TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT 1915

Babe Ruth hit his first majorleague home run as a player for the Boston Red Sox.

MORE ON THIS DATE 1863

The Civil War Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia ended with a Confederate victory over Union forces.

1882

President Chester Alan Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from the U.S. for 10years.

1935

The Works Progress Administration began operating under an executive order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1937

The hydrogen-filled German airship Hindenburg caught fire and crashed while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey; 35 of the 97 people on board were killed along with a crewman on the ground.

1941

Comedian Bob Hope did his first USO show before an audience of servicemen as he broadcast his radio program from March Field in Riverside, California.

1942

During World War II, some 15,000 American and Filipino troops on Corregidor island surrendered to Japanese forces.

1954

Medical student Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, in 3:59.4.

1960

Britain’s Princess Margaret married Antony ArmstrongJones, a commoner, at Westminster Abbey.

2013

Kidnap-rape victims Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who went missing separately about a decade earlier while in their teens or early 20s, were rescued from a house just south of downtown Cleveland.