In the predominantly Black Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles,
racial tension reached a breaking point after two white policemen
scuffle with a Black motorist suspected of drunken driving.

On August 11, 1973, the nostalgic teenage coming-of-age
movie American Graffiti, directed and co-written by George
Lucas (above), opened in theaters across the United States.

Set in California in the summer of 1962, American Graffiti
was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best
Director and Best Picture, and helped launch the big-screen
careers of Richard Dreyfuss and Harrison Ford, as well as
the former child actor and future Oscar-winning filmmaker
Ron Howard.

The film’s success enabled Lucas to get his next movie
made, the mega-hit Star Wars (1977).

Ken Noble stars in this 1985 television commercial for the Columbia School Of Broadcasting.

On August 10, 1977, police arrested 24-year-old postal employee
David Berkowitz and charged him with being the “Son of Sam,”
the serial killer who terrorized New York City for more than a y
ear, killing six young people and wounding seven others with
a .44-caliber revolver.

Because Berkowitz generally targeted attractive young women
with long brown hair, hundreds of young women had their hair
cut short and dyed blonde during the time he terrorized the city. Thousands more simply stayed home at night.

After his arrest, Berkowitz claimed that demons and a black
Labrador retriever owned by a neighbor named Sam had
ordered him to commit the killings.

David Richard Berkowitz is 73.