On This Day: Robert E. Lee named commander of Confederate army

Feb. 06 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee was appointed commander in chief of the armies of the Confederacy, two months before surrendering to the Union to end the American Civil War.

In 1928, a young woman claiming to be Anastasia, daughter of the slain Russian Czar Nicholas, arrived in the United States. In the 1990s, DNA testing conducted on the woman's remains concluded she wasn't a member of the Romanov family, which was executed in 1918. The woman's story inspired a French play and a later American movie.

In 1943, U.S. Army Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was named commander of Allied expeditionary forces in North Africa.

In 1952, Princess Elizabeth became sovereign of Great Britain upon the death of her father, King George VI. She was crowned Queen Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953.

File Photo by Michael Jacobs/UPI

In 1958, a British airliner crashed upon takeoff from a Munich, Germany, airport. The crash killed 23 people, including eight members of the Manchester United soccer team.

In 1987, broad no-smoking rules took effect for 890,000 employees in 6,800 U.S. federal buildings nationwide.

In 1992, a military transport plane crashed into a restaurant and hotel in Evansville, Ind., killing 16 people.

In 2001, Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister of Israel.

In 2004, a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a suitcase on a Moscow subway car, killing 39 people and injuring about 200.

In 2006, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told Congress that President George W. Bush was within his legal rights when he authorized warrantless surveillance of people in the United States by the National Security Agency.

File Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI

In 2014, Jay Leno ended his 22-year stint as host of The Tonight Show. Jimmy Fallon took over hosting duties, moving the talk show from Burbank, Calif., to New York City.

In 2016, a magnitude-6.4 earthquake rocked Taiwan, leaving at least 117 dead and 550 people injured when several buildings collapsed.

In 2018, SpaceX launched the world's most powerful rocket, the Falcon Heavy, for the first time, sending Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster -- complete with a dummy in a spacesuit listening to David Bowie's "Space Oddity" -- into space.

In 2022, Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to mark 70 years on the throne, celebrating the milestone later in the year with a Platinum Jubilee.

In 2023, two earthquakes -- magnitude-7.7 and -7.8 -- struck Turkey and Syria, killing some 60,000 people and causing more than $160 billion in damage.