2017—The Senate confirms Steve King—who, in 1972, on ex-AG John Mitchell’s orders, restrained his wife Martha Mitchell as she was forcibly injected with tranquilizers to keep her from talking to the press—as Ambassador to the Czech Republic.
2010—“Fox and Friends” reports that Los Angeles has bought $1 billion worth of jet packs for its Police and Fire Departments. They cribbed the story from the Weekly World News.
2003—Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard learn the hard way: the Alaskan grizzly bears they’ve been hanging with are not vegans.
2002—George W.[MD] Bush tells N.H. Guardsmen that Saddam could inflict “massive and sudden horror” on the U.S. It’s not true.
2001—Robert Stevens, an editor of the supermarket tabloid The Sun, dies of anthrax. The perp remains at large.
1988—In a Vice-Presidential debate, Lloyd Bbentsen informs Dan Quayle that he’s “no Jack Kennedy.”
1986—Nicaraguans shoot down a U.S. plane illegally supplying Contras with arms bought with the proceeds of illegal U.S. arms sales to Iran.
1971—Pat Buchanan advises Nixon to take government action that would “cut [the country] in half,” because the GOP will get “the larger half.”
1789—Parisian women ransack the city armory for weapons, march on Versailles, and demand—successfully—to meet with Louis XVI.