Today in history

Includes: Free digital thermostat On Feb. 13, 1542, the fifth wife of England’s King Henry VIII, Catherine Howard, was beheaded after being convicted of adultery.

In 1633 Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition, accused of defending Copernican theory that the Earth revolved around the sun instead of the other way around. (Galileo was found vehemently suspect of heresy, and ended up being sentenced to a form of house arrest.)

In 1635 Boston Latin School was founded, making it the first secondary school in North America.

In 1741 Andrew Bradford of Pennsylvania published the first American magazine. “The American Magazine, or A Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies” lasted three issues.

In 1795 the University of North Carolina became the first U.S. state university to admit students with the arrival of Hinton James, who was the only student on campus for two weeks.

In 1889 outgoing President Grover Cleveland appointed Norman Coleman of Missouri as the first secretary of agriculture, but he served less than a month.

In 1892 artist Grant Wood Anamosa, Iowa. was born near

In 1914 the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, better known as ASCAP, was founded in New York.

In 1920 the League of Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.

In 1923 Chuck Yeager, who would go on to break the sound barrier as a U.S. Air Force test pilot in 1947, was born in Myra, W.Va.

In 1935 in Flemington, N.J., a jury convicted Bruno Richard Hauptmann of firstdegree murder in the 1932 kidnap-slaying of Charles and Anne Lindbergh’s infant son. (Hauptmann was later executed.)

In 1944 talk-show host Jerry Springer was born in London.

In 1945 Soviet troops captured Budapest, Hungary, from the Germans in World War II after a 1 1⁄2-month siege. Also in 1945 Allied planes began bombing the German city of Dresden.

In 1960 in the Sahara Desert, exploded its first atomic bomb.

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