On the evening of December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt summoned his secretary and dictated a speech to be delivered to the nation the following day. Roosevelt intoned steadily, puffing on his cigarette and specifying punctuation marks as he spoke. “Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in world history…” When he received the typed draft, the president scratched out “world history” and scribbled “infamy.”
December 7, 1941. November 22, 1963. September 11, 2001. These events scarred our national psyche, and the mere mention of the date is enough to recall the trauma. This Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of another such date: January 6, 2021.
Like these other infamous dates, our understanding of the events of January 6 continues to develop. A year ago, we knew that Donald Trump had…
