2001—Fox broadcasts a “Lone Gunman” show in which U.S. agents remotely hijack an airliner and try to crash it into the World Trade Center.
1987—Ronald Reagan admits trading arms to Iran for hostages.
1964—FBI agents stake out Frank Wilkinson’s home in Los Angeles; they expect the activist to be assassinated but do not warn him.
1960—La Coubre, a French munitions ship, explodes in Havana harbor. Between 75 and 100 people die. CIA involvement is “suspected.”
1937—The UAW wins a sit-down strike in Flint, Mich.
1933—“We have nothing to fear,” says FDR, “but fear itself.”
1929—Oscar Stanton de Priest [R-Ill.] becomes the first African-American to take a seat in Congress since Reconstruction.
1917—In Congress, Sen. Harry Lane (D-Ore.) prepares to stab Ollie James (D-Ky.) in the neck if James pulls out his pistol; meanwhile, Democrats prevent Sen. Robert La Follette (Progressive Rep.-Wisc.) from bashing the presiding officer with a spittoon.
1909—President Taft and First Lady Nellie move into the White House. Under the lawn is a voodoo doll of Mrs. Taft, buried by Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter Alice.
1831—Daring to eschew the Christian Bible, John Quincy Adams takes the Presidential Oath with his hand on a book of Constitutional law.