It was on this day in 1971 that a hijacker who called himself Dan Cooper parachuted out of an airplane. The man, whose actual name was never found out, had purchased a ticket for a flight from Portland OR to Seattle WA. Once aboard the plane he passed a note to a flight attendant, which stated that he had a bomb in his briefcase. He demanded $200,000 and four parachutes. After receiving the ransom and having the airplane refueled at Seattle, he instructed the crew to fly the plane towards Mexico City while maintaining the slowest speed and the lowest altitude possible. Sometime during the flight he opened a hatch in the back and hasn’t been seen since. It is the only unsolved hijacking in US history.
The earliest event that Wiki says happened on this day is “380 – Theodosius I makes his adventus, or formal entry, into Constantinople” and the most recent is “1992 – A China Southern Airlines domestic flight in the People’s Republic of China, crashes, killing all 141 people on-board.”
A few other things that also took place on this day are:
1835 – The Texas Rangers are created by the Texas Provincial Government.
1859 – On the Origin of Species is first published by Charles Darwin.
1932 – The FBI Crime Lab officially opens.
Happy birthday to Amanda Wyss, Denise Crosby, Clem Burke, Dwight Schultz, Bev Bevan, Donald Dunn, and Pete Best.