Today in History

Today is Monday, May 11, the 131st day of 2015. There are 234 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On May 11, 1945, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill was attacked and severely damaged by two kamikaze aircraft off Okinawa; according to the U.S. Navy's official website, 346 men were killed, 43 were left missing, and 264 were wounded.

On this date:

In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor of New Netherland.

In 1858, Minnesota became the 32nd state of the Union.

In 1862, during the Civil War, the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia was scuttled by its crew off Craney Island, Virginia, to prevent it from falling into Union hands.

In 1935, the Rural Electrification Administration was created as one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs.

In 1944, during World War II, Allied forces launched a major offensive against Axis lines in Italy.

In 1953, a tornado devastated Waco, Texas, claiming 114 lives.

In 1960, Israeli agents captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In 1973, the espionage trial of Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo in the "Pentagon Papers" case came to an end as Judge William M. Byrne dismissed all charges, citing government misconduct.

In 1985, 56 people died when a flash fire swept a jam-packed soccer stadium in Bradford, England.

In 1996, an Atlanta-bound ValuJet DC-9 caught fire shortly after takeoff from Miami and crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 people on board.

Ten years ago: More than 1,000 demonstrators rioted and threw stones at a U.S. military convoy in Afghanistan as protests spread over a Newsweek report that interrogators had desecrated Islam's holy book at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. (Newsweek later retracted the story.) Actor Macaulay Culkin took the stand at Michael Jackson's trial to denounce the molestation allegations against the pop star as "absolutely ridiculous." (Jackson was acquitted.)

Five years ago: Conservative leader David Cameron, at age 43, became Britain's youngest prime minister in almost 200 years after Gordon Brown stepped down and ended 13 years of Labour government. Italian designer Giuliana Coen Camerino, credited with making handbags a fashion item, died in Venice at age 89.

One year ago: Pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine said voters overwhelmingly favored sovereignty in balloting that the Ukraine central government and the West denounced as an illegal sham. Musa Dayib, a 15-month-old toddler, miraculously survived an 11-story fall from a Minneapolis high-rise apartment balcony. Jeb Stuart Magruder, 79, a Watergate conspirator-turned minister, died in Danbury, Connecticut.

Thought for Today: "No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not someday be antiquated." — Ellen Glasgow, American author (1874-1945).

(Above Advance for Use Monday, May 11)