Today is Thursday, May 6, the 126th day of 2010. There are 239 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

On May 6, 1910, Britain’s Edwardian era came to an end upon the death of King Edward VII; he was succeeded by George V.

ON THIS DATE

In 1859, Georgia miner John Gregory discovered a lode of gold in Colorado.

In 1861, Arkansas seceded from the Union.

In 1889, the Paris Exposition formally opened, featuring the just-completed Eiffel Tower.

In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration.

In 1937, the hydrogen-filled German airship Hindenburg burned and crashed in Lakehurst, N.J., killing 35 of the 97 people on board and a Navy crewman on the ground.

In 1942, during World War II some 15,000 Americans and Filipinos on Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese.

In 1954, medical student Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, in three minutes, 59.4 seconds.

In 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960. Britain’s Princess Margaret married Antony Armstrong-Jones, a commoner, at Westminster Abbey. (They divorced in 1978.)

In 1994, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterrand formally opened the Channel Tunnel between their countries.

Associated Press