This Day in History: Winston Churchill resigned as British prime minister

The following are some of the major events to have occurred on April 5:

1951 – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death in the United States for passing atomic secrets to the Russians.

1955 – Winston Churchill resigned as British prime minister.

1999 – Two Libyans suspected of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing were handed over and flown to the Netherlands for trial.

2001 – Dutch truck driver Perry Wacker convicted of the manslaughter of 58 Chinese immigrants who suffocated in a sweltering airtight container on the back of his truck as it travelled to Britain. A British court sentenced him to 14 years in prison.

2005 – Tens of thousands of pilgrims queue outside Saint Peter’s Basilica to see the late Pope John Paul II laying in state.

2007 – British sailors and marines accused of trespassing into Iranian waters and held in Iran for two weeks return home.

2009 – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visits Baghdad.

2010 – Twenty-nine West Virginia coal miners die in explosion at Upper Big Branch mining disaster.

2012 – Large Hadron Collider crew declares “stable beams” as two 4 TeV proton beams were brought into collision at four interaction points, setting a new world record.

2012 – Historic presidential election in Afghanistan.

2017 – Humanitarian ships rescue more than 700 migrants in Mediterranean Sea.

(Reuters)