TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Wednesday, May 10, the 130th day of 2023. There are 235 days left in the year. On this date in:

1775: Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys, along with Col. Benedict Arnold, captured the British-held fortress at Ticonderoga, New York.

1818: American patriot Paul Revere, 83, died in Boston.

1865: Confederate President Jefferson

Davis was captured by Union forces in Irwinville, Georgia.

1869: A golden spike was driven in Promontory, Utah, marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.

1924: J. Edgar Hoover was named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation (later known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI).

1933: The Nazis staged massive public book burnings in Germany.

1940: During World War II, German forces began invading the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and France.

1941: Adolf Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, parachuted into Scotland on what he claimed was a peace mission. (Hess ended up serving a life sentence at Spandau Prison until 1987, when he apparently committed suicide at age 93.)

1994: Nelson Mandela took the oath of office in Pretoria to become South Africa’s first Black president.

1995: More than 100 miners were killed in an elevator accident in Orkney, South Africa.

2002: A tense 39-day-old standoff between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem ended with 13 suspected militants flown into European exile and 26 released into the Gaza Strip.

2022: Authorities said they would not file criminal charges against former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson after he was recorded on video punching a fellow firstclass passenger aboard a plane at San Francisco International Airport.