Jack the Ripper claims first victim (1888) & Richard Ramirez "The Night Stalker" is captured (1985)

On this date in 1888, prostitute Mary Ann Nichols, the first victim of London serial killer "Jack the Ripper," is found murdered and mutilated in Whitechapel's Buck's Row.

 

The East End of London saw four more victims of the murderer during the next few months, but no suspect was ever found. In Victorian England, London's East End was a teeming slum occupied by nearly a million of the city's poorest citizens. Many women were forced to resort to prostitution, and in 1888 there were estimated to be more than 1,000 prostitutes in Whitechapel. That summer, a serial killer began targeting these downtrodden women. On September 8, the killer claimed his second victim, Annie Chapman, and on September 30 two more prostitutes--Liz Stride and Kate Eddowes were murdered and carved up on the same night. By then, London's police had determined the pattern of the killings. The murderer, offering to pay for sex, would lure his victims onto a secluded street or square and then slice their throats. As the women rapidly bled to death, he would then brutally mutilate them with the same six-inch knife. The police, who lacked modern forensic techniques such as fingerprinting and blood typing, were at a complete loss for suspects. Dozens of letters allegedly written by the murderer were sent to the police, and the vast majority of these were immediately deemed fraudulent. However, two letters--written by the same individual alluded to crime facts known only to the police and the killer. These letters, signed "Jack the Ripper," gave rise to the serial killer's popular nickname. On November 7, after a month of silence, Jack took his fifth and last victim, Irish-born Mary Kelly, an occasional prostitute. Of all his victims' corpses, Kelly's was the most hideously mutilated. In 1892, with no leads found and no more murders recorded, the Jack the Ripper file was closed.

On this date in 1985, Richard Ramirez, the notorious "Night Stalker," is captured and nearly killed by a mob in East Los Angeles, California, after being recognized from a photograph shown both on television and in newspapers.

 

Recently identified as the serial killer, Ramirez was pulled from the enraged mob by police officers. During the summer of 1985, the city of Los Angeles was panic-stricken by a killer who crept into his victims' homes at night. The Night Stalker, as the press dubbed the murderer, first turned his attention on the men in the house, usually shot any men in the house with a .22 caliber handgun before raping, stabbing, and mutilating his female victims. He cut out one of his victim's eyes, and sometimes carved satanic pentagrams on the bodies before he left. By August, the Night Stalker has murdered at least a dozen people, and law enforcement officials were desperate to stop him. One witness, who managed to note the license plate of the car in which Ramirez fled, led police to a single, partial fingerprint left in the vehicle. Apparently, the task force looking for the Night Stalker had already received information that someone named Ramirez was involved, so only the records for men with that name were checked against the fingerprint. Although the Los Angeles Police Department's new multimillion-dollar computer database of fingerprints only contained the records of criminals born after January 1960, Richard Ramirez, who had a record of petty crimes, had been born in February 1960. When Ramirez was identified as the chief suspect, authorities debated whether to release his name and picture to the public, fearing that it might give him the chance to escape. Nonetheless, they decided to take the risk, and Ramirez, who was actually traveling back to Los Angeles at the time, arrived to find his face and name on the front of every newspaper. Ramirez turned his trial into a circus by drawing pentagrams on his palms and making devil's horns with his fingers. When he was convicted, he shouted at the jury, "You make me sick. I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells within all of us." After the judge imposed a death sentence, Ramirez said, "Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland." Ramirez married a female admirer and pen-pal while incarcerated at California's San Quentin Prison in 1996. In 2006, his first appeals were denied.

Attempted Assassination of Vladimir Lenin - 1918

On this date in 1918, after speaking at a factory in Moscow, Vladimir Lenin is shot twice by Fanya Kaplan, a member of the Social Revolutionary party.

 

Lenin was seriously wounded but survived the attack. The assassination attempt set off a wave of reprisals by the Bolsheviks against the Social Revolutionaries and other political opponents. Thousands were executed as Russia fell deeper into civil war. Born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov in 1870, Lenin was drawn to the revolutionary cause after his brother was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate Czar Alexander III. He studied law and took up practice in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), where he associated with revolutionary Marxist circles. In 1895, he helped organize Marxist groups in the capital into the "Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class," which attempted to enlist workers to the Marxist cause. In December 1895, Lenin and the other leaders of the Union were arrested. Lenin was jailed for a year and then exiled to Siberia for a term of three years.

After the end of his exile, in 1900, Lenin went to Western Europe, where he continued his revolutionary activity. It was during this time that he adopted the pseudonym Lenin. In 1902, he published a pamphlet titled What Is to Be Done? which argued that only a disciplined party of professional revolutionaries could bring socialism to Russia. In 1903, he met with other Russian Marxists in London and established the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP). However, from the start there was a split between Lenin's Bolsheviks (Majoritarians), who advocated militarism, and the Mensheviks (Minoritarians), who advocated a democratic movement toward socialism. These two groups increasingly opposed each other within the framework of the RSDWP, and Lenin made the split official at a 1912 conference of the Bolshevik Party. 

After the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1905, Lenin returned to Russia. The revolution, which consisted mainly of strikes throughout the Russian empire, came to an end when Nicholas II promised reforms, including the adoption of a Russian constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature. However, once order was restored, the czar nullified most of these reforms, and in 1907 Lenin was again forced into exile. Lenin opposed World War I, which began in 1914, as an imperialistic conflict and called on proletariat soldiers to turn their guns on the capitalist leaders who sent them down into the murderous trenches. For Russia, World War I was an unprecedented disaster: Russian casualties were greater than those sustained by any nation in any previous war. Meanwhile, the economy was hopelessly disrupted by the costly war effort, and in March 1917 riots and strikes broke out in Petrograd over the scarcity of food. Demoralized army troops joined the strikers, and on March 15 Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, ending centuries of czarist rule. In the aftermath of the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia's use of the Julian calendar), power was shared between the ineffectual Provincial Government and the soviets, or "councils," of soldiers' and workers' committees.  

After the outbreak of the February Revolution, German authorities allowed Lenin and his lieutenants to cross Germany en route from Switzerland to Sweden in a sealed railway car. Berlin hoped (correctly) that the return of the anti-war Socialists to Russia would undermine the Russian war effort, which was continuing under the Provincial Government. Lenin called for the overthrow of the Provincial Government by the soviets, and he was condemned as a "German agent" by the government's leaders. In July, he was forced to flee to Finland, but his call for "peace, land, and bread" met with increasing popular support, and the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd soviet. In October, Lenin secretly returned to Petrograd, and on November 7 the Bolshevik-led Red Guards deposed the Provisional Government and proclaimed soviet rule. Lenin became the virtual dictator of the world's first Marxist state. His government made peace with Germany, nationalized industry, and distributed land but beginning in 1918, had to fight a devastating civil war against czarist forces. In 1920, the czarists were defeated, and in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established. Upon Lenin's death in early 1924, his body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum near the Moscow Kremlin. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor. After a struggle of succession, fellow revolutionary Joseph Stalin succeeded Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union.

Lord Louis Mountbatten is Assassinated - 1979

On this date in 1979, Lord Louis Mountbatten was assassinated when Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorists detonate a 50-pound bomb hidden on his fishing vessel Shadow V.

 

Mountbatten, a war hero, elder statesman, and second cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, was spending the day with his family in Donegal Bay off Ireland's northwest coast when the bomb exploded. Three others were killed in the attack, including Mountbatten's 14-year-old grandson, Nicholas. Later that day, an IRA bombing attack on land killed 18 British paratroopers in County Down, Northern Ireland. The assassination of Mountbatten was the first blow struck against the British royal family by the IRA during its long terrorist campaign to drive the British out of Northern Ireland and unite it with the Republic of Ireland to the south. The attack hardened the hearts of many Brits against the IRA and convinced Margaret Thatcher's government to take a hard-line stance against the terrorist organization.

Louis Mountbatten, the son of Prince Louis of Battenberg and a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, entered the Royal Navy in 1913, when he was in his early teens. He saw service during World War I and at the outbreak of World War II was commander of the 5th destroyer flotilla. His destroyer, the HMS Kelly, was sunk off Crete early in the war. In 1941, he commanded an aircraft carrier, and in 1942 he was named chief of combined operations. From this position, he was appointed supreme Allied commander for Southeast Asia in 1943 and successfully conducted the campaign against Japan that led to the recapture of Burma. 

In 1947, he was appointed the last viceroy of India, and he conducted the negotiations that led to independence for India and Pakistan later that year. He held various high naval posts in the 1950s and served as chief of the United Kingdom Defense Staff and chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. He was the uncle of Philip Mountbatten and introduced Philip to the future Queen Elizabeth. He later encouraged the marriage of the two distant cousins and became godfather and mentor to their first born, Charles, Prince of Wales. Made governor and then lord lieutenant of the Isle of Wight in his retirement, Lord Mountbatten was a respected and beloved member of the royal family. His assassination on August 27, 1979, was perhaps the most shocking of all horrors inflicted by the IRA against the United Kingdom. In addition to his grandson Nicholas, 15-year-old boat hand Paul Maxwell was killed in the attack; the Dowager Lady Brabourne, Nicholas' grandmother, was also fatally injured. Mountbatten's grandson Timothy--Nicholas' twin--was injured; as was his daughter, Lady Brabourne; and the twins' father, Lord Brabourne. Lord Mountbatten was 79. The IRA immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it detonated the bomb by remote control from the coast. It also took responsibility for the same-day bombing attack against British troops in County Down, which claimed 18 lives. 

IRA member Thomas McMahon was later arrested and convicted of preparing and planting the bomb that destroyed Mountbatten's boat. A near-legend in the IRA, he was a leader of the IRA's notorious South Armagh Brigade, which killed more than 100 British soldiers. He was one of the first IRA members to be sent to Libya to train with detonators and timing devices and was an expert in explosives. Authorities believe the Mountbatten assassination was the work of many people, but McMahon was the only individual convicted. Sentenced to life in prison, he was released in 1998 along with other IRA and Unionist terrorists under a controversial provision of the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland's peace deal. McMahon claimed he had turned his back on the IRA and was becoming a carpenter.

Preppy Murder Stuns New York City - 1986

On this date in 1986, 18-year-old Jennifer Levin is found dead in New York City’s Central Park less than two hours after she was seen leaving a bar on the city’s Upper East Side with 19-year-old Robert Chambers.

 

The tall, handsome Chambers was soon arrested and charged with murder. The tabloid media dubbed Chambers, who had attended Manhattan private schools, the “Preppy Killer.” The case shocked the city and raised questions about underage drinking, drug use and casual sex among New York’s privileged youth. In the early hours of August 26, Levin, a graduate of a Manhattan private school, was with friends at Dorrian’s Red Hand, a bar popular with prep-school students, where she encountered Chambers, with whom she was casually acquainted. Chambers, a college dropout, had grown up on Manhattan’s mostly affluent Upper East Side, although his family was not wealthy. A former altar boy, he became involved in drinking and drugs as a teenager—allegedly stealing to pay for his drug habit—and was kicked out of several private schools he attended.

After meeting up at Dorrian’s on August 26, Levin and Chambers left there together around 4:30 a.m. and headed to Central Park. Levin’s lifeless body, badly bruised and partially clothed, was discovered under a tree in the park behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art around 6:15 a.m. by a cyclist. When police arrived, one eyewitness later recalled spotting a man who would fit Chamber’s description standing in the vicinity observing the scene. That afternoon, after speaking with Levin’s friends, police questioned Chambers, who denied any knowledge of the crime and claimed the scratches on his face were from a cat. However, later that day, he made videotaped and written statements to police indicating he might have accidentally killed Levin because she hurt him during rough sex in the park. An autopsy report concluded that Levin died from asphyxia by strangulation. A highly publicized court trial followed, and on March 25, 1988, with the jury at an impasse on its ninth day of deliberations, Chambers withdrew his plea of not guilty and agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison. During his time behind bars, Chambers proved to be a less-than-model prisoner. He committed numerous drug and weapons infractions, and spent nearly five years in solitary confinement. In 2003, after serving his full sentence, Chambers was released. However, in 2008, he was convicted of selling drugs and sentenced to 19 years in prison.

Old West Outlaw Bill Doolin is Killed - 1896

On this date in 1896, outlaw Bill Doolin is killed by a posse at Lawson, Oklahoma.

Born in Arkansas in 1858, William Doolin was never as hardened a criminal as some of his companions. He went west in 1881, finding work in Oklahoma at the big ranch of Oscar D. Halsell. Halsell took a liking to the young Arkansan, taught him to write and do simple arithmetic, and eventually made him an informal foreman on the ranch. Doolin worked for several other ranchers in the next decade and he was widely considered trustworthy and capable. By the 1890s, however, Doolin had become at least a part-time thief. For six years, he participated in a variety of bank and train robberies, sometimes in partnership with the infamous Dalton gang. A careful and methodical man, Doolin planned his robberies well. Though he was shot several times, the wounds were never serious. Success inevitably brought increased pressure from law enforcement. In 1895, Doolin and several of his partners went into hiding in New Mexico. Doolin made several offers to surrender in exchange for a light sentence, but his offers were rejected. In January 1896, the famous lawman Bill Tilghman single-handedly captured Doolin at Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The outlaw, who was at the springs to take in the medicinal waters, was caught by surprise, and Tilghman arrested him peacefully. Jailed at Guthrie, Oklahoma, while awaiting trial, Doolin escaped on July 5, 1896. Doolin managed to elude the pursuing posse for nearly two months. When the posse finally caught up with him at Lawson, Oklahoma, Doolin apparently decided he was not going to be captured alive. Badly outnumbered, Doolin drew his gun. A rain of shotgun and rifle fire instantly killed him. He was 38 years old. Doolin was buried in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

 

Mark David Chapman Sentenced for Murdering John Lennon - 1981

On this date in 1981, Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life for the murder of John Lennon, a founding member of The Beatles, one of the most successful bands in the history of popular music.

 

On December 8, 1980, Chapman shot and killed the 40-year-old singer, songwriter and peace activist, outside Lennon’s New York City apartment building, the Dakota, where he lived with his wife Yoko Ono and their young son Sean. Lennon, who was born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England, shot to fame in the 1960s with The Beatles, whose multiple best-selling albums and hit films, such as A Hard Day’s Night (1964), turned the group into hugely influential global pop icons. After The Beatles broke up in 1970, Lennon embarked on a successful solo music career, writing and performing such songs as “Imagine” and “(Just Like) Starting Over.” He also directed a 1972 documentary film, also titled Imagine, which was a sometimes-surreal glimpse at a day in the life of Lennon and Ono, set to their music. On the day of Lennon’s murder, Chapman, a Beatles fan who was born in 1955, spent the day hanging out near the musician’s apartment on West 72nd Street and Central Park West. Late that afternoon, a photographer captured a shot of Lennon as he stopped to autograph his Double Fantasy album for Chapman before walking with Yoko Ono toward a limousine waiting to take them to a recording session. Later that night, shortly before 11 p.m., the couple returned to the Dakota, where a waiting Chapman shot Lennon four times as the musician walked toward his building. Chapman stayed at the scene, reading The Catcher in the Rye, a book he was obsessed with, until the police arrived and took him into custody. Lennon was pronounced dead at Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hospital around 11:15 p.m. Chapman initially entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity; however, he later decided to drop the insanity defense and plead guilty to second-degree murder. At his sentencing hearing on August 24, 1981, Chapman read from The Catcher in the Rye. Chapman’s requests for parole have all been denied and he continues to serve time at New York’s Attica State Prison.

Gunslinger John Wesley Hardin is Arrested for Murder (1877) & Sacco and Vanzetti are Executed (1927(

On this date in 1877, Texas Ranger John Armstrong arrests gunslinger John Wesley Hardin in a Florida rail car, returning the outlaw to Texas to stand trial for murder.

 

Three years earlier, Hardin had killed Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb in a small town near Austin, Texas. Webb's murder was one in a long series of killings committed by the famous outlaw-the 39th by Hardin's own count. Killing a lawman, however, was an especially serious offense. The famous Texas Rangers were determined to bring Hardin to justice. For three years, Hardin was able to elude the Rangers. Moving between Florida and Alabama, he adopted an alias and kept a low profile. Nonetheless, the Rangers eventually unmasked his secret identity and dispatched John Armstrong to track him down in Florida. On this day in 1877, Armstrong, acting on a tip, spotted Hardin in the smoking car of a train stopped at the Pensacola station. Armstrong stationed local deputies at both ends of the car, and the men burst in with guns drawn. Caught by surprise, Hardin nonetheless reacted quickly and reached for the gun holstered under his jacket. The pistol caught in Hardin's fancy suspenders, giving the lawmen the crucial few seconds they needed and probably saving Hardin's life--instead of shooting him, Armstrong clubbed Hardin with his long-barreled .45 pistol. Technically, the Texas Rangers had no authority in Florida, so they spirited Hardin back to Texas on the next train. Tried in Austin, a jury found Hardin guilty of killing Sheriff Webb and sentenced him to life in the Texas state prison at Huntsville. He served 15 years before the governor pardoned him. Released in 1894, an El Paso policeman killed him the following year.

On this date in 1927, anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for murder.

 

On April 15, 1920, a paymaster for a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts, was shot and killed along with his guard. The murderers, who were described as two Italian men, escaped with more than $15,000. After going to a garage to claim a car that police said was connected with the crime, Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested and charged with the crime. Both men carried guns and made false statements upon their arrest, neither had a previous criminal record. On July 14, 1921, they were convicted and sentenced to die. Anti-radical sentiment was running high in America at the time, and the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti was regarded by many as unlawfully sensational. Authorities had failed to come up with any evidence of the stolen money, and much of the other evidence against them was later discredited. During the next few years, sporadic protests were held in Massachusetts and around the world calling for their release, especially after Celestino Madeiros, then under a sentence for murder, confessed in 1925 that he had participated in the crime with the Joe Morelli gang. The state Supreme Court refused to upset the verdict, and Massachusetts Governor Alvan T. Fuller denied the men clemency. In the days leading up to the execution, protests were held in cities around the world, and bombs were set off in New York City and Philadelphia. On August 23, Sacco and Vanzetti were electrocuted. In 1961, a test of Sacco's gun using modern forensic techniques apparently proved it was his gun that killed the guard, though little evidence has been found to substantiate Vanzetti's guilt. In 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation vindicating Sacco and Vanzetti, stating that they had been treated unjustly and that no stigma should be associated with their names.

Sein Fein Leader Michael Collins is killed (1922) & Ma Barker gang robs Federal Reserve Truck (1933)

On this date in 1922Irish revolutionary and Sinn Fein politician Michael Collins is killed in an ambush in west County Cork, Ireland.

 

In the early part of the century, Collins joined Sinn Fein, an Irish political party dedicated to achieving independence for all Ireland. From its inception, the party became the unofficial political wing of militant Irish groups in their struggle to throw off British rule. In 1911, the British Liberal government approved negotiations for Irish Home Rule, but the Conservative Party opposition in Parliament, combined with Ireland's anti-Home Rule factions, defeated the plans. With the outbreak of World War I, the British government delayed further discussion of Irish self-determination, and Collins and other Irish nationalists responded by staging the Easter Up-Rising of 1916. In 1918, with the threat of conscription being imposed on the island, the Irish people gave Sinn Fein a majority in national elections, and the party established an independent Irish parliament, Dail Eireann, which declared Ireland a sovereign republic. In 1919, Collins led the Irish Volunteers, a prototype of the Irish Republican Army, in a widespread and effective guerrilla campaign against British forces. Two years later, a cease-fire was declared, and Collins was one of the architects of the historic 1921 peace treaty with Great Britain, which granted autonomy to southern Ireland. In January 1922, Sinn Fein founder Arthur Griffith was elected president of the newly established Irish Free State, and Collins was appointed as his finance minister. He held the post until he was assassinated by Republican extremists in August 1922. 

On this date in 1933, the notorious Ma Barker gang robs a Federal Reserve mail truck in Chicago, Illinois, and kills Officer Miles Cunningham.

 

Netting only a bunch of worthless checks, the Barkers soon returned to a crime with which they had more success—kidnapping. A few months later, the Barkers kidnapped wealthy banker Edward Bremer, demanding $200,000 in ransom. After Kate Clark married George Barker in 1892, she gave birth to four boys: Herman, Lloyd, Arthur, and Freddie. Ma Barker, as Kate was known, was ostensibly responsible for discipline in the family, but she let her boys run wild. She defended her children no matter what they did, saying, "If the good people of this town don't like my boys, then the good people know what they can do." All the Barker boys became involved in crime during their childhood: In 1922, Lloyd robbed a post office and received a 25-year sentence in federal prison; that same year, Arthur "Doc" Barker got a life sentence in Oklahoma for killing a night watchman, though later it would turn out that he was innocent; Freddie was next to see the insides of a holding cell after robbing a bank. While he was serving time in Kansas, Herman committed suicide in the midst of a heated gunfight with police after robbing a bank in Missouri. Herman's death inspired Ma Barker to pressure authorities to release her other sons, and Doc and Freddie were set free. With Ma masterminding their criminal enterprise, the Barkers were at the center of the Midwest's burgeoning criminal community. When they tired of bank robberies, the Barkers tried their hand at kidnapping. Their first victim, William Hamm, earned the gang $100,000 in ransom. Although the Bremer abduction in 1933 produced twice as much, it brought them a lot of heat from federal authorities. With the FBI on their trail, Doc and Freddie attempted plastic surgery. But this half-baked idea left them only with disfiguring scars, and Doc was captured in early 1935. Doc, who was later killed while attempting to escape from Alcatraz in 1939, refused to talk to authorities, but police found papers in his hideout that led them to Ma and Freddie in Lake Weir, Florida. After a ferocious shootout lasting 45 minutes, the Barkers lay dead from the fusillade, machine guns still at their sides. Twelve years later, Lloyd Barker was finally paroled. He too met a violent demise, but not at the hands of the police, his wife shot him dead in 1949. Father George Barker, who was never part of the Barker gang, was the family's sole survivor.

Trial of Outlaw Frank James begins - 1883

On this date in 1883, the trial of outlaw Frank James begins in Gallatin, Missouri.

It was held in the city opera house in order to accommodate the crowds of spectators. After having robbed dozens of banks and trains over nearly two decades, Frank James finally turned himself in October 1882. Discouraged by the murder of his brother Jesse the previous spring, Frank feared it was only a matter of time before someone also shot him in the back for reward money. He decided to try his chances with the courts, hoping that his considerably public popularity would win him a short sentence. Frank's trial went even better than he had hoped. Although Frank and Jesse James and their gang of desperados had killed many people, the majority of Missourians saw them as heroes who took money from ruthless bank and railroad companies and redistributed it to the poor. The state prosecutor had a difficult time finding jurors who were not prejudiced in Frank's favor. Looking at the panel of potential jurors, he concluded, "The verdict of the jury that is being selected is already written." After the trial began, several prominent witnesses testified to Frank's character. General Joseph O. Shelby, who had known him during his days as a Civil War guerilla, encouraged the jurors to see Frank James as a defender of the South against corrupt big businesses from the North. When asked to identify Frank in the courtroom, the distinguished general exclaimed: "Where is my old friend and comrade in arms? Ah, there I see him! Allow me, I wish to shake hands with my fellow soldier who fought by my side for Southern rights!" Rural Missourians were unwilling to convict the legendary Frank James. The jury found him not guilty. The states of Alabama and Missouri tried to convict him twice more, on charges of armed robbery, with no success. In late 1883, Frank James became a free man. He lived quietly for 32 more years. The only shots he ever fired again were from starter pistols at county racetracks, one of numerous odd jobs he took to earn a living. He died at his family home in Missouri in 1915 at the age of 72.

Menendez brothers murder their parents - 1989

On this date in 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot their parents, Jose and Kitty, to death in the den of the family's Beverly Hills, California, home.

They then drove up to Mulholland Drive, where they dumped their shotguns before continuing to a local movie theater to buy tickets as an alibi. When the pair returned home, Lyle called 911 and cried, "Somebody killed my parents!" The Menendez murders became a national sensation when the new television network, Court TV, broadcast the trial in 1993. Although the Menendez brothers were not immediately suspected, Erik couldn't take the guilt and confessed his involvement to his psychotherapist, Dr. L. Jerome Oziel. Ignoring his own ethical responsibilities, Dr. Oziel taped the sessions with his new patient in an apparent attempt to impress his mistress. But the woman ended up going to the police with her information and, in March 1990, Lyle, 22, and Erik, 19, were arrested. For the next three years, a legal battle was fought over the admissibility of Dr. Oziel's tapes. Finally, the California Supreme Court ruled that the tapes could be played. When the trial began in the summer of 1993, the Menendez brothers put on a spirited defense. In compelling testimony lasting over a month, they emotionally described years of sexual abuse by Jose and Kitty Menendez. They insisted that they had shot their parents in self-defense because they believed that Jose would kill them rather than have the abuse be exposed. The first two juries (one for each brother) deadlocked, and a mistrial had to be called. For the most part, the lack of a conviction was considered a travesty. At the retrial, which began in October 1995, the judge was much more restrictive in allowing the defense attorneys to focus on the alleged sexual abuse. In March 1996, both Lyle and Erik were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Lyle Menendez married his pen-pal girlfriend, Anna Eriksson, in a telephone conference call from jail on July 2, 1996, the day he was sentenced, but the marriage didn't last; Eriksson found out that Menendez began corresponding with another woman. A few years later, Erik married Tammi Ruth Saccoman.

Cyrus Skinner, convicted thief and killer is released from San Quentin Prison - 1853

On this date in 1853, Cyrus Skinner, who would later be hanged by the Montana vigilantes, ends his first stay in the California state prison at San Quentin. 

Skinner was typical of the thieves and killers who terrorized the gold fields of Montana in the early 1860s. Born in Ohio in 1829, Skinner began robbing people as a teenager. He immigrated to California in 1850 and was promptly arrested for burglary. He served two years in San Quentin prison before being released on this day in 1853. Within six months, he was again arrested, this time for burglarizing a business in Yuba County, California. He was sentenced to three years in San Quentin, but he escaped and committed five more robberies before being recaptured and sentenced to 15 years. In early 1859, an old friend joined Skinner at San Quentin, a desperado named Henry Plummer. Plummer, serving time for a minor robbery, was released after a few months. In May 1860, Skinner escaped from San Quentin for the third and final time. He fled north to the isolated gold camps of Idaho, where Plummer had organized a dangerous band of road agents that preyed on gold miners and travelers. When the people of Idaho began to grow suspicious of him, Skinner moved east over the mountains to the new Montana gold fields, establishing saloons at Bannack and Virginia City. Plummer and others from the gang soon joined him, and they began to rob and murder Montanans. Skinner was one of the most brutal of Plummer's gang, occasionally killing his victims seemingly just for the fun of it. By early 1864, Plummer, Skinner, and the other outlaws had killed at least 100 people. Determined to stop the murderous robberies, the citizens of Bannack and Virginia City formed a vigilante group and began tracking down and hanging the criminals. On January 10, 1864, the vigilantes arrested Plummer and hanged him along with two of his partners. Skinner wisely left town but the determined vigilantes tracked him down at Hellgate, Montana, in late January 1864. Faced with an agonizing death from hanging, Skinner broke away and ran, hoping the vigilantes would shoot him down instead. They denied the brutal killer even this small mercy. The vigilantes recaptured Skinner and hanged him, one of the last of the 24 bandits executed by the group.

John DeLorean Found Not Guilty of Drug Smuggling - 1984

On this date in 1984, John DeLorean, the founder of the DeLorean Motor Company, is found not guilty due to entrapment after being charged with smuggling drugs in an effort to raise money for his struggling company. 

John Zachary DeLorean was born January 6, 1925, in Detroit, and grew up in a working-class Detroit neighborhood. As a young engineer, he worked for the Packard Motor Company and then moved to General Motors, where he was credited with developing the Pontiac GTO, the first “muscle car.” DeLorean quickly moved up the ranks at GM, becoming the youngest general manager of the Pontiac division and then several years later, the youngest head of Chevrolet. He became known as an innovative corporate maverick who lived a flashy, jet-set lifestyle. In 1973, he resigned from GM and eventually formed his own company. With a significant investment from the British government, as well as celebrity investors such as Johnny Carson and Sammy Davis, Jr., DeLorean opened a factory in Dunmurry, Ireland, that in 1981 began making his dream sports car. Known as the DMC-12, the car had gull-wing doors that opened upward and carried a then-expensive price tag of $25,000. However, the company ran into financial trouble and on October 19, 1982, the British government announced the plant would be shut down. That same day, DeLorean was arrested on drug trafficking charges in Los Angeles. Three months earlier, DeLorean was approached by a former drug smuggler turned paid FBI informant and the two men engaged in a series of discussions about a deal involving cocaine smuggling and money laundering that would potentially save DeLorean’s company. At his highly publicized trial in Los Angeles, DeLorean maintained he had been set up by the government and a jury acquitted him on August 16, 1984. An estimated 9,000 DeLoreans were produced before the Dunmurry plant closed. The DMC-12 got a huge publicity boost starting in 1985 when it was featured as a time-travel machine in the Back to the Future films starring Michael J. Fox. Today, the car has an avid community of collectors. In 1999, John DeLorean filed for bankruptcy and died on March 19, 2005, at age 80, following a stroke.

Great Britains Royal Tombs - New Book

Pre-order a copy of my new book today...Full Release in December 2012 through Schiffer Books...

Great Britain's Royal Tombs: A Guide to the Lives & Burial Places of British Monarch

An essential and concise reference guide to the final resting places of the monarchs of England. Through 234 illustrations and photos, learn the true-life stories of the monarchs of England from the warrior kings of the Dark Ages to modern day and where they are buried today. Visit some of the famous cathedrals and lesser-known burial sites throughout Great Britain. Learn about some of the most dramatic episodes in the history of Great Britain. Whether it's William the Conqueror's slaying of Harold Godwinson, Henry VIII's readiness to behead his unfortunate wives, or Elizabeth I's chastity, these monarchs hold both legendary and symbolic positions in the public imagination. In a spectacular celebration of the British monarchy, discover momentous content detailing the lives and final resting places of each ruler. Also presented are their achievements and failings, as well as their impact on the wider world. A magnificent visual feast, this book guarantees to bring history alive for readers of all ages, through exciting narrative, illustrations, paintings, and rare photographs. 

 

Amazon link -

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Britains-Royal-Tombs-Monarchs/dp/0764341294/ref=la_B0035CPN70_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345067414&sr=1-1 

 

Barnes & Noble link -

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/great-britains-royal-tombs-michael-thomas-barry/1111224215?ean=9780764341298 if

Francis Blandy is Poisoned (1751) & Terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanches AKA Carlos the Jackal is Captured (1994)

On this date in 1751, Mary Blandy poisons her father Francis Blandy at his home outside London, England.

Later that night, Blandy's daughter Mary offered one of the family's servants a large sum of money to help her get to France immediately. Mary was forced to flee on her own when he refused, but she was chased down and caught by neighbors who had heard that Blandy had been poisoned. The servants in the Blandy home had been suspicious of Mary because the unmarried 26-year-old had been having an affair with William Cranstoun, a penniless man with a wife back in Scotland, against her father's wishes. Cranstoun was determined to get a piece of the Blandy fortune. Blandy had initially approved of the match, even allowing Cranstoun to live in their house. But when Cranstoun wrote his wife and kindly asked if she wouldn't mind disavowing their marriage, Mrs. Cranstoun became outraged and caused quite a local stir. Cranstoun was then abruptly tossed out of the house, yet Mary continued to see Cranstoun behind her father's back. The couple, frustrated at their inability to touch Mary's sizeable dowry, decided to find another route to the money. Mary began slipping small amounts of arsenic into her father's food, slowly poisoning him over a period of months. As Blandy began to suffer from nausea and acute stomach pain, the servants grew suspicious. One found white powder in the bottom of a pan that Mary had used to feed her father. After Blandy eventually died, the cook saw Mary trying to dispose of the white powder and managed to preserve some of it. Mary was charged with murder and faced trial at Oxford Assizes in March 1752. Doctors testifying for the prosecution agreed that Francis Blandy had been poisoned with arsenic. But the test they used on the powder was rather unscientific: They heated it and smelled the vapors, which everyone agreed was clearly arsenic. It wasn't until 40 years later that chemists finally developed true toxicology tests for arsenic. But the jury remained convinced, and Mary was sent to the gallows. She told the executioner, "Do not hang me too high, for the sake of decency." Not long after Mary was executed, Cranstoun, who had escaped to France, died in poverty. 

On this date in 1994, terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanchez, long known as Carlos the Jackal, is captured in Khartoum, Sudan, by French intelligence agents.

Since there was no extradition treaty with Sudan, the French agents sedated and kidnapped Carlos. The Sudanese government, claiming that it had assisted in the arrest, requested that the United States remove their country from its list of nations that sponsor terrorism. Sanchez, who was affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Organization for Armed Arab Struggle, and the Japanese Red Army, was widely believed to be responsible for numerous terrorist attacks between 1973 and 1992. In 1974, he took the French ambassador and 10 others hostage at the Hague, demanding that French authorities release Yutaka Furuya of the Japanese Red Army. On June 27, 1975, French police officers tried to arrest Sanchez in a Paris apartment, but he killed two officers in an ensuing gun battle and escaped. In June 1992, Sanchez was tried in absentia for these murders and convicted. On December 21, 1975, Sanchez and a group of his men took 70 OPEC officials hostage at a Vienna conference. They made it to safety with somewhere between $25 million and $50 million in ransom money, but not before killing three hostages. Sanchez claimed responsibility for these crimes in an interview with the Arab magazine, Al Watan al Arabi. In the subsequent trial that resulted in his imprisonment, Sanchez was represented by Jacque Verges, who had reportedly helped to organize a failed rocket attack on a French nuclear power plant in 1982. Verges was also accused of sending a threatening letter from Sanchez to the French authorities so that Sanchez's girlfriend (possibly his wife), German terrorist Magdalena Kopp, could be released. He bitterly denied the charges.

Alcatraz Federal Prison Opens (1934) & Carol Bundy Confesses Connection to Sunset Slayer (1980)

On this date in 1934, Alcatraz Federal Prison opens.

The convicts--the first civilian prisoners to be housed in the new high-security penitentiary--joined a few dozen military prisoners left over from the island's days as a U.S. military prison. Alcatraz was an uninhabited seabird haven when it was explored by Spanish Lieutenant Juan Manuel de Ayala in 1775. He named it Isla de los Alcatraces, or "Island of the Pelicans." Fortified by the Spanish, Alcatraz was sold to the United States in 1849. In 1854, it had the distinction of housing the first lighthouse on the coast of California. Beginning in 1859, a U.S. Army detachment was garrisoned there, and from 1868 Alcatraz was used to house military criminals. In addition to recalcitrant U.S. soldiers, prisoners included rebellious Indian scouts, American soldiers fighting in the Philippines who had deserted to the Filipino cause, and Chinese civilians who resisted the U.S. Army during the Boxer Rebellion. In 1907, Alcatraz was designated the Pacific Branch of the United States Military Prison. 

In 1934, Alcatraz was fortified into a high-security federal penitentiary designed to hold the most dangerous prisoners in the U.S. penal system, especially those with a penchant for escape attempts. The first shipment of civilian prisoners arrived on August 11, 1934. Later that month, more shiploads arrived, featuring, among other convicts, infamous mobster Al Capone. In September, George "Machine Gun" Kelly, another luminary of organized crime, landed on Alcatraz. In the 1940s, a famous Alcatraz prisoner was Richard Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz." A convicted murderer, Stroud wrote an important study on birds while being held in solitary confinement in Leavenworth Prison in Kansas. Regarded as extremely dangerous because of his 1916 murder of a guard at Leavenworth, he was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942. Stroud was not allowed to continue his avian research at Alcatraz.

Although some three dozen attempted, no prisoner was known to have successfully escaped "The Rock." However, the bodies of several escapees believed drowned in the treacherous waters of San Francisco Bay were never found. The story of the 1962 escape of three of these men, Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, inspired the 1979 film Escape from Alcatraz. Another prisoner, John Giles, caught a boat ride to the shore in 1945 dressed in an army uniform he had stolen piece by piece, but he was questioned by a suspicious officer after disembarking and sent back to Alcatraz. Only one man, John Paul Scott, was recorded to have reached the mainland by swimming, but he came ashore exhausted and hypothermic at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. Police found him lying unconscious and in a state of shock.

In 1963, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered Alcatraz closed, citing the high expense of its maintenance. In its 29-year run, Alcatraz housed more than 1,500 convicts. In March 1964 a group of Sioux Indians briefly occupied the island, citing an 1868 treaty with the Sioux allowing Indians to claim any "unoccupied government land." In November 1969, a group of nearly 100 Indian students and activists began a more prolonged occupation of the island, remaining there until they were forced off by federal marshals in June 1971. In 1972, Alcatraz was opened to the public as part of the newly created Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is maintained by the National Park Service. More than one million tourists visit Alcatraz Island and the former prison annually. 

On this date in 1980, Carol Bundy confesses her connection to the "Sunset Slayer," the killer who had been murdering and mutilating young women in Hollywood, California.

She confided to co-workers, "I can't take it anymore. I'm supposed to save lives, not take them," she reportedly said. These statements were relayed to police, who immediately arrested Douglas Clark, Bundy's live-in lover. Bundy and Clark met in a North Hollywood bar in January. Clark was a self-described "king of the one-night stands." But when he met Bundy, he soon discovered that she was willing to assist and indulge in his sick fantasies. Bundy began taking pictures of Clark having sex with children and listening to his desire to kill. In June, Clark abducted two teenagers, sexually assaulted them, and then shot them in the head. He dumped their bodies off the freeway and then went home to brag about it to Bundy. Days later, Clark called a friend of his victims' and told her details about the awful murders while masturbating. Two weeks later, Clark struck again, killing two young women in separate incidents. In the second attack, Clark cut the head off the woman and took it home, insisting that Bundy apply cosmetics to it. Because most of his victims had been abducted from the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, the press had taken to calling the serial killer the "Sunset Slayer." Clark proved to be more of an influence than Bundy expected. When she blabbed about Clark's activities to a former boyfriend, she felt compelled to kill the man to make sure that she wasn't implicated. On August 5, Bundy stabbed John Murray to death and then cut off his head. Within a week, she was tearfully confessing to her fellow nurses. During the trial in 1981, Clark tried to pin all of the murders on Bundy, but the jurors found his story hard to believe and sentenced him to die. Bundy attempted an insanity defense, but she eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 52 years-to-life.

David Berkowitz is Arrested in Connection with "Son of Sam Murders" - 1977

On this date in 1977, 24-year-old postal employee David Berkowitz is arrested and charged with being the "Son of Sam," the serial killer who terrorized New York City for more than a year, killing six young people and wounding seven others with a .44-caliber revolver.

Because Berkowitz generally targeted attractive young women with long brown hair, hundreds of young women had their hair cut short and dyed blond during the time he terrorized the city. Thousands more simply stayed home at night. After his arrest, Berkowitz claimed that demons and a black Labrador retriever owned by a neighbor named Sam had ordered him to commit the killings. David Berkowitz was brought up by adoptive parents in the Bronx. He was traumatized by the death of his adoptive mother from cancer in 1967 and thereafter became more and more of a loner. In 1971, he joined the army and served for three years, where he distinguished himself as a talented marksman. In 1974, he returned to New York and worked as a security guard. His mental condition began to severely deteriorate in 1975 (he would later be diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic). Feeling isolated from the world around him, he became an arsonist and set hundreds of fires in New York City without being arrested. He began to hear voices of "demons" that tormented him and told him to commit murder. On Christmas Eve, 1975, he gave into these internal voices and severely wounded 15-year-old Michelle Forman with a hunting knife. 

In January 1976, he moved into a two-family home in Yonkers, a suburb of New York. Berkowitz became convinced that the German shepherd that lived in the house and other neighborhood dogs were possessed by demons who ordered him to murder attractive young women. One of the neighborhood dogs was shot during this time, probably by Berkowitz. He also began to see his neighbors as demons. In April, Berkowitz moved to an apartment house in Yonkers, but his new home also had dogs. His neighbor, retiree Sam Carr, had a black Labrador retriever named Harvey, who Berkowitz believed pleaded with him to kill. He also saw Sam Carr as a powerful demon and was referring to him when he later called himself Son of Sam. On July 28, 1976, Berkowitz quit his job as a security guard. Early the next morning, he walked up to a parked car in the Bronx where two young women were talking and fired five bullets from his.44 revolver into the vehicle. Eighteen-year-old brunette Donna Lauria was killed instantly, and her friend Jody Valenti was wounded. Police could find no motives or leads in the shooting. 

In the early morning of October 24, Berkowitz struck again, critically wounding 20-year-old Carl Denaro as he sat in a car and talked with a female friend in Queens. A little more than a month later, on November 26, 16-year-old Donna DeMasi and 18-year-old Joanne Lomino were shot and seriously wounded in the street on their way home from a movie. On January 30, 1977, Berkowitz fatally shot Christine Freund as she sat in a car in Queens with her fiancée. Police began to suspect that these crimes were perpetrated by a single killer, but few bullets were found intact to confirm the assumption. On March 8, 19-year-old college student Virginia Voskerichian was shot to death as she walked home in Manhattan. A bullet was found intact, and it matched a bullet found at the scene of Berkowitz's first murder. The New York police announced that a serial killer was on the loose, known to be a white male in his 20s, with black hair and of average height and build. A large group of detectives was organized--the "Omega" task force--to track the killer down. On April 17, 18-year-old Valentina Suriani and 20-year-old Alexander Esau were shot and killed by the same gun as they kissed in their parked car near the Hutchinson River Parkway. This time, the .44-caliber killer left a note in which he referred to himself as the Son of Sam. 

On April 29, Berkowitz shot Sam Carr's Labrador retriever. He had previously sent an anonymous, threatening letter to Mr. Carr concerning the animal. The dog recovered, and the Yonkers police began an investigation. Meanwhile, Berkowitz began sending bizarre letters to other neighbors and his former landlords. These individuals began to suspect Berkowitz to be the Son of Sam and reported their suspicions to local police. The Omega task force was subsequently notified, but the detectives had received thousands of reports of Son of Sam "suspects" and were having a difficult time sifting through all the dead-end leads. On June 26, the Son of Sam struck again, wounding Judy Placido and Sal Lupo as they sat in their car after leaving a Queens disco. Public concern over the rampaging serial killer grew to panic proportions, and New York nightclubs and restaurants saw a dramatic drop in business. A blistering heat wave and a 25-hour blackout in mid-July only increased the tension. On July 31, just two days after the anniversary of his first killing, Berkowitz shot a young couple kissing in a parked car in Brooklyn. Twenty-year-old Stacy Moskowitz was fatally wounded, and her boyfriend, Bobby Violante, lost his left eye and nearly all the vision in his right eye. 

A few days later, a major break in the case came when an eyewitness came forward to report that she had seen a man with what looked like a gun minutes before the shots were fired in Brooklyn. Her information led to the first police sketch of Berkowitz. More important, she reminded investigators that two police officers had been writing parking tickets on her street that night. A search of tickets issued eventually turned up Berkowitz's car. At the same time, Yonkers police investigated Berkowitz after he escalated a harassment campaign against one of his neighbors. Convinced he was the Son of Sam, they informed the Omega task force of their findings. The Omega detectives finally put two and two together, and on August 10 David Berkowitz was arrested while leaving his Yonkers home. He gleefully admitted to being the Son of Sam. On his person was a semiautomatic rifle, and he explained he was on his way to commit another murder. The .44-caliber revolver was also recovered. There was some question about whether Berkowitz was mentally fit to stand trial, but on May 8, 1978, he withdrew an insanity defense and pleaded guilty to the six .44-caliber murders. He was given six 25-years-to-life sentences for the crime, the maximum penalty allowed at the time. He has since been denied parole. Since 1987, he has been held at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in upstate New York, where he allegedly converted to Christianity.

President Nixon Resigns in the Wake of the Watergate Scandal - 1974

On this date in 1974, President Richard Nixon resigns in the wake of the Watergate burglary scandal. He was the first president in American history to resign.

In a televised address, Nixon, flanked by his family, announced to the American public that he would step down rather than endure a Senate impeachment trial for obstruction of justice. Since 1972, Nixon had battled increasing vociferous allegations that he knew of, and may have authorized, a botched burglary in which several men were arrested for attempting to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. Between 1972 and 1974, the press, and later a Senate investigation committee, revealed disturbing details that revealed that Nixon had indeed attempted to cover up the crime committed by key members of his administration and re-election committee. The most damning evidence came from subpoenaed tape recordings of Nixon's White House conversations. Nixon fought the release of the tapes, which led the House of Representatives in 1973 to initiate impeachment charges against the president for obstruction of justice. During the televised address, Nixon stated that he had never been a "quitter" and that choosing to resign went against his instincts. He refused to confess to committing the alleged high crimes and misdemeanors of which he was accused. He claimed his decision was encouraged by his political base and was in the best interests of the country and said that he hoped it would heal the political and social division caused by the Watergate scandal. A report by the Washington Post on August 9 revealed the drama that had unfolded in the White House cabinet room an hour before Nixon's resignation speech. After saying goodbye to 46 members of Congress, including his staunchest supporters, the president told them that the "country could not operate with a half-time President," broke into tears and left the room.

The First Execution by Electric Chair - 1890

On this date in 1890, the first execution by electric chair is carried out against William Kemmler, who had been convicted of murdering his lover, Matilda Ziegler, with an axe.

Electrocution as a humane means of execution was first suggested in 1881 by Dr. Albert Southwick, a dentist. Southwick had witnessed an elderly drunkard "painlessly" killed after touching the terminals of an electrical generator in Buffalo, New York. In the prevalent form of execution at the time death by hanging the condemned were known to hang by their broken necks for up to 30 minutes before succumbing to asphyxiation. In 1889, New York's Electrical Execution Law, the first of its kind in the world, went into effect, and Edwin R. Davis, the Auburn Prison electrician, was commissioned to design an electric chair. Closely resembling the modern device, Davis' chair was fitted with two electrodes, which were composed of metal disks held together with rubber and covered with a damp sponge. The electrodes were to be applied to the criminal's head and back. On August 6, 1890, William Kemmler became the first person to be sent to the chair. After he was strapped in, a charge of approximately 700 volts was delivered for only 17 seconds before the current failed. Although witnesses reported smelling burnt clothing and charred flesh, Kemmler was far from dead, and a second shock was prepared. The second charge was 1,030 volts and applied for about two minutes, whereupon smoke was observed coming from the head of Kemmler, who was clearly deceased. An autopsy showed that the electrode attached to his back had burned through to the spine. Dr. Southwick applauded Kemmler's execution with the declaration, "We live in a higher civilization from this day on," while American inventor George Westinghouse, an innovator of the use of electricity, remarked, "They would have done better with an axe."

Lizzie Borden's Parents are Found Murdered - 1892

On this day in 1892, Andrew and Abby Borden are found hacked to death in their Fall River, Massachusetts, home.

Andrew was discovered in a pool of blood on the living room couch, his face nearly split in two. Abby was upstairs, her head smashed to pieces; it was later determined that she was killed first. Suspicion soon fell on one of the Bordens' two daughters, Lizzie, age 32 and single, who lived with her wealthy father and stepmother and was the only other person besides their maid, Bridget Sullivan, who was home when the bodies were found. Lizzie Borden was arrested and charged with the double homicide. As a result of the crime's sensational nature, her trial attracted national attention. Lizzie Andrew Borden was born on July 19, 1860. Her mother died when Lizzie was a young girl and her father, who became a bank president and successful businessman, married Abby Gray, who helped raise Lizzie and her older sister Emma. The sisters reportedly despised their stepmother and, as adults, argued with their father over money matters. Lizzie claimed she was in the barn at the time of the murders and entered the house later that morning to find her father dead in the living room.

The evidence that the prosecution presented against Borden was circumstantial. It was alleged that she tried to buy poison the day before the murders and that she burned one of her dresses several days afterward. And, although fingerprint testing was becoming commonplace in Europe at the time, the Fall River police were wary of its reliability, and refused to test for prints on the potential murder weapon--a hatchet--found in the Bordens' basement. The fact that no blood was found on Lizzie coupled with her well-bred Christian persona convinced the all-male jury that she was incapable of the gruesome crime and they quickly acquitted her. Lizzie, who inherited a substantial sum after her father's death, moved from the murder site into a different home, where she lived until her death on June 1, 1927. Today, the house where the Borden murders occurred is a bed and breakfast. Despite Lizzie Borden's acquittal, the cloud of suspicion that hung over her never disappeared. She is immortalized in a famous rhyme: Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks; When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one.

Jose Diaz is Murdered in Los Angeles (1942), which lead to the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943

On this date in 1942, Jose Diaz is murdered, and his body is found at the Sleepy Lagoon reservoir, near Los Angeles, California.  

Two days later, police began to round up and arrest 22 men of Mexican descent in the Los Angeles area for conspiring to kill Diaz. Despite a lack of evidence, the 22 men were eventually prosecuted for beating Diaz to death. The trial and subsequent convictions characterized a period of racial prejudice and injustice in Los Angeles during World War II. Media coverage surrounding the trial was particularly troubling. The Los Angeles Examiner referred to young Mexican Americans as hoodlums A captain from the Los Angeles Sheriff's office told a grand jury that Mexicans had a "biological tendency" to be violent since they were descendants of Indian tribes who practiced human sacrifice. He went on to say that they had a "total disregard for human life" and an inbred "desire to use a knife or some lethal weapon. In other words, [a Mexican's] desire is to kill, or at least, let blood. "  

Despite the concerted efforts of a defense committee that had been put together by liberal activists and Hollywood actors, 17 of the accused were convicted and 12 were sent to San Quentin prison. Over the course of the following year, hostility between Caucasians and Hispanics became so inflamed by the press, police, and city officials that the so-called "zoot suit riots" broke out the next summer. Allegedly, about a dozen sailors had been attacked by a group of Mexicans wearing zoot suits-long coats with exaggerated shoulder pads and loose pleated pants. On June 3, 1943, 50 Navy sailors responded to the assault by combing the streets in cabs, stopping to beat anyone wearing the popular Hispanic outfit. By the next day, hundreds more sailors had joined in the hunt. These unprovoked attacks continued for several days. On June 7, The Los Angeles Examiner reported that Mexicans would be out to retaliate, causing a civilian panic. The following day, the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance that made wearing a zoot suit a misdemeanor. Finally, on June 8, U.S. military commanders restricted military personnel to their bases in Los Angeles, and the turmoil ended. A court of appeals eventually overturned the convictions of all 12 of the defendants in the Sleepy Lagoon case, and they were released after two years in prison.

Charles Whitman kills 14 in University of Texas shooting spree - 1966

On this date in 1966, Charles Whitman takes a stockpile of guns and ammunition to the observatory platform atop a 300-foot tower at the University of Texas and proceeds to shoot 46 people, killing 14 people and wounding 31.

A fifteenth died in 2001 because of his injuries. Whitman, who had killed both his wife and mother the night before, was eventually shot to death after courageous Austin police officers, including Ramiro Martinez, charged up the stairs of the tower to subdue the attacker. Whitman, a former Eagle Scout and Marine, began to suffer serious mental problems after his mother left his father in March 1966. On March 29, he told a psychiatrist that he was having uncontrollable fits of anger. He purportedly even told this doctor that he was thinking about going up to the tower with a rifle and shooting people. Unfortunately, the doctor didn't follow up on this red flag. On July 31, Whitman wrote a note about his violent impulses, saying, "After my death, I wish an autopsy on me be performed to see if there's any mental disorders." The note then described his hatred for his family and his intent to kill them. That night, Whitman went to his mother's home, where he stabbed and shot her. Upon returning to his own home, he then stabbed his wife to death. The following morning, Whitman headed for the tower with several pistols and a rifle after stopping off at a gun store to buy boxes of ammunition and a carbine. Packing food and other supplies, he proceeded to the observation platform, killing the receptionist and two tourists before unpacking his rifle and telescope and hunting the people below. An expert marksman, Whitman was able to hit people as far away as 500 yards. For 90 minutes, he continued firing while officers searched for a chance to get a shot at him. By the end of his rampage, 16 people were dead and another 30 were injured. The University of Texas tower remained closed for 25 years before reopening in 1999.