2004—UN weapons inspectors report that Saddam Hussein didn’t have any WMD after all. Oops.
1991—At Ramaila, Iraq, under future-MSNBC military analyst Barry McCaffrey, the U.S. 24th Infantry Division kills about ten percent of the 7,000-man 1st Hammurabi Armored Division, two days after the Gulf War cease-fire.
1965—The U.S. begins a bombing campaign over North Vietnam, under the brand name Rolling Thunder.™
1955—The Screen Actors Guild votes to expel any member who takes the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination.
1942—Lieutenant General John DeWitt tells all Japanese-Americans to move away from the West Coast, voluntarily, for their own good.
1877—The Electoral Commission to which Congress had passed the buck adopts a plan concocted by newspaper editors and railroad barons: Republicans gets the Presidency, Southern Democrats get white supremacy.
1860—Abraham Lincoln visits the Amoskeag mills, then speaks at City Hall in Dover.
1859—Pierce M. Butler, profligate grandson of a signer of the Constitution, holds a two-day auction in Savannah, Ga. to settle gambling debts. On the block: 439 human beings.
1808—At Bladensburg, Md., Rep. Barent Gardenier [F-N.Y.] and Rep. George Washington Campbell [DR-Tenn.] meet to shoot at each other.