Sat, June 3

2009—New Hampshire becomes the first state to legalize same-sex marriage without a court order. 2002—Egypt says it warned the U.S., a week before 9/11, that al-Qaeda was about to strike the U.S. 1983—In Medina, N.D., “Greatest Generation” veteran, Posse Comitatus co-founder, and anti-tax crank Gordon Kahl dies in a shootout with the FBI, having slain five U.S. Marshals. 1980—A failed 46-cent computer chip briefly convinces NORAD that 220 Soviet missiles are incoming. 1974—Brown & Williamson tests a cigarette blended to smell like pot. 1969—In the South China Sea, a navigational mistake takes the destroyer U.S.S. Evans under the bow of the carrier HMAS Melbourne. The …

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Fri, June 2

2002—The CIA admits to Congress—in a classified document, to avoid undue alarm—it had tracked one 9/11 hijacker months earlier than it had previously admitted. 1999—The Virginian-Pilot reports that evangelist Pat Robertson has had “extensive dealings” with Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor. 1976—Don Bolles, investigative reporter for the Arizona Republic, is mortally injured by a bomb under his car. Two guys take falls. 1971—“Treating (the press) with considerably more contempt,” Nixon writes to Haldeman, “is in the long run a more productive policy.” 1972—Alfred W. McCoy explains to Congress that top South Vietnamese officials, the CIA, and the Mafia are all in the heroin racket together. …

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Thurs, June 1

2020—The President asks, about people protesting outside the White House, “Can’t you just shoot them?” 2005—Having wrecked Iraq, Paul Wolfowitz starts on the World Bank. 2002—George W.[MD] Bush announces at West Point that we’ll attack pre-emptively if he feels like it. 1980—Ted Turner launches CNN—the 24-hour news cycle commences. 1971—The N.Y. Times swallows Chuck Colson’s bait: a “vets group” he created says that it backs the war. 1967—Disgruntled vets form Vietnam Veterans Against the War. 1954—The AEC pulls the security clearance of Manhattan Project boss J. Robert Oppenheimer. 1950—Maine’s Margaret C. Smith asks fellow Republicans to renounce the “Four Horsemen of Calumny–Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and …

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Wed, May 31

2020—Irene Triplett, the last recipient of a Civil War pension (via her pop), dies at 90 in Wilkesboro, N.C. 2009—Dr. George Tiller, while ushering in a Wichita, Kansas church, is shot dead to uphold the sanctity of life. 2007—New Hampshire becomes the first state to honor same-sex unions without court intervention. 1989—As Newt drives him from the Speakership, Jim Wright [D-Texas], denounces “mindless cannibalism.” 1921—A Black WW I veteran in Tulsa refuses a demand to surrender his pistol. During a struggle it fires; a massive “race war” ensues. 1921—The mistrial of Sacco and Vanzetti begins under Judge Webster “Did you see what I did with …

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Tues, May 30

2019—The state Senate overrides Gov. Sununu’s veto: New Hampshire’s out of the killing business—except for that one Black guy on death row. 2007—Florida man Dale Rippy, a ’Nam vet, is attacked by a rabid bobcat. He strangles it with bare hands. 1962—Missionary Archie E. Mitchell, sole survivor of a Bly, Ore. picnic devastated by a Japanese fire balloon, is captured, along with two others, by the Viet Cong. He’s never seen again. 1961—Plotters using CIA-supplied weapons assassinate Rafael Trujillo. They fail to neutralize his secret police, though, and will pay with their lives. 1937—Police attack strikers at Republic Steel in Chicago: 10 are shot dead, …

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Mon, May 29

2020—A U.S. President, scared by a protest against a Minneapolis cop’s murder of George Floyd, hides for an hour in the White House bunker. 2017—A U.S. President asks an aide, at a Memorial Day observance, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” 2015—The Washington Post prints ex-Gov. John H. Sununu’s confession that in 1988 he bartered state assets—low numbered license plates—to buy support for G.H.[H.]W. Bush. 2008—Senator (and candidate) John McCain [R-Ariz.] says “Mosul is quiet” on a day when 30 die there. 2002—FBI head Robert Mueller says 9/11 might have been preventable. 2001—The Bush twins, charged with underage boozing, plead nolo. …

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