1303 Backed by 1600 men, royalist Guillaume de Nogaret
took Pope Boniface VIII prisoner at his Palace in Anagni, Italy, on behalf of King
Philip IV of France. Philip’s plan was for Nogaret to take Boniface to France
to face charges of heresy, corruption, and committing various mortal and venal sins
before a general council. Before that could happen, though, the Pope
excommunicated both conspirators, and Nogaret’s forces, facing too much local
opposition, fled back to France and the Pope was free.
1571 Authorities returned Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of
Norfolk, to Tower Hill and held him on charges of treason for his role in the
Ridolfi plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with
Mary, Queen of Scots.
1695 In one of the most profitable pirate raids in
history, British pirate Henry Every captured the trading ship Ganj-i-Sawai
of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb on its way from Yemen to India. In response,
Aurangzeb closed all ports in India to English ships until Every was caught and
executed, igniting a global manhunt. The East India company compensated the
Great Mughal for his losses—£325,000
to £600,000. Every and most of his crew were never caught.
1857 In southern Utah, Mormon John Doyle Lee led 50 to
60 Mormon militiamen disguised as Native Americans, along with Paiute allies,
in an attack on a wagon train of Arkansas emigrants traveling to California.
The Mormons feared outsiders (and the U.S. Army) were plotting an invasion of
Utah and suspected some of the Arkansans in the death of Mormon Apostle Parley
Pratt. The fighting continued for five days and left 120 migrants dead. After
two trials, Lee was convicted of first-degree murder and shot at the site of
the massacre on March 23, 1877.
1876 In Northfield, Minnesota, Jesse James and the James–Younger Gang attempted to rob the town's bank but were driven off by a mob of armed and angry citizens. Town residents killed two robbers that day; a posse killed or captured four more gang members after a 14-day manhunt while Jesse and Frank James escaped.
1911 French police arrested poet Guillaume Apollinaire
on suspicion of aiding and abetting the theft of the Mona Lisa from the
Louvre museum. Even Picasso was brought in for questioning. Both men were
exonerated. The real thief, Italian house painter Vincenzo Peruggia, was caught two years later when he tried to sell the painting in Florence.
1923 In Vienna, 22 delegates formed the International
Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), the direct forerunner of INTERPOL. Today,
INTERPOL has 194 member countries, making it the world's largest police
organization.
1978 Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Gullino fired
a ricin pellet from a specially-engineered umbrella into the leg of Bulgarian
dissident Georgi Markov as he walked across Waterloo Bridge in London. Markov
died four days later. According to some reports, the Bulgarian police had
arrested Gullino on smuggling charges and gave him the choice of going to
prison or becoming a secret agent.
1986 Members of Marxist guerilla group the Patriotic
Front of Manuel Rodríguez ambushed Chilean President Augusto Pinochet's
motorcade on its way back to Santiago. Firing on the convoy with machine guns,
rifles, bazookas, and hand grenades, the guerillas killed five bodyguards and
wounded eleven but inflicted only a hand wound on the president. Pinochet's
grandson, protected by his grandfather, survived unharmed. Pinochet said he did
not fear his opponents. "Try to kill me," he said. "I'm a
soldier, I'm ready."
1996 An unknown assailant fired shots into the car of
hip hop artist Tupac Shakur after he attended a Mike Tyson boxing match in Las
Vegas, Nevada. Shakur suffered four .40 caliber rounds from a Glock 22—two in
in the chest, one in the arm, and one in the thigh—and died six days later. He
was 25. Bullet fragments hit passenger Suge Knight, causing slight injuries.
Shakur's entourage was headed for an anti-violence fund-raiser at Knight's Club
662. Suspect Orlando Anderson was himself murdered before he could be charged.
2000 Police arrested rocker Timothy Commerford of Rage
Against the Machine for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct during the MTV
Music Awards. The bassist shimmied up a 15-foot-high scaffold and rocked it
back and forth, disrupting Limp Bizkit's acceptance speech for Best Rock Video
and delaying the show 20 minutes, before stagehands and security talked him
down.
2006 Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage confirmed he was the source of a leak that disclosed the identity of
CIA employee Valerie Plame to journalist Robert Novak. Armitage claimed he
didn't realize Plame's job was covert.
2008 The U.S. Treasury Department placed troubled
mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in government conservatorship.
2017 American credit bureau Equifax announced a data breach
potentially impacting 140 million consumers in the U.S. Exposing millions of
names and dates of birth, Social Security numbers, physical addresses, and
other personal information, the breach was one of the largest cybercrimes
related to identity theft. Equifax agreed to pay $575 million in a global
settlement with the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and
all 50 U.S. states and territories.
2019 Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and 69 others were released in a prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia. Sentsov, an outspoken opponent of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government and of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and 24 Ukrainian sailors captured by Moscow when warships seized three naval vessels in the Kerch Strait in 2018 were among those released, while Russian prisoners released to Moscow included Volodymyr Tsemakh, a suspect in the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that killed 298 people.
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