2006—Justice Antonin Scalia is photographed on the steps of a Boston church, making an obscene gesture.
1993—Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returns to Earth, where the USSR that sent him into orbit is no more.
1983—Bob “Bob Dole” Dole calls Ford, Carter, and Nixon “Hear no evil, see no evil, and evil.”
1982—Ground is broken for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
1972—Gen. John D. Lavelle loses two stars and command of the 7th Air Force for following Nixon’s secret orders to bomb North Vietnam.
1968—A dozen “Wise Men” tell LBJ it’s time to get out of Vietnam.
1964—Malcolm X and MLK shake hands in Washington, D.C.—their first and only meeting.
1920—After the rope breaks, James Johnson tells his executioners in Poplar Bluff, Mo., “Hurry up, boys, and get me out of my misery.” They do.
1892—Walt Whitman, the great American poet, utters his last words, “Hold me up, I want to s__t.”
1812—The gerrymanderis born, in a Boston Gazette cartoon.
1669—In New Castle, Jane Walford, the Editor’s great x 8 grandmother, recovers damages for an unproven allegation of witchcraft.
1623—True to form at Wessagusset, Myles Standish stabs Pecksuot dead with his own knife. He and his squad kill six others as a preventive measure, but somehow relations don’t improve.