On this day, Dec. 8, in 1982, anti-nuclear weapons protester Norman Mayer threatened to blow up the Washington Monument with a truckload of dynamite before being shot and killed by United States Park Police.

Mayer, 66, a drifter from Florida, tried to buy dynamite in Kentucky and moved to D.C. that summer, displaying large plywood signs in front of the White House and proselytizing to tourists.