2000—The Energy Department admits that two hard drives holding top-secret data on nuclear weapons have been missing for over a month.
1991—White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu takes a government limousine from D.C. to New York City to attend a rare stamp auction.
1981—Failing to recognize the only Black person in his Cabinet, President Reagan, calls Housing Secretary Samuel Pierce “Mr. Mayor.”
1971—As N.Y. Times presses roll with the “Pentagon Papers,” Daniel Ellsberg and Howard Zinn, in a theater, watch “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”—completely stoned.
1969—The Army Corps of Engineers stops the American Falls at Niagara.
1967—The Supreme Court rules interracial marriage is legal.
1963—Medgar Evers is shot and killed in Mississippi; his murderer is convicted 31 years later.
1957—“We have exactly 342 men,” says General Samuel T. Williams, head of the U.S. MAAG, Vietnam, “the number allowed by the Geneva Armistice Conference. It would be a breeze if we had more.”
1956—Under interrogation by the House Un-American Activities Committee, Paul Robeson declares, “You are the Un-Americans.”
1929—First Lady Lou Hoover sparks a national freakout by inviting Jessie DePriest, wife of the only Black man in Congress, to the White House.