Today in History....May 10

On this day in …

* 1775, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys captured the British-held fortress at Ticonderoga, N.Y.

* 1865, Union forces captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Irwinville, Ga.

* 1869, a golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States

* 1933, the Nazis, ym"sh, staged massive public book burnings in Germany

* 1940, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned, and Winston Churchill formed a new government

* 1968, preliminary Vietnam peace talks began in Paris

* 1994, the state of Illinois executed serial killer John Wayne Gacy for the murders of 33 young men and boys

* 2002, a tense 39-day-old standoff between Israeli troops and Palestinian terrorists at one of Christianity's most sacred sites, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, ended with 13 terrorists flown into European exile and 26 released into the Gaza Strip. ALSO:
Cuban activists delivered more than 11,000 signatures to the National Assembly demanding a referendum on broad changes in the socialist system, an unprecedented challenge to Fidel Castro's 43-year rule

* 2006, Daniel Biechele, a former rock-band manager whose pyrotechnics caused a 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire that killed 100 people, was sentenced to four years in prison