On this day in 1984, 21-year-old Vanessa Williams gives up her Miss America title, the first resignation in the pageant’s history, after Penthouse magazine announces plans to publish nude photos of the beauty queen in its September issue. Williams originally made history on September 17, 1983, when she became the first black woman to win […]
A Serial-Killing Couple Is Apprehended
Alton Coleman and Debra Brown are apprehended in Evanston, Illinois, after a particularly vicious two-month crime spree that left eight people dead and many more injured. Coleman had been added to the special eleventh slot on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List for actively dangerous fugitives. Coleman had a long criminal record before he met […]
Twenty-one People Are Shot To Death At McDonald’s
James Oliver Huberty opens fire in a crowded McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, California, killing 21 people and wounding 19 others with several automatic weapons. Minutes earlier, Huberty had left home, telling his wife, “I’m going hunting… hunting for humans.” Huberty, who had a history of mental problems, lost his job in Ohio the previous […]
PG-13 Rating Debuts
On this day in 1984, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which oversees the voluntary rating system for movies, introduces a new rating, PG-13. The MPAA, which was founded in 1922 as a trade group representing the American film industry, announced its first rating system on November 1, 1968, in response to groups seeking […]
A Radio Host Is Gunned Down For His Controversial Views
Talk radio icon Alan Berg, the self-described “man you love to hate,” is gunned down and killed instantly in the driveway of his home in Denver, Colorado, on this day in 1984. The 50-year-old host, whose show on the station KOA gained a strong following in the early 1980s, stirred up controvesy with his outspoken […]
Ferraro Named vice Presidential Candidate
Walter Mondale, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, announces that he has chosen Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate. Ferraro, a daughter of Italian immigrants, had previously gained notoriety as a vocal advocate of women’s rights in Congress. Four days after Ferraro was named vice presidential candidate, Governor Mario Cuomo of New […]
Ghostbusters Released
On this day in 1984, the now-classic comedy Ghostbusters is released in theaters across the United States. Produced and directed by Ivan Reitman, Ghostbusters starred Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis as disgraced parapsychology professors in New York City who turn to “paranormal investigation”–hunting down and capturing ghosts—to make money after Columbia University yanks […]
Indian Army Storms Golden Temple
In a bloody climax to two years of fighting between the Indian government and Sikh separatists, Indian army troops fight their way into the besieged Golden Temple compound in Amritsar–the holiest shrine of Sikhism–and kill at least 500 Sikh rebels. More than 100 Indian soldiers and scores of nonbelligerent Sikhs also perished in the ferocious […]