2014: Republican presidential contenders Marco Rubio and Rand Paul visit Memphis for the Republican National Committee spring meeting at The Peabody. Rubio speaks at a closed gathering at Rendezvous restaurant. Paul meets privately with African-American pastors, then, in a public speech to RNC members, criticizes efforts by Republicans in state legislatures across the country to impose voter ID standards.

1965: The “UP Bank” sign, advertising Union Planters Bank, lights up for the first time atop the new 100 N. Main building.

1953: Ed Sullivan records his “Toast of the Town” television program at Ellis Auditorium. The taping comes a little more than three years before Elvis Presley’s first appearance on the show. Sullivan would return to Memphis in the 1960s, taping “The Ed Sullivan Show” from the Mid-South Fairgrounds.

TOM LEE (wikipedia.org)

1925: The steamboat M.E. Norman, one of two boats carrying civil engineers on a tour of the Mississippi River, capsizes south of the city. Tom Lee, a laborer who has just dropped off two passengers at Helena, Ark., in his small boat Zev, sees the Norman capsize behind him. He turns around the Zev and begins methodically pulling people out of the river and ferrying them to a nearby sandbar. Lee, who cannot swim, saves 32 passengers from the Norman. Others swim for safety on their own. Twenty-three people die in the accident.