2012—George W.[MD] Bush is paid a $100K fee for speaking to troops wounded while following his orders.
2001—The U.S. House passes the PATRIOT Act without reading it.
1983—U.S. military aircraft, using old maps, bomb Richmond Hill Insane Asylum in Grenada, killing 16.
1962—Soviet ships reach the U.S. quarantine line off Cuba. They don’t cross it, so we don’t nuke the USSR. A Soviet satellite explodes the same day. NORAD suspects an ICBM attack; but, again, nobody pushes The Button.
1960—One wrongly-set switch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome prematurely ignites the second stage of a Soviet R-16 ICBM; 100 die.
1945—The UN is created to “maintain international peace and security,” as well as “friendly relations” among nations. Glad that’s settled.
1930—The Washington Post reports on the ten-year career of George “The Man in the Green Hat” Cassady, who bootlegged out of House and Senate office buildings.
1929—The irrational exuberance of the 1920’s stock market undergoes a correction on “Black Thursday.”
1901—General “Hell-Roaring Jake” Smith tells Marines at Samar, “burn and kill; the more you burn and kill, the better it will please me.”
1871—A 500-man mob massacres 17 Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles. Eight are convicted of manslaughter, but freed on technicalities.