On May 6, 1889, the Paris Exposition formally opened, featuring the just-completed Eiffel Tower.
In 1915 Babe Ruth, then with the Boston Red Sox, hit his first major league home run, against the New York Yankees in the old Polo Grounds.
In 1937 the hydrogen-filled German dirigible “Hindenburg” burned and crashed in Lakehurst, N.J., killing 35 of the 97 people on board and a Navy crewman on the ground.
In 1941 Josef Stalin assumed the Soviet premiership, replacing Vyacheslav Molotov.
In 1942, during World War II, about 15,000 American and Philippine troops on Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese.
In 1954 medical student Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds.
In 1960 Britain’s Princess Margaret married commoner Anthony Armstrong-Jones in Westminster Abbey.
In 1992 actress Marlene Dietrich died in Paris; she was 90.
In 2004 an estimated 51.1 million people tuned in for the final first-run episode of “Friends” on NBC.
