On this date

during the Civil War, Union troops spearheaded by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, made up of black soldiers, charged Confederate-held Fort Wagner on Morris Island, S.C. The Confederates held off the Northerners, who suffered heavy losses.

South African anti-apartheid leader and president Nelson Mandela was born in the village of Mvezo.

the United States and Canada signed a treaty to develop the St. Lawrence Seaway.

President Harry S. Truman signed a Presidential Succession Act that placed the speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tempore next in the line of succession after the vice president.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., left a party on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard with Mary Jo Kopechne, 28; some time later, Kennedy’s car went off a bridge into the water. Kennedy was able to escape, but Kopechne drowned.

gunman James Huberty opened fire at a McDonald’s fast food restaurant in San Ysidro, Calif., killing 21 people before being shot dead by police.

a bomb hidden in a van destroyed a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85. Tutsi rebels declared an end to Rwanda’s 14-week-old civil war.

“The Dark Knight,” starring Christian Bale as the caped crusader and Heath Ledger as the Joker, premiered.

Detroit became the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy.

President Donald Trump declared that it was time to “let Obamacare fail” after the latest Republican effort to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law was blocked in the Senate.