2003—Responding to “credible intel,” Mike Hayden tells his British counterpart to take over his NSA duties if al-Qaeda nukes D.C. on Xmas.
1992—George Herbert [Hoover] Walker Bush pardons Caspar “Cap” Weinberger, Bob McFarlane, and 4 other Iran-Contra creeps, coincidentally protecting his own sorry self.
1979—The Soviet Army enters Afghanistan to prop up the Marxist government. Oops. They correct their mistake after just nine years.
1971—Her airliner having fallen apart after being hit by lightning two miles above the Amazon, Juliane Koepcke, 17, falls into the jungle. She survives with minor injuries.
1963—Top CIA counterspy and Friend-of-the-Mob James Jesus Angleton shuts down the Agency’s investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald.
1926—Eight Americans die and 60 are hospitalized after President Coolidge says, “poison all alcohol.”
1913—During a union Christmas party at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Mich, thugs hired by copper bosses yell “Fire;” 73 die, 59 are kids.
1883—Increasingly deranged since his stabbing by John Wilkes Booth during Lincoln’s assassination, Maj. Henry Rathbone murders his wife.
1865—Six ex-rebels, boozing it up in Pulaski, Tenn., form the KKK.
1814—The Treaty of Ghent ends the War of 1812; it accomplished nothing—the status quo ante prevails.