1985—A joint U.S./U.K./Saudi operation detonates a 440 lb. car bomb in Beirut; 83 innocent civilians die. The target—also innocent—is unscathed.
1983—Ronald Reagan runs the phrase “evil empire” up the flagpole.
1973—President Nixon gripes to Al Haig, “What the hell’s Agnew doing? He’s never spoken up once on this Goddamn [Watergate] thing.”
1971—The Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI breaks into the Bureau’s Media, Pa. office, obtaining 1,000+ documents revealing COINTELPRO. The Bureau fails to find the perps. [See 1956.]
1965—The first U.S. combat troops—U.S. Marines—hit the beach at Danang ready to fight. Vietnamese girls greet them with flowers.
1956—At a meeting of the National Security Council, J. Edgar Hoover proposes a measure to include warrantless wiretapping and break-ins: COINTELPRO. Despite the illegalities, Ike and his A.G. say, “OK.”
1906—Winchester, N.H. native Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood proudly beholds his illegal order’s results: 900 Filipinos of all ages and genders, massacred in a volcanic crater. TR later says it’s “a brilliant feat of arms [upholding] the honor of the American flag.”
1782—After granting them a night of prayer, Pennsylvania militiamen massacre and scalp 96 captive Christian Lenape Indians, men, women, and children, at Gnaddenhutten, Ohio.