| (1880) A South Seas paradise becomes a French colony
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King Pōmare V cedes a 403-square-mile island in the remote South Pacific to France as he abdicates his throne under pressure from his chiefs. Tahiti will be the crown jewel of French Polynesia, but indigenous Tahitians will have to wait until 1946 for full French citizenship.. |
| (1943) A president reassures physicist working on The Bomb
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| A clash between General Leslie Groves and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer threatens to derail a top-secret American military project in the New Mexico desert, and President Franklin Roosevelt intervenes with a letter of heartfelt support written to get the Manhattan Project back on track.. |
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| (1967) Nonexistent pot and four uppers nail Jagger and Richards
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A salacious trial in England wraps up after a drug bust at Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richard’s home. No “indian hemp” was actually found, and singer Mick Jagger had only four amphetamine pills, but they’re both convicted and sentenced to prison, Jagger for three months and Richards a year. They’ll spend just two days in prison before the convictions are thrown out.. |
| (1995) Statecraft in space as an American shuttle meets the Mir
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| For the first time in history a US space shuttle docks with a Russian space station, as Atlantis shuttle commander Robert ‘Hoot’ Gibson pilots his craft at 17,500 mph to dock with the massive Mir space station. Their meeting creates the largest manmade object ever to orbit the earth. . |
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