Today in History

The Soviet Union charges American pilot Francis Gary Powers with espionage.

Anna Quindlen, novelist.

Faye Wattleton, women’s rights advocate.

20 B-17s fly in their first mission with the Royal Air Force over Wilhelmshaven, Germany.

Ernest Hemingway is wounded in Italy while working as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross.

Nelson Rockefeller, U.S. vice president to Gerald Ford.

Philip C. Johnson, architect.

The mutinous crew of the battleship Potemkin surrenders to Romanian authorities.

The first ship to use electric lights departs from San Francisco, California.

William Vaughn Moody, poet and playwright (The Great Divide).

Four of the conspirators in President Abraham Lincoln‘s assassination are hanged in Washington, D.C.

Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston retreats into Atlanta to prevent being flanked by Union General William T. Sherman.

Demoralized by the surrender of Vicksburg, Confederates in Port Hudson, Louisiana, surrender to Union forces.

The truce at Villafranca Austria cedes Lombardy to France.