Monthly Archives: February 2012

1827 – The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad became the first railroad incorporated for the commercial transportation of people and freight.

1849 – The SS California arrived in San Francisco for the first time, having left left New York Harbor on October 6, 1848.  Thus began regular steamboat service from the U.S. East Coast to the West Coast by steamboat, via Cape Horn.

1861 – Congress created the Territory of Colorado.

1893 – Edward G. Acheson of Monongahela, PA, received a patent for Carborundum, an abrasive or refractory of silicon carbide, fused alumina and other materials.

1940 – The first televised basketball game was broadcast on W2XBS in New York City from Madison Square Garden.  The game featured Fordham University and the University of Pittsburgh.

1953 – Cambridge University scientists James D. Watson and Frances H.C. Crick announced they have determined the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which had been discovered in 1869.

1972 – U.S. President Richard Nixon wrapped up an historic week-long visit to China, convinced the trip helped to create a new “generation of peace.”

1984 – Michael Jackson won a record 8 statuettes for his album, Thriller, at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, the most wins by a single artist.  He broke the previous record of 6 awards set by Roger Miller in 1965.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXhy7ZsiR50&feature=player_detailpage#t=0s

1993 – Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) attempted to invade the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas.  Four ATF agents and two cult members were killed and another 12 agents were wounded.  The assault began a 51-day siege that ended on April 19.

1994 – In the first military action in the 45-year history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), U.S. fighter planes shot down 4 Serbian war planes engaged in a bombing mission over Bosnia’s no-fly zone.

1995 – Denver International Airport finally opened after 16 months of delays and billions of dollars in budget overruns.

1997 – Two men, masked and wearing body armor, bungled a bank heist in North Hollywood, CA, and unleashed an arsenal of gunfire on police and bystanders, as they tried to flee.  Fifteen people were injured, including ten policemen, before the robbers were killed.

1700 – English explorer William Dampier discovered the island of New Britain, the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago and part of New Guinea.

1807 – Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Paul Revere’s Ride, The Song of Hiawatha) was born in Portland, ME.

1827 – A group of masked and costumed revelers took to the streets of New Orleans in the first celebration of the city’s infamous Mardi Gras.

1867 – Dr. William G. Bonwill of Philadelphia, PA received a patent for the dental mallet; an idea he developed after watching a telegraph key sounder operate in a Philadelphia hotel. 

1873 – Opera tenor Enrico Caruso was born in Naples, Italy.

1883 – Oscar Hammerstein I of New York City patented the first practical cigar-rolling machine.

1897 – Opera singer Marian Anderson was born in Philadelphia.

1908 – Star #46 was added to the U.S. flag – for Oklahoma, which had entered the union on November 16, 1907.

1922 – Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover convened the first National Radio Conference in Washington, D.C.

1922 – Eight members of the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared constitutional the 19^th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

1943 – A mine explosion at the Montana Coal and Iron Company in Bear Creek, MT killed 74 men.

1955 – Billboard announced that seven-inch, 45-rpm singles were outselling 78-rpm singles for the first time in the U.S.

1963 – Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees signed a baseball contract worth $100,000, making him the sport’s highest paid player.

1964 – The Italian government announced that it would accept suggestions on how to save the Leaning Tower of Pisa from collapsing.

1973 – Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and a number of other local and traditional Native Americans began a 72-day occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota – the site of the 1890 massacre of Sioux men, women and children – to protest injustices against their tribes, violations of the many treaties, and abuses and repression of their people.  The U.S. responded with a military-style assault against the protesters.

1974 – Time-Life (now Time-Warner) first published People magazine.  It had an initial run of one million copies and became the most successful celebrity weekly magazine ever published.

1990 – The Exxon Corporation and Exxon Shipping were indicted on five criminal counts relating to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which had polluted Alaska’s Prince William Sound area in the Gulf of Alaska.

1991 – At 9 p.m. (EST), U.S. President George Bush said, “Kuwait is liberated.  Iraq’s army is defeated.  I am pleased to announce that at midnight tonight, exactly 100 hours since ground operations began and six weeks since the start of Operation Desert Storm, all United States and coalition forces will suspend offensive combat operations.”