1876 – William Marcy “Boss” Tweed, leader of New York City’s corrupt Tammany Hall political organization during the 1860s and early 1870s, was delivered to authorities in New York City after his capture in Spain.
Tweed became a powerful figure in Tammany Hall – New York City’s Democratic political machine – in the late 1850s. By the mid 1860s, he had risen to the top position in the organization and formed the “Tweed Ring,” which openly bought votes, encouraged judicial corruption, extracted millions from city contracts, and dominated New York City politics.
The Tweed Ring reached its peak of fraudulence in 1871 with the remodeling of the City Court House, a blatant embezzlement of city funds that was exposed by The New York Times.
All the Tweed Ring were subsequently tried and sentenced to prison. Boss Tweed served time for forgery and larceny and other charges but in 1875 escaped from prison and traveled to Cuba and Spain. In 1876, he was arrested by Spanish police, who reportedly recognized him from a famous Nash cartoon depiction. After Tweedvs extradition to the United States, he was returned to prison, where he died in 1878.
1903 – Singer Enrico Caruso made his American debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, appearing in Rigoletto.
1936 – The first issue of the pictorial magazine Life was published, featuring a cover photo of the Fort Peck Dam by Margaret Bourke-White.
Life actually had its start earlier in the 20th century as a different kind of magazine: a weekly humor publication, not unlike The New Yorker in its use of tart cartoons, humorous pieces and cultural reporting. When the original Life folded during the Great Depression, influential American publisher Henry Luce bought the name and re-launched the magazine as a picture-based periodical on this day.
1959 – Robert Stroud, the famous “Birdman of Alcatraz,” was released from solitary confinement for the first time since 1916. Stroud gained widespread fame and attention in 1943 when his Digest of the Diseases of Birds, a 500-page text that included his own illustrations, was published to general acclaim.
1963 – The BBC aired An Unearthly Child, the first episode of the science-fiction television serial of the same name and the first episode of Doctor Who, which is now the world’s longest running science fiction drama.
1970 – Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird disclosed the November 21 U.S. raid on the North Vietnamese prison camp at Son Tay. A combined Air Force and Army team of 40 Americans – led by Army Colonel “Bull” Simons – conducted a raid on the Son Tay prison camp, 23 miles west of Hanoi, in an attempt to free between 70 and 100 American suspected of being held there. The raid was conducted almost flawlessly, but no prisoners of war were found in the camp. They had been moved earlier to other locations.
Laird revealed that approximately one hour after the raid took place, U.S. aircraft (200 fighter bombers and 100 support aircraft) inflicted the most severe bombing raids in two years on North Vietnam as retaliation for the shooting down of U.S. reconnaissance aircraft.
1974 – Bloody Saturday In Ethiopia: A leftist military junta which had formally overthrown Emperor Haile Selassie just ten weeks earlier, executed 60 imprisoned former government officials in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
1979 – Thomas McMahon, a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), was sentenced to life imprisonment for preparing and planting the bomb that killed Lord Louis Mountbatten and three others three months before.
On August 27, 1979, Lord Mountbatten was killed when McMahon and other IRA terrorists detonated a 50-pound bomb hidden on his fishing vessel Shadow V. Mountbatten, a World War II 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 Britons against the IRA and convinced Margaret Thatcher’s government to take a hard-line stance against the terrorist organization.
McMahon was released in 1998.
1980 – An earthquake struck Southern Italy, killing more than 3,000 people. The casualty toll was so high in part because the tremor struck during Sunday night mass, as many residents sat in churches that crumbled in the quake.
The 7.2-magnitude quake struck at 7:34 p.m. on a Sunday night and was centered in Eboli, south of Naples. In nearby Balvano, children were preparing for their first communion at the 1,000-year-old Conza Della Compagna church. The violent shaking demolished the church and killed scores of people, including 26 children.
Throughout Southern Italy, fires broke out when gas lines ruptured. Since much of the area’s water supply was disrupted by broken piping, firefighting efforts were severely hampered. In addition, extensive damage to the roads and railways leading into the small villages that dominated the region slowed down the rescue and relief efforts. To make matters even worse, a heavy fog blanketed the area that evening and the following morning.
1981 – President Ronald Reagan signed off on a top secret document, National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), which gave the Central Intelligence Agency the power to recruit and support a 500-man force of Nicaraguan rebels to conduct covert actions against the leftist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. A budget of $19 million was established for that purpose. NSDD-17 marked the beginning of official U.S. support for the so-called Contras in their struggle against the Sandinistas.
Beyond the original goal of halting the flow of arms from Nicaragua, the tasks of the rebels were expanded to include spy missions and even paramilitary actions inside Nicaragua. News of the directive leaked out to the press in March 1982, but Reagan administration officials quickly downplayed the significance of the action. They argued that the CIA plan was designed to support Nicaraguan “moderates” who opposed the Sandinista regime, not the disreputable former soldiers and allies of Anastasio Somoza, whom the Sandinista overthrew in 1979.
1984 – The “Hail Flutie” … one of the most iconic moments in the history of college football.
Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie threw a 48-yard touchdown pass to Gerard Phelan as time expired to lead the Eagles to a miracle 47-45 win over the University of Miami.
With six seconds left in the game, Flutie scrambled to his right, narrowly averting a sack. He threw the football from his own 37, requiring the 5′ 9″ quarterback to throw the ball 63 yards (he threw it 64) against 30 mph winds. Phelan was virtually unguarded as the ball came straight down over a mass of Miami players standing a few yards in front of him.
2006 – Former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko died in London from radiation poisoning after making a deathbed statement blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin.
2012 – Actor Larry Hagman (son of actress Mary Martin and starred in I Dream Of Jeannie and Dallas) died of complications from acute myeloid leukemia. He was 81.
Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2015 RayLemire.com. All Rights Reserved.