2008—Maudie Hopkins, widow of Confederate Civil War veteran William M. Cantrell, dies. They married in 1934; he was 86, she 19.
2002—U.S. Generals admit that the U.S. assisted Iraq during its war against Iran knowing that Saddam Hussein would “use chemical weapons against his own people.”
1998—“It depends,” President Clinton tells a Grand Jury, “on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
1988—A Pakistani C-130 explodes in mid-air killing President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. General Pervez Musharraf, also scheduled to be on-board, somehow misses the flight.
1988—J. Danforth Quayle informs the Republican National Convention, “in 1988 the question is whether we’re going forward to tomorrow or whether we’re going to go past to the back!”
1984—Jack Kemp talks the GOP Platform Committee out of using the term “Democrat Party”—for a while.
1965—U.S. Marines begin Operation Starlite, their first major ground offensive in Vietnam. It would have been Satellite, but for a typo.
1959—An earthquake in Montana kills 28 and blocks the Madison River with 80 million tons of rock, forming six-mile long Quake Lake.
1901—As 900 intoxicated anarchists from Paterson, N.J. tour New York Harbor on the General Slocum, some try to seize the ship. The captain docks at the police pier; 17 are arrested.