2014—Future President D.J. Trump tweets, “Every time I speak of the haters and losers I do so with great love and affection. They cannot help the fact that they were born fucked up!”
2001—To avoid further scorn in these pages, Fleet Bank removes its 18-foot tall green, illuminated sign from the middle of Pleasant Street’s sidewalk.
1964—U.C. Berkeley students protest free speech restrictions.
1960—Ted Williams takes the plate at Fenway for his last at bat. He hits his 521st home run. Most seats are empty.
1919—Ten thousand rioting whites storm the Omaha courthouse, drag out Will Brown, a Black man, and lynch him. From his father’s printing plant across the street, Henry Fonda watches in horror.
1918—In Philadelphia, Pa., 200,000 people gather to watch a Liberty Bond parade—and spread influenza. In weeks it kills 12,000 of them.
1891—In New York, 72 year-old Herman Melville dies in obscurity.
1868—Knights of the White Camelia massacre between 25 and a few hundred Blacks in Opelousas, Miss.
1859—Fifty loggers, farmers, and laborers, irate over the damage it causes, try but fail to destroy the dam controlling the outflow of Lake Winnipesaukee. Later they’re crushed in court by Boston-based capitalists.
1778—U.S.S. Raleigh runs aground and is captured in Penobscot Bay after battling with two British ships.