October 3, 1993: Elite units of the U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force raid a Mogadishu neighborhood to capture two lieutenants of Somali warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid. While the "snatch and grab" operation is successful, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters are shot down by rocket-propelled grenades. A mob of militiamen and armed Somali civilians quickly descends on the scene. In the fierce 15-hour firefight that follows, 18 U.S. soldiers are killed and 84 are wounded. Gruesome footage of Somali crowds dragging the mutilated bodies of dead soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu is widely broadcast across the globe, and rapidly turns American public opinion against U.S. involvement in the peacekeeping mission. Four days later, President Bill Clinton announces that U.S. troops will completely withdraw from Somalia by March 31, 1994.