Built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of Indianapolis, Indiana, the speedway was started by local businessmen as a testing facility for Indiana’s growing automobile industry. The idea was that occasional races at the track would pit cars from different manufacturers against each other. After seeing what these cars could do, spectators would presumably head down to the showroom of their choice to get a closer look.

The rectangular two-and-a-half-mile track linked four turns, each exactly 440 yards from start to finish, by two long and two short straight sections. In that first five-mile race on August 19, 1909, 12,000 spectators watched Austrian engineer Louis Schwitzer win with an average speed of 57.4 miles per hour. The track’s surface of crushed rock and tar proved a disaster, breaking up in a number of places and causing the deaths of two drivers, two mechanics and two spectators.

The surface was soon replaced with 3.2 million paving bricks, laid in a bed of sand and fixed with mortar. Dubbed “The Brickyard,” the speedway reopened in December 1909. In 1911, low attendance led the track’s owners to make a crucial decision: Instead of shorter races, they resolved to focus on a single, longer event each year, for a much larger prize. That May 30 marked the debut of the Indy 500–a grueling 500-mile race that was an immediate hit with audiences and drew press attention from all over the country. Driver Ray Haroun won the purse of $14,250, with an average speed of 74.59 mph and a total time of 6 hours and 42 minutes.

Since 1911, the Indianapolis 500 has been held every year, with the exception of 1917-18 and 1942-45, when the United States was involved in the two world wars. With an average crowd of 400,000, the Indy 500 is the best-attended event in U.S. sports. In 1936, asphalt was used for the first time to cover the rougher parts of the track, and by 1941 most of the track was paved. The last of the speedway’s original bricks were covered in 1961, except for a three-foot line of bricks left exposed at the start-finish line as a nostalgic reminder of the track’s history.

The post First race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway appeared first on HISTORY.

Following the attack on Rosenbaum that led to his death, violence continued for four days in Crown Heights, while many complained that the response by police and Mayor David Dinkins was inadequate.

In October, 16-year-old Lemrick Nelson was charged with Rosenbaum’s murder but was acquitted after a racially charged trial the following year. But the case did not end there. Due in part to lobbying by the victim’s brother, Norman Rosenbaum, the federal government charged Nelson with violating Rosenbaum’s civil rights in 1994. In the meantime, a state report criticized Mayor Dinkins and the police for their lack of action during the riots—a claim that helped Rudy Giuliani defeat Dinkins in the next mayoral election.

In 1996, a videotape of the Crown Heights incident came to light, showing Charles Price inciting a mob to assault Jewish people in retaliation for Cato’s death. He shouted, “Kill the Jews!” and “An eye for an eye!” In February 1997, a jury convicted both Nelson and Price for their roles in Rosenbaum’s murder. Nelson was sentenced to 19 years in prison, while Price received 21 years, despite his claim that he had been exercising his right to freedom of speech.

Later, Mayor Giuliani apologized and blamed his predecessor for the city’s lack of action and offered a $1.1 million settlement from the City of New York to Jewish people who claimed they were unprotected during the riots. Norman Rosenbaum continued to push Attorney General Janet Reno to reopen the case and go after the others in the mob, but no further arrests were made.

The driver of the car that killed Gavin Cato was cleared of any wrongdoing, and he returned to Israel.

The post A Jewish student is killed by a mob in Crown Heights, Brooklyn appeared first on HISTORY.

The Beatles took America by storm during their famous first visit, wowing the millions who watched them during their historic television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. But after the first great rush of stateside Beatlemania, the Beatles promptly returned to Europe, leaving their American fans to make do with mere records. By late summer of that same year, however, having put on an unprecedented and still unmatched display of pop-chart dominance during their absence, the Beatles finally returned.

Although in retrospect it would seem a laughable underestimation of their drawing power in America, Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein chose venues like the 17,000-seat Cow Palace for the 1964 tour expressly because he feared that the Beatles might not sell out large sports stadiums like San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, where they would play their final official concert in 1966. Suffice it to say that the Beatles had no difficultly filling the Cow Palace, which was packed with 17,130 screaming fans when the group bounded to the stage shortly after 9:00 p.m. on this day in 1964 and launched into “Twist And Shout.”

The Beatles’ set that night and throughout the tour that followed featured only 12 songs, most often in this order:

 ”Twist and Shout”

“You Can’t Do That”

“All My Loving”

 ”She Loves You”

“Things We Said Today”

“Roll Over Beethoven”

“Can’t Buy Me Love”

“If I Fell”

“I Want to Hold Your Hand”

“Boys”

“A Hard Day’s Night”

“Long Tall Sally”

At other stops on the tour, the Beatles’ performances would last approximately 33 minutes, but the show that night in San Francisco lasted some five minutes longer—not because of any difference in the Beatles’ performance, but because of police intervention to stem the growing pandemonium. Within the first few seconds of the first song that night, at least one radio journalist traveling with the Beatles had been trampled to the ground along with a young female fan who broke a leg in the melee. And thanks to an offhand comment  by George Harrison about the group’s favorite candy in the days leading up to the show, the Beatles themselves were pelted with flying jelly beans throughout that night’s set. Though John, Paul, George and Ringo were uninjured, they left the Cow Palace that night by ambulance after their limousine was swarmed by berserk fans. It was a scene that would become familiar to them as they continued on their first historic tour of America in the months ahead.

The post The Beatles kick off first U.S. tour at San Francisco’s Cow Palace appeared first on HISTORY.

The film was a box-office flop, as was a second film the pair made together, The Getaway (1994). Individually, both Basinger and Baldwin’s careers continued to thrive, but their marriage did not. The couple separated in 2000 and divorced in 2002. Their angry parting, and particularly their bitter, protracted custody battle over their daughter Ireland, who was born in 1995, continued to make headlines for years.

Kimila Ann Basinger was born December 8, 1953, in Athens, Georgia, and began her career as a model. After working as a magazine cover girl and appearing in numerous ads, including a stint as the Breck Shampoo girl, she appeared in such movies as Never Say Never Again (1983), The Natural (1984) and Batman (1989). In 1998, she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a high-class call girl styled to look like the movie star Veronica Lake, in L.A. Confidential. Other film credits include I Dreamed of Africa (2000), The Door in the Floor (2002), 8 Mile (2002), in which she played the rapper Eminem’s mother, and The Sentinel (2006). In 1993, Basinger made headlines off-screen when the producers of the film Boxing Helena sued her for breach of contract and won an $8 million judgment. The actress also garnered media attention in 1989 when she bought the small town of Braselton, Georgia, which she sold in 1993.

Alexander Baldwin was born April 3, 1958, in Massapequa, New York. His three younger brothers, Daniel, Billy and Stephen, have also had acting careers in film and television. Alec Baldwin broke into acting with roles on the daytime drama The Doctors (1980-1982) and the prime-time soap opera Knots Landing (1984-1986). His early film credits include Beetlejuice (1988), Married to the Mob (1988), Working Girl (1988) and The Hunt for Red October (1990), which made him a movie star. After a well-reviewed turn in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), Baldwin’s career faltered in the late 1990s with a series of film flops. He later emerged as a successful character actor, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a casino boss in The Cooler (2003). He also worked steadily in theater and television, including numerous appearances as the host of Saturday Night Live. In 2006, he emerged as the breakout star of the critically acclaimed sitcom 30 Rock, which ran until 2013. He's continued to appear regularly in TV shows and movies since then.

The post Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin marry appeared first on HISTORY.

By his own account, Clinton was inspired to enter politics after meeting President John F. Kennedy at the White House as a high school student. He attended Georgetown University and won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford in 1968, then received a law degree from Yale. In 1974, Clinton lost a bid for Congress in Arkansas’ Third District. He married fellow Yale Law graduate Hillary Rodham the following year; their daughter Chelsea was born in 1980.

Clinton was elected Arkansas attorney general in 1976. In 1978, at the age of 32, he became the youngest governor to be elected in the United States in four decades. Though he lost his first reelection campaign in 1980, he regained the office four years later and was reelected comfortably three more times. In 1992, he won the Democratic nomination for president. In a campaign that revolved largely around economic issues, Clinton’s youth and the promise of change won over many voters, propelling him to victory over the incumbent George H.W. Bush and upstart third-party candidate Ross Perot.

Issues that arose during the first two years of his administration—including an ethics investigation into the Clintons’ involvement with the Whitewater housing development in Arkansas and a bitter debate in Congress over Clinton’s health care initiative—helped fuel a Republican takeover of the Senate and the House of Representatives in the midterm elections of 1994. Nevertheless, the improving economic climate during Clinton’s presidency resulted in a low unemployment and inflation rate and a balanced budget (even a budget surplus), and in 1996 he became the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second term in office.

In 1998, scandal erupted over Clinton’s alleged involvement with a young female White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. On the basis of an investigation by independent counsel Kenneth Starr, Clinton was accused of perjury and obstruction of justice over his repeated denials of the affair; he eventually apologized to his family and to the American public for his dishonesty. He became only the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives, but was acquitted of the charges by the Senate in 1999.

Even throughout the tumult surrounding the Lewinsky affair, Clinton enjoyed high approval ratings at home. He was also popular on the world stage, confronting foreign policy challenges including war in Bosnia and Herzegovina; continuing hostility between Israelis and Palestinians; and Iraq’s refusal to comply with United Nations weapons inspections. He was praised for his peacemaking efforts in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and became the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.

After leaving the White House, Clinton remained active in global affairs and as a public speaker. He heads up the William J. Clinton Foundation, a philanthropic organization that has addressed issues such as HIV/AIDS and the environment. Meanwhile, his wife launched her own political career, winning election to the U.S. Senate from New York in 2000 and running her own presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2016. She served as secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama.

The post Bill Clinton is born appeared first on HISTORY.

The Constitution was one of six frigates that Congress requested be built in 1794 to help protect American merchant fleets from attacks by Barbary pirates and harassment by British and French forces. It was constructed in Boston, and the bolts fastening its timbers and copper sheathing were provided by the industrialist and patriot Paul Revere. Launched on October 21, 1797, the Constitution was 204 feet long, displaced 2,200 tons, and was rated as a 44-gun frigate (although it often carried as many as 50 guns).

In July 1798 it was put to sea with a crew of 450 and cruised the West Indies, protecting U.S. shipping from French privateers. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson ordered the American warship to the Mediterranean to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli. The vessel performed commendably during the conflict, and in 1805 a peace treaty with Tripoli was signed on the Constitution‘s deck.

When war broke out with Britain in June 1812, the Constitution was commanded by Isaac Hull, who served as lieutenant on the ship during the Tripolitan War. Scarcely a month later, on July 16, the Constitution encountered a squadron of five British ships off Egg Harbor, New Jersey. Finding itself surrounded, the Constitution was preparing to escape when suddenly the wind died. With both sides dead in the water and just out of gunnery range, a legendary slow-speed chase ensued. For 36 hours, the Constitution‘s crew kept their ship just ahead of the British by towing the frigate with rowboats and by tossing the ship’s anchor ahead of the ship and then reeling it in. At dawn on July 18, a breeze sprang, and the Constitution was far enough ahead of its pursuers to escape by sail.

One month later, on August 19, the Constitution caught the British warship Guerrière alone about 600 miles east of Boston. After considerable maneuvering, the Constitution delivered its first broadside, and for 20 minutes the American and British vessels bombarded each other in close and violent action. The British man-of-war was de-masted and rendered a wreck while the Constitution escaped with only minimal damage. The unexpected victory of Old Ironsides against a British frigate helped unite America behind the war effort and made Commander Hull a national hero. The Constitution went on to defeat or capture seven more British ships in the War of 1812 and ran the British blockade of Boston twice.

After the war, Old Ironsides served as the flagship of the navy’s Mediterranean squadron and in 1828 was laid up in Boston. Two years later, the navy considered scrapping the Constitution, which had become unseaworthy, leading to an outcry of public support for preserving the famous warship. The navy refurbished the Constitution, and it went on to serve as the flagship of the Mediterranean, Pacific, and Home squadrons. In 1844, the frigate left New York City on a global journey that included visits to numerous international ports as a goodwill agent of the United States. In the early 1850s, it served as flagship of the African Squadron and patrolled the West African coast looking for slave traders.

In 1855, the Constitution retired from active military service, but the famous vessel continued to serve the United States, first as a training ship and later as a touring national landmark.

The post Old Ironsides earns its name appeared first on HISTORY.

Born in central Texas on May 26, 1853, Hardin killed his first man when he was only 15 during the violent period of post-Civil War Reconstruction. During the next 10 years, he killed at least 20 more men, and some have suggested the total might have been as high as 40.

In 1878, Hardin was convicted of killing a Texas sheriff and sent to the Texas state prison in Huntsville. Prison life seems to have calmed Hardin–during his 14 years behind bars, he studied law. Released in 1892, he settled down in Gonzales where he worked as an attorney and tried, unsuccessfully, to win political office. Eventually, Hardin relocated to the violent town of El Paso, where, since the demands for his legal services were limited, he spent more time arguing in saloons than in court.

In 1895, the sheriff of El Paso tried to make the town a bit less deadly by outlawing the carrying of guns within city limits. In August of that year, Hardin’s girlfriend was caught with a gun in the city and arrested by El Paso officer John Selman. Hardin, who had never learned completely to control his vicious temper, became angry. Bystanders overheard him threaten Selman for bothering his girl. Not long after, on this day in 1895, Selman went looking for Hardin. He found the famous gunman throwing dice at the bar of the Acme saloon. Without a word, Selman walked up behind Hardin and killed him with a shot in the head.

Whether Selman was acting out of anger, self-protection, or perhaps to burnish his own reputation as a gunslinger remains unclear. Regardless, an El Paso jury apparently felt that Selman had done the town a favor. The jurors acquitted him of any wrongdoing.

The post John Wesley Hardin killed in Texas appeared first on HISTORY.

The previous July 8, Wilson had returned from Paris, France, where the treaty’s terms had been worked out over a contentious six months. Two days later, he went before the U.S. Senate to present the Treaty of Versailles, including the covenant of the League of Nations, the international peace-keeping organization that Wilson had envisioned in his famous “Fourteen Points” speech of 1918 and had worked for so adamantly in Paris. “Dare we reject it?” he asked the senators, “and break the heart of the world?”

The 96 members of the Senate, for their part, were divided. The central concern with the treaty involved the League of Nations. A crucial article of the league covenant, around which much debate would center in the weeks to come, required all member states “to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League.” This principle of collective security was thought by many to be an obstruction to America’s much vaunted independence. At least six Republican senators, dubbed the “Irreconcilables,” were irrevocably opposed to the treaty, while nine more were “Mild Reservationists” whose most important concern about the treaty, and specifically the League of Nations, was that American sovereignty be protected. Some three dozen Republicans were uncommitted as of yet. While most Democrats publicly went along with Wilson, many privately thought more along the lines of the Mild Reservationists.

So things stood on July 31, when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, headed by the Republican Senator (and Wilson’s nemesis) Henry Cabot Lodge, began six weeks of hearings on the Versailles Treaty. Lodge’s Republicans had a majority of only two in the Senate, and Wilson could conceivably have won over the moderates among them—the Mild Reservationists and those undecided—to his side, thus building a coalition in favor of ratification, by accepting some reservations. Wilson was absolutely unwilling, however, to accept any degree of change or compromise to the treaty or to his precious League of Nations. His mental and physical health already deteriorating over that summer, Wilson broke tradition to make a personal appearance before the committee on August 19, making it clear that he continued to stand firm on all points.

Four days later, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on the first of many amendments to the treaty—the reversal of the award to Japan of the Shantung Peninsula, and its return to Chinese control. Furious, Wilson decided to take his case directly to the American people. On September 2, 1919, he began a whistle-stop tour across the country, sometimes making as many as three speeches in one day. The strain of the trip destroyed his health; suffering from exhaustion, he returned to Washington in late September, and the rest of the tour was canceled. On October 2, back at the White House, Wilson suffered a massive stroke that left him partially paralyzed; he would never effectively function as president again.

He continued to influence the proceedings on the treaty, however, all the way from his sickbed. The treaty made its way through the Senate all through October and part of November, as a total of 12 amendments were defeated by Democrats and moderate Republicans. Lodge marshaled most of the Republicans together, and their votes were enough to attach a number of reservations before assembling a vote on ratification—the most crucial was attached to Article X, saying the U.S. would not act to protect the territorial integrity of any League member unless Congress gave its approval. Wilson, on his sickbed, remained determined; when told of the reservation, he said “That cuts the very heart out of the treaty.” After Wilson expressed his vehement opposition to ratification on these terms, the Senate took a vote on Lodge’s motion. It was defeated by a combination of the majority of the Democrats, loyal to Wilson, and the Republican Irreconcilables, who opposed ratification in any form. A last-ditch effort by moderates to find a compromise came close to succeeding—against Wilson’s best efforts to block it—and when the Senate voted on March 19, 1920, on a new ratification resolution, 23 Democrats voted in favor, and the resolution passed. It failed to win the necessary two-thirds majority, however, and the Senate consequently refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles.

Though Wilson, the newly anointed winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, bemoaned the rejection of the treaty, he never admitted any doubts about his resolute unwillingness to compromise. Though the United States later signed separate treaties with Germany, Austria and Hungary, it never joined the League of Nations, a circumstance that almost certainly contributed to that organization’s inefficacy in the decades to follow, up until the outbreak of the Second World War.

The post President Wilson appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee appeared first on HISTORY.

Mosaddeq came to prominence in Iran in 1951 when he was appointed premier. A fierce nationalist, Mosaddeq immediately began attacks on British oil companies operating in his country, calling for expropriation and nationalization of the oil fields. His actions brought him into conflict with the pro-Western elites of Iran and the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. Indeed, the Shah dismissed Mossadeq in mid-1952, but massive public riots condemning the action forced the Shah to reinstate Mossadeq a short time later. U.S. officials watched events in Iran with growing suspicion. British intelligence sources, working with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), came to the conclusion that Mossadeq had communist leanings and would move Iran into the Soviet orbit if allowed to stay in power.

Working with Shah, the CIA and British intelligence began to engineer a plot to overthrow Mossadeq. The Iranian premier, however, got wind of the plan and called his supporters to take to the streets in protest. At this point, the Shah left the country for “medical reasons.” While British intelligence backed away from the debacle, the CIA continued its covert operations in Iran. Working with pro-Shah forces and, most importantly, the Iranian military, the CIA cajoled, threatened, and bribed its way into influence and helped to organize another coup attempt against Mossadeq. On August 19, 1953, the military, backed by street protests organized and financed by the CIA, overthrew Mossadeq. The Shah quickly returned to take power and, as thanks for the American help, signed over 40 percent of Iran’s oil fields to U.S. companies.

Mossadeq was arrested, served three years in prison, and died under house arrest in 1967. The Shah became one of America’s most trusted Cold War allies, and U.S. economic and military aid poured into Iran during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. In 1978, however, anti-Shah and anti-American protests broke out in Iran and the Shah was toppled from power in 1979. Militants seized the U.S. embassy and held the American staff hostage until January 1981. Nationalism, not communism, proved to be the most serious threat to U.S. power in Iran.

The post CIA-assisted coup overthrows government of Iran appeared first on HISTORY.

Banneker himself was born free in what is now Ellicott City, Maryland, and was encouraged in his studies of astronomy and mathematics by the Ellicotts, a Quaker family who owned a mill and much of the land in the area. Predicting a solar eclipse and constructing a functioning clock that struck on the hour were among his early achievements. His prowess caught the eye of Jefferson after Major Andrew Ellicott chose Banneker to assist him in surveying the original boundaries of what would become the District of Columbia. Banneker also compiled several ephemerides (a type of astronomical chart) and almanacs.

In August of 1791, Banneker sent Jefferson, who was known both as a Founding Father and a devoted scientist, a draft of an almanac he was readying for publication. He felt compelled to include a personal note. In this letter, Banneker quoted the famous preamble to the Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”) and said plainly that he was disappointed in the hypocrisy of Jefferson, a slaveowner:

"…but Sir how pitiable is it to reflect, that altho you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of those rights and privileges which he had conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves."

Jefferson’s response, eleven days later, was cordial and complimentary but also condescending and racist. Jefferson praised the almanac and informed Banneker that he was sending it along to the Marquis de Condorcet, a French philosopher, mathematician, and abolitionist. The future president praised Banneker as a credit to the Black race, essentially telling him that he considered the almanac evidence that African American’s inferiority was owed “merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America” and not to their innate inferiority, a paternalistic sentiment that was a frequent topic of debate among whites.

After Banneker’s death, Jefferson expressed doubt that a Black man could have written the almanac. He continued to own enslaved workers, despite decrying slavery in some of his writings, until his own death in 1826. Shortly after they were written, a Philadelphia publisher circulated a pamphlet containing Banneker’s eloquent argument for abolition and Jefferson’s non-committal response, which made the rounds among the nascent abolitionist movement. Contrary to the myth that slavery was universally accepted among educated and elite circles in the early United States, Banneker’s letter stands as proof that one of the nation’s founders received first-hand criticism of his hypocritical and contradictory stance on slavery in his lifetime.

The post Benjamin Banneker writes to Thomas Jefferson, urging justice for African Americans appeared first on HISTORY.

The moment reflects an unprecedented consolidation of power in the short history of the German republic—and a turning point in world history.

In 1932, President von Hindenburg, old, tired, and a bit senile, had won re-election as president but had lost a considerable portion of his right/conservative support to the Nazi Party. Those close to the president wanted a cozier relationship to Hitler and the Nazis. Hindenburg had contempt for the Nazis’ lawlessness, but ultimately agreed to oust his chancellor, Heinrich Bruning, for Franz von Papen, who was willing to appease the Nazis by lifting the ban on Hitler’s Brown Shirts and unilaterally canceling Germany’s reparation payments, imposed by the Treaty of Versailles at the close of World War I.

But Hitler was not appeased. He wanted the chancellorship for himself. Papen’s policies failed on another front: His authoritarian rule alienated his supporters, and he too was forced to resign. He then made a common cause with Hitler, persuading President von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler chancellor and himself vice-chancellor. He promised the president that he would restrain Hitler’s worst tendencies and that a majority of the Cabinet would go to non-Nazis. As Hindenburg’s current chancellor could no longer gain a majority in the Reichstag, and Hitler could bring together a larger swath of the masses and a unified right/conservative/nationalist coalition, the president gave in. In January 1933, Hitler was named chancellor of Germany.

But that was not enough for Hitler either. In February 1933, Hitler blamed a devastating Reichstag fire on the communists (its true cause remains a mystery) and convinced President Hindenburg to sign a decree suspending individual and civil liberties, a decree Hitler used to silence his political enemies with false arrests. Hitler then proceeded to purge the Brown Shirts (his storm troopers), the head of which, Ernst Röhm, had begun voicing opposition to the Nazi Party’s terror tactics. Hitler had Röhm executed without trial, which encouraged the army and other reactionary forces within the country to urge Hitler to further consolidate his power by merging the presidency and the chancellorship. Hindenburg died of lung cancer on August 2. A plebiscite vote was held on August 19. Intimidation, and fear of the communists, brought Hitler his 90 percent majority. He was now, for all intents and purposes, dictator.

The post Adolf Hitler cements his position of supreme power appeared first on HISTORY.

On May 1, 1960, Powers took off from Pakistan at the controls of an ultra-sophisticated Lockheed U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. A CIA-employed pilot, he was to fly over some 2,000 miles of Soviet territory to BodØ military airfield in Norway, collecting intelligence information en route. Roughly halfway through his journey, he was shot down by the Soviets over Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains. Forced to bail out at 15,000 feet, he survived the parachute jump but was promptly arrested by Soviet authorities.

On May 5, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced that the American spy aircraft had been shot down and two days later revealed that Powers was alive and well and had confessed to being on an intelligence mission for the CIA. On May 7, the United States acknowledged that the U-2 had probably flown over Soviet territory but denied that it had authorized the mission. On May 16, leaders of the United States, the USSR, Britain, and France met in Paris for a long-awaited summit meeting. The four powers were to discuss tensions in the two Germanys and negotiate new disarmament treaties. However, at the first session, the summit collapsed after President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to apologize to Khrushchev for the U-2 incident. Khrushchev also canceled an invitation for Eisenhower to visit the USSR.

In August, Powers pleaded guilty to espionage charges in Moscow and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment–three in prison and seven in a prison colony. However, only 18 months later, the Soviets agreed to release him in exchange for Rudolf Abel, a senior KGB spy who was caught and convicted in the United States five years earlier. On February 10, 1962, Powers and Abel were brought to separate sides of the Glienicker Bridge, which connected East and West Berlin across Lake Wannsee. As the spies waited, negotiators talked in the center of the bridge where a white line divided East from West. Finally, Powers and Abel were waved forward and walked past each other to freedom.

Upon returning to the United States, Powers was cleared by the CIA and the Senate of any personal blame for the U-2 incident. In 1970, he published a book, Operation Overflight, about the incident and in 1977 was killed in the crash of a helicopter he flew as a reporter for a Los Angeles television station.

The post Captured U.S. spy pilot sentenced in Russia appeared first on HISTORY.

In May 1993, the bodies of three 8-year-old boys, Christopher Byers, Steve Branch and Michael Moore, were found naked and hog-tied in a drainage ditch in a wooded section of West Memphis, Arkansas. Investigators initially had few solid leads; however, because the bodies appeared to have been mutilated, rumors circulated about a possible connection to satanic cult activities. A tip eventually led investigators to focus on the teenage Echols, a high school dropout who grew up poor, was interested in witchcraft and regularly wore black clothing. Then, Misskelley, an acquaintance of Echols, confessed to the murders following a lengthy interrogation by authorities, and implicated Echols and Baldwin. Described as having a below-average IQ, Misskelley provided information about the crime that conflicted in key ways from details known to the police, and he soon recanted his confession. Nevertheless, in February 1994, he was convicted of first- and second-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison plus 40 years.

In a separate trial in March 1994, Echols and Baldwin were convicted of capital murder. During the trial, Misskelley refused to testify against the two, and prosecutors had no eyewitnesses or physical evidence linking Echols and Baldwin to the crime. Instead, the prosecution presented evidence that Echols, the alleged ringleader, read books about witchcraft as well as novels by Stephen King and Anne Rice, and said he was motivated to murder the boys as part of an occult ritual.

The case gained national attention with the release of the 1996 documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, which cast doubt on the men’s guilt. A movement grew to free the West Memphis Three, and celebrities including Pearl Jam front man Eddie Vedder, Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines and film director Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy) spoke out in support of the three men and helped fund a legal team to fight the convictions. In 2007, lawyers for the West Memphis Three said new forensic tests showed there was no DNA evidence to link the men to the crime.

In the fall of 2010, the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered a hearing for Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley to determine if they deserved new trials. However, before the hearing took place, the trio’s lawyers and prosecutors in Arkansas reached a deal allowing the men to enter an Alford plea and go free. With this little-used legal tool, a defendant is allowed to maintain his or her innocence but plead guilty because it is considered in his or her best interest to do so.

In a statement following his release from custody on August 19, 2011, Echols said, in part, of the plea deal: “I have now spent half my life on death row. It is a torturous environment that no human being should have to endure, and it needed to end. I am innocent, as are Jason and Jessie, but I made this decision because I did not want to spend another day of my life behind those bars.”

The post “West Memphis Three” released from prison after 18 years appeared first on HISTORY.