HISTORY AT A GLANCE

TODAY is Thursday, February 9, the 40th day of 2017. There are 325 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date: 1942 – World War II: Top United States military leaders hold their first formal meeting to discuss American military strategy in the war.

1943 – World War II: Allied authorities declare Guadalcanal secure after Imperial Japan evacuates its remaining forces from the island, ending the Battle of Guadalcanal.

1945 – World War II: The Battle of the Atlantic – HMS Venturer sinks U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat.

1945 – World War II: A force of Allied aircraft unsuccessfully attacked a German destroyer in Førdefjorden, Norway.

1950 – Second Red Scare: US Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists.

1951 – Korean War: Geochang massacre

1959 – The R-7 Semyorka, the first intercontinental ballistic

missile, becomes operational at Plesetsk, USSR.

1964 – The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a “record-busting” audience of 73 million viewers across the USA.

1965 – Vietnam War: The first United States troops with a combat mission, a Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion, are sent to South Vietnam.

1969 – First test flight of the Boeing 747.

1971 – The Sylmar earthquake hits the San Fernando Valley area of California.

1971 – Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro League player

to be voted into the USA’s Baseball Hall of Fame.

1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the

third manned Moon landing.

1975 – The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.

1986 – Halley’s Comet last appeared in the inner Solar System.

1991 – Voters in Lithuania vote for independence.

1996 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army declares the end to its 18-month ceasefire and explodes a large bomb in London’s Canary Wharf.

2001 – The American submarine USS Greeneville accidentally strikes and sinks the Ehime-Maru, a Japanese training vessel operated by the Uwajima Fishery High School.

2013 – A 6.9 magnitude earthquake strikes southwest Colombia causing major disruption to the region and injuring at least 15 people.