http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Feb 18, 1885: Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
On this day in 1885, Mark Twain publishes his famous--and famously controversial--novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Twain (the pen name of Samuel Clemens) first introduced Huck Finn as the best friend of Tom Sawyer, hero of his tremendously successful novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). Though Twain saw Huck's story as a kind of sequel to his earlier book, the new novel was far more serious, focusing on the institution of slavery and other aspects of life in the antebellum South.
At the book's heart is the journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on a raft. Jim runs away because he is about to be sold and separated from his wife and children, and Huck goes with him to help him get to Ohio and freedom. Huck narrates the story in his distinctive voice, offering colorful descriptions of the people and places they encounter along the way. The most striking part of the book is its satirical look at racism, religion and other social attitudes of the time. While Jim is strong, brave, generous and wise, many of the white characters are portrayed as violent, stupid or simply selfish, and the naive Huck ends up questioning the hypocritical, unjust nature of society in general.
Even in 1885, two decades after the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn landed with a splash. A month after its publication, a Concord, Massachusetts, library banned the book, calling its subject matter "tawdry" and its narrative voice "coarse" and "ignorant." Other libraries followed suit, beginning a controversy that continued long after Twain's death in 1910. In the 1950s, the book came under fire from African-American groups for being racist in its portrayal of black characters, despite the fact that it was seen by many as a strong criticism of racism and slavery. As recently as 1998, an Arizona parent sued her school district, claiming that making Twain's novel required high school reading made already existing racial tensions even worse.
Aside from its controversial nature and its continuing popularity with young readers, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been hailed by many serious literary critics as a masterpiece. No less a judge than Ernest Hemingway famously declared that the book marked the beginning of American literature: "There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."
Feb 18, 1930: Pluto discovered
Pluto, once believed to be the ninth planet, is discovered at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, by astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh.
The existence of an unknown ninth planet was first proposed by Percival Lowell, who theorized that wobbles in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune were caused by the gravitational pull of an unknown planetary body. Lowell calculated the approximate location of the hypothesized ninth planet and searched for more than a decade without success. However, in 1929, using the calculations of Powell and W.H. Pickering as a guide, the search for Pluto was resumed at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. On February 18, 1930, Tombaugh discovered the tiny, distant planet by use of a new astronomic technique of photographic plates combined with a blink microscope. His finding was confirmed by several other astronomers, and on March 13, 1930--the anniversary of Lowell's birth and of William Hershel's discovery of Uranus--the discovery of Pluto was publicly announced.
With a surface temperature estimated at approximately -360 Fahrenheit, Pluto was appropriately given the Roman name for the god of the underworld in Greek mythology. Pluto's average distance from the sun is nearly four billion miles, and it takes approximately 248 years to complete one orbit. It also has the most elliptical and tilted orbit of any planet, and at its closest point to the sun it passes inside the orbit of Neptune, the eighth planet.
After its discovery, some astronomers questioned whether Pluto had sufficient mass to affect the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. In 1978, James Christy and Robert Harrington discovered Pluto's only known moon, Charon, which was determined to have a diameter of 737 miles to Pluto's 1,428 miles. Together, it was thought that Pluto and Charon formed a double-planet system, which was of ample enough mass to cause wobbles in Uranus' and Neptune's orbits. In August 2006, however, the International Astronomical Union announced that Pluto would no longer be considered a planet, due to new rules that said planets must "clear the neighborhood around its orbit." Since Pluto's oblong orbit overlaps that of Neptune, it was disqualified.
Feb 18, 1861: Davis becomes provisional president of the Confederacy
On this day in 1861, Jefferson Davis, a veteran of the Black Hawk and Mexican-American Wars, begins his term as provisional president of the Confederate States of America. As it turned out, Davis was both the first and last president of the ill-fated Confederacy, as both his term and the Confederacy ended with the Union's 1865 victory in the Civil War.
Born in Kentucky and raised in Mississippi, Davis graduated from West Point in 1828. In 1824, at the age of 26, he married his first wife, Sarah, the 16-year-old daughter of then-Colonel Zachary Taylor, against Taylor's wishes. The marriage ended after only three months when Sarah died of malaria. Davis remarried at age 37 in 1845, this time to a prominent 17-year-old Southern socialite and budding author named Varnia Howell.
Upon his election to the House of Representatives in 1844, Davis immediately put his pro-slavery vote into action, opposing the Compromise of 1850 and other policies that would have limited the expansion of slavery into new American territories. He interrupted his political service in 1851 to fight in the Mexican-American War, during which his bravery and success prompted then-General Taylor to declare My daughter, sir, was a better judge of men than I was.
Following the war, Davis accepted an appointment to fill a suddenly vacant Mississippi seat in the U.S. Senate, but resigned after only a year to launch an unsuccessful bid for the governorship of Mississippi. Davis then campaigned for Franklin Pierce's presidential campaign; upon winning, Pierce rewarded him with the post of secretary of war in 1853. In this capacity, Davis proved instrumental in advocating for the development of a transcontinental railroad. When Pierce lost his presidential reelection bid, Davis ran for a Senate seat and won.
Although a staunch supporter of slavery, Davis vigorously opposed the secessionist movement until 1860 when Abraham Lincoln came to power. Davis' attempts to solidify states' rights failed repeatedly and, disillusioned, he decided to resign from the Senate. On January 10, 1861, Davis led Mississippi in following South Carolina's example and seceding from the Union. The following month, he was sworn in as provisional president of the Confederate States of America. (Davis was referred to as the provisional president because he had been appointed by the Confederate Congress rather than elected by the populace.) He moved his family to the southern White House in Richmond, Virginia, and prepared for a six-year presidential term.
Davis' refusal to appoint a general commander of southern forces and his attempt to manage the Southern army and government at the same time is thought to have contributed to the South's defeat. After the fall of Atlanta in 1865, he was captured in Georgia, clapped in irons and indicted for treason. After two years, he was finally released on bail; charges against him were not dropped until 1869. While in prison he staved off financial ruin by selling his Mississippi estate to a former slave. A rebel to the end, Davis refused to swear an oath of allegiance that would have reinstated his U.S. citizenship even after his release from prison. The time spent incarcerated impacted his health, and on December 6, 1889, Davis died in New Orleans.
Feb 18, 1913: Raymond Poincare becomes president of France
Raymond Poincare, a conservative politician who had been elected president of the French Republic over the objections of Georges Clemenceau and the French Left a month earlier, takes office on this day in 1913.
Known for his right-wing nationalist beliefs and his strong Catholic faith, Poincare served as France's prime minister and foreign secretary before being elected to the presidency. A native of France's Lorraine region, lost to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, he bitterly hated and feared Germany. As prime minister in the years before World War I, Poincare worked to strengthen France's alliances with both Britain and Russia. While Poincare was convinced that the system of alliances in Europe would preserve the balance of power and avert a war, in reality the solidification of the Triple Entente (an alliance among France, Britain and Russia) in the years before 1914 made Germany increasingly nervous and only intensified the atmosphere of tension that would soon explode into world war.
During the war, Poincare fought to keep a spirit of strong national unity alive and urged France's military and civilian population alike to stand firm against the onslaught of the German enemy. In the spirit of this unity, Poincare appointed his liberal nemesis, Georges Clemenceau, as prime minister in 1917. Though the two men despised each other, they shared a hard-line attitude towards Germany and fought together for strong penalties for the losing nations at the Versailles peace conference, held in Paris in 1919. Angered by what he saw as excessive leniency towards Germany in the final Versailles treaty, Poincare declined to stand for reelection and returned to the Senate in 1920. He was again appointed prime minister in 1922. In this post, he enforced the payment of German reparations; when the struggling country defaulted, he sent French troops to seize the industrial zones of the Ruhr Valley in January 1923. Poincare stepped down with the victory of a left-wing coalition in 1924, but returned to the post of prime minister in 1926. He would head two more ministries until 1929, when he retired from government service for health reasons. Poincare died in 1934.
Feb 18, 1943: Nazis arrest White Rose resistance leaders
Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie, the leaders of the German youth group Weisse Rose (White Rose), are arrested by the Gestapo for opposing the Nazi regime.
The White Rose was composed of university (mostly medical) students who spoke out against Adolf Hitler and his regime. The founder, Hans Scholl, was a former member of Hitler Youth who grew disenchanted with Nazi ideology once its real aims became evident. As a student at the University of Munich in 1940-41, he met two Roman Catholic men of letters who redirected his life. Turning from medicine to religion, philosophy, and the arts, Scholl gathered around him like-minded friends who also despised the Nazis, and the White Rose was born.
During the summer of 1942, Scholl and a friend composed four leaflets, which exposed and denounced Nazi and SS atrocities, including the extermination of Jews and Polish nobility, and called for resistance to the regime. The literature was peppered with quotations from great writers and thinkers, from Aristotle to Goethe, and called for the rebirth of the German university. It was aimed at an educated elite within Germany.
The risks involved in such an enterprise were enormous. The lives of average civilians were monitored for any deviation from absolute loyalty to the state. Even a casual remark critical of Hitler or the Nazis could result in arrest by the Gestapo, the regime's secret police. Yet the students of the White Rose (the origin of the group's name is uncertain; possibly, it came from the picture of the flower on their leaflets) risked all, motivated purely by idealism, the highest moral and ethical principles, and sympathy for their Jewish neighbors and friends. (Despite the risks, Hans' sister, Sophie, a biology student at her brother's university, begged to participate in the activities of the White Rose when she discovered her brother's covert operation.)
On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie left a suitcase filled with copies of yet another leaflet in the main university building. The leaflet stated, in part: "The day of reckoning has come, the reckoning of our German youth with the most abominable tyranny our people has ever endured. In the name of the entire German people we demand of Adolf Hitler's state the return of personal freedom, the most precious treasure of the Germans which he cunningly has cheated us out of." The pair were spotted by a janitor and reported to the Gestapo and arrested. Turned over to Hitler's "People's Court," basically a kangaroo court for dispatching dissidents quickly, the Scholls, along with another White Rose member who was caught, were sentenced to death. They were beheaded--a punishment reserved for "political traitors"--on February 23, but not before Hans Scholl proclaimed "Long live freedom!"
Feb 18, 2011: Green River serial killer pleads guilty to 49th murder
On this day in 2011, in a Kent, Washington, courtroom, Gary Leon Ridgway pleads guilty to the 1982 aggravated, first-degree murder of his 49th victim, 20-year-old Rebecca Marrero. Marrero’s remains were found in December 2010, decades after her murder, in a ravine near Auburn, Washington. After entering his guilty plea, the 62-year-old Ridgway received his 49th life sentence without the possibility of parole and returned to the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, where he was already serving 48 consecutive life sentences, one for each of the other women he killed.
In the 1980s, residents of Washington State were terrorized by the so-called Green River Killer, whose first five victims’ bodies were discovered in or near the Green River in King County (whose largest city is Seattle) in the summer of 1982. The strangled bodies of more victims soon appeared around King County; all were women, most of them young and many of them prostitutes, runaways and drug users. Ridgway, a thrice-married truck painter from Auburn, became a suspect after one of the victims was spotted getting into his truck. However, when questioned by police, he denied any knowledge of the slayings and passed a 1984 polygraph test. In 2001, he was finally arrested after DNA evidence (a technology not available when he began committing his crimes) connected him to some of the killings.
In a controversial 2003 plea deal, Ridgway admitted to the murders of 48 women between 1982 and 1998, and prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty against him if he cooperated with police in locating the remains of dozens of his victims. Ridgway reportedly claimed to have murdered more than 60 women in King County, although authorities at the time could only find sufficient evidence to link him to the 48 slayings. (Ridgway’s plea deal was limited to murders in King County; if, in the future, he is linked to unsolved killings in other counties or states, he could be eligible for the death penalty.)
Ridgway told authorities he began to think of murdering prostitutes as his career, and did it “because he hated them, didn't want to pay them for sex, and because he knew he could kill as many as he wanted without getting caught,” according to The Seattle Times. The serial killer said he picked up women off the street, strangled them in his home or truck, and meticulously hid their bodies near natural landmarks (such as trees or fallen logs) in an attempt to keep track of them.
At the time of his 49th conviction, Ridgway had been linked to more murders than any other convicted serial killer in U.S. history.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
3102 BC - Epoch (origin) of the Kali Yuga.
1129 - Jerusalem taken by Emperor Frederik II
1268 - The Livonian Brothers of the Sword are defeated by
Dovmont of Pskov in the Battle of Rakovor.
1332 - Amda Seyon I, Emperor of Ethiopia begins his
campaigns in the southern Muslim provinces.
1478 - George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason
against his older brother Edward IV of England, is privately executed in the
Tower of London.
1503 - Henry Tudor created Prince of Wales (later Henry
VIII)
1536 - France & Turkey sign milt/trade agreement against
King Karel
1563 - Huguenot Jean Poltrot de Mere shoots gen Francois De
Guise
1574 - Zeeland falls to Dutch rebels
1634 - Ferdinand II orders commander Albrecht von
Wallenstein, execution
1678 - John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is
published
1685 - Fort St. Louis is established by a Frenchman at
Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas.
1688 - Quakers conduct 1st formal protest of slavery in
Germantown, Pa
1713 - French invade under Jacques Cassard on Curacao
1735 - 1st opera performed in America, "Flora," in
Charleston, SC
1745 - Bonnie Prince Charlies troops occupy Inverness
Scotland
1787 - Austrian emperor Jozef II bans children under 8 from
labor
1797 - Trinidad is surrendered to a British fleet under the
command of Sir Ralph Abercromby.
1804 - 1st US land-grant college, Ohio University, Athens
Ohio, chartered
1814 - The Battle of Montereau occurs.
1828 - More than 100 vessels destroyed in a storm, Gibraltar
1834 - 1st US labor newspaper, "The Man,"
published, NYC
1839 - Detroit Boat Club forms (& still exists)
1849 - 1st regular steamboat service to California starts
(or 02/28)
1850 - California Legislature creates 9 Bay Area counties
1856 - American (Know-Nothing) Party abolishes secrecy
13th US President Millard Fillmore13th US President Millard
Fillmore 1856 - The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President
Millard Fillmore.
1857 - Insurrection of Chinese in Sarawak, Borneo
1861 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis inaugurated at
Montgomery Ala
1861 - King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia becomes 1st King
of Italy
1865 - Battle of Ft Moultrie, SC occupied by Federals
1865 - Evacuation of Charleston, SC
1865 - Union troops force Confederates to abandon Ft
Anderson, NC
1876 - Direct telegraph link established between Britain
& NZ
1878 - John Tunstall is murdered by outlaw Jessie Evans,
sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
1879 - Arabs capture Egyptian premier Nabar Pasha
1884 - General Charles Gordon arrives in Khartoum
1884 - Police seize all copies of Tolstoy's "What I
Believe In"
1885 - Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn," published
1891 - Capt Archinard's army fights with Nyamina of Niger in
West-Sudan
1896 - Cave of Winds at Niagara Falls goes almost dry for
1st time in 50 yrs
King of Sardinia and Italy Victor Emmanuel IIKing of
Sardinia and Italy Victor Emmanuel II 1899 - 80°F in SF
1899 - SF named as a port of dispatch for Army transports
1899 - Stanley Cup: Mont Shamrocks sweep Queens U (Kingston
Ont) in 2 games
1900 - Ajax soccer team forms in Amsterdam
1900 - Battle at Paardeberg, 1,270 British killed/injured
1900 - British troops occupy Monte Christo Natal
1901 - H Cecil Booth patented a dust removing suction
cleaner
1901 - Winston Churchill makes his maiden speech in the
British House of Commons.
1902 - Opera "Hunchback of Notre Dame," premieres
in Monte Carlo
1903 - Kuyper government launches anti strike laws
1905 - Frank Wedekind's "Hidada, oder Sein und
Haben," premieres in Munich
1906 - Vincent d'Indy's "Jour D'été à La
Montagne," premieres in Paris
1908 - 1st US postage stamps in rolls issued
1909 - Boston Red Sox trade Cy Young, at 41, to Cleveland
Naps
1911 - The first official flight with air mail takes place
in Allahabad, British India, when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivers
6,500 letters to Naini, about 10 km away.
Soldier, Author and British Prime Minister Winston
ChurchillSoldier, Author and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill 1913 -
French painting "Nude Descending a Staircase" displayed in NYC
1915 - Germany begins a blockade of Britain
1919 - Cy Denneny of NHL Ottawa Senators scores record 52nd
goals
1921 - British troops occupy Dublin
1922 - Kenesaw Mountain Landis resigns his judgeship to work
for baseball
1922 - WOC-AM in Davenport IA begins radio transmissions
1923 - Belgium: Borinage-mine workers strike for higher
wages
1924 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Theresa
Weld Blanchard
1924 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Sherwin
Badger
1924 - US, min of marine Edwin Denby ends term due to Teapot
Dome-scandal
1927 - 1st US radio broadcast of "Cities Service
Concerts"
1927 - US & Canada begin diplomatic relations
1929 - The first Academy Awards are announced.
1930 - Cow flown & milked, milk sealed in paper
containers & parachuted
1930 - Luigi Pirandello's "Come Tu Mi Vuoi,"
premieres in Milan
1930 - Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart's "Simple
Simon," premieres in NYC
1930 - US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto
1932 - Japan declares Manchuria Independent
1932 - Sonja Henie wins her 6th straight World Women's
figure skating title
1936 - NHL record 32 points scored, NY Americans (28) &
Mont Maroons (24)
1939 - Golden Gate International Exposition opens on
Treasure Island
1942 - Japanese troop land on Bali
1943 - 1st edition of Dutch resistance newspaper
"Trouw"
1943 - Munich resistance group "White Rose"
captured by Nazis
1943 - William D Cox buys Philadelphia Phillies
1944 - Maastricht resistance fighter JAJ Janssen arrested
1944 - Youngest baseball player, Cin Reds sign 15 year old
Joe Nuxhall
1947 - 24 die in a train crash in Gallitzin Pa
1947 - Gian Carlo Menotti's opera "Telephone,"
premieres in NYC
1950 - "Dance Me a Song" closes at Royale Theater
NYC after 35 performances
1951 - 3 City College of NY basketball players admit to
accepting bribes
1951 - Nep l becomes a constitutional monarchy
1951 - Netherlands Radio School forms
1952 - 4th Emmy Awards: Red Skelton, Sid Caesar &
Imogene Coca wins
1953 - "Bwana Devil," the 1st 3-D movie, opened in
New York
1953 - "Maggie" opens at National Theater NYC for
5 performances
1953 - KOLN TV channel 10 in Lincoln, NB (CBS) begins
broadcasting
1953 - Premiere of 1st 3-D feature film-"Bwana
Devil" (NYC)
1954 - The first Church of Scientology is established in Los
Angeles, California.
1955 - Baghdad Pact signed, making Turkey & Iraq a
defense alliance
1957 - Dedan Kimathi, a Kenyan rebel leader is executed by
the British colonial government.
1960 - 8th Winter Olympic games open in Squaw Valley, Cal
1960 - Walter O'Malley, LA Dodger owner, purchases Chavez
Ravine for $494,000
1961 - Henk van der Grift becomes world champion skater
1962 - France & Algerian Moslems negotiate truce to end
7 year war
1962 - Louise Suggs wins LPGA St Petersburg Golf Open
1964 - Muriel Resnik's "Any Wednesday," premieres
in NYC
1964 - Papandreou government takes power in Greece
1965 - "Fade Out-Fade In" opens at Mark Hellinger
Theater NYC for 72 perfs
1965 - 27 copper miners die in avalanche, Granduc Mountain,
BC
1965 - Frank Gifford announces his retirement from football
for broadcasting
1965 - Gambia gains independence from Britain (National Day)
1965 - The Gambia becomes independent from the United
Kingdom.
1967 - Bob Seagren sets pole vault record at 17'3"
1967 - Softball pitcher Eddie Feigner strikes out 6 straight
major leaguers
1968 - 10,000 demonstrators against US in Vietnam War in
West-Berlin
1968 - 10th Winter Olympic games close at Grenoble, France
1968 - British adopts year-round daylight savings time
1968 - David Gilmour joins rock group Pink Floyd
1969 - Doug Walters scores 2nd innings century after 242 in
1st
1969 - PLO-attack El-Al plane in Zurich Switzerland
1970 - Chicago 7 defendants found innocent of inciting to
riot
1970 - US president Nixon launches
"Nixon-doctrine"
1972 - California Supreme Court abolishes death penalty
1972 - Giulio Andreotti sworn in as premier of Italy
1972 - John & Yoko end a week of co-hosting Mike Douglas
Show
1973 - 54-kg octopus measuring 7m across captured in Hood
Canal, Wash
1973 - Belgian Emiel Puttemans runs 3000m indoor record
7:39.2
1973 - Sandra Palmer wins LPGA Pompano Beach Golf Classic
1974 - NASA launches Italian satellite San Marcos C-2
(235/843 km)
1974 - US ambassador to India Daniel Moynihan present
$2,046,700,000 check
1975 - 2nd American Music Award: Olivia Newton-John &
John Denver win
1975 - Italy broadens abortion law
1977 - George Harrison releases "True Love"
1977 - Space Shuttle above a Boeing 747 goes on it's maiden
flight
1977 - Test Cricket debuts of Colin Croft & Joel Garner
v Pakistan Bridgetown
1978 - 1st Iron Man Triathlon (swim, bike ride, marathon)
held, Kona, Hawaii
1979 - -52°F (-47°C), Old Forge, New York (state record)
1979 - Amy Alcott wins LPGA Elizabeth Arden Golf Classic
1979 - Miniseries "Roots: Next Generations"
premieres on ABC TV
1979 - NASA launches space vehicle S-202
1979 - Pres Zia ur-Rahmans National Party wins elections in
Bangladesh
1979 - Snow falls in Sahara Desert
1980 - Billy Wyman said he will leave Rolling Stones in 1983
(Sure!)
1980 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau's Liberal Party wins Canada's
elections
1983 - NBA Indiana Pacers begin a 28 game road losing streak
1984 - Revised concordat between Italy & Vatican signed
1986 - San Antonio's Alvin Robertson scores NBA 2nd
quadruple double-20 pts, 11 rebounds, 10 assists & 10 steals against
Phoenix
1988 - Anthony M Kennedy, sworn in as Supreme Court Justice
1989 - Sherri Turner wins LPGA Orix Hawaiian Ladies Golf
Open/Itoki Pro-Am
1990 - Jane Crafter wins LPGA Phar-Mor at Inverrary Golf
Tournament
1991 - Edmonton Oiler goalie Grant Fuhr returns to NHL after
season-long suspension for substance abuse & shuts out NJ Devils 4-0
1993 - Howard Stern's radio show begins transmitting to
Rochester NY
1994 - Dan Jansen skates world record 1000m (1:12.43)
1994 - Shreveport Pirates join CFL as 4th US team
1995 - Angela Kennedy swims world record 100m butterfly
1995 - Barb Thomas Whitehead wins Cup o' Noodles Hawaiian
Ladies Golf Open
1995 - Pamela Anderson (Baywatch) & Tommy Lee (Motley
Crue) wed
1995 - Warnecke swims world record 50m freestyle
1996 - 1st full ODI for Kenya, Cricket World Cup v India
1996 - Daytona 500 race
1996 - Tendulkar scores 127* in India's Cricket World Cup
win over Kenya
1998 - NY Rangers fire head coach Colin Campbell
1998 - Two white separatists are arrested in Nevada and
accused of plotting a biological attack on New York City subways.
2000 - Stjepan Mesić becomes the second president of
Croatia.
2001 - FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for
the Soviet Union. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
2003 - Comet C/2002 V1 (NEAT) makes perihelion, seen by
SOHO.
2003 - Nearly 200 people die in the Daegu subway fire in
South Korea.
2004 - Up to 295 people, including nearly 200 rescue
workers, die near Neyshabur in Iran when a run-away freight train carrying
sulfur, petrol and fertiliser catches fire and explodes.
2012 - Kateri Tekakwitha canonized as the first native
American saint
2013 - 15 people are killed by flooding and landslides in
Indonesia
2013 - $50 million worth of diamond is stolen in an armed
robbery at Brussels Airport, Belgium
1564 - The artist Michelanglelo died in Rome. 1685 - Robert Cavelier, Sieur de LaSalle established Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, and thus formed the basis for France's claim to Texas. 1735 - The first opera performed in America. The work was "Flora" (or "Hob in the Well") was presented in Charleston, SC. 1841 - The first continuous filibuster in the U.S. Senate began. It lasted until March 11th. 1861 - In Montgomery, AL, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the President of the Confederate States. 1885 - Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was published in the U.S. for the first time. 1913 - The famous French painting "Nude Descending a Staircase", by the French artist, Marcel Duchamp, was displayed at an "Armory Show" in New York City. 1930 - Elm Farm Ollie became the first cow to fly in an airplane. 1930 - The planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh. The discovery was made as a result of photographs taken in January 1930. 1932 - Sonja Henie won her 6th world women’s figure skating title in Montreal, Canada. 1938 - "The Big Broadcast of 1938" was released. 1949 - "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar" debuted on CBS radio. 1952 - Greece and Turkey became members of NATO. 1953 - "Bwana Devil" opened. It was the first three-dimensional feature. 1953 - Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz signed a contract worth $8,000,000 to continue the "I Love Lucy" TV show through 1955. 1964 - "Any Wednesday" opened at the Music Box Theatre in New York City. The play established Gene Hackman as an actor. 1970 - The Chicago Seven defendants were found innocent of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic national convention. 1972 - The California Supreme Court struck down the state's death penalty. 1977 - The space shuttle Enterprise went on its maiden "flight" sitting on top of a Boeing 747. 1984 - Reed Larson (Detroit Red Wings) got two assists to become the highest scoring, American-born player in the history of the National Hockey League. Larson broke the record by scoring his 432nd point. 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. 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. 2001 - FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested and accused of spying for Russia for more than 15 years. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. 2003 - In South Korea, at least 120 people were killed when a man lit a fire on a subway train. 2006 - American Shani Davis won the men's 1,000-meter speedskating in Turin. He was the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history.
1546 Martin Luther, German leader of the Protestant Reformation, died. 1564 Michelangelo Buonarotti, Italian painter, sculptor, and architect, died. 1885 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was published. 1930 Pluto, the ninth planet in the solar system, was discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. 1953 The first 3-D movie, Bwana Devil, opened in New York. 2001 FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen was arrested and charged with spying for Russia. 2001 Dale Earnhardt, Sr., died from injuries sustained at the Daytona 500.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/feb18.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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