TODAY IN HISTORY

1541: Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River.

1846: The first major battle of the Mexican-American War was fought at Palo Alto, Texas; U.S. forces led by Gen. Zachary Taylor were able to beat back Mexican forces.

1886: Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton began selling the original version of Coca-Cola, which he’d invented.

1915: Regret became the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby.

1945: President Harry S. Truman announced on radio that Nazi Germany’s forces had surrendered, and that “the flags of freedom fly all over Europe.” 1958: Vice President Richard Nixon was shoved, stoned, booed and spat upon by anti-American protesters in Lima, Peru.

1973: Militant American Indians who had held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrendered. 1984: The Soviet Union announced it would boycott the upcoming Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. 1996: South Africa took another step from apartheid to democracy by adopting a constitution that guaranteed equal rights for Blacks and whites.

2020: The White House said Katie Miller, Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary and the wife of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, had tested positive for the coronavirus. The unemployment level surged to 14.7 percent, a level last seen when the country was in the throes of the Great Depression; the government reported that 20 million Americans had lost their jobs in April.