Person report

★03 Aug 1948
Before the House Un-American Activities Committee of the United States House of Representatives, former spy turned government informer Whittaker Chambers accused U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss of being a communist and a Soviet spy.

★25 Nov 1952
Korean War: After 42 days of fighting, the Battle of Triangle Hill ended as American and South Korean units abandoned their attempt to capture the "Iron Triangle".

★15 Nov 1959
Two men murdered a family in Holcomb, Kansas, U.S.; the events became the subject of Truman Capote's non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, a pioneering work of the true crime genre.

★13 Aug 1961
Construction began on the Berlin Wall, a long barrier separating West Berlin from East Berlin and the surrounding territory of East Germany.

★24 Aug 1963
Buddhist crisis: The U.S. State Department ordered Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. to encourage South Vietnamese Army officers to oust Ngo Dinh Diem if he did not willingly remove Ngo Dinh Nhu from his unofficial position of power.

★22 Dec 1964
The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the United States Air Force's long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft and the world's fastest air-breathing manned aircraft, made its first flight.

★17 Mar 1968
Six thousand sheep were killed on ranches near Dugway Proving Ground in Utah as a result of the U.S. Army spraying a nerve agent.

★09 Jan 1972
Seawise University, formerly RMS Queen Elizabeth, an ocean liner that sailed the Atlantic for the Cunard White Star Line, was destroyed by fire in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong.

★22 Feb 1974
Samuel Byck attempted to hijack an aircraft at Baltimore/Washington International Airport with the intention of crashing it into the White House to assassinate Richard Nixon, but was killed by police.

★08 Nov 1974
British peer Lord Lucan disappeared without trace, a day after allegedly murdering his children's nanny Sandra Rivett.

Historical data by Wikipedia Contributors CC BY-SA 3.0.