2008—Lehman Bros. drops 90 percent; the Dow is down 500 points.
2007—Laura Bush condemns Myanmar’s crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. Hours later thousands march in D.C. against the Iraq War; 190 are arrested, many are Iraq vets.
2004—D.C. cops on a 911 call find Cynthia Ore, 28, in the bathroom of Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.), 63.
1982—Israeli Defense Forces surround Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila and let Christian Phalangist militiamen slaughter 3,500.
1980—A nuclear-armed B-52 burns for hours at Grand Forks AFB, N.D.
1970—In the Oval Office, Richard Nixon orders CIA boss Dick Helms to prevent the inauguration of Chile’s just-elected socialist Salvador Allende, or overthrow him afterwards.
1963—Two Klansmen bomb Birmingham’s 16th St. Baptist Church, killing four girls and injuring 22. One bomber is convicted 14 years later, despite the FBI withholding evidence.
1915—The Portsmouth-built U.S.S. Portsmouth, which took San Francisco (then Yerba Buena) from Mexico in 1846, helped Britain take Canton in the Second Opium War, and blockaded Texas during the Civil War, is torched as part of a festival in Boston.
1830—At the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first steam railroad, William Huskisson, M.P., becomes the first person killed by a train.