After a nearly yearlong journey, NASA’s robotic spacecraft Viking 2 landed on Mars on September 3, 1976, and began relaying information about the planet’s atmosphere and soil as well as color photographs of the rocky surface.
Colombian drug trafficker Griselda Blanco- who was a leading figure in the Miami drug scene in the 1970s and early ’80s and was known as the “Godmother of Cocaine”- was fatally shot in Medellín, Colombia on September 3, 2012.
American director Frank Capra, best known for a series of beloved films that included Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), died at age 94 on September 3, 1991.
Qatar officially became independent from the United Kingdom on September 3, 1971.
American professional gridiron football coach Vince Lombardi, who became a national symbol of single-minded determination to win, known for leading the Green Bay Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowls, died at age 57 on September 3, 1970.
Labor Day was celebrated as a legal holiday in the United States for the first time on September 3, 1894.
English navigator Henry Hudson, in a quest for a passage to India on behalf of the Dutch East India Company, sailed into the harbor of present-day New York City and up the river that now bears his name on September 3, 1609.
