United Flight 173 was a scheduled flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City to Portland International
Airport in Oregon. The jet ran out of fuel while troubleshooting
a landing gear problem and crashed in a suburban neighborhood
east of the city at 157th and Burnside. Ten passengers were killed
and 175 survived.
The crash site as it looks today.
On this day in 1997, U.S. Air Force officials release a 231-page report
dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell,
New Mexico, almost exactly 50 years earlier.
Public interest in Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, began to flourish
in the 1940s, when developments in space travel and the dawn of the
atomic age caused many Americans to turn their attention to the skies.
The town of Roswell, located near the Pecos River in southeastern New
Mexico, became a magnet for UFO believers due to the strange events of
early July 1947, when ranch foreman W.W. Brazel found a strange, shiny
material scattered over some of his land. He turned the material over to
the sheriff, who passed it on to authorities at the nearby Air Force base.
On July 8, Air Force officials announced they had recovered the wreckage
of a “flying disk.” A local newspaper put the story on its front page,
launching Roswell into the spotlight of the public’s UFO fascination.
CARLATA BRADLEY
On this day in 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured U.S.
U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers (left) for the Soviet spy Rudolph
Ivanovich Abel (right) being held by the United States.
The Glienicke bridge just after the Powers swap.
The 9/11 memorial and ground zero today.
Camille Bohannon
It began on this day in 1965.
President Ronald Reagan’s bombing Russia joke during a voice
test for a political advertisement causes a Cold War flap on this
day in 1984.
On this day in 1992, in Bloomington, MN, the Mall of America
opened. It was the largest shopping mall in the United States.
Haley’s photo from his Service Record.
Alexander Murray Palmer "Alex" Haley
(August 11, 1921 – February 10, 1992)
Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956)
Jackson Pollock was one of the greatest artists of his generation, well known
for his innovative style of drip painting (shown below). He died at the age of
44 after driving drunk and crashing into a tree in New York.
