This Week in History: Feb. 12-18, 2018

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This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann

“The most effective way to destroy people is to
deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
George Orwell

Week of Feb. 12-18, 2018

February 12

1793 – The first U.S. fugitive slave law is passed, requiring the return of escaped slaves.

1876 – Al Spalding opens his first sporting goods shop with his brother Walter. Al Spalding is a baseball player, manager, owner, and entrepreneur. He also publishes the first official rule guide for baseball in 1878. Spalding died in 1915 at age 65.

1878 – Frederick Thayer patents the baseball catcher’s mask, although he is not credited with inventing it.

1908 – The New York City to Paris great auto race begins. The route included Albany, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Valdez (Alaska), Vladivostok, Omsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Berlin, and finally Paris. George Schuster won behind the wheel of his Thomas Flyer, covering 3 continents and over 22,000 miles in 169 days. The feat has never been duplicated or equaled. Schuster died in 1972 at age 99.

1955 – President Eisenhower sends the first U.S. advisors to South Vietnam.

1973 – The first U.S. POWs in North Vietnam are released – 116 of the 456 POWs are flown to the Philippines. There are still 1,606 MIAs (Missing In Action) from the Vietnam War.

1984 – Cale Yarborough becomes the first Daytona 500 qualifier to reach more than 200 MPH, and wins his fourth Daytona 500. He won in 1968, 1977, 1983, and 1984, making him second among winning drivers behind Richard Petty (7 wins). Yarborough is now 78 years old.

2001 – The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker spacecraft, launched in 1996, touches down on 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

2004 – Mattel announces that “Barbie” and “Ken” are breaking up. The dolls met on the set of their first television commercial together in 1961. Watch the original commercial:

February 13

1795 – The University of North Carolina opens, becoming the first state university in the U.S.

1866 – Jesse James robs his first bank, the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri, netting $60,000.

1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded.

1935 – Bruno Hauptmann is found guilty of kidnapping and murdering the 20-month-old Lindbergh baby during “The Trial of the Century.” Hauptman was executed in the electric chair in 1936.

1957 – The Southern Christian Leadership Conference organizes in New Orleans. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. served as its first president.

1984 – Six-year-old Stormie Jones of Texas receives the first successful heart and liver transplant. Jones died in 1990 at age 13.

1997 – The Space Shuttle Discovery captures the Hubble Space Telescope to make repairs. Watch Discovery link up with Hubble:

2002 – Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani receives an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II.

February 14

1803 – Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of the U.S. Congress that conflicts with the Constitution is void.

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that Bell is the rightful inventor.

1924 – IBM Corporation is founded by Thomas Watson. Watson served as CEO until a month before his death in 1956.

1929 – Seven gangsters are killed in Chicago, allegedly on Al Capone’s orders, in what became known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

1971 – President Richard Nixon installs a secret taping system in the White House.

1978 – The first “micro on a chip” is patented by Texas Instruments. It was designed by Gary Boone and Michael Cochran.

1989 – The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS) are placed into orbit.

1990 – Space probe Voyager 1, launched in 1977, takes a photograph of our entire solar system. It carried a gold-plated audio-visual disc containing photos of Earth life forms, scientific information, music, and sounds of the Earth in the event it was found by intelligent life forms. Voyager’s mission is expected to continue collecting and sending back data until 2025, when it won’t have enough power to operate its instruments.

2002 – The House of Representatives passes the Shays-Meehan bill. The bill bans millions of unregulated money that goes to the national political parties.

2005 – The video-sharing website YouTube is activated. Watch the first video ever uploaded on YouTube:

February 15

1903 – The first Teddy Bear, named for President Theodore Roosevelt, is made by Morris and Rose Michtom.

1932 – George Burns and Gracie Allen debut as regulars on the “Guy Lombardo Show” on the radio. Gracie Allen died in 1964 at age 69 and George Burns died in 1996 at age 100.

1932 – U.S. bobsled team member Eddie Eagan becomes the only athlete to win gold medals in both the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics. He also won gold in 1920 in boxing. Egan died in 1995 at age 65. Watch a bio of the impressive career of Eagan:

1961 – The entire 18 member U.S. figure skating team dies in the Belgian Sabena 707 plane crash en route to the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague. One of the skaters who died was 16-year-old Laurence Owen, who won the U.S. Figure Skating Championship in January. She appeared on the February 13th cover of Sports Illustrated. Watch her skate just one month before her death:

1992 – Jeffrey Dahmer is found sane and subsequently convicted of killing 15 boys and sentenced to 15 life terms in prison. Dahmer was murdered in prison in 1994 at age 34 by then 25-year-old Christopher Scarver.

2001 – The first draft of the complete Human Genome is published in Nature, the international weekly journal of science.

2002 – Investigators find uncremated bodies disposed of in the woods and buildings at the Tri-State Crematory in La Fayette, Georgia. It was one of the worst incidents of abuse in the funeral service industry.

February 16

1838 – Kentucky passes a law permitting women to attend school under certain conditions.

1852 – The Studebaker Brothers Wagon Company is established. It was the precursor of automobile manufacturing.

1857 – Gallaudet College (National Deaf Mute College) forms in Washington, DC. Edward Miner Gallaudet, founder of the first school for deaf students in the U.S., became the new school’s first superintendent.

1883 – “Ladies Home Journal” begins publication. In 1903 it became the first American magazine to reach 1 million subscribers. In 2014 the Meredith Corporation announced it would cease publishing the monthly magazine, saying it would be published quarterly.

1937 – DuPont Corporation patents nylon, developed by its employee Wallace H. Carothers.

1950 – The longest-running prime-time game show at the time, “What’s My Line,” premiers on CBS-TV and airs until 1967. An all-star panel tried to guess the contestant’s occupation. The first contestant was Miss Pat Finch, a hat check girl. The first “mystery guest,” when the panelists are blindfolded, was Yankee baseball great Phil Rizzuto. Watch a montage of Pat Finch on WML:

1953 – Baseball star Ted Williams, recalled for active duty as a Marine fighter pilot in 1952, safely crash lands his damaged Panther jet in Korea. Williams was awarded the Air Medal and two Gold Stars before being discharged for health reasons. He returned to play baseball until 1960. Williams died in 2002 at age 83.

1968 – The first 911 emergency phone system in the U.S. goes into service in Haleyville, Alabama.

2005 – National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman cancels the 2004-05 season. This was the first time that a North American professional sports league canceled a season due to a labor dispute.

February 17

1801 – The House of Representatives breaks an Electoral College tie, after casting three-dozen ballots, choosing Thomas Jefferson for president over Aaron Burr. Each candidate received 73 votes, but electors failed to distinguish between the office of President and Vice President.

1864 – The Confederate submarine “H.L. Hunley” sinks the Union ship “Housatonic,” becoming the first submarine to sink an enemy ship.

1897 – The National Congress of Parents and Teachers (PTA) organizes in Washington, DC.

1905 – Frances Willard – educator, temperance reformer, and women’s suffragist – becomes the first woman honored in National Statuary Hall in Washington, DC. Willard died in 1898 at age 58.

1915 – Edward Stone, the first U.S. combatant to die in World War I, is mortally wounded.

1934 – The first high school car driving course offered in the city of State College, Pennsylvania.

1943 – New York Yankee and future Baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio enlists into the U.S. army. After being hospitalized with stomach ulcers DiMaggio was released from the service in September of 1945. He returned to play for the New York Yankees in 1946.

1947 – Voice of America begins radio broadcasting to the USSR. The Soviet Union responded by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts on April.

1953 – Baseball star and pilot Ted Williams is uninjured when his plane shot down in Korea. Williams retired from baseball in 1960, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966, and died in 2002 at age 83. His son had Williams’ body cryogenically frozen in Scottsdale, Arizona.

1964 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules 1 man 1 vote in Westberry v Sanders after James Westberry filed suit against Georgia Governor Carl Sanders over the unequal apportionment of congressional districts.

1969 – Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash record an album together, but it is never released. Listen to part of the amazing recording session with still photos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOC3TsE1kX0

1995 – A Federal judge allows a lawsuit claiming U.S. tobacco makers knew nicotine was addictive and manipulated its levels to keep customers hooked.

2006 – Lindsey Jacobellis wins the Silver Medal in snowboarding after falling on her final jump at the Turin Winter Olympics. Watch the entire run and the dramatic fall:

2016 – Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook confirms that Apple will contest an FBI order to unlock the phone of radical Muslim terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook after the mass murder in San Bernardino.

February 18

1841 – The first continuous filibuster in the U.S. Senate begins over the dismissal of the printer for the Senate and lasts until March 11th.

1861 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis is inaugurated in Montgomery, Alabama. Davis resigned his seat as a U.S. senator from Mississippi in January.

1878 – Outlaw Jessie Evans murders John Tunstall, sparking the Lincoln County War in New Mexico between immigrant English and Irish ranchers and merchants. Tensions and murders raged until 1884. One of the combatants is Billy the Kid.

1929 – The first Academy Awards, hosted by Douglas Fairbanks, are announced. “Wings” starring Clara Bow and Gary Cooper was the winner for Best Picture.

1932 – Sonja Henie wins her 6th straight World Women’s figure skating title. Henie won Olympic gold medals in 1928, 1932 and 1936. She moved to the U.S. and became a movie star. Henie died in 1969 at age 57. Watch Henie at the 1932 Olympics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZLU-NhDfBU

1972 – The California Supreme Court abolishes the state death penalty.

1977 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise, mounted above a modified Boeing 747, goes on its first test flight.

1978 – Fifteen competitors race in the first Ironman Triathlon (swim, bike ride, and marathon) held in Kona, Hawaii. Gordon Haller was the winner, completing the race in 11 hours and 46 minutes. U.S. Navy Commander John Collins founded the event as a way to determine whether swimmers, cyclists, or runners are more fit. Watch a 2013 interview with Haller:

1988 – Anthony M. Kennedy is sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice. Kennedy, 81 years old, is currently the longest serving jurist. A total of 113 justices have served on the Supreme Court.

2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms in prison after a plea deal enabled him to escape the death penalty. Hanssen is now 73 years old.

 

Image from Wikipedia.org


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