Tues, Sept 22

2003—“A year from now,” Richard Perle says, “I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.”

1987—Navy Reserve Capt. Timothy J. Dorsey shoots down a Navy plane during a training exercise. Its crew survives with injuries. Dorsey’s career is unscathed: daddy’s an Admiral.

1975—Disabled ’Nam vet Oliver Sipple deflects Sarah Jane Moore’s shot, saving President Gerald Ford.

1970—President Nixon requests more FBI spies for college campuses.

1959—Fire Commissioner Robert J. Quinn sounds the air-raid sirens to celebrate the White Sox’s pennant win. Many Chicagoans assume it’s war with the Russkies.

1950—Truman vetoes the McCarran Act, but Congress overrides him. Commies must now register; the gov’t can preventively detain“threats.”

1922—Right Wing American capitalists form “Sentinels of the Republic,” one of several front groups for the fascist American Liberty Lobby. Eleven years later many of them will plot to overthrow FDR.

1906—Following a gubernatorial campaign in which the candidates—both Democratic newspapermen—run on their racism, 10,000 whites use unsubstantiated newspaper stories as an excuse to attack blacks in Atlanta. Death toll: 25 blacks and two whites.

1862—Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation.

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