Government offices will be closed on Monday, Jan. 20,
in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The federal holiday is designated as a national day of
service to encourage all Americans to volunteer and
improve their communities, according to the National
Museum of African American History and Culture.

President Ronald Reagan signed the King Holiday Bill
into law on Nov. 2, 1983, thus designating the third
Monday in January a federal holiday in observance of
civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, according
to the museum.

The U.S. Postal Service, banks and stock markets will
also be closed on Jan. 20, however most restaurants,
grocery stores and retail stores will remain open.

President Ronald Reagan signing the MLK Holiday
Bill 1983.

Martin Luther King Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

On January 17, 1950, 11 men stole more than $2 million
($29 million today) from the Brink’s Armored Car depot
in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the perfect crime—
almost—as the culprits weren’t caught until January
1956, just days before the statute of limitations for the
theft expired.

The robbery’s mastermind was Anthony “Fats” Pino, a
career criminal who recruited a group of 10 other men
to stake out the depot for 18 months to figure out when
it held the most money.

Pino’s men then managed to steal plans for the depot’s
alarm system, returning them before anyone noticed they
were gone. Only $58,000 of the stolen funds has ever
been recovered. 

John Norris & 1950 Brinks Robbery Evidence.

Anthony “Fats” Pino (in cuffs).

Present-day North Terminal Garage in Boston, site of the
Great Brink’s Robbery.

ED DANAHUE

The final flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia took
place from January 16, 2003 to February 1, 2003.

The mission ended in disaster when the shuttle
broke apart during reentry, killing all seven crew
members.

The space shuttle Columbia lifting off on its final flight.

On January 16, 1942, the actress Carole Lombard, famous for her
roles in such screwball comedies as My Man Godfrey and To Be
or Not to Be, and for her marriage to the actor Clark Gable, was
killed when the TWA DC-3 plane she is traveling in crashed en - 
route from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. She was only 33.

Doug Scroggins of Las Vegas spent years documenting the crash
site on Mount Potosi which is 35 miles southwest of Las Vegas.

Scroggins said "Flight 3 crashed near the 8,300-foot level of Mount Potosi with flaps retracted, and the plane in level flight. Something happened inside that cockpit and happened so fast that the pilot
could not react.”

Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.

1939

A TWA DC-3, similar to the accident aircraft.

On January 15, 2009, a potential disaster turned into a heroic
display of skill and composure when Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III safely lands the plane he was piloting on New
York City’s Hudson River after a bird strike caused its engines
to fail. David Paterson, governor of New York at the time,
dubbed the incident the “miracle on the Hudson.”

Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III will turn 74 on
January 23.