On this date

1689 — William III and Mary II were crowned as joint sovereigns of Britain.

1713 — The Treaty of Utrecht was signed, ending the War of the Spanish Succession. 1865 — President Abraham Lincoln spoke to a crowd outside the White House, saying, “We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.” (It was the last public address Lincoln would deliver.)

1921 — Iowa became the first state to impose a cigarette tax, at 2 cents a package.

1945 — During World War II, American soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald in Germany.

1947 — Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers played in an exhibition against the New York Yankees at Ebbets Field, four days before his regular-season debut that broke baseball’s color line. (The Dodgers won, 14-6.)

1953 — Oveta Culp Hobby became the first Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. 1970 — Apollo 13, with astronauts James A. Lovell, Fred W. Haise and Jack Swigert, blasted off on its ill-fated mission to the moon.

1974 — Palestinian gunmen killed 16 civilians, mostly women and children, in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona.

1988 — The hijackers of a Kuwait Airways jetliner killed a second hostage, dumping his body onto the ground in Larnaca, Cyprus. 1998 — The executive committee of the Ulster Union Party voted 55-23 to support the Northern Ireland peace accord and its leader, David Trimble, who had outmaneuvered rebels in his ranks.