Senator Ted Kennedy Drives an Automobile Off the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island Killing his Passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne. July 18, 1969

On this day in history, shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy of Massachusetts drives an automobile off the Dike Bridge upside down into the tidal Poucha Pond. Kennedy escaped the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, a respected political operative who had worked on Senator Kennedy's brother Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign, did not. The senator failed to report the fatal car accident for 10 hours.