2017—U.S. President Donald Trump signs a check for $35,000 to repay his lawyer for buying the silence of a porn star with whom he had an affair.
2014—Thousands of college-age cretins, urged on by social media company Finnarage, set fires, throw billiard balls, and overturn cars, putting an end to the Keene Pumpkin Festival.
2011—Ohioan Terry Thompson releases his menagerie of 56 exotic animals, including lions, leopards, and tigers, then kills himself.
2004—In game four of the ALCS, 12th inning, Big Papi puts the Yankees out of their misery and brings joy to the World Series.
2003—The president of Bolivia is driven out of office (and country) by disgruntled peasants tired of being sold out to international capitalists.
1979—“The standard of living of the average American has to decline,” says well-fed Fed Chair Paul Volcker.
1898—The U.S. colonizesPuerto Rico — benevolently, of course.
1891—On the basis of false rumors and a dubious identification, a mob of 1,000 lynches Joe Coe, a married Black man with two children, as 12 Omaha, Neb. cops just watch.
1775—Capt. Henry Mowat destroys Falmouth [now Portland, Maine] with an incendiary bombardment. Result: collateral damage to Mowat’s career and British hegemony.
1648—Boston shoemakers form America’s first labor organization.