TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS MONDAY, FEB. 26, the 57th day of 2018. There are 308 days left in the year. TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1993, a truck bomb built by Islamic extremists exploded in the parking garage of the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others. The bomb failed to topple the North Tower into the South Tower, as the terrorists had hoped; both structures were destroyed in the 9/11 attack eight years later.
In 1616, astronomer Galileo Galilei met with a Roman Inquisition official, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who ordered him to abandon the “heretical” concept of heliocentrism, which held that the earth revolved around the sun, instead of the other way around.
In 1904, the United States and Panama proclaimed a treaty under which the U.S. agreed to undertake efforts to build a ship canal across the Panama isthmus.
In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional act establishing Mount McKinley National Park, now Denali National Park, in the Alaska Territory.
In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional act establishing Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.
In 1929, President Calvin Coolidge signed a measure establishing Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
In 1987, the Tower Commission, which probed the Iran-Contra affair, issued a report rebuking President Ronald Reagan for failing to control his national security staff.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Game show host Tom Kennedy is 91. Countryrock musician Paul Cotton (Poco) and actor-director Bill Duke are 75. Singer Mitch Ryder and actress Marta Kristen (TV: “Lost in Space”) are 73. Rock musician Jonathan Cain (Journey) is 68. Singer Michael Bolton is 65. Actor Greg Germann and Bandleader John McDaniel is 57. Actor-martial artist Mark Dacascos is 54. Actress Jennifer Grant is 52. Rock musician Tim Commerford (Audioslave) is 50. Singer Erykah Badu is 47. Actor Maz Jobrani (TV: “Superior Donuts”) and rhythm-and-blues singer Rico Wade (Society of Soul) are 46. Olympic gold medal swimmer Jenny Thompson is 45. Rhythm-and-blues singer Kyle Norman (Jagged Edge) is 43. Actor Greg Rikaart is 41. Rock musician Chris Culos (O.A.R.) and rhythm-andblues singer Corinne Bailey Rae are 39. Country singer Rodney Hayden is 38. Latin singer Natalia Lafourcade is 34. Actress Teresa Palmer is 32. .