2000—The GOP picks George W.[MD] Bush to preside, and Dick “Dick” Cheney to run the country.
1993—A short circuit sends a self-destruct command to a Titan IV rocket which blows up over the Pacific destroying $1 billion in spy satellites.
1990—Iraq invades Kuwait.
1964—The U.S.S. Maddox, in North Vietnamese territorial waters, to support covert South Vietnamese attacks, fires on North Vietnamese torpedo boats. When they fire back, Maddox reports an “unprovoked” attack.
1946—Disgruntled veterans in Athens, Tenn. prevail over a crooked Democratic machine, thanks to several well-placed dynamite blasts.
1943—Treblinka prisoners revolt. Only 40 survive, but they close the camp.
1943—The nimble American PT boat #109 is rammed and sunk by a relatively ponderous Japanese destroyer.
1939—A. Einstein informs FDR that a nuclear bomb is doable.
1937—FDR signs the marijuana tax bill propagated by America’s first narc, hardcore racist Harry Anslinger. Tim Leary gets it overturned 31 years later.
1931—A. Einstein urges all scientists to refuse military work.
1865—The CSS Shenandoah, after capturing and sinking American whaling vessels all summer, learns that the war’s been over since April.
1832—Starving Sauk and Fox women and children surrender at Bad Axe, Wis. They’re massacred by militia.