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2013—A runaway fuel train derails and burns, destroying half of downtown Lac Megantic, Quebec. 2001—Ex-FBI Special Agent, devout Catholic, patron of strippers, and exhibitionist Robert Hanssen pleads guilty to selling U.S. secrets to the U.S.S.R., then to the Russians. 1971—President Nixon sets up a “Plumbers Unit” to stop leaks. 1962—To test its dirt-moving capacity, the AEC sets off a buried nuke in Nevada. It creates Sedan Crater—the nation’s biggest—and irradiates more Americans than any other test. 1924—Democrats “deplore and condemn…religious or racial dissension” during the longest convention ever held, but balk at naming the Klan. 1916—Major Douglas MacArthur, newly-appointed censor at the War Department, says …

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2009—Terry Herbert finds a spectacular hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ornaments on Fred Johnson’s farm in the West Midlands. It makes both men rich—and bitter enemies. 1968—The US. Congress effectively tramples on the First Amendment to ineffectively “protect” the flag. 1968—The Marine base at Khe Sanh is abandoned 90 days after the lifting of a 78-day siege which cost 737 lives. 1950—Shipped out hastily, without a plan, ill-equipped and outnumbered ten to one, Task Force Smith is decimated by North Koreans at Osan. Gen. “Dugout Doug” MacArthur lets his troops take the blame. 1937—Leaving Berlin, IBM President Tom Watson thanks Adolf Hitler for a big order …

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1994—Nye County, Nev., Commissioner Dick Carver re-opens a Federally-closed road with a bulldozer, reigniting the Sagebrush Rebellion. 1975—Eleven years after Goldwater got the GOP nod there, the Ant Farm’s “Media Burn” crashes a customized Caddy into a wall of burning TVs at San Francisco’s Cow Palace. 1970—At “Honor America” day in D.C., Billie Graham and Bob Hope preach and joke, protestors smoke pot atop a truck shoved into the Reflecting Pool, and neo-Nazis snarl and jeer. 1951—In Madison, Wisc., 99.2 percent decline to sign a petition containing excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. 1947—The Boozefighters, a subset of “The Greatest Generation®,” …

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1994—The Mayor of Boulder, Colo. declares this “Allen Ginsberg Day.” 1993—In just leather jacket, dog collar, and jockstrap, punk rocker G.G. Allin is laid to rest at St. Rose Cemetery in his hometown, Littleton, N.H. 1988—The U.S.S. Vincennes, in Iranian waters, shoots down an Iranian airliner ascending within a commercial air corridor; 290 civilians die. 1979—President Carter OKs covert aid to the mujahideen, despite Z. Brzezinski’s warning it will spur a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 1978—The Supreme Court rules that seven words are too dirty to broadcast—using those words in its ruling. 1971—R. Nixon tells B. Haldeman, “Jews are all through the government…you can’t trust …

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2003—George W.[MD] Bush says, “There are some who feel that the conditions are such that they can attack us [in Iraq]. My answer is, bring ’em on.” 1982—Vietnam veteran “Lawn Chair Larry” Walters, 33, ascends to 16,000 feet in a lawn chair buoyed by 45 helium-filled weather balloons. 1980—The Supreme Court rules that OSHA must consider corporate profits when protecting employees’ health. 1976—The Supreme Court rules it’s neither cruel nor unusual for the government to kill certain people. 1967—On their worst day in Vietnam, U.S. Marines suffer 84 KIA, 190 WIA, and nine MIA in Operation Buffalo near Con Thien. 1964—L.B.J. signs the Civil Rights …

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2020—“I think we are going to be very good with the coronavirus,” says the oaf in the Oval, “at some point, that’s going to sort of just disappear.” 1981—Irish Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich descends in a helicopter for a mass on London’s Clapham Common, bearing the head of Oliver Plunkett. 1973—The U.S. military draft ends. Henceforth, the ranks will be replenished by economic coercion. 1968—A DC-8 carrying 214 U.S. soldiers to Vietnam strays into Soviet airspace and lands in the USSR. 1956—On TV, Elvis sings “Hound Dog” to a basset hound in formal wear. 1942—Not knowing Aussie POWs are aboard, Sturgeon sinks the Montevideo Maru. …

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