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 Feb. 26, 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.)
On this date
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. 1815 — Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from exile on the Island of Elba and headed back to France in a bid to regain power. 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. 1917 — President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional act establishing Mount McKinley National Park (now Denali National Park) in the Alaska Territory. 1919 — President Woodrow Wilson signed a congressional act establishing Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. 1929 — President Calvin Coolidge signed a measure establishing Grand Teton National Park. 1945 — Authorities ordered a midnight curfew at nightclubs, bars and other places of entertainment across the nation. 1952 — Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain had developed its own atomic bomb. 1962 — After becoming the first American to orbit the Earth, astronaut John Glenn told a joint meeting of Congress, “Exploration and the pursuit of knowledge have always paid dividends in the long run.” 1970 — National Public Radio was incorporated. 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. 1998 — A jury in Amarillo, Texas, rejected an $11 million lawsuit brought by Texas cattlemen who blamed Oprah Winfrey’s talk show for a price fall after a segment on food safety that included a discussion about mad cow disease. 2008 — A power failure later blamed primarily on human error resulted in sporadic outages across large parts of Florida.
Five years ago
A hot air balloon burst into flames during a sunrise flight over the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor and then plummeted 1,000 feet to earth, killing 19 tourists. (One tourist and the balloon’s pilot survived.)
One year ago
At the 89th Academy Awards, “Moonlight,” an LGBT coming of age drama, won three Oscars, including best picture of 2016. (In a startling gaffe, the musical “La La Land” was mistakenly announced as the best picture winner before the error was corrected.)
Kurt Busch won the Daytona 500, surviving a crash-filled season opener to win the race for the first time in 16 tries.