December 4, journalist released after years as a hostage of Hezbollah

Today is Wednesday, December 4, the 339th day of 2024. There are 27 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On December 4, 1991, Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson was kidnapped and held hostage for nearly seven years by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

Also on this date:

In 1783, General George Washington bid farewell to his Continental Army officers at the Fraunces Tavern in New York.

In 1956, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, also known as the ‘Million Dollar Quartet’, gathered for the first and only time for a jam session at Sun Records in Memphis.

In 1964, police arrested some 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, a day after students stormed the administration building and staged a mass sit-in.

In 1965, the United States launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Frank Borman and Navy Commander. James A. Lovell on board for a two-week mission. (While Gemini 7 was in orbit, its sister ship, Gemini 6A, launched on December 15 for a one-day mission; the two spacecraft were able to rendezvous within half a meter of each other.)

In 1969, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark of the Black Panther Party were shot dead during a raid by Chicago police.

In 1997, the NBA suspended Golden State Warriors guard Latrell Sprewell for a year after Sprewell assaulted Warriors coach PJ Carlesimo three days earlier.

In 2016, a North Carolina man armed with an assault rifle fired several shots into Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., while trying to investigate an online conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were harboring child sex slaves at the restaurant; no one was injured and the man surrendered to police. (He was later sentenced to four years in prison.)

In 2018, long lines of people walked through the Capitol Rotunda to view former President George HW Bush’s casket.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Game show host Wink Martindale is 91.
• Actor-producer Max Baer Jr. is 87.
• Actor Gemma Jones is 82.
• Actor Jeff Bridges is 75.
• Actor Patricia Wettig is 73.
• Jazz singer Cassandra Wilson is 69.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Bernard King is 68.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Lee Smith is 67.
• Olympic pole vault gold medalist Sergey Bubka is 61.
• Actor Marisa Tomei is 60.
• Actor-comedian Fred Armisen is 58.
• Rapper Jay-Z is 55.
• Actor-model Tyra Banks is 51.
• Football Hall of Famer Joe Thomas is 40.
• Musician Jelly Roll is 40.