Sun, Oct 25

2001—Sen. Russ Feingold votes “nay” on the “PATRIOT” Act.

1983—U.S. troops protect us (and distract from the loss of 241 Marines in Beirut) by invading Grenada.

1978—In response to GOP malfeasance, FISA is enacted—thereby enabling future GOP malfeasance.

1973—Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and other unelected officials raise America’s military readiness level to DEF CON 3 as Nixon sleeps.

1962—Nuclear-armed jets scramble from Duluth AFB because a guard, thinking it’s an infiltrator, has shot a bear climbing a fence.

1960—Martin Luther King, Jr. gets four months at hard labor in Decatur, Ga. on old traffic charges.

1944—Adm. Sprague’s task force “Taffy 3,” surprised by a far-larger group of Japanese ships at Samar Island, attacks ferociously, tipping the strategic balance at Leyte Gulf.

1944—U.S.S. Tang, captained by Dover’s Richard H. O’Kane, is sunk by its own malfunctioning torpedo; 74 crewmen perish, 9 survive the sinking and a Japanese prison camp.

1920—Greece’s King Alexander of Greece dies, bitten by his pet monkey.

1917—Bolsheviks take over the Winter Palace and Petrograd in general.

1854—Lord James Cardigan leads a brigade of sword-brandishing light cavalrymen across open ground in a doomed attack against Russian artillery. Somehow, half survive.

Leave a Comment