2005—Congress apologizes for having failed to pass 200 anti-lynching bills between 1882 and 1968.
1999—In Kosovo, British Lieut. Gen. Mike Jackson refuses NATO Commander Wesley Clark’s orders to take the Russian-occupied Pristina airport, saying, “I’m not going to start the Third World War for you.”
1983—Pioneer 10 exits the solar system.
1971—The Pentagon Papers arepublished. Because they cover only the Kennedy and Johnson years, Kissinger and Nixon laugh in the Oval Office.
1968—A U.S. attack helicopter accidentally kills Saigon’s Chief of Police.
1966—The Supreme Court rules that cops can’t make you talk.
1944—News reports say Rep. Francis E. Walter (D-Penn.) gave FDR a letter-opener made from the arm bone of a dead Japanese soldier. In 1955, Walter will become chair of HUAC.
1942—U-202 lands eight Nazi saboteurs at Amagansett, Long Island.
1920—Fuddy-duddies at the U.S. Post Office rule that children may no longer be mailed Parcel Post.
1914—On Butte’s Miner’s Union Day, dissidents assault officials, snatch the union’s safe, throw the sheriff out a 2nd-story window, blow open the safe, blow up a union official’s house, and bust two members out of jail.
1867—U.S. Marines and sailors abandon a punitive expedition against Taiwanese tribesmen after Lt. Cdr. Alexander S. MacKenzie is slain.