TODAY IN HISTORY

1860

Writer J.M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland.

1914

President Woodrow Wilson, acting on a joint congressional resolution, signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.

1945

With World War II in Europe at an end, Soviet forces liberated Czechoslovakia from Nazi occupation. U.S. officials announced that a midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.

1951

The U.S. conducted its first thermonuclear experiment as part of Operation Greenhouse by detonating a 225-kiloton device on Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific nicknamed “George.”

1962

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology succeeded in reflecting a laser beam off the surface of the moon.

1994

South Africa’s newly elected parliament chose Nelson Mandela to be the country’s first Black president.