Secretariat wins Triple Crown in breathtaking style

In Washington, D.C. on June 9, 1893, the interior of ramshackle Ford’s Theatre collapses, causing the deaths of 22 people. The building—where President Lincoln was shot on April 14, 1865—houses hundreds of clerks employed by the War Department’s Records and Pensions Division. An investigation determines the cause of the tragedy was a pier that had […]

In a dramatic confrontation, Joseph Welch, special counsel for the U.S. Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether communism has infiltrated the U.S. armed forces. Welch’s verbal assault—including the enduring question “Have you no sense of decency?”—marked the end of McCarthy’s power during the anticommunist hysteria of the Red Scare in […]

In reply to a formal question submitted by President Lyndon B. Johnson—“Would the rest of Southeast Asia necessarily fall if Laos and South Vietnam came under North Vietnamese control?”—the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) submits a memo that effectively challenges the “domino theory” backbone of the Johnson administration policies. This theory contended that if South Vietnam […]