2013—A runaway fuel train derails and burns, destroying half of downtown Lac Megantic, Quebec.
2001—Ex-FBI Special Agent, devout Catholic, patron of strippers, and exhibitionist Robert Hanssen pleads guilty to selling U.S. secrets to the U.S.S.R., then to the Russians.
1971—President Nixon sets up a “Plumbers Unit” to stop leaks.
1962—To test its dirt-moving capacity, the AEC sets off a buried nuke in Nevada. It creates Sedan Crater—the nation’s biggest—and irradiates more Americans than any other test.
1924—Democrats “deplore and condemn…religious or racial dissension” during the longest convention ever held, but balk at naming the Klan.
1916—Major Douglas MacArthur, newly-appointed censor at the War Department, says the General Staff approves of the bill just put before Congress at its request: it would impose censorship if there’s a war.
1907—The Irish Crown Jewels are found to be missing. Several theories are put forth; none proven, all sordid.
1894—U.S. troops land in Nicaragua to “protect U.S. interests.”
1892—Pinkerton “detectives” and striking miners have a shootout at Homestead, Pa.; 20 die.
1854—In white robes, with a trumpet, The Angel Gabriel, aka John S. Orr, appears in Bath, Maine and delivers an anti-Catholic sermon. Townspeople then burn an Irish Catholic church.