The Alleged Editor

1999—The FBI puts the name of James “Whitey” Bulger, its partner in crime, on the Most-Wanted List. 1997—In Colebrook, N.H., anti-regulation fanatic Carl Drega murders two cops, a selectman, and a judge. In response, Vin Suprynowicz, a future Signed Member of the Free State Project, writes an essay and a book sympathizing with the killer. 1983—Gov. Bruce Scabbitt Babbitt [D-Ariz.] sends the National Guard & state cops to Morenci to bust a strike for mining company Phelps-Dodge. 1977—RIP Groucho: “Die, my dear? Why, that’s the last thing I’ll do.” 1953—A CIA coup overthrows the elected government of Iran—what could possibly go wrong? 1942—An Allied force …

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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!” 1960—Kindly old Ike OKs a CIA plot to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of Congo. 1959—Sailors aboard the U.S.S. Wasp bring a severe fire under control, barely averting the need to flood the ship’s nuclear weapons storage space. 1950—A climbing party at the summit of the Matterhorn (14,692 feet) encounters a ten-month-old black and white kitten from the Hotel Belvedere, situated at 10,820 feet. 1933—Germany introduces the Volksempfänger, or Peoples’ Radio. Built to Joseph Goebbels’ …

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2008—Maudie Hopkins, widow of Confederate Civil War veteran William M. Cantrell, dies. They married in 1934; he was 86, she 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 to tomorrow or …

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1977—Elvis allegedly dies. 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. 1966—A House Un-American Activities Committee opens a hearing into anti-war protestors’ alleged aid to the Viet Cong. Chaos erupts. 1956—A target drone goes haywire over Los Angeles County. Two F-89s fail to down it but damage a station wagon and two houses, and cause three fires burning 800 acres. 1951—In France, Pont-Saint-Esprit suddenly seems to go mad. Ergot is blamed at first, but later evidence suggests CIA-administered LSD. …

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1980—Responding to a surge in the number of skyjackings, the FAA announces an increase in sky marshals on commercial flights. 1977—Ohio State’s Big Ear radio telescope records a 72-second burst suggesting there may be intelligent life…out there, somewhere. 1971—His budget busted by Vietnam, R. Nixon reneges on the U.S.’s promise to redeem dollars with gold. 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—TR’s grandson Kermit sends Iran’s Imperial …

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