1981—Stabbed at Disneyland, Mel C. Yorba becomes the Magic Kingdom’s first murder victim because Disney employees feared the consequences if they called an ambulance.
1965—Civil rights marchers en route to Montgomery try to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. They’re mercilessly beaten by law enforcement officers and deputized goons.
1953—Newark, N.J. officials publicly burn allegedly lewd photos, movies, and books valued at $100,000.
1932—Dearborn, Mich. cops fire on Ford hunger marchers; five die.
1908—In Cincinnati, Mayor Mark Breith announces that “women are not physically fit to operate automobiles.”
1906—Finland’s Senate OKs universal suffrage—except for the poor.
1905—NYC subway workers strike. The City hires James Farley, the notorious strikebreaker. In a week his thugs beat workers into submission.
1876—Alexander Graham Bell gets a patent for the telephone without having submitted a working model. It is remarkably similar to Elisha Gray’s previously-submitted design.
1850—New Hampshire native Daniel Webster, representing Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate, argues that slaveholders are entitled to be secure in their ownership of the enslaved.
1743—Conducting a Bonfire of the Vanities in Southold, N.Y., Yale grad Rev. James Davenport removes his pants and throws them onto the fire.