Volume 268 | No. 10

2009—While giving a TED Talk on malaria prevention at Long Beach, Calif., Bill Gates releases a jarful of mosquitoes to feast on the audience. 1982—Phoenix, Ariz. resident David Grundman is killed when the 26-foot, 500 lb. saguaro he shot falls on him. 1976—Lockheed admits to paying $22 million in bribes to sell aircraft. 1974—William Randolph Hearst’s granddaughter Patty, 19, is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. 1968—Ur-beat Neal Cassady, 41, dies alongside railroad tracks in Mexico. 1968—Cholon, Saigon’s Chinatown, is declared a free-fire zone; South Vietnamese pilots bomb their own capitol. 1913—Rosa Louise McCauley Parks is born in Tuskegee, Ala. 1912—Franz Reichelt’s parachute/overcoat fails the …

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2012—“Today is the day that in 1924 Woodrow Wilson died, that son of a bitch,” says radio-active dingbat Glenn Beck, “and I’m happy.” 2006—After Don Rumsfeld likens H. Chavez to Hitler, Venezuela’s VP compares the U.S. to the Third Reich. 1959—In Iowa, a plane crash kills Buddy Holly, “The Big Bopper,” and Richie Valens. 1956—Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash rock out at Sun studio in Memphis. 1933—The Senate fires Sergeant at Arms David S. Barry for writing, “there are not many crooks in Congress…who sell their vote for money, and it is pretty well known who those few are; but …

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2018—A Tesla roadster goes to space, but the CEO isn’t behind the wheel. 2015—A week after a two-foot snowstorm, Po’Town gets 18 inches more. 2014—Mayor Bill de Blasio, fumbling, drops Chuck, the Staten Island Groundhog. Days later Chuck dies. 2009—Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets a bitten finger as he grapples with Chuck, the Staten Island Groundhog. 1991—Before Desert Storm ground combat begins, the Pentagon bans the press from the Dover morgue. 1979—Zbigniew Brzezinski advises Jimmy Carter, “Islamic revivalist movements…are not likely to be the wave of the future.” 1966—Australians burn their conscription papers in Sydney. 1965—Protesting a protest against the jailing of MLK, Daniel P. Skelley …

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2005—Though Canada OK’s same-sex marriage, the world does not end. 2004—Janet Jackson’s nipple is briefly bared on TV; the world nearly ends. 1974—Richard Nixon meets for twenty minutes with the Messiah, aka Reverend Sun Myung Moon. 1972—Rev. Billy Graham explains to President Nixon that a group of Jews, the Biblical “synagogue of Satan,” had the U.S. in a “stranglehold,” via banking and the media. Nixon replies, “I can’t ever say it, but I believe it.” 1971—“The President is aware of what is going on in Southeast Asia,” Ron Ziegler tells reporters. “That is not to say anything is going on in Southeast Asia.” Certainly not …

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2003—At the White House, George W.[MD] Bush tells Tony Blair he’s going to invade Iraq with or without WMDs, and diplomacy will have to fit around the military strategy. 1984—President Reagan alleges the U.S. has a problem with “people who are sleeping on the grates…homeless…you might say, by choice.” 1971—In Detroit, Vietnam Veterans Against the War testify about U.S. policies in Vietnam. Few listen. 1968—It’s Tet: the VC and NVA attack from the Delta to the DMZ. Saigon—even the U.S. Embassy—is a war zone. U.S. brass don’t get the point—Gen. Wm. “Clueless” Westmoreland says Hue’s been retaken; he’s off by a month—but the public does. …

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2005—A U.S. official reports that $9,000,000,000 is … well … sort of … missing in Iraq. 1981—An FB-111A “Aardvark” based at Pease AFB crashes near homes at Mariner’s Village, about 1.25 miles northwest of Market Square. One apartment building is destroyed; no one is injured. 1976—The Supreme Court decides that limiting campaign contributions would unfairly restrict the speech of a privileged minority group: people with unlimited amounts of money. 1972—“Bloody Sunday” in Northern Ireland: British soldiers gun down 14 Catholic civil-rights marchers. 1968—Two hundred colonels in the U.S. MACV staff attend a pool party in Saigon. “Not one … knew Tet was coming” the next …

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