Today's Highlight in History:
On April 25, 1945, during World War II, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe River, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany's defenses.
On this date:
In 1507, German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller named a huge land mass in the Western Hemisphere "America," in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci.
In 1792, highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier became the first person under French law to be executed by the guillotine.
In 1859, ground was broken for the Suez Canal.
In 1898, the United States formally declared war on Spain.
In 1901, New York Gov. Benjamin Barker Odell Junior signed an automobile registration bill which imposed a 15 mph speed limit on highways.
In 1915, during World War I, Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Empire out of the war.
In 1945, delegates from some 50 countries met in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.
In 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway opened to shipping.
In 1983, Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov invited Samantha Smith to visit his country after receiving a letter in which the Manchester, Maine, schoolgirl expressed fears about nuclear war.
In 1990, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was inaugurated as president of Nicaragua, ending 11 years of leftist Sandinista rule.
Ten years ago: On the third and final day of their Washington summit, NATO leaders promised military protection and economic aid to Yugoslavia's neighbors for standing with the West against Slobodan Milosevic. More than 70,000 mourners gathered in Littleton, Colo., to remember the victims of the Columbine High School massacre. Lord Killanin, former president of the International Olympic Committee, died in Dublin at age 84.
