CThe hard-boiled, often gruesome black comedy Blood Simple, the debut offering from the Minnesota-born brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, premieres on this day in 1985. The film told the story of Julian Marty (played by Dan Hedaya), a bar owner who hires a private detective (M. Emmett Walsh) to follow his wife (Frances McDormand). When […]
United States Walks Out Of World Court Case
For the first time since joining the World Court in 1946, the United States walks out of a case. The case that caused the dramatic walkout concerned U.S. paramilitary activities against the Nicaraguan government. For the Reagan administration, efforts to undermine the Sandinista government in Nicaragua had been a keystone of its anticommunist foreign policy […]
Real-Life Psycho Ed Gein Dies
On July 26, 1984, Ed Gein, a serial killer infamous for skinning human corpses, dies of complications from cancer in a Wisconsin prison at age 77. Gein served as the inspiration for writer Robert Bloch’s character Norman Bates in the 1959 novel “Psycho,” which in 1960 was turned into a film starring Anthony Perkins and […]
A Nine-Year-Old’s Murder Puts An Innocent Man In Jail
The body of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton is found in a wooded area of Rosedale, Maryland, near her home. The young girl had been raped and beaten to death with a rock. Unfortunately, Hamilton and her family were not the only ones to suffer because of this terrible crime. After witnesses saw a suspicious man in […]
Miss America Resigns
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 Williams originally made history on September 17, 1983, when she became the first black woman to win […]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 […]