On this date in history…

(2004) NASA‘s spacecraft Stardust collected dust grains from the comet Wild 2, and the cometary material was later revealed to contain the amino acid glycine, an essential building block of life. (1967) American Republican politician Ronald Reagan, who previously worked as an actor, was sworn in as governor of California. (1935) The widely publicized trial of Bruno Hauptmann began in New Jersey as he faced charges of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of famed American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh; he was found guilty and executed. (1920) The most spectacular of the Palmer Raids took place when 3,000–10,000 were arrested in more than 30 U.S. cities, accused of being foreign anarchists, communists, or radical leftists; the raids, led by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, were viewed as the climax of that era’s so-called Red Scare. Dziga Vertov, a Soviet motion-picture director whose kino-glaz (“film-eye”) theory had international impact on the development of documentaries and cinema realism during the 1920s, was born. (1863) The Battle of Stones River came to an end during the American Civil War; although indecisive, the clash was a psychological victory for the Union forces, which were led by General William S. Rosecrans. (1861) Frederick William IV, king of Prussia from 1840, died at Sanssouci Palace on this day in 1861. (1492) On this day in 1492, Granada, home of the Alhambra palace and the seat and final stronghold of the Moorish kingdom in Spain, was surrendered to the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II and Isabella I, ending the Reconquest.