TODAY IN HISTORY

On May 12, 1922, a 20-ton meteor crashed near Blackstone, Virginia.

In 1937, Britain’s King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

In 1943, during World War II, Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.

In 1949, the Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade, which the Western powers had circumvented with their Berlin Airlift.

In 1955, Manhattan’s last elevated rail line, the Third Avenue El, ceased operation.

In 1958, the United States and Canada agreed to create the North American Air Defense Command.

In 1970, the Senate voted unanimously to confirm Harry A. Blackmun as a Supreme Court justice.

In 2002, Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba, becoming the first U.S. president to visit since the 1959 revolution that instated Fidel Castro.