Today:
1043 – Edward the Confessor was crowned King of England at Winchester Cathedral.
1559 – The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis was signed, ending the Italian Wars between France and Spain.
1860 – The first successful Pony Express run began between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California.
1865 – Union forces captured the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War.
1882 – American outlaw Jesse James was shot and killed by Robert Ford in St. Joseph, Missouri.
1922 – Joseph Stalin became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1936 – Bruno Hauptmann was executed for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr.
1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” in Memphis, Tennessee.
1973 – The first-ever handheld mobile phone call was made by Martin Cooper of Motorola.
1996 – Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was arrested at his cabin in Montana.