MIKE GRACIA

Martin Luther King Jr. led a group of 25,000 to the state capital in Montgomery, AL. on this day in 1965.

King delivering a speech on the steps of the State Capitol.

In New York City on this day in 1911, 146 women were killed in fire
at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City. The owners
of the company were indicted on manslaughter charges because
some of the employees had been behind locked doors in the
factory. The owners were later acquitted and in 1914 they were
ordered to pay damages to each of the twenty-three families that
had sued.

On this day in 1997, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush’s 85th
birthday was celebrated by a skydiving adventure at 9500 feet over 
Yuma, Arizona.

Aretha Franklin,1960

Aretha Franklin in April 2016.

Singer Aretha Louise Franklin is 76 years young today.

In 2017, Franklin canceled a series of concerts due to health reasons. During
an outdoors Detroit show, Franklin told the audience to "keep me in your
prayers". In July 2017, Franklin reemerged, appearing to lose more weight
before a performance at the Wolf Trap in Virginia.

Sir Elton Hercules John (Reginald Kenneth Dwight) is 71 today.

Rock and roll legend Elton John has sold over 250 million albums in a
career that’s spanned over 50 years. He is best known for such hit songs
as "Rocket Man," "Tiny Dancer," "Bennie and the Jets" and "Candle in
the Wind." He began playing the piano at age three and won a junior
scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music.

BRIAN THOMAS

During World War II on this day in 1945, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet
leader Josef Stalin began a conference at Yalta to outline plans
for Germany’s defeat.

On this day in 1997, a civil jury in California found O.J. Simpson liable 
in the death of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Goldman’s parents were awarded $8.5 million in compensatory
damages.

Ron Goldman’s father Fred, sister Kim, and stepmother Patty are pictured during OJ’s trial.

Patricia (Patty) Hearst was kidnapped in Berkeley, CA, by the Symbionese Liberation Army on this day in 1974.

Patty Hearst (right) and Donald DeFreeze rob a San Francisco bank
on April 15, 1974.

On December 11, 2003, the Massachusetts Senate put forward legislative
language creating civil unions for same-sex couples to the SJC, asking if
it satisfied the court’s requirements. On February 4, 2004, the court replied
that it was unacceptable to allow different-sex couples marriages but same-
sex couples only civil unions, that the distinction between marriage and civil
unions constituted unconstitutional discrimination, even if the rights and obligations attached to each were identical. It called the difference between
the terms marriage and civil union "a considered choice of language that
reflects a demonstrable assigning of same-sex, largely homosexual, couples
to second-class status."

On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage.

A 7.4 earthquake in Guatemala and Honduras on this day in 1976 
killed more than 22,000 people.

Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974)

The Congressional Gold Medal presented August 15, 1930, to Charles Lindbergh by President Herbert Hoover.

TIM MAGUIRE

During the French Revolution on this day in 1793, King Louis XVI
was executed on the guillotine. He had been condemned for
treason.

Soviet leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died on this day in 1924. Joseph
Stalin began a purge of his rivals for the leadership of the Soviet
Union.

        On this day in 1950.

President Jimmy Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft
evaders on this day on 1977.

The French Concorde SST aircraft began regular commercial service
for Air France and British Airways on this day in 1976.

On this day in 1942, Count Basie and His Orchestra recorded "One O’Clock Jump."

William James "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984)

A McDonnell Douglas DC-8 similar to the aircraft that crashed.

United Airlines Flight 173 was a flight from John F. Kennedy International
Airport in New York City, New York to Portland International Airport in
Portland, Oregon, with a scheduled stop in Denver, Colorado. While the
aircraft was approaching Portland it ran out of fuel and crashed in a
suburban Portland neighborhood near NE 158th Avenue and East
Burnside Street.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the following probable cause: “The failure of the captain (Malburn McBroom) to monitor
properly the aircraft’s fuel state and the crewmember’s advisories regarding
the fuel state. This resulted in fuel exhaustion to all engines. The pilots
inattention resulted from preoccupation with a landing gear malfunction 
and the preparations for a possible landing emergency”.   

The crash site as it looks today.

ROSS SIMPSON

On this day in 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the wartime relocation of Japanese-Americans, but also stated that undeniably
loyal Americans of Japanese ancestry could not be detained.

The United States began the heaviest bombing of North Vietnam
during the Vietnam War on this day in 1972. The attack ended 12
days later.

On this day in 1892, Tchaikovsky’s "The Nutcracker" publicly
premiered in St. Petersburg, Russia.

“Snow Flakes” from the 1892 production of “The Nutcracker.”

Steven Allan Spielberg is 71 years old today. He was
born in Cincinnati, OH.

Celebrated director Steven Spielberg achieved box office 
records with the blockbuster films Jaws (1975) E.T. (1982)
and Jurassic Park (1993). He received the Academy Award
for Best Director for the films Schindler’s List (1993) and 
Saving Private Ryan (1998). He also directed the action/
adventure classic trilogy Indiana Jones, starring Harrison
Ford, in the ’80s.