TODAY IN HISTORY: Lindbergh, Earhart cross Atlantic

In 427 B.C., philosopher Plato was born.

In 1471, King Henry VI of England was executed during the "Wars of the Roses." Henry of the House of Lancaster was born Dec. 6, 1421. He married Margaret of Anjou in 1445. The union produced one son, Edward, who was killed in battle one day before Henry's death. Edward IV of the House of York became king.

In 1738, Charles Wesley was converted to evangelical Christianity, becoming a co-founder of Methodism. He wrote hundreds of hymns such as "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."

In 1785, Canada's first jury trial under British common law took place in what is now Quebec City.

In 1840, colony.

In 1901, Capt. John Claus Voss left Victoria in the Tilikum, a Nootkan Indian canoe, on a voyage to England. He sailed via Australia and New Zealand and arrived in England on Sept. 2, 1904.

In 1923, prohibition took effect in Prince Edward Island.

In 1927, American Charles Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris after his historic solo flight across the Atlantic. Lindbergh's trip from Long Island, N.Y., lasted 33-and-a-half hours.

In 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman

New Zealand was declared a British to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean as she landed in Northern Ireland, about 15 hours after leaving Newfoundland.

In 1945, Syria and Lebanon proclaimed their independence from France.

In 1953, a tornado hit Sarnia, Ont., killing five people, flattening the downtown section and causing $4 million in damage.

In 1956, the first U.S. hydrogen bomb to be dropped from an airplane was released over the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

In 1969, a judge in Los Angeles sentenced Sirhan Sirhan to death for the assassination of U.S. Senator Robert Kennedy.