Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
On March 6, 1951, the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins in New York. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presides over the espionage prosecution of the couple accused of selling nuclear secrets to the Russians (treason could not be charged because the U.S. was not at war with the Soviet Union).
Jim Morrison
On March 5, 1969, the Dade County Sheriff's Office issues an arrest warrant for Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors. He is charged with a single felony count and three misdemeanors for his stage antics at a Miami concert a few days earlier.
Louis "Lepke" Buchalter
On March 4, 1944, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, the head of Murder, Inc., is executed at Sing Sing Prison in New York. Lepke was the leader of the country's largest crime syndicate throughout the 1930s and was making nearly $50 million a year from his various enterprises.
Charles Ponzi
On March 3, 1882, Charles Ponzi, was born in Lugo, Italy. He became known in the early 1920s as one of the most infamous swindler’s in American history.
Charlie Chaplin
On March 2, 1978, two men steal the corpse of the legendary film actor Charlie Chaplin from a cemetery in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey. A comic actor who was perhaps most famous for his alter ego, the Little Tramp, Chaplin was also a respected filmmaker whose career spanned Hollywood’s silent film era and the momentous transition to “talkies” in the late 1920s.
On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh III, the young son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, is kidnapped from the family's home in Hopewell, New Jersey. Lindbergh, who became an international celebrity when he flew the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927, and his wife Anne discovered a ransom note demanding $50,000 in their son's empty room.
Olof Palme
On February 28, 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated. Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 until his death, and was a two-term Prime Minister of Sweden.
On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the city’s firefighters. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick O’Connor, the facts—or a lack of them—didn’t add up. Justice on Fire is OConnor’s detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters’ deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Also available from Amazon
