2007—A Pentagon report concludes that Douglas Feith’s policy office inappropriately manipulated intelligence on Iraq. Punished? Hell, no.
2001—The USS Greeneville, demonstrating an emergency ballast-blowing maneuver to 16 “Distinguished Visitors,” half with Texas oil and Bush connections, sinks a Japanese high-school fishery training ship off Hawaii, killing five adult crew and four high-school students.
1982—George Herbert [Hoover] Walker Bush denies ever having used the term “voodoo economics.” NBC then plays him the tape.
1980—Ted Bundy gets married and is sentenced to die. In Florida, of course.
1971—Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player inducted into the Hall of Fame.
1967—NYC cops bust cellist Charlotte Moorman for playing Mathews’ “International Lullaby” while topless.
1950—“I have here in my hand,” says Sen. Joe McCarthy, “the names of 205 men that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.” Years later he admits he held a laundry list.
1945—HMS Venturer, submerged, torpedoes and sinks U-864, also submerged, off the coast of Norway.
1919—Suffragists burn W. Wilson in effigy in front of the White House.
1737—Happy B-day, Thomas Paine.