Sep 30 1630

Pilgrim John Billington, who arrived on the Mayflower, is hanged at Plymouth for killing John Newcomen with a musket. Billington is the first Englishman executed in New England.

Sep 30 1888

Jack the Ripper slaughters his third and fourth victims, two hookers named Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes.

Sep 30 1955

Heading westbound on Highway 466 just outside Cholame, California, movie star James Dean is killed in a head-on collision with another driver. University student Donald Turnupseed was driving home in his Ford when he swerved into the oncoming lane, smashing into Dean's Porsche 550 Spyder. The actor gave us an oeuvre of just three films, but at least he left a damn good looking corpse.

Sep 30 1970

The Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography releases its 646-page report concluding that all sexually-explicit films, books, and magazines aimed at adults should be legalized. One publisher, William Hamling, sells 100,000 copies of the report with 546 additional "illustrations," for which he receives four years in prison.