Actor Robert Mitchum, center right, and actress Lila Leeds, left, are sentenced to 60 days in jail on charges of conspiracy to possess marijuana cigarettes in Los Angeles, February 9, 1949.

Actor Robert Mitchum was released from a Los Angeles County prison farm
after spending the final week of his two-month sentence for marijuana
possession there.

In the fall of 1948, Mitchum, the star of classics such as Cape Fear and Night
of the Hunter, was smoking a joint at a small party in the Laurel Canyon area
of Los Angeles when detectives burst in and arrested him. Mitchum reportedly
said at the time, “Well, this is the bitter end of everything—my career, my
marriage, everything.” In fact, it wasn’t really that bad. Mitchum was separated 
from his wife Dorothy at the time, but the two reconciled when she returned to
support him through the scandal and the public didn’t mind much either;
 Rachel and the Stranger, the first movie released after his troubles,
was a box-office hit.

1948

Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997)

A lifelong heavy smoker, Mitchum died on July 1, 1997, in Santa Barbara,
California, due to complications of lung cancer and emphysema. He was
about five weeks shy of his 80th birthday.

SANDY KOZEL

During the bloody Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment of the 5th Division take the crest of
Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak and most strategic position, and
raise the U.S. flag. Marine photographer Louis Lowery was with them and
recorded the event.

Louis R. "Lou" Lowery (July 24, 1916 – April 15, 1987)

CARLATA BRADLEY

 
On this day in 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers (seated) for the Soviet KGB spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abel (right) being held by the U.S. 

Francis Gary Powers and a U2 recon aircraft .

The Glienicke bridge just after the Powers swap.

TIM MAGUIRE

On February 7, 1964, Pan Am Yankee Clipper flight 101 from London
Heathrow landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport—and “Beatlemania”
arrives. It was the first visit to the United States by the Beatles, a
British rock-and-roll quartet that had just scored its first No. 1 U.S.
hit six days before with “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” At Kennedy,
the “Fab Four”—dressed in mod suits and sporting their trademark
pudding bowl haircuts—were greeted by 3,000 screaming fans who
caused a near riot when the boys stepped off their plane and onto
American soil.

Country/Pop singer Troyal Garth Brooks is 58 years old today.