ON FEBRUARY 7 ...

In 1497 “The Bonfire of the Vanities” took place in Florence, Italy, as followers of Dominican friar Girolama Savonarola burned a huge pile of items considered to be sinful distractions, such as books, artwork, fine clothing and cosmetics.

In 1795 the 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, dealing with states’ sovereign immunity, was ratified.

In 1812 author Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England.

In 1804 John Deere, the inventor and manufacturer of farming implements, was born in Rutland, Vt.

In 1817 America’s first public gas street lamp was lighted in Baltimore at the corner of Market and Lemon streets (now East Baltimore and Holliday streets).

In 1867 author Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in Lake Pepin, Wis.

In 1904 a fire began in Baltimore that raged for about 30 hours and destroyed more than 1,500 buildings.

In 1943 the government announced the start of shoe rationing, limiting consumers to buying three pairs per person for the remainder of the year.

In 1948 Gen. Dwight Eisenhower resigned as Army chief of staff and was succeeded by Gen. Omar Bradley.

In 1964 the Beatles began their first American tour as they arrived at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

In 1974 the island nation of Grenada won independence from Britain.

In 1983 Elizabeth Dole was sworn in as the first female secretary of transportation by the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

In 1984 a 12-year-old boy publicly identified only as David, born without immunity to disease, touched his mother for the first time after he was removed from a germ-free “bubble” at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

In 1990 the Soviet Union’s Communist Party agreed to let other political parties compete for control of the country, giving up its monopoly on power.

In 1991 Jean-Bertrand Aristide was sworn in as Haiti’s first democratically elected president.

In 2000, with an astonishing comeback to win the Pebble Beach National ProAm, Tiger Woods gained his sixth straight PGA Tour victory, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1948 to win six in a row.

In 2005 Ellen MacArthur, a 28-year-old Englishwoman, broke the solo around-theworld sailing record, completing the 26,000-mile circumnavigation after 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds at sea.

In 2006 Abu Hamza alMasri, a radical Muslim cleric linked to 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui, was sentenced in London to seven years in prison for inciting followers to kill non-Muslims.

In 2014 a Cook County jury convicted three Florida men of mob action and explosives counts, but not terrorism charges, for their actions before the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago. (The socalled NATO 3 — Brent Betterly, Jared Chase and Brian Church — were later sentenced to 5 to 8 years in prison.) Also in 2014 the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, believed to be the most expensive Games at $51 billion, kicked off in Sochi, Russia.

In 2018 Chicago-based Tronc announced the sale of the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune and other California-based assets to Los Angeles biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong for $500 million in cash.