Today in History

In Warsaw, police rout 1,000 Solidarity supporters.

Khmer Rouge forces capture the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.

Apollo 13–originally scheduled to land on the moon–lands back safely on Earth after an accident.

Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Jerrie Mock becomes first woman to fly solo around the world.

Some 1,400 Cuban exiles attack the Bay of Pigs in an attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.

Jackie Robinson bunts for his first major league hit.

The last French troops leave Syria.

Baseball player Babe Ruth and Claire Hodgson, a former member of the Ziegfeld Follies, get married.

Cynthia Ozick, writer (The Cannibal Galaxy, The Messiah of Stockholm).

Harry Reasoner, American broadcast journalist.

Thornton Wilder, novelist and playwright (Our Town).

China and Japan sign peace treaty of Shimonoseki.

Nikita S. Khrushchev, Soviet premier (1958-64).

Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), Danish writer (Out of Africa).

The game “snooker” is invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain.

Ernest Henry Starling, British physiologist.

Mary Surratt is arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.

General Ulysses Grant bans the trading of prisoners.

Virginia becomes the eighth state to secede from the Union.

Russia abandons all North American claims south of 54′ 40′.

Alexander Cartwright, sportsman, developed baseball.

Bayonne Decree by Napoleon Bonaparte of France orders seizure of U.S. ships.

Frances Williams, the first African-American to graduate from a college in the western hemisphere, publishes a collection of Latin poems.

Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence

Frederick I, king of Sweden

Henry Vaughan, poet

Antonio Mendoza is appointed first viceroy of New Spain.

Present-day New York Harbor is discovered by Giovanni da Verrazzano.

Christopher Columbus signs a contract with Spain to find a western route to the Indies.

Benedict III ends his reign as Catholic Pope.