This Day in History...

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2008 U.S.A. Tornadoes Kill 54 people across the South 5th February, 2008 : The worst tornadoes in over two decades strikes 5 states in the south including the worst hit Tennessee with over 30 reported dead , Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama.

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U.S. 1917 U.S.A. Immigration Act 5th February, 1917 : Congress passes the Immigration Act which required a literacy test for immigrants and barred Asiatic laborers, except for those from countries with special treaties or agreements with the United States, such as the Philippines.

U.S. 1952 U.S.A. Don’t Walk Tuesday, 5th February, 1952 : The first “Don’t Walk” sign was installed in New York City . The installation of this sign was inspired by the growing number of deaths resulting from pedestrian accidents. The use of these pedestrian traffic signs are still used today in order to make streets safer.

U.S. 1953 U.S.A. Steel Industry 5th February, 1953 : The United States steel industry was reported as thriving-or reviving perhaps. The need for steel had dramatically increased during World War II and in the year 1953 the need for steel still continued.

U.S. 1974 U.S.A. Patty Hearst 5th February, 1974: Patty Hearst is Kidnapped by the leftist group, The Symbionese Liberation Army

U.S. 1988 U.S.A. Drug Smuggling 5th February, 1988 : Panama leader General Manual Antonio Noriega, along with 16 associates, was charged of drug smuggling and money laundering. Noriega himself had been in charge of smuggling marijuana into the United States and assisting a cocaine drug cartel.
Before it was known that Noriega was caught handling mass drug dealings, he was known to be a promising military student. He even secured a position within the CIA, which later he was fired from as one consequence of leading drug rings.

United States 2008United States C.I.A. has admitted to 'waterboarding' terror suspects 5th February, 2008 : The C.I.A. has admitted to 'waterboarding' terror suspects. The C.I.A. director Michael Hayden has told Congress that it has only been used on three people, and not for the past five years. He said that the technique was used on high-profile al-Qaeda detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Waterboarding has been condemned as a torture by a number of rights groups. Mr. Hayden was speaking when the National Intelligence Director, Mike McConnell, was presenting his annual threat assessment.

Panama 2012 Panama Manuel Noriega Sent to Hospital 5th February, 2012 : The imprisoned ex-leader of Panama, Manuel Noriega, was taken from prison to a hospital after authorities thought he may have suffered a stroke. Doctors indicated that their tests did not show evidence of a stroke.

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2008 U.S.A. Tornadoes Kill 54 people across the South 5th February, 2008 : The worst tornadoes in over two decades strikes 5 states in the south including the worst hit Tennessee with over 30 reported dead , Kentucky, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama.

That was a horrendous year, for sure.  And the weather still seems mixed up.

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On February 6


1778    The United States gained official recognition from France as the two nations signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance in Paris.

1865    General Robert E. Lee is appointed commander-in-chief of the Confederacy armies.

1926    The National Football League adopted a rule that made players ineligible for competition until their college class graduated.

1932    Dog sled racing happened for the first time in Olympic competition.

1943    Having left the Tommy Dorsey Band four months prior, Frank Sinatra makes his vocalist debut on the radio show, "Your Hit Parade."

1952    Britain's King George VI died. His daughter, Elizabeth II, succeeded him.

1971    NASA Astronaut Alan B. Shepard used a six-iron that he had brought inside his spacecraft and swung at three golf *bleep* on the surface of the moon.

1972    Over 500,000 pieces of irate mail arrived at the mailroom of CBS-TV, when word leaked out that an edited-for-TV version of the X-rated movie, "The Demand," would be shown.

1987    President Ronald Reagan turned 76 years old this day, and became the oldest U.S. President in history.

1995    Robert Holland, Jr. is named the new Ben & Jerry's CEO after the Vermont ice cream company holds a "Yo! I Want To Be A CEO!" search.

1998    Washington National Airport was renamed for Ronald Reagan with the signing of a bill by President Clinton.

1999    King Hussein of Jordan transferred full political power to his oldest son, the Crown Prince Abdullah.

1999    Heavy fighting resumed along the common border between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

2000    Russia's acting President Vladimir Putin announced that Russian forces had captured Grozny, Chechnya. The capital city had been under the control of Chechen rebels.

2000    In Finland, Foreign Minister Tarja Halonen became the first woman to be elected president.

2000    U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton formally declared that she was a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat from the state of New York.

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On February 7


1882    The last bare knuckle fight for the heavyweight boxing championship took place in Mississippi City.

1893    Elisha Gray patented a machine called the telautograph. It automatically signed autographs to documents.

1904    The Great Baltimore Fire begins as a small fire in the city's business district. Over the course of the next 30 hours, though, strong winds will spread the flames until the fire covers over 80 blocks.

1936    A Vice President’s flag was established by executive order.

1941    The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Frank Sinatra recorded "Everything Happens to Me".
1943    The U.S. government announced that shoe rationing would go into effect in two days.

1964    The Beatles arrive at New York's Kennedy Airport to thousands of screaming American fans.

1983    Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court justice, swears in Elizabeth Dole, the first female Secretary of Transportation.

1984    Astronaut Bruce McCandless takes the first-ever untethered "space walk." He travels 320 feet away from the space shuttle with the help of his Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).

1985    Sports Illustrated released its annual swimsuit edition. It was the largest regular edition in the magazine’s history at 218 pages.

1985    "New York, New York" became the official anthem of the Big Apple.

1989    Both houses of Congress vote against their scheduled 51-percent pay increase.

1992    The European Union is formally established with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty on European Union in the Netherlands.

1999    King Hussein of Jordan died. His son was sworn in as king four hours after the announcement that his father had died.

2000    Robert Pickett, 47, fired several shots at the White House near the South Lawn. He was subdued after being shot in the knee. No one else was hurt in the incident.

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On February 8


1587    Mary, the Queen of Scots, was executed.

1887    The Aurora Ski Club of Red Wing, MN, became the first ski club in the United States.

1910    William Boyce founds The Boy Scouts of America in Washington, DC.

1915    D.W. Griffith's epic film, The Birth of a Nation, premieres in Los Angeles. It will go on to gross $50 million - the first movie to do so.

1924    The first U.S. execution to make use of gas took place in Nevada State Prison.

1963    The Kennedy administration prohibited travel to Cuba and made financial and commercial transactions with Cuba illegal for U.S. citizens.

1969    The last issue of the "Saturday Evening Post" is published.

1973    U.S. Senate leaders named seven members of a select committee to investigate the Watergate scandal.

1974    After 84 days in orbit (the longest U.S. space mission), Skylab 4 and its three astronauts return safely to earth.

1980    President Jimmy Carter announced a plan to re-introduce draft registration.

1985    "The Dukes of Hazzard" ended its 6-1/2 year run on CBS television.

1998    In Nagano, Japan, Finland defeats Sweden, 6-0, in the first women's Olympic ice hockey game in history.

2002    The exhibit "Places of Their Own" opened at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The works displayed were by Georgia O'Keeffe, Frida Kahlo and Emily Carr.

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On February 11


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

1892    Pike's Peak (Colorado) is set aside as a forest preserve.

1922    Insulin is discovered by Canadian surgeon Frederick Banting and his assistant Charles Best.

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

1942    The comic book, "Archie" makes its debut.

1945    During World War II, the Yalta Agreement was signed by U.S. President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

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

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

1975    Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female leader of a British political party when she is elected leader of the Conservative Party.

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

1984    The tenth Space Shuttle mission returned to Earth safely.

1990    After 27 years in prison, South African opposition leader Nelson Mandela is released.

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

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

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

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

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~ Happy Valentine's Day! ~


    On February 14     


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

1876    Alexander Bell filed an application for a patent for the telephone.

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

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

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

1912    Arizona is admitted into the Union.

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

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

1951    Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Jake LaMotta for the world middleweight title.

1962    First lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave a tour of the White House on TV.

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

1980    The 13th Winter Olympic games open in Lake Placid, New York. It is the second time the small upstate hamlet has hosted the Games, the first time being in 1932.

1984    Six-year-old Stormie Jones undergoes the first ever heart-liver transplant.

1988    At 50 years of age, Bobby Allison becomes the oldest driver to win the Daytona 500.

1996    Texas Senator Phil Gramm bows out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

1997    Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery begin a series of space walks that are required to overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope.

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

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On February 16


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

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

1923    Howard Carter unsealed the tomb of Egyptian Pharoah Tutankhamun.

1938    Congress creates the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation in order to protect farmers from poor crop output due to bad weather.

1946    The first commercially designed helicopter was tested in Connecticut.

1959    Having overthrown dictator Fulgencio Batista after legal means to remove the Cuban government failed, Fidel Castro names himself premier of Cuba.

1960    The nuclear-powered submarine, U.S.S. Triton, begins its trip around the world -- the first submerged submarine to take such a journey. It will travel 41,500 miles in 84 days, completing the global trek on April 24.

1968    Haleyville, Alabama, launches the first 911 emergency telephone system to be used in the United States.

1972    Los Angeles Laker Wilt Chamberlain topped the 30,000-point mark in his career during a game against the Phoenix Suns.

1980    American speed-skater Eric Heiden wins his second Olympic gold medal of the Lake Placid games. He will go on to win 5 golds, setting Olympic records in 4 events, and a world record in the fifth.

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

1992    During the halftime ceremony of a Lakers-Celtics game at the Great Western Forum in LA, Magic Johnson becomes the fifth Los Angeles Laker to have his number retired.

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

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

2003    In Chicago, IL, 21 people were killed in a night club after a disturbance on the second floor. The panic that evolved resulted in the trampling.

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On February 18


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

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

1907    The United States sends 600,000 tons of grain to Russia to help relieve the country's widespread famine.

1930    Claude W. Tombaugh discovers the planet Pluto at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

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

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

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

1977    Enterprise, the first space shuttle orbiter, is attached to the top of a 747 jumbo jet and given its first test in "captive mode." There will be four similar tests to follow before the orbiter is finally released to land on its own.

1978    Chevy Chase returns to Saturday Night Live as the show's host for the evening -- the first former-SNL player to do so.

1984    At Madison Square Garden, former New York Knickerbocker Bill Bradley has his uniform No. 24 retired.

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

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

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

1999    George Clooney hangs up his scrubs for the last time on "ER".

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

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

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

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On February 20


1725    The first known Indian scalping by white men was reported in the New Hampshire colony.

1792    A permanent Postal Service is established when President George Washington signs the Postal Service Act.

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

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

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

1962    Aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American astronaut to orbit the earth.

1962    John Glenn made space history when he orbited the world three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes. He was the 1st American to orbit the Earth. He was aboard the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule.

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

1985    Margaret Thatcher becomes the first British leader to address Congress since Winston Churchill, endorsing President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative.

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

1991    At the Grammy Awards, Quincy Jones is the big winner with six awards, giving him more career Grammys than any other individual in pop music.

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

1997    The Galileo spacecraft captures possible evidence of liquid water beneath the surface of Jupiter's moon, Europa.

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

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

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

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On February 22


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

1819    Spain cedes Florida to the United States.

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

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

1879    Frank W. Woolworth opened his first 5 and 10-cent store in Utica, New York.

1924    The first radio broadcast from the White House is aired. President Calvin Coolidge delivers the speech that is heard live on over 40 radio stations nationwide.

1935    Because they are disturbing President Roosevelt's sleep, all air flights over the White House are permanently rerouted.

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

1980    The "Miracle on Ice" - The underdog U.S. Olympic hockey team stuns the world by defeating the heavily-favored Soviet Union squad, 4-3, to advance to the Gold Medal round.

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

1993    After much speculation, CBS announces that David Letterman will remain in New York. (Many had speculated that Letterman might move to L.A.). Letterman's new CBS show will broadcast from the old Ed Sullivan Theater.

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

1995    Steve Fossett lands in Saskatchewan, Canada, after flying across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon. The four-day trip that began in South Korea sets a new distance ballooning record.

1997    Scottish scientist, Ian Wilmut and colleagues, announced that an adult sheep was successfully cloned. Dolly, the first to be born, was born in July 1996.

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On February 28


1854    The Republican Party was organized in Ripon, WI.

1922    After 40 years of occupation, Great Britain grants independence to Egypt, but retains the Suez Canal.

1933    Francis Perkins is appointed U.S. Secretary of Labor, becoming the first female cabinet member in American history.

1940    The first televised basketball game is aired from Madison Square Garden featuring Fordham University and the University of Pittsburgh.

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

1960    The United States wins the Olympic hockey gold medal by defeating Czechoslovakia, 9-4.

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

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

1979    Mr. Ed, the talking horse, died.  (I loved that show!)

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

1993    A gun battle erupts in Waco, Texas, when U.S. Federal agents raid the Branch Davidian Compound housed by David Koresh and his followers. Four agents and six Davidians are killed, and a 51-day standoff follows.

1997    Vancouver Canucks Captain Mark Messier becomes the 4th NHL player to reach 1,600 career points.

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

2001    In Ahmadabad, India, Hindus set fire to homes in a Muslim neighborhood. At least 55 people were killed in the attack.

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

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

[2getherwewin]

nes.

Though DNA--short for deoxyribonucleic acid--was discovered in 1869, its crucial role in determining genetic inheritance wasn't demonstrated until 1943. In the early 1950s, Watson and Crick were only two of many scientists working on figuring out the structure of DNA. California chemist Linus Pauling suggested an incorrect model at the beginning of 1953, prompting Watson and Crick to try and beat Pauling at his own game. On the morning of February 28, they determined that the structure of DNA was a double-helix polymer, or a spiral of two DNA strands, each containing a long chain of monomer nucleotides, wound around each other. According to their findings, DNA replicated itself by separating into individual strands, each of which became the template for a new double helix.    In his best-selling book, The Double Helix (1968), Watson later claimed that Crick announced the discovery by walking into the nearby Eagle Pub and blurting out that "we had found the secret of life." The truth wasn’t that far off, as Watson and Crick had solved a fundamental mystery of science--how it was possible for genetic instructions to be held inside organisms and passed from generation to generation.

Watson and Crick's solution was formally announced on April 25, 1953, following its publication in that month’s issue of Nature magazine. The article revolutionized the study of biology and medicine. Among the developments that followed directly from it were pre-natal screening for disease genes; genetically engineered foods; the ability to identify human remains; the rational design of treatments for diseases such as AIDS; and the accurate testing of physical evidence in order to convict or exonerate criminals.

Crick and Watson later had a falling-out over Watson's book, which Crick felt misrepresented their collaboration and betrayed their friendship. A larger controversy arose over the use Watson and Crick made of research done by another DNA researcher, Rosalind Franklin, whose colleague Maurice Wilkins showed her X-ray photographic work to Watson just before he and Crick made their famous discovery. When Crick and Watson won the Nobel Prize in 1962, they shared it with Wilkins. Franklin, who died in 1958 of ovarian cancer and was thus ineligible for the award, never learned of the role her photos played in the historic scientific breakthrough

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nes.

Though DNA--short for deoxyribonucleic acid--was discovered in 1869, its crucial role in determining genetic inheritance wasn't demonstrated until 1943. In the early 1950s, Watson and Crick were only two of many scientists working on figuring out the structure of DNA. California chemist Linus Pauling suggested an incorrect model at the beginning of 1953, prompting Watson and Crick to try and beat Pauling at his own game. On the morning of February 28, they determined that the structure of DNA was a double-helix polymer, or a spiral of two DNA strands, each containing a long chain of monomer nucleotides, wound around each other. According to their findings, DNA replicated itself by separating into individual strands, each of which became the template for a new double helix.    In his best-selling book, The Double Helix (1968), Watson later claimed that Crick announced the discovery by walking into the nearby Eagle Pub and blurting out that "we had found the secret of life." The truth wasn’t that far off, as Watson and Crick had solved a fundamental mystery of science--how it was possible for genetic instructions to be held inside organisms and passed from generation to generation.

Watson and Crick's solution was formally announced on April 25, 1953, following its publication in that month’s issue of Nature magazine. The article revolutionized the study of biology and medicine. Among the developments that followed directly from it were pre-natal screening for disease genes; genetically engineered foods; the ability to identify human remains; the rational design of treatments for diseases such as AIDS; and the accurate testing of physical evidence in order to convict or exonerate criminals.

Crick and Watson later had a falling-out over Watson's book, which Crick felt misrepresented their collaboration and betrayed their friendship. A larger controversy arose over the use Watson and Crick made of research done by another DNA researcher, Rosalind Franklin, whose colleague Maurice Wilkins showed her X-ray photographic work to Watson just before he and Crick made their famous discovery. When Crick and Watson won the Nobel Prize in 1962, they shared it with Wilkins. Franklin, who died in 1958 of ovarian cancer and was thus ineligible for the award, never learned of the role her photos played in the historic scientific breakthrough

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