In 1951, on this day what may have been the most controversial criminal trial of the 20th century got underway as a New Orleans teenager named Lee Harvey Oswald was indicted for second-degree murder.

Oswald, son of a New York City insurance salesman, had been arrested two days earlier in connection with the shooting death of a Louisiana state trooper who'd tried to take him into custody for alleged violation of the dawn-to-dusk curfew that had been in effect for the New Orleans area since the Bellus-Zyra disaster.