This Day in History for May 12

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

1870 - an act creating the Canadian province of Manitoba was given royal assent, to take effect in July.

1930 - Chicago\'s Adler Planetarium first opened to the public.

1932 - the body of Charles Lindbergh Jr., the kidnapped son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, was found in a wooded area near Hopewell, N.J.

1937 - Britain\'s King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

1943 - during World War II, Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.

1958 - the United States and Canada signed an agreement to create the North American Air Defense Command (later the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD for short).

1970 - the Senate voted unanimously to confirm Harry A. Blackmun as a Supreme Court justice.

1975 - the White House announced the new Cambodian government had seized an American merchant ship, the Mayaguez, in international waters.

1978 - the Commerce Department said hurricanes would no longer be given only female names.

1982 - in Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpowered a Spanish priest armed with a bayonet who attacked Pope John Paul II. (2008 - the pope\'s longtime private secretary revealed the pontiff was slightly wounded.)