ED DANAHUE

Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen
(December 26, 1921 – October 30, 2000)

Senator Huey Long was shot in the Louisiana state capitol
building. He died about 30 hours later. Called a demagogue
by critics, the populist leader was a larger-than-life figure
who boasted that he bought legislators “like sacks of
potatoes, shuffled them like a deck of cards.”

He gave himself the nickname “Kingfish,” saying “I’m a
small fish here in Washington. But I’m the Kingfish to the
folks down in Louisiana.”

On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shaking
hands at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York,
when a 28-year-old anarchist named Leon Czolgosz approached
him and fired two shots into his chest. The president rose slightly
on his toes before collapsing forward, saying “be careful how you
tell my wife.”

TIM MAGUIRE

Melvin James Brooks (Kaminsky) is a actor, comedian, filmmaker, songwriter, and playwright. He’s 98 today.

1974

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 determined the cause of the tragedy was a pier
that had given way during excavation in the basement for an
electric-light plant.

Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865)

A National Historic Site, Ford’s Theatre today.