Tues, June 8

2003—Condoleeza Rice admits Pres. George W.[MD] Bush’s State of the Union claim that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Niger was “wrong.”

1991—In a National Victory Celebration, Abrams tanks and 85° heat wreck D.C.’s Constitution Ave.

1967—Israeli planes and boats attack the unarmed U.S. spy ship Liberty with rockets, machine guns, and napalm; 34 sailors are killed, 171 wounded.

1966—Five U.S.A.F. jets fly in formation over Barstow, Calif., for a photo requested by GE marketers. Two crash, including the Valkyrie, worth $5 billion in today’s money. Two pilots die.

1956—Tech. Sgt. Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr. becomes the first U.S. serviceman to die in Vietnam. He’s murdered by a fellow American airman.

1952—“I would never send troops [to Vietnam],” says Pres. Eisenhower.

1944—U. Chi. Pres. R.M. Hutchins warns the GI Bill will turn “colleges [into] educational hobo jungles.”

1943—The Zoot Suit Riots end after military brass put L.A. off-limits and civil authorities impose a dress code.

1917—A 1,200-foot electrical cable, insulated by oil-covered cloth and being lowered into Butte’s Granite Mountain mine for safety purposes, lands in a heap 2,400 feet down. As a miner inspects it his helmet lamp sets it alight; 168 miners die in the inferno.

1844—With odds against them 70 to 15, Texas Rangers slay 23 Comanches in their first use of Colt revolvers.

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