2020—Dolt #45 announces a travel ban; infected U.S. citizens turn airports all over into super-spreader sites.
2012—Freedom, Maine’s Town Meeting votes to amend the Constitution, nixing corporate “personhood.”
2011—An earthquake knocks Earth 10 inches off its axis, brings Japan four feet closer to the U.S., causes a tsunami that kills 15,850 people, and triggers three nuclear meltdowns.
2008—SEC Chair Chris Cox says “We have a good deal of comfort about the capital cushions at these firms,” days before Bear Stearns collapses.
2002—Fox military expert Lt. Col Joe Caffasso, who boasts a Green Beret and a Silver Star, resigns. Weeks later the N.Y. Times reveals his true military career: 44 days in boot camp.
1965—In Alabama, Rev. James Reeb gives up his life for equal voting rights; a white jury will acquit his killers.
1958—A B-47 accidentally drops a Mark 6 A-bomb on Mars Bluff, S.C. Lacking a fissile core, its explosion only injures six and destroys a house.
1954—The U.S. Army charges that Sen. Joe McCarthy [R-Wisc.] and Roy Cohn used threats to get special treatment for Pvt. G. David Schine.
1942—“Dugout Doug” bugs out of Corregidor, leaving his troops behind.
1811—Luddites in Nottingham, England, destroy 63 knitting frames. It’s not about the machines, though—they’re protesting against inhumane working conditions.