1981—Federal air
traffic controllers have the gall to go on strike.

1980—Ronald
Reagan delivers his first post-convention speech, touting “states’ rights”
two miles from where three murdered civil rights workers had been buried 19
years earlier.

1971—New
Hampshire man Alan Shepard hits a golf ball on the moon.

1966—RIP Lenny
Bruce, prosecuted to death at the age of 40.

1962—Given a
huge shot of LSD by a CIA subcontractor, Tusko the elephant, “pride of the
Oklahoma City Zoo,” keels over, defecates, and shudders. Big doses of
anti-psychotics and tranquilizers don’t help; he dies.

1961—Leon
Beardon and his son Cody skyjack a Boeing 707 being piloted by Byron Rickards over
New Mexico. Rickards also piloted the first plane to be skyjacked: a Ford
Tri-Motor, in Peru, in 1931.

1931—In Chicago,
60,000 march against eviction. A fatal riot ensues.

1929—The DA of San Bernardino brings a posse of fellow American Legionnaires on a raid. They bust Yetta Stromberg, 19, for raising a red flag.

1923—By kerosene
light at 2:47 a.m. in Plymouth, Vt., John Coolidge swears in his son Calvin as
President.

1922—The New
York Society for the Suppression of Vice proposes that all literary manuscripts
be screened to ensure they are not immoral.

1919—The Chicago
race riot ends: 38 dead, 537 injured, 1,000 homeless.