Sat, Aug 15

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 …

Read more

Fri, Aug 14

2019—The New York Times publishes “The 1619 Project,” arguing chattel slavery was central to the nation’s creation. Conservatives freak out. 1966—“As long as the United States and our brave allies are in the field,” says LBJ, “[a Communist takeover of South Vietnam] is impossible.” 1945—President Truman announces Japan’s surrender. Naval enlistees in San Francisco celebrate their reprieve with three nights of looting, vandalism, rape, and murder. 1936—In Owensboro, Ky., at 5:30 a.m, 15,000 watch as Rainey Bethea becomes the last person publicly hanged in America. Arthur Hash, the assigned executioner, is so drunk a deputy sheriff has to pull the lever. 1935—FDR signs the Social …

Read more

Thurs, Aug 13

2002—“I promise you I will listen to what has been said here,” says George W.[MD] Bush at the President’s Economic Forum in Waco, Texas, “even though I wasn’t here.” 1971—So-called Attorney General John Mitchell announces that there will be no grand jury investigation of the May 4 shootings at Kent State. 1966—Chairman Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution begins. 1966—“In two or three years, or even before” says S. Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, “the Communists will accept defeat.” 1957—Daisy and Bill Myers, who are Black, get a “warm welcome” to Levittown, Pa.—burning cross and all. 1955—Lamar Smith, a Black WWI vet and voting activist, is …

Read more

Wed, Aug 12

2004—Tom McGreevy, the Democratic Governor of New Jersey, admits he’s been sleeping with a man who is not his wife, then resigns. 2000—The Russian sub Kursk is sunk in the Barents Sea, probably by its own torpedo; 112 crew members perish. 1985—A 747 with 524 on board, enroute to Osaka, crashes after the tail falls off. Many survive but, due to delays, only four are rescued alive. 1958—Art Kane takes the photo known as “A Great Day in Harlem:” 57 jazz greats on a brownstone stoop. 1955—Ike raises the minimum wage from 75 cents to $1 per hour. 1953—Russia tests an H-bomb. 1935—Babe Ruth plays …

Read more

Tues, Aug 11

2017—A “good person” rallying for White Supremacy in Charlottesville, N.C. commits vehicular homicide. 2009—President Obama speaks inside Portsmouth, N.H. High School. Outside a Libertarian packs a 9-mm pistol and totes a sign calling for the “blood of patriots and tyrants.” 1972—The last grunts in ’Nam, 3rd Battatlion, 21st Infantry, board that Freedom Bird for CONUS. 1966—The first Coast Guardsmen (2) are killed in Vietnam when B-57s and F-4s attack the cutter Point Welcome. 1965—A white L.A. cop pulls over a Black driver in Watts. Five days of riots cost 34 lives, mostly Black, and $200 million in damage. 1942—Ten years after her scandalous Ecstacy nude …

Read more

Mon, Aug 10

2019—Mysterious sex criminal and pal of bigwigs Jeffrey Epstein is found conveniently but mysteriously dead in his closely unguarded N.Y.C. jail cell. 2000—“I want you to know,” George W.[MD] Bush tells farmers in Salinas, Calif., “that farmers are not going to be secondary thoughts to a Bush administration. They will be in the forethought of our thinking.” 1974—“I take my instructions from General Haig,” says a Colonel overseeing R. Nixon’s files being loaded three U.S.A.F. trucks. White House Counsel Benton Becker calls his bluff; the trucks are unloaded. 1973—Free Marketeer Charles Koch writes Free Marketeer Friedrich von Hayek suggesting he move to the U.S. so …

Read more