2021—A misguided mob of purported patriots attacks the Capitol to subvert democracy and install a dictatorial doofus. Five die, many are injured, but Dolt #45’s autogolpe fails; the Republic is spared by ineptitude.
2018—Pres. Donald J. Trump asserts that he is a “very stable genius.”
2006—George W.[MD] Bush OKs $20 million for a celebration of “success” in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2005—A switching error causes a 2:40 a.m. train wreck in Graniteville, S.C.; 60 tons of chlorine gas escape, killing nine immediately and one months later.
1986—One person dies and 100 are injured in an accident at Kerr-McGee’s nuclear fuel plant in Oklahoma.
1951—U.S.-backed South Korean security forces torture and massacre between 212 and 1,300 unarmed suspected commies in Ganghwa.
1947—Callahan, Calif. school kids find a Black man lynched near their one-room schoolhouse.
1946—Thousands of GIs storm HQ in the Philippines, protesting slow re-deployment back to the U.S.
1944—RIP Ida Tarbell, pioneering muckraker, in Bridgeport, Conn.
1895—Ex-Queen Liliuokalani is arrested in Hawaii after a failed coup against Sanford Dole.
1853—President-elect Franklin Pierce and his wife Jane survive an Andover, Mass. train derailment, but, with two sons dead already, see their third son dead, nearly decapitated.