Today’s highlight

On April 30, 1945, as Soviet troops approached his Berlin bunker, Adolf Hitler took his own life, as did his wife of one day, Eva Braun.

On this date

1789: George Washington took the oath of office in New York as the first president of the United States.

1803: The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for 60 million francs, the equivalent of about $15 million.

1812: Louisiana became the 18th state of the Union.

1958: Britain’s Life Peerages Act 1958 allowed women to become members of the House of Lords.

1975: The Vietnam War ended as the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon fell to Communist forces.

2004: Arabs expressed outrage at graphic photographs of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated by U.S. military police; President George W. Bush condemned the mistreatment of prisoners, saying “that’s not the way we do things in America.”

2013: The FDA lowered to 15 the age at which females could buy the Plan B emergency contraceptive without a prescription, and said it no longer had to be kept behind pharmacy counters.

2022: Ukrainian forces fought village by village to hold back a Russian advance through the country’s east, while the United Nations worked to broker an evacuation of the approximately 100,000 civilians remaining in the last Ukrainian stronghold in the bombed-out ruins of the port city of Mariupol.

Today’s birthdays

Singer Willie Nelson is 90. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden is 77. Movie director Jane Campion is 69. Basketball Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas is 62. Actor Adrian Pasdar is 58. R&B singer Chris “Choc” Dalyrimple (Soul For Real) is 52. Country singer Carolyn Dawn Johnson is 53. Actor Johnny Galecki is 48. Actor Kunal Nayyar is 42. Actor Kirsten Dunst is 41. Country singer Brandon Lancaster is 34. Rapper/producer Travis Scott is 32.