviceman to die in Vietnam. He’s murdered by a fellow American airman.
1952—“I would never send troops [to Vietnam],” says Pres. Eisenhower.
1944—FDR signs the GI Bill. The president of the U. of Chicago warns that “colleges would become educational hobo jungles.”
1943—The Zoot Suit Riots end after military brass put L.A. off-limits and civil authorities impose a dress code.
1917—A 1,200-foot electrical cable, insulated by oil-covered cloth and being lowered into Butte’s Granite Mountain mine for safety purposes, lands in a heap 2,400 feet down. As a miner inspects it his helmet lamp sets it alight; 168 miners die in the inferno.