2001—Only Sen. Russ Feingold votes “nay” on the “PATRIOT” Act.
1983—U.S. troops protect us (and distract from the deaths of 241 Marines in Beirut) by invading Grenada.
1978—In response to GOP malfeasance, FISA is enacted—thereby enabling future GOP malfeasance.
1973—Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and other unelected officials raise America’s military readiness level to DEF CON 3 as Nixon sleeps.
1962—Nuclear-armed jets scramble from Duluth AFB because a guard, thinking it was an infiltrator, shot a bear climbing a perimeter fence.
1960—Martin Luther King, Jr. gets four months at hard labor in Decatur, Georgia on old traffic charges.
1944—A Japanese armada surprises “Taffy 3”—a far smaller U.S. Navy task force—off Samar Island in Leyte Gulf. Taffy 3’s ferocious counterattack tips the strategic balance in the Pacific.
1944—USS Tang, captained by Dover, N.H.’s Richard H. O’Kane, is sunk by its own malfunctioning torpedo; 74 crewmen perish; 9 survive the sinking and a Japanese prison camp.
1920—Greece’s King Alexander dies after being bitten by a pet monkey.
1854—Inept, incompetent, and confused officers send the Light Brigade charging into Russian cannons at Balaclava. Half of the 664 cavalrymen end up killed, captured, or wounded.
1760—King George II of Great Britain dies on the loo.