On March 1, 1974, in addition to handing up criminal indictments against seven former high-ranking officials in the Nixon administration, a grand jury in the District of Columbia named the president himself as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Watergate cover-up. The drumbeat of bad news was growing louder by the month for President Nixon, as […]readmore
On this day in 1887, Anne Sullivan begins teaching six-year-old Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing after a severe illness at the age of 19 months. Under Sullivan’s tutelage, including her pioneering “touch teaching” techniques, the previously uncontrollable Keller flourished, eventually graduating from college and becoming an international lecturer and activist. Sullivan, later […]readmore
Actor Robert Mitchum is released from a Los Angeles County prison farm after spending the final week of his two-month sentence for marijuana possession there. In the fall of 1948, Mitchum, the star of classics such as Cape Fear and Night of the Hunter, was smoking a joint at a small party in the Laurel […]readmore
On this day in 1836, in San Antonio, Texas, Colonel William Travis issues a call for help on behalf of the Texan troops defending the Alamo, an old Spanish mission and fortress under attack by the Mexican army. A native of Alabama, Travis moved to the Mexican state of Texas in 1831. He soon became […]readmore
On this day in 1885, Mark Twain publishes his famous–and famously controversial–novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens) first introduced Huck Finn as the best friend of Tom Sawyer, hero of his tremendously successful novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Though Twain saw Huck’s story as a kind […]readmore
Sir Alexander Fleming on this day in 1929 left a plate of staphylococcus bacteria uncovered, and he noticed that a mold that had fallen on the culture had killed many of the bacteria. He identified the mold as penicillium notatum, similar to the kind found on bread. Fleming introduced his mold by-product called penicillin to cure […]readmore
Based on the traditional Chinese martial-arts genre known as wuxia, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon starred Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh as warriors in 19th-century China, during the Qing dynasty. Kept apart by honor, the two yearn for each other even as they become involved with a heated drama surrounding two younger lovers, played by Zhang Ziyi and […]readmore
On February 12, 1912, Hsian-T’ung, the last emperor of China, is forced to abdicate following Sun Yat-sen’s republican revolution. A provisional government was established in his place, ending 267 years of Manchu rule in China and 2,000 years of imperial rule. The former emperor, only six years old, was allowed to keep up his residence […]readmore
On this day in 2012, Whitney Houston, one of the world’s top-selling singers from the mid-1980s to late 1990s, is found dead in the bathtub of her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Houston’s death was the result of accidental drowning; heart disease and cocaine, which was found in her system, […]readmore
On this day in 1776, Georgia’s royal governor, Sir James Wright, escapes from his residence in Savannah to the safety of a waiting British warship, the HMS Scarborough and returns to London. Governor Wright had been taken into custody and placed under house arrest nearly a month earlier on January 18, 1776, by Patriots under the command […]readmore