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Today in History ~ February 17
Events1568 - Holy Roman Emperor agrees to pay tribute to the Sultan for peace
1598 - Boris Godunov chosen Tsar of Russia
1621 - Miles Standish appointed 1st commander of Plymouth colony
1634 - William Prynne tried in Star Chamber for publishing "Histrio-masti"
1691 - Thomas Neale granted British patent for American postal service
1776 - 1st volume of Gibbon's "Decline & Fall of Roman Empire" published
1801 - After 35 indecisive ballots, the House breaks electoral college tie, chooses Thomas Jefferson as president over Aaron Burr [H]
1817 - Baltimore became the first U.S. city with gas burning street lights.
1836 - HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin leaves Tasmania
1859 - Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Un Ballo in maschera" premieres in Napoli
1864 - Confederate sub "HL Hunley" sinks Union ship "Housatonic"
1865 - -18] Battle of Charleston SC
1865 - Columbia, SC burns down during Civil War [H]
1867 - 1st ship passes through Suez Canal
1870 - Mississippi becomes 9th state readmitted to US after Civil War
1876 - Sardines 1st canned (Julius Wolff, Eastport, Maine)
1878 - Silver dollars made legal
1880 - Tsar Alexander II of Russia survives an assassination attempt
1883 - A Ashwell patents free toilet in London
1904 - Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly," premieres in Milan
1906 - Theodore Roosevelt's daughter Alice marries in the White House
1911 - 1st hydroplane flight to & from a ship (Glenn Curtiss, San Diego)
1913 - NY Armory Show introduces Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp to US public
1926 - Avalanche buries 75 in Sap Gulch, Bingham, Utah, 40 die
1931 - 1st telecast of a sporting event in Japan (baseball)
1932 - Irving Berlin's musical "Face the Music," premieres in NYC
1933 - 1st issue of "Newsweek" magazine published
1933 - Blondie Boopadoop married Dagwood Bumstead in the comic Blondie
1933 - US Senate accept Blaine Act -- ending prohibition
1934 - 1st high school auto driving course offered (State College, Penn)
1938 - 1st public experimental demonstration of Baird color TV (London)
1940 - British destroyers board German Altmark off Norway
1943 - Dutch churches protest to Artur Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews
1944 - Battle of Eniwetok Atoll begins; US victory on Feb 22
1944 - US begins night bombing of Truk
1947 - Voice of America begins broadcasting to USSR [H]
1949 - Chaim Weitzman elected 1st president of Israel
1950 - 31 die in a train crash in Rockville Center, NY
1953 - Baseball star/pilot Ted Williams uninjured as his plane shot down in Korea
1957 - Suez Canal reopens
1958 - Comic strip "BC" 1st appears
1959 - 1st weather satellite launched, Vanguard 2, 9.8 kg
1962 - Beach Boys introduced a new musical style with their hit "Surfin"
1964 - US Supreme court rules - 1 man 1 vote (Westberry v Sanders)
1967 - Beatles release "Penny Lane" & "Strawberry Fields"
1969 - Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash record an album (never released)
1969 - Golda Meir sworn in as Israel's 1st female prime minister
1970 - Joni Mitchell's final concert (Royal Albert Hall)
1970 - Robert Marasco's "Child's Play," premieres in NYC
1972 - President Nixon leaves Washington DC for China
1979 - In response to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, China launched an invasion of Vietnam.
1985 - 3rd person to receive an artificial heart (Murray Haydon)
1986 - Johnson and Johnson halted production of all non-prescription drugs in capsule form following the death of a Peekskill, N.Y., woman from cyanide-laced Extra-Strength Tylenol.
1991 - Iraq's foreign minister headed to Moscow to discuss a diplomatic end to the Persian Gulf War.
1993 - Haitian ferry boat capsize in storm, 800-2,000 die
1995 - Colin Fergusson found guilty of killing 6 people on the LIRR in NY
1995 - Tiger mgr Sparky Anderson takes unpaid leave due to baseball strike
1995 - Federal judge allows lawsuit claiming US tobacco makers knew nicotine was addictive and manipulated its levels to keep customers hooked. Who would have though!
1998 - Diane Zamora, 20, Naval Academy cadet convicted of capital murder
1999 - Israeli guards killed four Kurdish protesters when they stormed the Israeli consulate in Berlin. The Kurds suspected Israel had helped Turkey capture Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan two days earlier in Kenya.
2002 - A series of raids by communist rebels left 137 dead in Nepal.
Birthdays Today
1774 - Raphaelle Peale, US, painter (After the Rain-1823)
1796 - Giovanni Pacini, composer
1820 - Henri Vieuxtemps, Verviers Belgium, composer/teacher (Brussels Cons)
1844 - A Montgomery Ward, found mail order business (Montgomery Ward)
1854 - Friedrich A Krupp, German arms manufacturer
1874 - Thomas J Watson, US, representative/founder (IBM)
1889 - H.L. (Haroldson Lafayette) Hunt (industrialist oil multi-millionaire )
1902 - Marian Anderson, Phila, operatic contralto (banned by D.A.R.)
1908 - Red (Walter) Barber (sportscaster: The redhead in the catbird seat: voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers; Baseball Hall of Famer)
1909 - Marjorie Lawrence, Australia, soprano (Venus-Tannhauser)
1913 - Oskar Danon, composer/conductor
1913 - Rene Leibowitz, composer/conductor
1914 - Arthur Kennedy (actor: The President's Plane is Missing, Some Came Running, Lawrence of Arabia, Anzio)
1914 - Wayne (DeWayne) Morris (actor: Paths of Glory, Task Force)
1923 - Buddy (Boniface) DeFranco (clarinetist, bandleader: won all modern jazz music polls in the early 1950s)
1924 - Margaret Truman (Daughter of 33rd U.S. President Harry S Truman; author Murder at FBI)/singer
1925 - Hal Holbrook (actor: Mark Twain, All the President's Men, Sorry Wrong Number, Midway, Our Town, The Firm, Wall Street)
1929 - Chaim Potok (rabbi, doctor of philosophy, author: The Chosen, The Promise, My Name is Asher Lev)
1929 - Yasser Arafat, PLO-leader (Nobel 1994)
1931 - Roger Craig (baseball: San Francisco Giants manager)
1933 - Bobby Lewis (pianist, singer: Tossing and Turnin', One Track Mind)
1934 - Alan (Arthur) Bates (actor: An Unmarried Woman, Women in Love, Zorba)
1934 - Willie Kirkland (baseball)
1936 - Jim Brown (Pro Football Hall of Famer, actor: The Dirty Dozen, El Condor, Ice Station Zebra, Crack House)
1941 - Gene Pitney (singer: Town Without Pity, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Only Love Can Break A Heart, It Hurts To Be In Love; wrote: Hello Mary Lou, He's a Rebel)
1945 - Zina Bethune (actress, singer)
1947 - Dodie (Geraldine) Stevens (singer: Pink Shoe Laces)
1961 - Michael "Air" Jordan, Bkln NY, NBA guard/forward (Chicago Bulls)
Famous deaths
0364 - Flavius Jovianus, Christian emperor of Rome (363-64), dies at about 32
1600 - Giordano Bruno, advocate of Copernican theory, burned at stake by Catholic Church
1612 - Ernst of Bayern, prince/bishop of Luik/archbish Cologne, dies at 57
1652 - Gregorio Allegri, Italian singer/composer (Miserere), dies at about 67
1654 - Michael Lohr, composer, dies at 62
1673 - Moliare, [Jean Baptiste Poquelin], French author (Tartuffe, Le Malade Imaginaire)
1732 - Louis Marchand, composer, dies at 63
1796 - James Macpherson, poet
1827 - Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss educator, dies at 81
1856 - Heinrich Heine, German poet, dies at 58 in Paris
1909 - Geronimo, Apache leader died while under military confinement at Fort Sill, Okla. about 79
1917 - Edmund Bishop, English secretary of Thomas Carlyle, dies at 70
1962 - Bruno Walter, symphony conductor (NY Philharmonic), dies at 85
1970 - Alfred Newman, US composer, dies at 69
1982 - Theolonious S Monk, US, jazz pianist/composer (Blue Monk), dies at 64
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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