MOMENTS IN TIME

The History Channel

• On May 10, 1869, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet up in Promontory, Utah, making transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. history. Journeys that had taken months by wagon train or weeks by boat now took only days.

• On May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland, with 1,198 people drowned. It was later revealed that the Lusitania was carrying about 173 tons of war munitions for Britain, which the Germans cited as justification for the attack.

• On...