Today’s highlights in history
On May 12, 1943, during World War II, Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.
On this date In 1932,
the body of Charles Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, was found in a wooded area near Hopewell, N.J.
In 1937,
Britain’s King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey; his wife, Elizabeth, was crowned as queen consort.
In 1949,
the Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade, which the Western powers had succeeded in circumventing with the Berlin Airlift.
In 1958,
the United States and Canada signed an agreement to create the North American Air Defense Command (later the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD).
In 1978,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that hurricanes would no longer be given only female names.
In 1982,
in Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpowered a priest armed with a bayonet who attacked Pope John Paul II. (In 2008, the pope’s longtime private secretary revealed that the pontiff was slightly wounded in the assault.)
In 2003,
the Texas House ground to a standstill after 51 Democratic lawmakers left the state in a dispute over a Republican congressional redistricting plan. (The Democrats returned four days later from Oklahoma, having succeeded in killing the bill.)
Ten years ago:
NBC announced that Jimmy Fallon would succeed Conan O’Brien as host of “Late Night.”
Five years ago:
Pope Francis gave the Catholic Church new saints, including hundreds of 15th-century martyrs who were beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam, as he led his first canonization ceremony.
One year ago:
Dozens of countries were hit with a cyberextortion attack that locked up computers and held users’ files for ransom at a multitude of hospitals, companies and government agencies.