In 1862, Gen. Robert E. Lee took command of the Confederate armies of eastern Virginia and North Carolina in the Civil War.

In 1865, the Civil War came to an end when Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signed the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators.

In 1886, U.S. President Grover Cleveland, 49, married Frances Folsom, the 21-year-old daughter of his former law partner, in a White House ceremony. The bride became the youngest first lady in U.S. history.

In 1924, Congress granted U.S. citizenship to all American Indians.

In 1946, in a national referendum, voters in Italy decided the country should become a republic rather than return to a monarchy.

In 1953, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in London's Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In 1979, Pope John Paul II returned home to Poland in the first visit by a pope to a communist nation.

In 1992, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton clinched the Democratic presidential nomination as six states had the final primaries of the 1992 political season.

In 1995, a U.S. F-16 fighter-jet was shot down by a Serb-launched missile while on patrol over Bosnia. The pilot, Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady, ejected safely and landed behind Serb lines. He was rescued six days later.

Also in 1995, Bosnian Serbs began releasing the 370 U.N. peacekeepers held hostage.

In 1997, a federal jury in Denver convicted Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. He was sentenced to death and executed June 11, 2001.

In 1999, in parliamentary elections, South African voters kept the African National Congress in power, assuring that its leader, Thabo Mbeki, would succeed the retiring Nelson Mandela as president.

In 2003, the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to eliminate a rule barring a media company from owning both a TV station and a newspaper in the same U.S. market.

Also in 2003, U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said in a report that inspectors before the war had been unable to prove or disprove the presence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

In 2004, Ken Jennings won his first game on Jeopardy!, starting a string that ended after a record 74 wins and more than $2.5 million in winnings.

In 2005, Israel freed 400 Palestinian prisoners in the second move of its kind since Mahmoud Abbas became Palestinian Authority president.

In 2007, a clash between demonstrators and police in Rockstock, Germany, ahead of the Group of Eight summit, left 146 officers injured and as many as 50 protesters in custody.

In 2008, a Texas judge signed an order for the immediate release of hundreds of children seized during a raid on a ranch owned by a polygamist sect. Parents promised not to interfere with the state's investigation into alleged child abuse and neglect.

In 2009, Pakistani soldiers rescued 71 students and nine staff members abducted by Taliban militants from a military-run college.

Also in 2009, Mauricio Funes, whose political party used to be a guerilla group, was sworn in as president of El Salvador.

In 2010, a 52-year-old British taxi driver was accused of a shooting rampage in which 13 people were slain and 11 others wounded before he killed himself. Media reports called it Britain's worst mass killing since 1996.

Also in 2010, more than half of U.S. voters favor Arizona's strict new immigration law, a poll indicated. The survey reported nearly as many want their state to follow suit.

In 2011, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney officially opened his campaign for the Republican nomination for president. He was the early front-runner.

Also in 2011, an early June report put a $700 million price tag on U.S. aircraft and missile NATO support aiding insurgents against Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi.

Copyright 2012 by United Press International