Today in History - January 29 | The plane hijacking that sparked two other botched rescue hijackings - Voice of Asia

On January 29, 1972, Garrett Brock Trapnell, a serial bank robber and con man, hijacked a passenger plane in the United States. He produced a gun hidden inside a plaster arm cast and held passengers and crew hostage for hours.

Trapnell demanded a $300,000 ransom, the release of two prisoners including prominent activist Angela Davis, and a formal pardon from President Richard Nixon. However, his demands were not met, and he was ultimately shot by an undercover FBI agent at Kennedy Airport.

Trapnell argued that he was mentally unstable, a tactic he had successfully used in several previous trials. However, his defense was undermined by a former cellmate who told the court how Trapnell had coached him on how to appear mentally ill in court.

In May 1978, his pen pal, Barbara Ann Oswald, hijacked a helicopter and forced it to land in the prison yard where Trapnell was being held. However, the pilot fought back and fatally shot Oswald. In December of the same year, Oswald's 17-year-old daughter, Robin, hijacked another plane, wearing what appeared to be a bomb vest. Her demand was for Trapnell to be released from prison.

This hijacking was ultimately thwarted as FBI negotiators realized her bomb vest was merely railway flares connected to a doorbell with wires. Trapnell spent the rest of his life in a high-security prison under a "no contact" order.

Stanley Kubrick's film "Dr. Strangelove" was released on January 29, 1964. Kubrick's initial script was intended to be a dramatic thriller about the threat of nuclear war. However, during the writing process, he found the subject too heavy, given the world's precarious state of threatened annihilation. Consequently, the film evolved into a particularly dark satire.

George C. Scott (pictured) was reportedly furious after learning that the exaggerated performances Kubrick told him to use to "warm up on set" were actually being used in the film.

Edgar Allan Poe's first published work, "The Raven," appeared in the New York Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845. While the poem brought him fame, it did not make him wealthy. "I have made no money. I am as poor now as ever—except in hope, which is not bankable," he lamented.