Milestones

By Kathleen Adams, Melissa August, Amanda Bower, Val Castronovo, Randy Hartwell, Ellin Martens, Sora Song and Josh Tyrangiel

MARRIED. DIANE VON FURSTENBERG, 54, up and down and up again fashion doyen, and BARRY DILLER, 59, chairman of USA Networks and archetypal media mogul; after 26 years as an item and social joint venture; in an unglamorous City Hall ceremony that took place on his birthday; in New York City. "That was my present to him," the bride remarked. "Myself."

STRATEGY REVEALED; of the 1951 pennant-winning NEW YORK GIANTS. The team triumphed over the Brooklyn Dodgers in one of the most mythologized games in baseball history, known for its "shot heard round the world," but the Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Giants probably read the Dodgers' pitching signals by placing in the center-field clubhouse a coach adept at deciphering signals with a telescope.

CONVICTED. ABDEL BASSET ALI AL-MEGRAHI, former head of Libyan aviation security, of the murder of 270 people killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; by a Scottish tribunal in the Netherlands. Al-Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison. His co-defendant, LAMEN KHALIFA FHIMAH, was acquitted owing to insufficient evidence.

DIED. J.E. (JOHNNIE) JOHNSON, 85, Royal Air Force flying ace who during World War II downed 38 German planes, the most by any fighter pilot in the European theater; in Derbyshire, England.

SETTLED. Civil rights suit involving minority victims of a 1998 police shooting on the New Jersey Turnpike; for $12.9 million; by New Jersey's attorney general; in Trenton. The case sparked a national outcry over racial profiling.

ACQUITTED. MARK CHMURA, 31, former star tight end for the Green Bay Packers; of charges of third-degree sexual assault and child enticement involving a teenager who used to baby-sit his sons; in Waukesha, Wis. The jury deliberated for two hours and 15 minutes.

DIED. O. WINSTON LINK, 86, photographer whose elegiac shots mourned the departure of steam engines from American railroads in the 1950s; in South Salem, N.Y. He was found dead in his car outside a train station near his home. Link covered 2,300 miles of track on his journeys, later saying, "I was one man, and I tackled a big railroad. I did the best I could."

DIED. JOHN BIGGERS, 76, muralist who depicted African-American life; in Houston. In 1950, Biggers' work won first prize at an annual exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, but because blacks were permitted to visit the museum only on Thursdays, he could not attend the opening.

REMAINS FOUND; believed to be those of atheist MADALYN MURRAY O'HAIR, her son and her adopted granddaughter; on a ranch in Camp Wood, Texas. Missing since 1995, the O'Hairs are believed to have been kidnapped by a former employee, who led police to the site.