Volume 270 | No. 4

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 U.S. citizenship due to his “ignorance.” His grandson Stephen is later named immigration policy czar by Dolt 45. 1927—Workmen in Pittsburgh, using an …

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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 and whistleblower, turns up conveniently 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 …

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2001—Flight 587 falls apart and crashes off Queens, N.Y., killing 261. 1999—Congress deregulates Wall Street, to allow for “innovation.” 1970—A half-ton of dynamite set off by Oregon highway workers sends parts of an eight-ton sperm whale 100 feet in the air. The tail crushes Walter Umanhofer’s new Olds, bought from a lot advertising “a whale of a deal.” 1941—Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, “the canary who sang but couldn’t fly,” is defenestrated from the sixth floor of a Coney Island hotel while under the protection of six New York City cops. 1936—Della Call, 33, is killed in a hit-and-run on Rt. 4 in Chichester; 64 years …

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2000—Republicans begin a campaign of election lawfare in Florida. 1956—The last pockets of resistance are suppressed in Hungary. 1940—British biplanes sink half the Italian Navy, at anchor in Taranto. 1933—“The Great Black Blizzard,” first great dust storm, hits the Plains. 1919—American Legionaires attack an I.W.W. union hall in Centralia, Wash.; four are killed by armed Wobblies. The surviving Legionaires kidnap, torture, and kill Wobblie and fellow WW I vet Wesley Everest. 1918—The War to End Wars ends, too late for 2,738 who die on this day. 1906—Last living widow of a Revolutionary War veteran, Esther Sumner Damon dies in Plainfield, Vt. at 92. 1887—Albert Parsons, …

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2004—George W.[MD] Bush nominates a new AG. Alberto Gonzales ends up making John Ashcroft look just a tad less terrible by comparison. 1982—The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a gift to the nation from those it had shunned, opens in Washington, D.C. 1975—The ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald sinks on Lake Superior, taking with her a crew of 29. 1973—In Drake, N.D. the school board fires a teacher and burns the book he assigned, Slaughterhouse Five. 1972—Facing bogus charges in Detroit, anti-police-brutality activist Louis Moore skyjacks a DC-9. Days later he’s in a Cuban prison and airline passengers are getting searched. 1964—Australia re-introduces the draft to protect the …

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