Today In History

In 1943: One of America’s most highly decorated military units of World War II, the 442d Regimental Combat Team, made up almost entirely of Japanese-Americans, was authorized.

In 1960: Four black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they had been refused service.

In 1968: During the Vietnam War, Saigon’s police chief (Nguyen Ngoc Loan) executed a Viet Cong officer with a pistol shot to the head in a scene captured in a famous news photograph.