2013—A new heel is inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame: bankrupt blowhard Donald J. Trump.
2003—U.S. troops take Baghdad. It is a great victory.
2003—SCOTUS reduces the Exxon Valdez settlement by 90% because punitive damages violate Exxon’s rights.
1990—Once and future Bush appointee John Poindexter is found guilty of multiple Iran/Contra felonies; he later wriggles free on appeal.
1972—With a toy grenade and empty pistol, ’Nam vet Richard McCoy, Jr. hijacks a 727, then parachutes out the back with $500K. McCoy, a National Guard chopper pilot, is arrested days later while searching for himself.
1970—California’s Governor Reagan announces his highly nuanced position on student demonstrations: “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.”
1967—In Palo Alto, Robert Jones tells his students that they’ve been part of an experiment in fascism, then screens a documentary about Nazis.
1966—The U.S. discovers an H-bomb it had lost off the coast of Spain.
1926—In Rome, Violet Gibson, 49, the tiny, frail, and deranged daughter of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, shoots Mussolini in the face.
1860—Challenged by Rep. Roger Pryor [D-Va.], Rep. John F. Potter [R-Wisc.] proposes dueling with bowie knives; Pryor’s seconds decline.
1775—“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel,” says Samuel Johnson.