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Today in History ~ February 26
Events1531 - Earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal kills 20,000-30,000
1616 - Catholixc Inquisition delivers injunction to Galileo
1732 - 1st mass celebrated in 1st American Catholic church, Philadelphia
1773 - Construction authorized for Walnut St jail (Phila) (1st solitary)
1804 - Vice-admiral William Bligh ends siege of Fort Amsterdam, Holland
1815 - Napoleon & 1,200 leave Elba to start 100-day re-conquest of France
1832 - Polish constitution abolished/replaced by Czar Nicholas I
1848 - 2nd French Republic forms
1848 - Marx & Engels publish "Communist Manifesto"
1852 - British frigate Birkenhead sinks off South Africa-458 die
1862 - Battle of Woodburn, KY
1863 - Lincoln signs National Currency Act
1863 - The Cherokee Indian National Council leaves the Confederacy to join the Union
1866 - New York Legislature forms NYC Metropolitan Board of Health
1869 - 15th Amendment guaranteeing right to vote sent to states
1869 - Franz Schubert's 4th Symphony ("Tragic") premieres
1870 - 1st NYC subway line opens (pneumatic powered)
1885 - Congress of Berlin gives Congo to Belgium & Nigeria to England
1891 - Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler," premieres in Oslo
1893 - 2 Clydesdale horses set record by pulling 48 tons on a sledge, Mich
1907 - Royal Oil & Shell merge to form British Petroleum (BP)
1907 - US Congress raise their own salaries to $7500
1915 - Malancourt, Argonnen 1st German flame-thrower
1916 - Germans sink French transport ship Provence II, killing 930
1916 - Mutual signs Charles Chaplin to a film contract
1918 - Stands at Hong Kong Jockey Club collapse & burn, killing 604
1919 - Acadia National Park forms (as Lafayette N P), Maine
1919 - Congress decrees Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.
1924 - Trial against Hitler in Munich begins
1929 - Pres Calvin Coolidge establishes Grand Teton National Park [H]
1930 - 1st red & green traffic lights installed (Manhattan NYC)
1935 - Germany begins Luftwaffe operation, under former air hero and Reichsmarshall Herman Goering [H]
1935 - NY Yankees release Babe Ruth, he signs with Boston Braves
1935 - RADAR-Radio Detection & Ranging 1st demonstrated (Robert Watson-Watt)
1936 - Hitler introduces Ferdinand Porsche's "Volkswagen"
1940 - The U.S. Air Defense Command was created.
1941 - Vichy France makes religious education in school mandatory
1942 - German battle cruiser Gneisenau deactivated by bomb
1942 - WW II Navy flier Don Mason sends message "Sighted sub sank same"
1942 - Werner Heisenberg informs Nazis about uranium project "Wunderwaffen"
1945 - Very heavy bombing on Berlin by 8th US Air Force
1950 - Leonard Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety," premieres in NYC
1951 - 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, limiting a president to two terms of office, was ratified.
1952 - PM Winston Churchill announces Britain has its own atomic bomb
1953 - Allen W Dulles, promoted from deputy to 5th director of CIA
1954 - 1st typesetting machine (photo engraving) used, Quincy Mass
1954 - Michigan rep Ruth Thompson (R) introduces legislation to ban mailing "obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy" phonograph (rock & roll) records
1962 - Arthur Kopit's "Oh, Dad, Poor Dad . . .," premieres in NYC
1962 - After becoming the first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn told a joint meeting of Congress, "Exploration and the pursuit of knowledge have always paid dividends in the long run."
1962 - US Supreme court disallows race separation on public transportation
1970 - Beatles release "Beatles Again" aka "Hey Jude" album
1972 - Dam break in WV kills 107
1972 - Slag heap dam collapses above Buffalo Creek WV, kills 125
1975 - 1st televised kidney transplant (Today Show)
1978 - Ira Levin's "Deathtrap," premieres in NYC
1979 - Last total eclipse of Sun in 20th century for continental US, cast a moving shadow 175 miles wide from Oregon to North Dakota before moving into Canada.
1981 - 3 Anglican missionaries detained in Iran since Aug 1980 are released
1984 - Last US marines in multinatl peacekeeping force in Lebanon left Beirut
1984 - Rev Jesse Jackson acknowledges that he called NYC, "Hymietown"
1984 - Robert Penn Warren, Pulitzer Prize winner, named 1st US poet laureate
1987 - Tower Commission probes Iran-Contra affair, declared White House chief of staff Donald Regan had "primary responsibility for the chaos"
1989 - "Jerome Robbins' Broadway" opens at Imperial Theater NYC for 634 performances
1990 - USSR agrees to withdraw all 73,500 troops from Czech by July, 1991
1991 - U.S. Marines entered Kuwait City as Iraqi troops retreated. Kuwaiti resistance leaders declared themselves in control of their capital, following nearly seven months of Iraqi occupation. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein announced on Baghdad Radio that he had ordered his forces to withdraw from Kuwait.
1992 - A U.N. report accused Iraq of systematic human rights violations including "brutal torture" and "widespread arbitrary and summary executions" during its occupation of Kuwait.
1992 - The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that sexually harassed students may sue to collect monetary damages from their schools and school officials.
1992 - The Supreme Court of Ireland cleared the way for a 14-year-old rape victim to leave the country for an abortion.
1993 - A powerful bomb built by a group of Islamic extremists exploded in the parking garage below the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 more. [H]
1994 - 11 members of the Branch Davidian religious cult were acquitted of murder and conspiracy charges stemming from the 1993 federal raid and siege at the compound near Waco, Texas.
1995 - London finance house of Barings collapse after losses in Singapore by trader Nick Leeson
1995 - China agreed to enforce copyright laws, thus avoiding threatened U.S tariffs on certain imports.
1996 - President Clinton moved to step up economic sanctions on Cuba in response to Cuba's downing of two unarmed airplanes belonging to a Cuban-American exile group, Brothers to the Rescue.
1997 - The Israeli cabinet approved development of a large Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, a traditionally Arab area. The action drew criticism from the Palestinian National Authority.
1997 - President Clinton defended White House fund-raising tactics as "entirely appropriate," a day after the disclosure of documents putting Clinton at the center of all-out fund-raising efforts.
1998 - A federal jury in Amarillo, Texas, ruled in favor of Oprah Winfrey in a lawsuit filed against her by Texas cattlemen. They said she had caused beef prices to fall with her 1996 talk show about "mad cow" disease.
2000 - Pope John Paul II visited Mount Sinai in Egypt, where he prayed for religious tolerance in a garden under the peak revered as the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments.
2001 - A U.N. tribunal convicted a Bosnian Croat political leader (Dario Kordic) and a military commander (Mario Cerkez) of war crimes for ordering the systematic murder and persecution of Muslim civilians during the Bosnian war.
Birthdays Today
1361 - Wenceslas of Bohemia, Holy Roman German emperor (1378-1400)
1675 - Guillaume Delisle, Paris France, geographer (Atlas Geographique)
1770 - Antoine Reicha, composer
1802 - Victor Hugo (author: Hunchback of Notre Dame, Les Miserables; famous quote: "An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.")
1808 - Honore Daumier, France, painter/lithographer/caricaturist
1829 - Levi Strauss (creator of blue jeans or 'Levi's')
1831 - Filippo Marchetti, composer
1834 - Aleksander Zarzycki, composer
1842 - Camille Flammarion, Mars researcher & popularizer of astronomy
1846 - William Frederic "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Davenport Iowa, (American frontiersman; showman, slaughtered 4000 buffaloes)
1852 - John Harvey Kellogg, surgeon, inspired flaked cereal industry
1857 - Emile Couee, French pharmacist (recovery by auto suggestion)
1866 - Herbert Henry Dow, pioneer in US chemical industry (Dow Chemical)
1902 - Vercors, [Jean Bruller], French writer (Le Silence de la Mer)
1916 - Jackie (Herbert John) Gleason (comedian, actor: The Honeymooners, The Hustler, Smokey and the Bandit)
1918 - Theodore [Hamilton] Sturgeon, US, sci-fi author (Hugo, It, Caviar)
1919 - Mason Adams (actor: Lou Grant, F/X, Houseguest)
1920 - Tony Randall (Leonard Rosenberg) (actor: The Odd Couple, Pillow Talk, Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, Fatal Instinct, The Alphabet Murders; regular cameo appearances on David Letterman's Late Show)
1921 - Betty Hutton (Elizabeth Thornberg) (actress: Annie Get Your Gun, The Greatest Show on Earth, Hollywood Clowns)
1927 - Donald Gramm, Milwaukee Wisconsin, bass-baritone
1928 - Fats (Antoine) Domino (pianist, songwriter, singer: Ain't That a Shame, Goin' Home, I'm in Love Again, Blue Monday, I'm Walkin', Blueberry Hill)
1930 - Lazar Berman, Leningrad Russia, pianist (Budapest 3rd place-1956)
1932 - Johnny Cash (Grammy award-winning country singer: Folsom Prison Blues [1968], I Walk the Line, Don't Take Your Guns to Town, A Boy Named Sue, Ring of Fire; TV show with wife: June Carter)
1945 - Mitch Ryder (William Levise) (singer: group: Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels: Devil with a Blue Dress On, Little Latin Lupe Lu)
1947 - Sandie Shaw (Goodrich) (singer: There's Always Something There to Remind Me, Puppet on a String, Long Live Love, Girl Don't Come)
1950 - Jonathan Cain (musician: keyboard: group: Babys, Journey: Who's Crying Now, Open Arms)
1953 - Michael Bolton (Grammy Award-winning singer: When a Man Loves a Woman [1991], How Am I Supposed to Live Without You [1989])
Famous deaths
1324 - Dino Compagni, Italian silk seller/poet/chronicler, dies
1770 - Giuseppe Tartini, Italian composer/violinist, dies at 77
1813 - Robert R Livingston, US diplomat (Declaration of Independence), dies at 66
1857 - Ole Andreas Lindeman, composer, dies at 88
1870 - Wyatt Outlaw, black leader of Union League in NC, lynched
1901 - Chi-hsui, during Boxer Rebellion in China, beheaded
1901 - Hsu Cheng-yu, during Boxer Rebellion in China, beheaded
1903 - Richard J Gatling, US inventor (Gatling Gun), dies at 84
1950 - Harry Lauder (Maclennan), Scottish comic/singer, dies at about 75
1959 - Lou Costello, actor (Abbott & Costello), dies at 52
1969 - Karl Jaspers, German psychiatrist/philosopher, dies at 86
1971 - Joseph Desire Fernandel, comedian, dies of cancer at 67
1981 - Howard Hanson, US composer/conductor (Nordic), dies at 84
1992 - S I Hayakawa, (Sen-R-Calif), dies of a stroke at 85
1993 - Fletcher Knebel, author (7 Days in May), commits suicide at 81
1994 - Avery Fisher, US audio manufacturer (1st hi-fi), dies at 8
1998 - J T Walsh, actor (Good Morning Vietnam, A Few Good Men), dies at 54
If you have other Birthdays or events to add for this day please E-mail me
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