Nancy Kerrigan cries in pain after the attack.

Former figure skater Nancy Kerrigan (above) was clubber on her right leg
by an assailant on this day in 1994. The attacker was hired by the ex-
husband of her rival Tonya Harding.  Four men were later sentenced to
prison for the attack, including Harding’s ex-husband.

Nancy Kerrigan turned 50 last October.

Tonya Maxene Price (née Harding) became 49 in
November.

Construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge, as workers began excavating
3.25 million cubic feet of dirt for the structure’s huge anchorages.

Following the Gold Rush boom that began in 1849, speculators realized the
land north of San Francisco Bay would increase in value in direct proportion
to its accessibility to the city. Soon, a plan was hatched to build a bridge that
would span the Golden Gate, a narrow, 400-foot deep strait that serves as the mouth of the San Francisco Bay, connecting the San Francisco Peninsula with
the southern end of Marin County.

Although the idea went back as far as 1869, the proposal took root in 1916. A
former engineering student, James Wilkins, working as a journalist with the
San Francisco Bulletin, called for a suspension bridge with a center span of
3,000 feet, nearly twice the length of any in existence. Wilkins’ idea was
estimated to cost an astounding $100 million. So, San Francisco’s city
engineer, Michael M. O’Shaughnessy (he’s also credited with coming up
with the name Golden Gate Bridge), began asking bridge engineers whether
they could do it for less.

Engineer and poet Joseph Strauss, a 5-foot tall Cincinnati-born Chicagoan,
said he could.

Eventually, O’Shaughnessy and Strauss concluded they could build a pure suspension bridge within a practical range of $25-30 million with a main span
at least 4,000 feet. The construction plan still faced opposition, including
litigation, from many sources. By the time most of the obstacles were cleared,
the Great Depression of 1929 had begun, limiting financing options, so officials convinced voters to support $35 million in bonded indebtedness, citing the
jobs that would be created for the project. However, the bonds couldn’t be
sold until 1932, when San-Francisco based Bank of America agreed to buy
the entire project in order to help the local economy.

(FoxNews) – Sean Kiernan may get as much as $4 million for a piece of 
Hollywood history that his father, Bob, acquired for just $3,500 and
refused to sell to Steve McQueen, the actor who drove it in the 1968
action film "Bullitt."

When the classic-car insurer Hagerty sent car expert Kevin Marti to
authenticate the vehicle, he couldn’t believe his eyes, according to a 
New York Times report: “Ninety-eight percent of the original car is
there,” Marti told Hagerty. “It’s an incredible artifact.”

Since ‘Bullitt’s’ release, the 1968 Highland Green Mustang has become
one of the best-known vehicles shown on the big screen. McQueen
himself even tracked down Bob Kiernan in 1977 and wrote him a letter
asking to buy the muscle car back, according to the Times.

“I would like very much to keep it in the family, in its original condition
as it was used in the film, rather than have it restored, which is simply
personal with me," McQueen wrote in the missive detailed by the Times
which reported that Bob Kiernan never wrote McQueen back.

Sean Kiernan of Nashville stands next to the Ford Mustang GT 390
driven by Steve McQueen in the cult classic film "Bullitt."

Steve McQueen, starring in the title role of "Bullitt," steps out of his
car after a pursuit through the hilly streets of San Francisco.

On January 4, 1965, in his State of the Union address, President Lyndon
Baines Johnson lays out for Congress a laundry list of legislation needed
to achieve his plan for a Great Society. On the heels of John F. Kennedy’s
tragic death, Americans had elected Johnson, his vice president, to the
presidency by the largest popular vote in the nation’s history. Johnson
used this mandate to push for improvements he believed would better
Americans’ quality of life.

Following Johnson’s lead, Congress enacted sweeping legislation in the
areas of civil rights, health care, education and the environment. The 1965
State of the Union address heralded the creation of Medicare/Medicaid,
Head Start, the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Department of
Housing and Urban Development and the White House Conference on
Natural Beauty. Johnson also signed the National Foundation of the Arts
and Humanities Act, out of which emerged the National Endowment for
the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.