TIM MAGUIRE

Comedy legend Mel Brooks (Melvyn Kaminsky) is 94 years old
today. He became one of the most successful film directors of 
the 1970s.

1974

CARLATA BRADLEY

 
On this day in 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers (seated) for the Soviet KGB spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abel (right) being held by the U.S. 

Francis Gary Powers and a U2 recon aircraft .

The Glienicke bridge just after the Powers swap.

SANDY KOZEL

Analysts have argued the election of 1968 was a major realigning election
as it permanently disrupted the New Deal Coalition that had dominated
presidential politics for 36 years.

TIM MAGUIRE

On this day in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the
Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo along with his
wife, Duchess Sophie. With tensions already running high among Europe’s
powers, the assassination precipitated a rapid descent into World War I.

Franz Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, and his wife Sophie riding
in an open carriage at Sarajevo shortly before their assassination.

The assassin was Gavrilo Princip, a 19-
year-old peasant.

CARLATA BRADLEY

The Soviet Union began the Berlin Blockade on this day in 1948. It
was one of the first major international crises of the Cold  War. The
Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies’ railway, road, and canal
access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. (Wikipedia)