TIM MAGUIRE

On this day in 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer,
sighted Watling Island in the Bahamas. He believed that he had
found Asia while attempting to find a Western ocean route to
India. The same day he claimed the land for Isabella and
Ferdinand of Spain.

Explorer Christopher Columbus. 

The USS Cole bombing was an attack against the United States Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Cole on 12 October 2000, while it was being refueled in Yemen’s Aden harbor. 17 American sailors were
killed and 39 injured in the deadliest attack against a United States
naval vessel since 1987.

Casualties of the USS Cole being Returned To The United States.

On this day in 1960, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev was reported
to have pounded a shoe on his desk during a dispute at a U.N.
General Assembly.

SANDY KOZEL

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.

TIM MAGUIRE

On this day in 1963, U.S.President John Kennedy announced "Ich bin
ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner) at the Berlin Wall.

An estimated 250,000 people crammed a large Berlin square to hear President Kennedy speak at the 1963 rally.  

On this day in 1945, the U.N. Charter was signed by 50 nations in San Francisco, CA.

The Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics Corp. jointly
announced that they had created a working draft of the human
genome.

The first section of the boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ, was opened
to the public on this day in 1870.

Charlie Chaplin’s comedy "The Gold Rush" premiered in Hollywood
on this day in 1925.

JOHN BLEMONT

On this day in 1963, President Johnson (below) named a commission
headed by Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy.

In this 1964 file photo, the bipartisan presidential commission to
investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy sits
for an official picture, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars office on
Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP)

President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The U.N. General Assembly on this day in 1947,  passed a resolution
that called for the division of Palestine between Arabs and Jews.

The first airplane flight over the South Pole was made by U.S. Navy
Lt. Comdr. Richard E. Byrd on this day in 1929.

A Ford Trimotor aircraft, the Floyd Bennett (S/N NX4542), was 
selected for the epic polar air journey. 

On this day in 1981.

On this day in 1986.

On this day in 2001.

TIM MAGUIRE

UN War Crimes panel tries Slobodan Melosevic for genocide in
Bosnia.

He suffered disfigurement as a result of the poisoning, but he has
since made made a full physical recovery (below).
 

The first edition of "Life" magazine was hit the newsstands on
this day in 1936. The cover depicted the Fort Peck Dam in
Montana.

Henry Robinson Luce (April 3, 1898 – February 28, 1967)

Luce was a  magazine magnate who was called “the most
influential private citizen in America of his day".

On this day in 1903, Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso made
his U.S. debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in "Rigoletto."  He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses
of Europe and America, appearing in a wide variety of roles from
the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to
the dramatic.         
     

Enrico Caruso (February 25, 1873 – August 2, 1921)