This Day in History

 Mar 9, 1916:
Pancho Villa attacks Columbus, New Mexico



Angered over American support of his rivals for the control of Mexico, the peasant-born revolutionary leader Pancho Villa attacks the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.

In 1913, a bloody civil war in Mexico brought the ruthless general Victoriano Huerta to power. American President Woodrow Wilson despised the new regime, referring to it as a "government of butchers," and provided active military support to a challenger, Venustiano Carranza. Unfortunately, when Carranza won power in 1914, he also proved a disappointment and Wilson supported yet another rebel leader, Pancho Villa.

A wily, peasant-born leader, Villa joined with Emiliano Zapata to keep the spirit of rebellion alive in Mexico and harass the Carranza government. A year later, though, Wilson decided Carranza had made enough steps towards democratic reform to merit official American support, and the president abandoned Villa. Outraged, Villa turned against the United States. In January 1916, he kidnapped 18 Americans from a Mexican train and slaughtered them. A few weeks later, on this day in 1916, Villa led an army of about 1,500 guerillas across the border to stage a brutal raid against the small American town of Columbus, New Mexico. Villa and his men killed 19 people and left the town in flames.

Now determined to destroy the rebel he had once supported, Wilson ordered General John Pershing to lead 6,000 American troops into Mexico and capture Villa. Reluctantly, Carranza agreed to allow the U.S. to invade Mexican territory. For nearly two years, Pershing and his soldiers chased the elusive Villa on horseback, in automobiles, and with airplanes. The American troops had several bloody skirmishes with the rebels, but Pershing was never able to find and engage Villa.

Finally losing patience with the American military presence in his nation, Carranza withdrew permission for the occupation. Pershing returned home in early 1917, and three months later left for Europe as the head of the American Expeditionary Force of World War I. Though Pershing never captured Villa, his efforts did convince Villa never again to attack American citizens or territory. After helping remove Carranza from power in 1920, Villa agreed to retire from politics. His enemies assassinated him in 1923. The resentment engendered in Mexico by the efforts against Pancho Villa, however, did not fade with his death, and Mexican-American relations remained strained for decades to come.

This Day in History

  Mar 6, 1951:
The Rosenberg trial begins

The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins in New York Southern District federal court. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presides over the espionage prosecution of the couple accused of selling nuclear secrets to the Russians (treason could not be charged because the United States was not at war with the Soviet Union). The Rosenbergs, and co-defendant, Morton Sobell, were defended by the father and son team of Emanuel and Alexander Bloch. The prosecution includes the infamous Roy Cohn, best known for his association with Senator Joseph McCarthy.

David Greenglass was a machinist at Los Alamos, where America developed the atomic bomb. Julius Rosenberg, his brother-in-law, was a member of the American Communist Party and was fired from his government job during the Red Scare. According to Greenglass, Rosenberg asked him to pass highly confidential instructions on making atomic weapons to the Soviet Union. These materials were transferred to the Russians by Harry Gold, an acquaintance of Greenglass. The Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb (and effectively started the Cold War) in September 1949 based on information, including that from Greenglass, they had obtained from spies.

The only direct evidence of the Rosenberg's involvement was the confession of Greenglass. The left-wing community believed that the Rosenbergs were prosecuted because of their membership in the Communist Party. Their case became the cause celebre of leftists throughout the nation.

The trial lasted nearly a month, finally ending on April 4 with convictions for all the defendants. The Rosenbergs were sentenced to death row on April 6. Sobell received a thirty-year sentence. Greenglass got fifteen years for his cooperation. Reportedly, the Rosenbergs were offered a deal in which their death sentences would be commuted in return for an admission of their guilt. They refused and were executed.

This Day in History

 Jan 28, 1958:
Killer couple strikes the heartland



  
On this day in 1958, Charles Starkweather, a 19-year-old high-school dropout from Lincoln, Nebraska, and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, kill a Lincoln businessman, his wife and their maid, as part of a murderous crime spree that began a week earlier and would ultimately leave 10 people dead. The killer couple’s deadly road trip, which generated enormous media attention and a massive manhunt, came to an end the following day, when Starkweather and Fugate were arrested near Douglas, Wyoming. The crimes later inspired a slew of books, movies and music, including Terence Malick’s 1973 film "Badlands," starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, and Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 song "Nebraska."

Growing up, Charles Starkweather (1938-1959) was bullied and did poorly in school. He later idolized James Dean and identified with the actor’s rebellious, outsider image. Starkweather committed his first murder on December 1, 1957, when he robbed a gas station and killed the attendant. Reportedly, an attendant at the station had previously refused Starkweather’s attempt to buy a present for Fugate (1943- ) on credit.

Starkweather turned serial killer on January 21, 1958, when he shot Fugate’s stepfather and mother after arguing with them at their home, and strangled Fugate’s two-and-a-half-year-old sister. Starkweather and Fugate remained holed up at the scene of the crime for several days, before taking off in Starkweather’s car and murdering three more people--a farmer and two teenagers--on January 27. On January 28, the couple killed another three people--the Lincoln businessman, his wife and their maid. Starkweather and Fugate’s final victim, a shoe salesman, was killed on January 29; the couple was captured later that day.

Starkweather and Fugate were convicted of murder. He was given the death penalty and died in the electric chair on June 25, 1959. Fugate was sentenced to life in prison, but was released in 1976.
   
   
       
   
       
   

   
       

This Day in History

 Jan 20, 1961:
John F. Kennedy inaugurated





On January 20, 1961, on the newly renovated east front of the United States Capitol, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States. It was a cold and clear day, and the nation's capital was covered with a snowfall from the previous night. The ceremony began with a religious invocation and prayers, and then African-American opera singer Marian Anderson sang "The Star-Spangled Banner," and Robert Frost recited his poem "The Gift Outright." Kennedy was administered the oath of office by Chief Justice Earl Warren. During his famous inauguration address, Kennedy, the youngest candidate ever elected to the presidency and the country's first Catholic president, declared that "the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans" and appealed to Americans to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1917, Kennedy was the son of Joseph Patrick Kennedy, a wealthy businessman. Both of his grandfathers were politicians, and his father served appointed positions in the Roosevelt administration, most prominently as U.S. ambassador to Britain. Kennedy volunteered to fight in World War II and was decorated for an August 1943 action in which he saved several of his men after the PT torpedo boat he was commanding was sunk in the South Pacific. In 1944, Kennedy's older brother, Joseph, was killed in a bombing mission over Belgium. Joseph had planned to make a career in politics, and Kennedy, discharged and working as a reporter, decided to enter politics in his place.

He won the Democratic nomination for the 11th Congressional District of Massachusetts, defeated his Republican opponent, and became a U.S. congressman at the age of 29. Twice reelected, he was known in Congress for his foreign policy expertise, often taking a bipartisan stance when it came to issues of national security. In the election of 1952, in which the Republicans won the White House and majorities in Congress, Kennedy captured the Senate seat of Republican Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. after an intensive campaign.

In 1956, he nearly became the running mate of Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, winning Kennedy wide national exposure and leading him to consider a bid for the 1960 presidential nomination. In 1957, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book of biographical essays, Profiles in Courage, and in 1958, he was reelected to the Senate by the largest margin in Massachusetts history. By that time, Kennedy's presidential campaign was in full swing.

The press embraced the young, idealistic senator and his glamorous wife, Jackie, and Kennedy's father bought a 40-passenger Convair aircraft to transport the candidate and his staff around the country. By the time the 1960 Democratic National Convention convened, Kennedy had won seven primary victories. On July 13, he was nominated on the first ballot, and the next day Senate majority leader Lyndon Johnson was chosen as his running mate. Opposed by Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Kennedy performed well in televised debates with Nixon, a new addition to presidential politics. On November 8, he was elected president.

Kennedy, his wife, and family seemed fitting representatives of the youthful spirit of America during the early 1960s, and the Kennedy White House was idealized by admirers as a modern-day "Camelot." In foreign policy, Kennedy actively fought communism in the world, ordering the controversial Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and sending thousands of U.S. military "advisors" to Vietnam. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he displayed firmness and restraint, exercising an unyielding opposition to the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba but also demonstrating a level-headedness during negotiations for their removal. On the domestic front, he introduced his "New Frontier" social legislation, calling for a rigorous federal desegregation policy and a sweeping new civil rights bill. On November 22, 1963, after less than three years in office, Kennedy was assassinated while riding in an open-car motorcade with his wife in Dallas, Texas
   
   
   
       
   
    
       

This Day in History

 Jan 19, 1809:
Edgar Allan Poe is born



On this day in 1809, poet, author and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts.

By the time he was three years old, both of Poe's parents had died, leaving him in the care of his godfather, John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant. After attending school in England, Poe entered the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1826. After fighting with Allan over his heavy gambling debts, he was forced to leave UVA after only eight months. Poe then served two years in the U.S. Army and won an appointment to West Point. After another falling-out, Allan cut him off completely and he got himself dismissed from the academy for rules infractions.

Dark, handsome and brooding, Poe had published three works of poetry by that time, none of which had received much attention. In 1836, while working as an editor at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Virginia, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. He also completed his first full-length work of fiction, Arthur Gordon Pym, published in 1838. Poe lost his job at the Messenger due to his heavy drinking, and the couple moved to Philadelphia, where Poe worked as an editor at Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine. He became known for his direct and incisive criticism, as well as for dark horror stories like "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Tell-Tale Heart." Also around this time, Poe began writing mystery stories, including "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter"--works that would earn him a reputation as the father of the modern detective story.  

In 1844, the Poes moved to New York City. He scored a spectacular success the following year with his poem "The Raven." While Poe was working to launch The Broadway Journal--which soon failed--his wife Virginia fell ill and died of tuberculosis in early 1847. His wife's death drove Poe even deeper into alcoholism and drug abuse. After becoming involved with several women, Poe returned to Richmond in 1849 and got engaged to an old flame. Before the wedding, however, Poe died suddenly. Though circumstances are somewhat unclear, it appeared he began drinking at a party in Baltimore and disappeared, only to be found incoherent in a gutter three days later. Taken to the hospital, he died on October 7, 1849, at age 40.

This Day in History

 Jan 18, 1985:
Coen brothers release debut film, Blood Simple



The hard-boiled, often gruesome black comedy Blood Simple, the debut offering from the Minnesota-born brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, premieres on this day in 1985. The film told the story of Julian Marty (played by Dan Hedaya), a bar owner who hires a private detective (M. Emmett Walsh) to follow his wife (Frances McDormand). When the detective finds out that Marty's wife is two-timing him with a handsome bartender (John Getz), Marty hires the detective to kill the pair.

The offspring of two university professors, Joel and Ethan Coen were just 29 and 26 years old, respectively, when they made Blood Simple. They wrote the screenplay together, and Joel, a graduate of New York University's film school, was given a director credit while Ethan served as the producer. (At the time, guild rules prohibited giving a joint directing credit; on their later films, the brothers are both listed as directors.) Blood Simple was also the first film featuring the work of the cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who later became a noted director (Men in Black) himself, and of McDormand, Joel Coen's wife (they married in 1984).

Shot in Texas on a low budget, mostly with money from Minneapolis investors, Blood Simple won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, which had recently been taken over by Robert Redford's Sundance Institute and is now held in Park City, Utah, every January. Building on the buzz of that award, the entertainment media went crazy over the two young brothers, comparing their debut with the work of such luminaries as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Sergio Leone. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker was one of the dissenting voices amid the praise, writing that "Joel and Ethan Coen may be entrepreneurial heroes, but they're not moviemaker heroes. Blood Simple has no openness--it doesn't breathe."

After writing the screenplay for the Sam Raimi-directed thriller Crimewave, the Coens returned to directing with the outlandish comedy Raising Arizona (1987), which had a lighter tone than Blood Simple and appealed more to a mass audience. After Barton Fink (1991) and The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), the brothers raised their profile (while preserving their offbeat, gruesome sense of style) with the success of Fargo (1996), which earned McDormand an Oscar, for Best Actress, and the Coens another, for Best Original Screenplay. On that film, as on Blood Simple and many of their other projects, Joel and Ethan also worked as editors, using the alias Roderick Jaynes.

Though movies like the cult hit The Big Lebowski (1998) and O, Brother Where Art Thou? (2000) earned praise from critics and the devotion of Coen fans, their next several films, The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Intolerable Cruelty (2003) and The Ladykillers (2004) failed to impress either group. In 2007, however, the Coens returned with their most critically acclaimed success yet, the gritty Western No Country for Old Men, starring Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem. The film earned eight Academy Award nominations and won four Oscars, including statues for the Coens for Best Director (they were the first directing team ever to win an Academy Award), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. Bardem took home the fourth gold statuette, for Best Supporting Actor.

Since the release of Blood Simple, the Coens have built a reputation for disdaining the normal trappings of the Hollywood lifestyle, as well as for returning again and again to a familiar cast that features some of the industry's most respected actors, including McDormand, George Clooney, John Turturro and Steve Buscemi. The brothers' sensibilities are reportedly so similar that No Country star Josh Brolin referred to them in an interview as being "like one guy with two heads."

This Day in History

 Jan 17, 1950:
Boston thieves pull off historic robbery



On this day in 1950, 11 men steal more than $2 million from the Brinks Armored Car depot in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the perfect crime--almost--as the culprits weren't caught until January 1956, just days before the statute of limitations for the theft expired.

The robbery's mastermind was Anthony "Fats" Pino, a career criminal who recruited a group of 10 other men to stake out the depot for 18 months to figure out when it held the most money. Pino's men then managed to steal plans for the depot's alarm system, returning them before anyone noticed they were gone.

Wearing navy blue coats and chauffeur's caps--similar to the Brinks employee uniforms--with rubber Halloween masks, the thieves entered the depot with copied keys, surprising and tying up several employees inside the company's counting room. Filling 14 canvas bags with cash, coins, checks and money orders--for a total weight of more than half a ton--the men were out and in their getaway car in about 30 minutes. Their haul? More than $2.7 million--the largest robbery in U.S. history up until that time.

No one was hurt in the robbery, and the thieves left virtually no clues, aside from the rope used to tie the employees and one of the chauffeur's caps. The gang promised to stay out of trouble and not touch the money for six years in order for the statute of limitations to run out. They might have made it, but for the fact that one man, Joseph "Specs" O'Keefe, left his share with another member in order to serve a prison sentence for another burglary. While in jail, O'Keefe wrote bitterly to his cohorts demanding money and hinting he might talk. The group sent a hit man to kill O'Keefe, but he was caught before completing his task. The wounded O'Keefe made a deal with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to testify against his fellow robbers.

Eight of the Brinks robbers were caught, convicted and given life sentences. Two more died before they could go to trial. Only a small part of the money was ever recovered; the rest is fabled to be hidden in the hills north of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. In 1978, the famous robbery was immortalized on film in The Brinks Job, starring Peter Falk.