2014—In McCutcheon v. FEC, the Supreme Court rules that rich folks deserve to have more influence in elections than the unwashed proletariat.
1982—U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jeanne Kirkpatrick dines at the Argentine embassy hours after Argentina invades the Falklands.
1970—Massachusetts passes a law stating its citizens may not be forced to fight an undeclared war.
1969—President Dwight D. Eisenhower is buried in an $80 G.I. coffin.
1969—Chicago riots are quelled by National Guard troops.
1963—Martin Luther King, Jr. leads a voter registration drive in Birmingham. Police Chief “Bull” Connor responds with dogs and fire hoses.
1958—San Francisco columnist Herb Caen introduces his readers and the world to the term “beatnik.”
1942—Three soldiers, two black and one white, are shot to death, and five are wounded, near Ft. Dix, N.J., in a fight over use of a payphone.
1937—Workers at Hershey start a sit-down strike. For six days, it goes well.
1917—In his office, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.), 67, punches constituent Alexander Bannwart.
1865—In Richmond, Confederate troops burn the city to the ground as President Jefferson Davis flees.
1863—In Richmond, women riot in the streets over bread until dispersed at bayonet point by troops directed by President Jefferson Davis.