2000—Sen. Phil Gramm gives Enron the energy futures deregulation it wants, hidden in an appropriations bill. One year later Enron is bankrupt.
1997—Paula Jones’ lawyers maneuver Bill Clinton into signing a legal document claiming he’d not had sex with government workers.
1986—Bill Casey, CIA director, suffers a handy seizure, preventing him from testifying about Iran/Contra.
1983—Ed Meese denies Ebenezer Scrooge exploited Bob Cratchit.
1969—The Mormon Church reaffirms its “no Black priests” policy.
1967—A 2.5 mm-deep defect in a part collapses the 39 year-old Silver Bridge over the Ohio River, killing 46.
1960—Police in Palm Beach arrest N.H. resident Richard Pavlick before he can kill John F. Kennedy with his Buick full of dynamite.
1922—Harvard’s President defends its policy of banning Black students from dining rooms and residences.
1890—Indian Agent J. McLaughlin sends 39 cops to Standing Rock to arrest Sitting Bull; he and seven supporters are killed, as are eight cops.
1873—Erie County, N.Y. Sheriff [and future U.S. President] Stephen Grover Cleveland rapes and impregnates Maria Halpin, whom he’d been dating. He has mother and child put into asylums; lunatic and orphan, respectively.
1814—The Federalists begin their Hartford Convention; their secrecy, sedition, and bad timing doom them.