1993A bloody battle in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. Two US Blackhawk helicopters are shot down, while gun battles rage between American forces and guerrilla fighters. Amid the fighting, dozens of Somalis drag the body of an American soldier through the city's streets. President Bill Clinton soon decides to withdraw US troops from Somalia by the following year. 1895Buster Keaton, one of the great comedy stars of the silent movie era, is born in Piqua, Kansas.

And 1970Rock singer Janis Joplin is found dead of an accidental heroin overdose in her Hollywood hotel room. Joplin, a music icon for the sixties counterculture, was 27 years old. Today in History, October 4th, Camille Bohannon, the Associated Press.