This Day In History

[MVeeI]

February 21

1848 - Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.

1878 - The first telephone directory is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.

1885 - The Washington Monument is dedicated.

1925 - The first issue of The New Yorker is published.

1947 - Edwin Land demonstrates the first Polaroid camera.

1958 - The peace symbol is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom.

1965 - Malcolm X is assassinated.

1972 - President Richard Nixon visits the Peoples' Republic of China.

Birthdays

1903 - Anais Nin, French-American essayist and memoirist.

1905 - Christian Dior, French fashion designer.

1933 - Nina Simone, singer-songwriter and pianist.

 

[Bakker1964]

Sheesh guys . . . I was just "taking the p***".

 

[MVeeI]

February 23

1886 - Charles Martin Hall, assisted by his sister Julia Brainerd Hall, produced aluminum by the electrolysis of aluminum oxide.

1903 - Cuba leases Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. "in perpetuity ".

1941 - Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Glenn T. Seaborg.

1945 - The famous photograph is taken of Marines and a Navy hospital corpsman raising an American flag on Mount Surabachi on Iwo Jima.

1954 - The first mass inoculation of children with the Salk polio vaccine takes place in Pittsburgh.

1983 - The EPA announces it will buy out and evacuate dioxin-contaminted Times Beach, Missouri.

Birthdays

1868 - W. E. B. Du Bois, sociologist, historian and activist.

1940 - Peter Fonda, actor, director, producer and screenwriter.

1994 - Dakota Fanning, actress.

 

[Mr. Scruffy]

February 24

1582 - Inter gravissimas is issued by Pope Gregory XIII. The document, written in Latin, reformed the Julian calendar. The reform came to be regarded as a new calendar in its own right and came to be called the Gregorian calendar, which is used in most countries today.

1803 - The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John Marshall, decides the landmark case of William Marbury versus James Madison, Secretary of State of the United States and confirms the legal principle of judicial review—the ability of the Supreme Court to limit Congressional power by declaring legislation unconstitutional—in the new nation.

1968 - The Tet Offensive ends as U.S. and South Vietnamese troops recapture the ancient capital of Hue from communist forces. Although scattered fighting continued across South Vietnam for another week, the battle for Hue was the last major engagement of the offensive, which saw communist attacks on all of South Vietnam’s major cities.

 

[MVeeI]

February 25

1836 - Samuel Colt is granted a patent for his revolver.

1870 - Hiram Rhodes Ravels, Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the U. S. Senate, becoming the first African-American to sit in the U. S. Congress.

1919 - Oregon becomes the first state to impose a gasoline tax (one cent per gallon).

Birthdays

1873 - Enrico Caruso, Italian-American tenor.

1888 - John Foster Dulles, U. S. Secretary of State.

1901 - Zeppo Marx, comedian.

1918 - Bobby Riggs, tennis player. In 1973, he was defeated by Billie Jean King in a Battle of the Sexes.

1920 - Sun Myung Moon, Korean religious leader.

1943 - George Harrison, a Beatle.

 

[oc_in_fw]

1968- yours truly was born.

 

[MVeeI]

Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts (1972)

 

[Mr. Scruffy]

February 25

1570 - Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth I of England for heresy and persecution of English Catholics during her reign. He also absolves her subjects from allegiance to the crown.

1855 - Bowery Boys gang leader William Poole "Bill the Butcher" is shot in the back by the gang of archrival John Morrissey in New York (dies 8th March).

1862 - Legal Tender Act 1862 is passed by the US Congress, authorizing the United States Note (greenback) into circulation, the first fiat paper money that was legal tender in America

1964 - 22-year-old Cassius Clay shocks the odds-makers by dethroning world heavyweight boxing champ Sonny Liston in a seventh-round technical knockout. The dreaded Liston, who had twice demolished former champ Floyd Patterson in one round, was an 8-to-1 favorite. However, Clay predicted victory, boasting that he would “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” and knock out Liston in the eighth round.

 

[oc_in_fw]

For anyone who thinks Ali beat Liston with a phantom punch, here are the highlights from his fight with probably the hardest puncher ever.

 

[Raissermesser]

February 25
1862 - Legal Tender Act 1862 is passed by the US Congress, authorizing the United States Note (greenback) into circulation, the first fiat paper money that was legal tender in America

That reminded me of a photo of a piece of Civil War music titled How Are You, Greenbacks? Went looking for the cover, and found this:

How Are You, Greenbacks / American Song Sheets / Duke Digital Repository

repository.duke.edu

 

[Mr. Scruffy]

February 26

747 BC - Nabonassar deposes the Chaldean usurper Nabu-shuma-ishkun, restoring native Mesopotamian rule to Babylon. His reign saw the beginning of a new era characterized by the systematic maintenance of chronologically precise historical records. Both the Babylonian Chronicle and the Ptolemaic Canon begin with his accession to the throne.

1935 - Nazi leader Adolf Hitler signs a secret decree authorizing the founding of the Reich Luftwaffe as a third German military service to join the Reich army and navy. In the same decree, Hitler appointed Hermann Goering, a German air hero from World War I and high-ranking Nazi, as commander in chief of the new German air force.

1993 - At 12:18 p.m., a terrorist bomb explodes in a parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, leaving a crater 60 feet wide and causing the collapse of several steel-reinforced concrete floors in the vicinity of the blast. Six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured.

 

[MVeeI]

February 27

1939 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules sit-down strikes violate property owners' rights and are therefore illegal.

1940 - Carbon-14 is discovered by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben.

1951 - The Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution is ratified. It limits Presidents to two terms.

Birthdays

1891 - David Sarnoff, founded RCA.

1897 - Marian Anderson, African-American singer. In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused her permission to sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. With the help of President Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor, she performed an open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The integrated audience numbered 75,000 and millions listened on radio.

1902 - John Steinbeck, author. He wrote The Grapes of Wrath.

1910 - Joan Bennett, actress.

1932 - Elizabeth Taylor, actress.

1980 - Chelsea Clinton, journalist and academic.

 

[Doc4]

Sheesh guys . . . I was just "taking the p***".

1941 - Plutonium is first produced and isolated by Glenn T. Seaborg.

Any thoughts on this one?

 

[Bakker1964]

Any thoughts on this one?

Not until some fool decides to try and remove it from the Periodic Table.

 

[Raissermesser]

Any thoughts on this one?

Yes, but wouldn't want the topic to go critical.

 

[Mr. Scruffy]

February 28

202 BC - The coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place, initiating four centuries of the Western Han Dynasty's rule over China

1861 - With the region’s population booming because of the Pike’s Peak gold rush, Congress creates the new Territory of Colorado.

1953 - Cambridge University scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick announce that they have determined the double-helix structure of DNA, the molecule containing human genes.

 

[MVeeI]

February 29

1940 - Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African-American to win an Academy Award for her role as "Mammy" in Gone with the Wind.

Birthdays

1904 - Jimmy Dorsey, saxophonist, composer and band leader.

1916 - Dinah Shore, singer and actress.

 

[MVeeI]

March 1

1893 - Nikola Tesla gives the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis, Missouri.

1896 - Henri Becquerel discovers radioactive decay.

1953 - Joseph Stalin suffers a stroke. He dies four days later.

1961 - President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.

1998 - Titanic becomes the first film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.

Birthdays

1904 - Glenn Miller, trombonist, composer and bandleader.

1910 - David Niven, actor.

1922 - William Gaines, published Mad Magazine.

1924 - Deke Slayton, astronaut.

1927 - Harry Belafonte, singer-songwriter and actor.

1987 - Kesha, singer-songwriter and actress.

 

[MVeeI]

March 3

1931 - The Star-Spangled Banner is adopted as the national anthem.

1938 - Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia.

1951 - Jackie Brenston, with Ike Turner and his band, record Rocket 88, considered by some to be the first rock-and-roll record.

Birthdays

1847 - Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.

1882 - Charles Ponzi, Italian con artist (Ponzi scheme).

1911 - Jean Harlow, actress.

1940 - Perry Ellis, fashion designer.

 

[Mr. Scruffy]

March 4

1789 - The first session of the U.S. Congress is held in New York City as the U.S. Constitution takes effect. However, of the 22 senators and 59 representatives called to represent the 11 states who had ratified the document, only nine senators and 13 representatives showed up to begin negotiations for its amendment.

1924 - “Happy Birthday to You” made its first appearance in print, in a songbook edited by Robert H. Coleman. The “Happy Birthday” four-line ditty was the second stanza to the “Good Morning to You” song. No definitive knowledge exists of who came up with the “Happy Birthday” lyrics, or put them to the tune of the “Good Morning” song, but there it was.