May 10th, 1869, at Promontory, Utah, a golden spike is driven into the ground, completing the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.

 

 

1933, months after taking power in Germany, the Nazis stage massive public burnings of books considered to have un-Germanidea. 

 

 

1941, during the World War Ⅱ, Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’sdeputy, a Nazi Germany parachutes into Scotland has claimed he’s on a peace mission. But he is xx as a prisoner of war and spends the rest of his life behind bars. 

 

 

1994,Nelson Mandela takes the oath of office to become South Africa’s first black president after the end of apartheid. 

 

 

Also that same year, Illinois’ serial killer John Wayne Gacy is executed by lethal injection for murdering 33 young men and boys during the 1970s.

 

 

And 1960, rock musician Bono, front man of the group U2 and an anti-poverty activist, is born in Dublin, Ireland.