2012—Caught by the Piscataqua’s mighty current during construction of the New Memorial Bridge,the tugboat Miss Stacy nearly sinks.
1975—“Original Dick” Nixon’s top goons, John Mitchell [ex-AG!], Bob Haldeman, and John Ehrlichman, each get 2 ½ years in the slammer for conspiring—yes, we used that C-word again—to do more than will fit here.
1965—A week after his home was firebombed, assassins murder Malcolm X; his last words: “Brothers! Brothers! This is a house of peace.” The FBI knew it was coming but didn’t tell the NYPD which didn’t care anyway. One assailant, not the killer, is jailed, along with two innocent men.
1934—The U.S.-backed Nicaraguan National Guard assassinates rebel leader Augusto Sandino. Legend says his head is then delivered to D.C.
1931—In Arequipa, Peruvian revolutionaries make Pan Am’s Byron Rickards the first pilot ever hijacked; 30 years later he’s hijacked a second time.
1930—Witnesses faint and Arizona abandons hanging after “Cheerful Eva” Dugan’s accidentally-decapitated head rolls across the floor.
1922—The U.S. Army airship Roma crashes in Norfolk, Va.; 34 die in the nation’s worst air crash to date.
1862—In N.Y.C., Portland, Maine’s Nathaniel Gordon becomes the first and last person hanged under an 1820 law against bringing negroes or mullatos onboard ship so as to enslave them.