TODAY IN CRIME: October 19

1765 Nine American colonies united to draw up a “Declaration of Rights and Grievances” opposing the Stamp Act, which ordered colonists to pay yet more taxes—without representation. Eventually all thirteen colonies adopted the Declaration.

1864 21 Confederate soldiers based in Canada robbed three banks in St. Albans, Vermont, killed a local man, then escaped back across the border. Their goal, in addition to raising funds, was to convince Union generals the northern border posed a significant threat and troops were needed there. A U.S. posse captured several raiders but Canadian authorities ordered their release.

1921 Radical members of the Portuguese Army, Navy, and National Republican Guard set up artillery in Lisbon and forced the government of Portuguese Prime Minister António Granjo to step down. When President António José de Almeida refused to allow the rebels to take over, Corporal Abel Olímpio drove a "ghost van" through the streets of Lisbon looking for National Republican Party politicians on a hit list and led the radicals in the assassination of P.M. Granjo and several cabinet members. The perpetrators were judged and condemned in court.

1943 Allied aircraft bombed and sank the cargo vessel Sinfra at Crete, drowing 2,098 Italian prisoners of war crammed in the cargo hold.

1944 The "October Revolution" of Guatemala started when a small group of army officers launched a coup against the military junta of Juan Federico Ponce Vaides that was set up by U.S.-backed dictator Jorge Ubico after he was forced to resign. Oppressed citizens across the country joined the pro-democracy movement and replaced the junta with one that promised free and open elections.

1960 Police arrested Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and 51 others after they refused to leave their seats at a segregated lunch counter in an Atlanta department store. Judges dismissed charges against 16 of the protesters at their first court appearance but Dr. King was held on a charge of violating his probation and sentenced to six months’ hard labor. Presidential candidate JFK helped secure Dr. King's release.

1970 "Killer Prophet" John Frazier, convinced he was obeying the word of God, invaded the home of California ophthalmologist Victor Ohta and bound Ohta, his wife, two sons and a secretary, shot them all dead, threw their corpses in the swimming pool, then wrote a note on Ohta's typewriter declaring the start of WWIII and left it on Ohta's Rolls Royce. Deputies staked out Frazier's shack and arrested him October 23. Tried and sentenced to death, he received a commutation to life imprisonment; he hanged himself in his cell in 2009.

1973 U.S. President Nixon rejected an Appeals Court decision that he turn over the Watergate tapes.

1976 U.S. President Gerald Ford signed the Copyright Act of 1976, the first major revision of American copyright law since 1909. It extended federal copyright protection to all works, both published and unpublished, once they are fixed in a tangible form.

1977 French authorities found the body of kidnap victim Hanns-Martin Schleyer in the trunk of an Audi 100 on the rue Charles Péguy in Mulhouse. The Red Army Faction, a West German far-left militant organization, kidnapped the industrialist and former SS officer in September and demanded the release of four RAF members being held at Stammheim Prison in Stuttgart. The German government refused to negotiate and even prevented Schleyer's family from offering 15 million Deutschmarks as a ransom. After three of the RAF fanatics were found dead in their cells October 18, the kidnappers shot and killed Schleyer.

1982 Police arrested automaker John DeLorean on charges of conspiracy to obtain and distribute 55 pounds of cocaine worth $24 million. He was acquitted two years later.

1984 Three agents of the Polish Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs kidnapped Roman Catholic priest Jerzy Popiełuszko, chaplain of the Polish “Solidarity” trade union, on his way home from a prayer service. His captors tortured and hog-tied him, then bound him up, attached rocks to his body, and threw him over a dam to drown. The intelligence agents were tried and convicted of the murder.

1986 Mozambique President Samora Machel, leader of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO) who led the Mozambican people in their fight for independence from Portugal, along with 33 others, died when their aircraft crashed into the Lebombo Mountains in South Africa. Some observers believe the apartheid regime of South Africa set up a false beacon to lure the plane off-course.

1988 The British government imposed a broadcasting ban on television and radio interviews with members of Sinn Féin and eleven Irish republican and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups.

1989 The Court of Appeal of England and Wales quashed the convictions of the Guildford Four after they had spent 15 years in prison for the pub bombings in 1974 Surrey that killed four soldiers and one civilian and wounded 65 others. The Met forced false confessions out of Paul Hill, Gerry Conlon, Paddy Armstrong, and Carole Richardson and they were wrongly convicted; the Balcombe Street Gang of the Provisional Irish Republican Army later claimed responsibility.

1989 The U.S. Senate rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have banned the desecration of the American flag, with 51 Senators voting in favor of the amendment and 48 voting in opposition. Congress passed the Flag Protection Act nine days later, but in June 1990 the Supreme Court ruled (United States v. Eichman) the Act violated the right of free speech under the First Amendment.

1998 Rock music fan Mark Nieto filed a lawsuit against the rock group Aerosmith for alleged hearing loss after he attended a “Nine Lives” concert at the Concord Pavilion amphitheater in Concord, California, the year before. Nieto claimed he was not made aware of possible hearing loss before the show.

1998 Members of the Earth Liberation Front set fire to several lifts and buildings at Vail Ski Resort in Colorado, claiming expansion of the resort was causing irreparable harm to area wildlife. The eco-terrorists caused $12 million in damages. Two members pleaded guilty, one suspect was finally captured 20 years later, and another remains at large.

2004 Thai officials announced the State Peace and Development Council ousted Myanmar prime minister Khin Nyunt and placed him under house arrest on charges of corruption. He was released in 2012.

2005 A defiant Saddam Hussein pleaded innocent to charges of pre-meditated murder and torture and argued with the Iraqi Special Tribunal on the opening day of his trial in Baghdad. He was sentenced to death by hanging a year later.