Day By Day

Monday, March 01, 2010

This Day In History

Today is "National Pig Day" and I'm not sure just how to celebrate it? Should I purchase a pig? Seek one out and feed it some truffles? Should I act like a pig and leave my stuff lying around the house? Should I just "pig out" on something? I asked my wife and she said "today's the day you men get to be nice to yourselves".

On this day in 1932 the infant son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh was kidnapped. At the time the Lindberghs were the most famous celebrities in America and the kidnapping was a huge story. More than two months later the child's body was found. He had been bludgeoned to death. The subsequent investigation into the crime covered more than two years and resulted in the arrest of Bruno Hauptmann, a German immigrant carpenter. Hauptmann's arrest, trial, and execution in the electric chair were the biggest story of the age, and at various times involved such prominent and controversial figures as Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf [Chief of the New Jersey State Police and father of General "Stormin Norman" Schwarzkopf], President Herbert Hoover, "Wild Bill" Donovan [founder of the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA] Al Capone, and J. Edgar Hoover. The federal government was mobilized as never before. Congress passed the "Lindbergh Law" making kidnapping across State lines a federal offence, thus allowing federal agencies such as the Immigration Service, the Coast Guard, the "Bureau of Investigation" [the early FBI] and others to get involved. The arrest of Hauptmann sparked a huge wave of anti-German and anti-immigrant emotion. Conspiracy theories abounded, most of them involving organized crime, Nazis, or high government officials and supposed police cover-ups. The case spawned stories, novels, films and TV productions. It was the "Crime of the Century" [well..., one of them]. Some people are still obsessed with it. You can read more here and here.

On this day in 1954 four Puerto Rican nationalists entered the visitor's gallery of the House of Representatives while it was in session and opened fire on the congresscritters below. Five of them were wounded. The terrorists were immediately arrested, tried and sentenced to death. President Eisenhower commuted the death sentence and they all were then sentenced to 70 years in prison. In 1978-79 Jimmy Carter freed them all in exchange for Cuba releasing several CIA agents that had been captured there over the years.

A personal note: When I was in grad school I taught evening courses at Rutgers. Some of my students still regarded these terrorists as heroes.

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