1999—The FBI admits, six years after the fact, that the tear gas canisters it fired into David Koresh’s compound in Waco were incendiary—but still denies they started the fatal fire.
1995—Zany Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) announces his innovative new policy, sure to win the drug war: execute “27 or 30 or 35 people at one time.”
1985—Ronald Reagan admits that, as head of the Screen Actors Guild, he ratted on its members to the FBI.
1967—J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI sets out to “expose, disrupt, misdirect [and] discredit” the Black Panthers.
1967—George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, is shot dead by an ex-aide and former Marine with a broomhandle Mauser.
1945—Hotheaded Army Captain John Birch argues with Chinese Communists while snooping in Jiangsu Province. They shoot him dead.
1945—Bao Dai, puppet Emperor of Vietnam for France, and more recently for Japan, and puppet-to-be for America, surrenders his imperial seal and sword to Ho Chi Minh.
1925—The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is founded in Harlem: A. Philip Randolph, President.
1923—Largely Catholic Carnegie, Pa. is invaded by 10-30,000 Klansmen, one of whom ends up dead.
1914—Germans burn the library at Louven, Belgium, full of medieval manuscripts and incunabula.