Also on this date
In 1894,
French army officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in a court-martial that triggered worldwide charges of anti-Semitism. (Dreyfus was eventually vindicated.)
In 1940,
author Nathanael West, 37, and his wife, Eileen McKenney, 27, were killed in a car crash in El Centro, California, while en route to the funeral of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, who had died the day before.
In 1941,
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrived in Washington for a wartime conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 1944,
during the World War II Battle of the Bulge, U.S. Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe rejected a German demand for surrender, writing “Nuts!” in his official reply.
In 1984,
New York City resident Bernhard Goetz shot and wounded four youths on a Manhattan subway, claiming they were about to rob him.
In 1989,
Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, the last of Eastern Europe’s hard-line Communist rulers, was toppled from power in a popular uprising.
In 1992,
a Libyan Boeing 727 jetliner crashed after a midair collision with a MiG fighter, killing all 157 aboard the jetliner, and both crew members of the fighter jet.
In 2003,
a federal judge ruled the Pentagon couldn’t enforce mandatory anthrax vaccinations for military personnel.
In 2008,
five Muslim immigrants accused of scheming to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix were convicted of conspiracy in Camden, New Jersey. (Four were later sentenced to life in prison; one received a 33-year sentence.)
Ten years ago:
President Barack Obama signed a law allowing gays for the first time in history to serve openly in America’s military, repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
Five years ago:
Migration experts said more than 1 million people who had been driven out of their countries by war, poverty and persecution entered Europe in 2015.
One year ago:
Baba Ram Dass, a 1960s counterculture spiritual leader who experimented with LSD and traveled to India to find enlightenment, died at the age of 88.