Sun, Nov 14

2002—Donald Rumsfeld predicts the Iraq War will last “five days or five weeks or five months…[no] longer….” 1968—In Quang Tri, Marine PFC Frank Baldino, 19, is killed by a tiger. 1965—The First Cav, choppering into the Ia Drang Valley, is surprised to discover six battalions of NVA. 1943—U.S.S. W.D. Porter accidentally launches a torpedo—in the direction of U.S.S. Iowa. FDR, aboard Iowa en route to Cairo, is amused. 1942—Seaman Calvin L. Graham is wounded at Guadalcanal. He’s 12. 1932—Nison Miller is denied citizenship due to “ignorance.” Dolt 45 will make his grandson Stephen his immigration policy czar. 1927—Workmen in Pittsburgh, using an open flame blowlamp …

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Sat, Nov 13

2003—Because he would not remove his Ten Commandments monument from the courthouse, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore is himself removed. 1982—The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and Robert McNamara are no-shows. 1974—Karen Silkwood, a disgruntled Kerr-McGee worker, turns up conveniently dead. 1970—Up to half a million die as a cyclone hits Bangladesh. 1965—The dysfunctional tinderbox Yarmouth Castle burns en route to Nassau; 90 passengers burn or drown, deserted by captain and crew. 1942—The torpedoed cruiser U.S.S. Juneau sinks in 20 minutes, 100 of 673 surviving the explosion. Two other cruisers depart, assuming no survivors. Eight days later, ten …

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Fri, Nov 12

2001—Flight 587 falls apart and crashes off Queens, N.Y., killing 261. 1970—A half ton of dynamite set off by Oregon highway workers sends parts of an eight-ton sperm whale 100 feet in the air. The tail crushes Walter Umanhofer’s new Olds, bought from a lot advertising “a whale of a deal.” 1941—Abe “Kid Twist” Reles earns the posthumous sobriquet “the canary who sang but couldn’t fly” when he autodefenestrates (or is defenestrated) from the sixth floor of a Coney Island hotel while under the protection of six New York City cops. 1926—The first documented aerial bombing conducted in the U.S. leaves Shady Rest, bootlegger Charlie …

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Thurs, Nov 11

2000—Republicans go to court to stop manual recounts in Florida. 1956—The last pockets of resistance are suppressed in Hungary. 1940—In Taranto, Brit biplanes sink half the Italian Navy at anchor. 1933—“The Great Black Blizzard,” first great dust storm, hits the Plains. 1919—Centralia, Wash. Legionaires attack an I.W.W. union hall. Oops—the Wobblies are armed. With four attackers dead, the surviving Legionaires kidnap, torture, and kill Wobblie and fellow WW I vet Wesley Everest. 1918—The War to End Wars ends, too late for 2,738 who die this day. 1906—Last living widow of a Revolutionary War veteran, Esther Sumner Damon dies in Plainfield, Vt. at 92. 1887—Albert Parsons, …

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Wed, Nov 10

2004—George W.[MD] Bush nominates a new Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales—who goes on to make his predecessor John Ashcroft look slightly less terrible by comparison. 1982—The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a gift to the nation from those it had shunned, opens in Washington, D.C. 1975—The ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald sinks on Lake Superior, taking with her a crew of 29. 1973—In Drake, N.D. the school board fires a teacher and burns the book he assigned, Slaughterhouse Five. 1972—Anti-police brutality activist Louis Moore, threatened with bogus charges by Detroit police, tries a radical remedy: skyjacking a DC-9 out of Birmingham, Ala. A two-day, nine-stop odyssey ends in a …

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Tues, Nov 9

1998—Brokers who rigged the game at NASDAQ  are compelled to pay their bilked customers $1 billion. 1989—The Berlin Wall suddenly becomes unexpectedly porous. 1979—Zbigniew Brzezinski gets a call: “250 nuclear missiles incoming!” Then another: “Make that 2,000!” A third says, [Gilda voice.] “Never mind.” 1977—William C. Sullivan, former Hoover hatchet man who once predicted he’d be murdered in a faked accident, is accidentally shot by a fellow hunter in Sugar Hill, N.H. 1969—Indians land on Alcatraz. Some are removed by the Coast Guard, others stay overnight. 1965—One power plant in Ontario fails, the whole Northeast goes dark. 1953—Dylan Thomas dies in New York at 39, …

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