2002—The CIA admits to Congress—in a classified document, to avoid undue alarm—it had tracked one 9/11 hijacker months earlier than it had previously admitted.
1999—The Virginian-Pilot reports that evangelist Pat Robertson has had “extensive dealings” with Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor.
1976—Don Bolles, investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic, is mortally injured by a bomb under his car. Two guys take falls.
1971—“Treating (the press) with considerably more contempt,” Nixon writes to Haldeman, “is in the long run a more productive policy.”
1972—Alfred W. McCoy explains to Congress that top South Vietnamese officials, the CIA, and the Mafia are all in the heroin racket together.
1919—Anarchist bombs explode in eight cities. Attorney General Mitchell Palmer’s D.C. home is nearly destroyed; the bomber’s body parts land across the street on FDR’s stoop.
1855—Reacting to a newspaper report, a mob breaks into Portland, Maine’s City Hall in search of rum bought on orders from Mayor Neal Dow, author of the state’s prohibition law. Dow orders militia to fire on the crowd; one man, a sailor, is shot dead.
1854—A Boston judge, backed to the hilt by N.H.’s own Pres. Franklin Pierce, rules that escapee Anthony Burns must return to enslavement in Virginia—boosting abolitionism.