Volume 267 | No. 19

1995—In Claremont, N.H., Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich shake hands and pledge to reform lobbying and campaign financing. Yeah, right. 1990—The Supreme Court rules flag desecration laws are unconstitutional. 1984—The Supreme Court gives prosecutors a new loophole for using illegally-obtained evidence. 1963—In Saigon, motionless, burning, Thich Quang Duc bends history. 1963—George Wallace takes a stand for segregation in the schoolhouse door—briefly; then he scuttles away. 1962—John and Clarence Anglin, with Frank Morris, escape from Alcatraz. Maybe they drown, maybe not. 1929—Forget Article One, Clause 3 of the Constitution, says Congress, the House shall have 435 members. 1920—Republicans meeting in the original “smoke-filled room” select, to …

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1990—British Airways pilot Tim Lancaster is sucked half-way out of Flight 5390 when its windshield blows out over Oxfordshire. The plane lands safely; Lancaster resumes flying. 1988—The Justice Dept. says “no entry” to a bike messenger in a T-shirt saying “Experts agree: Meese is a pig.” 1975—The Rockefeller Commission finds that the CIA’s CHAOS operation spied on 300,000 Americans and infiltrated political movements. 1968—The Supreme Court says cops can “stop and frisk” based on “reasonable suspicion.” [Or racist whim?] 1964—Muted by a tumor, weeks from death, Sen. Clair Engle [D-Calif.] points to his eye; his “aye” vote ends the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act. …

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2016—Donald Trump’s son, son-in-law, and campaign manager meet at Trump Tower with a whole slew of Russians with peculiar associations. 1989—James Watt, Ronald Reagan’s Interior Secretary, admits to a House committee that he was paid $400,000 for making a few phone calls on a topic about which he knew nothing. 1978—The Mormon Church drops its longstanding policy of excluding Black men from the priesthood. 1963—Under orders from Winona, Miss. cops, jail inmates beat civil rights pioneer Fannie Lou Hamer, 45, nearly to death. 1958—Atop an armored car in Cyprus, British writer Auberon Waugh shakes the barrel of a malfunctioning machine gun, accidentally shooting himself in …

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2003—Condoleeza Rice admits Pres. George W.[MD] Bush’s State of the Union claim that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Niger was “wrong.” 1991—In a National Victory Celebration, Abrams tanks and 85° heat wreck D.C.’s Constitution Ave. 1967—Israeli planes and boats attack the unarmed U.S. spy ship Liberty with rockets, machine guns, and napalm; 34 sailors are killed, 171 wounded. 1966—Five U.S.A.F. jets fly in formation over Barstow, Calif., for a photo requested by GE marketers. Two crash, including the Valkyrie, worth $5 billion in today’s money. Two pilots die. 1956—Tech. Sgt. Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr. becomes the first U.S. serviceman to die in Vietnam. He’s …

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2018—Attacked by a bobcat in her Georgia driveway, DeDe Phillips, 46, strangles the rabid animal. 1997—At the fed-funded Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, New Mexico, activists are arrested for passing out copies of the Bill of Rights. 1971—An article in the Armed Forces Journal says “our army…in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse.” 1971—Busted for “disturbing the peace” in a California courthouse [i.e., wearing a jacket with “Fuck The Draft” on the back], Paul Cohen is sprung by the U.S. Supreme Court. 1969—Marine PFC Dan Bullock is KIA in Vietnam. He is 15, and Black. His enlistment is deemed “fraudulent,” so he’s denied …

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2002—Donald Rumsfeld explains to the unknowing that unknown unknowns are “things we do not know we don’t know”—and he should know. 2001—Florida man Vance Flosenzier drags a seven-foot shark from shallow water; paramedics drag his nephew Jesse Arbogast’s arm from its mouth; doctors successfully re-attach the arm. 1989—At a chaotic funeral attended by 10 million, Ayatolla Khomeini is twice jostled out of his coffin. 1989—Nuclear weapon manufacturing ends at Rocky Flats, Colo. when FBI and EPA agents raid the joint. 1980—Nuclear-armed B-52s go on alert for the second time in three days; a glitchy computer warns that 2,000 Soviet ICBMs are attacking the U.S. 1978—Voters …

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