MIKE GRACIA

During World War II on this day in 1944, the Battle of the Bulge began in
Belgium. It was the final major German counteroffensive in the war.

The Germans achieved a total surprise attack due to a combination of
Allied overconfidence, preoccupation with Allied offensive plans, and
poor aerial reconnaissance due to bad weather. American forces bore
the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties of any
operation during the war. The battle also severely depleted Germany’s
armored forces, and they were largely unable to replace them.

The "Bulge" was the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the
United States in World War II and the third deadliest campaign in
American history.

The Van Nuys Civic Center postal depot will be renamed the Marilyn
Monroe  Post Office.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed resolutions
renaming two post offices in the Los Angeles area in honor of Marilyn
Monroe (shown above) and rock ‘n’ roll legend Ritchie Valens located
in Pacoima..

The Los Angeles Daily News reported Thursday that the Van Nuys Civic
Center postal depot will be renamed the Marilyn Monroe Post Office.

Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jeane Mortenson)
(June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962⁾

Ritchie Valens (Richard Steven Valenzuela)
(May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959)

JOHN BELMONT

In Oslo, Norway, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel
Peace Prize on this day in 1964. He was the youngest person
to receive the award.

DIANE KEPLY

On this day in 1991, Associated Press correspondent Terry
Anderson (center) was released after nearly seven years of
captivity in Lebanon.

Terry A. Anderson turned 72 in October.

A security guard and an unidentified man check out an area where
several people were killed as they were caught in a surging crowd. 

The general-admission ticketing policy for rock concerts at Cincinnati’s
Riverfront Coliseum in the 1970s was known as “festival seating.” That
term and that ticketing policy would become infamous in the wake of one
of the deadliest rock-concert incidents in history. Eleven people, including
three high-school students, were killed on December 3, 1979, when a crowd
of general-admission ticket-holders to a Cincinnati Who concert surged
forward in an attempt to enter Riverfront Coliseum and secure prime
unreserved seats inside.

Festival seating had already been eliminated at many similar venues in the
United States by 1979, yet the system remained in place at Riverfront
Coliseum despite a dangerous incident at a Led Zeppelin show two years
earlier. That day, 60 would-be concertgoers were arrested, and dozens
more injured, when the crowd outside the venue surged up against the
Coliseum’s locked glass doors.

Cincinnati police officers help people crushed during a stampede at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati.