On this date in 1970, three years after N.A.S.A. let three Apollo 1 mission astronauts die,
its Apollo 13 mission was crippled by the explosion of a liquid-oxygen tank after four-fifths of the journey to Earth’s moon.
On this date in 1865, Confederate Army General Robert Lee surrendered his army to Union Army General Ulysses Grant in Virginia.
On this date in 1909, explorers Robert Peary and Matthew Henson became the first men to reach Earth’s North Pole.