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| 1971 |
D.B. Cooper hijacks an airplane, collects $200,000 ransom, and parachutes into the Pacific Northwest. He is never heard from again. |
| 1972 |
Governor George Wallace is shot and paralyzed by gunman Arthur H. Bremer.
A bungled burglary of Democratic Party offices in the Watergate complex marks the beginning of the end for President Richard Nixon. |
| 1975 |
Manson Family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromm pulls a gun on President Gerald Ford. Secret service men grab her before she pulls the trigger. |
| 1976 |
 Heiress Patty Hearst is convicted of armed robbery during a stint with domestic terrorist group the Symbionese Liberation Army. Despite her insistence that she was brainwashed after being kidnapped, she receives a seven year sentence. |
| 1977 |
Murderer Gary Gilmore becomes the first American executed in nearly a decade. On the night before his execution he sipped liquor and talked on the telephone to his hero, country music star Johnny Cash. "Let's do it" are his last words.
"Son of Sam" murders that terrified New York City are solved with the capture of Yonkers mailman David Berkowitz. He killed 13, he alleged, on the orders of a black Labrador retriever owned by neighbor Sam Carr. |
| 1981 |
President Ronald Reagan and Press Secretary James Brady are wounded seriously when shot by would-be assassin John Hinckley III. |
| 1982 |
Johnson & Johnson recalls more than 250,000 bottles of Tylenol after 7 Chicagoans are killed by cyanide-laced capsules of the pain reliever. The killer is never found; tamper-proof packaging for medical products quickly hits the shelves.
Carmaker John DeLorean is arrested in a failed bid to accrue capital by selling cocaine. He was later acquited of all charges. |
| 1984 |
Bernard Goetz shoots four young men in a New York subway car, allegedly in self-defense. |
| 1986 |
Revelations of arms sales to Iran and covert aid to Nicaraguan Contra rebels by the Reagan administration kicks off the Iran-contra scandal. |
| 1988 |
 Televangelist/adulterer Jim Bakker convicted of 22 counts of defrauding followers. |
| 1989 |
Serial Killer Ted Bundy, suspected in more than 22 murders, is executed in the Florida electric chair. |
| 1990 |
Junk bond king Michael Milken pleads guilty to six securites law violations and pays 1.1 billion dollars in fines. Under the terms of the plea bargain, Milken retained a personal fortune of 125 million, not counting the 300 - 400 million retained by his wife, children and brother. |
| 1991 |
"Maid of Metal", New Hampshire high school counselor Pam Smart convicted of murder after seducing a student and convincing him to kill her husband.
Milwaukee police arrest serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer allegedly drugged, raped, and cannibalized some of his 17 victims. |
| 1992 |
 New York mob leader John Gotti, called the "Teflon Don" for his uncanny ability to avoid incarceration, is convicted of five murders.
A jury finds 4 white Los Angeles police officers not guilty in the beatings of black motorist Rodney King, spawning some of the worst riots in American history. |
| 1995 |
169 are killed when the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is destroyed by a massive fertilizer bomb. As the nation mourns,a Gulf War Veteran with a grudge against the government, Timothy McVeigh, is charged with the crime. Terry Nichols is later charged as a partner in the bombing. McVeigh and Nichols are awaiting trial.
In a jury decision that divides the nation, football star and media personality O.J. Simpson is acquitted of killing his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. |
| 1996 |
After a seventeen year search, the FBI arrests Harvard graduate Theodore Kaczynski on suspicion of being the Unabomber. Kaczynski, who is accused of injuring twenty-three people and killing three, was turned in by his own brother.
President William Clinton's former business partners James and Susan McDougal and Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker are convicted of fraud in the Whitewater real-estate and banking scandal. Tucker resigns his office. |
