The TIME Magazine Vault

The Haitian flag is at half mast in fron

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5 Years Ago: The Haiti Earthquake

The 7.0 magnitude quake struck on Jan. 12, 2010

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Jan. 2, 2015

Jan. 5, 1968: Prague Spring Begins

The election of Alexander Dubcek to replace the hard-liner Antonin Novotny as leader of Czechoslovakia marked the beginning of a brief period of reforms known as the Prague Spring.

"The outcome of the Czechoslovak power struggle was a singular victory for liberal forces throughout Eastern Europe. Novotný's fall reduces the number of outright Stalinist rulers to one..." TIME reported. "In their 20th year under Communist rule and 50th year as a nation, most Czechoslovaks hoped that the new changes would help them win more freedom at home and new friends abroad."

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John F Kennedy motorcade, Dallas, Texas USA, 22 November 1963. Close-up view of President and Mrs Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally and his wife. Photographer: Victor Hugo King.

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Nov. 22, 1963: Kennedy Assassinated

The Government Still Lives read the headline, but death was the subject of the story.

"Later the words came, torrents of them. But only two were really needed. A Greek-born barber said them in his Times Square shop: 'I cry.' A woman said them in another way on London's Strand: 'My God!' Jacqueline Kennedy said them as her husband pitched forward, dying: 'Oh no!' A Roman Catholic priest said them with irrevocable finality outside the Dallas hospital where he had just administered the last rites to John Fitzgerald Kennedy: 'He's dead.'"

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Nov. 12, 1973

“I Am Not a Crook”

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Nov. 28, 1942: The Cocoanut Grove Fire

"Men & women fought their way toward the revolving door; the push of bodies jammed it," TIME reported in the aftermath of the infamous nightclub fire, which killed nearly 500 people. "Near by was another door; it was locked tight. There were other exits, but few Cocoanut Grove patrons knew about them. The lights went out. There was nothing to see now except flame, smoke and weird moving torches that were men & women with clothing and hair afire."

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