1865

President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens held a shipboard peace conference off the Virginia coast; the talks deadlocked over the issue of Southern autonomy.

1943

During World War II, the U.S. transport ship SS Dorchester, which was carrying troops to Greenland, sank after being hit by a German torpedo in the Labrador Sea; of the more than 900 men aboard, only about 230 survived.

1995

The space shuttle Discovery blasted off with a woman, Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins, in the pilot’s seat for the first time in NASA history.