2002—Donald Rumsfeld explains to the unknowing that unknown unknowns are “things we do not know we don’t know”—and he should know.
2001—Florida man Vance Flosenzier drags a seven-foot shark from shallow water; paramedics drag his nephew Jesse Arbogast’s arm from its mouth; doctors successfully re-attach the arm.
1989—Nuclear weapon manufacturing ends at Rocky Flats, Colo. when FBI and EPA agents raid the joint.
1989—Greenpeace reports there are 50 nuclear weapons and nine reactors on the ocean floor.
1980—Nuke-armed B-52s go on alert for the second time in three days after a computer glitch signals a Soviet attack on the U.S.
1978—Voters nuke California’s tax base and future by passing Prop. 13.
1975—Governor Mel Thomson calls for the N.H. National Guard to be armed with nuclear weapons.
1971—Native Americans briefly occupy the top of Mount Rushmore.
1949—Orwell publishes 1984. Originally a novel, it became non-fiction.
1944—GIs, Brits, Canadians, &c. hit the beach at Normandy, France.
1943—Leaders of a racist wildcat strike at Packard—who had fallen for the company’s union-busting gambit of promoting Blacks—lose their jobs.
1907—The U. of Bern denies Einstein a PhD: his theories about time and space are radical and his assumptions “more artistic than actual Physics.”