... In 1860, the first successful United States Pony Express Run from St. Joseph, Mo., to Sacramento, Calif., began.
... In 1922, Joseph Stalin became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the largest communist state in the world.
... In 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed the Marshall Plan, authorizing $5 billion in aid for 16 countries after the devastation of World War II.
... In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tenn. He would be assassinated the next day.
... In 1996, suspected Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, was captured at his cabin in Montanta.
