This day in history
Today is Wednesday, Feb. 8, the 39th day of 2023. There are 326 days left in the year.
▶ Today’s birthdays: Composerformer Boston Pops conductor John Williams is 91. Broadcast journalist Ted Koppel is 83. Actor Nick Nolte is 82. Singersongwriter Tom Rush is 82. Comedian Robert Klein is 81. Actor-rock musician Creed Bratton is 80. Singer Ron Tyson is 75. Actor Brooke Adams is
74. Actor Mary Steenburgen is
70. Author John Grisham is 68. Actor Henry Czerny is 64. Motley Crue singer Vince Neil is 62. Movie producer Toby Emmerich is 60. Actor Missy Yager is
55. Actor Mary McCormack is
54. Basketball Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning is 53. Actor Susan Misner is 52. Actor Seth Green is 49. Rock musician Phoenix (Linkin Park) is 46. Actor William Jackson Harper is
43. Folk singer-musician Joey Ryan (Milk Carton Kids) is 41. Actor-comedian Cecily Strong is 39. NBA star Klay Thompson is
33. Professional surfer Bethany Hamilton is 33.
▶ In 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.
▶ In 1831, Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first Black woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, was born in Delaware. Her Joy Street house on Beacon Hill is a stop on the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail.
▶ In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.
▶ In 1922, President Harding had a radio installed in the White House.
▶ In 1952, Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed her accession to the British throne following the death of her father, King George VI.
▶ In 1960, work began on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located on Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Los Angeles. ▶ In 1965, The Supremes’ record “Stop! In the Name of Love!” was released by Motown.
▶ In 1968, three Black students were killed in a confrontation between demonstrators and highway patrolmen at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg following protests over a whites-only bowling alley.
▶ In 1971, NASDAQ, the world’s first electronic stock exchange, held its first trading day.
▶ In 1973, Senate leaders named seven members of a select committee to investigate the Watergate scandal, including its chairman, Democrat Sam J. Ervin of North Carolina.
▶ In 2013, a massive storm packing hurricane-force winds and blizzard conditions began sweeping through the Northeast, dumping nearly 2 feet of snow on New England and knocking out power to more than a half a million customers. ▶ In 2018, the federal government stumbled into a shutdown that would end by morning, its second in less than a month, as rogue Senate Republicans blocked a speedy vote on a massive, bipartisan, budget-busting spending deal. For the second time in a week, the Dow Jones industrials plunged by more than 1,000 points as a sell-off in the stock market deepened.
▶ In 2020, the US Embassy in Beijing said a 60-year-old US citizen who’d been diagnosed with the coronavirus had died on Feb. 5 in Wuhan; it was apparently the first American fatality from the virus.
▶ Last year, retired Pope Benedict XVI asked forgiveness for any “grievous faults” in his handling of clergy sex abuse cases, but denied any personal or specific wrongdoing after an independent report criticized his actions in four cases while he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.