TODAY IN HISTORY

Saturday, May  12, 2012 AP Highlight in History:  On May 12, 1937, Britain's King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.   AP Photo
On this date in: 1820 Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, was born in Florence, Italy. 1870 Manitoba entered the confederation as a Canadian province. 1907 Actress Katharine Hepburn was born in Hartford, Conn. 1932 The body of the kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was found in a wooded area of Hopewell, N.J. 1943 Axis forces in North Africa surrendered during World War II. 1949 The Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin blockade. The Armed Forces Network reports from the scene 1965 West Germany and Israel established diplomatic relations. 1970 The Senate voted unanimously to confirm Harry A. Blackmun as a Supreme Court justice. 1972 The album "Exile on Main St." by the Rolling Stones was released. 1982 Pope John Paul II was assaulted by a knife-wielding Spanish priest while visiting the shrine of Fatima in Portugal. (In 2008, the pope's longtime private secretary revealed that the pontiff had been lightly wounded.) 2002 Jimmy Carter became the first present or former U.S. president to visit Cuba since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959. AP Photo/Jose Goita 2003 Suicide bombers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killed 26 people, including nine U.S. citizens. 2003 Fifty-nine Texas House Democrats fled to Oklahoma to prevent passage of a congressional redistricting bill. 2008 An earthquake in China's Sichuan province killed some 70,000 people. 2009 Five Miami men were convicted in a plot to blow up FBI buildings and Chicago's Sears Tower. 2011 A German court convicted retired U.S. autoworker John Demjanjuk of being an accessory to the murder of tens of thousands of Jews as a Nazi death camp guard. (Demjanjuk, who maintained his innocence, died in March 2012 at age 91.)		Video Highlights of This Day in History Today's Birthdays: Actress Malin Akerman turns 34 years old today. AP Photo/Dan Steinberg Name Profession Age Yogi Berra Baseball Hall of Famer 87 Burt Bacharach Singer, songwriter 84 Millie Perkins Actress 74 Lindsay Crouse Actress 64 Dave Heineman Governor of Nebraska 64 Steve Winwood Rock musician (Traffic) 64 Bruce Boxleitner Actor 62 Billy Squier Rock musician 62 Kix Brooks Country singer (Brooks and Dunn) 57 Ving Rhames Actor 53 Emilio Estevez Actor 50 Vanessa Williams Actress 49 Stephen Baldwin Actor 46 Kim Fields Actress ("The Facts of Life") 43 Samantha Mathis Actress 42 Jason Biggs Actor ("American Pie" movies) 34 Steve Smith Football player 33 Malcolm David Kelley Actor ("Lost") 20 Skateboarder Tony Hawk turns 44 years old today. AP Photo/Chris Pizzello