Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1607

An expedition of English colonists went ashore at Cape Henry, Va., to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.

1937

Planes from Nazi Germany raided the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

1945

Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the head of France's Vichy government during World War II, was arrested.

1961

Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hit the first of a record 61 home runs in a single season.

1964

The African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania.

1986

The world's worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire in the No. 4 reactor sent radioactivity into the atmosphere; at least 31 Soviets died immediately.

1998

Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, a leading human rights activist in Guatemala, was bludgeoned to death two days after a report he'd compiled on atrocities during Guatemala's 36-year civil war was made public.

1999

BBC anchorwoman Jill Dando, the host of a crime-fighting program, was fatally shot on the steps of her London home.

2000

Vermont Gov. Howard Dean signed the nation's first bill allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions.

1785

American naturalist and artist John James Audubon was born in Haiti.

1900

Seismologist Charles Richter, who devised the earthquake-measuring scale that bears his name, was born in Hamilton, Ohio.

1865

John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, was surrounded and killed by federal troops near Bowling Green, Va.

1989

Actress-comedian Lucille Ball died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at age 77.