2011—The Hooksett water treatment plant disgorges two million two-inch plastic discs into the Merrimack after heavy rains. By August they’re at Campobello Island and Rhode Island Sound, in 2014, the English Channel.
2007—The Vice President’s Chief of Staff is found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice.
2003—President George W.[MD] Bush claims Saddam Hussein has “biological and chemical agents” that move “every 12 to 24 hours…in vehicles…in residential neighborhoods.”
1991—President George Herbert [Hoover] Walker Bush claims that his defeat of Saddam Hussein has ushered in a “new world order.”
1981—President Reagan determines who to call upon at a press conference by drawing jelly beans from a jar.
1974—Ayn Rand addresses West Point cadets on the topic, “Philosophy — Who Needs It?”
1971—Lawrence Welk’s singers perform “One Toke Over the Line;” the FCC bans songs that “promote or glorify the use of illegal drugs.”
1944—The U.S. Army uses napalm for the first time, in Berlin.
1918—U.S. Army intelligence officers break into the New York office of the National Civil Liberties Bureau and steal documents.
1857—The Supreme Court rules in Dred Scott:“the unhappy [B]lack race [never possessed] rights which the white man was bound to respect.”