During the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich, in the early
morning of September 5, a group of Palestinian terrorists
stormed the Olympic Village apartment of the Israeli athletes,
killing two and taking nine others hostage.

The terrorists were part of a group known as Black September,
in return for the release of the hostages, they demanded that
Israel release over 230 Arab prisoners being held in Israeli jails
and two German terrorists.

The 2005 Stephen Spielberg movie Munich was based
on these events.

       
CANILLE BOHANNON

On April 24, 1980, an ill-fated military operation to rescue
the 52 American hostages held in Tehran ended with eight
U.S. servicemen dead and no hostages rescued.

With the Iran Hostage Crisis stretching into its sixth month
and all diplomatic appeals to the Iranian government ending
in failure, President Jimmy Carter ordered the military mission
as a last ditch attempt to save the hostages.

The next day, a somber Jimmy Carter gave a press conference
in which he took full responsibility for the tragedy. The hostages
were not released for another 270 days.

President Carter flew to West Germany to greet the Americans
on their way home.

On January 23, 1968, the USS Pueblo, a Navy intelligence vessel,
was  engaged in a routine surveillance of the North Korean coast
when it is intercepted by North Korean patrol boats. According to
U.S. reports, the Pueblo was in international waters almost 16
miles from shore, but the North Koreans turned their guns on
the lightly armed vessel and demanded its surrender.

The Pueblo was boarded and taken to Wonson. There, the 83-man
crew was bound and blindfolded and transported to Pyongyang,
where they were charged with spying within North Korea’s 12-
mile territorial limit and imprisoned. It was the biggest crisis in
two years of increased tension and minor skirmishes between
the United States and North Korea.

The crew of USS Pueblo at a press conference in North
Korea in 1968. (Korea News Service via AP Images)

TIM MAGUIRE