Results tagged “1968”

The FBI's longest wanted fugitive was arrested at JFK yesterday, where he had arrived from Cuba after spending more than four decades outside the feds' grasp. Louis Armando Peña Soltren, 66, was arrested at the same airport where his crime originated: On November 24th, 1968 he left the airport with two accomplices on a Pan Am 707 bound for Puerto Rico. During the flight they forced their way into the plane's cabin and ordered the crew to fly to Havana, threatening them with guns and knives quaintly smuggled on board in a diaper bag.

At the 1968 Democratic Convention, anti-war activists were denied permits to demonstrate by the city and spent most of the week getting their skulls cracked courtesy of the Chicago Police Department, witnessed by a television audience of over 50 million. A year later, eight of the most high profile radicals – guys like Abbie Hoffman and the Black Panthers' Bobby Seale – were tried on charges of conspiracy and inciting riots. The courtroom was a circus, with Seale gagged to silence his outbursts and ultimately sentenced to four years for contempt, while testimony from counterculture icons such as Phil Ochs, Arlo Guthrie, Norman Mailer and Timothy Leary drew massive crowds for the National Guard to disperse.

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., HBO) A look at America's favorite insult comic and last surviving member of the “Rat Pack”, the octogenarian Don Rickles from director John Landis. Everyone from Chris Rock to Bob Newhart to Clint Eastwood to Sidney Poitier talk about the comic. 1968 (Sunday, 9:00 p.m., History Channel) 1968 was a turbulent and tragic year and Tom Brokaw not...