First lady Helen Herron Taft and the wife of Japan’s ambassador to the United States, Viscountess Chinda, planted the first two of 3,000 cherry trees given to the U.S. as a gift by the mayor of Tokyo.

1964

Alaska was hit by a magnitude 9.2 earthquake and tsunamis that claimed about 130 lives.

1975

Construction began on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which was completed two years later.

In aviation’s worst disaster, 583 people were killed when a KLM Boeing 747 crashed into a Pan Am 747 on an airport runway on the Canary Island of Tenerife.