Volume 270 | No. 16

1986—Murphy’s Law at Chernobyl: Ukrainian real estate values plummet, northern Earth is irradiated, and thousands are condemned to death. 1978—SCOTUS, in Bank of Boston v Belotti: the First Amendment permits corporations to try to buy elections. 1960—Korean protestors succeed in forcing corrupt U.S.-backed dictator Syngman Rhee to step down. 1952—The captain of the USS Hobson, disregarding an underling’s advice, takes his destroyer across the bow of the USS Wasp. Cut in half, the Hobson sinks with more than half its crew, captain included. 1944—The U.S. takes over Montgomery-Ward after it defies the National Labor Relations Board. 1937—German and Italian planes destroy Guernica, Spain. 1922—On the …

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2005—Charles Duelfer, the CIA’s man in charge of finding WMDs in Iraq, says there are none. 2003—George W.[MD] Bush fires his Secretary of the Army for saying we don’t have enough troops in Iraq. 2002—George W.[MD] Bush and Saudi Prince Abdullah play kissy-face at the President’s Texas “ranch.” 1984—Asked if he’s ever been to a communist country, Reagan Chief of Staff James A. Baker III replies, “Well, I’ve been to Massachusetts.” 1962—The U.S. re-starts atmospheric nuclear testing with a bang—actually, 26 bangs over 77 days. 1959—Accused of raping a white woman, Mack Charles Parker is dragged from Mississippi’s Pearl River County Courthouse and lynched with …

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2020—The lead item on all news broadcasts: the manufacturer has announced that, contrary to what the President has said, people should not inject themselves with Lysol. 2018—OMB’s Mick Mulvaney tells bankers, only if “you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, [then] I might talk to you” while he was in Congress. 1980—Eight Americans die and five are wounded trying to get American hostages out of Teheran. 1967—“The military situation [in South Vietnam] is favorable,” says Gen. Wm. C. Westmoreland, but protests at home might lose the war. 1967—Soyuz 1’s chutes fail; misfiring retro-rockets incinerate the remains of Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. 1953—A B-29 with an F-84 …

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2018—U.S. President #45 says, “If [George Washington] was smart, he would’ve put his name on [Mount Vernon]. You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.” 1985—“Hey! It’s the New Coke!” 1971—National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, speaking over the phone with Allen Ginsberg, agrees to meet personally but draws the line at doing so naked on live TV. 1971—Concluding Operation Dewey Canyon III, “a limited incursion into the country of Congress,” Vietnam Veterans Against the War heave medals over a fence at the Capitol. 1956—The USSR proudly announces it’s now got its own hydrogen bomb. 1952—“Do you know who’s being discriminated …

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2018—Nearly naked, fully schizophrenic, Travis Reinking kills four and injures two at a Nashville Waffle House with an AR-15 police had seized but his father had returned. 2004—U.S. Army Spec. and ex-NFL star Pat Tillman is shot by his own side in Afghanistan; a cover-up ensues. 2002—Dick “Dick” Cheney, fundraising in Florida, says “The Taliban is out of business permanently.” 1987—The Supreme Court rules in McCleskey v Kemp that just because the death penalty is applied in a racially biased manner, that’s no reason for states to stop killing Black convicts. 1983—The first two jolts from Alabama’s electric chair set John Louis Evans on fire. …

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1999—NRA president Charlton Heston says that to honor those massacred at Columbine the day before, the gun lobby’s Denver convention will be shortened by one whole day. 1992—Robert Alton Harris is strapped into San Quentin’s gas chamber at 3:00 a.m. Twelve minutes later he’s taken back out amid legal wrangling. At 6:00 a.m., he’s put back in and successfully gassed to death. 1980—Ronald Reagan says ’Nam veterans can’t get the GI Bill because their war wasn’t declared. It’s not true. 1975—South Vietnam’s last president, Nguyen Van Thieu, calls it quits. 1971—Vietnam Veterans Against the War defy the Supreme Court and stay on the National Mall. …

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