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On This Day: D.B. Cooper hijacks plane, disappears with ransom

On Nov. 24, 1971, a passenger who became known as "D.B. Cooper" hijacked a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., parachuted south of Seattle with a $200,000 ransom collected from the airline -- and disappeared.

By UPI Staff
On November 24, 1971, a passenger who became known as "D.B. Cooper" hijacked a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., parachuted south of Seattle with a $200,000 ransom collected from the airline -- and disappeared. Composite Image courtesy of the FBI
1 of 5 | On November 24, 1971, a passenger who became known as "D.B. Cooper" hijacked a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., parachuted south of Seattle with a $200,000 ransom collected from the airline -- and disappeared. Composite Image courtesy of the FBI

Nov. 24 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1859, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published.

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In 1863, Union Gen. U.S. Grant launched the U.S. Civil War battle of Chattanooga in Tennessee.

In 1869, women from 21 states met in Cleveland to organize the American Women Suffrage Association.

In 1874, Joseph Glidden received a patent for barbed wire, which altered the development of ranching on the Great Plains.

In 1917, nine officers and with the Milwaukee Police Department and two civilians were killed by a bomb, believed to have been made by Gallean anarchists. Prior to the attacks on September 11, 2001, this was the single most fatal event in U.S. law enforcement history.

In 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was fatally shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the Dallas police headquarters basement two days after Kennedy was slain.

UPI File Photo

In 1969, Apollo 12 returned to Earth with astronauts Charles Conrad Jr., Richard Gordon and Alan Bean. It was NASA's second moon-landing mission.

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In 1971, a passenger who became known as "D.B. Cooper" hijacked a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., parachuted south of Seattle with a $200,000 ransom collected from the airline -- and disappeared.

In 1985, Arab commandos forced an Egypt Air jetliner to Malta and began shooting passengers, fatally wounding two. Fifty-seven other people died when Egyptian commandos stormed the jet.

In 1992, the United States lowered its flag over the last U.S. base in the Philippines, ending nearly a century of military presence in its former colony.

In 1995, Irish voters passed a referendum removing a constitutional ban on divorce.

In 2007, a brigade of 5,000 U.S. troops left Diyala province in Iraq. It was considered the first significant pullback of American forces from the country.

In 2009, two men were executed in China for involvement in the country's 2008 tainted milk scandal, which sickened 300,000 infants, killing six.

File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI
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In 2012, at least 112 people were killed in a fire that swept through a clothing factory outside Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In 2014, Cleveland police fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was holding a toy gun. The officers involved were not charged, but the city agreed to pay his family $6 million to settle a lawsuit.{link:

In 2021, a Georgia jury found three men guilty of murder for the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in 2020.

File Stephen B. Morton/EPA-EFE

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