Today in History 4

On this day in …

* 1626, Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on present-day Manhattan Island

* 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, a labor demonstration for an eight-hour work day turned into a riot when a bomb exploded

* 1904, the United States began building the Panama Canal

* 1916, responding to a demand from President Wilson, Germany agreed to limit its submarine warfare, thereby averting a diplomatic break with Washington

* 1932, mobster Al Capone, convicted of income tax evasion, entered the federal penitentiary in Atlanta

* 1945, during World War II, German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany agreed to surrender

* 1946, a two-day riot at Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay ended, the violence having claimed five lives

* 1961, a group of "Freedom Riders" left Washington for New Orleans to challenge racial segregation in interstate buses and bus terminals

* 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others

* 2001, Pope John Paul II began a visit to Greece, where he issued a sweeping apology for the "sins of action and omission" by Roman Catholics against Orthodox Christians. ALSO: Bonny Lee Bakley, wife of actor Robert Blake, was shot to death as she sat in a car near a restaurant in Los Angeles. (Robert Blake, accused of the killing, was acquitted in a criminal trial but was found liable by a civil jury and ordered to pay damages.)

* 2005, a military judge at Fort Hood, Texas, threw out Pvt. 1st Class Lynndie England's guilty plea to abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, saying he was not convinced the Army reservist knew her actions were wrong at the time. (England was later convicted in a court-martial and sentenced to three years in
prison.) ALSO: A suicide bombing at a police recruitment center in Irbil, Iraq, killed 60 people. Prosecutors rested their case in the Michael Jackson molestation trial. ABC aired a segment of "Primetime Live" in which former "American Idol" contestant Corey Clark claimed an affair with judge Paula Abdul, who denied the allegation