2001—Richard Reid’s shoe-bomb fizzles, but all air passengers must still remove shoes before boarding.
1984—Asked for money on a New York subway, Bernhard Goetz dishes out some lead instead. Then he flees to—where else?—New Hampshire.
1974—Seymour Hersh exposes the CIA’s Operation Chaos in the New York Times: 10,000 Americans under illegal surveillance since 1967.
1973—“Dick” Nixon’s paranoid agitation at a Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting leaves four-stars wondering, “did he just ask us if we’d back a coup?”
1967—The CIA hands the President a second report on its illegal surveillance of anti-war activists. Again, it finds no evidence supporting his belief in foreign influence. LBJ rejects report #2 and demands a third.
1963—One month after 11/22, CIA creator H. Truman calls for its “operational duties” to be “terminated.”
1944—With his 101st Airborne surrounded in Bastogne, and Germans demanding surrender, General Anthony McAuliffe replies “Nuts.”
1909—At the funeral of King Leopold II, Belgians boo their sovereign.
1813—Eighteen acres of downtown Portsmouth burn, from Daniel to Court Streets, from Fleet to the river; 272 buildings are destroyed.
1757—Incensed by British press gangs, a Portsmouth mob, hundreds strong, drags HMS Enterprise’s longboat two miles inland and burns it.