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Post by Huckleberry on Feb 1, 2005 8:07:22 GMT -5
1328 - Charles IV of France, the last monarch in the direct line of the Capetian dynasty, died.
1788 - The steamboat was patented by Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet.
1790 - The United States Supreme Court met for the first time, the year after it was established under the Judiciary Act.
1793 - Ralph Hodgson of Lansingburg, New York, patented oiled silk.
1793 - Revolutionary France, having executed King Louis XVI, declared war on England and Holland.
1840 - The world's first dental college opened in Baltimore, Maryland.
1861 - Texas seceded from the Union and joined the Confederate States of America.
1862 - Battle Hymn of the Republic, written by Julia Ward Howe, was first published in the Atlantic Monthly. The song's music was inspired by the song "John Brown's Body." Howe just wrote new words for the existing music.
1884 - The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.
1893 - Thomas Edison completed construction of the world's first motion picture studio at the Edison Laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey. The studio was given the nickname "The Black Maria" because of its resemblance to a gigantic paddy wagon which bore the same nickname at the time. The whole studio rested on a platform which revolved to follow the sun, increasing the number of filming hours per day.
1896 - Composer Giacomo Puccini's romantic opera, La Boheme, had its world debut in Italy.
1898 - The Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut, whose logo has a red umbrella over it, issued the first automobile insurance policy to Dr. Truman Martin of Buffalo, New York. The price paid for the policy was $11.25, and gave him $5,000 in liability coverage.
1904 - Enrico Caruso had his firs recordings with Victor Records. He did ten songs for $4,000.
1908 - King Carlos I of Portugal was assassinated together with his son in Lisbon.
1915 - Passport photographs were first required in Great Britain.
1919 - The first Miss America was crowned in New York City. The winner, Edith Hyde was found by the judges not to be a Miss. She was a "Mrs." named Mrs. Tod Robbins, the mother of two children.
1920 - The North West Mounted Police ("The Mounties") became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
1929 - Weightlifter, Charles Rigoulet of France, accomplished the first 400 pound "clean and jerk", lifting 402-1/2 pounds.
1934 - Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss dissolved all political parties except his own Fatherland Front.
1939 - On Victor Records, Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded "And the Angels Sing". The vocalist for that song went on to find fame at Capitol Records, Martha Tilton.
1940 - For his first recording session, held in Chicago, Illinois, with the Tommy Dorsey Band, Frank Sinatra sang "Too Romantic" and "The Sky Fell Down". Sinatra replaced Jack Leonard as the band's lead singer.
1941 - "Downbeat" magazine reported Glenn Miller had signed a new three-year contract with RCA Victor Records, guaranteeing him $750 a side, the largest record contract signed to that date.
1942 - Vidkun Quisling became prime minister of Norway.
1946 - Hungary was declared a republic, with Zoltan Tildy as president and Ferenc Nagy as prime minister.
1949 - Louis B. Mayer, of Metro Goldwin Mayer (MGM), became a millionaire all over again when he sold his racehorse breeding farm for one-million dollars.
1949 - RCA Victor countered Columbia Records’ 33-1/3 long play phonograph disk, with a smaller, 7-inch record with a big hole in the center, and a full phonograph playing system. The 45-rpm, soon antiquated the 78-rpm record.
1953 - "Private Secretary" debuted on CBS-TV starring Ann Sothern as Susie McNamera, the private secretary to New York talent agent, Peter Sands played by Don Porter. With its last show airing on September 10, 1957, the show ran on CBS during the regular televisison seasons and ran on NBC-TV in the summers of 1953 and 1954.
1954 - On CBS-TV, "The Secret Storm" was shown for the first day of a 20-year run.
1958 - Egypt and Syria proclaimed the union of their two countries in a state to be known as "The United Arab Republic."
1963 - Kamuzu Banda was sworn in as the first prime minister of Nyasaland (Malawi).
1968 - Elvis Presley celebrated the birth of his daughter, Lisa Marie; who would go onto marry and divorce Michael Jackson in the 1990s.
1969 - Crimson and Clover, recorded by Tommy James and The Shondells, jumped to Number 1 on Billboard's record charts, and stayed there for 2 weeks.
1971 - The soundtrack from the movie, "Love Story", containing music by Frances Lai, was certified a gold record.
1971 - Evonne Goolagong won her first, major senior singles victory, defeating Margaret Court in the finals of the Victorian Open, held in Melbourne, Australia.
1972 - Wings recorded Give Ireland Back to the Irish.
1974 - More than 220 people died in a fire in a newly built skyscraper in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
1979 - Egypt and Syria proclaimed the union of their two countries in a state to be known as "The United Arab Republic."
1982 - The Confederation of Senegambia was formally launched.
1986 - Suffering from the flu, Denny Crum, coached the Louisville basketball team over the telephone. The Louisville Cardinals won 92-71.
1987 - Terry Williams from Los Gatos, California, won the largest slot machine payoff, to that time, poketing $4.9 million after getting four lucky 7s on a machine in Reno, Nevada.
1988 - Formerly of the Poltergeist movies, child film star Heather O'Rourke tragically died at the age of 12 during emergency surgery for bowel obstruction in San Diego, California. She died just prior to the release of Poltergeist 3.
1990 - Bulgaria's government resigned after the ruling Communists failed to entice the fledgling opposition movement into a power-sharing deal until free elections.
1990 - Yugoslavia deployed troops, tanks and warplanes in Kosovo province, where police battled ethnic Albanians demanding political reforms.
1991 - South African President F.W. De Klerk opened parliament with a speech promising the demolition of the remaining pillars of apartheid.
1991 - An earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale hit Afghanistan and Pakistan, resulting in more than 1,200 people killed.
1992 - United States President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the Camp David declaration which states that their two countries no longer regard each other as adversaries.
1994 - United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali backed the use of air power in Bosnia.
1995 - Communist Vietnam opened a liaison office in Washington, D.C., for the time 20 years after the end of the Vietnam War.
1996 - Poland's president named Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, an ex-communist leader who had often stood outside his dominant party's mainstream, as prime minister to lead the country out of political crisis.
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Post by Huckleberry on Feb 2, 2005 7:55:17 GMT -5
962 - Emperor Otto I the Great, king of Germany, was crowned Holy Roman emperor by Pope John XII.
1509 - The Portuguese, led by Francisco de Almeida, destroyed the Muslim fleet in the Battle of Diu, establishing Portuguese control of Indian waters.
1536 - Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza founded Buenos Aires.
1556 - The world's worst earthquake, in China's Shaanxi, Shansi and Henan provinces, killed an estimated 830,000 people.
1801 - The British parliament assembled, including for the first time Irish representatives.
1802 - Othello Pollard showed the first leopard exhibited in the United States in Boston, Massachusetts.
1848 - The war between Mexico and the US formally ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
1863 - Samuel Langhorne Clemens decided to use a pen name, which he is better remembered by then his real name: Mark Twain.
1876 - Baseball’s National League was born when eight competing baseball teams met in New York City’s Grand Central Hotel. Morgan Gardner Bulkeley was the first president of the league, and later became a United States Senator. The first eight cities to have teams were: Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Louisville and Hartford. Two of the original teams are now part of the American League, Boston and New York. Louisville and Hartford are now in the minor-leagues.
1892 - The crown-cork bottle cap was patented by William Painter, of Baltimore, Maryland.
1893 - The Edison Studio, of West Orange, New Jersey, the motion picture studio named and operated by Thomas Edison, filmed the first motion picture close-up. It recorded comedian Fred Ott sneezing.
1913 - Jim Thorpe signed professionally with the New York Giants. He had problems after winning in the Olympics in Berlin, Germany, because he forgot to mention he was a pro athlete.
1920 - Russia signed the Treaty of Tartu (Dorpat), under which Russia recognized Estonian independence in perpetuity.
1922 - Film director William Desmond Taylor was found in his Hollywood, California, bungalow, shot through the heart. His murder involved the most prominent female stars in Hollywood: Mary Pickford, Mabel Normand, and Mary Miles Minter. When detectives investigated Taylor's home, they found many keepsakes, including a photograph of Pickford, a collection of women's underwear with initials and the date of conquest, and perfumed love letters from Minter. While Pickford knew nothing of the killing, her name was linked to the case for months. Normand was the last person to report seeing Taylor alive. The beautiful comedic star told police she dropped by to see Taylor that evening and stayed for two hours, discussing movies and books. It was suspected that she went for more than conversation. Although she was later exonerated, her character was tarnished by the press. Normand never again rose to the stardom she once had, and her latest film, Susanna, was pulled from circulation by Mack Sennett after "Good Housekeeping" magazine pronounced Normand too "adulterated" for the screen. Minter's career, too, was ruined. The young actress had loved Taylor deeply. During his funeral, Minter rushed hysterically to Taylor's open coffin and kissed his corpse. The media had a vindictive heyday with Minter's affair with the director. Taylor's killer was never found.
1935 - Leonard Keeler tested the polygraph or the lie detector machine, in Portage, Wisconsin, marking the first time one of the inventions was used.
1937 - Guy Lombardo and his orchestra recorded "Boo Hoo" on Victor Records. It became one of the group’s all-time hits.
1943 - German General Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Russian army at Stalingrad, ignoring Hitler's orders to fight on.
1946 - The first Buck Rogers automatic pistol was made American Toy Fair held each year. The suggested retail price for it was 89 cents.
1946 - For the first time, the Mutual Broadcasting System presented "Twenty Questions" on radio. The master of ceremonies was Bill Slater. In 1949, the show moved to television.
1949 - Golfer Ben Hogan was seriously hurt in an auto accident in Van Horn, Texas.
1950 - The popular game show, "What's My Line" premiered on CBS and ran for 17 years in prime time.
1959 - "Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing," said Vince Lombardi, head coach of the Green Bay Packers. He signed a five-year contract with the club, making the ‘green-and-yellow’ a team successful in the 1960s.
1959 - The Coasters released, "Charlie Brown"; which went to #2, staying there for three weeks, but never making it to the top spot. An infectious song, it was on the charts for 12 weeks.
1962 - Pole-vaulter John Uelses became the first to jump 16 feet indoors.
1967 - The NBA formed a second professional basketball league: the American Basketball Association.
1967 - General Anastasio Somoza Debayle was elected president of Nicaragua.
1970 - ‘Pistol’ Pete Maravich scored 49 points for Louisiana State University in a game against Mississippi State. Maravich became the first collegiate player to have more than 3,000 career points, and went on to become a star for the New Orleans Jazz, now the Utah Jazz. After collapsing at a pick-up game in the off season, Maravich died.
1971 - Ugandan army strongman Major-General Idi Amin took full powers as military head of state and formed an 18-man cabinet to run the country.
1972 - The British Embassy in Dublin was burned down after a day of anti-British demonstrations.
1973 - The West German government imposed foreign exchange controls following the massive flight from the dollar and buying of marks.
1978 - Two Soviet cosmonauts carried out the first ever refueling in outer space of Salyut engines.
1979 - Former guitarist for the disbanded punk rock group, the Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious was found dead of a heroin overdose at age 22. Only the day before, he was released from a drug detoxification program, unaware that because of his detoxification, his body could no longer could withstand his usual dosage of heroin. Vicious was found lying nude, faceup on the floor of a friend's Greenwich Village apartment, the morning after a party in his honor celebrating his release. Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie in London's tough East End, had appealed to England's alienated youth with his violent and repulsive stage stunts.
1983 - The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) resumed in Geneva.
1984 - Ralph Sampson, one of the Houston Rockets ‘Twin Towers’, was named the NBA's Rookie of the Month, which he earned by averaging 24.4 points, 12 rebounds and 2.43 blocked shots per game during the month of January. Sampson also became the only rookie, to that time, to be appointed to the NBA’s All-Star Game.
1986 - Liechtenstein's women voted for the first time in parliamentary elections.
1986 - Oscar Arias Sanchez won Costa Rica's presidential election.
1987 - In a "People" magazine poll, readers chose Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant as their favorite, all-time actors.
1987 - After 4 knee operations, Dennis Leonard decided to retire from professional baseball. At age 35, he was a three-time 20-game winner.
1989 - Carlos Andres Perez took office as Venezuela's president.
1989 - Marshal Viktor Kulikov, Commander-in-Chief of Warsaw Pact forces since 1971, stepped down and was replaced by General Pyotr Lushev.
1989 - South African President P.W. Botha resigned as leader of the ruling all-white National Party.
1990 - Four top aides to executed Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu were jailed for life on genocide charges.
1992 - Italy's President Francesco Cossiga dissolved parliament five months early to prepare for elections.
1993 - Loss-making Dutch truck maker DAF placed itself in the hands of court-appointed administrators.
1994 - Venezuelan elder statesman Rafael Caldera was sworn in as president.
1994 - Russian ultra-nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said he was giving orders to test a new top-secret weapon that would kill Muslim soldiers in Bosnia.
1998 - Kim Tannahill, once employed as a nanny by Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, filed a lawsuit in state court in Los Angeles, stating that the famous couple "shamelessly exploited and abused" her when she worked for them from 1994 until she was fired in August 1997. She said Moore once locked her in a room while verbally "beating" her. The lawsuit sought unspecified damages for assault, false imprisonment, and other wrongdoings. Tannahill also sued the couple in federal court, alleging she wasn't paid overtime. The lawyer for Moore and Willis called the complaints "utter fiction" and "an attempt by Miss Tannahill to get money through extortion." The couple sued Tannahill on January 28, accusing her of violating an agreement not to divulge information about their lives.
1998 - In New York City, actor Daniel Baldwin was hospitalized after a cocaine overdose. It was the same day he was to begin filming It Had to Be You. A few weeks later, in a mutual agreement, producers released him from the project. Baldwin faced criminal charges for drug possession.
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Post by Huckleberry on Feb 3, 2005 7:44:54 GMT -5
1014 - King Sweyn of Denmark I died and was succeeded by his son, Canute II the Great; after King Ethelred II of England ordered a massacre of Danes in 1002, Sweyn invaded Britain and conquered much of the country.
1194 - Henry VI of Germany released King Richard I (the Lion-Heart) of England, captured during the Third Crusade.
1399 - English Prince John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of King Edward III and father of King Henry IV, died.
1807 - Montevideo was taken by British forces led by Sir Samuel Auchmuty.
1809 - Illinois Territory, including present-day Wisconsin, was established.
1862 - Thomas Edison printed the "Weekly Herald" and distributed it to passengers on a train traveling from Port Huron and Detroit, Michigan. It was the first newspaper printed on a train.
1867 - Prince Mutsuhito became Emperor Meiji of Japan at the age of 14 and reigned until 1912.
1869 - Actor, Edwin Booth, opened a new theatre in New York City. Their first production was "Romeo and Juliet", tickets for which sold as high as $125.
1913 - The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, giving the government the power to impose and collect taxes on income.
1917 - The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany after Berlin announced a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
1919 - Kiev was captured by the Bolsheviks.
1919 - The first meeting of the League of Nations took place in Paris.
1927 - United States President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission, "to bring order out of this terrible chaos." The president was speaking about the nation’s then unregulated radio stations.
1930 - United States President Herbert Hoover appointed Charles Evans Hughes to be the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
1931 - A huge earthquake struck New Zealand, almost destroying the towns of Napier and Hastings.
1941 - On Decca Records, Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra recorded "Amapola". Helen O’Connell and Bob Eberly sang a duet on this very famous song of the Big Band era.
1945 - United States aircrafts dropped 3,000 tons of explosives on Berlin.
1946 - The first issue of "Holiday" magazine hit news stands.
1947 - Percival Prattis, of New York City's "Our World", became the first black news correspondent to gain admission to the House and Senate press gallery in Washington, DC.
1950 - The Ames Brothers, Ed, Gene, Joe and Vic, reached #1 on the pop music charts for the first time, with "Rag Mop". The brothers had many successes in their recording career: "You You You" [1953], "The Man with the Banjo" and "The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane" [1954], "Tammy" and "Melody d’Amour" [1957]. Ed Ames was formerly with the Russ Morgan band, after the brothers broke up in the late 1950s, he went on to have a successful television and recording career. In the 1960s, he recorded the hits "My Cup Runneth Over" and "Who Will Answer". On television, he played Mingo on "Daniel Boone". Ed is remembered for one of the "Tonigh Show's" funniest moments when he competed with host, Johnny Carson, in a hand axe-tossing contest. Mingo won with hilarious consequenses still shown in every celebration of "The Tonight Show".
1951 - For the sixth time, Dick Button won the United States figure skating title.
1951 - Tennessee Williams' play, "The Rose Tattoo", opened on Broadway.
1953 - Marine archeologist Jacques Cousteau became renowned worldwide for documenting his deep sea explorations. His first and most-lasting work, The Silent World, was published on this date. He attracted world attention when he salvaged a 1,000-pound Roman freighter near Marseilles. While in the French navy, he and engineer Emil Gargon invented the aqualung. However, Cousteau is best known for his documentaries and book.
1954 - Queen Elizabeth II arrived in Australia for the first visit by a reigning monarch.
1958 - The Benelux Economic Union Treaty between Belgium, Luxembourg and Netherlands was signed.
1959 - While on a concert tour, rock and roll singers Buddy Holly, age 22, Ritchie Valenz, age 17, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, age 24, died when the airplane they were traveling in crashed only minutes after takeoff into a cornfield near Mason City, Iowa. The plane's pilot was not certified to fly by instruments, which was what he attempted to do. It was determined that he could not see the stars nor the lights below because of the visual obstruction of falling snow, and he misread the instrument panel. Holly had a string of record hits in his short career, including Peggy Sue, That'll Be the Day, and It's So Easy, and set the tone for music in the 1960's. He greatly influenced rock groups and singers that came later, such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. Valenz had just recorded two back-to-back hits, Donna and La Bamba. The tragic news of the three young entertainers' deaths devastated the world. Holly was buried in his home town of Lubbock, Texas, and more than 1,000 people attended the funeral.
1960 - British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan foreshadowed the decolonization of Africa, telling the South African parliament: "The wind of change is blowing through the continent."
1964 - Coach Adolph Rupp, of the University of Kentucky, got his 700th win when the Wildcats beat Georgia 108-83.
1964 - The Beatles, received their first gold record for the single, "I Want To Hold Your Hand". The group also won a gold award for "Meet The Beatles", which was only released in the United States 14 days earlier.
1966 - The first controlled landing on the moon was made by the Soviet unmanned spacecraft Luna IX.
1969 - The Palestine National Congress appointed Yasser Arafat head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
1971 - Lynn Anderson received a gold record for, "Rose Garden". The country singer from Grand Forks, North Dakota was raised in Sacramento, California. In 1966, she was California Horse Show Queen.
1972 - In Sapporo, Japan, the first Winter Olympics held in Asia took place.
1977 - The chairman of the Provisional Military Government in Ethiopia, Brig-Gen Teferi Benti, and his closest associates were executed by supporters of Mengistu Haile Mariam.
1978 - The European Economic Community and China initialled their first trade agreement.
1981 - Gro Harlem Brundtland was elected Norway's first woman prime minister following the resignation of Odvar Nordli.
1984 - A soldout crowd of 18,210 showed up at Madison Square Garden in New York City to see Carl Lewis beat his own world record in the long jump by 9-1/4 inches.
1986 - The United States Weather Bureau officially named January of 1986 the warmest January since 1953. The average temperature in United States for that month was 38 degrees.
1992 - Argentine President Carlos Menem signed a decree opening all files on Nazis who fled to South America after World War II.
1994 - President Bill Clinton announced the lifting of the United States trade embargo against Vietnam, marking a dramatic shift in relations chilled for decades by war and postwar hostility.
1994 - President Boris Yeltsin signed a treaty with Georgia reasserting Russia's military influence in the former Soviet republic.
1994 - The International Court of Justice, in a ruling on a 20-year border dispute, rejected Libya's claim to a huge swathe of neighboring Chad's territory.
1994 - The United States space shuttle Discovery blasted off, carrying five American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut.
1996 - Rap artist Queen Latifah was stopped by a California Highway Patrol officer and arrested for reportedly possession of a concealed, loaded handgun, possession of marijuana, and speeding as she was traveling west on Interstate 10. Pending the results of a sobriety test, she could also face DUI charges. The Grammy-winning singer was known for her anti-drug and anti-violent messages in her music, and was a popular actress on the television sitcom Living Single.
1996 - An earthquake measuring 7.0 rocked southwestern China, killing at least 302 people and injuring 15,000.
1996 - Guinean President Lansana Conte reached agreement with the military to end a revolt sparked by a pay dispute.
1997 - Bohumil Hrabal, Czech author of "Closely Observed Trains," fell to his death from the fifth floor of a Prague hospital where he was being treated for arthritis.
1998 - Daniel Baldwin, hospitalized after reportedly going on a drug-crazed rampage at a Manhattan hotel, was arrested on criminal drug possession charges. If convicted, Baldwin faced up to two years in prison. Police sources said Baldwin was rushed to the hospital the morning before after suffering a cocaine overdose. Brother of Alec, Stephen, and William Baldwin, Daniel's film credits included Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, Hero, and Mullholland Falls. He was in New York filming It Had to Be You with Natasha Henstridge.
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Post by Huckleberry on Feb 4, 2005 7:50:00 GMT -5
211 - Lucius Septimius Severus, the Roman emperor responsible for making the empire's government a military monarchy, died.
1783 - England officially proclaimed an end to hostilities in America.
1787 - Shays' Rebellion, an uprising of Massachusetts farmers led by Daniel Shays, ended with defeat at Petersham.
1789 - Presidential electors met and chose George Washington as America's first president.
1861 - America's 25-year-long Apache wars began with the arrest of the Apache Chief Cochise.
1874 - The Battle of Kumasi ended the Ashanti War between Britain and Ghana.
1895 - In Chicago, Illinois, the Van Buren Street Bridge opened.
1901 - In New York City, "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines" opened, marking the first time Ethel Barrymore was billed as a star.
1904 - The Russo-Japanese War began when Japan laid siege to Port Arthur.
1913 - Louis Perlman, of New York City, received a patent for demountable tire-carrying rims, commonly known as wheels.
1924 - Mahatma Gandhi was released after spending two years in jail in Bombay.
1926 - John Giola, of New York City, earned fame as the Charleston endurance dance champion. As the new dance craze swept the United States, Giola decided to cash in on it by dancing, non-stop, for 22 hours and 30 minutes.
1927 - British driver Malcolm Campbell broke the world land speed record in his car Bluebird, driving at 174.224 miles per hour.
1932 - At Lake Placid, New York, the Winter Olympics were held in the United States for the first time. The venue would be home to the Winter Olympics again in 1980, when the United States Hockey Team won its "Do you believe in miracles?" gold medal.
1935 - For the first time, CBS radio presented "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch". The program was about life in Kentucky shantytown.
1937 - On Decca Records, Glen Gray and his Casa Loma Orchestra recorded "A Study in Brown".
1938 - Adolf Hitler became Germany's war minister and Joachim von Ribbentrop took over foreign affairs.
1938 - Thornton Wilder's play, "Our Town", opened in New York City at the Henry Miller Theatre. The play won the writer a Pulitzer prize.
1939 - World mile record-holder, Glenn Cunningham, said in a newspaper, "running a four-minute mile is beyond human effort," adding that the best mile run will always be 4:01.66. That mark has been since been broken several times. Jim Ryun did it on several occasions; and more recently a time of 3:44:39 was set by Noureddine Morceli from Algeria.
1941 - The United Service Organization (USO) was founded to provide support worldwide for United States service people and their families.
1945 - Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met at Yalta in the Crimea to discuss plans for the defeat of the Axis powers and to decide on the post-war future.
1948 - Ceylon became a self-governing independent state within the British Commonwealth.
1952 - Former baseball great, Jackie Robinson, was named Director of Communication for NBC, becoming the first black executive of a major radio-TV network.
1953 - Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis took a dramatic turn when they starred in the film, "The Stooge", premiering at the Paramount Theatre in New York City.
1957 - New York's Smith-Corona Manufacturing Inc. began to sell portable electric typewriters. The first "portable" machine weighed 19 pounds! Soon, other manufacturers began offering similar models that were made of lighter weight plastics.
1962 - "Nedelya", a supplement to the Soviet newspaper "Izvestia", claimed, "...baseball is an old Russian game."
1962 - Francisco Orlich Bolmarich was elected president of Costa Rica.
1964 - United States weekly publication Newsweek was the first American magazine to carry a cover story on the Beatles.
1966 - An All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 jet aircraft crashed in Tokyo Bay, killing 133 passengers and crew.
1969 - Bowie Kuhn took office as Commissioner of Baseball. He served only a six-month term, succeeding General William Eckert.
1971 - British carmaker Rolls Royce declared itself bankrupt.
1972 - Zambian President Kenneth Kuanda banned the opposition United Progressive Party and arrested its leader, Simon Kapepwe, together with more than 120 members.
1974 - Patricia Hearst, the grand-daughter of the late William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
1974 - Grenada achieved independence within the British Commonwealth.
1976 - Lourenco Marques, the capital of Mozambique, was renamed Maputo.
1976 - An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale and resulting mudslides caused the deaths of 23,000 people just north of Guatemala City; 1.5 million people were made homeless.
1978 - Junius Jayawardene was sworn in as Sri Lanka's first president.
1982 - Great Britain's Laker Airways, a pioneer of cheap transatlantic air fares, collapsed.
1983 - Singer Karen Carpenter died of heart failure due to anorexia nervosa at age 33, at her parents' home in Downey, California. The singer, who had performed with her brother, Richard, would be best-remembered for her songs (They Long to Be) Close to You and We've Only Just Begun, which dominated the songs of choice for weddings throughout the '70s and '80s. The untimely death of the young, velvet-throated Grammy Award winner saddened and shocked the world. Her death shed new light on the devastating consequences of anorexia, an eating disorder brought on by compulsive dieting. At one low point in Carpenter's career, she was forced to cancel a command performance before Queen Elizabeth II of England, and a concert tour of Europe and the Orient, due to the illness. Standing five feet, four inches, she had dieted down to 90 pounds.
1987 - Dennis Conner, Tom Whidden and Peter Isler won the America’s Cup for yachting from Australia with "Stars and Stripes ’87".
1987 - Flamboyant pianist Liberace died at age 67 in his block-long palace in Palms Springs, California, officially of a brain disease. At one time, the entertainer was the highest-paid performer in Las Vegas.
1990 - Nine Israeli tourists and two Egyptian guards were killed when masked assailants opened fire on a bus en route to Cairo.
1992 - Loyal troops put down an attempted coup against President Carlos Andres Perez in Venezuela.
1994 - Mortar bombs killed nine people in a food line in Serb-besieged Sarajevo.
1994 - Polish Finance Minister Marek Borowski resigned after clashing with Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak.
1996 - Rob Pilatus of the defunct pop duo Milli Vanilli was arrested in Los Angeles after witnesses said he tried to break into a car and force his way into a house. He was charged with eight criminal counts accusing him of attacking two people. Pilatus, age 31, was also accused in a December 21, 1995 incident of hitting a man with a lamp during a dispute.
1996 - NBC aired the first of two parts of the mini-series Gulliver's Travels, starring Ted Danson as the title character. The venture, with its huge financial investment, had the potential for being a giant flop, but it was a gamble that paid off. The show was NBC's highest-rated miniseries in four years, and most critics praised its faithfulness to the Jonathan Swift tale.
1996 - A Colombian cargo plane crashed into homes near the Paraguayan capital Asuncion, killing at least 22 people.
1997 - 73 Israeli soldiers were killed when two military helicopters collided in midair in a storm in northern Israel.
1997 - 16 months after O.J. Simpson was cleared of murder charges, a civil trial jury blamed him for the killings of his ex-wife and her friend and ordered him to pay $8.5 million in compensatory damages.
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Post by Huckleberry on Feb 5, 2005 9:26:48 GMT -5
1679 - The Treaty of Nijmegen was signed by Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and King Louis XIV of France.
1782 - Spain captured the island of Minorca from the British.
1811 - After George III was declared insane, the Prince of Wales became Prince Regent of England, later to be George IV.
1818 - Charles XIV proclaimed king of Sweden after the death of Charles III.
1846 - "The Oregon Spectator", based in Oregon City, Oregon, became the first newspaper to be published on the Pacific coast.
1861 - Cincinnati, Ohio resident, Samuel Goodale, patented the moving picture peep show machine. After depositing a coin and turning a crank on the side of the ornate box, a flickering movie appeared.
1887 - Verdi's opera "Otello" was first performed in Milan, Italy.
1916 - For the Victor Talking Machine Company, Enrico Caruso recorded "O Solo Mio". The company eventually became Victor Records, then RCA Victor.
1917 - Mexico's present Constitution, embracing major social reforms, was adopted.
1928 - Singer Jessica Dragonette, seen on one of the first television shows, was used only to test the new invention. She didn’t get to sing. Jessica did enjoy an illustrious radio career.
1931 - Maxine Dunlap became the first woman to be licensed as a glider pilot. She was airborne for only one minute, successfully making two ‘S’ curves and a landing.
1931 - Eddie Cantor’s long radio career got started when he appeared on Rudy Vallee’s "The Fleischmann Hour".
1937 - The first Charlie Chaplin talkie, "Modern Times", was released. Chaplin’s voice was heard in the film, but he was difficult to understand as he was singing gibberish that no one understood. Paulette Goddard who played the part of a waif was the movie's star.
1940 - On radio, "Amanda of Honeymoon Hill" debuted starring Joy Hathaway as ‘the beauty of flaming red hair’. The program lasted six years on the NBC radio network.
1940 - One of the Big Band era's classic songs was recorded, as Glenn Miller and his band played "Tuxedo Junction" at the RCA Victor studios in Manhattan, New York. The flip side of the record contained "Danny Boy".
1945 - United States troops under General Douglas MacArthur entered Manila, Philippines.
1953 - "Peter Pan", the Walt Disney film, opened at the Roxy Theatre in New York City. Although the film is now said to be a great work, not all of the 1953 critics liked the Disney stylization J.M. Barrie's play.
1953 - Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz excitedly received their first of several Emmy Awards at the 4th Annual Emmy Awards banquet in Los Angeles. I Love Lucy won for Best Situation Comedy and Lucille Ball won for Best Comedienne. Other winners at the event included Robert Montgomery Presents for Best Dramatic Program; Dragnet for Best Mystery, Action, or Adventure Program; Your Show of Shows won for Best Variety Program; and Time for Beany was chosen Best Children's Program for the third year in a row. Emmys were originally going to be called "Ikes," a short form for the television iconoscope tube, but the name had problems, as it was also the nickname of war hero and future President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ultimately, the nickname chosen was a feminization of "Immy," a term commonly used for the early image orthicon camera tube.
1958 - A year after it was founded, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) formed a New York chapter. NARAS is known as the Grammy Awards organization.
1961 - The Shirelles finished their first week at #1 on the music charts with "Will You Love Me Tomorrow". The song spent two weeks at the top spot. It was the group’s first #1 song and the first #1 hit for the songwriter. She became a star in her own right, having many #1 singles and albums in the 1970s. Her name was Carole King.
1961 - The Sunday Telegraph became the first new national Sunday newspaper to be published in Britain for 40 years.
1969 - For one of but a few times in television's history, a scheduled series, which usually lasted for 13 to 26 weeks of shows, turned into a one-nighter. ABC-TV premiered "Turn On", which critics called "offbeat and distasteful." The show never again aired.
1971 - A British soldier was shot dead during riots in Belfast, the first to be killed in action since troops went to Northern Ireland in 1969.
1972 - Bob Douglas was the first black man inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Douglas coached the New York Renaissance, an all-black team which won 88 consecutive games in 1933, which he owned.
1975 - The United States cut off military aid to Turkey as a result of delays in a peace settlement of the Cyprus dispute.
1983 - A bomb blast outside the PLO offices in Beirut killed 22 people.
1983 - Klaus Barbie, wanted Nazi war criminal, was imprisoned in Lyons, France, following extradition from Bolivia.
1987 - For the first time, the Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 2,200-point mark, closing at 2201.49.
1989 - Rupert Murdoch launched his satellite station Sky Television in Britain.
1990 - Opposition candidate Rafael Calderon Fournier won Costa Rica's presidential election.
1993 - President William Clinton signed the Family-Leave bill requiring companies with 50 or more employees to allow employees to take up to 12 weeks unpaid leave in a 12 month period to deal with the birth or adoption of a child or to care for a relative with a serious health problem.
1994 - A mortar bomb devastated a Sarajevo street market, killing 68.
1996 - The Bosnian government told NATO it had arrested a Serb general, a colonel and six other men for investigations into suspected war crimes.
1997 - Switzerland's three biggest banks, galvanized by international pressure, said they had created a 100 million Swiss franc Holocaust memorial fund as a gesture of good will toward their critics.
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Post by Huckleberry on Feb 6, 2005 8:45:39 GMT -5
1685 - Charles II, king of Great Britain and Ireland, died; James II acceded to the throne.
1778 - France and America signed treaties allowing the United States to conquer Canada and Bermuda; France was allowed to take the British West Indies.
1788 - Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the Constitution.
1838 - During the Boers Great Trek, Boer leader Piet Retief was murdered by the Zulu king Dingane's warriors.
1840 - The Treaty of Waitangi was signed under which New Zealand's Maori population accepted Queen Victoria's sovereignty in their lands.
1843 - "The Virginia Minstrels", the first minstrel show in the United States, opened at the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City.
1899 - The Treaty of Paris was ratified by the United States Senate by one vote, ending the Spanish-American War.
1911 - In Prescott, Arizona, the first old-age home for pioneers opened.
1918 - Women over 30 and men over 21 won the right to vote in Britain as the Representation of the People Act received royal assent.
1922 - The Washington Conference between the United States, France, Japan, Italy and Britain ended with agreement on restricting use of poison gas and submarine warfare.
1922 - Cardinal Achille Ratti was elected to succeed Pope Benedict XV as Pius XI.
1926 - The National Football League adopted a rule that making players ineligible to compete until their college class graduated.
1929 - Rudy Vallee and his orchestra recorded "Deep Night". The fine print, under the artist’s name, says the song was written by Vallee himself.
1932 - The first Olympic competition for dog sled racing was held in a demonstration program was presented by the United States and Canada.
1933 - The 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted, allowing the president to take office in January instead of March.
1937 - K. Elizabeth Ohi was the first Japanese woman to become a lawyer as, today, she was given her degree from John Marshall Law School in Chicago, Illinois.
1943 - Frank Sinatra debuted as vocalist on radio’s "Your Hit Parade". Frankie left the Tommy Dorsey Band four months prior to staring at the radio program. He was called, "...the biggest name in the business."
1943 - Swashbuckler screen actor Errol Flynn, age 33, was acquitted of three charges of statutory rape by a jury in Los Angeles Superior Court.
1943 - Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander-in-chief of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in North Africa.
1950 - NBC radio broadcast "Dangerous Assignment" for the first time. The show starred Brian Donlevy as Steve Mitchell.
1952 - Queen Elizabeth II succeeded to the British throne upon the death of her father, King George VI.
1956 - The first circular school building in the United States, St. Patrick Center, opened in Kankakee, Illinois.
1958 - Seven members of Britain's Manchester United football team were among 21 killed in a plane crash in Munich. Nicknamed the "Busby Babes" after their manager, Matt Busby, they were returning from a European Cup match.
1964 - France and Britain agreed on the joint construction of a Channel tunnel.
1968 - Joan Whitney Payson was elected as president of the New York Mets. One year later, the ‘Miracle’ Mets would become world champions.
1971 - NASA Astronaut Alan B. Shepard took a six-iron stashed inside his spacecraft took a swing at three golf balls on the surface of the moon. Shepard whiffed the first swing. The others were good shots that went a few hundred yards in space's vacuum. Because his moonwalk suit was so bulky, he didn’t get enough of a swing to launch the golf balls into orbit. But he did get a couple of divots.
1972 - Over 500,000 irate letters arrived at CBS-TV's mail room when word got out that an edited-for-televiison version of the X-rated movie, "The Demand", would be seen.
1976 - In the United States, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation admitted it had bribed officials in the Netherlands, Japan, Sweden and Italy.
1981 - Former Beatles, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison teamed to record a musical tribute to John Lennon. The result was "All Those Years Ago", which spent three weeks at #2 on the pop music charts. The song was recorded on Harrison’s Dark Horse label.
1985 - For the first time in 123 years, French mineral water company, Perrier, debuted a new product. On grocery store shelves and in trendy establishments, you could find water with a twist of lemon, lime or orange.
1987 - President Ronald Reagan turned 76 years old, adding another year to his already established record as the oldest United States President in ever. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the previous recordholder, by serving the country at age 70.
1993 - Tennis champion Arthur Ashe died of complications brought on by AIDS.
1994 - Defense Minister Elisabeth Rehn of the Swedish People's Party conceded defeat to Martti Ahtisaari of the opposition Social Democrats in Finland's presidential election.
1994 - Togo held its first multiparty election for parliament.
1995 - USA Today reported that MGM-UA Home Video said it would stop selling a videotape containing a World War II-era cartoon in which Bugs Bunny called buck-toothed Japanese characters "slant eyes" and other ethnic slurs. The 1944 cartoon Bugs Nips the Nips was part of the Golden Age of Looney Tunes series. MGM's spokeswoman said the cartoon "reflected Hollywood's part in the war effort." About 8,000 copies had been sold.
1997 - Ecuador's Congress voted to oust embattled President Abdala Bucaram on grounds of mental incompetence.
1998 - Carl Wilson, the Beach Boys' lead guitarist and youngest of the Wilson brothers, died at age 51 in Los Angeles. He'd been diagnosed with lung cancer which then spread to his brain. Despite chemotherapy, Wilson lost the battle. During the group's publicized ups and downs with drugs over the years, Carl's steady influence reportedly was responsible for keeping the group together.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Feb 7, 2005 7:26:31 GMT -5
1301 - King Edward I of England revived the title of Prince of Wales and bestowed it on Edward of Caernarvon, later Edward II.
1792 - Austria and Prussia formed an alliance against France.
1818 - In New York City, "Academician", the first educational magazine to be successful, began publication.
1827 - Madame Francisquy Hutin introduced ballet to the United States with a performance of "The Deserter", staged at the Bowery Theater, New York, NY.
1837 - Gustav IV, king of Sweden 1792-1809, died. Due to his foreign policy, Sweden became totally isolated and in March 1809 he was overthrown in a coup.
1877 - In New York City, the first Guernsey Cattle Club was organized.
1878 - Pope Pius IX died. At 31 years, 236 days, his pontificate was the longest in history.
1882 - The last bareknuckle fight held for the heavyweight boxing championship occurred in Mississippi City. In round 9, John L. Sullivan knocked out Paddy Ryan.
1893 - Elisha Gray, of Highland Park, Illinois, patented the telautograph which automatically signed autographs on documents, freeing up the autographer to do other things.
1904 - The biggest fire in the United States since the great Chicago blaze of 1871 broke out in Baltimore, destroying more than 2,600 buildings.
1922 - For the first time, DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace offered 5,000 copies of their magazine for sale. Today, "Reader’s Digest" continues to be widely read all over the world. In fact, it is the most-read periodical in history with an over 16 million circulation.
1931 - In New York City, the American opera, "Peter Ibbetson", by Deems Taylor premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House.
1936 - An executive order established the United States Vice President’s flag.
1940 - Walt Disney's animation, "Pinocchio", premiered at the Center Theatre in Manhattan, New York. The showing was the second feature-length film for Disney, following "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". One critic called the show, "The happiest event since the war."
1941 - UCLA forward, Jackie Robinson, scored 20 points in a losing cause, as the USC Trojans beat the Bruins 43-41, marking the 34th straight loss UCLA had suffered to USC since 1932. In the 1970s, the Bruins made up for those losses when coach John Wooden arrived.
1941 - On Victor Records, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Frank Sinatra teamed up to record "Everything Happens to Me". The session was held in the New York City studios of Victor.
1941 - The British captured Benghazi in Libya for the first time; they held it until April but were then forced to evacuate, recapturing it again in December.
1949 - The New York Yankees rewarded Joe DiMaggio by making him the first baseball player to earn $100,000 a year.
1959 - The play, "The Rivalry", opened in New York City for its first of 81 performances.
1964 - New York's Kennedy Airport was mobbed by more than 3,000 screaming American teenagers, awaiting the first United States arrival of Britain's top rock and roll group, The Beatles. Hundreds of police officers were needed to hold back the adoring, screaming teenage fans.
1966 - In New York City, "Crawdaddy" magazine was published by Paul Williams, for the first time.
1968 - All 10 provincial premiers of Canada agreed to draft a new constitution giving the French language equal status with English throughout Canada.
1969 - After ABC-TV acquired the rights to the singing sensation’s popular United Kingdom show, Tom Jones, "The Prince of Wales", premiered on ABC-TV. For the rights, the network paid a British production company an estimated $20 million.
1971 - In Switzerland, a referendum voted in favor of female suffrage.
1974 - Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra was awarded a gold record for the disco hit, "Love’s Theme".
1977 - Britain acknowledged to the European Court of Human Rights that malpractice had been used against prisoners in Ulster in 1971; it pledged never again to use deprivation techniques.
1984 - United States astronaut Bruce McCandless flew up to 100 yards from the Space Shuttle "Challenger" using only a powered backpack, the first time it had been done.
1985 - "Sports Illustrated" released its annual swimsuit edition. This issue was the biggest regular edition in the magazine’s history, with 218 pages. On the cover, Paulina Porizkova joined Cheryl Tiegs and Christie Brinkley as the only models to make the cover more than once.
1985 - "New York, New York" became the Big Apple's official anthem. Mayor Ed Koch made the announcement.
1986 - President Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti fled to France after demonstrations against his rule.
1990 - The Soviet Communist Party leadership agreed to surrender its 70-year monopoly on power, paving the way for a multi-party democracy.
1991 - A mortar bomb attack was made on Number 10 Downing Street in London, England, the official residence of Prime Minister John Major, from a vehicle in a nearby street.
1991 - Popular leftist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide was sworn in as Haiti's first democratically elected president.
1992 - European Community ministers formally signed the Maastricht Treaty of European Union.
1994 - The European Union backed the use of air strikes to relieve besieged Sarajevo.
1994 - Iran arrested more than 20 "morally corrupt" suspects in a plot to assassinate President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
1996 - Rene Preval became Haiti's second freely elected president.
1996 - A Boeing 757 charter jet carrying 189 people plunged into shark-infested waters off the Dominican coast, killing everyone aboard.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Feb 8, 2005 6:43:26 GMT -5
1587 - After 19 years of imprisonment, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for her part in a plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth.
1725 - Peter the Great of Russia died and was succeeded by Catherine I. His reign saw Russia drawn increasingly into the European sphere of influence.
1802 - Simon Willard patented the banjo clock.
1861 - The southern states which had seceded from the Union agree to set up the Confederate States of America.
1862 - Union forces took Roanoke Island, North Carolina, from the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
1863 - Prussia allied with Russia to suppress the revolution in Poland.
1887 - The Aurora Ski Club of Red Wing, Minnesota, had the honor of becoming the first ski club in the United States.
1896 - Representatives from Mid-western universities established the Western Conference for football. Later, the group would change its name to the Big 10 Conference.
1904 - The Russo-Japanese War began when the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in northeast China.
1910 - Boy Scouts of America was founded in Washington, DC, by William Boyce.
1915 - D. W. Griffith's silent film masterpiece, the 12-reel The Birth of a Nation, debuted in Los Angeles. It gave a new dimension to movies, transforming the novelty into an art form.
1918 - For the first time, "The Stars and Stripes", the weekly newspaper of the American Expeditionary Forces, was published.
1924 - The gas chamber was used for the first time as a form of execution. Gee Jon was put to death in Nevada for murder.
1924 - When General John Joseph Carty, of the Bell Telephone System, spoke in Chicago, Illinois, his words were carried across the United States on the first coast-to-coast radio hookup. It was estimated 50-million people heard the speech.
1927 - In New York City, the original version of the motion picture, "Getting Gertie’s Garter", opened at the Hippodrome Theatre. The movie was about a young lawyer who didn’t know the difference between a bracelet and a garter.
1936 - The first draft for National Football League was held. The first player selected was Jay Berwanger, who went to the Philadelphia Eagles.
1937 - In the Spanish Civil War, General Franco captured Malaga with the help of 15,000 Italians.
1942 - Dr. Albert Speer succeeded Dr. Fritz Todt as German minister for armaments and war production. Todt was killed in a plane crash.
1943 - Advancing Russian troops recaptured Kursk, which they had lost to the Germans in November 1941.
1949 - Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, Primate of Hungary, was sentenced to life imprisonment for anti-state activities.
1953 - Film actress June Haver, age 26, renounced her Hollywood career to enter the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity convent in Xavier, Kansas.
1955 - Georgi Malenkov was forced to resign the Soviet premiership, replaced by Nikolai Bulganin.
1960 - Congressional investigators began looking into the influence of payola in radio and record industries. Called to testify were Alan Freed and American Bandstand host, Dick Clark, among others.
1963 - The owner of the American Football League franchise in Dallas, Texas, Lamar Hunt, moved the operation to Kansas City. The new team was named the Chiefs. Dallas' NFL franchise became known as the Cowboys.
1963 - Iraqi President Abdel-Karim Kassem was overthrown and killed in a military coup.
1966 - The United States and Vietnam issued the Declaration of Honolulu, outlining their aims for Vietnam.
1969 - The final issue of the Saturday Evening Post was published on this day, bringing an end to a magazine tradition that began in 1821.
1974 - America's final Skylab mission, with Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson and William Pogue, returned to earth.
1979 - The United States suspended all civilian aid to Nicaragua.
1983 - The Kahan Report on the Beirut Sabra and Shatila massacres in September 1982, condemned the Israeli government and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon.
1984 - The Los Angeles Lakers' Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, scored 27 points, taking his team to a 111-109 victory over the Boston Celtics. Abdul-Jabbar also beat Wilt Chamberlain’s NBA career record of 12,682 field goals.
1984 - In Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, now known as Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Winter Olympics opened. An estimated 1,579 athletes from 50 nations participated in the events. Sadly, the Olympic facilities have since been all but destroyed by the war in Bosnia.
1985 - On CBS-TV, "The Dukes of Hazzard" ended its 6-1/2 year run. The series had the title for using more stunt men than any other television series ever. The show would use up to eight cars per episode when the crash sequences got difficult. The theme song, "The Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol’ Boys)", was performed by Waylong Jennings.
1986 - Billy Olson, who claimed he was afraid of heights, broke the indoor pole vault record for the seventh time in four months, vaulting 19 feet, 5-1/2 inches.
1987 - In the NBA All-Star Game, the West beat the East, by setting a record for total points scored. In overtime, the West won 154-149.
1989 - A Boeing 707 crashed into a mountain on Santa Maria Island, The Azores.
1990 - CBS News put 60 Minutes' popular commentator Andy Rooney on a three-months' leave after receiving complaints that he had offended blacks and homosexuals with some off-the-cuff comments that were perceived as being bigoted.
1993 - The newly divided Czech and Slovak republics began using separate currencies for the first time.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Feb 9, 2005 6:42:46 GMT -5
1540 - The first-recorded horse race in England was held at Roodeye Fields, Chester.
1674 - Charles II of England signed the Treaty of Westminster, ending the war with the Dutch.
1801 - France and Austria signed the Peace of Luneville, effectively ending the Holy Roman Empire.
1849 - Giuseppe Mazzini proclaimed Rome a republic.
1861 - Jefferson Davis was chosen as president of the Confederate States of America, and Alexander Stephens as vice-president.
1893 - "Falstaff," the last opera by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, was first performed in Milan.
1895 - The first ever college basketball game was played as the Minnesota State School of Agriculture beat the Porkers of Hamline College, 9-3.
1904 - At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian ships Variag and Korietz were sunk off Korea.
1909 - France and Germany reached agreement over Morocco, with Germany recognizing French special interests there in return for economic concessions.
1909 - At Kent, Ohio, the first forestry school was incorporated.
1923 - Dobrolet, the Soviet state airline, was formed. It was renamed Aeroflot in 1932.
1926 - Baseball's American League banned the use of resin by pitchers.
1929 - The Litvinov protocol, a pact for the renunciation of war, was signed in Moscow between Russia, Poland, Romania, Estonia and Latvia.
1932 - At the Winter Olympic Games held at Lake Placid, New York, the United States entered the 2-man bobsled competition for the first time.
1934 - The Balkan Pact to prevent encroachment by the great powers was signed by Romania, Greece, Yugoslavia and Turkey.
1941 - In a speech directed at the United States, Winston Churchill said: "Put your confidence in us...give us the tools and we will finish the job."
1942 - The French passenger liner Normandie burned and sank at its pier in New York City.
1942 - The Philadelphia National League baseball team decided to it would change its nickname from the Phillies to simply the Phils. The name, the Phillies, had been used since the 1880s. Today, the team is known as the Phillies or the Phils.
1943 - United States troops reached Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, and discovered that the Japanese had evacuated.
1950 - United States Senator Joseph McCarthy said he had evidence there were individuals in the State Department who were card-carrying members of the Communist Party.
1950 - Screen actress Ingrid Bergman won a divorce from her husband, Dr. Petter Lindström, in Juarez, Mexico, clearing the way for her marriage to film director Roberto Rossellini. She had given birth to Rossellini's son five days earlier. Bergman was denounced by the Hollywood gossip circles and the American public for her affair and the illegitimate birth, and it would be many years before a film of hers would again be made in the United States.
1955 - Leonard Wibberley's novel, "The Mouse That Roared," was published on this date in Boston by Little, Brown.
1958 - "Frontier Gentleman", starring John Dehner as J.B. Kendall, gave radio the debut of its last big serial. The show only had a short run.
1960 - The American and National Football Leagues established a verbal agreement not to tamper with player contracts.
1963 - The first Boeing 727 took off, becoming the world’s most popular way to fly. Before production was stopped in 1984, 1,832 of the aircraft were built.
1964 - The Beatles, televised live from New York, first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. More than 73 million people across the country tuned in that night, and it was reported that during the hour in which the show was aired, the country experienced the lowest crime rate, among teenagers, of the decade. Conservative groups were outraged by the rock and roll quartet.
1966 - Liza Minnelli brought her night club act to the New York when she opened at the Persian Room of the Plaza Hotel.
1969 - The Boeing 747 took its first flight, ushering flew in the age of the jumbo jet.
1969 - Roslyn Kind quietly made her television debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show". Ed said she was "...America’s teenager who wasn’t protesting or playing a guitar." Although she only appeared once, her sister appeared many times. Roslyn Kind is Barbra Streisand's sister.
1970 - Sly and The Family Stone were awarded a gold record for the single, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)". At the time Sly (Sylvester) Stewart was a discjockey in Oakland, California.
1971 - An earthquake measuring 6.6 struck the San Fernando Valley in California, killing 58 people. Property damage reached $900 million.
1972 - Paul McCartney's new group, Wings, made its first public appearance. Nottingham University was Wings' first stop on its Britain Tour.
1972 - The British government declares a state of emergency over a miners' strike.
1974 - Seasons In The Sun, recorded by Canadian Terry Jacks and his wife Susan as The Poppy Family, entered the record pop charts on this date and remained on them for 15 weeks. The song was in the Number 1 spot for 3 weeks, and was later certified gold. Seasons In The Sun had originally been recorded by The Kingston Trio ten years earlier.
1977 - Spain established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
1978 - Canada announced it was expelling 13 Soviet diplomats who it said had tried to recruit a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer.
1981 - At age 55, Bill Haley died in Harlingen, Texas. Haley, with his Comets, recorded what would be the anthem of rock and roll: "Rock Around the Clock", from the movie, "Blackboard Jungle". The song became a multimillion dollar hit, but was one of many hits Haley and the Comets would enjoy, including: "Dim Dim the Lights", "Razzle Dazzle", "Crazy Man Crazy", "Rock the Joint", "See You Later Alligator" and "Shake Rattle & Roll". In 1987, Bill Haley was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
1981 - General Wojciech Jaruzelski took over from Josef Pinkowski as Polish prime minister during the Solidarity crisis.
1983 - The racehorse Shergar, the 1981 English Derby winner, was stolen from his stable in Ireland.
1984 - Brandon Tartikoff, NBC's Entertainment president, gave an interviewer the "10 Commandments for TV Programmers. Number 1: Never schedule a show because you like it. Number 10: All hits are flukes and never forget it!"
1984 - Actress Raquel Welch accepted a large damage settlement and an apology from Club International, a British men's magazine which published bogus nude photos of her. The photos were of another woman's body with Welch's head superimposed on top. In exchange, Welch agreed to drop her libel action.
1987 - Just twenty years after the first woman was admitted to the New York Stock Exchange, the Exchange Luncheon Club decided to put in a women's rest room. Prior to this gracious offer, the women had to walk down a flight of stairs.
1991 - Lithuanians voted by a huge majority to restore the Soviet republic's pre-World War II independence.
1998 - Novelist Barbara Chase-Riboud dropped her $10 million copyright infringement lawsuit that alleged Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks SKG studio stole her ideas for the movie Amistad. Chase-Riboud said she and her lawyers reviewed Dreamworks' files and other documents and "concluded neither Steven Spielberg nor Dreamworks did anything improper".
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Feb 10, 2005 7:59:35 GMT -5
1364 - The Treaty of Brno was signed which guaranteed that Tyrol would be kept in the families of the Luxemburgs and Hapsburgs.
1567/B> - Lord Darnley, the second husband of Mary Queen of Scots, was murdered.
1763 - The Peace of Paris between Britain, France and Spain ended the Seven Years War. Canada was ceded to Britain, France received various West Indies possessions and Spain won Louisiana and Havana.
1837 - Russian poet and novelist Alexander Pushkin was killed in a duel. Regarded as Russia's greatest poet, his works include the historical tragedy "Boris Godunov."
1840 - Queen Victoria of England married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg.
1841 - The Act of Union, uniting Upper and Lower Canada, came into effect.
1863 - Two of the world’s most famous midgets, General Tom Thumb, who stood three feet, four inches high, and his bride, Lavinia Warren, who was two feet, eight inches tall, were married in New York City, in front of 2,000 of their closest friends.
1863 - Alanson Crane patented the fire extinguisher.
1920 - Representatives for major league baseball outlawed pitches that involve tampering with the ball, including using sandpaper or emery paper. It may be a baseball law but, it is often broken like others. Many umpires have the nail files to prove it.
1923 - For the first time, ink paste was manufactured by the Standard Ink Company. It was available in one color: black.
1925 - In Michigan City, Indiana, the first waterless gas storage tank was put into service.
1933 - The Postal Telegraph Company of New York City introduced the singing telegram.
1933 - In round 13 at match held at Madison Square Garden in New York, Primo Carnera knocked out Ernie Schaaf. While the crowd and the press at the match shouted, "Fake!" at the knockout, Schaaf later died as a result of that punch. It was no fake.
1934 - The United States Postal Service issued the first stamps without perforations or glue in New York City. One had to cut apart the stamps, then apply glue to the back to get them to stick to an envelope. After numerous complaints, the Postal Service changed this idea.
1935 - The Pennsylvania Railroad started passenger service with its new "streamlined" electric locomotive. The engine was 79 1/2 feet long and weighed 230 tons.
1942 - For Decca Records in Los Angeles, California, Ted Fio Rito’s orchestra recorded "Rio Rita". Bob Carroll provided the vocals for the song that became the group’s theme song.
1942 - Glenn Miller received the first ever gold disc for selling one million copies of "Chattanooga Choo Choo."
1949 - Lee J. Cobb, Arthur Kennedy and Mildred Dunnock starred in, "Death of a Salesman", which opened at New York City's Morocco Theatre. The play would later become a major motion picture.
1956 - Elvis Presley recorded "Heartbreak Hotel" for RCA Records in Nashville, Tennessee. The record was awarded two gold records, one for each side. The hit song gracing the other side was "I Was the One".
1961 - The Los Angeles franchise in the American Football League was moved to San Diego, California. In L.A. the team was called the Dodgers.
1962 - Francis Gary Powers, the U.S. pilot of a U-2 plane shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, was exchanged for KGB agent Rudolf Abel in Berlin.
1964 - The press reported "millions of teenage boys are spending extra time in front of the mirror trying to make their hair look like Paul McCartney’s...," after The Beatles appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" the night before.
1965 - An often used quote, was first spoken by Hubert H. Humphrey who said, "The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor." Humphrey was a beloved United States Senator from Minnesota and a Vice-President during the Lyndon Johnson administration. He eventually ran for the Presidency but lost to Richard M. Nixon.
1975 - Pakistan banned the opposition National Awami Party and arrested its leaders.
1977 - Physicist Yuri Orlov, a leader of a Soviet dissident group monitoring implementation of the 1975 Helsinki human rights accord, was arrested.
1981 - Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo was named Spanish prime minister by King Juan Carlos.
1985 - One of the Houston Rockets’ "Twin Towers", seven foot four inch tall Ralph Sampson, the Rockets star center, scored 24 points; leading the West to beat the East, 140-129 in the NBA All-Star Game held in Indianapolis, Indiana. Sampson was chosen as the games’ Most Valuable Player.
1989 - Michael Manley became prime minister of Jamaica.
1991 - Lithuanians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union. Parliament had already declared independence in March 1990.
1992 - The New Kids on the Block filed suit on this date against former producer Gregory McPherson, accusing him of slander. McPherson had publicly accused the group of lip-syncing, and said that the young entertainers did on 20 percent of the singing in concerts and on their 1988 hit album, Hangin' Tough. McPherson claimed that New Kids manager Maurice Starr and Starr's brother were the real voices. The group's attorney denied his claim. Two months later, McPherson dropped his $21 million suit against Starr.
1992 - In Indianapolis, former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was found guilty of rape of an 18-year-old beauty contestant, Desiree Washington. The jury found him guilty on all three counts after deliberating for 9 hours.
1992 - Noted black author Alex Haley died at age 70 in Seattle of a heart attack. Haley would be best-remembered for his gripping account of African family history spanning two centuries, Roots, which was later turned into a wildly successful television miniseries.
1994 - Russia called for a Security Council meeting to consider putting Sarajevo under United Nations administration.
1996 - An IBM computer called Deep Blue made chess history by comfortably beating world champion Garry Kasparov, a machine's first victory under classic tournament rules.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Feb 11, 2005 8:01:49 GMT -5
1573 - English explorer Francis Drake first saw the Pacific Ocean.
1752 - Through Benjamin Franklin's efforts, the Pennsylvania Hospital opened, becoming the very first hospital in the United States.
1755 - Severndroog and other key towns on the coast of India were taken by the British.
1808 - Judge Jesse Fell experimentally burned anthracite coal to keep his Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania home warm on this winter day. He showed how cleanly and cheaply the coal burned as heating fuel. As a result, that area of northeast Pennsylvania would become an important coal mining area for generations. Those who came to the area to work the coal mines were called ‘coal crackers’.
1812 - Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry signed a law changing the state's electoral boundaries to ensure a Republican majority. The move gave rise to the term "gerrymandering."
1858 - Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, originally Marie-Bernarde Soubirous, first saw a vision of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, France, leading to the foundation of the shrine of Lourdes.
1861 - President-elect Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary, left Springfield, Illinois on a train bound for Washington, D.C.
1873 - Amadeo, king of Spain, abdicated, leading to the proclamation of the first Spanish republic.
1888 - Lobengula, King of the Matabeleland in southern Africa, entered into an agreement with the British government on mineral rights.
1889 - The Japanese constitution was granted, with a two-chamber parliament, but the Emperor retained extensive powers.
1908 - Led by Thomas Edison, the major film-producing companies in the United States reached a patent rights agreement that they said would keep competitors out of the business permanently. The agreement ended a long series of suits and countersuits arising from Edison's claims that other companies were infringing the patent for the motion picture camera, which he was awarded in 1891.
1916 - The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the first municipal orchestra supported by taxes, gave its first concert.
1919 - Friedrich Ebert was elected first president of the German republic. He helped bring about the Weimar constitution that tried to unite Germany after World War One.
1922 - Honduras was declared an independent republic.
1929 - The Lateran Treaty, signed by Pietro Cardinal Gasparri and Benito Mussolini, guaranteed the independence of the State of Vatican City and recognized the sovereignty of the Holy See over it.
1938 - On Victor Records, Larry Clinton and his orchestra recorded "Martha". Bea Wain provided the vocals on the song.
1940 - For the first time, NBC radio presented "The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street". The Blue network series included many famous alumni such as: Dinah Shore and Zero Mostel. The host of the Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street was Milton Cross who would say things like, "A Bostonian looks like he’s smelling something. A New Yorker looks like he’s found it." The show was a combination of satire, blues and jazz and was built around the three Bs of music: Barrelhouse, Boogie Woogie and Blues.
1943 - General Dwight David Eisenhower was chosen to command the allied armies in Europe. The General’s efforts during World War II boosted his popularity, and less than 10 years later, he was elected President of the United States.
1945 - The Yalta Agreement was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
1949 - In New York City, Willie Pep recaptured the world featherweight boxing title by beating Sany Sadler.
1953 - Kid Gavilan retained his world welterwight boxing title in Chicago with a 10th-round TKO of previously-undefeated Chuck Davey.
1957 - In New York City, the NHL Players Association was formed.
1958 - Ruth Carol Taylor made her first flight on Mohawk Airlines from Ithaca, New York, to New York City, making her the first black woman to become a stewardess.
1960 - Talk-show host Jack Paar walked off his late-night television show in protest of censorship. The censors had repressed one of his jokes from the previous night's airing. Following a meeting with network officials, Paar agreed to return on March 7.
1964 - The Beatles performed their first live concert in the United States at the Coliseum in Washington, D.C.
1965 - Ringo Starr married his Liverpool sweetheart Maureen Cox at Caxton Hall, a London Registry office. John Lennon, George Harrison, and Brian Epstein attended the wedding.
1966 - Willie Mays became the highest-paid baseball player in both leagues when he signed a two-year contract with the San Francisco Giants for an estimated salary of $130,000 a year.
1968 - In New York, the new 20,000 seat Madison Square Garden officially opened, making it the fourth arena to be named Madison Square Garden. The arena for sports and entertainment opened with a gala hosted by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
1970 - Japan became the fourth country to put a satellite into orbit.
1971 - 40 nations signed a treaty banning atomic weapons from the sea bed.
1975 - Margaret Thatcher became the first woman leader of a British political party when she was elected leader of the Conservatives.
1975 - In the Malagasy Republic, President Richard Ratsimandrava was assassinated after only six days in office.
1976 - Britain and the Organization of African Unity recognized the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola.
1978 - China announced the ending of a 10-year ban on 70 renowned classical and modern international writers. Among those who had been banned, but would be read again in China, were Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Honoré de Balzac, Jonathan Swift, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain.
1979 - Iranian Prime Minister Dr. Shahpur Bakhtiar resigned after two days of fighting in the streets of Tehran.
1982 - ABC-TV’s presentation of "The Winds of War", the miniseries, came to an end. The 18-hour miniseries totalled $40 million in production costs, and, to that time, was the most-watched television program in history; topping another ABC presentation, Alex Haley’s "Roots". An estimated 140 million people watched one or more nights of the program.
1985 - Kent Hrbek became the first Minnesota Twins player ever to sign a $1 million contract. As the Twins celebrated their 24th year as a franchise of the American League, the first baseman signed a five-year, $6-million pact.
1986 - In an East-West exchange of prisoners in Berlin, Anatoly Shcharansky was released from the Soviet side.
1987 - North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith got career win 600, as the Tar Heels beat Wake Forest 94-85. At the time, Smith totalled 600 wins and 173 losses in his 26-year coaching career.
1989 - Reverend Barbara Lementine Harris, the first woman episcopal bishop was consecrated.
1990 - Nelson Mandela released from prison after serving more than 27 1/2 years of a life sentence for conspiracy.
1993 - Former prime minister Bettino Craxi resigned as leader of Italy's Socialists over a corruption scandal that had rocked the government.
1994 - The United Nations commander in Sarajevo accused renegade troops of trying to sabotage a ceasefire in the city but warring Muslims and Serbs began to turn in some of their heavy weapons.
1994 - Five astronauts and a cosmonaut returned to Earth aboard the Space Shutttle Discovery after the first joint United States-Russian space shuttle mission.
1996 - A crowd of up to one million turned out for Pope John Paul II's last mass of his Latin American tour.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Feb 12, 2005 7:21:37 GMT -5
1429 - The French were defeated by the English at the Battle of the Herrings (or Rouvray).
1554 - Lady Jane Grey, queen of England for nine days in 1553, was executed for high treason.
1733 - Led by English philanthropist James Edward Oglethorpe, the first Georgia colonists arrived at Savannah.
1818 - Chile's independence from Spain was proclaimed in Santiago.
1832 - The Galapagos Islands were incorporated as part of Ecuador.
1851 - Edward Hargraves discovered gold at Summerhill Creek in New South Wales, triggering the Australian gold rush.
1878 - Frederick Winthrop Thayer of Massachusetts and the captain of the Harvard University Baseball Club, received a patent for his baseball catcher's mask.
1880 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the National Croquet League was organized.
1895 - China surrendered at the Battle of Weihaiwei, ending the Sino-Japanese War.
1899 - Germany bought the Pacific islands of Marianas, Caroline and Pelew from Spain.
1908 - The famous, New York-to-Paris automobile race started via Seattle and Yokohama, Japan. The race began in Times Square, New York City, with six automobiles entered in the race. After 170 days, 88 of which he spent driving, George Schuster won.
1912 - The Manchu dynasty under Pu Yi abdicated in China and a provisional republic was established under Sun Yat-sen.
1918 - As an attempt to conserve coal, all theatres in New York City were shut down.
1922 - Indian Nationalist Mohandas Gandhi's campaign of civil disobedience was suspended amid a rising tide of violence.
1924 - Tutankhamen's sarcophagus was opened to reveal his coffin, 15 months after the tomb was first discovered.
1924 - Bandleader Paul Whiteman presented his symphonic jazz at New York's Aeolian Hall. The concert was the first public performance of George Gershwin’s "Rhapsody In Blue" with Gershwing, himself, at the piano.
1924 - Calvin Coolidge, known as the ‘Silent President’, gave the first presidential political speech on radio from New York City. The speech was broadcast on five radio stations, and some five million people tuned in to hear the President.
1924 - "The Eveready Hour" became the first sponsored network program on radio. The first sponsor was the National Carbon Company.
1940 - Mutual Radio first broadcast the comic-strip hero, "Superman". For six years the identity of the man from Krypton was unknown to listeners. Eventually word got out that Superman’s voice was that of Bud Collyer, who later hosted the television program, "To Tell the Truth" on CBS.
1942 - On Decca Records, Mildred Bailey recorded "More Than You Know".
1950 - The European Broadcasting Union was founded.
1953 - An interplanetary space station aimed at Venus was launched from the Soviet Union.
1953 - The Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Israel after a bomb exploded at the Soviet Legation in Tel Aviv.
1954 - At age 59, Pierre Etchebaster, the reigning world open-court tennis champion for 16 years, retired.
1961 - An interplanetary space station aimed at Venus was launched from the Soviet Union.
1961 - Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first prime minister, was reported to have been murdered by Katangan separatists. The exact date and circumstances of his death were never discovered.
1964 - The Beatles ended a successful American tour by playing two concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
1968 - Ramparts published Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice.
1968 - Singer and famed guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, was awarded an honorary high school diploma from Garfield High School in Seattle, Washington. It was the same school he dropped out of at age 14.
1972 - Al Green’s "Let’s Stay Together" took the top spot from "American Pie" on the music charts. The record stayed at #1 for one week, before Nilsson’s "Without You" knocked it out. In 1980, Green returned to his gospel roots, and is now a minister in Memphis, Tennessee. Green recorded 14 hit songs, six of which made it to the Top 10.
1973 - The first group of United States prisoners of war were freed from North Vietnam.
1973 - The State of Ohio became the first in the United States to go metric, posting metric distance signs along Interstate 71. The new signs showed the distance in miles and kilometers. Though standard in many nations, the never caught on in the United States.
1975 - The Stepford Wives, starring Katharine Ross, a film about women in a small town being turned into passive robots, opened to theaters.
1976 - Actor Sal Mineo died at age 37 after being stabbed outside of his apartment by an unknown assailant. It was rumored in Hollywood that Mineo, who had performed in recent homosexual roles, and because the knifing occurred near the notorious Sunset Strip, that his death was linked to a sadomasochistic ritual or the vengeful act of a gay lover. For more than a year, police pursued every lead in the case until it was reported to them that Lionel Williams, a convict in Michigan, was overheard boasting about killing Mineo. Williams was later convicted of Mineo's murder through the evidence of forensic science. Despite the rumors, Mineo was the victim of a random mugging. The actor would be best remembered for his performances in the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause and the 1960 epic film Exodus. For the latter, he received a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor Award.
1979 - In Rhodesia, 59 people died when an Air Rhodesia civilian plane was shot down by Nationalist guerrillas.
1980 - Former West German chancellor Willy Brandt delivered his report to the United Nations secretary-general on the need for the reshaping of the relationship between rich and poor countries.
1983 - Jazz composer and pianist Eubie Blake died at age 100 in New York City. Blake's repertoire was huge, and one of his best known compositions was "I'm Just Wild About Harry".
1985 - Johnny Carson surprised "Tonight Show" viewers and live audience members by shaving his beard. Carson joked: "I had to do it when a little old lady said that she had confused me for one of the Smith Brothers." The studio audience was silent, until Johnny, timing it perfectly said, "You know, the cough drop guys." Laughter.
1986 - The Channel Tunnel treaty between Britain and France was signed.
1990 - Carmen Lawrence became premier of Western Australia, the first woman premier of an Australian state.
1992 - Thousands of people celebrated as Mongolia's new non-communist constitution took effect.
1993 - Ex-President Moussa Traore of Mali and three senior army officers were sentenced to death after a court found them guilty of mass murder in 1991.
1994 - Two thieves stole one of the world's most famous paintings, "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, in Oslo.
1994 - Lawyers for United States figure skater Tonya Harding and the United States Olympic Committee agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the skater, allowing her to skate at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.
1994 - At least 14 political parties registered for South Africa's April elections.
1994 - More than 100 people trekked the English Channel Tunnel in a sponsored walk for charity. They became the first humans to walk from France to Britain since the Ice Age.
1996 - Yasser Arafat took office as the first Palestinian president.
1997 - Hwang Jang-yop, a senior adviser to North Korean president Kim Jong-il, defected to Seoul's Beijing embassy.
1998 - The handwritten lyrics to Elton John's funeral tribute to Princess Diana, the revised balled "Candle in the Wind 1997," sold for $442,500 at a Beverly Hills auction benefitting the Princess's charities. The lyrics were revised from the 1970's hit tribute to Marilyn Monroe, and were both written by Elton's longtime collaborator, Bernie Taupin.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Feb 13, 2005 7:00:59 GMT -5
1542 - Catherine Howard, fifth wife of King Henry VIII of England, was executed for adultery.
1635 - The Boston Latin School was established, making it the first public school in the United States.
1668 - Under the Treaty of Lisbon, Spain recognized the independence of Portugal.
1689 - William of Orange and his wife Mary, daughter of the deposed James II, were declared joint sovereigns of Great Britain and Ireland.
1692 - John Campbell, at the head of an English force, led the Glencoe massacre against the Macdonalds in Scotland.
1741 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, "The American Magazine", the first magazine in the United States, was published. It got the "first" title by beating Benjamin Franklin’s "General Magazine" off the presses by 3 days.
1788 - In Britain, the trial of Warren Hastings began. Governor-general of India, he was charged with high crimes and misdemeanors in the case which took seven years to complete.
1793 - Britain, Prussia, Austria, Holland, Spain and Sardinia formed an alliance against France.
1858 - Sir Richard Burton and Captain John Speke became the first Europeans to discover Lake Tanganyika in East Africa.
1867 - Johann Strauss’ "Blue Danube Waltz" was first played at a public concert in Vienna, Austria.
1875 - Edna Kanouse, of Watertown, Wisconsin, gave birth to the United States' first quintuplets. Within 2 weeks, sadly, all five of the baby boys died.
1889 - Norman Coleman became the first United States Secretary of Agriculture, after previously holding the title of Commissioner of Agriculture.
1895 - The Lumiere brothers were granted a patent in France for their machine "to film and view chronophotographic proofs" -- one of the earliest projectors.
1914 - The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) formed in New York City. The society was founded to protect member's copyrighted musical compositions.
1920 - The National Negro Baseball League was organized.
1920 - Switzerland was admitted to the League of Nations.
1939 - Virginia Payne, the popular voice of "Ma Perkins", became a new character on NBC’s soap opera, "The Carter’s of Elm Street". Virginia played Mrs. Carter.
1939 - It was announced to the press that George Cukor was fired as director of the movie Gone With the Wind, on the premise that Cukor was not a "man's director." Not only was Cukor's homosexuality quietly known by many in Hollywood, but according to Kenneth Anger's book "Hollywood Babylon," Clark Gable had engaged in some bisexual acts when he was a young struggling actor, something that Cukor was aware of. It disturbed Gable to be around a man who had unsavory information about a past he wanted to forget and could jeopardize his virile, heterosexual image. Gable said openly that he felt that Cukor was giving too much attention to the development of Vivien Leigh's character of Scarlett O'Hara, at the expense of his own role. Gable was a strong force in removing Cukor from the film as director.
1940 - Earl "Fatha" Hines and his orchestra recorded "Boogie Woogie on St. Louis Blues" on Bluebird records.
1945 - Allied fire bombing caused a firestorm that destroyed Dresden, Germany and killed 135,000 people.
1945 - Budapest fell to the Russians after a 50-day siege in which 50,000 Germans were killed.
1947 - "Family Theatre" was first heard on Mutual radio. Jim Ameche and Loretta Young starred in the first episode, "Flight From Home".
1953 - Senator Edwin Johnson warned major league baseball owners not to televise their games nationwide. The Senator said broadcasting the games to a national audience would threaten the survival of minor league baseball. Major league owners did not share the Senator's opinion, and games, especially those on NBC, had a large following.
1965 - At Lake Placid, New York, sixteen-year-old Peggy Fleming won the women's senior figure skating title. Fleming would go on to win an Olympic gold medal, and as a professional skater, signed a $500,000 contract for commercial endorsements that lasted for many years. She appeared in television specials and performed with both the "Ice Follies" and "Holiday on Ice". She was also elected to the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame and the Olympic Hall of Fame.
1971 - The Osmonds, a family singing group from Ogden, Utah, started a five-week stay at the top of the pop music charts with "One Bad Apple". The song, featuring little Donny Osmond, also showcased the talent of older brothers Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay Osmond. They were regulars on Andy Williams’ television show from 1962-1967. The group got their start in 1959 as a religious and barbershop quartet. Together, the Osmonds had 10 singles in four years, and four of the songs were top ten hits.
1974 - Author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970, was deported from the Soviet Union and deprived of Soviet citizenship.
1975 - Seven months after their invasion of Cyprus, the Turks proclaimed the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in the part of the island they occupied.
1983 - A fire in a cinema in Turin, Italy, killed 64 people.
1985 - After toppong the 1300 mark in earlier trading sessions, the Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record high of 1297.92. For the day, the market went on to post an increase of 21.31 points.
1990 - Roaring crowds gave Nelson Mandela a hero's welcome when he returned to the black township of Soweto with a pledge to end "the dark hell of apartheid."
1991 - Up to 400 civilians, mainly women and children, were feared dead after United States bombs or missiles smashed into a packed Baghdad air raid shelter.
1992 - Ford Motor Comapany reported its biggest ever loss, $2.3 billion.
1992 - Oakland Athletics star José Canseco rammed his Porsche intentionally into his estranged wife Esther's BMW after a dispute. Local new reports also said he spat on her windshield. Esther Canseco, age 25 and a former Miss Miami beauty queen, did not want to press charges. However, in a criminal assault case, the state had the option of pressing ahead without her cooperation or consent.
1994 - Up to 150 illegal Burmese workers, many of them women and children, were feared dead after a ferry boat taking them home capsized off Thailand.
1994 - The ruling Malawi Congress Party elected former detainee Gwanda Chakuamba as President Kamuzu Banda's virtual successor, naming him deputy to the Malawi's supreme ruler of 30 years.
1997 - The Dow-Jones Index of 30 major industrial stocks topped the 7,000 mark for the first time.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Feb 14, 2005 7:42:45 GMT -5
1014 - Pope Benedict VIII was crowned Henry II as Holy Roman Emperor.
1400 - King Richard II of England, deposed from the throne the previous year, died mysteriously in Pontefract Castle.
1477 - The world's first known valentine was sent to John Paston from Margery Brews, addressed "To my right welbelovyd Voluntyne."
1779 - British explorer Captain James Cook was murdered in Hawaii.
1797 - The British fleet, under Admirals John Jervis and Horatio Nelson, defeated the Spanish at the battle of St. Vincent off Portugal.
1803 - Moses Coats received a patent for the apple parer.
1849 - Matthew Brady of New York City took the first photograph of a United States President. The subject was President James Polk.
1859 - Oregon was admitted as the 33rd state.
1893 - Hawaii was annexed to the United States by treaty, but the treaty was withdrawn by President Grover Cleveland.
1899 - The use of voting machines in federal elections were approved by the United States Congress.
1912 - In Groton, Connecticut, the first diesel engine submarine was commissioned.
1912 - Arizona was admitted as the the 48th state.
1918 - The film, "Tarzan of the Apes", was released. It was based on stories written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The movie centered on 10-year-old Gordon Griffith who played the young Tarzan, the older Tarzan was played by Elmo Lincoln. Famous baseball player, Lou Gehrig, turned down an offer to play Tarzan. Four Tarzan actors have won Olympic medals: Johnny Weissmuller, Herman Brix, Buster Crabbe and Glen Morris. Johnny Weissmuller made the Tarzan yell famous.
1920 - The League of Women Voters was formed in Chicago.
1922 - Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi began the first regular radio broadcasting transmission from England.
1929 - Al Capone's henchmen, in order to prevent the hijacking of whiskey shipments, killed seven members of the Bugs Moran gang in the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" in a Chicago garage.
1932 - The United States won its first bobsled competition, held at the Winter Olympic Games at Lake Placid, New York, over twelve other teams.
1933 - The first telephone speaking clock came into operation in the Paris area.
1939 - The German navy launched its battleship Bismarck.
1940 - The first porpoise to be born in captivity was delivered at Marineland in Florida.
1941 - Frank Leahy was named as the head football coach at Notre Dame.
1943 - In World War II, the Russians captured Rostov, Voroshilovgrad and Krasny Sulin from the Germans.
1946 - A computer began working at the University of Pennsylvania, taking seconds to do calculations, which normally took hours. It was called ENIAC or Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer.
1950 - A 30-year treaty was signed between the Soviet Union and China in Moscow.
1956 - The 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party opened, during which Nikita Khrushchev denounced the policies of Joseph Stalin.
1957 - Lionel Hampton’s only major musical work, "King David", debuted at New York’s Town Hall. Dimitri Mitropoulos conducted the four-part symphony jazz suite.
1958 - King Faisal of Iraq and King Hussein of Jordan proclaimed the merger of their kingdoms in the Arab Federation, with King Faisal as head of state and King Hussein his deputy.
1962 - A televised tour of the White House, led by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and hosted by Charles Collingwood, was broadcast simultaneously by CBS and NBC. The tour was watched by an estimated 46,500,000 viewers, offering them their first opportunity to see many of the rooms of the President's home. The First Lady was praised on her astute knowledge of the antique furniture in the White House, as she explained the history of many of the pieces during the tour.
1963 - Harold Wilson was elected leader of the British Labour Party.
1966 - Rick Mount of Lebanon, Indiana, became the first high school, male athlete pictured on "Sports Illustrated"'s cover.
1966 - Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia 76ers set a National Basketball Association record when, after 7 seasons of pro basketball, he hit a career high of 20,884 points.
1972 - The musical, "Grease", opened at New York's Eden Theatre. The play later moved to Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre where, with 3,388 performances, it became the longest-running musical to date. A hit movie based on the play starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John produced the hit songs: "Grease" by Frankie Valli, "You’re the One That I Want" and "Summer Nights" by Travolta and Newton-John.
1972 - The Soviet unmanned spacecraft Luna 20 was launched to the moon.
1979 - Twenty-year-old rookie, Don Maloney, of the New York Rangers, scored his first goal in the National Hockey League on hisfirst NHL shot ever.
1979 - The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolphe Dubs, was killed when security forces tried to free him from kidnappers.
1979 - The United States embassy in Iran was stormed by demonstrators, holding the ambassador and staff captive for several hours.
1980 - As Walter Cronkite announced his retirement from the "CBS Evening News", Dan Rather was chosen to replace television’s most trusted journalist. Cronkite announced Rather would take over the anchor desk in 1981.
1984 - In Sydney, Australia, British rocker Elton John married Renata Blauel.
1987 - The largest crowd to see an NBA game was at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, as 57,745 people watched the Detroit Pistons beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 125-107.
1987 - Dick Baldwin beat Adolph Rupp’s record for the most college career coaching wins as his Broome County Community College won game number 876. Baldwin was with the Upstate New York college for forty years.
1989 - Ayatollah Khomeini, in a fatwa, ordered the execution of British author Salman Rushdie after the publication of his novel, "Satanic Verses."
1989 - Kidnappers escaped with up to $2.5 million ransom after releasing former Belgian Prime Minister Paul Vanden Boeynants from a month of captivity.
1989 - Union Carbide Corp. accepted an Indian Supreme Court ruling that it pay $470 million in compensation for the 1984 Bhopal poison gas disaster, in which poisonous clouds from a Carbide fertilizer plant enveloped nearly 20 square miles and killed thousands in the immediate area.
1990 - An Indian Airlines Airbus crashed near Bangalore airport in southern India, killing 90 of the 146 people on board.
1992 - The European Community and the seven-nation European Free Trade Association struck a final deal, clearing the way for the creation of the world's biggest single market.
1995 - Peru declared a cease-fire at the end of a 19-day-old border war with Ecuador.
1996 - A New York jury found that Random House not only would not get back the $1.3 million advance it gave to Joan Collins, but that it would have to shell out more. The 62-year-old actress had finished one steamy novel promised to Random House, The Ruling Passion, but failed to deliver the second, Hell Hath No Fury, in complete shape. The publisher called the manuscripts unreadable trash, rejected both, and sued for return of the advance. The former Dynasty star countersued, asking for the rest of the contracted $4 million. The weeklong trial focused mostly on whether the two books were sexy potboilers or unreadable trash. Collins' unusual 1990 contract, put together by the late, legendary agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar, guaranteed payment on delivery, regardless of the quality.
1996 - An armed North Korean demanding political asylum shot his way into the Russian embassy compound in Pyongyang, killing three.
1996 - The artist formerly known as Prince, age 37, returned to his hometown of Minneapolis and, under his given name Prince Rogers Nelson, married his backup dancer Mayte Jannell Garcia, age 22. Church workers were not allowed to watch the 40-minute candlelight service in the sanctuary, which was decorated with pink and white roses. It was the first marriage for both. The eccentric artist had announced a few years earlier that he would no longer use the name "Prince", and would be known by an unpronounceable sign that merges the symbols for male and female.
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Post by JJC7655... aka JJ on Feb 15, 2005 8:08:57 GMT -5
1758 - Mustard was advertised for the first time in the America.
1763 - The Treaty of Hubertusburg was signed, ending hostilities between Austria and Prussia in the Seven Years' War.
1799 - Printed ballots were authorized to be used in Pennsylvania elections. Originally these ballots, still used in smaller municipalities across the United States, were called "vest-pocket tickets". Like the ballots of today, the ballot ticket slid into a heavy-paper pocket which fit in a vest pocket.
1842 - Adhesive postage stamps were first used by the City Dispatch Post (Office) in New York City.
1882 - The first shipment of frozen mutton left New Zealand for England aboard SS Dunedin, arriving on 25 May.
1898 - American battleship "Maine" was blown up while at anchor in Havana harbor at 9:40 pm. The ship sank quickly and 260 members of its crew were lsot. "Remember the Maine" became the war cry and a formal declaration of war against Spain followed on April 25.
1922 - The Permanent Court of International Justice, sitting at The Hague in the Netherlands, held its first session.
1932 - George Burns and Gracie Allen debuted on CBS radio's "The Guy Lombardo Show". The couple was so popular, they would soon have their own "Burns & Allen Show". Before moving to television, George and Gracie continued on radio for 18 years.
1933 - Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian-born anarchist, failed in his attempt to assassinate United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami.
1941 - Duke Ellington and his orchestra recorded one a big band classics, "Take the "A" Train", at Victor Record's Hollywood, California studio.
1942 - In Singapore, a British-led allied force of some 85,000 troops, bombarded and cut off from support and supplies after a weeklong battle, surrendered to a Japanese invading force less than half its size.
1943 - On ABC radio, "My True Story" was heard for the first time. The program lasted for 17 years and was presented in cooperation with "True Story" magazine.
1944 - The monastery at Monte Cassino in Italy was bombed by Allied aircraft.
1946 - The Philadelphia Phillies signed 33-year old Edith Houghton as a baseball scout; making her the first female scout in the major leagues.
1953 - Tenley Albright, age 17, became the first American to win the women’s world figure skating championship at a competition in Davos, Switzerland.
1958 - "Get A Job", by The Silhouettes, hit #1 on the music Tunedex, staying there for two weeks. One week earlier, the number one song was "Sugartime", by The McGuire Sisters, which was definitely was not classified as rock ’n’ roll. "Get A Job" was ousted by "Tequila", an instrumental by a studio group known as The Champs.
1962 - For an all time high price of $10,200,000, CBS-TV bought the exclusive rights to college football games from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
1965 - Canada unveiled its new red and white Maple Leaf flag, as a replacement for the old Red Ensign standard.
1965 - Singer Nat "King" Cole, the first black to have his own television show, died of lung cancer in Santa Monica, California. During his singing career, Cole had many hit recordings, most notably Mona Lisa, Ramblin' Rose, Smile, and Unforgettable, and he earned a Grammy for Midnight Flyer. Twenty-six years after his death in 1991, his daughter, Natalie, re-released Unforgettable with her singing duet with the previously-recorded singing of her deceased father. The song topped the charts, becoming a major hit all over again. Cole made a few films during his career, which included St. Louis Blues and Cat Ballou .
1971 - Britain changed over to decimal currency from pounds, shillings and pence.
1978 - Boxer Leon Spinks beat Muhammad Ali to win the heavyweight boxing crown. Spinks won in a split decision over Ali, who held the title for seven years. The 24-year-old challenger only had seven professional fights to his credit when he won the bout held in the Pavilion at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.
1981 - Blues guitarist Michael Bloomfield died of a suspected heroin overdose in his car in San Francisco, California.
1982 - In the 3rd round of a Reno, Nevada fight, Sugar Ray Leonard, welterweight boxing champion, knocked out Bruce Finch. Leonard was injured in the second round and had to have retinal surgery in May. In November 1982, he retired for the first time, but returned to the ring in 1984.
1982 - Television actor and Screen Actors Guild president Ed Asner, along with other actors, held a Washington press conference. The meeting was to announce a $25,000 contribution for leftist rebels in El Salvador to provide medical aid to the people, who Asner asserted were being ignored by the military government. Charlton Heston, former SAG president, openly criticized Asner for failing to distinguish that he acted as an individual in the conference, not as the elected head of the 50,000-member actors' union. Asner later admitted to his mistake.
1982 - 84 people died in an oil rig disaster off Newfoundland, Canada.
1985 - The Center for Disease Control stated more than half of all nine-year-olds in the United States showed no signs of tooth decay. Fluoride credited for the figures.
1986 - A first in the music biz, as Whitney Houston reached #1 on the music charts with her single, "How Will I Know", which replaced a song recorded by her first cousin, Dionne Warwick ("That’s What Friends Are For"). Whitney is singer Cissy Houston's daughter.
1989 - The USSR's target of withdrawal of all Soviet troops from Afghanistan by this date was essentially met, ending more than nine years of intervention in a civil war.
1990 - Britain and Argentina restored full diplomatic ties, affirming reconciliation after their 1982 war for the Falkland Islands.
1992 - Two Spaniards completed the first east-west balloon flight across the Atlantic when they arrived in Venezuela from Spain.
1993 - The Slovak parliament elected economist Michal Kovac as newly-independent Slovakia's first president.
1994 - North Korea ended a yearlong standoff with the International Atomic Energy Agency, after it allowed the agency's inspectors to check seven declared nuclear plants.
1994 - Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, the "Rostov Ripper," who raped and butchered more than 50 victims, was executed after losing an 11th-hour appeal for clemency.
1996 - An ammunition dump at the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul blew up, killing at least 60 people.
1996 - The British government said a three-year inquiry into arms sales to Iraq before the Gulf War had cleared ministers of conspiracy and had revealed no official cover-up.
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