Sun, Dec 31

1997—Quaker Oats pays $1.8 million to settle a lawsuit over their secret feeding of radioactive oatmeal to developmentally-disabled kids. 1995—Bill and Monica enjoy their third tryst in a White House study. 1974—Two syndicated columns appear defending the CIA’s illegal spying on U.S. citizens. Coincidentally, the writers, Bill Buckley and Tom Braden, are both covert CIA assets. 1970—Congress, a bit late, repeals the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. 1970—Associated Milk Producers, Inc. gets $100 million in price supports in exchange for its $2 million donation to the Nixon campaign. 1969—Hitmen hired by United Mine Workers President Tony Boyle murder his rival,Joseph “Jock” Yablonski, along with his wife …

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Sat, Dec 30

2019—Health authorities in Wuhan, China send hospitals an alert and begin investigating a rise in pneumonia. 2015—At the North Pole, the temperature rises above 32° for six hours. 2006—Saddam Hussein’s inelegant demise is captured by cellphone. 1994—In Brookline, Mass., John Salvi lives out his “pro-life” creed by killing two health care workers. 1978—A House Select Committee concludes that conspirators “probably” helped kill JFK and MLK. 1971—Daniel Ellsberg is indicted for having set free the truth. 1970—An unsafe Kentucky coal mine explodes, killing 38 miners. 1947—Irgun fighters kill six Arabs and wound 42 in a grenade attack at a Haifa oil refinery. Arabs retaliate by beating …

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Fri, Dec 29

2006—The UK pays off its $100,000,000 WW II debt to the U.S. 1989—Playwright Vaclav Havel becomes President of Czechoslovakia. 1975—Eleven people are killed and 74 wounded when a bomb explodes in a storage locker at LaGuardia Airport. The crime remains unsolved. 1972—Operation Linebacker II, which Richard “Dick” Nixon will call “my terrible personal ordeal,” ends. U.S. losses: 15 downed B-52s, 12 other aircraft, 43 KIA, & 49 POWs. 1930—Fred Newton arrives at New Orleans after swimming 1,826 miles down the Mississippi River. 1916—Poisoned, stabbed, beaten, shot three times, and thrown unconscious into the freezing Neva River, the Russian Tsarina Alexandra’s favorite faith-healer Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin …

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Thurs, Dec 28

2013—Congress ends long-term unemployment benefits to 1.3 million Americans, damaging the economy to the tune of an estimated 240,000 jobs. 1986—Terry Dolan, Republican critic of gay rights, dies of AIDS. 1983—Dr. George Graham, of President Reagan’s Task Force on Food Assistance, says Black children are “probably the best-nourished group in the U.S.”—citing athletes as proof. 1973—In space, the crew of Skylab goes on strike to protest over-work and micro-management. NASA meets the demands of the astronauts. 1973—The Akron, Ohio Chamber of Commerce denounces the Soap Box Derby as a cheat and a fraud. 1971—At the White House, 88 ’Nam vets are busted for protesting their …

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Wed, Dec 27

1986—In San Diego, Cara Evelyn Knott is strangled by on-duty Highway Patrolman Craig Alan Peyer. 1981—Supreme Court AssociateJustice William H. Rehnquist checks into a hospital to kick his Placidyl™ habit and end the hallucinations. 1953—Mass. bans EC Comics’ version of “The Night Before Christmas.” Illustrated by Will Elder, it features a just-divorced Santa driving a Cadillac sled and giving away poison. 1900—Carrie Nation hatchets-up her first saloon, at the Carey Hotel, in Wichita, Kan. 1895—In Bill Curtis’s St. Louis saloon, William “Billy” Lyons foolishly—and fatally—grabs “Stagger Lee” Shelton’s brand new Stetson hat. 1827—Georgia proclaims “the lands of Georgia belong to her absolutely. The Indians are …

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Tues, Dec 26

2010—H. Kissinger apologizes for having told R. Nixon in 1973, “[if the Soviets] put Jews into gas chambers…it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” 2002—Americans learn a new euphemism from the Washington Post: “extraordinary rendition” means kidnapping and torture. A trial? Hah! 1996—U.S. Media pick JonBenet Ramsey to be the most celebrated of the 2,500 children murdered this year. 1991—The Supreme Soviet meets one last time and dissolves the USSR. 1971—Disgruntled Vietnam veterans occupy the Statue of Liberty. 1969—Having fought a shifting cargo of bombs, missiles, and mines for nine days in heavy seas, the crew of the freighter SS Badger State …

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