2003—A former gay male escort begins attending White House press briefings with his official pass issued under the pseudonym “Jeff Gannon.”
1997—That blue dress gets soiled.
1993—The ATF tries to serve a warrant on a religious community in Waco. It does not go well.
1947—Hooligans in Taiwan riot over routine government corruption. Koumintang troops—brave anti-Communists—justly massacre thousands.
1921—The Kronstadt Rebellion against bolshevism begins in Russia. “Shoot them down like partridges,” orders Leon Trotsky.
1913—Denied information and cooperation, Congress’ Pujo Commission nevertheless finds that a Money Trust runs Wall Street. N.Y. Times: “Move along, nothing to see here.”
1893—Birth of Ben Hecht, newspaperman and author of The Front Page.
1877—The U.S. seizes the Black Hills, in violation of a treaty.
1854—A group of political activists meet in Ripon, Wisc.; they may or may not found the GOP.
1844—On the Potomac, during a VIP cruise aboard U.S.S. Princeton, Secretary of the Navy T.W. Gilmer pulls the lanyard to fire a huge untested gun. It explodes, killing him, the Secretary of State, and four others.
1840—Joshua V. Hines begins publishing Signs of the Times, a newspaper devoted to William Miller’s Doomsday prophecies.