| (1831) Pioneering mountain man meets his end
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Jedediah Strong Smith, 32, has earned his middle name by surviving three massacres, a bear mauling, and travels through the vast wilds of the American West, including the unforgiving Mojave Desert. Exploring near the Santa Fe Trail in present day Kansas, Smith is killed by Comanche warriors.. |
| (1905) First naval battle of its kind pits Russia vs. Japan
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| The first and only ‘decisive’ naval battle fought by modern steel battleship fleets, and also the first in which radio communications play a decisive role, the Battle of Tsushima will result in a crushing blow to the mighty Russian Imperial Navy, as Japanese forces destroy almost their entire fleet.. |
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| (1943) A survivor’s incredible odyssey begins
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Former Olympic track runner and now US Army Air Corps bombardier, Louie Zamperini is shot down 850 miles south of Oahu, Hawaii. He will survive 47 days on the open ocean, only to be captured, imprisoned, and tortured in Japanese POW camps, all of which prove Zamperini is “unbreakable.”. |
| (1994) Banished son of Russia returns to his motherland
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| Winner of 1970’s Nobel Prize in Literature, author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returns to the homeland that exiled him for the very writing that garnered him acclaim. Communism’s fall now allows the author of ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ to be reunited with a country he hasn’t seen for 20 years. . |
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