The State Police assault which ended a four-day prison riot at Attica Correctional
Facility in Attica, New York has been called the bloodiest one-day encounter in
this country since the Civil War. The riot began on September 9, 1971 when
prisoners responded to the death of a black radical activist inmate at San
Quentin Prison in California on August 21. About half of Attica’s inmate
population of 2,200 rebelled and seized control of the facility, taking 33 staff
members hostage and demanded better living conditions. Some agreements  
were reached during the four days of negotiations. On orders from then New  
York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, state police regained control of the prison 
on the 13th of September. When it was over, at least 39 people were dead,
including ten correctional officers and civilian employees.

Damage to the Pentagon from the crash of American Airlines Flight 77

Humorist Will Rogers, left, and famed aviator Wiley Post, at the Renton
airport before their fatal Alaska trip.    

The crash site

As the result of a buildup of previous racial tension due to a combination
of events, a large-scale riot which lasted 6 days occurred on August 11,
1965 in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. By the time
the riot subsided, 34 people had been killed, 1,032 injured, and 3,438
arrested. Overall, an estimated $40 million in damage was caused as
almost 1,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. It would stand as
the most severe riot in Los Angeles history until the Los Angeles riots
of 1992.

Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Super fortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of pilot Paul Tibbets  (shown below). On 6 August 1945 Tibbets and his flight
crew dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, thus leading to the end of the war.

Tibbets was just 29 years old at the time. The Enola Gay became the first aircraft to
drop an atomic bomb as a weapon of war. The plane, now housed at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, has been restored, and Tibbets attended
the unveiling in 2003. 

                                     
                                   Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets

              (born February 23, 1915 – died November 1, 2007)

 Enola Gay on display in the Steven F. Udar-Hazy Center at the Smithsonian Museum