2000—Katherine Harris, Florida’s Secretary of State and, coincidentally, the Bush campaign’s state co-chair, declares Dubya the winner.
1975—George Gainous, son of a heroin importer, climbs the White House fence to ask for his father’s pardon. Arrested 90 minutes later while chatting with President Ford’s daughter Susan, he later says, “If [Ford] can pardon Nixon he can pardon my father.”
1973—Rose Mary Woods takes the fall for the 18½ minute gap.
1933—Thomas H. Thurmond and John M. Holmes are lynched in San Jose, Calif. Jackie Coogan—“Uncle Fester,” 30 years later—helps ready a rope. Judge Timothy Fitzpatrick says in his personal opinion, the mob “did a damned good job.” Gov. “Sonny Jim” Rolph vows to pardon anyone convicted, but no one is even charged.
1932—In his newspaper column, Will Rogers mocks Herbert Hoover’s theory of “trickle-down economics.”
1922—Howard Carter and his employer Lord Carnarvon desecrate the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
1921—Former Lt. Col. Charles W. Whittlesey, 37, commander of the “Lost Battalion” and a pallbearer for the Unknown Soldier, leaps from a ship and drowns in the Atlantic.
1910—Six workers burn to death and 19 die jumping from the fourth floor of a Newark textile shop. “Misadventure and accident” said the coroner’s jury; penalty for the owner: $0.00.