Today in history

In 1865,

Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

In 1913,

the first game was played at Ebbets Field, the newly built home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who lost to the Philadelphia Phillies, 1-0.

In 1939,

singer Marian Anderson performed at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. after being denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

In 1942,

some 75,000 Philippine and American defenders on Bataan surrendered to Japanese troops, who forced the prisoners into what became known as the Bataan Death March.

In 1959,

NASA presented its first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Donald Slayton.

In 1968,

funeral services, private and public, were held for Martin Luther King Jr. at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and Morehouse College in Atlanta, five days after the civil rights leader was assassinated.

In 1983,

the space shuttle Challenger ended its first mission with a safe landing in California.

In 1998,

the National Prisoner of War Museum opened in Andersonville, Georgia, the site of the infamous Civil War prison camp.

In 2003,

Iraqis celebrated the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, beheading a toppled statue of their longtime ruler in downtown Baghdad.