http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
Feb 12, 2002: Milosevic goes on trial for war crimes
On this day in 2002, former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic goes on trial at The Hague, Netherlands, on charges of genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Milosevic served as his own attorney for much of the prolonged trial, which ended without a verdict when the so-called "Butcher of the Balkans" was found dead at age 64 from an apparent heart attack in his prison cell on March 11, 2006.
Yugoslavia, consisting of Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, became a federal republic, headed by Communist leader Marshal Tito, on January 31, 1946. Tito died in May 1980 and Yugoslavia, along with communism, crumbled over the next decade.
Milosevic, born August 20, 1941, joined the Communist Party at age 18; he became president of Serbia in 1989. On June 25, 1991, Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia and Milosevic sent tanks to the Slovenian border, sparking a brief war that ended in Slovenia's secession. In Croatia, fighting broke out between Croats and ethnic Serbs and Serbia sent weapons and medical supplies to the Serbian rebels in Croatia. Croatian forces clashed with the Serb-led Yugoslav army troops and their Serb supporters. An estimated 10,000 people were killed and hundreds of Croatian towns were destroyed before a U.N. cease-fire was established in January 1992. In March, Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence, and Milosevic funded the subsequent Bosnian Serb rebellion, starting a war that killed an estimated 200,000 people, before a U.S.-brokered peace agreement was reached at Dayton, Ohio, in 1995.
In Kosovo, a formerly autonomous province of Serbia, liberation forces clashed with Serbs and the Yugoslav army was sent in. Amidst reports that Milosevic had launched an ethnic cleansing campaign against Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, NATO forces launched air strikes against Yugoslavia in 1999.
Ineligible to run for a third term as Serbian president, Milosevic had made himself president of Yugoslavia in 1997. After losing the presidential election in September 2000, he refused to accept defeat until mass protests forced him to resign the following month. He was charged with corruption and abuse of power and finally surrendered to Serbian authorities on April 1, 2001, after a 26-hour standoff. That June, he was extradited to the Netherlands and indicted by a United Nations war crimes tribunal. Milosevic died in his cell of a heart attack before his trial could be completed.
In February 2003, Serbia and Montenegro became a commonwealth and officially dropped the name Yugoslavia. In June 2006, the two countries declared their independence from each other.
Feb 12, 1999: President Clinton acquitted
On February 12, 1999, the five-week impeachment trial of Bill Clinton comes to an end, with the Senate voting to acquit the president on both articles of impeachment: perjury and obstruction of justice.
In November 1995, Clinton began an affair with Monica Lewinsky, a 21-year-old unpaid intern. Over the course of a year and a half, the president and Lewinsky had nearly a dozen sexual encounters in the White House. In April 1996, Lewinsky was transferred to the Pentagon. That summer, she first confided in Pentagon co-worker Linda Tripp about her sexual relationship with the president. In 1997, with the relationship over, Tripp began secretly to record conversations with Lewinsky, in which Lewinsky gave Tripp details about the affair.
In December, lawyers for Paula Jones, who was suing the president on sexual harassment charges, subpoenaed Lewinsky. In January 1998, allegedly under the recommendation of the president, Lewinsky filed an affidavit in which she denied ever having had a sexual relationship with him. Five days later, Tripp contacted the office of Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater independent counsel, to talk about Lewinsky and the tapes she made of their conversations. Tripp, wired by FBI agents working with Starr, met with Lewinsky again, and on January 16 Lewinsky was taken by FBI agents and U.S. attorneys to a hotel room where she was questioned and offered immunity if she cooperated with the prosecution. A few days later, the story broke, and Clinton publicly denied the allegations, saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."
In late July, lawyers for Lewinsky and Starr worked out a full-immunity agreement covering both Lewinsky and her parents, all of whom Starr had threatened with prosecution. On August 6, Lewinsky appeared before the grand jury to begin her testimony, and on August 17 President Clinton testified. Contrary to his testimony in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case, President Clinton acknowledged to prosecutors from the office of the independent counsel that he had an extramarital affair with Ms. Lewinsky.
In four hours of closed-door testimony, conducted in the Map Room of the White House, Clinton spoke live via closed-circuit television to a grand jury in a nearby federal courthouse. He was the first sitting president ever to testify before a grand jury investigating his conduct. That evening, President Clinton also gave a four-minute televised address to the nation in which he admitted he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky. In the brief speech, which was wrought with legalisms, the word "sex" was never spoken, and the word "regret" was used only in reference to his admission that he misled the public and his family.
Less than a month later, on September 9, Kenneth Starr submitted his report and 18 boxes of supporting documents to the House of Representatives. Released to the public two days later, the Starr Report outlined a case for impeaching Clinton on 11 grounds, including perjury, obstruction of justice, witness-tampering, and abuse of power, and also provided explicit details of the sexual relationship between the president and Ms. Lewinsky.
On October 8, the House authorized a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry, and on December 11 the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment. On December 19, after nearly 14 hours of debate, the House approved two articles of impeachment, charging President Clinton with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton, the second president in American history to be impeached, vowed to finish his term.
On January 7, 1999, in a congressional procedure not seen since the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, the trial of President Clinton got underway in the Senate. As instructed in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (William Rehnquist at this time) was sworn in to preside and the senators were sworn in as jurors. Five weeks later, on February 12, the Senate voted on whether to remove Clinton from office.
The president was acquitted on both articles of impeachment. The prosecution needed a two-thirds majority to convict but failed to achieve even a bare majority. Rejecting the first charge of perjury, 45 Democrats and 10 Republicans voted "not guilty" and on the charge of obstruction of justice the Senate was split 50-50. After the trial concluded, President Clinton said he was "profoundly sorry" for the burden his behavior imposed on Congress and the American people.
Feb 12, 1809: Abraham Lincoln is born
On this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln is born in Hodgenville, Kentucky.
Lincoln, one of America's most admired presidents, grew up a member of a poor family in Kentucky and Indiana. He attended school for only one year, but thereafter read on his own in a continual effort to improve his mind. As an adult, he lived in Illinois and performed a variety of jobs including stints as a postmaster, surveyor and shopkeeper, before entering politics. He served in the Illinois legislature from 1834 to 1836, and then became an attorney. In 1842, Lincoln married Mary Todd; together, the pair raised four sons.
Lincoln returned to politics during the 1850s, a time when the nation's long-standing division over slavery was flaring up, particularly in new territories being added to the Union. As leader of the new Republican Party, Lincoln was considered politically moderate, even on the issue of slavery. He advocated the restriction of slavery to the states in which it already existed and described the practice in a letter as a minor issue as late as 1854. In an 1858 senatorial race, as secessionist sentiment brewed among the southern states, he warned, a house divided against itself cannot stand. He did not win the Senate seat but earned national recognition as a strong political force. Lincoln's inspiring oratory soothed a populace anxious about southern states' secessionist threats and boosted his popularity.
As a presidential candidate in the election of 1860, Lincoln tried to reassure slaveholding interests that although he favored abolition, he had no intention of ending the practice in states where it already existed and prioritized saving the Union over freeing slaves. When he won the presidency by approximately 400,000 popular votes and carried the Electoral College, he was in effect handed a ticking time bomb. His concessions to slaveholders failed to prevent South Carolina from leading other states in an exodus from the Union that began shortly after his election. By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had also seceded. Soon after, the Civil War began. As the war progressed, Lincoln moved closer to committing himself and the nation to the abolitionist movement and, in 1863, finally signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The document freed slaves in the Confederate states, but did not address the legality of slavery in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska or Arkansas.
Lincoln was the tallest president at 6' 4. As a young man, he impressed others with his sheer physical strength--he was a legendary wrestler in Illinois--and entertained friends and strangers alike with his dry, folksy wit, which was still in evidence years later. Exasperated by one Civil War military defeat after another, Lincoln wrote to a lethargic general if you are not using the army I should like to borrow it for awhile. An animal lover, Lincoln once declared, "I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it." Fittingly, a variety of pets took up residence at the Lincoln White House, including a pet turkey named Jack and a goat called Nanko. Lincoln's son Tad frequently hitched Nanko to a small wagon and drove around the White House grounds.
Lincoln's sense of humor may have helped him to hide recurring bouts of depression. He admitted to friends and colleagues that he suffered from intense melancholia and hypochondria most of his adult life. Perhaps in order to cope with it, Lincoln engaged in self-effacing humor, even chiding himself about his famously homely looks. When an opponent in an 1858 Senate race debate called him two-faced, he replied, If I had another face do you think I would wear this one?
Lincoln is remembered as The Great Emancipator. Although he waffled on the subject of slavery in the early years of his presidency, his greatest legacy was his work to preserve the Union and his signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. To Confederate sympathizers, however, Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation reinforced his image as a hated despot and ultimately led John Wilkes Booth to assassinate him on April 14, 1865. His favorite horse, Old Bob, pulled his funeral hearse.
Feb 12, 2008: GM reports record loss, offers buyouts to 74,000 workers
On this day in 2008, in an attempt to cut costs, struggling auto giant General Motors (GM) offers buyouts to all 74,000 of its hourly employees in the U.S. represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. The move came after GM lost $38.7 billion in 2007, which at the time was the largest loss ever experienced by any car maker. (Two weeks later, on February 26, the loss was adjusted by $4.6 billion, to $43.3 billion.)
GM offered its employees a range of buyout options, including a $140,000 lump payment to those who worked at the company for at least 10 years and agreed to give up their health benefits and pension. GM's goal was to replace the employees who accepted buyouts with new workers brought in at a lower pay scale. At the time, a veteran GM worker (who belonged to the UAW) had an average base salary of $28.12 an hour, but once such benefits as health-care coverage and pension were added in, the cost to GM jumped to $78.21, according to a report by CNNMoney.com.
Some 19,000 GM workers ended up taking buyouts; however, the company's troubles were far from over, as gas prices reached record highs in the summer of 2008 and auto sales continued to slump amidst a growing global economic crisis. GM was criticized for focusing too heavily on its sport utility vehicles and small trucks and being slow to respond to an increasing consumer demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. In December 2008, the federal government stepped in with a $13.4 billion loan to help keep GM afloat (Chrysler, the third-largest U.S. automaker, also received federal bailout funds). Also in 2008, Japan-based Toyota surpassed GM as the world's largest automaker, a title the American company, which was founded in 1908, had held since 1931. At its peak in the early 1960s, GM made more than half of all the cars and trucks purchased in the U.S.
In March 2009, President Barack Obama announced that in order to receive additional federal aid and avoid possible bankruptcy, both GM and Chrysler would be required to make deep concessions and develop radical restructuring plans. Additionally, GM's chief executive Rick Wagoner, who had held the top job since 2000, was forced to resign immediately. Nevertheless, on April 30, 2009, Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced it would enter a partnership with Italian automaker Fiat. GM filed for bankruptcy a month later, on June 1.
Feb 12, 1941: Rommel in Africa
On this day, German General Erwin Rommel arrives in Tripoli, Libya, with the newly formed Afrika Korps, to reinforce the beleaguered Italians' position.
In January 1941, Adolf Hitler established the Afrika Korps for the explicit purpose of helping his Italian Axis partner maintain territorial gains in North Africa. "[F]or strategic, political, and psychological reasons, Germany must assist Italy in Africa," the Fuhrer declared. The British had been delivering devastating blows to the Italians; in three months they pushed the Italians out of Egypt while wounding or killing 20,000 Italian soldiers and taking another 130,000 prisoner.
Having commanded a panzer division in Germany's successful French and Low Countries' campaigns, General Rommel was dispatched to Libya along with the new Afrika Korps to take control of the deteriorating situation. Until that time, Italian General Ettore Bastico was the overall commander of the Axis forces in North Africa—which included a German panzer division and the Italian armored division. Rommel was meant to command only his Afrika Korps and an Italian corps in Libya, but he wound up running the entire North African campaign.
The German soldiers of the Afrika Korps found adapting to the desert climate initially difficult; Rommel found commanding his Italian troops, who had been used to an Italian commander, difficult as well. When Hitler, preoccupied with his plans for his Soviet invasion, finally gave the go-ahead for an offensive against British positions in Egypt, Rommel's forces were stopped dead in their tracks and then forced to retreat. In the famous battle of El Alamein, the British Eighth Army—beginning in October 23, 1942—surprised the German commander with its brute resolve, and pushed him and his Afrika Korps back across and out of North Africa. (Ironically, the Arabs celebrated Rommel, called "the Desert Fox," as a liberator from British imperialism.) Retreat followed retreat, and Rommel finally withdrew from North Africa entirely and returned to Europe in March of 1943, leaving the Afrika Korps in other hands.
Feb 12, 1972: Cambodians launch attack to retake Angkor Wat
About 6,000 Cambodian troops launch a major operation to wrestle the religious center of Angkor Wat from 4,000 North Vietnamese troops entrenched around the famous Buddhist temple complex, which had been seized in June 1970. Fighting continued throughout the month. Even with the addition of 4,000 more troops, the Cambodians were unsuccessful, and eventually abandoned their efforts to expel the North Vietnamese.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
1049 - Bruno count of Egesheim & Dagsburg crowned Pope
Leo IX
1111 - German King Hendry V arrives at St Peter, Rome
1130 - Pope Innocent II elected
1502 - Granada Moslems forced to convert to Catholicism
1502 - Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal on his
second voyage to India.
1528 - Treaty of Dordrecht between emperor &
ecclesiastical power
1541 - Santiago, Chile founded (or Feb 24)
1577 - Spanish land guardian Don Juan of Habsburg signs
"Eternal Edict"
1624 - English parliament comes together
1700 - The Great Northern War begins in Northern Europe.
1709 - Alexander Selkirk, Scottish seaman is rescued after
4+ years from Fernandez Island (inspiration for Daniel Defoe's "Robinson
Crusoe")
1719 - The Onderlinge van 1719 u.a., the oldest existing
life insurance company in the Netherlands is founded.
1733 - Georgia founded by James Oglethorpe, at site of
Savannah
1762 - English fleet occupies Martinique
1763 - John Casteret appointed British minister of foreign
affairs
1771 - Gustav III becomes the King of Sweden.
1772 - Yves de Kerguelen of France discovers Kerguelen
Archipelago, India
1793 - 1st US fugitive slave law passed; requires return of
escaped slaves
1797 - Haydn's song "Gott erhalte Franz den
Kaiser," premieres in Vienna
Novelist Daniel DefoeNovelist Daniel Defoe 1818 - Chile
gains independence from Spain
1821 - Mercantile Library of City of NY opens
1825 - Creek Indian treaty signed. Tribal chiefs agree to
turn over all their land in Georgia to the government & migrate west by
Sept 1, 1826
1832 - Ecuador annexes Gal pagos Islands
1839 - Aroostock War: Boundary dispute between Maine &
New Brunswick
1840 - Housatonic Railroad opens
1848 - Ballet "Faust" premieres, Milan
1850 - Original Washington's Farewell Address manuscript
sells for $2,300
1855 - Michigan State University was established.
1861 - State troops seize US munitions in Napoleon, AK
1865 - Henry Highland Garnet, is 1st black to speak in US
House of Reps
1870 - Official proclamation sets April 15 as last day of
grace for US silver coins to circulate in Canada
1873 - Congress abolishes bimetallism & authorizes $1
& $3 gold coins
1874 - King David Kalakaua of Sandwich Is Hawaii, is 1st
king to visit US
1876 - Al Spalding opens his sporting good shop
1877 - 1st news dispatch by telephone, between Boston &
Salem, Mass
1877 - US railroad builders strike against wage reduction
1878 - Frederick Thayer patents catcher's mask (pat #
200,358)
1879 - 1st artificial ice rink in North America (Madison Sq
Garden, NYC)
1879 - News about slaughtering of Isandlwana reaches London
1880 - National Croquet League organizes (Phila)
1882 - Social-Democratic Union forms in Amsterdam
1885 - Carl Peters founds German East-Africa Society
1886 - 2nd British government of Salisbury forms
1889 - Caesar Francks Symphony in D, premieres
1889 - Henrik Ibsens "Fruen fra Haven," premieres
in Oslo
1894 - Anarchist Émile Henry hurls a bomb into Paris's Cafe
Terminus, killing one and wounding 20.
1899 - -47°F (-44°C), Camp Clarke, Nebraska (state record)
1899 - 1st 2-man team 6-day bicycle race in US begins,
Madison Square Garden, NYC
1901 - Dutch Penitentiary children's law proclaimed
1906 - George Cohans musical "George Washington,"
premieres in NYC
1908 - Anna Jeanes bequeaths $1,000,000 to Swarthmore to
become all female
1908 - NY to Paris auto race (via Alaska & Siberia)
begins in NYC George Schuster wins after 88 days behind the wheel
1909 - National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) forms
1909 - Netherlands' SDAP suspends Marxist Tribune group
(Gorter & Wijnkoop)
1909 - Robert Fowler runs world record marathon (2:46:52.6)
1912 - China adopts Gregorian calendar
1912 - Last Ch'ing (Manchu) emperor of China, Hsuan T'ung,
abdicates
1914 - In Washington, DC, the first stone of the Lincoln
Memorial is put into place.
1915 - Cornerstone laid for Lincoln Memorial in Wash DC
1916 - 1st edition of Joseph Patterson/Sidney Smith strip
"Gumps"
1920 - -Apr 26] 14,000 Rotterdam/Amsterdam harbor workers
strike
1920 - NL votes 6-2 for 1 commissioner AL votes 6-2 to keep
group commission
1921 - Soviet troops invade Georgia (theirs, not ours)
Soldier, Author and British Prime Minister Winston
ChurchillSoldier, Author and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill 1921 -
Winston Churchill becomes British Minister of Colonies
1924 - George Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue"
premieres at Carnegie Hall (NYC)
1924 - George Kaufman's "Beggar on Horseback,"
premieres in NYC
1925 - 1st federal arbitration law approved by Congress
1925 - E Thieffry departs with Handley Page for the Belgian
Congo
1925 - Estonia forbids communist Party
1926 - Barendrecht soccer team forms
1927 - British expeditionary army lands in Shanghai
1929 - Karst Leemburg wins Dutch 11 cities skate (11:30)
1931 - Vatican Radio begins broadcasting with the callsign
HVJ
1932 - Communist Party of Holland forms Unemployed Combat
Committees
1933 - German vice-chancellor von Papen demands Catholic aid
for Nazis
1934 - Export-Import Bank incorporates
1934 - France hit by a general strike against fascists &
royalists
1934 - The Austrian Civil War begins.
1935 - Great airship, USS Macon, crashes into Pacific Ocean
1937 - Cleveland (now St Louis) Rams granted an NFL
franchise
Dictator of Nazi Germany Adolf HitlerDictator of Nazi
Germany Adolf Hitler 1938 - Austrian chancellor Schuschnigg visits Hitler in
Berchtesgaden
1938 - German troops entered Austria
1941 - Jewish Council for Amsterdam forms, under
Ascher/Cohen
1941 - Occupation Police arrest "Jewish Foursome"
1942 - 3 German battle cruisers escape via Channel to Brest
N Germany
1943 - General Eisenhower departs Algiers to Tebessa
1944 - Wendell Wilkie (R) enters presidential race
1945 - SF selected for site of UN Conference
1946 - World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after
scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.
1947 - Daytime fireball & meteorite fall seen in eastern
Siberia
1947 - Record 100.5-kg sailfish caught, C W Stewart,
Galapagos Islands
1948 - 1st Lt Nancy Leftenant becomes 1st black in army nursing
corps
1949 - "Annie Get Your Gun" closes at Imperial
Theater NYC after 1147 perfs
1949 - Panic in Quito Ecuador, after "War of the
World" played on radio
1949 - Team Canada beats Denmark 47-0 in hockey
1949 - Unidentified aircraft bomb Jerusalem
Theoretical Physicist Albert EinsteinTheoretical Physicist
Albert Einstein 1950 - Albert Einstein warns against hydrogen bomb
1950 - Sen Joe McCarthy claims to have list of 205 communist
government employees
1953 - USSR breaks relations with Israel
1955 - McGuire Sisters' "Sincerely" single goes to
#1 & stays #1 for 10 weeks
1955 - Pres Eisenhower sends 1st US advisors to S Vietnam
1955 - Soviets decides space center built in Baikonur,
Kazachstan
1955 - WTVY TV channel 4 in Dothan, AL (CBS) begins
broadcasting
1956 - Fay Crocker wins LPGA Miami Beach Golf Open
1957 - Researchers announce Borazan (harder than diamonds)
been developed
1958 - Celtic Bill Russell grabs 41 rebounds to beat
Syracuse 119-101
1958 - Gen Miguel Ydegoras Fuentes elected president of
Guatemala
1960 - Chinese army kills 12 Indian soldiers
1961 - Celtic Bill Russell grabs 40 rebounds to beat
Warriors 136-125
1961 - Mickey Wright wins LPGA St Petersburg Golf Open
1961 - Mushtaq Mohammad scores 1st Test Cricket century at
17 yrs 82 days
Basketball Player Bill RussellBasketball Player Bill Russell
1961 - USSR launches Venera 1 toward Venus
1962 - Bus boycott starts in Macon, Georgia
1963 - Argentina asks extraditon of ex-president Peron
1964 - Beatles 1st NYC concert (Carnegie Hall)
1964 - End of Richie Benaud's 63-Test Cricket career
1964 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Peggy
Fleming
1964 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Scott
Allen
1965 - KHFI (now KBVO) TV channel 42 in Austin, TX (NBC)
begins broadcasting
1965 - Nuclear test at Pacific Ocean
1967 - Kees Verkerk becomes world champ all round skater
1967 - Keith Richards, Mick Jagger & Marianne Faithful
busted for drugs
1967 - Pirate Radio Free Harlem (NYC) begins transmitting
1970 - Anthony Shaffers "Sleuth," premieres in NYC
1971 - Only Test Cricket for Ken Eastwood, who scored 5
& 0 Aust v England
1973 - 1st US POWs in N Vietnam released; 116 of 456 flown
to Philippine
1976 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1977 - Toronto Maple Leafs shutout Washington Capitals 10-0
1978 - "Jesus Christ Superstar" closes at Longacre
Theater NYC after 96 perfs
1978 - Debbie Austin wins LPGA American Cancer Society Golf
Classic
1978 - US female Figure Skating championship won by Linda
Fratianne
1978 - US male Figure Skating championship won by Charles
Tickner
1979 - Kosmos 1076, 1st Soviet oceanographic satellite,
launched
1980 - "Canterbury Tales" opens at Rialto Theater
NYC for 16 performances
1980 - NY Islanders 2nd scoreless tie, vs Winnipeg Jets
1980 - Richard Hadlee becomes NZ's top wicket-taker with 117
1981 - Admiral Bobby R Inman, USN, becomes deputy director
of CIA
1981 - Arbitrator Goetz declares Red Sox catcher Carlton
Fisk a free agent
1981 - Cape Verde amends its constitution
1981 - Pete Squires sets record for 1575 steps of Empire
State Bldg, 10m
1982 - US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
NHL all-time top scorer Wayne GretzkyNHL all-time top scorer
Wayne Gretzky 1982 - Wayne Gretzky scores 153rd point of season, tieing NHL
record
1984 - Alice Miller wins LPGA Sarasota Golf Classic
1984 - Cale Yarborough, becomes 1st Daytona 500 qualifier,
above 200 MPH
1984 - Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean skate
"Bolero" at Olympics
1984 - West Indies beat Australia 2-0-1 to win cricket World
Series Cup receiving all perfect scores for quality & gold medal
1985 - 37th NHL All-Star Game: Wales beat Campbell 6-4 at
Calgary
1985 - West Indies beat Australia 2-1 to win cricket World
Series Cup
1986 - 1st-class cricket debut of Curtly Ambrose, Leeward Is
v Guyana
1987 - Survivors of a black man murdered by KKK members
awarded $7 M damages
1989 - 39th NBA All-Star Game: West beats East 143-134 at
Houston
1989 - 5 Pakistani Moslem rioters killed protesting
"Satanic Verses" novel
1989 - 50th PGA Seniors Golf Championship: Larry Mowry
1989 - Barbara Harris becomes 1st female bishop of a US
Episcopal church
1989 - Gretzky sets 2 records, his 45th hat trick & 10th
40+ goal season
1989 - Thursday's Child sets sailing record, NY-Cape
Horn-SF, 80 d 20 h
1989 - US male Figure Skating championship won by
Christopher Bowman
1991 - Iceland recognizes Lithuania's independence
1991 - North & South Korea form a joint team for table
tennis competition
1994 - 17th Winter Olympic games opens in Lillehammer,
Norway
1994 - 20th century premiere of 6 restored Haydn-sonatas in
Boston
1994 - Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" stolen
(in Oslo)
1994 - Inna Lassovskaya jumps world record 14.90m
1994 - Model Anna Nicole Smith hospitalized for drug
overdose
1995 - 45th NBA All-Star Game: West beats East 139-112 at
Phoenix
1995 - Angela Kennedy swims woman's world record 50m
butterfly
1995 - Bonnie Blair skates female world record 500m (38.69
sec)
1995 - Dieter Baumann runs European record 3k indoor
(7:37.51)
1995 - Jeff Rouse swims world record 50m backstroke (24.37
sec)
1995 - Moses Kiptanui runs world record 3k indoor (7:35.15)
1995 - PRI loses/PAN wins Mexican regional elections
1995 - Sun Cayun pole vaults indoor female world record
(4.13m)
1995 - Susan Auch skates female world record 500m (38.94
sec)
1997 - Fred Goldman says he will settle for a signed murder
confession from O J Simpson in lieu of his $20.5 million judgement
1998 - "Freak," opens at Cort Theater NYC
1998 - 250-car Italy pile-up due to fog, 4 die & 50 hurt
1998 - Dallas Cowboys sign Chan Gailey as their 4th head
coach
1998 - Intel unveils its 1st graphics chip i740
1998 - US district judge T Hogan declares line-item veto law
unconstitutional
42nd US President Bill Clinton42nd US President Bill Clinton
1999 - President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his
impeachment trial.
2001 - NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touchdown in the
"saddle" region of 433 Eros becoming the first spacecraft to land on
an asteroid.
2002 - US Secretary of Energy makes the decision that Yucca
Mountain is suitable to be the United States' nuclear waste repository.
2002 - An Iran Air Tupolev Tu-154 crashes prior to landing
in Khorramabad, Iran, killing 119.
2002 - The trial of former President of Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević begins at the United Nations war crimes tribunal
in The Hague. He eventually dies four years later before its conclusion.
2004 - The city of San Francisco, California begins issuing
marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor
Gavin Newsom.
2006 - A powerful winter storm blankets the Northeastern
United States dumping 1 to 2 feet of snow from Washington DC up to Boston, Massachusetts.
The storm dumped a record 26.9 inches of snow in New York City.
2006 - NFL Pro Bowl: NFC beats AFC 23-17
2007 - A gunman opens fire in a mall in Salt Lake City,
killing 5 people in the Trolley Square shooting.
2009 - Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashes near Buffalo in the
state of New York killing 50 people.
2012 - Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow is re-elected president of
Turkmenistan with 97% of the vote
2012 - Zambia defeat Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in the
Africa Cup of Nations
2012 - 54th Grammy Awards: Rolling In The Deep, Bon Iver
wins
2013 - North Korea confirms it has successfully tested a
nuclear device that could be weaponized
1541 - The city of Santiago, Chile was founded. 1554 - Lady Jane Grey was beheaded after being charged with treason. She had claimed the throne of England for only nine days. 1733 - Savannah, GA, was founded by English colonist James Oglethorpe. 1870 - In the Utah Territory, women gained the right to vote. 1878 - Frederick W. Thayer patented the baseball catcher’s mask. 1879 - The first artificial ice rink opened in North America. It was at Madison Square Garden in New York City, NY. 1880 - The National Croquet League was organized in Philadelphia, PA. 1892 - In the U.S., President Lincoln's birthday was declared to be a national holiday. 1907 - A collision of the steamer Larchmont and a schooler resulted in the death of more than 300 people. The incident occurred off New England's Block Island. 1909 - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded. 1912 - China's boy emperor Hsuan T'ung announced that he was abdicating, ending the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty. Subsequently, the Republic of China was established. 1915 - The cornerstone of the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington, DC. 1918 - All theatres in New York City were shut down in an effort to conserve coal. 1924 - U.S. President Calvin Coolidge made the first presidential political speech on radio. 1924 - "The Eveready Hour" became radio’s first sponsored network program. The National Carbon Company was the first sponsor of a network show. 1934 - The Export-Import Bank was incorporated. 1940 - Mutual Radio presented the first broadcast of the radio play "The Adventures of Superman." 1968 - "Soul on Ice" by Eldridge Cleaver was published for the first time. 1971 - James Cash (J.C.) Penney died at the age of 95. The company closed for business for one-half day as a memorial to the company's founder. 1973 - The State of Ohio went metric, becoming the first in the U.S. to post metric distance signs. 1973 - American prisoners of war were released for the first time during the Vietnam conflict. 1985 - Johnny Carson surprised his audience by shaving the beard he had been wearing on "The Tonight Show." 1993 - In Liverpool, England, a 2-year-old boy, James Bulger, was lured away from his mother at a shopping mall and beaten to death. Two ten-year-old boys were responsible. 1998 - A U.S. federal judge declared that the presidential line-item veto was unconstitutional. 1999 - U.S. President Clinton was acquitted by the U.S. Senate on two impeachment articles. The charges were perjury and obstruction of justice. 2001 - The space probe NEAR landed on the asteroid Eros. It was the first time that any craft had landed on a small space rock. 2002 - Kenneth Lay, former Enron CEO, exercised his constitutional rights and refused to testify to the U.S. Congress about the collapse of Enron. 2002 - The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic began at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague. Milosevic was accused of war crimes during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. 2002 - Pakistan charged three men in connection with the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi. 2002 - Princess Stephanie of Monaco and Franco Knie won a defamation-of-character lawsuit against the Swiss magazine "Facts." The case involved a photomontage created by the magazine. 2003 - The U.N. nuclear agency declared North Korea in violation of international treaties. The complaint was sent to the Security Council. 2004 - Mattel announced that "Barbie" and "Ken" were breaking up. The dolls had met on the set of their first television commercial together in 1961.
1554 Lady Jane Grey, queen of England for nine days (in 1553), was executed for high treason. 1733 Led by philanthropist James Edward Oglethorpe, the first English colonists arrived in Georgia, at the site of Savannah. 1818 Chile formally proclaimed its independence from Spain. 1870 The Utah Territory granted women the right to vote (revoked in 1887). 1909 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded. 1912 Pu Yi, the last emperor of the Manchu (Ch'ing) dynasty in China, renounced his throne following the establishment of a republic under Sun Yat-sen. 1973 The first release of American prisoners of war from the Vietnam war took place. 1999 The Senate voted to acquit President Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. 2002 Yugoslavian ex-president Slobodan Milosevic went on trial for war crimes. 2010 The 2010 Winter Olympics opened in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The games got off to a tragic start when a luger from the Republic of Georgia, Nodar Kumaritashvili, dies tragically in a crash during training run.
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/feb12.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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