Today in history

On Feb. 21, 1437,

James I, King of Scots, 42, was assassinated in Perth by a group of conspirators led by Walter, Earl of Atholl; his 6year-old son succeeded him as James II.

In 1513

Pope Julius II, who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, died nearly four months after the project was completed.

In 1794

Mexican revolutionary Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was born. He became president of Mexico and led the attack on the Alamo.

In 1838

American inventor Samuel Morse gave his first public demonstration of the telegraph.

In 1866

Lucy Hobbs became the first woman to graduate from a dental school, the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in Cincinnati.

In 1903

writer Anais Nin was born in Neuilly, France.

In 1916

the World War I Battle of Verdun began in France.

In 1947

Edwin Land publicly demonstrated his Polaroid Land camera, which could produce a black-andwhite photograph in 60 seconds.

In 1972

President Richard Nixon began his historic visit to China as he and his wife, Pat, arrived in Shanghai.

In 1973

Israeli fighter planes shot down a Libyan Airlines jet over the Sinai Desert, killing more than 100 people.

In 1975

former Attorney General John Mitchell and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were sentenced to 2 1⁄2 to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up.

In 1980

a general strike began in Kabul, Afghanistan, to protest Soviet military intervention.

In 1991

ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn died in Panama City; she was 71.

In 1995

the United States and Mexico signed an agreement to unlock $20 billion in U.S. support to stabilize the peso, but under tough conditions.