On this day in history - May 10

What Happened On This Day – May 10

• 1994 Nelson Mandela becomes South Africa's first black president

  Mandela's inauguration came after more than 300 years of white rule. Before becoming president, he was a pivotal figure in the fight against the racist apartheid regime and was incarcerated for 27 years.

• 1954 Bill Haley releases “Rock Around the Clock”

  It was the first rock song to top the Billboard charts and has become a classic of the early rock era.

• 1941 Adolf Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, parachutes into Scotland to broker a peace agreement

  Hess was captured and interrogated. He was the last in a long line of prominent figures to be incarcerated in the Tower of London. Hitler characterized his peace mission four years before the end of World War II as treason.

• 1933 Nazis ceremonially burn about 25,000 allegedly “un-German” books

  The book burnings were part of the right-wing German Student Union's Action against the Un-German Spirit. Among the burnt books were works by Albert Einstein, Bertolt Brecht, Sigmund Freud, and Franz Kafka.

• 1869 In the United States, the first coast to coast railroad is completed

  The Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroad systems were joined at Promontory Summit in Utah, using a “Golden Spike”. This last spike is now housed in the Cantor Arts Museum at Stanford University.