Volume 270 | No. 19

2000—The Energy Department admits that two hard drives holding top-secret data on nuclear weapons have been missing for over a month. 1991—White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu takes a government limousine from D.C. to New York City to attend a rare stamp auction. 1981—Failing to recognize the only Black person in his Cabinet, President Reagan, calls Housing Secretary Samuel Pierce “Mr. Mayor.” 1971—As Tricia Nixon marries at the White House, the Times starts publishing “The Pentagon Papers.” Dan Ellsberg and Howard Zinn go see “Butch Cassidy,” stoned. 1969—The Army Corps of Engineers stops the American Falls at Niagara. 1967—The Supreme Court rules interracial …

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2018—SCOTUS gives states another excuse—voters failing to vote in an election—for wholesale voter purges. 1995—In Claremont, N.H., Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich shake hands and pledge to reform lobbying and campaign financing. Yeah, right. 1990—The Supreme Court rules flag desecration laws are unconstitutional. 1984—The Supreme Court gives prosecutors a new loophole for using illegally-obtained evidence. 1963—In Saigon, Thich Quang Duc sits motionless as he burns. 1962—John and Clarence Anglin, with Frank Morris, escape from Alcatraz. Maybe they drown, maybe not. 1929—Congress says never mind the Constitution, henceforth the House shall have no more than 435 members. 1920—To its eternal discredit, the GOP puts Harding up …

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1988—The Justice Dept. says “no entry” to a bike messenger in a T-shirt saying “Experts agree: Meese is a pig.” 1975—The Rockefeller Commission finds that the CIA’s CHAOS operation spied on 300,000 Americans and infiltrated political movements. 1968—The Supreme Court says cops can “stop and frisk” based on “reasonable suspicion.” [Or racist whim?] 1964—Muted by a tumor, weeks from death, Sen. Clair Engle [D-Calif.] points to his eye; his “aye” vote ends the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act. 1963—In a big speech JFK says he’ll negotiate with the USSR and seek world peace; 166 days later he’s dead. 1945—The mishap-prone destroyer William D. Porter …

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2023—Another Presidential indictment: 37 felonies this time, unlawful national secret possession the crime. 2016—Donald Trump’s son, son-in-law, and campaign manager meet at Trump Tower with a whole slew of Russians with peculiar associations. 1989—James Watt, Ronald Reagan’s Interior Secretary, admits to a House committee that he was paid $400,000 for making a few phone calls on a topic about which he knew nothing. 1978—The Mormon Church drops its longstanding policy of excluding Black men from the priesthood. 1963—Winona, Miss. jail inmates do as cops say, nearly beating civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer to death. 1958—Auberon Waugh, a British writer, shakes the barrel of his …

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2018—Attacked by a bobcat in her Georgia driveway, DeDe Phillips, 46, strangles the rabid animal. 1997—At the fed-funded Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, New Mexico, activists are arrested for passing out copies of the Bill of Rights. 1991—Vin Scully: “Andre Dawson has a bruised knee and is listed as day-to-day. (Pause.) Aren’t we all?” 1971—An article in the Armed Forces Journal says “our army…in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse.” 1971—Busted for “disturbing the peace” in a California courthouse [i.e., wearing a jacket with “Fuck The Draft” on the back], Paul Cohen is sprung by the U.S. Supreme Court. 1969—Marine PFC Dan Bullock …

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