That March madness happened on a Monday; March 1, 1954--which also happens to have been the very date that child actor (and eventual much-lauded director) Ron Howard was born...though I've no idea if Opie Taylor was supposed to have been born that date as well.

Four years after two Puerto Rican would-be assassins nearly took out President Truman whilst he was snoozing at Blair House during a major White House renovation across the street on the other side of Pennslvania Avenue--THAT near-miss attack happened on Wednesday, November 1, 1950*, and was famously thwarted by two alert Secret Service agents--four additional radical PRs pushing for the island's long-overdue independence showed the same sort of murderous determination as did their two foiled comrades a quadrennial prior. Thanks to luck--or perhaps mere lousy aim--the gunmen in 1954 were unable to kill any of the gringo U.S. Representatives they were trying to take out.

Here's something you might consider during your next patriotic visit*** to the Visitor's Gallery up in the rafters of the House Chamber.
(As high school civics students should be taught and remember--even IF they've never visited the District of Columbia--the House Chamber is the spacious auditorium on the dome's southern side, while the MUCH smaller Senate Chamber--and FAR quieter too, even when in session and amid vigorous debate--anchors and constitutes much of the north wing.

Just ask one of the pages, guards, guides, docents or ushers to show you the precise gallery seats from which the volley of bullets rained down on all those sitting-duck Congressmen. (When I first made that political pilgrimage from Los Angeles in 1988, I was delighted to learn that they're happy to pinpoint those seats for all us U.S.-history-buff tourists; I feared even INQUIRING about this remarkable moment in the annals of our republic might result in my being quietly but firmly ushered out.)

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
==================* As every serious Shavian surely recalls, iconic Irish playwright and wit George Bernard Shaw** died the following day, Thursday, November 2nd.
** I'm informed (reliably, I sure hope) Shaw is but one of only two figures in history to win both the Nobel Prize in Literature AND an Oscar...though I can never recall who that other celebrated fellow is.
*** More recent history suggests you ought not to storm your way in (even if unarmed), nor elect fatigues and/or a MAGA hat as your chosen attire.