What happened on this day in history: Constantinople burns, "Tank Man" makes his dramatic stand in Tiananmen Square, and more.
1850: Pat Garrett Is Born
Public DomainPat Garrett in 1907, the year before he was shot and killed by an unknown assassin.
Pat Garrett, who later shot and killed the outlaw Billy the Kid in July 1881, is born in Chambers County, Alabama.
1870: Constantinople Burns
A vast swathe of the Ottoman city of Constantinople burns to the ground. The fire, caused by a girl who accidentally dropped a hot piece of charcoal out the window, ultimately killed 900 people and destroyed 3,000 homes.
1960: The Lake Bodom Murders Take Place In Finland
Wikimedia CommonsThe aftermath of the Lake Bodom murders.
Three teenagers are murdered and one more is brutally injured along the shore of Lake Bodom in Finland. The so-called Lake Bodom murders went unsolved for decades. In 2004, police arrested the sole survivor, Nils Gustafsson, but he was acquitted at trial, leaving this case still open to this day.
1968: Robert F. Kennedy Is Shot
Everett Collection HistoricalRobert Kennedy was shot three times, twice in the upper back and once in the head. Five other people were also struck by bullets.
Robert F. Kennedy is shot at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel. He addressed his supporters in the hotel ballroom following his victory in California’s Democratic presidential primary. After thanking everyone, he left and walked into the kitchen to make his way toward his next stop — when a 24-year-old Palestinian man named Sirhan Sirhan walked up and shot him three times at point-blank range.
As a crowd gathered around Kennedy, he asked “Is everybody OK?” before losing consciousness. He died the following day at age 42, four years younger than his brother was when he was shot dead five years earlier.
1981: The First Report On AIDS Is Published
The CDC publishes an article about Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), a rare lung condition that was affecting five homosexual men in Los Angeles. Following the publication, other medical professionals contacted the organization about similar cases among homosexual men. The disease was called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) before its name was changed to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
1982: Serial Killer Kelly Cochran Is Born
Kelly Cochran is born in Merrillville, Indiana. Cochran married her high school sweetheart immediately after graduation, promising that the two would never cheat on one another. If they did, someone would have to pay for it with their life.
After moving to Detroit, Cochran took a lover and was eventually found out by her husband. The two would go on to murder Cochran’s lover, and then Cochran decided to kill her husband as well. After her arrest, Cochran would admit to committing several other murders.
1989: “Tank Man” Is Photographed At Tiananmen Square
Wikimedia Commons“Tank Man” makes his dramatic stand near Tiananmen Square.
The iconic “Tank Man” is photographed facing down tanks near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. The Communist Party had forcefully crushed pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square over the preceding two days, killing between 200 and 10,000 people.
The fate of the man standing before the tanks in protest remains unknown to this day.
