On This Day in History

Please Please Me, the first album recorded by the Beatles, was released.

Teachers at a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were falsely charged with the sexual abuse of schoolchildren, leading to the longest and costliest criminal trial in United States history.

USAir Flight 405 crashed in Flushing Bay shortly after takeoff from New York City's LaGuardia Airport, killing 27 people, and leading to studies into the effects of ice on aircraft.

Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returned from the space station Mir aboard Soyuz TM-20 after 437 days in space, setting a record for the longest spaceflight.

Comet Hale–Bopp (pictured) reached its closest approach to Earth at 1.315 AU.

At least 37 people were killed after a fire in Thailand destroys a camp containing Burmese refugees.

A massive landslide in Oso, Washington, killed 43 people after engulfing a rural neighborhood, the largest death toll for a standalone landslide in U.S. history.

At least 145 people were killed and 551 injured in a bombing and mass shooting at the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, Russia.