TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Saturday, Feb. 29.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On Feb. 29, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a second Neutrality Act as he appealed to American businesses not to increase exports to belligerents.
ON THIS DATE
In 1504, Christopher Columbus, stranded in Jamaica during his fourth voyage to the West, used a correctly predicted lunar eclipse to frighten hostile natives into providing food for his crew.
In 1892, the United States and Britain agreed to submit to arbitration their dispute over seal-hunting rights in the Bering Sea. (A commission later ruled in favor of Britain.)
In 1904, bandleader Jimmy Dorsey was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. In 1916, singer, actress and TV personality Dinah Shore was born Frances Rose Shore in Winchester, Tennessee. (Shore, who claimed March 1, 1917 as her birthdate, died in 1994 just days before she would have turned 78.)
In 1940, “Gone With the Wind” won eight Academy Awards, including best picture of 1939; Hattie McDaniel won for best supporting actress, the first black performer so honored. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced he would seek a second term of office. Serial killer Aileen Wuornos was born in Rochester, Michigan (she was executed by the state of Florida in 2002).
In 1960, the first Playboy Club, featuring waitresses clad in “bunny” outfits, opened in Chicago. Serial killer Richard Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas (he died in 2013 while awaiting execution in California).
In 1980, former Israeli foreign minister Yigal Allon, who had played an important role in the Jewish state’s fight for independence, died at age 61. In 1984, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau announced he was stepping down after more than 15 combined years in power.
In 1996, Daniel Green was convicted in Lumberton, North Carolina, of murdering James R. Jordan, the father of basketball star Michael Jordan, during a 1993 roadside holdup. (Green and an accomplice, Larry Martin Demery, were sentenced to life in prison.) A Peruvian Boeing 737 crashed on approach to Arequipa, killing all 123 people on board. Eight years ago (2012): Violent weather packing tornadoes continued to ravage the Midwest and South, resulting in some 15 deaths.
Four years ago (2016):
On the eve of the Super Tuesday primaries, some leading Republicans voiced renewed concerns about Donald Trump’s comments and behavior, including his refusal to immediately disavow the support of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. (Trump would score commanding wins in seven of the 11 Super Tuesday contests.)
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
“Well, it has happened again. The Earth has circled four times around the sun, astronomers have designated this a leap year and anxious bachelors won’t answer their telephones until midnight.”— David O’Reilly, American journalist.
— ASSOCIATED PRESS