Events, Births and Deaths Happening on this Date

1851

Maine became the first state to enact a law prohibiting alcohol.

1886

President Cleveland married Frances Folsom in a White House ceremony. (To date, Cleveland is the only president to marry in the Executive Mansion while in office.)

1897

Responding to rumors, Mark Twain, 61, was quoted by the New York Journal as saying from London that ''the report of my death was an exaggeration.''

1924

Congress granted U.S. citizenship to all American Indians.

1935

Babe Ruth, one of the most iconic athletes in American history, announced his retirement from professional baseball.

1946

The Italian monarchy was abolished in favor of a republic.

1953

Queen Elizabeth II of Britain was crowned in Westminster Abbey, 16 months after the death of her father, King George VI.

1979

Pope John Paul II arrived in his native Poland on the first visit by a pope to a Communist country.

1979

Los Angeles became the first major city to pass a law prohibiting discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation.

1987

President Reagan announced he was nominating economist Alan Greenspan to succeed Paul Volcker as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

1995

A U.S. Air Force F-16C was shot down by Bosnian Serbs while on a NATO air patrol in northern Bosnia; the pilot, Capt. Scott F. O'Grady, was rescued six days later.

1997

Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder and conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing - the deadliest act of terror on U.S. soil. The 1995 blast killed 168 people.

1998

Voters in California passed Proposition 227, which effectively abolished the state's 30-year-old bilingual education program by requiring that all children be taught in English.

2016

Autopsy results showed that the music legend Prince died of an accidental overdose of the powerful painkiller fentanyl.

1941

Baseball's ''Iron Horse,'' Lou Gehrig, died in New York of a degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

1987

Andres Segovia, the Spanish musician who established the guitar as an important concert instrument.