Sat, May 21

2016—In Houston, hundreds rally to support Islam. Hundreds more rally, armed, to oppose it. All have been duped by a Russian troll farm. 2010—Fox’s Glenn Beck claims “a good portion” of Americans were glad when Franklin D. Roosevelt died. 2001—GAO refutes the GOP: Dems didn’t vandalize the White House. 1981—The Senate OKs $20 billion to resume full-scale production of nerve gas and other chemical weapons. 1980—In Gwangju, Korea, students using weapons looted from armories drive troops from downtown. 1968—Students protest the Vietnam War in West Berlin, Paris, Peking, Berkeley, and New York. 1952—Blacklisted actor John Garfield dies of a heart attack at 39. 1946—A screwdriver …

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Fri, May 20

2009—The FBI entraps four Muslim men in a bogus Bronx bomb plot. 2004—U.S. and Iraqi troops raid the home and offices of Ahmed Chalabi, formerly the neo-cons’ most trusted source of Iraqi intelligence. 1989—RIP, Gilda Radner. 1978—Mavis Hutchinson, 53, makes New York City after running across America for 69 days. 1973—The Camden 28, who broke into a draft board office, are acquitted. 1969—After 11 bloody assaults in 10 days, American troops take Hamburger Hill at a cost of 70 dead and 372 wounded. It’s abandoned 16 days later. 1937—George Orwell takes a bullet in the throat while fighting against Franco’s fascists in Spain. 1927—Charles Lindbergh …

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Thurs, May 19

2017—Big game hunter Theunis Botha, 51, dies in Zimbabwe when an elephant shot by a client falls on him. 1956—A 15-megaton bomb test in the South Pacific raises radiation levels in the U.S. to 10 times normal. 1954—The U.S.P.O. OKs a CIA mail-opening project. 1953—Fallout from our dirtiest-ever nuke test, Upshot-Knothole Harry, hits St. George, Utah—H. Hughes’s location for The Conqueror a year later. 1950—Four barges carrying 467 tons of ammo explode in South Amboy, N.J., killing 30 and injuring 350. 1945—U-234 arrives at Portsmouth carrying cargo the Nazis intended for Japan; 1,232 lbs. of uranium eventually does arrive—at Hiroshima, on 8/6. 1943—U.S. submarine-chaser PC-815, …

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Wed, May 18

1992—The 27th Amendment, barring any Congress from raising its own pay, is ratified after a 202 year process. 1982—Sun Myung Moon, a Reverend, is now a convicted tax cheat, too. 1980—Korean students in Gwangju, protesting closure of their university, are beaten and shot by paratroopers. 1980—Mount St. Helens cuts loose for the first time in 123 years. 1974—Operation Smiling Buddha is a success: now India has a nuke. 1969—The commander at Hamburger Hill orders helicopters out of the area to hold down friendly fire deaths. 1958—CIA pilot Al Pope is shot down while strafing an Indonesian port. The U.S. Ambassador claims he’s a mere “soldier …

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Tues, May 17

2017—Learning his election will be investigated for Russian involvement, President Trump says, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m [bleeped].” Sadly, no. 1987—Its weapons officer away from his duty station, its Phalanx gun operator absent “on personal business,” and its radar countermeasure system unarmed, the frigate U.S.S. Stark is hit by two Exocets from an Iraqi plane; 37 sailors die on the Gipper’s watch. 1976—R. Reagan, in Time: “Fascism was really the basis of the New Deal.” 1974—Six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army hole-up in a small house in L.A. surrounded by 400 cops. Armed with full-auto …

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Mon, May 16

2017—As President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan looks on approvingly, two dozen goons attack peaceful protestors outside the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C. Four are arrested, but all charges are dropped. 2001—Ex-FBI Special Agent, devout Catholic, patron of strippers, and amateur exhibitionist Robert Hanssen is indicted for selling U.S. secrets to the U.S.S.R., then the Russians. 1974—Bill Harris, terrorist, is caught shoplifting socks from Mel’s Sporting Goods in L.A.; but he and wife Emily escape as heiress Patty Hearst blasts the storefront with a machine gun. 1969—AP finds that on Hamburger Hill, some grunts are disgruntled. 1948—CBS correspondent George Polk turns up murdered in Salonika Harbor. The …

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