In 1812,

devastated Caracas, Venezuela, causing an estimated 26,000 deaths, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1892, poet Walt Whitman died in Camden, New Jersey. In 1945, during World War II, Iwo Jima was fully secured by U.S. forces following a final, desperate attack by Japanese soldiers. In 1958, the U.S. Army launched America’s third successful satellite, Explorer 3. In 1979, a peace treaty was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and witnessed at the White House. In 1982, groundbreaking ceremonies took place in Washington, D.C., for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In 1992, a judge in Indianapolis sentenced former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson to six years in prison for raping a Miss Black America contestant. (Tyson ended up serving three years.) In 1997, the bodies of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate techno-religious cult who’d committed suicide were found inside a rented mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, California.