On this day: February 20
POSTED: 04:12 PM PST Feb 19, 2013
UPDATED: 11:00 PM PST Feb 19, 2013
The Post Office is born, World War II gets its first flying ace, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, and a fire at a Great White concert leaves 100 dead, all on this day.
Public domain
1954: Patty Hearst, the newspaper heiress was who famously took part in a bank robbery after being kidnapped by the leftist group Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, is born in San Francisco, Calif. While initially a SLA captive, she later announced she was joining the group of her own free will. She was convicted of bank robbery in March 1976 and sentenced to seven years in prison, although her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter and she was released in February 1979. In 2001, she received a full pardon from President Bill Clinton.
