2016—Donald Trump feels the urge to assert on live television that his genitalia are of adequate proportions.
1991—A troublemaker videotapes Los Angeles Police officers vigorously chastising motorist Rodney King.
1969—An under-manned company of the 4th Division is sent after a crack NVA battalion west of Kontum; result: 47 percent end up KIA or MIA.
1934—John Dillinger busts out of the Crown Point, Ind. jail with a hand-carved wooden pistol and drives off in the sheriff’s new V-8 Ford.
1931—In Laredo, Texas, 17-year old Harlon Carter murders Ramón Casiano, 15, with a shotgun. Sentenced to three years, Carter does two; 46 years later he takes over the NRA.
1903—Congress bars entry to whoremongers, epileptics, and anarchists; its own members are not sanctioned.
1873—Congress passes the Comstock Act, banning obscenity, contraceptives, abortifacients, and sex toys from the U.S. Mail, and the “Salary Grab Act,” giving itself a 50 percent raise, retroactive for two years.
1871—Congress passes an act effectively denying that Indian tribes exist: they’re all individuals from now on.
1863—Congress passes the first U.S. draft law, exempting men who can pay the government a $300 bribe.
1791—Congress passes Hamilton’s whiskey tax. It pays tax-free interest to rich bond holders and puts small distillers out of business.