Iranian militants storm the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 American hostages. The Iran hostage crisis lasted 444 days and strained U.S.-Iran relations for decades. The crisis had significant political consequences, including contributing to President Jimmy Carter’s re-election loss in 1980.

TODAY’S PATRIOT

F. Scott Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was one of the most celebrated American novelists of the 20th century, best known for The Great Gatsby. A key figure of the Jazz Age, his works captured the extravagance and disillusionment of the post–World War I generation. Fitzgerald’s lyrical prose and tragic characters explored ambition, wealth, and the American dream. Though he struggled with alcoholism and personal turmoil, his work has endured, earning him a permanent place in the American literary canon. Today, Gatsby is widely considered one of the greatest American novels ever written.

During the final years of his life, Fitzgerald worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter to make ends meet, writing to a friend, “There are no second acts in American lives.” Ironically, his own career saw a significant posthumous second act. When The Great Gatsby was first published, it sold poorly, but after World War II, it was rediscovered and praised by a new generation. Now, it’s taught in classrooms around the world. Fitzgerald’s own rise, fall, and literary redemption mirror the themes of his most famous work.