TODAY IN HISTORY

On May 4, 1776, Rhode Island declared its freedom from England, two months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

In 1932, mobster Al Capone, convicted of income-tax evasion, entered the federal penitentiary in Atlanta.

In 1945, during World War II, German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany agreed to surrender.

In 1961, the first group of “Freedom Riders” left Washington, D.C. to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals.

In 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire during an anti-war protest at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.

In 1998, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was given four life sentences plus 30 years by a federal judge in Sacramento, California, under a plea agreement that spared him the death penalty.