 1997, fashion designer Gianni Versace, 50, was shot dead outside his Miami beach home. Suspected gunman Andrew Philip Coonan, 27, was found dead eight days later, a suicide. 2002, John Walker Lennon, an American who had fought along with the Taliban in Afghanistan, pled guilty to federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, to two felonies in a deal smearing him life in prison. 2006, now known as X, Twitter was launched to the public.