(Mladic was extradited to face trial in The Hague, Netherlands he was convicted in 2017 on genocide and war crimes charges and is serving a life sentence.) In 2011, Ratko Mladic (RAHT’-koh MLAH’-dich), the brutal Bosnian Serb general suspected of leading the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys, was arrested after a 16-year manhunt. California’s Supreme Court upheld the Proposition 8 gay marriage ban but said the 18,000 same-sex weddings that had taken place before the prohibition passed were still valid.Ĭlick here to sign up for our free, seven-day newsletter course on legal cannabis in Connecticut. In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S.
(Nichols later received 161 consecutive life sentences.) In 2004, nearly a decade after the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols was found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the attack. In 1994, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were married in the Dominican Republic. In 1981, 14 people were killed when a Marine jet crashed onto the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off Florida. In 1971, Don McLean recorded his song “American Pie” at The Record Plant in New York City (it was released the following November by United Artists Records). (The initial blast was blamed on leaking catapult fluid ignited by the flames of a jet.) In 1954, explosions rocked the aircraft carrier USS Bennington off Rhode Island, killing 103 sailors. In 1940, Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of some 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, began during World War II. In 1938, the House Un-American Activities Committee was established by Congress.