TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS TUESDAY, FEB. 21, the 52nd day of 2017. There are 313 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1947, inventor Edwin H. Land publicly demonstrated his Polaroid Land camera, which used selfdeveloping film to produce a blackand-white photograph in 60 seconds.

In 1513, Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, died nearly four months after the project was completed.

In 1613, Mikhail Romanov, 16, was unanimously chosen by Russia’s national assembly to be czar, beginning a dynasty that would last three centuries. In 1885, the Washington Monument was dedicated. In 1916, the World War I Battle of Verdun began in France.

In 1945, during the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima, the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea was sunk by kamikazes with the loss of 318 men.

In 1965, black Muslim leader and civil rights activist Malcolm X, 39, was shot to death New York by assassins identified as members of the Nation of Islam. (Three men were convicted of murder and imprisoned; all were eventually paroled.) In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon began his historic visit to China as he and his wife, Pat, arrived in Beijing.

In 1975, former Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to 2½ to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up. (Each ended up serving a year and a half.)

In 1986, Larry Wu-tai Chin, the first American found guilty of spying for China, killed himself in his Virginia jail cell.

In 1997, a bomb exploded at The Otherside Lounge, a gay and lesbian nightclub in Atlanta, injuring five people. (Eric Rudolph later admitted targeting the club.)

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is 93. Fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy is 90. Movie director Bob Rafelson is 84. Actor Gary Lockwood is 80. Actordirector Richard Beymer is 78.