On Feb. 3, 1959, rock-and-roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson died in a small plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.
Ten years ago
An Egyptian passenger ferry sank in the Red Sea during bad weather, killing more than 1,000 passengers. Twenty-three al-Qaida prisoners escaped from a Yemeni prison, including one convicted of the 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole. Actor Al Lewis (“The Munsters”) died in New York (he was probably 82, although he’d claimed to have been born in 1910, which would have made him 95).
Five years ago
Tens of thousands of protesters staged unprecedented demonstrations against Yemen’s autocratic president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key U.S. ally in battling Islamic militants, as unrest inspired by uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia spread further in the Arab world.
One year ago
An evening rush-hour commuter train with 750 people aboard slammed into a SUV at a crossing in Valhalla, New York, killing the vehicle’s driver and six people on the train. A video released on militant websites purportedly showed a Jordanian pilot who was captured by the Islamic State group being burned to death.
— By The Associated Press
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