*On this date in 1989 Congressman George Thomas "Mickey" Leland was killed in Africa. He and members of his congressional staff (including Patrice Johnson of Minneapolis), and State Department officials died when their plane crashed.
Representative Leland, chairman of the House Select Committee on Hunger, died when the small plane in which he was traveling crashed en route to a refugee camp in Fugnido, Ethiopia.
Leland was buried in his hometown of Houston, TX on August 19, 1989.
