Highlight: In1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in which the civil rights activist responded to a group of local clergymen who had criticized him for leading street protests.

In 1789, President-elect George Washington left Mount Vernon, Virginia, for his inauguration in New York.

In 1818, the U.S. Senate ratified the Rush-Bagot Treaty severely limiting the number of American and British military vessels on the Great Lakes.

In 1862, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia. The Confederacy conscripted all white men between the ages of 18 to 35.

In 1912, American aviator Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel, leaving Dover, England, and arriving near Calais, France, in 59 minutes.

In 1945, during World War II, a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea torpedoed and sank the MV Goya, which Germany was using to transport civilian refugees and wounded soldiers; it’s estimated that up to 7,000 people died.

In 1947, the cargo ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate, blew up in the harbor in Texas City, Texas; a nearby ship, the High Flyer, which was carrying ammonium nitrate and sulfur, caught fire and exploded the following day; the blasts and fires killed nearly 600 people.

In 1972, Apollo 16 blasted off on a voyage to the moon with astronauts John Young, Charles Duke Jr. and Ken Mattingly on board.

In 1986, dispelling rumors he was dead, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhaf appeared on television to condemn the U.S. raid on his country and to say that Libyans were “ready to die” defending their nation.

In 1996, Britain’s Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah, the Duchess of York, announced they were in the process of divorcing.

In 2007, in one of America’s worst school attacks, a Korean-born college senior killed 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech before taking his own life.

Ten years ago: The Supreme Court upheld, 7-2, the most widely used method of lethal injection, allowing states to resume executions after a seven-month halt. Pope Benedict XVI was welcomed by President George W. Bush as only the second pontiff to visit the White House (after John Paul II) and the first in 29 years.

Five years ago: Federal agents zeroed in on how the Boston Marathon bombing the day before was carried out — with kitchen pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails and other lethal shrapnel — but said they didn’t know yet who had done it, or why. NFL player-turned-broadcaster Pat Summerall, 82, died in Dallas.

One year ago: Robert Godwin Sr., a 74-year-old retiree, was shot to death along a Cleveland street; authorities said his random killing was posted on Facebook by the gunman, who killed himself two days later. U.S. officials said a North Korean medium-range missile exploded seconds after launch, a high-profile failure that came hours before U.S. Vice President Mike Pence arrived in South Korea for a visit at the start of a 10-day trip to Asia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a historic referendum greatly expanding the powers of his office, although opposition parties questioned the outcome.