The Associated Press
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Highlight in History
On June 24, 1982, a British Airways Boeing 747 with 262 people aboard experienced the failure of all four engines at an altitude of 37,000 feet while passing through volcanic ash generated by Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. (By the time the crew was able to restart the airplane’s engines, the jumbo jet had glided down to 12,000 feet before making a safe emergency landing in Jakarta.)
Ten years ago
President George W. Bush urged the Palestinians to replace Yasser Arafat with leaders “not compromised by terror” and adopt democratic reforms that could produce an independent state within three years. The Supreme Court ruled that juries, not judges, must decide whether a convicted killer lives or dies. A train crash in central Tanzania (tan-zuh-NEE’-uh) killed at least 288 people.
Five years ago
Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali,” and two other ex-officials were sentenced by the Iraqi High Tribunal to hang for slaughtering up to 180,000 Kurdish men, women and children two decades earlier. Charles W. Lindberg, one of the United States Marines who raised the first of two American flags over the island of Iwo Jima during World War II, died in Edina, Minn., at age 86.
One year ago
A defiant U.S. House voted overwhelmingly to deny President Barack Obama the authority to wage war against Libya, but Republicans fell short in an effort to actually cut off funds for the operation. New York State legalized same-sex marriage.
