Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
Made for the 250th
19581776 Club

Caracas mob surrounds Nixon's car; Secret Service draws weapons as crowd tries to overturn the limousine

For twelve minutes, hundreds rock and pound the Vice President's vehicle; Nixon orders his agents to hold fire. Rose Mary Woods is cut by flying glass in a trailing car.

On May 13, 1958, a mob of several hundred demonstrators surrounded Vice President Richard Nixon's limousine as it crawled through the streets of Caracas, Venezuela, pounding the windows with fists and rocking the car in an attempt to overturn it. Nixon's Secret Service detail drew their weapons; Nixon ordered them to hold fire. The attack lasted twelve minutes and was later described as "the most violent attack ever perpetrated on a high American official while on foreign soil." Nixon's personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, was cut by flying glass in a following car…

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More from May 13
1846

Congress declares war on Mexico; Polk tells the nation its blood was shed on its own soil

The vote formalizes three weeks of open conflict rooted in a disputed border, the annexation of Texas, and a decade of unresolved claims between two nations.
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19431776 Club
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More from Cold War America
1972

Nixon tells Haldeman to use the CIA to block the FBI's Watergate inquiry

Six days after the break-in at Democratic headquarters, the Oval Office recording system captures the President invoking national security to shut down investigators.
1948

Stalin seals Berlin; two million people are cut off from the West

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