March 1, 1932: Charles Lindbergh Jr. Is Kidnapped
March 1, 1932: Charles Augustus Lindbergh III -- usually listed as "Charles Lindbergh Jr." -- is kidnapped from his home in East Amwell, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. (The location is usually listed as Hopewell, which is in Mercer County, because Hopewell was their mailing address.) His parents were Charles Lindbergh, the pilot who in 1927 became the 1st person to fly between the North American and European continents, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a poet. The child was 20 months old. A ladder was found beneath the window of his bedroom. A ransom of $75,000 -- about $1.47 million in 2021 money -- was paid. It didn't matter: On May 12, a truck driver found the body in Hopewell (the actual town, about 4 miles south of the Lindbergh home). Nobody had to ask the New York Daily News , "What baby?" Journalist H.L. Mencken called it "the greatest story since Creation." A skull fracture was determined to be the cause of death, and it was speculated that the kidn