TODAY IN HISTORY

On Nov. 12, 1920, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was elected commissioner of the American and National Leagues.

In 1948, former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal.

In 1970, the Bhola cyclone struck East Pakistan; it’s believed that as many as a half million people were killed.

In 1975, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas retired because of failing health.

In 2001, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300 headed to the Dominican Republic, crashed after takeoff from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 people on board and five people on the ground.

In 2019, Venice saw its worst flooding in more than 50 years, with the water reaching 6.14 feet above average sea level.