2004—Gary Webb, the CIA-Contra-drug reporter, gets two gunshots to the face. The coroner says, “suicide.”
1992—Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) admits he’s a groper but won’t resign.
1986—Boston-born film actress Susan Cabot is killed by a dwarf, her illegitimate son by King Hussein, to whom she was introduced by the CIA.
1976—In a memo to President-elect Carter, pollster Pat Caddell makes the case for a “permanent campaign.”
1971—The Senate, buying Wm. Rehnquist’s lie disavowing a letter supporting racial segregation, confirms him for the Supreme Court.
1969—Skipping the ceremony, Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett OKs a TV interview. In it, he stands mute.
1967—Trying to lower the cost of natural gas, the U.S. government explodes an A-bomb in N.M.
1966—U.S. jets bomb Marines in Vietnam; 17 Marines and Navy medics are euphemized as “friendly fire.”
1943—A year after learning the facts, the Polish government-in-exile reveals to the world that Nazis are “exterminating” Jews. The world shrugs.
1937—G.P. Thompson gets the Nobel for Physics for proving electrons are waves. His dad won it in 1906 for demonstrating that they’re particles.
1789—Moses Brown hires Samuel Slater, a Briton, to build the first U.S. textile mill, in Pawtucket. By poaching British technology and exploiting children, Brown becomes filthy rich.