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2018—After jabbing him in the legs and groin for 2.5 hours, Alabama prison officials wheel cancer patient Doyle Hamm out of the death chamber alive. 2004—A Pentagon document leaks: climate change may spell doom. 1994—The FBI arrests a spy: CIA officer Aldrich Ames. 1974—Samuel Byck, planning to crash an airliner into the White House, carelessly shoots the pilot before takeoff. He’s then shot dead, too. 1965—The New York Times calls the late Malcolm X “an extraordinary and twisted man [who turned] many true gifts to evil purposes.” 1965—Sam Lovejoy derails a planned nuke plant in Montague, Mass. by downing a tower with a crowbar. 1951—The …

Read moreWed, Feb 22

1950—Joe McCarthy delivers a five-hour, paranoid rant in the U.S. Senate; a four-month inquisition ensues. 1945—At Iwo Jima, Jacklyn “Jack” Lucas, 17, dives onto one live grenade and pulls another under him. One goes off, one doesn’t. He sets off metal detectors until dying at 80. 1943—Hollywood embraces Office of War Information censorship. 1939—Fritz Kuhn, a German veteran of WW I and naturalized U.S. citizen, leads 22,000 people in a pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. 1933—At least 20 top German industrialists meet secretly at Reichstag President H. Göring’s official residence and—yes, we’ll say it— conspire to raise funds to get Nazis elected. 1893—After the …

Read moreMon, Feb 20

2009—Outraged that the government might assist mere homeowners, CNBC’s Rick Santelli has a fit on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. His convulsions spawn a Tea Party. 2000—“I understand small business growth,” says George W.[MD] Bush, “I was one.” A business? Or a growth? 1988—Prosecutors in Passaic County, N.J. drop the bogus case against Rubin “Hurricane” Carter after he’d been imprisoned for decades. 1986—After due deliberation—37 years—Congress ratifies a UN treaty outlawing genocide. 1975—Watergate burglar James W. McCord, Jr. admits that “basically, Martha [Mitchell]’s story is true”—she was abducted and drugged to cover up the break-in. Her abductor, Steve King, is later made …

Read moreSun, Feb 19

2012—Rep. Bob Morris [R-Ind.] says Girl Scouts use “feminists, lesbians, and Communists” as role models to promote a “homosexual lifestyle.” 2001—Robert Hanssen, a devout Catholic, exhibitionist, patron of strippers, and ex-FBI Special Agent,  is arrested for selling U.S. secrets to the U.S.S.R., then to the Russians. 1976—Jerry Ford accepts the CIA’s word: if it breaks the law, it’ll confess. 1970—All of the Chicago 7 are found innocent of conspiring to incite riots; five are found guilty of crossing state lines to incite riots anyway. 1962—“We are going to win in Vietnam,” says RFK in Saigon. “We will remain here until we do win.” 1954—Ike’s A.G. …

Read moreSat, Feb 18

2021—Eighty-three years after the demise of the original Flaming Nazi Gasbag, Rush Limbaugh follows suit. 2017—President Trump declares the press to be the enemy of the people. 2015—A study finds that previous tallies of lynchings in the U.S. had under-counted by at least 800. 2006—Harry Whittington apologizes to Dick “Dick” Cheney for having absorbed a face full of his birdshot. 2003—Covert CIA agents grab Abu Omar in Milan, blowing an Italian surveillance program; 23 agents are later convicted of kidnapping. 2000—“I hate the g__ks,” Sen. John McCain tells reporters. “I will hate them as long as I live.” 1985—General William Westmoreland drops his libel suit …

Read moreFri, Feb 17

1982—Nancy Reagan says, via an aide, she’ll no longer accept “loaned” threads from big name designers because she’s “really…tired of people misinterpreting what she was doing.” 1978—The first computer bulletin board goes online in Chicago. 1976—The Village Voice publishes excerpts from the House-suppressed Pike Report; among other sins, the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA have been illegally spying on U.S. citizens. 1964—A week after security in Saigon is “tightened,” a V.C. bomb in an American movie theater kills three U.S. soldiers and wounds another 50. 1962—A two-day anti-nuclear march on Washington begins. 1959—Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba. 1938—Guy Stewart Callendar publishes a scientific …

Read moreThurs, Feb 16