Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as emperor of the French and was banished to the island of Elba.

1899

The treaty ending the Spanish-American War was declared in effect.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which included the Fair Housing Act, a week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

1970

Apollo 13, with astronauts James A. Lovell, Fred W. Haise and Jack Swigert, blasted off on its ill-fated mission to the moon. (The mission was aborted when an oxygen tank exploded April 13.)