2014—A spokesman for the Islamic State calls U.S. Sec. of State John Kerry an “uncircumcised old geezer.”
2001—CIA chief George Tenet tells the V.P. his Iraq/al-Qaeda link appears to be fiction. Dick “Dick” Cheney continues to repeat it.
1989—The Chase Manhattan Bank accepts for deposit a check sent as a prank by Spy Magazine. Endorsed by “short-fingered vulgarian” Donald J. Trump, it’s for $0.13.
1983—Defending the diversity of his staff, Reagan’s Sec. of the Interior, James G. Watt boasts, “I have a Black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple.”
1982—Edward Lee Howard, a CIA agent suspected of spying for the U.S.S.R., eludes FBI surveillance in Santa Fe and splits for Helsinki.
1976—Ex-Chilean Ambassador to the U.S., Orlando Letelier, and an assistant are assassinated by car bomb in Washington, D.C.
1956—T.W. Attridge, Jr., testing a Grumman F11, hits the afterburner. Its jets ingest just-fired 20 mm rounds: he shoots himself down—but lives.
1956—Loathsome Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García is assassinated by Rigoberto López, poet.
1938—A nameless 183 m.p.h hurricane kills 700 in New England.
1915—Cecil Chubb buys Stonehenge at auction for £6,600.
1897—A New York Sun editorial lies to a girl named Virginia, telling her a mythical “Santa Claus” is real.