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Almanac for Sept. 19, 2026

Today is Saturday, Sept. 19, the 262nd day of 2026. There are 103 days left in the year. On Sept. 19, 2022, Great Britain and the world said a final goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II at a state funeral that drew presidents and kings, princes and prime ministers — and crowds who thronged the streets of London. Also on this date: In 1796, President George Washington's farewell address was published. In it, America's first chief executive advised, "Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all." In 1881, the 20th president of the United States, ...

If the Kennedy Center Stays Closed for Now, So Be It

Go ahead, President Donald Trump, keep the Kennedy Center closed. Don't give it money for necessary repairs. This is low-hanging fruit for Americans done with your extortion schemes. They don't have to submit to small-bore intimidation like this. They can just shrug at the demand that your ...

Free AI

Cell phones made my life easier. So did the internet. Artificial intelligence may enrich it even more. But lots of people are worried. "Stop AI or we're all going to die!" shout protesters. It's possible that AI will decide that we humans are in the way and imprison us or kill us. Not ...

Almanac for Sept. 18, 2026

Today is Friday, Sept. 18, the 261st day of 2026. There are 104 days left in the year. On Sept. 18, 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a towering champion of women's rights who became the court's second female justice, died at her home in Washington at age 87 of complications from pancreatic cancer. Also on this date: In 1793, President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol. In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which created a force of federal commissioners charged with returning escaped slaves to their owners. The act was repealed ...

The lynching epidemic that wasn’t

Even paranoiacs have enemies, they say, but sometimes they are just paranoid. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a founding member of the Squad, organized 59 fellow Democrats to co-sign a letter demanding a federal investigation of a spate of supposed lynchings that never happened. The document ...

Almanac for Sept. 17, 2026

Today is Thursday, Sept. 17, the 260th day of 2026. There are 105 days left in the year. On Sept. 17, 1787, the Constitution of the United States was completed and signed by a majority of delegates attending the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Also on this date: In 1862, more than 3,600 men were killed in the Civil War Battle of Antietam (an-TEE'-tum) in Maryland. In 1908, Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge of the U.S. Army Signal Corps became the first person to die in the crash of a powered aircraft, the Wright Flyer, at Fort Myer, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The ...