The Soviet Union releases a letter that Russian leader Yuri Andropov wrote to Samantha Smith, an American fifth-grader. This rather unusual piece of Soviet propaganda was in direct response to President Ronald Reagan’s vigorous attacks on what he called “the evil empire” of the Soviet Union. In 1983, President Reagan was in the midst of […]
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Andropov Writes To U.S. Student
On this day in 1983, the Soviet Union releases a letter that Russian leader Yuri Andropov wrote to Samantha Smith, an American fifth-grader from Manchester, Maine, inviting her to visit his country. Andropov’s letter came in response to a note Smith had sent him in December 1982, asking if the Soviets were planning to start […]
Continue readingGerman Endurance Driver Killed In Crash
On this day in 1983, Rolf Stommelen, a four-time 24 Hours of Daytona champ as well as a Formula One driver, is killed at the age of 39 in a crash at California’s Riverside International Raceway. Stommelen was born on July 11, 1943, in Germany. In 1968, he won his first 24 Hours of Daytona. […]
Continue readingBenoit Wins Boston Marathon
Joan Benoit wins her second Boston Marathon in the women’s division with a time of 2:22:43 on April 18, 1983. The following year, she went on to win the first-ever women’s marathon at the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles and became the first person to win Boston as well as Olympic gold. A native […]
Continue readingSuicide Bomber Destroys U.S. Embassy In Beirut
The U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, is almost completely destroyed by a car-bomb explosion that kills 63 people, including the suicide bomber and 17 Americans. The terrorist attack was carried out in protest of the U.S. military presence in Lebanon. In 1975, a bloody civil war erupted in Lebanon, with Palestinian and leftist Muslim guerrillas […]
Continue readingKaren Carpenter Dies Of Anorexia
Karen Carpenter, a singer who long suffered under the burden of the expectations that came with pop stardom, died on this day in 1983, succumbing to heart failure brought on by her long, unpublicized struggle with anorexia. Carpenter had a fixation with her weight from her earliest days performing with her brother, Richard, in and […]
Continue readingThe A-Team Debuts On NBC
In the pilot episode of the NBC television series The A-Team, which airs on this day in 1983, the go-getting newspaper reporter Amy Allen (Melinda Culea) seeks the help of a mysterious group of Vietnam-veterans-turned-soldiers-for-hire to find her missing colleague in Mexico. An elite commando unit in Vietnam, the so-called A-Team was wrongly imprisoned by […]
Continue readingButcher Of Lyons Arrested In Bolivia
Klaus Barbie, the Nazi Gestapo chief of Lyons, France, during the German occupation, is arrested in Bolivia for his crimes against humanity four decades earlier. As chief of Nazi Germany’s secret police in occupied France, Barbie sent thousands of French Jews and French Resistance members to their deaths in concentration camps, while torturing, abusing, or […]
Continue reading“Eye Of The Tiger”From Rocky III Tops The U.S. Pop Charts
Whether it’s Oliver Stone setting a scene from Platoon to Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber, or Quentin Tarantino setting a scene from Reservoir Dogs to “Stuck In The Middle” by Stealer’s Wheel, filmmakers often depend upon certain passages of music to produce specific emotional reactions in their audiences. And actor/director Sylvester Stallone is no […]
Continue readingActor And Two children Killed On Twilight Zone Set
On this day in 1982, Vic Morrow and two child actors, Renee Shinn Chen and Myca Dinh Le, are killed in an accident involving a helicopter during filming on the California set of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Morrow, age 53, and the children, ages six and seven, were shooting a Vietnam War battle scene in […]
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