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1982—FEMA pledges that the mail will get through, even in a nuclear war. 1979—The White Sox are forced to forfeit on Disco Demolition Night: the field was damaged by explosives.  1973—A fire in St. Louis, Mo. destroys the service records of 16 to 18 million Army and Air Force veterans. 1917—After 30 hours in cattle cars without food or water, 1,286 striking copper miners are left stranded in the New Mexico desert. No relief comes until the next day. 1908—Milton Berle is born, America’s first transvestite TV star. 1892—The Pennsylvania militia arrives at Homestead, Pa. to protect Andrew Carnegie’s right to make a buck. 1872—Orangemen …

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2003—Condi Rice lies about White House knowledge of Joe Wilson’s Niger investigation; Ari Fleischer outs Valerie Plame as a CIA officer; Karl Rove lies to Time about Wilson’s wife, Plame; and CIA head George Tenet takes the rap for the White House’s lies about Iraq buying uranium. 1991—A defective heater sets a loaded ammunition carrier afire at Camp Doha in Kuwait. It explodes, scattering bomblets; blasts and fires consume 102 other vehicles, including four M1A1 Abrams tanks. The fires injure 49, three die cleaning up the mess. 1958—Mildred and Richard Loving are rousted out of bed in Central Point, Virginia and arrested for being married …

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2007—China executes its Director of the State Food and Drug Administration for taking bribes that resulted in 40 deaths. 2001—A Phoenix FBI agent sends a memo to FBI HQ warning of “an inordinate number” of suspicious characters in local flight schools, possibly as part of a bin Laden plot. It’s ignored. 2001—CIA boss George Tenet tries to warn George Bush and Condi Rice about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but can’t get their attention. 1985—French secret police in the South Pacific blow up Greenpeace’s boat, Rainbow Warrior. 1972—Water being used to fight an arson fire destroys the U.S.S. Forrestal’s computers and nearly capsizes her. 1949—Pamir, …

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2004—“I trust God speaks through me,” George W.[MD] Bush tells a group of Amish people. “Without that, I couldn’t do my job.” 1993—To prove it’s unbreakable, Toronto lawyer Garry Hoy hurls himself against a 24th floor window. It pops from its frame; he falls to his death. 1986—Ed “Meese is a Pig” Meese publishes a 1,960-page report on pornography packed with obscene titles. 1964—Senator Strom Thurmond [D-S.C.], 61, wrestles Senator Ralph Yarborough [D-Texas], also 61, to the floor to prevent a committee quorum. 1958—A 1,700-foot mega-tsunami hits Lituya Bay, Alaska. 1951—Dashiell Hammett, 57, tubercular author of The Maltese Falcon, is sentenced to six months in …

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2016—Police in Dallas use a bomb-armed robot to kill a man suspected of having murdered five officers. 1976—The State of New York yanks Richard Nixon’s law license. 1969—The U.S. begins withdrawing troops from Vietnam. 1962—The U.S. detonates a nuke 250 miles up, knocking out phones in Hawaii, 900 miles to the east, and crippling seven satellites. 1959—Viet Cong forces attack Bien Hoa air base, killing two U.S. advisors as they watch a movie. 1947—Radio reports say a UFO has crashed at Roswell, N.M. 1945—At a POW camp in Salina, Utah, Army Pvt. Clarence V. Bertucci machine guns 29 Germans; nine die. 1898—Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith …

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1986—Reagan’s A.G., Ed Meese, attains quasi-legislative status for Presidential Signing Statements, which previously had had little impact, merely by persuading West Publishing to include them in law books. 1972—Near Danang, Battery B of the 82nd Field Arty. takes out four men from the 196th Inf. Bde. in the last major friendly fire incident of the war. 1967—His Tet Offensive plan OK’d by the Politburo, Gen. Nguyen Chi Thanh parties himself to death. 1954—As puppet Premier Diem arrives in Saigon, U.S. Gen. John W. O’Daniel, says “the war in Vietnam can be won without bringing in one single American soldier to fight.” 1950—FBI Chief J. Edgar …

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