Volume 268 | No. 4

2008—Citigroup announces it will sack 52,000 workers. 2006—“We’ll succeed [in Iraq] unless we quit,” says George W.[MD] Bush. 2003—An Austrian muscleman becomes Governator of California. 1995—President Clinton, multitasking, speaks on the phone with a Congressman while violating his marriage vows with an intern. 1995—The Commander of the Pacific Fleet calls the rape of an Okinawan girl “stupid.” The culprit should have hired a prostitute instead, he says. 1992—Dateline broadcasts a rigged video of a GM truck exploding. 1973—Speaking to newspaper editors at Disney World, Richard M. Nixon says, “I am not a crook.” 1965—First Cav survivors of the Ia Drang are marched into an ambush; …

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2000—Bill Clinton goes to Vietnam — finally, when it’s safe, as President. 1989—U.S.-backed pro-government “freedom fighters” in El Salvador murder six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and the housekeeper’s daughter. 1969—President Nixon’s Communications Director Herb Klein says he opposes government intervention in the news but the networks are asking for it if they don’t regulate themselves. 1966—Strasbourg students blow the student government’s annual budget to publish a pamphlet, “On the Poverty of Student Life.” Hilarity ensues, including the Situationist Movement. 1965—Mission accomplished with 79 KIA & 121 WIA, U.S. units in Ia Drang propose withdrawal. Gen. Wm. Westmoreland says “stay.” 1890—George Seldes is born. At 19 …

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2010—Ex-cop James B. Fowler pleads guilty to the 1965 murder of civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson in Ala. He gets six months. 2008—Somali pirates take the MV Sirius Star. With a total value of $250 million, it’s the largest prize ever. 1996—British officials return the Stone of Scone to the Scots from whom they stole it 700 years earlier. 1967—The NVA mortars the Dak To ammo dump; 1,100 tons of ordnance create the war’s biggest explosion. 1967—“I have never been more encouraged,” says General Westmoreland. Tet is 77 days away. 1967—The CIA hands LBJ the first of four reports on its illegal surveillance of …

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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—USS W.D. Porter accidentally launches a torpedo—in the direction of USS 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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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, conveniently turns up 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 USS 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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