MIKE GRACIA

ROSS SIMPSON

On this day in 1968, U.S.troops in Vietnam destroyed a village
consisting mostly of women and children. The event is known
as the My-Lai massacre.

Over 500 babies, children, women and men were slaughtered by American
soldiers. Many Vietnamese women and girls had been raped. Huts were
burned, livestock was killed, food supplies destroyed.

Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only one
Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was
convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given
a life sentence, but served only three and a half years under house
arrest.

William Laws Calley Jr. will be 76 on June 8.

This U.S. Army photo shows the aftermath of the Mỹ Lai Massacre 
with mostly women and children lying dead on a road.

The My Lai Massacre memorial site.

The Apr. 12, 1971, cover of TIME.

ROSS SIMPSON

On this day in 2004, 10 bombs exploded in quick succession across
the commuter rail network in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 people and
injured about 2,000 in an attack linked to al-Qaida-inspired militants.

SANDY KOZEL

On this day in 1965, the United States landed about 3,500 Marines in South Vietnam to defend the U.S. air base at Da Nag. They were the
first American combat troops to land in Vietnam. They joined 23,000 American military advisors already in Vietnam.

As American troops fight their first large scale battles against the
North Vietnamese Army, college students march against the war
in Boston, October 16, 1965.

Joseph Paul DiMaggio (November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999)

Joe DiMaggio was a baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year
career in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees. He is widely
considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time, and is perhaps
best known for his 56-game hitting streak (May 15 – July 16, 1941), a record
that still stands. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955 and
was voted the sport’s greatest living player in a poll taken during the
baseball centennial year of 1969.

DiMaggio, a heavy smoker for much of his adult life, was admitted to
Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, on October 12, 1998,
for lung cancer surgery and remained there for 99 days. He returned to
his home in Hollywood, Florida, on January 19, 1999; he died there at
age 84 on March 8.

DiMaggio’s grave at the Holy Cross Cemetery, Colma, CA.

   
    
    
    
  
MIKE  GRACIA

The 13-day siege of the Alamo by Santa Anna and his army ended 
on this day in 1836. The Mexican army of about four thousand men 
under President General Santa Anna defeated 189 Texas volunteers fighting for independence from Mexico.

Rob Reiner (Robert Norman Reiner) is 72 years-old today.

Actor and director Rob Reiner is known especially for his role as
Michael (“Meathead”) Stivic in the CBS television series All in the
Family (1971–79) and for his direction of such culturally resonant
films as This Is Spinal Tap (1984), The Princess Bride (1987), When
Harry Met Sally… (1989), and A Few Good Men (1992).