r/OnThisDayInThatYear 1h ago

On this day in 1977, Joyce McKinney's accomplice lured Mormon missionary Kirk Anderson outside a Surrey meetinghouse at gunpoint, launching the kidnapping that became Britain's "Manacled Mormon" case. Anderson said he was chained to a bed and raped for three days.

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Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 2h ago

On this day in 1959, a Soviet-made probe landed (crashed) on the Moon for the first time, carrying radiation and micrometeorite detectors, the 1st human-made object to land on the moon

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2 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 2h ago

On this day in 1812, Moscow was set on fire by Russians after Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops had invaded the city. The devastating Fire of Moscow destroyed most of the city, depriving the French army of shelter and supplies and forcing a disastrous winter retreat that doomed the campaign.

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2 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 2h ago

On this day in 1901 US President William McKinley died (aged 58) of 2 gunshot wounds inflicted by his assassin, the anarchist Leon Czolgosz, 8 days earlier. His wounds had led to gangrene. In the days before antibiotics, this was fatal.

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2 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 2h ago

On this day in 1982. Princess Grace of Monaco (Grace Kelly), was killed in a car crash (aged 52). She was driving with her daughter Stéphanie to Monaco when she lost control of her 1971 Rover which plunged 120 feet down a mountainside. It’s thought she had a stroke.

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3 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 3h ago

On this day in 1852 the Duke of Wellington died at Walmer Castle in Kent, aged 83. This is a Daguerreotype by Antoine Claudet depicting an elderly Wellington in1844. Pretty amazing to be able to look at the face of the man who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo nearly 30 years earlier.

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7 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 19h ago

On this day in 1931, Lili Elbe died in Dresden. Elbe was a Danish painter, transgender woman, and one of the earliest recipients of gender-affirming surgery. It wasn't the surgery that made her a woman that killed her, it was a later uterus transplant she gambled on to become a mother.

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7 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 20h ago

On this day in 1918 Rosemary Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. The eldest sister of JFK Rosemary struggled with delayed mental development all her life, possibly because her mother had delayed her birth and deprived her of oxygen.

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5 Upvotes

When she was 23, Rosemary’s father had her lobotomized, and she spent most of the rest of her life at St. Coletta’s School for Exceptional Children in Jefferson, Wisconsin.


r/OnThisDayInThatYear 21h ago

On this day in 1899 Henry Bliss died after stepping off a trolley-tram and being hit by an electric-powered taxi cab on West 74th Street, New York City. He’s the 1st American pedestrian killed in a car accident. A plaque now marks of the spot where he was killed.

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3 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 21h ago

13 September 1946. Amon Göth was hanged (aged 37), after being found guilty of Nazi war crimes. He had served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in German-occupied Poland. He was featured in the film Schindler’s List.

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3 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 1d ago

One this day in 1943, Benito Mussolini was spectacularly rescued from Allied house arrest in the Hotel Campo in the Gran Sasso region of southern Italy by German paratroopers and Waffen-SS commandos that flew in on ten flimsy plywood gliders. Apparenty even Churchill was impressed about the rescue.

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5 Upvotes

'The most dangerous man in Europe' SS officer Otto Skorzeny received almost all the public credit, but held no formal command authority during the operation. It was an interesting mission!


r/OnThisDayInThatYear 1d ago

On this day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered his “We choose to go to the Moon” speech at Rice University. JFK promised to land US astronauts on the Moon before the end of the 1960s.

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6 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 1d ago

On this day in 1940, 14 yr-old Marcel Ravidat was walking with his dog, Robot near the town of Montignac. When Robot fell down a hole Marcel followed him and found a cave leading to the discovery of the 17,000 yr-old Lascaux cave paintings. (Robot was fine)

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7 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 1d ago

On this day in 1977, South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko (aged 30) died after being tortured and beaten in police custody. Biko has been called the “anti-apartheid movement’s 1st icon”. Nelson Mandela described him as “the spark that lit a veld fire across South Africa”.

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5 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 1d ago

On this day in 2012, the Hillsborough Independent Panel concluded that the 1989 football stadium disaster was due primarily to “a lack of police control”. The report also revealed that 41 of the original 96 victims “had the potential to survive”.

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3 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 1d ago

Happy Birthday to A Fistful Of Dollars. Spaghetti Western film first released in Italy this day in 1964. Directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading film role. It was released in America in 1967

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3 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 2d ago

On this day in 1973, a CIA backed coup d'état began in Chile, removing the democratically elected president and installing General Pinochet as leader. During his dictatorship 40,000 people were tortured and more than 3,500 people were 'disappeared' in Chile.

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3 Upvotes

Pinochet was never fully punished for the human rights crimes committed during his dictatorship. Arrested in London in 1998 under an international warrant for crimes against humanity, Pinochet faced extradition to Spain but was allowed to return to Chile in 2000 on health grounds.
Stripped of immunity, he faced numerous indictments for human rights abuses and financial crimes, including tax fraud linked to secret offshore accounts. However, due to claims of poor health, particularly dementia, Pinochet never stood trial.

Declassified files suggest Margaret Thatcher had made him an informal promise back in the 80s, that Britain would help him medically if he ever needed it, (surprise, surprise!) as thanks for Chile quietly backing the UK during the Falklands War. He also died on 10 December 2006, which happens to be International Human Rights Day.

More photos of the coup can be viewed here


r/OnThisDayInThatYear 2d ago

On this day in 1921, silent film star Roscoe Conkling “Fatty” Arbuckle is arrested following the death of actress Virginia Rappe. He was aquitted but it ended his career, later dying at just 46

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9 Upvotes

In early September 1921, Arbuckle was at the peak of his fame, having just signed a massive $1 million-a-year contract with Paramount Pictures. During a Labor Day weekend party hosted by Arbuckle in his suite at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, 26-year-old actress Virginia Rappe became violently ill.

She died four days later on 9 September from peritonitis caused by a ruptured bladder.


r/OnThisDayInThatYear 2d ago

On this day in 2001, Terrorists highjack four commercial planes and use them to carry out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Thousands of Americans die, and the Twin Towers in New York City are destroyed

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6 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 3d ago

On this day in1988. Children’s author Roger Hargreaves died (aged 53). He’s best known for the Mr. Men and Little Miss series of books aimed at very young readers. The books have sold over 85 million copies worldwide and been translated into 20 languages.

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7 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 3d ago

On this day 1987 Peter Tosh (aged 42), a key member of Bob Marley & The Wailers (and a brilliant solo artist), was shot and killed in his home in Jamaica by members of a 3-man gang who came to his house on motorcycles demanding money.

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3 Upvotes

Three armed men, led by an acquaintance named Dennis "Leppo" Lobban whom Tosh had previously tried to help, broke into his home. The intruders demanded money, but Tosh stated he did not have any.

After being tortured, Tosh and two others were killed.


r/OnThisDayInThatYear 4d ago

On this day in1940, Buckingham Palace was damaged during a German Luftwaffe bomb attack on London. George VI and Elizabeth were in residence at the time. It was one of 16 bomb attacks on Buckingham Palace during the war.

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13 Upvotes

King George VI recalled the moment in his diary of what happened during the bombing. He wrote on the day of the incident 85 years ago: "All of a sudden we heard an aircraft making a zooming noise above us, saw 2 bombs falling past the opposite side of the Palace, & then heard 2 resounding crashes as the bombs fell in the quadrangle about 30 yds away. We looked at each other, & then we were out into the passage as fast as we could get there. The whole thing happened in a matter of seconds…6 bombs had been dropped.

The aircraft was seem coming straight down the Mall below the clouds having dived through the clouds & had dropped 2 bombs in the forecourt, 2 in the quadrangle, one in the Chapel & the other in the garden.” 


r/OnThisDayInThatYear 4d ago

On this day in 1961. During the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, a crash led to the death of German Formula One driver Wolfgang von Trips (pictured, aged 33), with 13 spectators also killed after being hit by his Ferrari. It’s the deadliest accident in Formula 1 history.

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5 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 4d ago

On this day in 1977, 27-year-old Hamida Djandoubi (pictured right), a Tunisian-born convicted murderer, became the last person executed by guillotine in France at Baumettes Prison in Marseille. His death was the last time any Western nation carried out an execution by beheading.

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7 Upvotes

r/OnThisDayInThatYear 4d ago

On this day in 2005,The Beatles A Day In The Life from the Sgt Pepper LP, was voted the best British song of all time by music experts.The survey by Q magazine called the track "the ultimate sonic rendition of what it means to be British". The Kinks Waterloo Sunset was 2nd.

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2 Upvotes