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.
Viktor Korotayev/Reuters
1993: During Russia's Constitutional Crisis, tanks bombard the Moscow government building housing the Russian parliament, while demonstrators against President Boris Yeltsin rally outside. Vice President Alexander Rutskoy, who had assumed the powers of acting president after Yeltsin's earlier decree to dissolve parliament was declared unconstitutional, and his supporters, including parliament chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov, are arrested and charged with organization of mass disturbances.
