2002—Donald Rumsfeld signs off on “Category III” interrogation techniques—namely, torture.
2001—Gen. Tommy Franks, working on catching Osama bin Laden, is told by Donald Rumsfeld to drop that and revise plans to attack Iraq.
1997—In New York, a lampost fatally stabs Macy’s Barney the Dinosaur balloon. Meanwhile, the Cat in the Hat knocks over a lampost, which then falls on two women, putting one in a month-long coma.
1969—At the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku, 100 soldiers fast on Thanksgiving to protest the war.
1965—The first Acid Test.
1953—“I knew it,” says 65 year-old Eugene O’Neill. “Born in a goddamn hotel room, dying in a hotel room.”
1932—Edward Marshall, future beat poet, is born in Chichester, N.H.
1900—To convince a Filipino town’s president he should rat out local rebels, U.S. troops force salt water down his throat and burn down his town.
1868—In the Battle of the Washita, General George A. Custer and his troops massacre Black Kettle and 102 other Cheyenne survivors of the Sand Creek Massacre.
1729—The Natchez people repay decades of haughty brutality by massacring 230 Frenchmen. Women and enslaved Africans are spared.
1095—Pope Urban II launches the Crusades, promising salvation for those who die slaying pagans. Jihad?