2020—The President asks, about people protesting outside the White House, “Can’t you just shoot them?”
2005—Having wrecked Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz turns to the World Bank.
2002—George W.[MD] Bush announces at West Point that we’ll attack pre-emptively if he feels like it.
1980—Ted Turner launches CNN—the 24-hour news cycle begins.
1971—The N.Y. Times swallows Chuck Colson’s bait: a “vets group” he created says that it backs the war.
1967—Disgruntled vets form Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
1954—The AEC pulls the security clearance of Manhattan Project boss J. Robert Oppenheimer.
1950—Maine’s Margaret C. Smith asks fellow Republicans to renounce the “Four Horsemen of Calumny–Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.” She is duly punished by them.
1921—Tulsa’s whites use planes to firebomb the wealthy Black neighborhood of Greenwood into oblivion, murdering hundreds in the process.
1918—Advised by a retreating French officer at Belleau Woods to turn back, U.S.M.C. Capt. Lloyd Williams replies, “Retreat? Hell, we just got here.”
1857—The American Party sends Baltimore’s Plug Uglies to disrupt municipal elections in D.C. To restore order President Buchanan calls out the Marines, who shoot 10 citizens dead.
1660—Mary Dyer is hanged in Boston for her Quaker beliefs.