Fri, May 22

2022—Southern Baptists reveal their leaders have been conspiring for years to protect hundreds of sex abusers. 2004—Portsmouth’s Leftist Marching Band debuts in Market Square. 1989—Vice President Dan Quayle says, “I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy—but that could change.” 1980—The U.S. tells South Korea it’s OK to move two paratrooper brigades from the DMZ to Gwangju to “restore order” among unruly civilians. 1977—Gun rights fanatic Harlon Carter takes over the NRA—46 years after murdering Ramón Casiano, 15. 1968—Scorpion, its nuclear torpedos, and 99 crewmen are lost at sea. 1962—Thomas G. Doty buys dynamite and flight insurance, then boards Flight …

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Thurs, May 21

2016—In Houston, hundreds rally to support Islam. Hundreds more rally, armed, to oppose it. Both sides have been duped by a Russian troll farm. 2001—GAO refutes the GOP: Dems did not vandalize the White House. 1981—The Senate OKs $20 billion to resume full-scale production of nerve gas and other chemical weapons. 1980—In Gwangju, Korea, students using weapons looted from armories drive troops from downtown. 1975—Responding to a FOIA request, the CIA debuts its “neither confirm nor deny” non-response. 1952—Blacklisted actor John Garfield dies of a heart attack at 39. 1946—A screwdriver slips; the same plutonium core that killed Harry Daghlian the previous August gives Louis …

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Wed, May 20

2009—The FBI entraps four Muslim men in a bogus Bronx bomb plot. 2004—U.S. and Iraqi troops raid the home and offices of Ahmed Chalabi, formerly the neo-cons’ most trusted source of Iraqi intelligence. 1978—Mavis Hutchinson, 53, arrives in New York City after running across America in 69 days. 1973—The Camden 28, who broke into a draft board office, are acquitted. 1969—After 11 bloody assaults in 10 days, American troops take Hamburger Hill at a cost of 70 dead and 372 wounded. It’s abandoned 16 days later. 1937—George Orwell takes a bullet in the throat while fighting against Franco’s fascists in Spain. 1927—Charles Lindbergh leaves Long …

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Tues, May 19

 2017—Big game hunter Theunis Botha, 51, dies in Zimbabwe when an elephant shot by a client falls on him. 1956—A 15-megaton bomb test in the South Pacific raises radiation levels in the U.S. to 10 times normal. 1954—The U.S.P.O. OKs HTLINGUAL, a CIA mail-opening op. 1953—Fallout from our dirtiest-ever nuke test, Upshot-Knothole Harry, hits St. George, Utah—H. Hughes’s location for The Conqueror a year later. 1950—Four barges carrying 467 tons of ammo explode in South Amboy, N.J., killing 30 and injuring 350. 1945—U-234 arrives at Portsmouth carrying cargo the Nazis intended for Japan; 1,232 lbs. of uranium eventually does arrive—at Hiroshima, on 8/6. 1943—U.S. submarine-chaser …

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Mon, May 18

1992—The 27th Amendment, barring any Congress from raising its own pay, is ratified after a 202 year process. 1982—Sun Myung Moon, a Reverend, is now a convicted tax cheat, too. 1980—Korean students in Gwangju, protesting closure of their university, are beaten and shot by paratroopers. 1980—Mount St. Helens cuts loose for the first time in 123 years. 1974—Operation Smiling Buddha is a success: now India has a nuke. 1969—The commander at Hamburger Hill orders helicopters out of the area to hold down friendly fire deaths. 1935—The propaganda plane Maxim Gorky, equipped with a printing plant and loudspeakers audible from the ground, crashes after it’s hit …

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Sun, May 17

2017—Learning his election will be investigated for Russian involvement, President Trump says, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m [bleeped].” Sadly, no. 1987—Its weapons officer away from his duty station, its Phalanx gun operator absent “on personal business,” and its radar countermeasure system unarmed, the frigate USS Stark is hit by two Exocets from an Iraqi plane; 37 sailors die on the Gipper’s watch. 1976—R. Reagan, in Time: “Fascism was really the basis of the New Deal.” 1974—Six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army armed with full-auto M-1 carbines, holed-up in a small house in L.A., fire 4,000 …

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