TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS FRIDAY, FEB. 24, the 55th day of 2023. There are 310 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:

On this date in 1942, the SS Struma, a charter ship attempting to carry nearly 800 Jewish refugees from Romania to British-mandated Palestine, was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea; all but one of the refugees perished.

In 1868, the U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Andrew Johnson by a vote of 126-47 following his attempted dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton; Johnson was later acquitted by the Senate.

In 1988, in a ruling that expanded legal protections for parody and satire, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned a $150,000 award that the Rev. Jerry Falwell had won against Hustler magazine and its publisher, Larry Flynt.

In 2008, Cuba’s parliament named Raul Castro president, ending nearly 50 years of rule by his brother Fidel.

In 2011, Discovery, the world’s most traveled spaceship, thundered into orbit for the final time, heading toward the International Space Station on a journey marking the beginning of the end of the shuttle era.

In 2020, former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was convicted in New York on charges of rape and sexual assault involving two women. (Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in state prison.)

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., is 81. Actor Edward James Olmos is 76. Musician George Thorogood is 73. News anchor Paula Zahn and Baseball Hall-of-Famer Eddie Murray are 67. Former boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. is 46.