Today In History

In 1607:English colonists, including Capt. John Smith, went ashore at Cape Henry, Va., to establish the first permanent English settlement in the Western Hemisphere.

In 1865: John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, was surrounded and killed by federal troops near Bowling Green, Va.

In 1937: Planes from Nazi Germany raided the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

In 1980: Following an unsuccessful attempt by the United States to rescue the U.S. Embassy hostages in Iran, the Tehran government announced the captives were being scattered to thwart any future rescue effort.

In 1986: The world’s worst nuclear accident occurred at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union. An explosion and fire in the No. 4 reactor sent radioactivity into the atmosphere.