TODAY IN HISTORY
1506: Explorer Christopher
Columbus died in Spain. 1862: President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which was intended to encourage settlements west of the Mississippi River by making federal land available for farming.
1927: Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, N.Y., aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France.
1932: Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. (Because of weather and equipment problems, Earhart set down in Northern Ireland instead of her intended destination, France.)
1956: The United States exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.
1959: Nearly 5,000 Japanese-Americans had their U.S. citizenships restored after choosing to renounce them during World War II.
1961: A white mob attacked
a busload of Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Ala., prompting the federal government to send in U.S. marshals to restore order.
1978: Japan’s Narita International Airport began operations after years of protests over its construction by local residents.
1985: Radio Marti, operated by the U.S. government, began broadcasting; Cuba responded by attempting to jam its signal.
1995: President Bill Clinton announced that the twoblock stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House would be permanently closed to motor vehicles as a security measure.
2009: Suspended NFL star Michael Vick was released after 19 months in prison for running a dogfighting ring to begin two months’ home confinement.
2011: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the idea of using his country’s 1967 boundaries as the basis for a neighboring Palestinian state, declaring his objections during a face-to-face meeting with President Barack Obama, who had raised the idea in an effort to revive stalled Mideast peace talks. Randy “Macho Man” Savage, 58, a larger-than-life personality from professional wrestling’s 1980s heyday, died in Pinellas County, Florida.