Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Today is Feb. 3. This is "the day the music died." On this date in 1959, singers Buddy Holly, J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and Ritchie Valens were killed in a plane crash in a cornfield near Mason City, Iowa. Only hours earlier, they'd played what turned out to be their final show -- at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake. Singer Don McLean memorialized the death of Holly in his song "American Pie," calling it "the day the music died." Advertisement It was on this date in 1992 that pretrial hearings began in Simi Valley, Calif., in the trial of four Los Angeles policemen accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King. Their acquittal at the end of April sparked rioting in Los Angeles and other U.S cities. Exactly one year later, in 1993, the same four officers went on trial in federal court in Los Angeles. They were accused of violating King's civil rights. Also in 1993, Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott was suspended for one year and fined $25,000 by Major League Baseball's Executive Council for using racially and ethnically insensitive language. Advertisement Despite pleas from numerous sympathizers, including Pope John Paul II, Texas executed its first female inmate in 135 years on this date in 1998. The execution of Karla Faye Tucker, 38, was controversial because she'd repeatedly expressed remorse for the 1983 murders she was convicted of committing. And it was on this day in 1913 that the 16th Amendment, allowing establishment of an income tax, became part of the U.S. Constitution after ratification by Wyoming. Insert your own IRS joke here. We now return you to the present, already in progress.
