FEBRUARY

Feb. 1

– birthdays:  1895 – John Ford (movie director – Stagecoach)  /  1901 – Clark Gable (actor – Gone with the Wind)  /  1902 – Langston Hughes (poet – The Weary Blues)  /  1948 – Rick James (funk musician – “Super Freak”) 

–  1790 –  Supreme Court convenes for the first time with John Jay as Chief Justice

–  1862 –  Julia Ward Howe publishes “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”

–  1865 –  13^th Amendment approved (National Freedom Day)

–  1893 –  Edison completes the world’s first movie studio in West Orange, New Jersey

–  1917 –  Germany renews unrestricted submarine warfare

–  1958 –  U.S. launches first satellite (Explorer I)

–  1960 –  four African-American students start a sit-in at a lunch counter at a Greensboro, N.C. Woolworths to protest segregation

–  1965 –  Martin Luther King, Jr and 700 others arrested in Selma, Alabama

–  1968 –  Saigon police chief executes a Viet Cong prisoner;  picture of this wins the Pulitzer Prize

–  1978 –  Harriet Tubman becomes the first African-American woman on a stamp

–  1979 –  Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran after fifteen years in exile

–  1979 – Patricia Hearst released from prison for bank robbery

–  1995 – John Stockton sets NBA record for career assists in the NBA

–  2003 –  the space shuttle Columbia disintegrates killing all seven astronauts

–  2004 –  Janet Jackson has a “wardrobe malfunction” during the half-time show at the Super Bowl

–  2006 –  Epiphanny Prince scores a record 113 points in girl’s high school basketball game (her team wins 137-32)

–  2014 –  Ray Guy becomes first punter inducted into the Football Hall of Fame

Quote:  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  –  Alphonse Karr

Feb. 2

– birthdays:  1905 – Ayn Rand (developer of the philosophy of “objectivism” and author of Atlas Shrugged)  /  1937 –  Tom Smothers (brother of Dick of the Smothers Brothers comedy team)  /  1947 – Farrah Fawcett (actress – Charlie’s Angels)  /  1954 – Christie Brinkley (super model)

–  1624 –  Dutch establish New Amsterdam which the British later rename New York City

–  1848 –  Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican War

–  1876 –  the National League forms

–  1887 –  the first Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

–  1892 –  William Painter patents the bottle cap

–  1913 –  Joyce Kilmer writes his famous poem “Trees”

–  1926 –  three men dance “The Charleston” for 22 hours

–  1933 –  Hitler dissolves the Reichstag, two days after becoming Chancellor

–  1935 –  a lie detector is used for the first time by its inventor Leonard Keeler

–  1940 –  Frank Sinatra makes his singing debut

–  1943 –  the German 6^th Army surrenders, ending the Battle of Stalingrad

–  1949 –  a B-50 bomber completes the first nonstop flight around the world in 94 hours (23,452 miles)

–  1959 –  Buddy Holly’s last performance

–  1964 – toy G.I. Joe debuts

–  1974 –  Barbra Streisand has her first #1 hit –  “The Way We Were”

–  2009 –  Rupaul’s Drag Race debuts

Quote:  Character is higher than intellect.  –  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Feb. 3

–  birthdays:  1480 – Ferdinand Magellan  /  1821 –  Elizabeth Blackwell (first American woman with a medical degree)  /  1874 – Gertrude Stein (author –  The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas;  coined the term “lost generation”)  /  1894 –  Norman Rockwell (artist – Saturday Evening Post covers)  /  1904 –  Pretty Boy Floyd (gangster)  /  1914 –  George Nissan (inventor of the trampoline)  /  1940 –  Fran Tarkenton (Hall of Fame quarterback)  /  1945 –  Bob Griese (Hall of Fame quarterback)  /  1969 – Terry Bradshaw  (Hall of Fame quarterback) 

–  1863 – Samuel Clemens first uses the pen name Mark Twain

–  1882 –  P.T. Barnum buys Jumbo the elephant

–  1913  – 16^th Amendment (federal income tax) is ratified

–  1943 –  four chaplains drown after giving their life jackets to others

–  1950 –  British scientist Klaus Fuchs arrested for passing Manhattan Project secrets to the Soviets

–  1959 –  Buddy Holly and Richie Valens killed in a plane crash

–  1967 –  Jimi Hendrix records “Purple Haze”

–  1979 –  The Village People’s “YMCA” peaks at #2

–  2009 –  Eric Holder becomes first African-American Attorney General 

Quote:  Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything.  –  Alex Hamilton

Feb. 4

–  birthdays:  1902 – Charles Lindbergh  /  1913 – Rosa Parks  /  1921 – Betty Friedan  (feminist; author of The Feminine Mystique)  /  1947 –  Dan Quayle (Vice President for George H.W. Bush)  /  1948 –  Alice Cooper (shock rocker – “School’s Out”)  /  1959  –  Lawrence Taylor (considered the best linebacker in NFL history)  /  1962 – Clint Black  (country music star – biggest hit =  “When I Said I Do”) 

–  1789  –  Electoral College chooses Washington as the first President

–  1826 –  James Fenimore Cooper publishes The Last of the Mohicans

–  1846 –  the Mormons leave Nauvoo, Illinois to settle in the west

–  1861 –  Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederacy

–  1941 –  Roy Plunkett patents teflon

–  1970 – Patton premieres 

–  1973 –  comic strip “Hagar the Horrible” debuts

–  1974 –  Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army

–  1998 –  Bill Gates gets hit in the face with a pie in Brussels, Belgium

–  2004 –  Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook from his Harvard dorm room

Quote:  Children have never been good at listening to their parents, but they have never failed to imitate them.  –  James Baldwin

Feb. 5

–  birthdays:  1848 – Belle Starr (outlaw)  /  1900 –  Adlai Stevenson (Presidential candidate 1952, 1956)  /  1934 – Hank Aaron (Hall of Fame baseball player who broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record and finished with 755)  /  1942 –  Roger Staubach (Hall of Fame quarterback)  /  1943 – Norman Bushnell (founded Atari and created Pong)  /  1969 –  Bobby Brown (singer – biggest hit =  “My Prerogative”) 

–  1870 –  first motion picture shown in a theater

–  1901 –  Ed Prescott patents the “loop-the-loop centrifugal railroad” (the roller coaster)

–  1917 –  the last of Pershing’s troops leave Mexico after failing to capture Pancho Villa

–  1918 –  Stephen Thompson becomes the first American pilot to shoot down a German plane

–  1922 – Reader’s Digest first published

–  1937 –  FDR proposes packing the Supreme Court

–  1945 –  MacArthur’s forces enter Manila

–  1994 – Byron De La Beckwith convicted of the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers, 30 years after the murder

–  1997 – O. J. Simpson found guilty in a civil case for the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman

Quote:  A child becomes an adult when he realizes he has the right not only to be right, but to be wrong.  –  Thomas Szasz

Feb. 6

–  birthdays:  1756 –  Aaron Burr (third Vice President and killer of Hamilton)  /  1883 – J.E.B. Stuart (Confederate cavalry commander)  /  1895 – Babe Ruth  /  1911 – Ronald Reagan  /  1912 –  Eva Braun (Hitler’s wife)  /  1940 – Tom Brokaw (NBC news anchor 1982 – 2004)  /  1950 –  Natalie Cole (singer – biggest hit = “I’ve Got Love on My Mind”)  /  1962 – Axl Rose (singer for Guns and Roses – biggest hit =  “Sweet Child O’Mine”) 

–  1862 –  Gen. Grant captures Fort Henry

–  1868 –  Thomas Nast’s version of Uncle Sam appears for the first time

–  1894 –  William Painter invents the bottle opener

–  1899 –  Senate ratifies the treaty ending the Spanish-American War

–  1911 –  first old age home opens in Prescott, Arizona

–  1935 –  “Monopoly” goes on sale for the first time

–  1937 –  John Steinbeck publishes “Of Mice and Men”

–  1958 –  Ted Williams becomes the highest paid baseball player at $135,000

–  1971 –  Alan Shepard hits a golf ball on the Moon

–  1981 –  Brady Bunch premieres

Quote:  Conscience =  the inner voice that warns us that someone might be watching.  –  H.L. Mencken

Feb. 7

–  birthdays:  1804 –  John Deere (inventor of the steel plow)  /  1867 –  Laura Ingalls Wilder (author – Little House on the Prairie)  /  1885 – Sinclair Lewis (first American winner of 1930 Nobel Prize for Literature for Babbitt)  /  1960 –  James Spader (actor – The Black List)  /  1962 –  Garth Brooks (country singer –  biggest hit =  “Lost in You”)  /  1966 –  Chris Rock (stand-up comic)  /  1978 –  Ashton Kutcher (That 70’s Show) 

–  1817 –  Baltimore becomes first American city lit by gas street lights  

–  1882 –  John L. Sullivan becomes the last bare-knuckle heavyweight boxing champ

–  1914 –  Charlie Chaplin debuts his character The Tramp in the movie “Kid Races”

–  1940 –  Walt Disney debuts his second feature length movie – Pinocchio) 

–  1945 –  MacArthur returns to Manila 

–  1962 – Kennedy puts blockade on Cuban imports and exports 

–  1964 –  The Beatles  land in New York City for their first American tour

–  1974 –  the movie Blazing Saddles opens

–  1979 –  Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death” doctor from Auschwitz, dies of a stroke while swimming in  Brazil 

Quote:  We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.  –  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Feb. 8

–  birthdays:  1820 –  William Sherman (Union general)  /  1925 – Jack Lemmon (actor –  The Odd Couple)  /  1931 – James Dean  (actor – Rebel Without a Cause)  /  1932 – John Williams (composer – Star Wars, Jaws)  /  1955 – John Grisham (author – The Pelican Brief)  /  1961 – Vince Neil (singer for Motley Crue –  biggest hit =  “Doctor Feelgood”)  /  1968 – Gary Coleman (actor –  Diff’rent Strokes)  /  1974 – Seth Green (actor/voice talent – Robot Chicken)  /  1990 – Bethany Hamilton (surfer who lost an arm to a shark)  /  1990 – Klay Thompson (NBA player)

 –  1861 –  Confederate States of America organizes in Montgomery, Alabama

–  1887 –  the Dawes Act is passed

–  1910 –  William Boyce founds the Boy Scouts

–  1915 –  first major motion picture opens –  The Birth of a Nation

–  1925 –  Marcus Garvey goes to prison

Quote:  We’re eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fellow just blinked.  –  Dean Rusk during the Cuban Missile Crisis

Feb. 9

–  birthdays:  1773 – William Henry Harrison (9^th President 1841)  /  1942 – Carol King (singer – biggest hit =  “It’s Too Late/I Fell the Earth Move”)  /  1944 – Alice Walker (author – The Color Purple)  /  1963 – Travis Tritt (country musician – biggest hit =  “Best of Intentions”)  /  1987 –  Michael B. Jordan (actor – Black Panther) 

–  1825 – the House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams the 6^th President

–  1861 –  Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederacy

–  1870 – National Weather Service created

–  1895 –  first college basketball game, Minnesota State School of Agriculture defeats the Hamline College Porkers 9-3

–  1909 – first federal law prohibiting a narcotic (opium)

–  1943 –  Japanese evacuate their remaining forces on Guadalcanal

–  1950 –  Sen. Joseph McCarthy charges that there are 205 communists in the State Department in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, thus launching McCarthyism

–  1964 –  The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show

–  1964 –  GI Joe toy created

–  1971 –  first gay themed TV episode –  All in the Family

–  1985 – Madonna’s “Like a Virgin’ album reaches #1

–  1997 – The Simpsons becomes the longest running animated series

Quote:  The best is the enemy of the good.  –  Voltaire

Feb. 10

–  birthdays:  1893 – Bill Tilden (first great pro tennis player)  /  1927 – Leontyne Price (soprano opera singer)  /  1930 – Robert Wagner (actor – It Takes a Thief)  /  1939 – Roberta Flack (singer –  biggest hit =  “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”)  /  1950 – Mark Spitz (swimmer who won 7 gold medals at the 1972 Olympics)  /  1974 – Elizabeth Banks (actress – Pitch Perfect)  /  1991 – Emma Roberts (actress)  /  Chloe Grace Moretz (actress –  Kick-Ass)

–  1763 –  the French and Indian War ends with the Treaty of Paris;  Great Britain acquires Canada

–  1863 –  Tom Thumb marries Lavinia Warren

–  1920 –  baseball bans spit balls

–  1933 – first singing telegram

–  1933 – classic western movie Stagecoach opens

–  1940 –  Tom and Jerry cartoon created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera

–  1962 –  Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel

–  1967 –  25^th Amendment ratified

–  1992 – Mike Tyson convicted of rape

–  2004 –  Kanye West releases his first album – “The College Dropout”  

Quote:  Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.  –  Sir Walter Scott

Feb. 11

–  birthdays:  1812 – Alexander Stephens (Vice President – Confederate States of America)  /  1847 – Thomas Edison  /  1926 – Leslie Nielsen (actor – Naked Gun)  /  1934 – Tina Louise (Ginger on Gilligan’s Island)  /  1935 – Burt Reynolds (actor – The Longest Yard)  /  1962 – Sheryl Crow (singer – biggest hit = “All I Wanna Do”)  /  1964 – Sarah Palin (Vice President candidate – 2008)  /  1969 – Jennifer Anniston (actress – Friends) 

–  1809 –  Robert Fulton patents the steam boat

–  1942 – Archie comic book debuts

–  1945 –  Yalta Conference ends

–  1953 – Pres. Eisenhower refuses clemency for the Rosenbergs

–  1966 – Willie Mays (possibly the greatest baseball player of all time) signs his highest contract – $130,000 per year

–  1993 – Janet Reno is appointed the first female Attorney General by Pres. Clinton   

Quote:  You may fool all the people some of the time;  you can even fool all of the people some of the time;  but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.  –  Lincoln

Feb. 12

–  birthdays:  1663 – Cotton Mather  (Puritan minister who was involved in the Salem Witch Trials)  /  1809 – Abe Lincoln (born the same day as Charles Darwin)  /  1893 – Omar Bradley (WWII general)  /  1934 – Bill Russell (NBA Hall of Famer who won 11 championships with the Celtics)  /  1938 – Judy Blume  (young adult author –  Are You There God?  It’s Me, Margaret)  /  1955 – Arsenio Hall (comedian)  /  1965 – Brett Cavanaugh (Supreme Court Justice 2019-)  /  1980 – Christina Ricci (actress – Addam’s Family)

–  1880 – National Croquet League is formed

–  1909 – NAACP is founded

–  1924 –  George Gershwin debuts “Rhapsody in Blue”

–  1959 –  Lincoln Memorial penny goes into circulation (replacing the wheat sheaves back)

–  1973 –  first POWs released by North Vietnam

–  1999 –  Pres. Clinton acquitted by Senate in his impeachment trial

Quote:  Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.  –  George Bernard Shaw

Feb. 13

–  birthdays:  1885 – Bess Truman (First Lady 1945-53)  /  1891 – Grant Wood (painter – “American Gothic”)  /  1919 – Eddie Robinson (Grambling football coach who won 408 games)  /  1923 – Chuck Yeager (test pilot who was the first to break the sound barrier)  /  1944 – Jerry Springer (talk show host)  /  1947 – Mike Krzyzewski (Duke basketball coach)  /  1977 – Randy Moss (football Hall of Fame receiver) 

–  1866 – Jesse James holds up his first bank, stealing $15,000

–  1920 –  National Negro Baseball League is founded (on this day in 1974, James “Cool Papa” Bell is added to the Baseball Hall of Fame)

–  1935 – Bruno Hauptmann found guilty in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case

–  1942 –  Hitler cancels Operation Sea Lion

–  1945 –  Anglo-American bombers begin bombing Dresden, Germany;  over 35,000 civilians are killed

–  1957 –  SCLC is organized with King as its President

–  1959 –  the first Barbie makes its debut at the American Toy Fair in NYC

–  2000 – last original “Peanuts” comic strip appears in newspapers (one day after the death of Charles Schulz)

Quote:  Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.  –  H.L. Mencken

Feb. 14

–  birthdays:  1818 – Frederick Douglass (black abolitionist who published The North Star newspaper)  /  1819 – Christopher Sholes (inventor of the typewriter)  /  1859 – George Ferris (inventor of the Ferris Wheel)  /  1894 –  Jack Benny (comedian)  /  1913 –  Jimmy Hoffa (Teamsters leader who disappeared in 1975)  /  1934 –  Florence Henderson (actress – The Brady Bunch)  / 1944 – Carl Bernstein (newspaper reporter partner of Bob Woodward in the Watergate Scandal)  /  1972 – Rob Thomas (singer for Matchbox Twenty – biggest hit = “Bent”) 

–  1912 –  Arizona becomes the 48^th state

–  1920 –  League of Women Voters is formed

–  1929 – St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

–  1931 –  the original “Dracula” starring Bela Lugosi is released

–  1962 –  Jackie Kennedy conducts a televised tour of the White House

–  1967 –  Aretha Franklin records “Respect”

–  1971 –  Nixon installs a secret taping system in the Oval Office

–  1991 –  Silence of the Lambs is released and goes on to win Best Picture

–  2018 –  Shaun White wins his third gold medal in the half pipe in the Olympics

Quote:  The world must be made safe for democracy.  –  Woodrow Wilson

Feb. 15

–  birthdays:  1803 – John Sutter (owner of the mill where gold was discovered in California)  /  1809 – Cyrus McCormick (inventor of the mechanical reaper)  /  1812 – Charles Tiffany (jeweler)  /  1820 – Susan B. Anthony  /  1884 – Alfred Gilbert (inventor of the Erector Set)  /  1954 – Matt Groening (cartoonist – The Simpsons)  /  1964 – Chris Farley (Saturday Night Live) 

–  1898 –  the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor

–  1903 –  first Teddy Bear, made by Morris and Rose Michtom, goes on sale at their store

–  1933 –  assassination attempt of President-elect FDR; Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak is killed

–  1943 – “We Can Do It” poster is seen for the first time

–  1950 –  Walt Disney’s Cinderella premieres

–  1996 –  Bill Belichick is fired by the Cleveland Browns after going 36-44

–  2005 –  YouTube is launched

–  2011 –  Obama awards Maya Angelou the Presidential Medal of Freedom 

Quote:  Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half the people are right more than half the time.  –  E.B. White

Feb. 16

–  birthdays:  1903 – Edgar Bergen (most famous ventriloquist in American History)  /  1957 – Levar Burton (Roots, Reading Rainbow)  /  1958 – Ice-T  (rapper)  /  1959 –  John McEnroe (tennis player)  /  1974 – Mahershala Ali (actor – Moonlight, Green Book) 

–  1804 –  Stephen Decatur leads a raid into Tripoli harbor to burn the captured USS Philadelphia

–  1862 –  Gen. Grant captures Fort Donelson after demanding “unconditional surrender”

–  1959 –  Castro takes power in Cuba

–  1968 – first 911 system, Haleyville, Alabama

–  1979 –  disco still rules the air waves as the Bee Gees win the Grammy for album “Saturday Night Fever”

–  1972 –  Wilt Chamberlain becomes first NBA player to reach 30,000 points

–  2005 –  the Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming goes into effect 

Quote:  Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.  –  Reinhold Niebuhr

Feb. 17

–  birthdays:  1844 –  Mongomery Ward  /  1902 –  Marion Anderson (classical singer)  /  1936 – Jim Brown (Hall of Fame running back / movie star – The Dirty Dozen)  /  1942 – Huey P. Newton (co-founder of the Black Panthers)  /  1963 – Michael Jordan (NBA Hall of Famer and winner of 6 championships)  /  1963 – Larry the Cable Guy (comedian)  /  1972 – Billie Joe Armstrong (singer for Green Day –  biggest hit =  “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”)  /  1981 – Paris Hilton (celebrity)

–  1621 – Miles Standish is elected military commander of the Plymouth colony

–  1801 –  House of Representatives breaks electoral tie and elects Jefferson President over his running mate Aaron Burr

–  1815 –  Treaty of Ghent ratified by Senate ending the War of 1812

–  1864 –  the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley makes the first successful sub attack, but sinks in the process

–  1876 –  first canned sardines by Julius Wolff

–  1933 –  Blondie Boopadoop marries Dagwood Bumstead

–  1936 – world’s first super hero, The Phantom, makes his appearance in a comic strip

–  1958 – comic strip BC makes its first appearance

–  1968 –  U.S. casualty rate hits all-time high as 543 dead in one week during the Tet Offensive

Quote:  The best way out is always through.  –  Robert Frost

Feb. 18

–  birthdays:  1892 – Wendell Willkie (1940 Republican candidate)  /  1931 – Toni Morrison (first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature)  /  1954 – John Travolta (actor – Pulp Fiction, Grease)  /  1957 – Vanna White (letter turner – Wheel of Fortune)  /  1964 – Matt Dillon (actor – Crash)  /  1965 – Dr. Dre (rapper – biggest hit =  “Nuthin’ but a G Thang”)  /  1968 – Molly Ringwald  (actress – Pretty in Pink) 

–  1856 –  the Know Nothing Party holds its first convention and nominates Millard Fillmore for President

–  1861 –  Jefferson Davis inaugurated as President of the Confederacy in Mobile, Alabama

–  1885 –  Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

–  1930 –  American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto

–  1970 –  Pres. Nixon proclaims the “Nixon Doctrine”

–  2001 –  Dale Earnhardt dies due to a crash in the Daytona 500

Quote:  It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.  –  John Buchan

Feb. 19

–  birthdays:  1924 –  Lee Marvin (actor – Cat Ballou)  /  1940 – Smokey Robinson  (singer –  biggest hit =  “The Tears of a Clown”)  /  1959 – Roger Goddell (NFL commissioner)  /  1967 – Benicio del Toro (actor – Traffic) 

–  1847 –  first rescuers reach the Donner Party

–  1878 –  Edison granted patent for the gramophone (phonograph)

–  1942 –  FDR issues Executive Order 9066 which orders the detention of Japanese-Americans

–  1945 – over 900 Japanese soldiers reportedly killed by crocodiles in Burma

–  1945 –  invasion of Iwo Jima

–  1960 –  “Family Circus” comic strip debuts

–  1963 –  Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique

–  1968 –  Mister Rogers’Neighborhood debuts

–  1973 –  Tony Orlando and Dawn release “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree” (song of the year)

–  1985 –  Cherry Coke introduced

Quote:  Let us never negotiate out of fear.  But let us never fear to negotiate.  –  Kennedy

Feb. 20

–  birthdays:  1902 – Ansel Adams (photographer)  /  1927 – Sidney Poitier (first African-American to win Best Actor Oscar for Lilies in the Field)  /  1942 – Mitch McConnell (Senate majority leader 2015-)  /  1963 – Charles Barkley (NBA Hall of Famer)  /  1967 – Kurt Cobain (singer for Nirvana – biggest hit =  “Smells Like Teen Spirit”)  /  1983 –  Justin Verlander (baseball pitcher)  /  1988 – Rihanna (singer – biggest hit =  “Disturbia”) 

–  1942 –  Edward “Butch” O’Hare becomes the first American ace of WWII by shooting down five Japanese bombers attacking his carrier Lexington in four minutes

–  1959 –  16 year-old Jimi Hendrix plays his first gig and is fired by the band for playing “wild”

–  1962 –  John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit Earth

–  2003 –  during a concert by the band Great White, a pyrotechnic display starts a fire and 100 are killed  

Quote:  Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive;  easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.  –  Henry Peter Brougham

Feb. 21

–  birthdays:  1794 –  Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (President of Mexico during the Texas Revolution and Mexican War)  /  1925 – Sam Peckinpah (director – The Wild Bunch)  /  1927 – Erma Bombeck (humorist – The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank)  /  1946 –  Alan Rickman (actor – Harry Potter series)  /  1955  –  Kelsey Grammer (actor – Frazier)  /  1979 – Jennifer Love Hewitt (actress – Party of Five)  /  1979 – Jordan Peele (comedian, director – Get Out)  /  1987 –  Ellen Page (actress – Juno and LGBT activist)  /  1996 –  Sophie Turner (actress – Game of Thrones)

–  1848 – Marx and Engels publish “The Communist Manifesto” in London

–  1885 –  the Washington Monument is dedicated

–  1931 – Alka Seltzer introduced

–  1848 –  Congressman and ex-President John Quincy Adams suffers a stroke on the floor of the House of Representatives while speaking against the Mexican War

–  1965 –  Malcolm X assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam

–  1970 –  the Jackson 5 make their TV debut on American Bandstand

–  1972 – Pres. Nixon becomes first President to visit China;  meets Mao Zedong

–  1975 –  John Ehrlichman, H. R. Haldeman, and John Mitchell sentenced to prison for involvement in the Watergate Scandal

–  1979 –  two Iowa girls basketball teams play to a scoreless tie;  the game is decided in the 4^th overtime when one wins 4-2

Quote:  The aim of education is the knowledge not of facts but of values.  –  William Ralph Inge

Feb. 22

–  birthdays:  1732 –  George Washington  /  1892 – Edna St. Vincent Millay (poet  – “Renascence”)  /  1918 –  Alfred J. Gross (inventor of the walkie-talkie)  /  1932 –  Teddy Kennedy (Senator 1962 – 2009)  /  1959 – Julius “Dr. J” Erving (NBA Hall of Famer)  /  1975 – Drew Barrymore (actress – E.T.)

–  1822 –  U.S. acquires Florida through the Adams-Onis Treaty with Spain

–  1847 –  Gen. Zachary Taylor defeats Santa Anna in the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War

–  1879 – first 5 and 10 store opened by Frank Woolworth

–  1888 –  “Father of American Golf” John Reed demonstrates the game in a cow pasture

–  1909 –  the Great White Fleet returns

–  1915 –  Germany begins unrestricted submarine warfare

–  1942 –  Gen. MacArthur promises “I shall return” as he leaves the Philippines

–  1980 –  the “Miracle on Ice” – the American ice hockey team defeats the heavily favored Soviets in one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history

–  2017 – Jay-Z becomes first rapper inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame

Quote:  Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. –   Earl Warren

Feb. 23

–  birthdays:  –  1868 –  W.E.B. DuBois (civil rights activist, founder of the NAACP)  /  1915 – Paul Tibbets (pilot of the Enola Gay)  /  1940 –  Peter Fonda (actor – Easy Rider)  /  1965 – Michael Dell (founder of Dell Technologies)  /  1983 – Aziz Ansari (comedian – Master of None)  /  1994 – Dakota Fanning (actress –  I Am Sam)

–  1540 –  conquistador Coronado sets out to find the Seven Cities of Gold

–  1778 –  Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge

–  1836 –  siege of the Alamo begins

–  1896 –  Tootsie Roll introduced by Leo Hirshfield

–  1904 –  U.S. acquires the Panama Canal Zone for $10 million

–  1919 –  Mussolini founds the Fascist Party in Italy

–  1927 –  the Federal Communications Commission begins regulating radio

–  1940 –  Pinocchio is released

–  1940 –  Woody Guthrie writes “This Land is Your Land”

–  1945 –  flag raised on Iwo Jima

–  1954 –  first mass inoculation for polio by Jonas Salk in Pittsburgh

–  1967 –  25^th Amendment is approved

–  1997 –  Schindler’s List becomes first movie shown on TV without commercial interruption

Quote:  Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.  –  Robert Frost

Feb. 24

–  birthdays:  1836 – Winslow Homer (painter)  /  1885 – Chester Nimitz (commander of the Pacific Fleet in WWII)  /  1950 – George Thorogood (singer/guitarist – “Bad to the Bone”)  /  1955 – Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple)

–  1779 –  George Rogers Clark and his frontiersmen capture Fort Vincennes in the Revolutionary War

–  1803 – Marbury v. Madison

–  1868 –  Andrew Johnson impeached

–  1917 –  the British release the “Zimmerman Note”

–  1968 –  the Tet Offensive ends with the liberation of Hue

–  1980 –  the “Miracle on Ice” American hockey team wins the gold medal over          Finland 4-2

–  1991 –  American-led coalition forces start the ground offensive in the Persian Gulf War

Quote:  A child miseducated is a child lost.  –  John F. Kennedy

Feb. 25

–  birthdays:  1888 – John Foster Dulles (Eisenhower’s Secretary of State)  /  1913 – Jim Backus (Mr. Howell on Gilligan’s Island)  /  1918 –  Bobby Riggs (tennis player in “The Battle of the Sexes”)  /  1943 – George Harrison (lead guitarist for the Beatles;  biggest hit as a solo artist = “Got My Mind Set on You”)  /  1949 – Ric Flair (pro wrestler)  /  1971 – Sean Austin (actor –  Lord of the Rings)  /  1975 – Chelsea Handler (comedian)  /  1976 –  Rashida Jones (actress – Parks and Recreation) 

–  1793 –  Pres. Washington holds first Cabinet meeting

–  1836 –  Samuel Colt patents the first revolver

–  1837 –  Thomas Davenport invents the electric motor

–  1870 –  Hiram Revels becomes the first African-American Congressman

–  1901 –  J.P. Morgan organizes U.S. Steel Corporation

–  1913 –  16^th Amendment goes into effect

–  1957 –  Buddy Holly and the Crickets record “That’ll Be the Day”

–  1963 –  The Beatles release their first single in America –  “Please Please Me”

–  1964 –  Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) TKOs Sonny Liston for his first heavyweight championship

Quote:  Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.  –  B.F. Skinner

Feb. 26

–  birthdays:  1829 –  Levi Strauss (inventor of blue jeans)  /  1846 –  William “Buffalo Bill” Cody (buffalo hunter and showman – “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show”)  /  1852 –  John Henry Kellogg (developer of flaked grains)  /  1908 –  Tex Avery (cartoonist – Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck)  /  1916 – Jackie Gleason (comedian –  The Honeymooners)  /  1920 –  Tony Randall (Felix on The Odd Couple TV series)  /  1928 –  “Fats” Domino (early rock n’ roller –  biggest hit =  “Blueberry Hill”)  /  1932 –  Johnny Cash (country music giant – biggest hit =  “A Boy Named Sue”)  /  1953 –  Michael Bolton (singer –  biggest hit =  “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You”)  /  1973 – Marshall Faulk (NFL Hall of Fame running back) 

–  1919 –  Congress creates Grand Canyon National Park

–  1924 –  Hitler goes on trial for the Beer Hall Putsch

–  1983 –  Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album goes #1 and stays 37 weeks

–  1991 –  hundreds of fleeing Iraqi soldiers are killed by aerial bombardment on the “Highway of Death” during the Persian Gulf War

–  1993 –  the first World Trade Center bombing –  a van of explosives goes off in the parking  garage killing 6

Quote:  Vote for the man who promises least;  he’ll be the least disappointing.  –  Bernard Baruch

Feb. 27

–  birthdays:  1807 –  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (poet – “The Song of Hiawatha”)  /  1897 –  Marian Anderson (singer)  /  1902 – John Steinbeck (Nobel Prize winner for The Grapes of Wrath)  /  1932 – Elizabeth Taylor (actress – Cleopatra)  /  1934 –  Ralph Nader (consumer advocate and Green Party candidate for President in 2000)  /  1980 – Chelsea Clinton (Presidential daughter)  /  1981 –  Josh Groban  (singer – biggest hit =  “You Raise Me Up”) 

–  1827  –  first Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans

–  1864 – Andersonville prison camp opens

–  1933 –  the Reichstag fire is blamed on communists by the Nazis

–  1951 –  22^nd Amendment ratified

–  1973 –  members of the American Indian Movement occupy Wounded Knee

–  1974  –  People magazine goes on sale

–  1976 –  Nixon and Mao hold their last meeting on his famous trip to China

–  1996 –  first appearance of Pokemon, in a Game Boy game

Quote:  It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job;  it’s a depression when you lose yours.  –  Harry Truman

Feb. 28

–  birthdays:  1901 –  Linus Pauling (chemist, winner of Nobel Prizes in 1954 & 1962)  /  1940 –  Mario Andretti (race car driver) 

–  1844 –  gun on USS Princeton blows up killing two cabinet members but sparing Pres. Tyler

–  1854 –  Republican Party formed

–  1883 –  first vaudeville theater opens in Boston

–  1933 –  Frances Perkins becomes first female Cabinet member (Labor)

–  1967 –  Wilt Chamberlain sets NBA record with 35^th consecutive made field goal

–  1972 –  Nixon ends his trip to China

–  1983 –  last episode of “MASH” sets record with 125 million viewers

–  1993 –  six cult members and four ATF agents die when the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas is raided  

Quote:  He makes no friend who never made a foe.  –  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Feb. 29

–  birthdays:  1840 – John Philip Holland (father of the modern submarine)  /  1840 – William Carney (first African-American awarded the Medal of Honor)  /  1976 –  Ja Rule (rapper – biggest hit =  “Always on Time”) 

–  1504 –  Columbus uses a lunar eclipse to frighten Jamaican Indians

–  1692 –  first accusations leading to the Salem Witch Trials

–  1940 –  Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African-American woman to win an acting Oscar (Gone With the Wind) 

–  1960 –  first Playboy Club opens in Chicago featuring bunnies

–  1972 –  Hank Aaron becomes first baseball player to make $200,000

Quote:  You shall judge a man by his foes as well as his friends.  –  Joseph Conrad