2012—Rep. Bob Morris [R-Ind.] says Girl Scouts use “feminists, lesbians, and Communists” as role models to promote a “homosexual lifestyle.”
2001—Robert Hanssen, a devout Catholic, exhibitionist, patron of strippers, and ex-FBI Special Agent, is arrested for selling U.S. secrets to the U.S.S.R., then to the Russians.
1976—Jerry Ford accepts the CIA’s word: if it breaks the law, it’ll confess.
1970—All of the Chicago 7 are found innocent of conspiring to incite riots; five are found guilty of crossing state lines to incite riots anyway.
1962—“We are going to win in Vietnam,” says RFK in Saigon. “We will remain here until we do win.”
1954—Ike’s A.G. OKs a memo saying the CIA need not report criminal activity by its employees.
1930—A majority of Congressmen are forced onto the wagon: their bootlegger, George Cassiday, aka “The Man in the Green Hat,” is busted in a Prohibition Bureau sting.
1916—Oscar Comery, who expected life in prison after confessing he’d poisoned his wife, is hanged in Concord, N.H. The jury changed its mind on learning he’d molested a child, too.
1915—Pres. W. Wilson watches his first movie, also the first ever shown in the White House: Birth of a Nation.
1820—“If you have a message you want to send to hell,” screams Lavinia Fisher from Charleston, S.C.’s gallows, “give it to me, and I’ll carry it!”