2014—The UN, bringing receipts, says the U.S. civil rights record stinks.
2003—Iraq “can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon,” U.S. Undersecretary for Defense Paul Wolfowitz tells Congress. “There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money.”
1986—Congress slashes welfare while approving $100 million for a drug gang called “The Contras.”
1980—A Norwegian oil platform collapses in the North Sea. Of the 212 on board, 123 perish.
1964—History’s 2nd largest earthquake hits Anchorage; 115 die.
1956—Billy Graham, alleged Christian, advises Ike: ignore civil rights.
1943—So their forged IDs might avoid Nazi detection, openly gay Dutch artist Willem Arondeus and others bomb the Amsterdam Public Records Office. It works.
1942—RADM John W. Wilcox, Jr., commanding a task force bound for Scapa Flow, is washed off his flagship and lost one day out of Casco Bay.
1814—A (severed) nose count shows General Andy Jackson’s troops, with a 3-1 advantage, massacred 85 percent of their Creek opponents at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa.
1800—Federalist Senators find Aurora editor W. Duane in contempt for publishing the truth about them.
1513—Searching for the Fountain of Youth, Ponce de Leon sights Florida—now the land of geriatrics.