Today in history:

On Nov. 12, 1954, Ellis Island officially closed as an immigration station and detention center. More than 12 million immigrants arrived in the United States via Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954.

Also on this date:

In 1927, Josef Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union as Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party.

In 1936, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in Washington, D.C., and gave the green light to traffic.

In 1936, American playwright Eugene O’Neill received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1948, Japanese general and former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal; he was execu

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