1996—The U.S. prison population hits 1,600,000, double what it had been just 10 years earlier.
1988—Accepting the GOP nomination, George H.[H.]W. Bush solemnly vows, “Read my lips: no new taxes!”
1980—Ronald Reagan thanks the VFW for its endorsement by calling a recent criminal war a “noble cause.”
1960—Ike tells the CIA to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, PM of the Congo.
1959—Sailors aboard the USS Wasp bring a severe fire under control, barely averting the need to flood the ship’s nuclear weapons storage space.
1950—Climbers atop the Matterhorn (14,692 feet) encounter a ten-month-old black and white kitten from the Hotel Belvedere (10,820 feet).
1933—Germany introduces the Peoples’ Radio, or Volksempfänger. Designed by Joseph Goebbels, it is only capable of receiving Nazi broadcasts.
1920—Tennessee ratifies the 19th Amendment; after a 42-year struggle, [white] women get the vote.
1634—Urbain Grandier, a French priest whose sexual prowess earned him accusations from a scorned Mother Superior, is burned at the stake for witchcraft.
1590—Virginia Dare, three, becomes America’s first missing white girl, and an inspiration for future “journalists.”
1587—At Roanoke, Virginia Dare becomes the first white child born in the New World, and an inspiration for future neo-Nazis.