2018—Hawaiian authorities issue an alert: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND … SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” A retraction comes 38 minutes later.
2017—N.H. State Rep. Carolyn Halstead [R-Milford] drops a loaded handgun on the floor during a packed public hearing at the State House.
1987—Lee Atwater admits the Reagan anti-drug campaign was “the epitome of the fad issue, a classic really. It came and went in three weeks, max.”
1975—The N.Y.Times reports that USAF Maj. Harold L. Hering was discharged for asking, during Minuteman training, “How can I know that an order…to launch my missiles came from a sane president?”
1964—The tail falls off a B-52, which crashes in Barton, Md. with two nukes aboard. Four crewmen bail out alive, but two of them die of exposure, one just 800 yards from a streetlight.
1957—Frisbees go on sale.
1946—In Paris, 500 GIs adopt an Enlisted Man’s Magna Carta. It’s for radical reform of the master-slave relationship between officers and enlisted.
1874—NYC Police Commissioner Abram Duryée says 1,600 cops beating unemployed demonstrators was “the most glorious sight I have ever seen.”
1842—Riding into Jalalabad alone is William Brydon, sole survivor of the 4,500 British soldiers who began a retreat from Kabul one week earlier.