Today in History

Today’s highlights:

On May 12, 2002, Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba, becoming the first U.S. president in or out of office to visit since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.

On this date:

1780:

During the Revolutionary War, the besieged city of Charleston, South

Carolina, surrendered to

British forces.

1922:

A 20-ton meteor crashed near Blackstone, Virginia.

1937:

Britain’s King

George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey; his wife, Elizabeth, was crowned as queen consort.

1943:

During World War II, Axis forces in North Africa surrendered. The two-week Trident Conference, headed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, opened in Washington.

1949:

The Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade, which the Western powers had succeeded in circumventing with their Berlin Airlift.

1955:

Manhattan’s last elevated rail line, the Third Avenue El, ceased operation.

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.

1982:

In Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpowered a Spanish 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.

2001:

Singer Perry Como died in Jupiter Inlet Colony, Florida, at age 88.

2008:

A devastating 7.9 magnitude earthquake in China’s Sichuan province left more than 87,000 people dead or missing.

2009:

Suspected Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk was deported from the United States to Germany.

Ten years ago:

An Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330 jetliner plunged into the Libyan desert less than a mile from the runway in Tripoli after a flight from Johannesburg; a 9-yearold Dutch boy was the sole survivor of the crash that killed 103 people.

Five years ago:

An Amtrak train traveling from Washington, D.C. to New York derailed and crashed in Philadelphia, killing eight people.

One year ago:

The United Arab Emirates said four commercial ships off its eastern coast had been “subjected to sabotage operations”; the report came as the U.S. warned that “Iran or its proxies” could be targeting maritime traffic in the region.