Today's Highlight in History:
On May tenth, 1869, a golden spike¹ was driven at Promontory², Utah, marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.
On this date:
In 1774, Louis the 16th ascended³ the throne of France.

In 1775, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys captured the British-held fortress⁴ at Ticonderoga, New York.

In 1865, Union forces captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Irwinville, Georgia.

In 1899, movie musical star Fred Astaire was born in Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1924, J. Edgar Hoover was given the job of FBI director.

In 1933, the Nazis⁵ staged massive public book burnings in Germany.

In 1940, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned, and Winston Churchill formed a new government.

In 1941, Adolf Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, parachuted into Scotland on what he claimed was a peace mission. (Hess ended up serving a life sentence at Spandau prison until 1987, when he apparently⁶ committed suicide.)

In 1968, preliminary Vietnam peace talks began in Paris.

In 1994, the state of Illinois executed convicted serial⁷ killer⁸ John Wayne Gacy for the murders of 33 young men and boys.

Ten years ago: The government of China announced the release of 211 dissidents who had been involved in pro-democracy demonstrations⁹ a year earlier.

Five years ago: One-hundred-four miners were killed in an elevator accident in Orkney, South Africa. Terry Nichols was charged in the Oklahoma City bombing. Former President Bush's office released his letter of resignation from the National Rifle Association in which Bush expressed outrage¹⁰ over its reference to federal agents as "jack-booted government thugs."

One year ago: China broke off talks on arms control with the United States, and allowed demonstrators to hurl¹¹ stones at the US Embassy in Beijing for a third day to protest NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia. A military jury at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, sentenced Captain Richard Ashby, a Marine¹² pilot whose jet had clipped an Italian gondola¹³ cable, sending 20 people plunging¹⁴ to their deaths, to six months in prison and dismissed him from the corps¹⁵ for helping¹⁶ hide a videotape shot during the flight (Ashby was acquitted¹⁷ earlier of manslaughter). Cartoonist, playwright¹⁸ and songwriter Shel Silverstein was found dead in his Key West, Florida, apartment; he was 66.