CARLATA BRADLEY

On this day in 1986, the Ash-Shiraa, pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine,
first broke the story of U.S. arms sales to Iran to secure the release
of seven American hostages. The story turned into the Iran-Contra
affair.

Reagan meets with aides on the Iran-Contra affair.

President Ronald Reagan holds up a copy of the Tower Commission report on the Iran-Contra affair.

One of the 52 United States hostages is displayed to the crowd
outside the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by his captors, a few days
into their ordeal.

On this day in 1992, Carol Moseley-Braun became the first African-American woman U.S. senator.

Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun turned 71 August 16.

MIKE GRACIA

On this day in 1948, Harry S. Truman defeated Thomas E. Dewey for
the U.S. presidency. The Chicago Tribune published an early edition
that had the headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN." The Truman
victory surprised many polls and newspapers.

On this day in 1945, Howard Hughes flew his "Spruce Goose," a huge wooden airplane, for eight minutes in California. It was the plane’s
first and only flight and never went into production.

Take-off: Howard Hughes’ H-4, the "Spruce Goose." 

Hughes watches engineer Chal Bowen, October 31, 1947, two days before the flight as the radio operator looks on. Thirty-six people
were on board for the test flight.

Flight-deck seats, put in for military observers, seven guests from
the press corps and an additional seven industry representatives. 

On this day in 1959, Charles Van Doren, a game show contestant
on the NBC-TV program "Twenty-One" admitted that he had been
given questions and answers in advance.

Van Doren (at left) faces Herb Stempel (far right) on “Twenty-One,”
in 1956, under the eye of the show’s host, Jack Barry. Some fifty
million people watched the climax of their rivalry.

Charles Lincoln Van Doren turned 92 in February.

The British Parliament enacted The Stamp Act in the American
colonies on this day in 1765. The act was repealed in March of
1766 on the same day that the Parliament passed the Declaratory
Acts which asserted that the British government had free and
total legislative power of the colonies.

On this day in 1952, the United States exploded the first hydrogen
bomb on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands.