On May 12, 1949, the Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade, which the Western powers had succeeded in circumventing with their Berlin Airlift.

Ten years ago

Tony Snow made his debut as White House press secretary. A ruptured gas pipeline in southwestern Nigeria exploded as villagers were collecting fuel, killing up to 200 people. South Korean prosecutors indicted disgraced scientist Hwang Woo-suk on charges of fraud, embezzlement and bioethics violations linked to faked stem cell research.

Five years ago

CEOs of the five largest oil companies went before the Senate Finance Committee, where Democrats challenged the executives to justify tax breaks at a time when people were paying $4 a gallon for gas.

One year ago

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin with an eye on easing badly strained relations over conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. A new earthquake killed dozens of people in Nepal, which was still struggling to recover from a devastating quake nearly three weeks earlier that had killed more than 8,000. An Amtrak train traveling from Washington, D.C. to New York derailed and crashed in Philadelphia, killing eight people. Educator, author and journalist William Zinsser, 92, died in New York.

— By The Associated Press