On May 10, 1775, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys captured the British-held fortress at Ticonderoga, N.Y.
In 1818 American patriot Paul Revere died in Boston; he was 83.
In 1865 Union forces captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Irwinville, Ga.
In 1869 a golden spike was driven at Promontory Summit, Utah, marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.
In 1886 liberal Protestant theologian Karl Barth was born in Basel, Switzerland.
In 1899 Frederick Austerlitz, who became better known as entertainer Fred Astaire, was born in Omaha.
In 1908 the nation’s first Mother’s Day observances were held in Philadelphia and Grafton, W.Va.
In 1909 “Mother” Maybelle Carter, singer and guitarist who would become matriarch of a country music dynasty that included daughter June Carter Cash, was born near Nickelsville, Va.
In 1933 the Nazis staged massive public book burnings in Germany.
In 1968 preliminary Vietnam peace talks began in Paris.
In 1978 Britain’s Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon announced they were divorcing after 18 years of marriage.
In 1984 the International Court of Justice said the United States should halt any actions to blockade Nicaragua’s ports. (The U.S. already had said it would not recognize World Court jurisdiction on the issue.)
In 1994 serial killer John Wayne Gacy, 52, was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Prison in Joliet.
In 1995 an elevator accident in Orkney, South Africa, killed 104 miners. Also in 1995 former President George H.W. Bush’s office released his letter of resignation from the National Rifle Association in which Bush expressed outrage over its reference to federal agents as “jack-booted government thugs.”
In 1996 two Marine helicopters collided in the dark and crashed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., during a U.S.-British training exercise, killing 14 people.
In 1997 at least 2,400 people died when an earthquake wiped out hundreds of villages in remote northeastern Iran.
In 2000 high wind drove what began as a deliberately set fire into a New Mexico canyon, forcing the evacuation of the entire town of Los Alamos and its 11,000 residents. (The fire had been set to contain an earlier blaze intended to clear brush.)
In 2002 NBA owners approved the Hornets’ move to New Orleans, ending the team’s 14-year era in Charlotte.
In 2003 the leader of Iraq’s largest Shiite Muslim group, Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, returned to his U.S.-occupied homeland after two decades of exile in Iran. (He would be assassinated in a bomb blast at a mosque in Najaf, Iraq, on Aug. 29, 2003.)
In 2004 Citigroup agreed to pay $2.65 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by WorldCom investors who had lost billions when the company went bankrupt in an accounting scandal.
In 2006 former New York Times Executive Editor A.M. Rosenthal died; he was 84.
