On this day in 1960, U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts announced his candidacy for theDemocratic presidential nomination.
On this day in 1935, Bruno Richard Hauptmann went on trial for the kidnap-murder of Charles Lindberghs baby (below). Hauptmann was found guilt and executed.
Aviator Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974)
On this day in 1991, Islamic militants in Lebanon release kidnapped AP Middle East correspondent Terry Anderson after 2,454 days in captivity. In 2004, he ran unsuccessfully for the Ohio State Senate.
Terry A. Anderson turned 71 in October.
On this day in 1992, President George H. Bush orders 28,000 U.S. troops to Somalia, a war-torn East African nation where rival warlords were preventing the distribution of humanitarian aid to thousands of starving Somalis. In a military mission he described as “God’s work,” Bush said that America must act to save more than a million Somali lives, but reassured Americans that “this operation is not open-ended” and that “we will not stay one day longer than is absolutely necessary.” Unfortunately, America’s humanitarian troops became embroiled in Somalia’s political conflict, and the controversial mission stretched on for 15 months before being abruptly called off by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
In this Jan. 1, 1993, file photo, U.S. President George H.W. Bush holds a camera, which he borrowed from the Marine to snap the picture,for a self-portrait with Marines at the airport in Baidoa, Somalia.
In October of 1993, President Bill Clinton addressed the nation from the Oval Office concerning the events in Somalia. He outlined a plan for completing the operation.
On this day in 1777, the Battle of Saratoga was won by American soldiers during the Revolutionary War.
It was on this day in 1881. A picture from the Police Gazette, showing a dying President Garfield being comforted by his wife.
A 1954 Topps trading card depicting Garfield’s assassination by Charles Guiteau. He was assassinated after only a few months in office as the 20th president of the United States.
James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881)
The Fugitive Slave Act was declared by the U.S. Congress on this day in 1850. The act allowed slave owners to claim slaves that had escaped into other states.
September 18, 1975, after crisscrossing the country with her captors– or conspirators–for more than a year, Patty Hearst, or “Tania,” as she called herself, was captured in a San Francisco apartment and arrested for armed robbery. Despite her later claim that she had been brainwashed by the SLA, she was convicted on March 20, 1976, and sentenced to seven years in prison. Her prison sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter and she was released in February 1979. She later married her bodyguard. In 2001, she received a full pardon from President Bill Clinton.
Patty Hearst poses with a Symbionese Liberation Army poster.
On this day in 2001, Letters postmarked in Trenton, N.J., and later tested positive for anthrax, were sent to the New York Post and NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw.
The Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin Blockade on this day in 1949.
It was on this day in 1932 that baby Lindbergh (below) was found more than two months after he was kidnapped from his family’s Hopewell, New Jersey mansion.
Burt Bacharach is a composer, songwriter, record producer, pianist, and singer who has composed hundreds of popular hit songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with popular lyricist Hal David. A six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Academy Award winner, Bacharach’s songs have been recorded by more than 1,000 different artists. As of 2014, he had written 73 US and 52 UK Top 40 hits and is considered one of the most important composers of 20th-century popular music.