1972—Richard Nixon pocket vetoes a bill to raise the veterans’ health care budget by $85 million.
1969—Richard Nixon sends 18 armed B-52s flying around the North Pole for three days to convince the Soviets he’s dangerously unstable. Duh.
1967—Rev. Philip Berrigan and three friends pour duck blood on draft records in Baltimore, Md.
1965—In a letter to the N.Y. Times, Richard Nixon writes, “We must never forget that if the war in Vietnam is lost…the right of free speech will be extinguished throughout the world.”
1962—ICBMs go on alert in Montana as Cubans shoot down one U-2 and another strays over the USSR. Meanwhile, aboard Soviet sub B-59 near Cuba, Vice Admiral Vasili Arkhipov single-handedly prevents the launch of a nuclear torpedo. Fortunately Bobby Kennedy cuts a deal with Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin before the wrong button gets pushed.
1951—“There is no question,” says Army Chief of Staff J.L Collins, “that the Communist menace in French Indo-China has been stopped.”
1942—Already excommunicated by the local Mormon Church after his arrest for writing and distributing pamphlets calling Hitler supporters “spineless puppets,” Helmuth Hübener, 17, is guillotined in Berlin.
1659—Boston Puritans hang Marmaduke Stephenson and William Robinson for praying the wrong way.