TODAY IN HISTORY

On April 6, 1886, the Canadian city of Vancouver, British Columbia, was incorporated.

In 1896, the first modern Olympic games formally opened in Athens, Greece.

In 1909, American explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson and four Inuits became the first men to reach the North Pole.

In 1917, the United States entered World War I as the House joined the Senate in approving a declaration of war against Germany that was then signed by President Woodrow Wilson.

In 1974, Swedish pop group

ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest held in Brighton, England, with a performance of the song “Waterloo.”

In 2019, former South Carolina Democratic Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, who had also helped guide the state through desegregation as governor, died at the age of 97; he was the eighth-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.