Shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator
Edward “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts drove an Oldsmobile
off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond. Kennedy escaped
the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo
Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car
accident for 10 hours.

January 10, 1969

Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) succumbed to illness exacerbated by alcoholism and passed away at age 48.

McCarthy had been a key figure in the anticommunist hysteria
popularly known as the “Red Scare” that engulfed the United
States in the years following World War II.

McCarthy was born in a small town in Wisconsin in 1908. In
1942, he joined the Marines and served in the Pacific during
World War II. He returned home in 1944 and decided to start
a career in politics.

Albert Bacon Fall (November 26, 1861 – November 30, 1944)

During the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s, Albert B. Fall,
who served as secretary of the interior in President Warren G.
Harding’s cabinet, was found guilty of accepting a bribe while
in office.

Fall was the first individual to be convicted of a crime committed
while a presidential cabinet member.

Senate committee investigating the Teapot Dome oil leases, 1924.

Warren Gamaliel Harding
(November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923)

Orrin Grant Hatch (March 22, 1934 – April 23, 2022)

Orrin Hatch, the longtime Republican senator from Utah, died
Saturday in Salt Lake City at the age of 88.

Hatch, who retired in January 2019 at the end of his last term,
served in the Senate for 42 years, making him the longest-
serving Republican U.S. senator.

His foundation said he died surrounded by family. The cause
of death was not released.

Harry Mason Reid (December 2, 1939 – December 28, 2021)

Reid, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2018, served
in Congress from 1983 until his retirement in 2017. He announced
in 2019 his cancer was in remission.