Hosted by Tony Award-winner Joe Mantegna and Emmy
Award-winner Gary Sinise, both steadfast champions of
Veterans’ causes and active service members, the National
Memorial Day concert will air on PBS and stream nationwide
on the PBS website at www.pbs.org/national-memorial-
day-concert and YouTube on Sunday, May 26, 2024 at
8:00 p.m. E.T.

On May 4, 1970, in Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen fired their weapons at a group of anti-war demonstrators on the Kent State University campus, killing four students, wounding eight, and permanently paralyzing another. The tragedy was a watershed
moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Vietnam, and
further galvanized the anti-war movement. 

On April 29, 2004, the World War II Memorial opened in
Washington, D.C. to thousands of visitors, providing
overdue recognition for the 16 million U.S. men and
women who served in the war. The memorial is located
on 7.4 acres on the former site of the Rainbow Pool at
the National Mall between the Washington Monument
and the Lincoln Memorial. The Capitol dome is seen to
the east, and Arlington Cemetery is just across the
Potomac River to the west.

On March 15, 1968, construction started on the north tunnel of
the Eisenhower/Johnson Memorial Tunnel on Interstate 70 in
Colorado, some 60 miles west of Denver.

Located at an elevation of more than 11,000 feet, the project was
an engineering marvel and became the world’s highest vehicular
tunnel when it was completed in 1979. Four months after opening,
one million vehicles had passed through the tunnel; today, some
10 million vehicles drive through it each year.

On February 19, 1847, the first rescuers reach surviving members
of the Donner Party, a group of California-bound emigrants stranded
by snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

In the summer of 1846, in the midst of a Western-bound fever
sweeping the United States, 89 people—including 31 members
of the Donner and Reed families—set out in a wagon train from Springfield, Illinois.

After arriving at Fort Bridger, Wyoming, the emigrants decided to
avoid the usual route and try a new trail recently blazed by
California promoter Lansford Hastings, the so-called “Hastings
Cutoff.” 

After electing George Donner as their captain, the party departed
Fort Bridger in mid-July. 

The shortcut was nothing of the sort: It set the Donner Party back
nearly three weeks and cost them much-needed supplies. After
suffering great hardships in the Wasatch Mountains, the Great Salt
Lake Desert and along the Humboldt River, they finally reached the
Sierra Nevada Mountains in early October.

Donner Party Monument at Donner Memorial State Park
Truckee, California.