TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, FEB. 8,

the 39th day of 2017. There are 326 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:

On this date in 1942, during World War II, Japanese forces began invading Singapore, which fell a week later.

In 1587,

Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.

In 1862,

the Civil War Battle of Roanoke Island, N.C., ended in victory for Union forces led by Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside.

In 1910,

the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.

In 1915,

D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking, as well as controversial, silent movie epic about the Civil War, “The Birth of a Nation,” premiered in Los Angeles under its original title, “The Clansman.”

In 1922,

President Warren G. Harding had a radio installed in the White House.

In 1937,

during the Spanish Civil War, Malaga fell to Nationalist and Italian forces.

In 1952,

Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed her accession to the British throne following the death of her father, King George VI.

In 1968,

three college students were killed in a confrontation with highway patrolmen in Orangeburg, S.C., during a civil rights protest against a whitesonly bowling alley.

In 1973,

Senate leaders named seven members of a select committee to investigate the Watergate scandal, including its chairman, Sen. Sam J. Ervin, D-N.C.

In 1989,

144 people were killed when an American-chartered Boeing 707 filled with Italian tourists slammed into a fog-covered mountain in the Azores.

In 1992,

the XVI Olympic Winter Games opened in Albertville, France.

In 1996,

in a ceremony at the Library of Congress, President Bill Clinton signed legislation revamping the telecommunications industry, saying it would “bring the future to our doorstep.”