TODAY IN HISTORY

On May 28, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, made up of freed blacks, left Boston to fight for the Union in the Civil War.

In 1908, British author Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, was born in London.

In 1912, the Senate Commerce Committee issued its report on the Titanic disaster citing a “state of absolute unpreparedness” as one of the causes of an “unnecessary tragedy.”

In 1918, American troops fought their first major battle during World War I as they launched an offensive against the Germanheld French village of Cantigny; the Americans succeeded in capturing the village.

In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington signaling that vehicular traffic could begin crossing the just-opened Golden Gate Bridge in California. Also: In Nazi Germany, Volkswagen was founded by the German Labour Front.

In 1940, during World War II, the Belgian army surrendered to Germany.

In 1957, National League owners gave permission for the Brooklyn

Dodgers and New York Giants to move to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

In 1959, the U.S. Army launched Able, a rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey, aboard a Jupiter missile for a suborbital flight which both primates survived.

In 1987, to the embarrassment of Soviet officials, Mathias Rust, a young West German pilot, landed a private plane in Moscow’s Red Square without authorization. (Rust was freed the following year.)

In 2003, President George W. Bush signed a 10-year, $350 billion package of tax cuts, saying they already were “adding fuel to an economic recovery.”