Volume 265 | No. 12

1981—Stabbed at Disneyland, Mel C. Yorba becomes the Magic Kingdom’s first murder victim because Disney employees feared the consequences if they called an ambulance. 1965—Civil rights marchers en route to Montgomery try to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. They’re mercilessly beaten by law enforcement officers and deputized goons. 1953—Newark, N.J. officials publicly burn allegedly lewd photos, movies, and books valued at $100,000. 1932—Dearborn, Mich. cops fire on Ford hunger marchers; five die. 1908—In Cincinnati, Mayor Mark Breith announces that “women are not physically fit to operate automobiles.” 1906—Finland’s Senate OKs universal suffrage—except for the poor. 1905—NYC subway workers strike. The City hires James …

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2011—The Hooksett water treatment plant disgorges two million two-inch plastic discs into the Merrimack after heavy rains. By August they’re at Campobello Island and Rhode Island Sound, in 2014, the English Channel. 2007—The Vice President’s Chief of Staff is found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice. 2003—President George W.[MD] Bush claims Saddam Hussein has “biological and chemical agents” that move “every 12 to 24 hours…in vehicles…in residential neighborhoods.” 1991—President George Herbert [Hoover] Walker Bush claims that his defeat of Saddam Hussein has ushered in a “new world order.” 1981—President Reagan determines who to call upon at a press conference by drawing jelly beans from …

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2007—In Bloomington, Ill., Dee Riddle is startled by a meteorite crashing through her bedroom window. 2003—Dixie Chick Natalie Maines says she’s ashamed that George W.[MD] Bush is a Texan. 2001—A Nor’easter begins which will dump 40 inches of snow on New Hampshire’s Rockingham County. 1963—Patsy Cline, singer of “I Fall to Pieces,” dies when her plane crashes. 1960—Alberto Korda takes a particularly popular photo of Che Guevara. 1953—Car thief and armed robber Pearlie Miller, on the lam since an escape in 1948, on the FBI’s most wanted list for one day, is arrested at a diner in Somersworth, N.H. 1953—Everybody dies; this time, to the …

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2001—Fox broadcasts a “Lone Gunman” show in which U.S. agents remotely hijack an airliner and try to crash it into the World Trade Center. 1987—Ronald Reagan admits trading arms to Iran for hostages. 1964—FBI agents stake out Frank Wilkinson’s home in Los Angeles; they expect the activist to be assassinated, but do not warn him. 1960—La Coubre, a French munitions ship, explodes in Havana harbor. Between 75 and 100 people die. CIA involvement is “suspected.” 1937—The UAW wins a sit-down strike in Flint, Mich. 1933—“We have nothing to fear,” says FDR, “but fear itself.” 1929—Oscar Stanton de Priest [R-Ill.] becomes the first African-American to take …

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2016—Donald Trump feels the urge to assert on live television that his genitalia are of adequate proportions. 1991—A troublemaker videotapes Los Angeles Police officers vigorously chastising motorist Rodney King. 1969—An under-manned company of the 4th Division is sent after a crack NVA battalion west of Kontum; result: 47 percent end up KIA or MIA. 1934—John Dillinger busts out of the Crown Point, Ind. jail with a hand-carved wooden pistol and drives off in the sheriff’s new V-8 Ford. 1931—In Laredo, Texas, 17-year old Harlon Carter murders Ramón Casiano, 15, with a shotgun. Sentenced to three years, Carter does two; 46 years later he takes over …

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2004—UN weapons inspectors report that Saddam Hussein didn’t have any WMD after all. Oops. 1991—At Ramaila, Iraq, under future-MSNBC military analyst Barry McCaffrey, the U.S. 24th Infantry Division kills about ten percent of the 7,000-man 1st Hammurabi Armored Division, two days after the Gulf War cease-fire. 1965—The U.S. begins a bombing campaign over North Vietnam, under the brand name Rolling Thunder.™ 1955—The Screen Actors Guild votes to expel any member who takes the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination. 1942—Lieutenant General John DeWitt tells all Japanese-Americans to move away from the West Coast, voluntarily, for their own good. 1877—The Electoral Commission to which Congress had passed the …

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