On this day: August 7
POSTED: 02:38 PM PDT Aug 06, 2012
UPDATED: 11:00 PM PDT Aug 06, 2012
The Purple Heart is born, a comic legend dies, a man on a wire goes for a stroll a quarter of a mile above the sidewalks of Manhattan, and U.S. embassies in Africa are targeted in a terrorist attack, all on this day.
Magnolia Pictures
1974: Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 feet in the air. He walks the wire for 45 minutes, making eight crossings between the towers. In addition to walking, he sits on the wire, gives knee salutes and, while lying on the wire, spoke with a gull circling above his head. He is arrested once he steps off the wire on the South Tower, although all formal charges are eventually dropped. The stunt was featured in the 2008 documentary "Man on a Wire."
