On This Day

February 9, 2015

1825 - The U.S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president. No candidate had received a majority of electoral votes.

1861 - The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America elected Jefferson Davis as its president.

1870 - The United States Weather Bureau was authorized by Congress. The bureau is officially known as the National Weather Service (NWS).

1884 - Thomas Edison and Patrick Kenny executed a patent application for a chemical recording stock quotation telegraph (U.S. Pat. 314,115).

1885 - The first Japanese arrived in Hawaii.

1895 - Volley Ball was invented by W.G. Morgan.

1895 - The first college basketball game was played as Minnesota State School of Agriculture defeated the Porkers of Hamline College, 9-3.

1900 - Dwight F. Davis put up a new tennis trophy to go to the winner in matches against England. The trophy was a silver cup that weighed 36 pounds.

1909 - The first forestry school was incorporated in Kent, Ohio.

1932 - America entered the 2-man bobsled competition for the first time at the Olympic Winter Games held at Lake Placid, NY.

1942 - The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff held its first formal meeting to coordinate military strategy during World War II.

1942 - Daylight-saving "War Time" went into effect in the U.S.

1943 - During World War II, the battle of Guadalcanal ended with an American victory over Japanese forces.

1950 - U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy charged that the State Department was riddled with Communists. This was the beginning of "McCarthyism."

1958 - CBS radio debuted "Frontier Gentleman".

1960 - A verbal agreement was reached between representatives of the American and National Football Leagues. Both agreed not to tamper with player contracts.

1960 - The first star was placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star was for Joanne Woodward.

1969 - The Boeing 747 flew its inaugural flight.

1971 - The San Fernando Valley experienced the Sylmar earthquake that registered 6.4 on the Richter Scale.

1971 - The Apollo 14 spacecraft returned to Earth after mankind's third landing on the moon.

1975 - The Russian Soyuz 17 returned to Earth.

1984 - NBC Entertainment president, Brandon Tartikoff, gave an interviewer the "10 Commandments for TV Programmers."

1989 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. completed the $25 billion purchase of RJR Nabisco, Inc.

1997 - "The Simpsons" became the longest-running prime-time animated series. "The Flintstones" held the record previously.

2001 - "Hannibal," the sequel to "Silence of the Lambs", opened in theaters.

February 10, 2015

1763 - The Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War. In the treaty France ceded Canada to England.

1840 - Britain's Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha.

1846 - Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began their exodus to the west from Illinois.

1863 - In New York City, two of the world’s most famous midgets, General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren were married.

1863 - The fire extinguisher was patented by Alanson Crane.

1870 - The city of Anaheim was incorporated for the first time.

1870 - The YWCA was founded in New York City.

1879 - The electric arc light was used for the first time.

1897 - "The New York Times" began printing "All the news that's fit to print" on their front page.

1920 - Major league baseball representatives outlawed pitches that involve tampering with the ball.

1923 - Ink paste was manufactured for the first time by the Standard Ink Company.

1925 - The first waterless gas storage tank was placed in service in Michigan City, IN.

1933 - The singing telegram was introduced by the Postal Telegraph Company of New York City.

1933 - Primo Carnera knocked out Ernie Schaaf in round 13 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Schaaf died as a result of the knockout punch.

1934 - The first imperforated, ungummed sheets of postage stamps were issued by the U.S. Postal Service in New York City.

1935 - The Pennsylvania Railroad began passenger service with its electric locomotive. The engine was 79-1/2 feet long and weighed 230 tons.

1942 - The Normandie, the former French liner, capsized in New York Harbor. The day before the ship had caught fire while it was being fitted for the U.S. Navy.

1949 - "Death of a Salesman" opened at the Morocco Theatre in New York City.

1962 - The Soviet Union exchanged capture American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for the Soviet spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abel being held by the U.S.

1967 - The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment required the appointment of a vice-president when that office became vacant and instituted new measures in the event of presidential disability.

1981 - The Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino caught fire. Eight people were killed and 198 were injured.

1989 - Ron Brown became the first African American to head a major U.S. political party when he was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

1990 - South African President F.W. de Klerk announced that black activist Nelson Mandela would be released the next day after 27 years in captivity.

1992 - Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, Miss Black American contestant.

1997 - The U.S. Army suspended its top-ranking enlisted soldier, Army Sgt. Major Gene McKinney following allegations of sexual misconduct. McKinney was convicted of obstruction of justice and acquitted of 18 counts alleging sexual harassment of six military women.

1998 - A man became the first to be convicted of committing a hate crime in cyberspace. The college dropout had e-mailed threats to Asian students.

1998 - Voters in Maine repealed a 1997 gay rights law. Maine was the first state to abandone such legislation.

1999 - Avalanches killed at least 10 people when they roared down the French Alps 30 miles from Geneva.

2005 - North Korea publicly announced for the first time that it had nuclear arms. The country also rejected attempts to restart disarmament talks in the near future saying that it needed the weapons as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.

2009 - A Russian and an American satellite collide over Siberia.

February 11, 2015

1752 - The Pennsylvania Hospital opened as the very first hospital in America.

1808 - Judge Jesse Fell experimented by burning anthracite coal to keep his house warm. He successfully showed how clean the coal burned and how cheaply it could be used as a heating fuel.

1812 - The term "gerrymandering" had its beginning when the governor of Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry, signed a redistricting law that favored his party.

1858 - A French girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary near Lourdes.

1878 - The first U.S. bicycle club, Boston Bicycle Club, was formed.

1929 - The Lateran Treaty was signed. Italy now recognized the independence and sovereignty of Vatican City.

1936 - Pumping began the process to build San Francisco's Treasure Island.

1937 - General Motors agreed to recognize the United Automobile Workers Union, which ended the current sit-down strike against them.

1940 - NBC radio presented "The Chamber music Society of Lower Basin Street" for the first time.

1943 - General Dwight David Eisenhower was selected to command the allied armies in Europe.

1945 - During World War II, the Yalta Agreement was signed by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin. (Today in World War II History)

1957 - The NHL Players Association was formed in New York City.

1958 - Ruth Carol Taylor was the first black woman to become a stewardess by making her initial flight.

1960 - jack Paar walked off while live on the air on the "Tonight Show" with four minutes left. He did this in response to censors cutting out a joke from the show the night before.

1968 - The new 20,000 seat Madison Square Garden officially opened in New York. This was the fourth Garden.

1972 - McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. and Life magazine canceled plans to publish an autobiography of Howard Hughes. The work turned out to be fake.

1975 - Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to head a major party in Britain when she was elected leader of the Conservative Party.

1979 - Nine days after the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran (after 15 years in exile) power was seized by his followers.

1982 - ABC-TV’s presentation of "The Winds of War" concluded. The 18-hour miniseries cost $40 million to produce and was the most-watched television program in history at the time.

1982 - France nationalized five groups of major industries and 39 banks.

1984 - The tenth Space Shuttle mission returned to Earth safely.

1989 - Rev. Barbara C. Harris became the first woman to be consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

1990 - Nelson Mandela was freed after 27 years in captivity.

1990 - In Tokyo, Japan, James "Buster" Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson in the tenth round to win the heavyweight championship.

1993 - Janet Reno was appointed to the position of attorney general by U.S. President Clinton. She was the first female to hold the position.

2000 - The space shuttle Endeavor took off. The mission was to gather information for the most detailed map of the earth ever made.

2000 - Great Britain suspended self-rule in Northern Ireland after the Irish Republican Army (IRA) failed to begin decommissioning (disarming) by a February deadline.

2002 - The six stars on NBC's "Friends" signed a deal for $24 million each for the ninth and final season of the series.

2006 - In Texas, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a quail hunt.

February 13, 2015

1542 - Catherine Howard was executed for adultery. She was the fifth wife of England's King Henry VIII.

1633 - Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition.

1741 - "The American Magazine," the first magazine in the U.S., was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1875 - Mrs. Edna Kanouse gave birth to America’s first quintuplets. All five of the baby boys died within two weeks.

1880 - Thomas Edison observed what became known as the Edison Effect for the first time.

1889 - Norman Coleman became the first U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.

1900 - The Anglo-German accord of 1899 was ratified by Reichstag, in which Britain renounced rights in Samoa in favor of Germany and the U.S.

1914 - The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (known as ASCAP) was formed in New York City. The society was founded to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

1920 - The League of Nations recognized the continued neutrality of Switzerland.

1920 - The National Negro Baseball League was organized.

1935 - In Flemington, New Jersey, a jury found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of the kidnapping and death of the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was later executed for the crimes.

1937 - The comic strip "Prince Valiant" appeared for the first time.

1939 - Virginia Payne became a new character in NBC’s soap opera, "The Carter’s of Elm Street". She played the part of Mrs. Carter.

1945 - During World War II, the Soviets captured Budapest, Hungary, from the German army.

1945 - During World War II, Allied aircraft began bombing the German city of Dresden.

1947 - "Family Theatre" was heard for the first time on Mutual radio.

1955 - Israel acquired 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.

1960 - France detonated its first atomic bomb.

1965 - Sixteen-year-old Peggy Fleming won the ladies senior figure skating title at Lake Placid, NY.

1971 - South Vietnamese troops invaded Laos. They were backed by U.S. air and artillery support.

1984 - Konstantin Chernenko was chosen to be general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, succeeding the late Yuri Andropov.

1985 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high of 1297.92 after it topped the 1300 mark earlier in the trading session.

1990 - In Ottawa, the United States and its European allies forged an agreement with the Soviet Union and East Germany on a two-stage formula to reunite Germany.

1991 - Hundreds of Iraqis were killed by two laser-guided bombs that destroyed an underground facility in Baghdad. U.S. officials identified the facility as a military installation, but Iraqi officials said it was a bomb shelter.

1997 - Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery brought the Hubble Space Telescope aboard for a tune up. The tune up allowed the telescope to see further into the universe.

1997 - The Dow Jones industrial average passed the 7,000 mark for the first time. The day ended at 7,022.44.

1999 - A bomb exploded just outside a government-owned bank in southern Kosovo. Nine people were killed.

2000 - Charles M. Schulz's last original Sunday "Peanuts" comic strip appeared in newspapers. Schulz had died the day before.

2001 - El Savador was hit with an earthquake that measured 6.6 on the Richter Scale. At least 400 people were killed.

2002 - In Alexandria, VA, John Walker Lindh pled innocent to a 10-count federal indictment. He was charged with conspiring to kill Americans and aiding Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

2002 - Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.

2008 - Roger Clemens denied having taken performance-enhancing drugs in testimony before Congress.

2008 - Hollywood writers ended a 100-day strike.

February 14, 2015

1778 - The Stars and Stripes was carried to a foreign port, in France, for the first time. It was aboard the American ship Ranger.

1803 - Moses Coates received a patent for the Apple parer.

1849 - The first photograph of a U.S. President, while in office, was taken by Matthew Brady in New York City. President James Polk was the subject of the picture.

1859 - Oregon became the 33rd member of the Union.

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell filed an application for a patent for the telephone. It was officially issued on March 7, 1876.

1889 - In Los Angeles, CA, oranges began their first trip to the east.

1895 - Oscar Wilde's final play, "The Importance of Being Earnest," opened at the St. James' Theatre in London.

1899 - The U.S. Congress approved voting machines for use in federal elections.

1900 - Russia imposed tighter imperial control over Finland in response to an international petition for Finland's freedom.

1900 - In South Africa, British Gen. Roberts invaded Orange Free State with 20,000 troops.

1903 - The U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor was established.

1912 - The first diesel engine submarine was commissioned in Groton, CT.

1912 - Arizona was admitted as the 48th U.S. state.

1920 - The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago. The first president of the organization was Maude Wood Park.

1929 - The "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" took place in Chicago, IL. Seven gangsters who were rivals of Al Capone were killed.

1932 - The U.S. won the first bobsled competition at the Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid, NY.

1940 - The first porpoise born in captivity arrived at Marineland in Florida.

1945 - Peru, Paraguay, Chile and Ecuador joined the United Nations.

1946 - ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was unveiled. The device, built at the University of Pennsylvania, was the world's first general purpose electronic computer.

1954 - The TV show "Letter to Loretta" changed its name to "The Loretta Young Show." The show premiered on September 20, 1953.

1957 - Lionel Hampton’s only major musical work, "King David," made its debut at New York’s Town Hall.

1961 - Lawrencium, element 103, was first produced in Berkely, CA.

1962 - U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave a tour of the White House on television.

1966 - Rick Mount of Lebanon, IN, became the first high school, male athlete to be pictured on the cover of "Sports Illustrated".

1966 - Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia 76ers set a National Basketball Association (NBA) record as he reached a career high of 20,884 points after seven seasons.

1968 - The fourth Madison Square Gardens opened.

1979 - Twenty-year-old rookie, Don Maloney, of the New York Rangers, scored his first goal in the National Hockey League. It came on his first NHL shot.

1979 - Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists. He was killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.

1980 - Walter Cronkite announced his retirement from the "CBS Evening News."

1983 - A 6-year-old boy became the first person to receive a heart and liver transplants in the same operation.

1985 - Cable News Network (CNN) reporter Jeremy Levin was freed. He had been being held in Lebanon by extremists.

1989 - Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini called on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie because of his novel "The Satanic Verses."

1989 - The first satellite of the Global Positioning System was placed into orbit around Earth.

1989 - Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the government of India. The court-ordered settlement was a result of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak disaster.

1997 - Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery began a series of spacewalks that were required to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope.

1998 - U.S. authorities officially announced that Eric Rudolph was a suspect in a bombing of an abortion clinic in Alabama.

2002 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Shays-Meehan bill. The bill, if passed by the U.S. Senate, would ban millions of unregulated money that goes to the national political parties.

2002 - Sylvester Stallone filed a lawsuit against Kenneth Starr. The suit alleged that Starr had given bad advice about selling Planet Hollywood stock.

2003 - In Madrid, Spain, a ceramic plate with a bullfighting motif painted by Pablo Picasso in 1949 was stolen from an art show. The plate was on sale for $12,400.

February 15, 2015

1758 - Mustard was advertised for the first time in America.

1764 - The city of St. Louis was established.

1799 - Printed ballots were authorized for use in elections in the state of Pennsylvania.

1842 - Adhesive postage stamps were used for the first time by the City Dispatch Post (Office) in New York City.

1879 - U.S. President Hayes signed a bill that allowed female attorneys to argue cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

1898 - The USS Maine sank when it exploded in Havana Harbor for unknown reasons. More than 260 crew members were killed.

1900 - The British threaten to use natives in their war with the Boers.

1903 - Morris and Rose Michtom, Russian immigrants, introduced the first teddy bear in America.

1932 - George Burns and Gracie Allen debuted as regulars on "The Guy Lombardo Show" on CBS radio.

1933 - U.S. President-elect Franklin Roosevelt escaped an assination attempt in Miami. Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak was killed in the attack.

1942 - During World War II, Singapore surrendered to the Japanese.

1943 - "My True Story" was heard for the first time on ABC radio.

1946 - Edith Houghton, at age 33, was signed as a baseball scout by the Philadelphia Phillies becoming the first female scout in the major leagues.

1953 - The first American to win the women’s world figure skating championship was 17-year-old Tenley Albright.

1961 - A Boeing 707 crashed in Belgium killing 73 people.

1962 - CBS-TV bought the exclusive rights to college football games from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for a figure of $10,200,000.

1965 - Canada displayed its new red and white maple leaf flag. The flag was to replace the old Red Ensign standard.

1982 - During a storm, the Ocean Ranger, a drilling rig, sank off the coast of Newfoundland. 84 men were killed.

1985 - The Center for Disease Control reported that more than half of all nine-year-olds in the U.S. showed no sign of tooth decay.

1989 - After nine years of intervention, the Soviet Union announced that the remainder of its troops had left Afghanistan.

1991 - The leaders of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland signed the Visegard agreement, in which they pledged to cooperate in transforming thier countties to free-market economies.

1995 - The FBI arrested Kevin Mitnick and charged him with cracking security in some of the nation's most protected computers. He served five years in jail.

2002 - U.S. President George W. Bush approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a site for long-term disposal of radioactive nuclear waste.

February 16, 2015

1741 - Benjamin Franklin published America’s second magazine, "The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle".

1804 - A raid was led by Lt. Stephen Decatur to burn the U.S. Navy frigate Philadelphia. The ship had been taken by pirates.

1857 - The National Deaf Mute College was incorporated in Washington, DC. It was the first school in the world for advanced education of the deaf. The school was later renamed Gallaudet College.

1862 - During the U.S. Civil War, about 14,000 Confederate soldiers surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Fort Donelson, TN.

1868 - The Jolly Corks organization, in New York City, changed it name to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE).

1883 - "Ladies Home Journal" began publication.

1914 - The first airplane flight between Los Angeles and San Francisco took place.

1918 - Lithuania proclaimed its independence.

1923 - Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen. The next day he entered the chamber with several invited guests. He had originally found the tomb on November 4, 1922.

1932 - The first fruit tree patent was issued to James E. Markham for a peach tree which ripens later than other varieties.

1937 - Wallace H. Carothers received a patent for nylon. Carothers was a research chemist for Du Pont.

1938 - The U.S. Federal Crop Insurance program was authorized.

1945 - During World War II, U.S. troops landed on the island of Corregidor in the Philippines.

1946 - The first commercially designed helicopter was tested in Connecticut.

1948 - NBC-TV began airing its first nightly newscast, "The Camel Newsreel Theatre", which consisted of Fox Movietone newsreels.

1858 - The first ironing board was patented by William Vandenburg and James Harvey.

1959 - Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba after the overthrow of President Fulgencio Batista.

1960 - The U.S.S. Triton began the first circumnavigation of the globe under water. The trip ended on May 10.

1962 - Jimmy Bostwick defeated his brother, Pete, to win the U.S. Open Court-Tennis championships for the third time.

1963 - Paul Anka married Marie-Ann DeZogheb in Paris.

1968 - In the U.S., the first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, AL.

1970 - Joe Frazier began his reign as the undefeated heavyweight world champion when he knocked out Jimmy Ellis in five rounds. He lost the title on January 22, 1973, when he lost for the first time in his professional career to George Foreman.

1972 - Wilt Chamberlain (Los Angeles Lakers) reached the 30,000-point mark in his NBA career during a game against the Phoenix Suns.

1977 - The Anglican archbishop of Uganda, Janani Luwum, was killed in automobile accident. Two other men were also killed.

1985 - "Kojak" returned to network television after an absence of seven years with the CBS-TV special, "Kojak: The Belarus File."

1987 - John Demjanjuk went on trial in Jerusalem. He was accused of being "Ivan the Terrible", a guard at the Treblinka concentration camp. He was convicted, but the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the ruling.

1989 - Investigators in Lockerbie, Scotland, announced that a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player was the reason that Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down the previous December. All 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground were killed.

1999 - A bomb exploded at the government headquarters in Uzbekistan. Gunfire followed the incident. The event apparently was an attempt on the life of President Islam Karimov.

1999 - Kurds seized embassies and held hostages across Europe following Turkey's arrest of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

1999 - Testimony began in the Jasper, TX, trial of John William King. He was charged with murder in the gruesome dragging death of James Byrd Jr. King was later convicted and sentenced to death.

2002 - The operator of a crematory in Noble, GA, was arrested after dozens of corpses were found stacked in storage sheds and scattered around in the surrounding woods.

2005 - The Kyoto global warming pact went into effect in 140 nations.

2005 - The NHL announced the cancellation of the 2004-2005 season due to a labor dispute. It was the first time a major sports league in North America lost an entire season to a labor dispute.

February 17, 2015

1801 - The U.S. House of Representatives broke an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Jefferson was elected president and Burr became vice president.

1817 - The first gaslit streetlights appeared on the streets of Baltimore, MD.

1865 - Columbia, SC, burned. The Confederates were evacuating and the Union Forces were moving in.

1876 - Julius Wolff was credited with being the first to can sardines.

1878 - In San Francisco, CA, the first large city telephone exchange opened. It had only 18 phones.

1897 - The National Congress of Mothers was organized in Washington, DC, by Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst. It was the forerunner of the National PTA.

1913 - The Armory Show opened at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City. The full-scale exhibition was of contemporary paintings and was organized by the Association of Painters and Sculptors.

1924 - Swimmer Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in the 100-yard freestyle. He did it with a time of 57-2/5 seconds in Miami, FL.

1933 - "Newsweek" was first published.

1933 - Blondie Boopadoop married Dagwood Bumstead three years after Chic Young’s popular strip first debuted.

1934 - The first high school automobile driver’s education course was introduced in State College, PA.

1944 - During World War II, the Battle of Eniwetok Atoll began. U.S. forces won the battle on February 22, 1944.

1947 - The Voice of America began broadcasting to the Soviet Union.

1964 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts within each state had to be approximately equal in population. (Westberry v. Sanders)

1965 - Comedienne Joan Rivers made her first guest appearances on " The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson" on NBC-TV.

1968 - The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame opened in Springfield, MA.

1985 - U.S. Postage stamp prices were raised from 20 cents to 22 cents for first class mail.

1992 - In Milwaukee, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison. In November of 1994, he was beaten to death in prison.

1995 - Colin Ferguson was convicted of six counts of murder in the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings. He was later sentenced to a minimum of 200 years in prison.

1996 - World chess champion Garry Kasparov beat the IBM supercomputer "Deep Blue" in Philadelphia, PA.

1997 - Pepperdine University announced that Kenneth Starr was leaving the Whitewater probe to take a full-time job at the school. Starr reversed the announcement four days later.

2005 - U.S. President George W. Bush named John Negroponte as the first national intelligence director.

February 18, 2015

1564 - The artist Michelanglelo died in Rome.

1685 - Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle established Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, and thus formed the basis for France's claim to Texas.

1735 - The first opera performed in America. The work was "Flora" (or "Hob in the Well") was presented in Charleston, SC.

1841 - The first continuous filibuster in the U.S. Senate began. It lasted until March 11th.

1861 - In Montgomery, AL, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the President of the Confederate States.

1885 - Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was published in the U.S. for the first time.

1913 - The famous French painting "Nude Descending a Staircase", by the French artist, Marcel Duchamp, was displayed at an "Armory Show" in New York City.

1930 - Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an airplane.

1930 - The planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh. The discovery was made as a result of photographs taken in January 1930.

1932 - Sonja Henie won her 6th world women’s figure skating title in Montreal, Canada.

1938 - "The Big Broadcast of 1938" was released.

1949 - "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar" debuted on CBS radio.

1952 - Greece and Turkey became members of NATO.

1953 - "Bwana Devil" opened. It was the first three-dimensional feature.

1953 - Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz signed a contract worth $8,000,000 to continue the "I Love Lucy" TV show through 1955.

1964 - "Any Wednesday" opened at the music Box Theatre in New York City. The play established Gene Hackman as an actor.

1970 - The Chicago Seven defendants were found innocent of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention.

1972 - The California Supreme Court struck down the state's death penalty.

1977 - The space shuttle Enterprise went on its maiden "flight" sitting on top of a Boeing 747.

1984 - Reed Larson (Detroit Red Wings) got two assists to become the highest scoring, American-born player in the history of the National Hockey League. Larson broke the record by scoring his 432nd point.

1987 - The executives of the Girl Scout movement decided to change the color of the scout uniform from the traditional Girl Scout green to the newer Girl Scout blue.

1998 - In Russia, money shortages resulted in the shutting down of three plants that produced nuclear weapons.

1998 - In Nevada, two white separatists were arrested and accused of plotting a bacterial attack on subways in New York City.

2000 - The U.S. Commerce Department reported a deficit in trade goods and services of $271.3 billion for 1999. It was the largest calender-year trade gap in U.S. history.

2001 - NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Sr., was killed in a crash during the Daytona 500 race.

2001 - FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested and accused of spying for Russia for more than 15 years. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

2003 - In South Korea, at least 120 people were killed when a man lit a fire on a subway train.

2006 - American Shani Davis won the men's 1,000-meter speedskating in Turin. He was the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history.

February 19, 2015

1807 - Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama. He was later tried and acquitted on charges of treason.

1846 - The formal transfer of government between Texas and the United States took place. Texas had officially become a state on December 29, 1845.

1856 - The tintype camera was patented by Professor Hamilton L. Smith.

1864 - The Knights of Pythias was founded in Washington, DC. A dozen members formed what became Lodge No. 1.

1878 - Thomas Alva Edison patented a music player (the phonograph).

1881 - Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.

1922 - Ed Wynn became the first big-name, vaudeville talent to sign on as a radio talent.

1942 - U.S. President Roosevelt signed an executive order giving the military the authority to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans.

1942 - The New York Yankees announced that they would admit 5,000 uniformed servicemen free to each of their home ball games during the coming season.

1942 - Approximately 150 Japanese warplanes attacked the Australian city of Darwin.

1945 - During World War II, about 30,000 U.S. Marines landed on Iwo Jima.

1949 - Bollingen Foundation and Yale University awarded the first Bollingen Prize in poetry ($5,000) to Ezra Pound.

1953 - The State of Georgia approved the first literature censorship board in the U.S. Newspapers were excluded from the new legislation.

1959 - Cyprus was granted its independence with the signing of an agreement with Britain, Turkey and Greece.

1963 - The Soviet Union informed U.S. President Kennedy it would withdraw "several thousand" of its troops in Cuba.

1981 - The U.S. State Department call El Savador a "textbook case" of a Communist plot.

1981 - Ford Motor Company announced its loss of $1.5 billion.

1985 - Mickey Mouse was welcomed to China as part of the 30th anniversary of Disneyland. The touring mouse played 30 cities in 30 days.

1985 - William Schroeder became the first artificial-heart patient to leave the confines of the hospital.

1985 - Cherry Coke was introduced by the Coca-Cola Company.

1986 - The U.S. Senate approved a treaty outlawing genocide. The pact had been submitted 37 years earlier for ratification.

1986 - The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station.

1987 - A controversial, anti-smoking publice service announcement aired for the first time on television. Yul Brynner filmed the ad shortly before dying of lung cancer. Brynner made it clear in the ad that he would have died from cigarette smoking before ad aired.

1997 - Deng Xiaoping of China died at the age of 92. He was the last of China's major revolutionaries.

1999 - Dennis Franz received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2001 - The museum at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Center was dedicated.

2002 - NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft began using its thermal emission imaging system to map Mars.

2004 - Former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Skilling was charged with fraud, insider trading and other crimes in connection with the energy trader's collapse. Skilling was later convicted and sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.

2005 - The USS Jimmy Carter was commissioned at Groton, CT. It was the last of the Seawolf class of attack submarines.

2008 - Fidel Castro resigned the Cuban presidency. His brother Raul was later named as his successor.

February 20, 2015

1673 - The first recorded wine auction took place in London.

1792 - U.S. President George Washington signed the Postal Service Act thereby creating the U.S. Post Office.

1809 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the power of the federal government was greater than that of any individual state.

1815 - The USS Constitution, under Captain Charles Stewart fought the British ships Cyane and Levant. The Constitution captures both, but lost the Levant after encountering a British squadron. The Constitution and the Cyane returned to New York safely on May 15, 1815. The Cyane was purchased and became the USS Cyane.

1839 - The U.S. Congress prohibited dueling in the District of Columbia.

1872 - Luther Crowell received a patent for a machine that manufactured paper bags.

1872 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in New York City.

1872 - Silas Noble and J.P. Cooley patented the toothpick manufacturing machine.

1873 - The University of California got its first Medical School.

1880 - The American Bell Company was incorporated.

1901 - The first territorial legislature of Hawaii convened.

1921 - The motion picture "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" was released starring Rudolph Valentino.

1931 - The U.S. Congress allowed California to build the Oakland Bay Bridge.

1933 - The U.S. House of Representatives completed congressional action on the amendment to repeal Prohibition.

1944 - "Big Week" began as U.S. bombers began raiding German aircraft manufacturing centers during World War II.

1952 - Emmett L. Ashford became the first black umpire in organized baseball. He was authorized to be a substitute in the Southwestern International League.

1952 - "The African Queen" opened at the Capitol Theatre in New York City.

1958 - Racing jockey Eddie Arcaro got win number 4,000, as he rode the winner at Santa Anita race track in Southern California.

1962 - John Glenn made space history when he orbited the world three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes. He was the first American to orbit the Earth. He was aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule.

1965 - Ranger 8 crashed on the moon after sending back thousands of pictures of its surface.

1987 - After 11 years, David Hartman left ABC’s "Good Morning America."

1987 - A bomb exploded in a computer store in Salt Lake City, UT. The blast was blamed on the Unabomber.

1993 - Two ten-year-old boys were charged by police in Liverpool, England, in the abduction and death of a toddler. The two boys were later convicted.

1998 - American Tara Lipinski, at age 15, became the youngest gold medalist in winter Olympics history when she won the ladies' figure skating title at Nagano, Japan.

2001 - FBI Agent Robert Phillip Hanssen was arrested and charged with spying for the Russians for 15 years.

2002 - In Reqa Al-Gharbiya, Egypt, a fire raced through a train killing at least 370 people and injuring at least 65.

2003 - In West Warwick, RI, 99 people were killed when fire destroyed the nightclub The Station. The fire started with sparks from a pyrotechnic display being used by Great White. Ty Longley, guitarist for Great White, was one of the victims in the fire.

February 22, 2015

1630 - Quadequine introduced popcorn to English colonists at their first Thanksgiving dinner.

1784 - "Empress of China", a U.S. merchant ship, left New York City for the Far East.

1819 - Spain ceded Florida to the United States.

1855 - The U.S. Congress voted to appropriate $200,000 for continuance of the work on the Washington Monument. The next morning the resolution was tabled and it would be 21 years before the Congress would vote on funds again. Work was continued by the Know-Nothing Party in charge of the project.

1859 - U.S. President Buchanan approved the Act of February 22, 1859, which incorporated the Washington National Monument Society "for the purpose of completing the erection now in progress of a great National Monument to the memory of Washington at the seat of the Federal Government."

1860 - Organized baseball’s first game was played in San Francisco, CA.

1865 - In the U.S., Tennessee adopted a new constitution that abolished slavery.

1879 - In Utica, NY, Frank W. Woolworth opened his first 5 and 10-cent store.

1885 - The Washington Monument was officially dedicated in Washington, DC. It opened to the public in 1889.

1892 - "Lady Windermere's Fan", by Oscar Wilde, was first performed.

1920 - The first dog race track to use an imitation rabbit opened in Emeryville, CA.

1923 - The first successful chinchilla farm opened in Los Angeles, CA. It was the first farm of its kind in the U.S.

1924 - U.S. President Calvin Coolidge delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House.

1954 - ABC radio’s popular "Breakfast Club" program was simulcast on TV for the first time.

1969 - Barbara Jo Rubin became the first woman to win a U.S. thoroughbred horse race.

1973 - The U.S. and Communist China agreed to establish liaison offices.

1984 - The U.S. Census Bureau statistics showed that the state of Alaska was the fastest growing state of the decade with an increase in population of 19.2 percent.

1994 - The U.S. Justice Department charged Aldrich Ames and his wife with selling national secrets to the Soviet Union. Ames was later convicted to life in prison. Ames' wife received a 5-year prison term.

1997 - Scottish scientist Ian Wilmut and colleagues announced that an adult sheep had been successfully cloned. Dolly was actually born on July 5, 1996. Dolly was the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell.

2002 - In the Philippines, An MH-47E Chinook helicopter crashed into the ocean. All 10 men aboard were killed.

February 23, 2015

1574 - France began the 5th holy war against the Huguenots.

1660 - Charles XI became the king of Sweden.

1792 - The Humane Society of Massachusetts was incorporated.

1813 - The first U.S. raw cotton-to-cloth mill was founded in Waltham, MA.

1820 - The Cato Street conspiracy was uncovered.

1821 - The Philadelphia College of Apothecaries established the first pharmacy college.

1822 - Boston was incorporated as a city.

1836 - In San Antonio, TX, the siege of the Alamo began.

1839 - In Boston, MA, William F. Harnden organized the first express service between Boston and New York City. It was the first express service in the U.S.

1847 - Santa Anna was defeated at the Battle of Buena Vista in Mexico by U.S. troops under Gen. Zachary.

1861 - U.S. President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take his office after an assassination attempt in Baltimore.

1861 - Texas became the 7th state to secede from the Union.

1870 - The state of Mississippi was readmitted to the Union.

1874 - Walter Winfield patented a game called "sphairistike." More widely known as lawn tennis.

1875 - J. Palisa discovered asteroid #143 (aka Adria).

1883 - Alabama became the first U.S. state to enact an antitrust law.

1886 - Charles M. Hall completed his invention of aluminum.

1887 - The French/Italian Riviera was hit by an earthquake that killed about 2,000.

1896 - The Tootsie Roll was introduced by Leo Hirshfield.

1898 - In France, Emile Zola was imprisoned for his letter, "J'accuse," which accused the government of anti-Semitism and wrongly jailing Alfred Dreyfus.

1900 - The Battle of Hart's Hill took place in South Africa between the Boers and the British army.

1904 - The U.S. acquired control of the Panama Canal Zone for $10 million.

1905 - The Rotary Club was founded in Chicago, IL, by Attorney Paul Harris and three others.

1910 - In Philadelphia, PA, the first radio contest was held.

1915 - Nevada began enforcing convenient divorce law.

1916 - The U.S. Congress authorizes the McKinley Memorial $1 gold coin.

1919 - The Fascist Party was formed in Italy by Benito Mussolini.

1927 - The Federal Radio Commission began assigning frequencies, hours of operation and power allocations for radio broadcasters. On July 1, 1934 the name was changed to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

1932 - Robert Short became the first American to die in an arial battle with the Japanese. (more info)

1940 - Russian troops conquered Lasi Island.

1940 - Walt Disney's animated movie "Pinocchio" was released.

1945 - The 28th Regiment of the Fifth Marine Division of the U.S. Marines reached the top of Mount Surabachi. A photograph of these Marines raising the American flag was taken.

1954 - The first mass vaccination of children against polio began in Pittsburgh, PA.

1955 - The French government was formed by Edgar Faure.

1957 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the NFL operations did fall within coverage of antitrust laws.

1958 - Juan Fangio, 5-time world diving champion, was kidnapped by Cuban rebels.

1963 - The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It prohibited poll taxes in federal elections.

1966 - The Bitar government in Syria was ended with a military coup.

1967 - Jim Ryun set a record in the half-mile run when ran it in 1:48.3.

1968 - Wilt Chamberlain (Philadelphia 76ers) became the first player to score 25,000 career points in the NBA.

1970 - Guyana became a republic.

1974 - The Symbionese Liberation Army demanded $4 million more for the release of Patty Hearst. Hearst had been kidnapped on February 4th.

1980 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared that Iran's new parliament would have to decide the fate of the hostages taken on November 4, 1979, at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

1985 - The TV show "Gimme a Break" was broadcast live before a studio audience. It was the first TV sitcom to be seen live since the 1950s.

1991 - During the Persian Gulf War, ground forces crossed the border of Saudi Arabia into the country of Iraq. Less than four days later the war was over due to the surrender or withdraw of Iraqi forces.

1993 - Gary Coleman won a $1,280,000 lawsuit against his parents.

1995 - The Dow Jones Industrial closed about 4,000 for the first time at 4,003.33.

1997 - NBC-TV aired "Schindler's List." It was completely uncensored.

1997 - Ali Hassan Abu Kamal, a Palestinian teacher, opened fire on the 86th-floor observation deck of New York City's Empire State Building. He killed one person and wounded six more before killing himself.

1998 - In central Florida, tornadoes killed 42 people and damaged and/or destroyed about 2,600 homes and businesses.

1999 - In Ankara, Turkey, Abdullah Ocalan was charged with treason. The prosecutors were seeking the death penalty for the Kurdish rebel leader.

1999 - White supremacist John William King was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering James Byrd Jr. Byrd was dragged behind a truck for two miles on a country road in Texas.

2000 - Robby Knievel made a successful motorcycle jump of 200 feet over an oncoming train.

2005 - The New York, NY, city medical examiner's office annouced that it had exhausted all efforts to identify the remains of the people killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, due to the limits of DNA technology. About 1,600 people had been identified leaving more than 1,100 unidentified.

February 24, 2015

1803 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled itself to be the final interpreter of all constitutional issues.

1835 - "Siwinowe Kesibwi" (The Shawnee Sun) was issued as the first Indian language monthly publication in the U.S.

1839 - Mr. William S. Otis received a patent for the steam shovel.

1857 - The Los Angeles Vinyard Society was organized.

1857 - The first shipment of perforated postage stamps was received by the U.S. Government.

1863 - Arizona was organized as a territory.

1866 - In Washington, DC, an American flag made entirely of American bunting was displayed for the first time.

1868 - The U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson due to his attempt to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. The U.S. Senate later acquitted Johnson.

1886 - Thomas Edison and Mina Miller were married.

1900 - New York City Mayor Van Wyck signed the contract to begin work on New York's first rapid transit tunnel. The tunnel would link Manhattan and Brooklyn. The ground breaking ceremony was on March 24, 1900.

1903 - In Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an area was leased to the U.S. for a naval base.

1925 - A thermit was used for the first time. It was used to break up a 250,000-ton ice jam that had clogged the St. Lawrence River near Waddington, NY.

1938 - The first nylon bristle toothbrush was made. It was the first time that nylon yarn had been used commercially.

1942 - The U.S. Government stopped shipments of all 12-gauge shotguns for sporting use for the wartime effort.

1942 - The Voice of America (VOA) aired for the first time.

1945 - During World War II, the Philippine capital of Manilla, was liberated by U.S. soldiers.

1946 - Juan Peron was elected president of Argentina.

1956 - The city of Cleveland invoked a 1931 law that barred people under the age of 18 from dancing in public without an adult guardian.

1980 - NBC premiered the TV movie "Harper Valley P.T.A."

1981 - Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Britain's Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer.

1983 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 1100 mark for the first time.

1983 - A U.S.congressional commission released a report that condemned the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

1987 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, of the Los Angeles Lakers, got his first three-point shot in the NBA.

1987 - An exploding supernova was discovered in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy.

1988 - The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a $200,000 award to Rev. Jerry Falwell that had been won against "Hustler" magazine. The ruling expanded legal protections for parody and satire.

1989 - Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sentenced Salman Rushdie to death for his novel "The Satanic Verses". A bounty of one to three-million-dollars was also put on Rushidie's head.

1989 - A United Airlines 747 jet rips open in flight killing 9 people. The flight was from Honolulu to New Zealand.

1992 - "Wayne's World" opened in U.S. theaters.

1992 - Tracy Gold began working on the set of "Growing Pains" again. She had left the show due to anorexia.

1994 - In Los Angeles, Garrett Morris was shot during a robbery attempt. He eventually recovered from his injury.

1997 - The U.S. The Food and Drug Administration named six brands of birth control as safe and effective "morning-after" pills for preventing pregnancy.

1997 - Dick Enberg received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1999 - In southeast China, a domestic airliner crashed killing all 64 passengers.

2007 - The Virginia General Assembly passed a resolution expressing "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery.

2008 - Cuba's parliament named Raul Castro president. His brother Fidel had ruled for nearly 50 years.

February 25, 2015

1570 - England's Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V.

1751 - Edward Willet displayed the first trained monkey act in the U.S.

1793 - The department heads of the U.S. government met with U.S. President Washington for the first Cabinet meeting on U.S. record.

1836 - Samuel Colt received U.S. Patent No. 138 (later 9430X) for a "revolving-cylinder pistol."

1901 - The United States Steel Corp. was incorporated by J.P. Morgan.

1913 - The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It authorized a graduated income tax.

1919 - The state of Oregon became the first state to place a tax on gasoline. The tax was 1 cent per gallon.

1928 - The Federal Radio Commission issued the first U.S. television license to Charles Jenkins Laboratories in Washington, DC.

1930 - The bank check photographing device was patented.

1933 - The aircraft carrier Ranger was launched. It was the first ship in the U.S. Navy to be designed and built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier.

1940 - The New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens played in the first hockey game to be televised in the U.S. The game was aired on W2WBS in New York with one camera in a fixed position. The Rangers beat the Canadiens 6-2.

1948 - Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia.

1950 - "Your Show of Shows" debuted on NBC.

1956 - Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev criticized the late Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow.

1972 - Germany gave a $5 million ransom to Arab terrorist who had hijacked a jumbo jet.

1986 - Filippino President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule after a tainted election.

1999 - William King was sentenced to death for the racial murder of James Byrd Jr in Jasper, TX. Two other men charged were later convicted for their involvement.

1999 - In Moscow, China's Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and Russia's President Boris Yeltsin discussed trade and other issues.

2000 - In Albany, NY, a jury acquitted four New York City police officers of second-degree murder and lesser charges in the February 1999 shooting death of Amadou Diallo.

2005 - Dennis Rader was arrested for the BTK serial killings in Wichita, KS. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 life prison terms.

February 26, 2015

1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from the Island of Elba. He then began his second conquest of France.

1848 - The second French Republic was proclaimed.

1863 - U.S. President Lincoln signed the National Currency Act.

1870 - In New York City, the first pneumatic-powered subway line was opened to the public.

1881 - S.S. Ceylon began his world-wide cruise, beginning in Liverpool, England.

1907 - The U.S. Congress raised their own pay to $7500.

1916 - Mutual signed Charlie Chaplin to a film contract.

1919 - In Arizona, the Grand Canyon was established as a National Park with an act of the U.S. Congress.

1929 - U.S. President Coolidge signed a bill creating the Grand Teton National Park.

1930 - New York City installed traffic lights.

1933 - A ground-breaking ceremony was held at Crissy Field for the Golden Gate Bridge.

1945 - In the U.S., a nationwide midnight curfew went into effect.

1952 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain had developed an atomic bomb.

1957 - The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award was established by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

1979 - "Flatbush" debuted on CBS-TV.

1986 - Corazon Aquino was inaugurated president of the Philippines. Long time President Ferdinand Marcos went into exile.

1987 - The Tower Commission rebuked U.S. President Reagan for failing to control his national security staff in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair.

1987 - The U.S.S.R. conducted its first nuclear weapons test after a 19-month moratorium period.

1991 - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein announced on Baghdad Radio that Iraqi troops were being withdrawn from Kuwait.

1993 - Six people were killed and more than a thousand injured when a van exploded in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York City. The bomb had been built by Islamic extremists.

1995 - Barings PLC collapsed after a securities dealer lost more than $1.4 billion by gambling on Tokyo stock prices. The company was Britain's oldest investment banking firm.

1998 - A Texas jury rejected an $11 million lawsuit by Texas cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey for price drop after on-air comment about mad-cow disease.

1998 - In Oregon, a health panel rules that taxpayers must help to pay for doctor-assisted suicides.

2001 - A U.N. tribunal convicted Bosnian Croat political leader Dario Kordic and military commander Mario Cerkez of war crimes. They had ordered the systematic murder and persecution of Muslim civilians during the Bosnian war.

2002 - In Rome, Italy, a bomb exploded near the Interior Ministry. No injuries were reported.

2009 - Former Serbian president Milan Milutinovic was acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia regarding war crimes during the Kosovo War.

2009 - The Pentagon reveresed its 18-year policy of not allowing media to cover returning war dead. The reversal allowsd some media coverage with family approval.

February 27, 2015

1700 - The Pacific Island of New Britain was discovered.

1801 - The city of Washington, DC, was placed under congressional jurisdiction.

1827 - New Orleans held its first Mardi Gras celebration.

1861 - In Warsaw, Russian troops fired on a crowd protesting Russian rule over Poland. Five protesting marchers were killed in the incident.

1867 - Dr. William G. Bonwill invented the dental mallet.

1883 - Oscar Hammerstein patented the first cigar-rolling machine.

1896 - The "Charlotte Observer" published a picture of an X-ray photograph made by Dr. H.L. Smith. The photograph showed a perfect picture of all the bones of a hand and a bullet that Smith had placed between the third and fourth fingers in the palm.

1900 - In South Africa, the British received an unconditional surrender from Boer Gen. Piet Cronje at Paardeberg.

1922 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 19th Amendment that guaranteed women the right to vote.

1933 - The Reichstag, Germany's parliament building in Berlin, was set afire. The Nazis accused Communist for the fire.

1939 - The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed sit-down strikes.

1949 - Chaim Weizmann became the first Israeli president.

1951 - The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, limiting U.S. Presidents to two terms.

1972 - The Shanghai Communique was issued by U.S. President Nixon and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai.

1973 - The American Indian Movement occupied Wouned Knee in South Dakota.

1974 - "People" magazine was first issued by Time-Life (later known as Time-Warner).

1981 - Chrysler Corporation was granted an additional $400 million in federal loan guarantees. Chrysler had posted a loss of $1.7 billion in 1980.

1982 - Wayne B. Williams was convicted of murdering two of the 28 black children and young adults whose bodies were found in Atlanta, GA, over a two-year period.

1986 - The U.S. Senate approved the telecast of its debates on a trial basis.

1990 - The Exxon Corporation and Exxon Shipping were indicted on five criminal counts in reference to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

1991 - U.S. President George H.W. Bush announced live on television that "Kuwait is liberated."

1997 - In Ireland, divorce became legal.

1997 - Don Cornelius received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1998 - Britain's House of Lords agreed to give a monarch's first-born daughter the same claim to the throne as any first-born son. This was the end to 1,000 years of male preference.

1999 - Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new hot air balloon endurance record when they had been aloft for 233 hours and 55 minutes. The two were in the process of trying to circumnavigate the Earth.

1999 - Nigeria returned to civilian rule when Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo became the country's first elected president since August of 1983.

2002 - In Boston, twenty people working at Logan International Airport were charged with lying to get their jobs or security badges.

February 28, 2015

1827 - The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad became the first railroad incorporated for commercial transportation of people and freight.

1844 - Several people were killed aboard the USS Princeton when a 12-inch gun exploded.

1849 - Regular steamboat service to California via Cape Horn arrived in San Francisco for the first time. The SS California had left New York Harbor on October 6, 1848. The trip took 4 months and 21 days.

1854 - The Republican Party was organized in Ripon, WI. About 50 slavery opponents began the new political group.

1861 - The U.S. territory of Colorado was organized.

1881 - Thomas Edison hired Samuel Insull as his private secretary.

1883 - The first vaudeville theater opened.

1885 - AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph) was incorporated. The company was capitalized on only $100,000 and provided long distance service for American Bell.

1893 - Edward G. Acheson showed his patent for Carborundum.

1900 - In South Africa, British troops relieved Ladysmith, which had been under siege since November 2, 1899.

1911 - Thomas A. Edison, Inc. was organized.

1940 - The first televised basketball game was shown. The game featured Fordham University and the University of Pittsburgh from Madison Square Gardens in New York.

1948 - Bud Gartiser set a world record when he cleared the 50-yard low hurdles in 6.8 seconds.

1951 - A Senate committee issued a report that stated that there were at least two major crime syndicates in the U.S.

1953 - In a Cambridge University laboratory, scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

1954 - In San Francisco "Birth of a Planet" was aired. It was the first American phase-contrast cinemicrography film to be presented on television.

1956 - A patent was issued to Forrester for a computer memory core.

1962 - The John Glenn for President club was formed by a group of Las Vegas republicans.

1974 - The U.S. and Egypt re-established diplomatic relations after a break of seven years.

1979 - Mr. Ed, the talking horse from the TV show "Mr. Ed", died.

1983 - "M*A*S*H" became the most watched television program in history when the final episode aired.

1986 - Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated in Stockholm.

1993 - U.S. Federal agents raided the compound of an armed religious cult in Waco, TX. The ATF had planned to arrest the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, on federal firearms charges. Four agents and six Davidians were killed and a 51-day standoff followed.

1994 - NATO made its first military strike when U.S. F-16 fighters shot down four Bosnian Serb warplanes in violation of a no-fly zone over central Bosnia.

1995 - The Denver International Airport opened after a 16-month delay.

1998 - Serbian police began a campaign to wipe out "terrorist gangs" in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo.

2001 - The Northwest region of the U.S., including the state of Washington, was hit by an earthquake that measured 6.9 on the Richter Scale. There were no deaths reported.

2002 - In Ahmadabad, India, Hindus set fire to homes in a Muslim neighborhood. At least 55 people were killed in the attack.

2002 - Sotheby's auction house announced that it had identified Peter Paul Reubens as the creator of the painting "The Massacre of the Innocents." The painting was previously thought to be by Jan van den Hoecke.

2002 - It was announced that John Madden would be replacing Dennis Miller on "Monday Night Football." Madden signed a four-year $20 million deal with ABC Sports.

2013 - Benedict XVI resigned as pope. He was the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415 and the first to resign voluntarily since Celestine V in 1294.

March 1, 2015

1498 - Vasco de Gama landed at what is now Mozambique on his way to India.

1562 - In Vassy, France, Catholics massacred over 1,000 Huguenots. The event started the First War of Religion.

1692 - In Salem Village, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Salem witch trials began. Four women were the first to be charged.

1781 - In America, the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation.

1784 - In Great Britain, E. Kidner opened the first cooking school.

1790 - The U.S. Congress authorized the first U.S. census.

1803 - Ohio became the 17th U.S. state.

1810 - Sweden became the first country to appoint an Ombudsman, Lars August Mannerheim.

1811 - Egyptian ruler Mohammed Ali massacred the leaders of the Mameluke dynasty.

1815 - Napoleon returned to France from the island of Elba. He had been forced to abdicate in April of 1814.

1845 - U.S. President Tyler signed the congressional resolution to annex the Republic of Texas.

1862 - Prussia formally recognized the Kingdom of Italy.

1864 - Louis Ducos de Hauron patented a machine for taking and projecting motion pictures. The machine was never built.

1867 - Nebraska became the 37th U.S. state.

1869 - Postage stamps with scenes were issued for the first time.

1872 - The U.S. Congress authorized the creation of Yellowstone National Park. It was the world's first national park.

1873 - E. Remington and Sons of Ilion, NY, began the manufacturing the first practical typewriter.

1879 - The library of Hawaii was established.

1890 - "Literary Digest" was available for the first time.

1896 - The Battle of Adowa began in Ethiopia between the forces of Emperor Menelik II and Italian troops. The Italians were defeated.

1900 - In South Africa, Ladysmith was relieved by British troops after being under siege by the Boers for more than four months.

1907 - In Odessa, Russia, there were only about 15,000 Jews left due to evacuations.

1907 - In Spain, a royal decree abolished civil marriages.

1907 - In New York, the Salvation Army opened an anti-suicide bureau.

1911 - Industrialist Henry Frick acquired Velasquez's "Portrait of King Philip IV."

1911 - Jose Ordonez was elected President of Uraguay.

1912 - Captain Albert Berry made the first parachute jump from a moving airplane.

1927 - The Bank of Italy became a National Bank.

1932 - The 22-month-old son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped. The child was found dead in May.

1937 - U.S. Steel raised workers’ wages to $5 a day.

1937 - In Connecticut, the first permanent automobile license plates were issued.

1941 - FM Radio began in Nashville, TN, when station W47NV began operations.

1941 - Bulgaria joined the Axis powers by signing the Tripartite Pact.

1941 - "Duffy’s Tavern" debuted on CBS Radio.

1947 - The International Monetary Fund began operations.

1947 - Chinese Premier T.V. Soong resigned.

1949 - Joe Louis announced that he was retiring from boxing as world heavyweight boxing champion.

1950 - Klaus Fuchs was convicted of giving U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

1954 - The United States announced that it had conducted a hydrogen bomb test on the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

1954 - Five U.S. congressmen were wounded when four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives.

1959 - Archbishop Makarios returned to Cyprus from exile.

1961 - The Peace Corps was established by U.S. President Kennedy.

1962 - Pakistan announced that it had a new constitution that set up a presidential system of government.

1966 - The Soviet probe, Venera 3 crashed on the planet Venus. It was the first unmanned spacecraft to land on the surface of another planet.

1966 - Ghana ordered all Soviet, East German and Chinese technicians to leave the country.

1969 - Mickey Mantle announced his retirement from major league baseball.

1971 - A bomb exploded in a restroom in the Senate wing of the U.S. Capitol. There were no injuries. A U.S. group protesting the Vietnam War claimed responsibility.

1974 - Seven people were indicted in connection with the Watergate break-in. The charge was conspiring to obstruct justice.

1983 - The New Jersey Transit strike began. It ended on April 2.

1984 - The U.S.S.R. performed a nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalatinsk, U.S.S.R.

1987 - The Boston Celtics defeated Detroit 112-102 to post their 2,235th NBA win.

1987 - S&H Green Stamps became S&H Green Seals. The stamps were introduced 90 years earlier.

1988 - Soviet troops were sent into Azerbaijan after ethnic riots between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

1989 - In Washington, DC, Mayor Barry and the City council imposed a curfew on minors.

1990 - In Cairo, 16 people were killed in a fire at the Sheraton Hotel.

1992 - Bosnian Serb snipers fired upon civilians after a majority of the Moslem and Croatian communities voted in favor of Bosnia's independence.

1992 - King Fahd of Saudi Arabia announced major political reforms that ceded some powers after 10 years of disciplined rule.

1992 - Bosnian Muslims and Croats voted to secede from Yugoslavia.

1993 - The U.S. government announced that the number of food stamp recipients had reached a record number of 26.6 million.

1994 - Israel released about 500 Arab prisoners in an effort to placate Palestinians over the Hebron massacre.

1995 - The European Parliament rejected legislation that would have allowed biotechnology companies to patent new life forms.

1995 - Yahoo! was incorporated.

1999 - The Angolan Embassy in Lusaka, Zambia, exploded. Four other bombs went off in the capital.

1999 - In Uganda, eight tourists were brutally murdered by Hutu rebels.

2002 - Operation Anaconda began in eastern Afghanistan. Allied forces were fighting against Taliban and Al Quaida fighters.

2003 - In New York, a $250,000 Salvador Dali sketch was stolen from a display case in the lobby at Rikers Island jail. On June 17, 2003, it was announced that four corrections officers had surrendered and pled innocent in connection to the theft. The mixed-media composition was a sketch of the crucifixion.

2003 - In the U.S., approximately 180,000 personnel from 22 different organizations around the government became part of the Department of Homeland Security. This completed the largest government reorganization since the beginning of the Cold War.

2003 - Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was captured by CIA and Pakistani agents near Islamabad. He was the suspected mastermind behind the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

March 2, 2015

1807 - The U.S. Congress passed an act to "prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States... from any foreign kingdom, place, or country."

1836 - Texas declared its independence from Mexico and an ad interim government was formed.

1861 - The U.S. Congress created the Territory of Nevada.

1866 - Excelsior Needle Company began making sewing machine needles.

1877 - In the U.S., Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the 1876 presidential election by the U.S. Congress. Samuel J. Tilden, however, had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.

1887 - The American Trotting Association was organized in Detroit, MI.

1897 - U.S. President Cleveland vetoed legislation that would have required a literacy test for immigrants entering the country.

1899 - Mount Rainier National Park in Washington was established by the U.S. Congress.

1899 - U.S. President McKinley signed a measure that created the rank of Admiral for the U.S. Navy. The first admiral was George Dewey.

1900 - The U.S. Congress voted to give $2 million in aid to Puerto Rico.

1901 - The first telegraph company in Hawaii opened.

1901 - The U.S. Congress passed the Platt amendment, which limited Cuban autonomy as a condition for withdrawal of U.S. troops.

1903 - The Martha Washington Hotel opened for business in New York City. The hotel had 416 rooms and was the first hotel exclusively for women.

1906 - A tornado in Mississippi killed 33 and did $5 million in damage.

1907 - In Hamburg, Germany, dock workers went on strike after the end of the night shift. British strike breakers were brought in. The issue was settled on April 22, 1907.

1908 - In New York, the Committee of the Russian Republican Administration was founded.

1908 - In Paris, Gabriel Lippmann introduced three-dimensional color photography at the Academy of Sciences.

1911 - Maurice Maeterlinck's "The Bluebird" opened in Paris.

1917 - The Russian Revolution began with Czar Nicholas II abdicating.

1917 - Citizens of Puerto Rico were granted U.S. citizenship with the enactment of the Jones Act.

1925 - State and federal highway officials developed a nationwide route-numbering system and adopted the familiar U.S. shield-shaped, numbered marker.

1929 - The U.S. Court of Customs & Patent Appeals was created by the U.S. Congress.

1933 - The motion picture King Kong had its world premiere in New York.

1939 - The Massachusetts legislature voted to ratify the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. These first ten amendments had gone into effect 147 years before.

1946 - Ho Chi Minh was elected President of Vietnam.

1949 - The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II landed in Fort Worth, TX. The American plane had completed the first non-stop around-the-world flight.

1962 - Wilt 'The Stilt' Chamberlain scored 100 points against the New York Knicks 169-147. Chamberlain broke several NBA records in the game.

1969 - In Toulouse, France, the supersonic transport Concorde made its first test flight.

1974 - Postage stamps jumped from 8 to 10 cents for first-class mail.

1983 - The U.S.S.R. performed an underground nuclear test.

1984 - The first McDonald's franchise was closed. A new location was opened across the street from the old location in Des Plaines, IL.

1985 - The U.S. government approved a screening test for AIDS that detected antibodies to the virus that allowed possibly contaminated blood to be kept out of the blood supply.

1986 - Corazon Aquino was sworn into office as president of the Philippines. Her first public declaration was to restore the civil rights of the citizens of her country.

1987 - The U.S. government reported that the median price for a new home had gone over $100,000 for the first time.

1989 - Representatives from the 12 European Community nations all agreed to ban all production of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) by the end of the 20th century.

1995 - Russian anti-corruption journalist Vladislav Listyev was killed by a gunman in Moscow.

1995 - Nick Leeson was arrested for his role in the collapse of Britain's Barings Bank.

1998 - The U.N. Security Council endorsed U.N. chief Kofi Annan's deal to open Iraq's presidential palaces to arms inspectors.

1998 - Images from the American spacecraft Galileo indicated that the Jupiter moon Europa has a liquid ocean and a source of interior heat.

2000 - In Great Britain, Chile's former President Augusto Pinochet Ugarte was freed from house arrest and allowed to return to Chile. Britain's Home Secretary jack Straw had concluded that Pinochet was mentally and physically unable to stand trial. Belgium, France, Spain and Switzerland had sought the former Chilean leader on human-rights violations.

2003 - Over the Sea of Japan, there was a confrontation between four armed North Korean fighter jets and a U.S. RC-135S Cobra Ball. No shots were fired in the encounter in international airspace about 150 miles off North Korea's coast. The U.S. Air Force announced that it would resume reconnaissance flights on March 12.

2004 - NASA announced that the Mars rover Opportunity had discovered evidence that water had existed on Mars in the past.

March 3, 2015

1791 - The U.S. Congress passed a resolution that created the U.S. Mint.

1803 - The first impeachment trial of a U.S. Judge, John Pickering, began.

1812 - The U.S. Congress passed the first foreign aid bill.

1817 - The first commercial steamboat route from Louisville to New Orleans was opened.

1845 - Florida became the 27th U.S. state.

1845 - The U.S. Congress passed legislation overriding a U.S. President’s veto. It was the first time the Congress had achieved this.

1849 - The U.S. Department of the Interior was established.

1849 - The Gold Coinage Act was passed by the U.S. Congress. It allowed the minting of gold coins.

1849 - The U.S. Congress created the territory of Minnesota.

1851 - The U.S. Congress authorized the 3-cent piece. It was the smallest U.S. silver coin.

1857 - Britain and France declared war on China.

1863 - Free city delivery of mail was authorized by the U.S. Postal Service.

1875 - The U.S. Congress authorized the 20-cent piece. It was only used for 3 years.

1878 - Russia and the Ottomans signed the treaty of San Stenafano. The treaty granted independence to Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and the autonomy of Bulgaria.

1885 - The American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) was incorporated in New York as a subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone Company.

1885 - The U.S. Post Office began offering special delivery for first-class mail.

1894 - The "Atlantis" was first published. It was the first Greek newspaper in America.

1900 - Striking miners in Germany returned to work.

1903 - In St. Louis, MO, Barney Gilmore was arrested for spitting.

1903 - The U.S. imposed a $2 head tax on immigrants.

1904 - Wilhelm II of Germany made the first recording of a political document with Thomas Edison's cylinder.

1905 - The Russian Czar agreed to create an elected assembly.

1906 - A Frenchman tried the first flight in an airplane with tires.

1908 - The U.S. government declared open war on on U.S. anarchists.

1909 - Aviators Herring, Curtiss and Bishop announced that airplanes would be made commercially in the U.S.

1910 - J.D. Rockefeller Jr. announced his withdrawal from business to administer his father's fortune for an "uplift in humanity". He also appealed to the U.S. Congress for the creation of the Rockefeller Foundation.

1910 - In New York, Robert Forest founded the National Housing Association to fight deteriorating urban living conditions.

1910 - Nicaraguan rebels admitted defeat in open war and resorted to guerrilla tactics in the hope of U.S. intervention.

1915 - The motion picture "Birth of a Nation" debuted in New York City.

1918 - The Treaty of Brest Litovsky was signed by Germany, Austria and Russia. The treaty ended Russia's participation in World War I.

1923 - The first issue of Time magazine was published.

1930 - "Flying High" opened at the Apollo Theatre in New York City.

1931 - The "Star Spangled Banner," written by Francis Scott Key, was adopted as the American national anthem. The song was originally a poem known as "Defense of Fort McHenry."

1938 - A world record for the indoor mile run was set by Glenn Cunningham. He ran the distance in 4 minutes, 4.4 seconds.

1939 - In Bombay, Ghandi began a fast to protest the state's autocratic rule.

1941 - Moscow denounced the Axis rule in Bulgaria.

1945 - Superman encountered Batman and Robin for the first time on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

1945 - During World War II, Finland declared war on the Axis.

1952 - "Whispering Streets" debuted on ABC Radio.

1952 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld New York's Feinberg Law that banned Communist teachers in the U.S.

1956 - Morocco gained its independence.

1959 - The San Francisco Giants had their new stadium officially named Candlestick Park.

1969 - Apollo 9 was launched by NASA to test a lunar module.

1969 - Sirhan Sirhan testified in a Los Angeles court that he killed Robert Kennedy.

1973 - Japan disclosed its first defense plan since World War II.

1974 - About 350 people died when a Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashed just after takeoff from Orly Airport in Paris.

1978 - The remains of Charles Chaplin were stolen from his grave in Cosier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. The body was recovered 11 weeks later near Lake Geneva.

1980 - The submarine Nautilus was decommissioned. The vessels final voyage had ended on May 26, 1979.

1985 - Women Against Pornography awarded its ‘Pig Award’ to Huggies Diapers. The activists claimed that the TV ads for diapers had "crossed the line between eye-catching and porn."

1985 - The TV show "Moonlighting" premiered.

1987 - The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a package of $30 million in non-lethal aid for the Nicaraguan Contras.

1991 - 25 people were killed when a United Airlines Boeing 737-200 crashed while on approach to the Colorado Springs airport.

1991 - Rodney King was severely beaten by Los Angeles police officers. The scene was captured on amateur video. (California)

1994 - The Mexican government reached a peace agreement with the Chiapas rebels.

1995 - A U.N. peacekeeping mission in Somalia ended. Several gunmen were killed by U.S. Marines in Mogadishu while overseeing the pull out of peacekeepers.

1999 - In Egypt, 19 people were killed when a bus plunged into a Nile canal.

1999 - Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones began their attempt to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon non-stop. They succeeded on March 20, 1999.

March 4, 2015

1634 - Samuel Cole opened the first tavern in Boston, MA.

1681 - England's King Charles II granted a charter to William Penn for an area that later became the state of Pennsylvania.

1766 - The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, which had caused bitter and violent opposition in the U.S. colonies.

1778 - The Continental Congress voted to ratify the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance. The two treaties were the first entered into by the U.S. government.

1789 - The first Congress of the United States met in New York and declared that the U.S. Constitution was in effect.

1791 - Vermont was admitted as the 14th U.S. state. It was the first addition to the original 13 American colonies.

1794 - The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. The Amendment limited the jurisdiction of the federal courts to automatically hear cases brought against a state by the citizens of another state. Later interpretations expanded this to include citizens of the state being sued, as well.

1813 - The Russians fighting against Napoleon reached Berlin. The French garrison evacuated the city without a fight.

1826 - The first railroad in the U.S. was chartered. It was the Granite Railway in Quincy, MA.

1837 - The state of Illinois granted a city charter to Chicago.

1861 - The Confederate States of America adopted the "Stars and Bars" flag.

1877 - Emile Berliner invented the microphone.

1880 - Halftone engraving was used for the first time when the "Daily Graphic" was published in New York City.

1881 - Eliza Ballou Garfield became the first mother of a U.S. President to live in the executive mansion.

1902 - The American Automobile Association was founded in Chicago.

1904 - In Korea, Russian troops retreated toward the Manchurian border as 100,000 Japanese troops advanced.

1908 - The New York board of education banned the act of whipping students in school.

1908 - France notified signatories of Algeciras that it would send troops to Chaouia, Morocco.

1914 - Doctor Fillatre successfully separated Siamese twins.

1917 - Jeanette Rankin of Montana took her seat as the first woman elected to the House of Representatives.

1925 - Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office in Washington, DC. The presidential inauguration was broadcast on radio for the first time.

1930 - Emma Fahning became the first woman bowler to bowl a perfect game in competition run by the Women’s International Bowling Congress in Buffalo, NY.

1933 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt gave his inauguration speech in which he said "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself."

1933 - Labor Secretary Frances Perkins became the first woman to serve in a Presidential administrative cabinet.

1942 - "Junior Miss" starring Shirley Temple aired on CBS radio for the first time.

1942 - The Stage Door Canteen opened on West 44th Street in New York City.

1947 - France and Britain signed an alliance treaty.

1950 - Walt Disney’s "Cinderella" was released across the U.S.

Disney movies, music and books

1952 - U.S. President Harry Truman dedicated the "Courier," the first seagoing radio broadcasting station.

1952 - Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis were married.

1954 - In Boston, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital reported the first successful kidney transplant.

1974 - "People" magazine was available for the first time.

1975 - Queen Elizabeth knighted Charlie Chaplin.

1986 - "Today" debuted in London as England’s newest, national, daily newspaper.

1989 - Time, Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. announced a plan to merge.

1991 - Sheik Saad al-Jaber al-Sabah, the prime minister of Kuwait, returned to his country for the first time since Iraq's invasion.

1994 - Bosnia's Croats and Moslems signed an agreement to form a federation in a loose economic union with Croatia.

1997 - U.S. President Clinton barred federal spending on human cloning.

1998 - Microsoft repaired software that apparently allowed hackers to shut down computers in government and university offices nationwide.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court said that federal law banned on-the-job sexual harassment even when both parties are the same sex.

1999 - Monica Lewinsky's book about her affair with U.S. President Clinton went on sale in the U.S.

2002 - Canada banned human embryo cloning but permitted government-funded scientists to use embryos left over from fertility treatment or abortions.

2012 - Vladimir Putin won re-election in Russia's presidential election.

March 5, 2015

1623 - The first alcohol temperance law in the colonies was enacted in Virginia.

1624 - In the American colony of Virginia, the upper class was exempted from whipping by legislation.

1750 - "King Richard III" was performed in New York City. It was the first Shakespearean play to be presented in America.

1766 - The first Spanish governor of Louisiana, Antonio de Ulloa, arrived in New Orleans.

1770 - "The Boston Massacre" took place when British troops fired on a crowd in Boston killing five people. Two British troops were later convicted of manslaughter.

1793 - Austrian troops defeated the French and recaptured Liege.

1836 - Samuel Colt's Patent Arms Manufacturing of Paterson, New Jersey, was chartered by the New Jersey legislature.

1842 - A Mexican force of over 500 men under Rafael Vasquez invaded Texas for the first time since the revolution. They briefly occupied San Antonio, but soon headed back to the Rio Grande.

1845 - The U.S. Congress appropriated $30,000 to ship camels to the western U.S.

1864 - For the first time, Oxford met Cambridge in track and field competition in England.

1867 - An abortive Fenian uprising against English rule took place in Ireland.

1868 - The U.S. Senate was organized into a court of impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson.

1872 - George Westinghouse patented the air brake.

1900 - Two U.S. battleships left for Nicaragua to halt revolutionary disturbances.

1901 - Germany and Britain began negotiations with hopes of creating an alliance.

1902 - In France, the National Congress of Miners decided to call for a general strike for an 8-hour day.

1907 - In St. Petersburg, Russia, the new Duma opened. 40,000 demonstrators were dispersed by troops.

1910 - In Philadelphia, PA, 60,000 people left their jobs to show support for striking transit workers.

1910 - The Moroccan envoy signed the 1909 agreement with France.

1912 - The Italians became the first to use dirigibles for military purposes. They used them for reconnaissance flights behind Turkish lines west of Tripoli.

1918 - The Soviets moved the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow.

1922 - "Annie Oakley" (Phoebe Ann Moses) broke all existing records for women's trap shooting. She hit 98 out of 100 targets.

1923 - Old-age pension laws were enacted in the states of Montana and Nevada.

1924 - Frank Caruana of Buffalo, NY, became the first bowler to roll two perfect games in a row.

1933 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a four-day bank holiday in order to stop large amounts of money from being withdrawn from banks.

1933 - The Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote in German parliamentary elections.

1934 - In Amarillo, TX, the first Mother's-In-Law Day was celebrated.

1943 - Germany called fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds for military service due to war losses.

1946 - Winston Churchill delivered his "Iron Curtain Speech".

1946 - The U.S. sent protests to the U.S.S.R. on incursions into Manchuria and Iran.

1953 - Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died. He had been in power for 29 years.

1956 - The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the ban on segregation in public schools.

1969 - Gustav Heinemann was elected West German President.

1970 - A nuclear non-proliferation treaty went into effect after 43 nations ratified it.

1976 - The British pound fell below the equivalent of $2 for the first time in history.

1977 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter appeared on CBS News with Walter Cronkite for the first "Dial-a-President" radio talk show.

1984 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities had the right to display the Nativity scene as part of their Christmas display.

1984 - The U.S. accused Iraq of using poison gas.

1985 - Mike Bossy (New York Islanders) became the first National Hockey League player to score 50 goals in eight consecutive seasons.

1993 - Cuban President Fidel Castro said that Hillary Clinton was "a beautiful woman."

1993 - Sprinter Ben Johnson was banned from racing for life by the Amateur Athletic Association after testing positive for banned performance-enhancing substances for a second time.

1997 - North Korea and South Korea met for first time in 25 years for peace talks.

1997 - Chuck Niles received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1998 - NASA announced that an orbiting craft had found enough water on the moon to support a human colony and rocket fueling station.

1998 - It was announced that Air Force Lt. Col. Eileen Collins would lead crew of Columbia on a mission to launch a large X-ray telescope. She was the first woman to command a space shuttle mission.

March 6, 2015

1521 - Ferdinand Magellan discovered Guam.

1808 - At Harvard University, the first college orchestra was founded.

1820 - The Missouri Compromise was enacted by the U.S. Congress and signed by U.S. President James Monroe. The act admitted Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibited slavery in the rest of the northern Louisiana Purchase territory.

1834 - The city of York in Upper Canada was incorporated as Toronto.

1836 - The thirteen-day siege of the Alamo by Santa Anna and his army ended. The Mexican army of three thousand men defeated the 189 Texas volunteers.

1854 - At the Washington Monument, several men stole the Pope's Stone from the lapidarium.

1857 - The U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision ruled that blacks could not sue in federal court to be citizens.

1886 - "The Nightingale" was first published. It was the first magazine for nurses.

1899 - Aspirin was patented by German researchers Felix Hoffman and Hermann Dreser.

1900 - In West Virginia, an explosion trapped 50 coal miners underground.

1901 - An assassin tried to kill Wilhelm II of Germany in Bremen.

1907 - British creditors of the Dominican Republic claimed that the U.S. had failed to collect debts.

1928 - A Communist attack on Peking, China resulted in 3,000 dead and 50,000 fled to Swatow.

1939 - In Spain, Jose Miaja took over the Madrid government after a military coup and vowed to seek "peace with honor."

1941 - Les Hite and his orchestra recorded "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise".

1944 - During World War II, U.S. heavy bombers began the first American raid on Berlin. Allied planes dropped 2000 tons of bombs.

1946 - Ho Chi Minh, the President of Vietnam, struck an agreement with France that recognized his country as an autonomous state within the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.

1947 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the contempt conviction of John L. Lewis.

1947 - Winston Churchill announced that he opposed British troop withdrawals from India.

1947 - The first air-conditioned naval ship, "The Newport News," was launched from Newport News, VA.

1957 - The British African colonies of the Gold Coast and Togoland became the independent state of Ghana.

1960 - Switzerland granted women the right to vote in municipal elections.

1960 - The United States announced that it would send 3,500 troops to Vietnam.

1964 - Tom O’Hara set a new world indoor record when he ran the mile in 3 minutes, 56.4 seconds.

1967 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his plan to establish a draft lottery.

1970 - Charles Manson released his album "Lies" to finance his defense against murder charges.

1973 - U.S. President Richard Nixon imposed price controls on oil and gas.

1975 - Iran and Iraq announced that they had settled their border dispute.

1980 - Islamic militants in Tehran said that they would turn over American hostages to the Revolutionary Council.

1981 - Walter Cronkite appeared on his last episode of "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite." He had been on the job 19 years.

1981 - U.S. President Reagan announced a plan to cut 37,000 federal jobs.

1982 - National Basketball Association history was made when San Antonio beat Milwaukee 171-166 in three overtime periods to set the record for most points by two teams in a game. The record was beaten on December 13, 1983 by the Pistons and the Nuggets when they played to a final score of 186-184

1983 - The United States Football League began its first season of pro football competition.

1985 - Yul Brynner played his his 4,500th performance in the musical "The King and I."

1987 - The British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized in the Channel off the coast of Belgium. 189 people died.

1990 - In Afghanistan, an attempted coup to remove President Najibullah from office failed.

1990 - The Russian Parliament passed a law that sanctioned the ownership of private property.

1991 - In Paris, five men were jailed for plotting to smuggle Libyan arms to the Irish Republican Army.

1992 - The last episode of "The Cosby Show" aired. The show had been on since September of 1984.

1992 - The computer virus "Michelangelo" went into effect.

1997 - A gunman stole "Tete de Femme," a million-dollar Picasso portrait, from a London gallery. The painting was recovered a week later.

1997 - Britain's Queen Elizabeth II launched the first official royal Web site.

1998 - A Connecticut state lottery accountant gunned down three supervisors and the lottery chief before killing himself.

March 7, 2015

0322 BC - Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, died.

1774 - The British closed the port of Boston to all commerce.

1799 - In Palestine, Napoleon captured Jaffa and his men massacred more than 2,000 Albanian prisoners.

1848 - In Hawaii, the Great Mahele was signed.

1849 - The Austrian Reichstag was dissolved.

1850 - U.S. Senator Daniel Webster endorsed the Compromise of 1850 as a method of preserving the Union.

1854 - Charles Miller received a patent for the sewing machine.

1876 - Alexander Graham Bell received a patent (U.S. Patent No. 174,465) for his telephone.

1901 - It was announced that blacks had been found enslaved in parts of South Carolina.

1904 - The Japanese bombed the Russian town of Vladivostok.

1904 - In Springfield, OH, a mob broke into a jail and shot a black man accused of murder.

1906 - Finland granted women the right to vote.

1908 - Cincinnati's Mayor Leopold Markbreit announced before the city council that, "Women are not physically fit to operate automobiles."

1911 - Willis Farnworth patented the coin-operated locker.

1911 - In the wake of the Mexican Revolution, the U.S. sent 20,000 troops to the border of Mexico.

1918 - Finland signed an alliance treaty with Germany.

1925 - The Soviet Red Army occupied Outer Mongolia.

1927 - A Texas law that banned Negroes from voting was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

1933 - CBS radio debuted "Marie The Little French Princess." It was the first daytime radio serial.

1933 - The board game Monopoly was invented.

1935 - Malcolm Campbell set an auto speed record of 276.8 mph in Florida.

1936 - Hitler sent German troops into the Rhineland in violation of the Locarno Pact and the Treaty of Versailles.

1942 - Japanese troops landed on New Guinea.

1945 - During World War II, U.S. forces crossed the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany.

1947 - John L. Lewis declared that only a totalitarian regime could prevent strikes.

1951 - U.N. forces in Korea under General Matthew Ridgeway launched Operation Ripper against the Chinese.

1954 - Russia appeared for the first time in ice-hockey competition. Russia defeated Canada 7-2 to win the world ice-hockey title in Stockholm, Sweden.

1955 - "Peter Pan" was presented as a television special for the first time.

1955 - Baseball commissioner Ford Frick said that he was in favor of legalizing the spitball.

1955 - Phyllis Diller made her debut at the Purple Onion in San Francisco, CA.

1959 - Melvin C. Garlow became the first pilot to fly over a million miles in jet airplanes.

1965 - State troopers and a sheriff's posse broke up a march by civil rights demonstrators in Selma, AL.

1968 - The Battle of Saigon came to an end.

1971 - A thousand U.S. planes bombed Cambodia and Laos.

1975 - The U.S. Senate revised the filibuster rule. The new rule allowed 60 senators to limit debate instead of the previous two-thirds.

1981 - Anti-government guerrillas in Colombia executed the kidnapped American Bible translator Chester Allen Bitterman. The guerrillas accused Bitterman of being a CIA agent.

1983 - TNN (The Nashville Network) began broadcasting.

1985 - "Commonwealth" magazine ceased publication after five decades.

1985 - The first AIDS antibody test, an ELISA-type test, was released.

1987 - Mike Tyson became the youngest heavyweight titleholder when he beat James Smith in a decision during a 12-round fight in Las Vegas, NV.

1989 - Poland accused the Soviet Union of a World War II massacre in Katyn.

1994 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that parodies that poke fun at an original work can be considered "fair use" that does not require permission from the copyright holder.

1994 - In Moldova, a referendum was rejected by 90% of voters to form a union with Rumania.

1999 - In El Salvador, Francisco Flores Pérez of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (Arena) was elected president.

2002 - A federal judge awarded Anna Nicole Smith more than $88 million in damages. The ruling was the latest in a legal battle over the estate of Smith's late husband, J. Howard Marshall II.

2003 - Scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center announced that they had transferred 6.7 gigabytes of uncompressed data from Sunnvale, CA, to Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 58 seconds. The data was sent via fiber-optic cables and traveled 6,800 miles.

2009 - NASA's Kepler Mission, a space photometer for searching for extrasolar planets in the Milky Way galaxy, was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

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