1619 – In Jamestown, Virginia, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convenes for the first time.
1866 – New Orleans’s Democratic government orders police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150. Republicans in New Orleans today wouldn’t fare much better.
1916 – Black Tom Island explosion in Jersey City, NJ was an act of sabotage on American ammunition supplies by German agents to prevent the materials from being used by the Allies in World War I. Today we have the anti-American Left happy to thwart war efforts on our enemies’ behalf.
1945 – World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), killing 883 seamen. Sharks play a major role, as recounted in Jaws.
1956 – A joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing In God We Trust as the U.S. national motto. Then in 1965 US President Lyndon B. (Lyin’ B*stard) Johnson says, “Why fret over all that “god” stuff? We’re the government and WE’LL take care of you”, and he signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid, giving us a taste of how well the government can handle health care.
1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 Mission – David Scott and James Irwin on Apollo Lunar Module module, Falcon, land with first Lunar Rover on the moon, adding tire tracks to the American footprints.
1974 – Six Royal Canadian Army Cadets killed and fifty-four injured in an accidental grenade blast at CFB Valcartier Cadet Camp. Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is NOT your friend.
1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again. I looked inside Chrissy’s purse. His body could be in there and nobody’d ever know…
2003 – In Mexico, the last ‘old style’ Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line. Ferdinand Porsche’s pre-WW II design was quite successful. I owned a couple myself.