2016—For each of the 29 miners killed in his death trap, coal mine owner Don Blankenship is sentenced to serve 12.5 days in jail.
2009—A year before it blows up, BP’s Deepwater Horizon gets relief from oppressive federal over-regulation.
1992—Donald E. Harding gasps, moans, and makes obscene hand gestures for five minutes before dying in Arizona’s gas chamber.
1977—“If the president does it,” Richard Nixon tells David Frost, “that means it’s not illegal.”
1968—Oakland police shoot it out with the Black Panthers. Bobby Hutton, 18 and unarmed, dies.
1967—Knocked overboard three miles off North Vietnam, U.S. sailor Doug Hegdahl is saved by fishermen. Two years later he’s set free, with memorized details of 256 POWs.
1967—In Palo Alto, Robert Jones announces a Third Wave Presidential candidate will speak the next day.
1954—“The time has come,” says JFK, “for the American people to be told the truth about Vietnam.”
1917—Former peace candidate W. Wilson declares war on Germany.
1909—Matthew Henson, black sharecropper’s son, is the first non-Inuit to set foot on the North Pole. Admiral Peary stays in the sled but later takes credit.
1712—Twenty-three enslaved Africans revolt in New York, killing nine whites and injuring six others; 21 are convicted and hanged.