On this day: October 4
POSTED: 05:01 PM PDT Oct 03, 2012
UPDATED: 11:00 PM PDT Oct 03, 2012
Work begins on Mount Rushmore, Sputnik is launched into space, the pope visits America for the first time, Janis Joplin is found dead of an overdose, all on this day.
Russell Weller/SXC
1927: Sculptor Gutzon Borglum begins work on Mount Rushmore. Between then and Oct. 31, 1941, Borglum and 400 workers sculpted the colossal 60-feet-tall carvings of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. When Borglum dies from an embolism in March 1941, his son, Lincoln Borglum, takes over the project through its completion.
