November 21st, 2008

Today in History

1985:
United States Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard is arrested for spying (he was caught giving Israel classified information on Arab nations and was eventually sentenced to life in prison).

1980:
1980 -Lake Peigneur drained into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe drilled into the Diamond crystal salt mine; water flowing down into the mine eroded the edges of the hole. The whirlpool created sucked the drilling platform, several barges, houses and trees thousands of feet, to the bottom of the dissolving salt deposit.

1941:
The radio program King Biscuit Time is broadcast for the first time (it would later become the longest running daily radio broadcast in history and the most famous live blues radio program).

1927:
Columbine Mine Massacre: 500 striking coal miners, some with their families, were attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes

1861:
American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis appoints Judah Benjamin secretary of war.