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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, thanking the VFW for its endorsement, rebrands a criminal war as a “noble cause.” 1966—China’s Cultural Revolution gets a big boost when a million Red Guards arrive at Beijing to spend the day schmoozing with Chairman Mao. 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. 1945—The …

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2008—Confederate widow Maudie Hopkins dies in Arkansas at 93. She married William M. Cantrell in 1934, when he was 86 and she was 19. 2002—U.S. Generals admit that the U.S. assisted Iraq during its war against Iran knowing that Saddam Hussein would “use chemical weapons against his own people.” 1998—“It depends,” President Clinton tells a Grand Jury, “on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” 1988—A Pakistani C-130 explodes in mid-air killing President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. General Pervez Musharraf, also scheduled to be on-board, somehow misses the flight. 1988—J. Danforth Quayle informs the Republican National Convention, “in 1988 the question is whether we’re going forward …

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2017—Free State reject Chris Cantwell posts a video online which earns him the moniker, “The Crying Nazi.” 2002—Army Times reports that the recent “Millennium Challenge” war games were “almost entirely scripted to ensure a [U.S. military] win.” 1971—John Dean writes his boss, Richard Nixon, a memo on how to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” 1968—Armed guards subdue—temporarily—228 rioting Marines in the brig at Danang, wounding seven. 1956—F-89s shoot up a car and two houses, and burn 800 acres of L.A., but fail to down a rogue target drone. 1951—In France, Pont-Saint-Esprit suddenly seems to go mad. Ergot is blamed at …

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1977—Ohio State’s “Big Ear” radio telescope records a 72-second burst suggesting there may be intelligent life…out there, somewhere. 1971—With the U.S. budget busted by the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon reneges on the gold standard. 1969—Half a million half-naked, drugged-up baby boomers begin a three-day mud wallow in Bethel, N.Y. 1966—The New York Herald Tribune, founded as the Tribune by N.H.-born Horace Greeley 125 years earlier, succumbs to a strike called by a labor union also founded by Greeley. 1953—T.R.’s grandson Kermit sends Iran’s Imperial Guard to arrest the Prime Minister, but they’re captured by his guards. The Shah flees to Rome. 1945—It’s V.J. Day. WW …

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2023—Georgia DA Fanni Willis indicts ex-Pres. D.J. Trump for asking Secretary of State Raffensperger to help him try to steal the 2020 election. 2005—Steward Andreas Prodromou, the only person conscious aboard a mistakenly-depressurized 737 circling over Athens and running out of fuel, steers it away to crash elsewhere. 1945—President Truman announces Japan has surrendered. Enlisted sailors in San Francisco celebrate their reprieve with three nights of looting, vandalism, rape, and murder. 1936—In Owensboro, Ky., at 5:30 a.m, 15,000 watch as Rainey Bethea becomes the last person publicly hanged in America. Arthur Hash, the assigned executioner, is so drunk a deputy sheriff has to pull the …

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1982—Malcolm MacArthur is arrested at the home of an acquaintance, Ireland’s Attorney General, where he’d been a guest since committing his second murder, nine days earlier. 1981—R. Reagan gives tax cuts to the rich and takes health care from the mentally ill; prisons become asylums. 1971—Criminal Attorney General John Mitchell announces that there will be no grand jury investigation of the May 4th shootings at Kent State. 1966—“In two or three years, or even before” says Premier of South Vietnam Nguyen Cao Ky, “the Communists will accept defeat.” 1957—Daisy and Bill Myers, who are Black, get a “warm welcome” to Levittown, Pa.—burning cross and all. …

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