On May 8, 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River, the first recorded European to do so.

In 1886, the first serving of Coca-Cola, which contained cocaine, was sold at a pharmacy in Atlanta.

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman announced in a radio address that Nazi Germany’s forces had surrendered, stating that “the flags of freedom fly all over Europe” on V-E (Victory in Europe) Day.

In 1973, members of the American Indian Movement and the Oglala Lakota tribe, who had occupied the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks, surrendered to federal authorities.

In 2020, U.S. unemployment surged to 14.7%, a level last seen in the throes of the Great Depression; the government reported that more than 20 million Americans had lost their jobs in April amid the coronavirus pandemic.