On this date
In 1789, there was a mutiny on the HMS Bounty as rebelling crew members of the British ship, led by Fletcher Christian, set the captain, William Bligh, and 18 others adrift in a launch in the South Pacific. (Bligh and most of the men with him reached Timor in 47 days.)
In 1925, the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts, which gave rise to the term “Art Deco,” began a six-month run in Paris.
In 1942, pollster George Gallup said most Americans preferred to call the then-current global conflict “World War II” or “The Second World War” (other suggestions included “Survival War” or “War of World Freedom”).
In 1945, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara Petacci, were executed by Italian partisans as they attempted to flee the country.
In 1947, a six-man expedition set out from Peru aboard a balsa wood raft named the Kon-Tiki on a 101-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to the Polynesian Islands.
In 1974, former Attorney General John Mitchell and former Commerce Secretary Maurice H. Stans, accused of attempting to interfere in a Securities and Exchange Commission probe of financier Robert Vesco in exchange for a $200,000 contribution to President Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign, were acquitted of all charges by a federal jury in New York.
In 1996, a man armed with a semiautomatic rifle went on a rampage on the Australian island of Tasmania, killing 35 people; the gunman was captured by police after a 12-hour standoff at a guest cottage, and is now serving a life prison sentence.
Ten years ago: A suicide car bomber struck in Karbala, Iraq, killing at least 63 people.
Five years ago: Syria derided United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as biased and called his comments “outrageous” after he blamed the regime for widespread ceasefire violations.
One year ago: A police sniper shot and wounded a man who walked into the lobby of Baltimore station WBFF-TV wearing a full animal costume and surgical mask and displaying what appeared to be an explosive device on his chest (the “device” turned out to be aluminum-wrapped chocolate bars duct-taped to a flotation device).