On this date
In 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, 16-year-old Sybil Ludington, the daughter of a militia commander in Dutchess County, New York, rode her horse into the night to alert her father’s men of the approach of British regular troops.
In 1865, John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, was surrounded by federal troops near Port Royal, Virginia, and killed.
In 1913, Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old worker at a Georgia pencil factory, was strangled; Leo Frank, the factory superintendent, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to death. (Frank’s death sentence was commuted, but he was lynched by an anti-Semitic mob in 1915.)
In 1968, the United States exploded a 1.3-megaton nuclear device beneath the Nevada desert.
In 1977, the nightclub Studio 54 had its opening night in New York.
In 1986, an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine caused radioactive fallout to spew into the atmosphere. (Dozens of people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the disaster; the long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is believed to be in the thousands.)
In 1994, voting began in South Africa’s first all-race elections, resulting in victory for the African National Congress and the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president.
Ten years ago: Police in Austria arrested Josef Fritzl, freeing his daughter Elisabeth and her six surviving children whom he had fathered while holding her captive for 24 years. (Fritzl was later sentenced to life in a psychiatric ward.)
Five years ago: Country singer George Jones, 81, died in Nashville.
One year ago: President Donald Trump proposed dramatic tax cuts for U.S. businesses and individuals.
Associated Press