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2020—Given a choice between a second term for Trump or “a giant meteor [striking] the earth, extinguishing all human life,” a poll says 62% of N.H. Democrats would prefer the meteor. 2015—Another two feet of snow fall on Portsmouth. It’s five feet deep now. 1996—The Telecommunications Act gives corporations airwaves worth $70 billion, eliminates ownership limits, deregulates cable rates, and protects licenses against citizen complaints. 1971—ARVN invades Laos in Operation Lam Son 719: a chaotic disaster. 1968—State Troopers fire on Black protestors in Orangeburg, S.C., killing three and wounding 27. 1946—For taking down a sign about Jim Crow laws in a Bessemer, Ala. bus, honorably …

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2020—Li Wenliang, a Chinese doctor reprimanded for warning of a new SARS virus, dies of Covid-19. 2013—Mississippi abolishes slavery. 1998—GOP-run Congress names Washington National after the guy who fired all our air traffic controllers. 1991—IRA mortars 10 Downing St. 1968—“It became necessary to destroy [the Vietnamese village of Ben Tre] in order to save it,” an American major tells reporter Peter Arnett. 1965—VC attack Camp Holloway near Pleiku killing 9 Americans and wounding 137. The U.S. responds by bombing North Vietnam. 1951—In Korea, Capt. Lewis Millett leads the U.S.’s most recent bayonet charge. This anachronistic victory earns him the Medal of Honor. 1950—Ex-Emperor Bao Dai …

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2020—It’s 65° Fahrenheit at the Esperanza Base, in Antarctica. 2013—In Seabrook, N.H., Phantom Fireworks sells Tamerlan Tsarnaev 1.5 lbs. of black powder and gives him another 1.5 pounds for free. 1971—Derry, New Hampshire’s favorite son Alan Shepard uses a nine iron to whack a golf ball on the moon. 1968—NVA troops in Soviet tanks overrun Lang Vei; 21 of 24 Green Berets are KIA, WIA, or captured. 1951—Trespassing at Argonne National Laboratory, blowhard Paul Harvey claims it was inadvertant. A script found in his car proves he’s lying. 1919—Seattle union leaders get a telegram intended for shipyard owners: “no raises.” A General Strike results. Workers …

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2021—An inebriated man in a red hat with “mouse ears” spends five hours wandering around Joint Base Andrews, home to Air Force One. 2018—At a rally, D.J. Trump says Democrats who didn’t applaud his State of the Union speech are traitors. 2007—Astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak is arrested for attempting to kidnap another astronaut’s girlfriend and misappropriating NASA diapers. 2003—Secretary of State Colin Powell tells the UN that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is bristling with WMDs. 1981—For her husband’s 70th birthday, First Lady Nancy Reagan flies her manicurist in from Los Angeles. 1958—A B-47 bomber collides with a jet fighter near Tybee Island off the coast of …

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2009—While giving a TED Talk on malaria prevention at Long Beach, Calif., Bill Gates releases a jarful of mosquitoes to feast on the audience. 1976—Lockheed admits to paying $22 million in bribes to sell aircraft. 1974—William Randolph Hearst’s granddaughter Patty, 19, is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. 1968—Cholon, Saigon’s Chinatown, is declared a free-fire zone; South Vietnamese pilots bomb their own capitol. 1968—Ur-beat Neal Cassady, 41, dies alongside railroad tracks in Mexico. 1913—Rosa Louise McCauley Parks is born in Tuskegee, Ala. 1912—Franz Reichelt, an Austrian tailor, tests an experimental parachute/overcoat from the Eiffel Tower. His design is fatally flawed. 1899—Five months after being liberated …

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2012—“Today is the day that in 1924 Woodrow Wilson died, that son of a bitch,” says radio-active dingbat Glenn Beck, “and I’m happy.” 2006—After Don Rumsfeld likens H. Chavez to Hitler, Venezuela’s VP compares the U.S. to the Third Reich. 1959—In Iowa, a plane crash kills Buddy Holly, “The Big Bopper,” and Richie Valens. 1956—Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash rock out at Sun studio in Memphis. 1933—The Senate fires Sergeant at Arms David S. Barry for writing, “there are not many crooks in Congress…who sell their vote for money, and it is pretty well known who those few are; but …

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