TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS SATURDAY, MAY 6, the 126th day of 2017. There are 239 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1937, the hydrogenfilled German airship Hindenburg burned and crashed in Lakehurst, N.J., killing 35 of the 97 people on board and a Navy crewman on the ground.

In 1889, the Paris Exposition formally opened, featuring the just-completed Eiffel Tower.

In 1910, Britain’s Edwardian era ended with the death of King Edward VII; he was succeeded by George V.

In 1941, Josef Stalin assumed the Soviet premiership, replacing Vyacheslav M. Molotov. Comedian Bob Hope did his first USO show before an audience of servicemen as he broadcast his radio program from March Field in Riverside, Calif.

In 1942, during World War II, some 15,000 American and Filipino troops on Corregidor surrendered to Japanese forces. In 1954, medical student Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, in 3:59.4.

In 1960, Britain’s Princess Margaret married Antony Armstrong-Jones, a commoner, at Westminster Abbey. (They divorced in 1978.)

In 1992, former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev delivered a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., where Winston Churchill had spoken of the “Iron Curtain”; Gorbachev said the world was still divided, between North and South, rich and poor. Actress Marlene Dietrich died at her Paris home at age 90.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Baseball Hallof-Famer Willie Mays is 86. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is 64. TV personality Tom Bergeron is 62. Actresses Roma Downey and Julianne Phillips, and rock singer John Flansburgh (They Might Be Giants) are 57. Actor-director George Clooney and actor Clay O’Brien are 56.