2008—“Thank you, your holiness,” George W.[MD] Bush says to Pope Benedict, “Awesome speech.”
1992—Afghanistan’s commie President Najibullah resigns, making way for a more enlightened government.
1992—The House Ethics Committee—no laughing, please—releases the names of 303 check-kiting Reps.
1969—Rev. Billy Graham advises Nixon: bomb North Vietnam’s dikes; estimated casualties: 1 million.
1963—Martin Luther King, Jr., writes “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” defending civil disobedience.
1954—“There is no reason why French forces should not remain in Indo-China and win,” says Richard Nixon, three weeks before the Viet Minh overrun Dien Bien Phu.
1953—Ike says militarism hangs humanity “from a cross of iron.”
1951—Shigeki Tanaka, Hiroshima survivor, wins the Boston Marathon.
1951—Use nuke waste to create an “Atomic Death Belt” across Korea, says Rep. Albert Gore [D-Tenn.].
1947—Fertilizer-laden SS Grandcamp explodes in Texas City, Texas; 581 die in the 3-kiloton blast.
1862—Lincoln emancipates the enslaved in the District of Columbia, and pays reparations to the oppressors.
1848—In Washington, D.C., 77 Blacks board the Pearl to flee north. Ill winds and a betrayal foil the largest escape attempt in U.S. history. Opponents of abolition celebrate by rioting.