By: HISTORY.com Editors

1986

Jonathan Pollard admits to selling top-secret information to Israel

Published: November 13, 2009Last Updated: May 28, 2025

Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top-secret U.S. military intelligence information to Israel. The former Navy intelligence analyst sold enough classified documents to fill a medium-sized room.

Pollard was arrested in November 1985 after authorities learned that he had been meeting with Israeli agents every two weeks for the last year. He was paid approximately $50,000 for the highly sensitive documents and expected to receive as much as $300,000 in a secret Swiss bank account. The top-secret information included satellite photos and data on Soviet weapons.

Pollard was sentenced to life in prison while his wife Anne received a five-year sentence for being an accessory to the crimes. The discovery of his betrayal put a chill on the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Viewing the U.S. as its ally, Israel believed that the information should have been passed along anyway. But the fact that some Israeli agents remained in high positions despite their involvement in the espionage angered the United States.

Israel has since stuck by Pollard. During peace negotiations mediated by President Clinton in the late 1990s, the nation made Pollard’s release from prison a key point.

Pollard was released from prison, and put on parole, in 2015.

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Timeline

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Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on June 4th

1876

Express train crosses the nation in 83 hours

A mere 83 hours after leaving New York City, the Transcontinental Express train arrives in San Francisco. That any human being could travel across the entire nation in less than four days was inconceivable to previous generations of Americans. During the early 19th century, when Thomas Jefferson first dreamed of an American nation stretching from […]

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1896

Henry Ford test-drives his “Quadricycle”

At approximately 4:00 a.m. on June 4, 1896, in the shed behind his home on Bagley Avenue in Detroit, Henry Ford unveils the “Quadricycle,” the first automobile he ever designed or drove. Ford was working as the chief engineer for the main plant of the Edison Illuminating Company when he began working on the Quadricycle. […]

1916

Brusilov Offensive, one of the most successful ground operations of WWI, begins

On June 4, 1916, the Battle of Lutsk marks the beginning of the Brusilov Offensive, the largest and most successful Allied offensive of World War I. When the fortress city of Verdun, France, came under siege by the Germans in February 1916, the French pleaded with the other Allies, Britain and Russia, to mount offensives […]

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1919

Congress passes the 19th Amendment, paving the way for women to vote

The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote, is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. The women’s suffrage movement was founded in the mid-19th century by women who had become politically active through their work in the abolitionist and temperance movements. In July 1848, 240 woman […]

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1940

“The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,” Carson McCullers’ debut novel, is published

On June 4, 1940, 22-year-old Carson McCullers’ first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, is published. The novel, about misfits in a Georgia mill town, is an instant success. McCullers, born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia, in 1917, was strongly encouraged in her childhood artistic endeavors by her mother, who believed she was […]

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1940

Operation Dynamo at Dunkirk ends

As the German army advances through northern France during the early days of World War II, it cuts off British troops from their French allies, forcing an enormous evacuation of soldiers across the North Sea from the town of Dunkirk to England. The Allied armies, trapped by the sea, were quickly being encircled on all […]

1942

Battle of Midway begins

On June 4, 1942, the Battle of Midway—one of the most decisive U.S. victories against Japan during World War II—begins. During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to the previously invincible Japanese navy. In six months […]

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1944

The U-505, a submarine from Hitler’s deadly fleet, is captured

On June 4, 1944, U.S. naval forces seize one of Adolf Hitler’s deadly submarines, the U-505, as it makes its way home after patrolling the Gold Coast of Africa The German submarine was the first enemy warship captured on the high seas by the U.S. Navy since the War of 1812. If ever there was […]

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1961

Kennedy and Khrushchev agree on neutrality for Laos

President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, meeting in Vienna, strike a bargain to support a neutral and independent Laos. Laos had been the scene of an ongoing communist insurgency by the Pathet Lao guerrillas. In July 1959, the North Vietnamese Politburo had formed Group 959 to furnish weapons and […]

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1972

Communist activist Angela Davis acquitted

Angela Yvonne Davis, a Black communist activist and former philosophy professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, is acquitted on charges of conspiracy, murder and kidnapping by a jury in San Jose, California. In October 1970, Davis was arrested in New York City in connection with a shootout that occurred on August 7 in […]

1976

Several dozen people witness historic Sex Pistols set

In what has later been called “the gig that changed the world,” the Sex Pistols appear at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England, helping to launch the punk era. By June 1976, the Sex Pistols had been playing together under that name for only seven months, and though their look, their sound and […]

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1989

Chinese crackdown on protests leads to Tiananmen Square Massacre

Chinese troops storm through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters.

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2003

Martha Stewart indicted for securities fraud and obstruction of justice

For domestic guru and media mogul Martha Stewart, known for her “good things” tips and tricks, things turn very bad when a federal grand jury serves her and her former stock broker a nine-count indictment, including charges of obstruction of justice, securities fraud, conspiracy and making false statements. Stewart, CEO and chairwoman of Martha Stewart […]

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