2012—“We swept the vermin out,” boasts Chris Sununu, “[New Hampshire’s] now a solid Republican state.”
1991—An ABA panel rates Clarence Thomas. Two members find him “not qualified” for the Supreme Court; none find him “well-qualified.”
1980—FBI agents use C-4 to disarm a half-ton bomb planted in Harvey’s Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada. Result: a 50- by 30-foot crater.
1960—Whites in Jacksonville, Fla. react to Black lunch counter sit-ins with “Ax Handle Saturday.”
1949—Three FBI agents observe as a mob attacks the audience at a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, N.Y.
1927—Sigmund Freud writes a pal: the Statue of Liberty could be replaced with a monkey holding up a Bible.
1919—On Churchill’s orders, British biplanes drop poison gas on Russian villages in Arkhangelsk Oblast.
1918—A warning begets a shootout on the border at Nogales; dozens of U.S. and Mexican troops end up dead.
1896—Britain prevails over Zanzibar in history’s shortest [38 minutes] war.
1831—Maj. Thomas Biddle and Rep. Spencer Darwin Pettis [D-Mo.] meet on Bloody Island, just off St. Louis. Biddle is myopic so they duel with pistols at five feet. Both are mortally wounded; honor being satisfied, though, they forgive each other.
1549—Hessians hired by English nobles slaughter peasants at Norwich, thereby ending Kett’s Rebellion.