Volume 267 | No. 4

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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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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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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2004—George W.[MD] Bush nominates a new AG. Alberto Gonzales ends up making John Ashcroft look a tad 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—Facing bogus charges in Detroit, anti-police-brutality activist Louis Moore skyjacks a DC-9. Days later he’s in a Cuban prison and airline passengers are getting searched. 1964—Australia re-introduces the draft to protect the Empire …

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2020—“What is the downside for humoring him…?” says “a senior Republican official” to the Washington Post. “It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power.” 1998—Brokers who rigged the game at NASDAQ  are compelled to pay their bilked customers $1 billion. 1989—TheBerlin 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 …

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2016—Donald J. Trump wins the Presidency. Everybody else is a loser. 2013—Naval Intelligence boss Ted “Twig” Branch has his security clearance lifted. He can’t do his job, but the Navy leaves him in it. 2010—On TV, George W.[MD] Bush says his mom once asked him for a ride to the hospital, displaying a jar with a miscarried sibling in it. 2000—At 2:16 a.m., Fox News “reporter” John Ellis calls Fla. in favor of his cousin, George W.[MD] Bush. 1994—The GOP, led by serial philanderer Newt Gingrich, take Congress. 1965—Dorothy Kilgallen’s investigation into JFK’s assassination ends due to an allegedly accidental overdose. 1954—Ike writes his brother …

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