TODAY’S HISTORY

1861: A Texas state convention voted 166-8 in favor of a measure to secede from the Union.

1884: The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.

1965: Martin Luther King Jr. and more than 700 others were arrested at a protest in Selma, Alabama.

2003: The U.S. space shuttle Columbia broke apart shortly after entering the atmosphere over Texas, killing its seven-member crew.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: John Ford (1894-1973), film director; Clark Gable (1901-1960), actor; Langston Hughes (19011967), poet; Renata Tebaldi (1922-2004), opera singer; Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007), Russian president; Sherman Hemsley (1938-2012), actor; Terry Jones (1942-2020), actor/ comedian; Rick James (1948-2004), singer-songwriter; Princess Stephanie of Monaco (1965-); Lisa Marie Presley (1968-2023), singer/actress; Ronda Rousey (1987-), actress/professional wrestler; Harry Styles (1994-), singersongwriter.

TODAY’S FACT: Harvard scholar Carter G. Woodson pioneered “Negro History Week” in 1926 and designated the second week in February for its celebration, to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Negro History Week was later expanded to include all of February and renamed “Black History Month.”

TODAY’S SPORTS: In 2004, a wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl halftime show resulted in the exposure of singer Janet Jackson’s breast on live national television during a duet with Justin Timberlake.

TODAY’S QUOTE: “Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That can not fly.” — Langston Hughes, “Dreams”

TODAY’S NUMBER: 1,016 — height (in feet) of the Shard, the tallest skyscraper in the United Kingdom, which opened in London on this day in 2013.

TODAY’S MOON: Between first quarter moon (Jan. 28) and full moon (Feb. 5).