From Michael Zak:

On this day in 1973, Lt. Commander John McCain was released from a North Vietnamese prison.

The missile that shot down his fighter-bomber broke both arms and a leg, and he nearly drowned after parachuting into a lake. He was then bayoneted and beaten. McCain refused his captors' demands that he divulge military information in return for medical treatment. Despite being tortured, McCain also refused offers from the communists to free him ahead of other servicemen who had been imprisoned longer.

President Richard Nixon welcomed McCain home, after five and a half years of captivity, much of that time in solitary confinement.