Today in history

On Feb. 9, 1825, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes. In 1861 the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America elected Jefferson Davis president and Alexander Stephens vice president. In 1870 the U.S. Weather Bureau was established.

In 1942 the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff held its first formal meeting to coordinate military strategy during World War II. In 1943 the World War II battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended

with an American victory over Japanese forces.

In 1950 in a speech in Wheeling, W.Va., Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., charged the State Department was riddled with Communists. In 1964 The Beatles made their first live American television appearance, on CBS’ “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

In 1971 the Apollo 14 spacecraft returned to Earth after man’s third landing on the moon.

In 1996 the Irish Republican Army ended its cease-fire with a truck bombing in London that killed two and injured 37.

In 2001 a U.S. Navy submarine collided with a Japanese fishing boat off the Hawaiian coast, killing nine men and boys aboard the boat.

In 2004 anti-government rebels took control of nearly a dozen towns in western Haiti as the death toll in the violent uprising rose to at least 40. In 2006 British entrepreneur Sir Freddie Laker died in Hollywood; he was 83. In 2008 the shuttle Atlantis, carrying a European-built science lab, docked with the International Space Station. In 2014 Missouri All-American linebacker Michael Sam announced he was gay three months before the NFL draft.