Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme
On September 5, 1975, an assassination attempt against President Gerald Ford is foiled in Sacramento, California, when a Secret Service agent wrests a semi-automatic handgun from Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles Manson.
Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox and Regent of Scotland
On September 4, 1571, Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox and Regent of Scotland was assassinated. Stewart was the leader of the Catholic nobility in Scotland and was the grandson of James VI of Scotland. He spent most of his youth in exile in England, but returned to Scotland to assert his claims to the line of succession when James V died in 1542. At the time of the king's death in 1542, Lennox possessed a strong claim to the throne of Scotland should Mary, Queen of Scots, an infant, pass away childless.
Beslan school massacre
On September 3, 2004, a three-day hostage crisis at a Russian school comes to a violent conclusion after a gun battle erupts between the hostage-takers and Russian security forces. In the end, over 300 people died, many of them children, while hundreds more were injured.
Mathias Rust flys his plane into Red Square
On September 2, 1987, the trial of Mathias Rust begins. The 19-year-old Rust was accused of flying his Cessna plane into Moscow’s Red Square in May 1987. Rust had become an international celebrity following his daring intrusion of Soviet airspace and landing in the center of Moscow, but the Soviet government condemned his actions.
Richard Ramirez
On August 31, 1985, Richard Ramirez, the notorious "Night Stalker," is captured and nearly killed by a mob in East Los Angeles, California, after being recognized from a photograph shown both on television and in newspapers. Recently identified as the serial killer, Ramirez was saved from the enraged mob by police officers.
Cynthia Coffman and James Marlow
On August 30, 1989, Cynthia Coffman and James Marlow are sentenced to death in California for the 1986 murder of Corinna Novis. Coffman was the first woman to receive a death sentence in the state since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977.
Richard Jewell
On August 29, 2007, Richard Jewell, the hero security guard turned Olympic bombing suspect, dies at age 44 of natural causes at his Georgia home. On July 27, 1996, during the Summer Games in Atlanta, a pipe bomb exploded at crowded Centennial Olympic Park, killing one woman and injuring 111 other people.
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
