🗓️ TODAY IN HISTORY On February 4th, 1974, 19-year-old American publishing heiress Patty Hearst was abducted from her Berkeley apartment by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small but militant radical left-wing group that claimed to be fighting against social injustice and capitalism. The kidnapping shocked the United States, not only because Hearst was the granddaughter of media magnate William Randolph Hearst, but also because of what followed. The SLA demanded that the Hearst family di